Single course of antibiotics can mess up the gut microbiome for a year - <AUTHOR> http://arstechnica.com/science/2015/11/single-course-of-antibiotics-can-mess-up-the-gut-microbiome-for-a-year/ <comment><USER2> Since there's so much interest in gut biomes you may be interested in learning that what you eat greatly influences your biome. A vegan diet has been shown to substantially change your flora [1] in as little as a day [2]. I also found this video on the role of fiber, our gut flora, and our immune system interesting [3].

[1]: [http://www.nature.com/ejcn/journal/v66/n1/full/ejcn2011141a....](http://www.nature.com/ejcn/journal/v66/n1/full/ejcn2011141a.html)

[2]: [http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v505/n7484/full/nature1...](http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v505/n7484/full/nature12820.html)

[3]: [http://nutritionfacts.org/video/prebiotics-tending-our- inner...](http://nutritionfacts.org/video/prebiotics-tending-our-inner- garden/)

<comment><USER3> Thanks, I am a recently turned vegan. I can't say I have experienced the change in "as little as a day". I've been a lifelong lacto-vegetarian (like most indian people) and recently dropped diary (last 2 years).

<comment><USER4> > I've been a lifelong lacto-vegetarian (like most indian people)

Nitpick: Most Indians are NOT vegetarians, less than a third are. [http://www.thehindu.com/todays-paper/the-food-habits-of-a- na...](http://www.thehindu.com/todays-paper/the-food-habits-of-a- nation/article3089973.ece)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> I think saying that antibiotics "mess up" your gut microbiome is making a lot of assumptions. Your biome changes if your diet changes. Saying that "any change" is "messing things up" is something I don't think has been proven.

Of course, there are risks of using antibiotic like C. difficile infections, but saying more than that is stretching the truth.

<comment><USER6> I don't think that there are that many assumptions. The core assumption is this: having a more diverse gut microbiome is healthier.

<comment><USER5> Do you have any sources to back that up?

I don't see anywhere in the article that it says the diversity in the gut was reduced. It says it was altered.

Also, if you change your diet, your diversity is also potentially reduced. Is that bad too?

<comment><USER6> It would seem I was influenced by an earlier post today[1]. That post talked about research indicating that microbiome diversity was important/healthy.

While article of this post mentions that the linked study showed a change in composition and diversity, the abstract itself just mentioned a reduction of a particular beneficial group of bacteria:

 _Additionally, metagenomic predictions based on 16S rRNA gene amplicon data were performed using PICRUSt. The salivary microbiome was found to be significantly more robust, whereas the antibiotics negatively affected the fecal microbiome: in particular, health-associated butyrate-producing species became strongly underrepresented._ [3]

Which I guess makes the assumption even simpler: greatly reducing a group of healthy bacteria from your gut for a while qualifies as messing it up.

Also the earlier article I read[3] does in fact posit that a reduction of diversity through diet change is in fact bad. Of course there is still a debate about the truthfulness and magnitude of that statement.

[1][3] [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10552477](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10552477)

[2] [http://mbio.asm.org/content/6/6/e01693-15.full.pdf+html](http://mbio.asm.org/content/6/6/e01693-15.full.pdf+html) [iFrame + PDF]

Edit: Italicized the quote, clarity

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> I simply took a probiotic after being on antibiotics for a couple months and it had a side effect of curing a lot of digestive problems I used to have. So there's that, too. Incidentally, my doctor was the one who advised this.

EDIT: The probiotic in my case was capsules of 15B cells of Lactobasillus GG. Marketing copy on the box suggests this is the "most clinically studied probiotic strain" but I'm not able to verify that.

<comment><USER8> I actually have had similar problems. In the past when I take antibiotics it _fixes_ my GI problems.

<comment><USER9> There is a condition called Small Intestinal Bacterial Overgrowth that fits this description. There is even an antibiotic that is marketed toward and prescribed for the condition called Xifaxan / rifaximin. Neomycin (another antiobiotic) is also used to treat it.

This research lab is studying it and this doctor (Pimentel) has written a book about it: [http://www.cedars-sinai.edu/Research/Research- Labs/Pimentel-...](http://www.cedars-sinai.edu/Research/Research- Labs/Pimentel-Lab/)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> What are "probiotics"? How do we know which bacteria are the ones we need, and do all probiotics contain the same cocktail or different strains?

Seems like saying "take probiotics" is insufficient.

<comment><USER7> You're right. I think there was a startup on here that had done a clinical study of some formula of theirs with many specific microbes.

In my case, I used a probiotic that contains only Lactobacillus GG (15B cells) and saw improvement after a course of antibiotics. My doctor recommended that when I asked, but said that it wasn't a prescription, just that he'd heard good reports from his patients.

For myself, I took them regularly for a couple weeks afterwards, then sporadically after that as constant usage doesn't appear to be required, at least for me.

<comment><USER11> If anyone knows the name of that startup, please do tell.

<comment><USER7> Searching suggests it might be this story:

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8456128](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8456128)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> If anyone is interested in a good probiotic with a lot of solid science behind it, you should definitely check out [http://www.generalbiotics.com](http://www.generalbiotics.com)

It was created by the guys behind the NSF funded Human Biome project. It's excellent and contains over 100 strains (not just a few like most probiotic).

</comment><comment><USER3> Ask HN: Any proven natural (without meds) ways to "reset" and restore gut flora?

Context: I grew up in India and to this day, there is a tendancy by Doctors to prescribe Antibiotics for anything, even cold viruses and non-bacterial illnesses.

Erythromycin is 1 such antibiotic that Indian doctors prescribe for things such as the common cold, cough and similar seasonal illnesses.

Due to this, I've developed a lot of food allergies and my gut is hosed.

So I was wondering if anyone has been able to successfully "reset" their gut and regrow the good bacterial and improve their immune system.

Thank you!!

<comment><USER13> Fecal transplants seem to have a high success rate of fixing some gut health issues[1]. I've never tried one, though.

I take probiotics on a daily basis, but research is much more scant for them[2]. That said, I notice a marked difference when I stop taking them for a few days.

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

[2] [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Probiotic#Research](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Probiotic#Research)

<comment><USER14> Fecal transplants for the win, with my friend's mother-in-law. She had one a few weeks ago after suffering with digestive issues for a while and she's been great ever since.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> I went through my entire childhood without ever getting sick enough to need antibiotics. Then, I managed to catch strep in my early 20s, and went on a course of antibiotics to take care of it.

This is of course purely anecdotal, but the following year was pure hell from a digestive system standpoint, and looking back, I'm pretty sure it was tied to that course of antibiotics. Thankfully, things cleared up on their own, but I'd definitely be looking at probiotics if forced to go on antibiotics again for some reason.

Glad to see research on this topic.

<comment><USER16> Had similar experience. Had allergic reaction to penicillin first prescription, which triggered my full body to come out in itchy hives. Went through 3 courses of different antibiotics until I was fit enough to get out of bed. Had bad guts for a couple of years following, which was usually an alternation between diarrhea and constipation. Sometimes I'd sit on the throne several times a day and no movement, except mucus or eventually, blood, as I'd developed piles.

I went on a super high fibre diet, ate as much low calorie food as I could a day to keep things moving. Ate lots of fermented foods, mainly dairy, sauerkraut, cured meats. Eliminated sugar, took up cycling to work to get fit. I've not been ill since, my bowels are moving, and piles are gone. Not the most pleasant story, but thought I'd share it.

<comment><USER3> Thanks for sharing your story @sparkie. Doesn't sound like a whole of fun, what you went through.

Do you know of any high-fiber low-calorie non-meat, non-diary foods? Also, does the %age of soluble vs insoluble fiber matter, or no?

<comment><USER16> Various beans, sweet potatoes, yams, most root vegetables. Sweet potatoes became my favourite food when I realised you could use them as a sugar replacement for many kinds of baking, which made giving up the sugar so much easier.

As for % of soluble and insolubale, I've never really paid attention to it. I probably eat far more soluble fiber than insoluble though, if it helps.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> I was taking probiotic [1] to fix stomach issues after a course of antibiotics. Certainly felt better this time.

[1] [http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00L7YD9UG](http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00L7YD9UG)

</comment><comment><USER18> "Mess up" sounds like a pretty loaded term to me. It sounds like "change" would be a more appropriate word, but the headline wouldn't be able to be skimmed over and then passed along to friends quite so easily.

</comment><comment><USER19> I wonder what effects a night of drinking does. Yagerbombs and beer pong, probably not great for the gut.

</comment><comment><USER20> How do you know when it is "necessary" to take antibiotics?

<comment><USER21> There's a health campaign in England you might be interested in: [https://antibioticguardian.com/](https://antibioticguardian.com/)

But when a doctor prescribes a medication a useful question (no matter what the medication) is "What happens if I don't take it? What happens if we just watch and wait?"

<comment><USER20> Thank you for the helpful answer.</comment></comment></comment>


Cyberdyne Ready to Mass Produce Cyborgs - <AUTHOR> http://singularityhub.com/2009/04/21/cyberdyne-ready-to-mass-produce-cyborgs/

<comment><USER2> HN would probably be against any Sarah Connor jokes, so I'll just observe that I think we are near the nexus where AI and robotics have a (hopefully) harmonious merger.

And if not, I hope someone listens to Yudkowsky.

<comment><USER3> > And if not, I hope someone listens to Yudkowsky.

I think the chances of that are really slim. EY's best hope is to _be_ the creator of AI, but waiting until he has a full theory of FAI first (if I understand what he's doing correctly) seems to make it much more likely he'll be beat, even if he otherwise wouldn't be (which I have no opinion on).

<comment><USER4> I think we could hope that AI advance will be gradual, so that an eye-opening crisis with non-friendly AI occurs before truly strong AI develops.

<comment><USER3> We can hope that. Another thing we could hope is that we don't really figure out what makes intelligence tick until after the (temporary) end of scarcity or until after uploading is possible. Given our problems with building large software systems, it seems possible to me that we'll be able to copy the brain before we understand enough to build intelligence without such copying.

This puts me in the bizarre position of being very interested in languages and systems which directly address complexity, while hoping in some ways that we fail to figure out how to build significantly more complex systems from scratch. :)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Does anyone know what the power source for this is?

"Its rechargeable 100 Volt ACDC power source will run for five hours for normal activity."

To me that reads as an AC-DC converter which makes little sense for a battery. The cyberdyne website describes the power source as,

"Battery Drive Charged battery( AC100V)"

I'm missing the significance of the AC

The cyberdyne website also states,

"Continuous operating time

Approximately 2 hours 40 minutes"

I wonder where they got 5 hours?

</comment><comment><USER6> The tendency of robotics news to be tinted with the Terminator story arc is very bad for the industry.

I have never read a story from Wired about robotics that didn't mention Terminator. That's just lazy writing. Engadget it pretty bad too.

<comment><USER7> To be fair, this company is called Cyberdyne, which is the same name as the company behind Skynet in the Terminator films.

<comment><USER6> Hmm I've been tracking this suit for a while, and didn't catch that. Whoops.

It's a fucking retarded name for a robotics company.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> There's something creepy about a company called Cyberdyne creating robotic things ...

You have to admire him for saying he won't sell to the military, although the inevitable big check from Uncle Sam will take some refusing.

</comment><comment><USER9> Let me know when they release a Varia Suit with Screw Attack option.

</comment><comment><USER10> Does it belong to the 800 Series or the T-1000?</comment>


U.S. sues Gilead, claiming it owns HIV PrEP patent - <AUTHOR> https://www.nbcnews.com/feature/nbc-out/u-s-sues-gilead-claiming-it-owns-hiv-prep-patent-n1078346 <comment><USER2> Website locks up browser due to ad blocker</comment>


Metabase, an open source business analytics startup, closes $8M Series A by NEA - <AUTHOR> https://www.businessinsider.com/metabase-an-open-source-business-analytics-startup-closes-8-million-2019-4 <comment><USER2> Excited to see this. I love Metabase and use it every day.</comment>


Why Salt Was So Important Throughout History - <AUTHOR> https://bookworm.club/2018/07/salt/ <comment><USER2> Salt does other things to food besides alter taste and preserve.

"Salt is special. See, rather than simply flavoring meat by working itself in between muscle fibers, it actually alters the structure of meat, primarily by causing certain parts of the protein myosin to become dissolvable in water.

What does this accomplish? Well, by dissolving myosin, muscle structure is greatly loosened, allowing it to retain more moisture (this is the principle behind brining), and more importantly in this case, it allows proteins between muscle groups to cross-link, causing them to stick to each other.

This is why, for instance, sausages get a nice bouncy, snappy texture, and why if you remove the salt from one, it becomes crumbly and dry (see here for more info on salting and making sausages, and here for some deeper scientific info on the process of salting meat. [http://qpc.adm.slu.se/Low_salt_pig- meat_products/page_23.htm...](http://qpc.adm.slu.se/Low_salt_pig- meat_products/page_23.htm")

[https://www.seriouseats.com/2013/05/food-lab-tacos-al- pastor...](https://www.seriouseats.com/2013/05/food-lab-tacos-al-pastor.html) (and a variant I like even more [https://www.seriouseats.com/2016/02/how-to- make-mexican-pueb...](https://www.seriouseats.com/2016/02/how-to-make-mexican- pueblan-tacos-arabes.html))

The same idea works with steak, but you need to be careful if you are anywhere between immediately salting the steak, and less than an hour. (scroll to the Salt section) [https://www.seriouseats.com/2011/03/the-food-lab-more- tips-f...](https://www.seriouseats.com/2011/03/the-food-lab-more-tips-for- perfect-steaks.html)

<comment> cup-of-tea > if you remove the salt from one, it becomes crumbly and dry

If you remove the salt it is not a sausage. The word sausage comes from Latin _salsus_ meaning "salted". Salad and sauce also come from this root (more obviously in the Spanish _salsa_ ).

<comment><USER3> If you showed a tube of ground meat to some people and asked if it looked like a sausage, most would agree it does without insisting that you check to see if it has salt. While you're right about the word's etymological history[1], there is nothing that prevents words from obtaining new meanings that might seem like they're at odds with their etymological histories. A good example of this: nice[2].

[1]: [https://www.etymonline.com/word/sausage](https://www.etymonline.com/word/sausage)

[2]: [https://www.etymonline.com/word/nice](https://www.etymonline.com/word/nice)

<comment><USER4> I don't know anybody who would call this a sausage: [https://www.costcobusinessdelivery.com/Kirkland-Signature- Le...](https://www.costcobusinessdelivery.com/Kirkland-Signature-Lean-Ground- Beef-Hamburger-Chubs%2C-1-lb%2C-5-ct.product.10182015.html)

<comment><USER5> Yeah, because it doesn't look like a sausage. The shape of it being a tube of meat is what people call a sausage.

The poster youre replying to doesn't say "ground beef" = " sausage" so I don't see your point.

<comment><USER4> But this ground beef literally comes in tubes. Look at the second picture.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Other uses of salt are in coffee, with tequila and salad. Salt reduces any of the bitterness in those things. It's why a salad is called a salad since the Romans salted the bitter greens they ate to reduce the bitterness.

</comment><comment><USER7> I'm usually a fan of our "of general intellectual interest" type articles, but this one doesn't quite justify its existence.

It's not very satisfying to read a list of the things you'd roughly guess from reading the headline.

<comment><USER8> The article is just a host for affiliate links.

<comment><AUTHOR> I wrote the article. Yes, I'm trying to use affiliate links to make this passion project more sustainable in the long term, but I'm definitely not just cranking out content for the sake of sales. I'm actually quite discouraged at the moment because I can't get any traffic to the affiliate. I'm 90 days in and my account will be canceled if I don't get 3 sales by 180 days.

My general strategy is to write about books that I happen to be reading anyway. I'm finding that it's a great way to deepen my knowledge retention of the books that I read. It took me about 5 to 7 hours to synthesize the contents of the book into these main themes. If you read the book you'll find that it's organized very differently from the themes that I've identified.

So, sorry if it's coming off as garbage affiliate content just created for the sake of sales. Definitely not my intention.

<comment><USER9> I'd encourage you to expand the book-promoting paragraph to include a bit more info / some interest-generating hooks about what the book offers that the article itself hasn't already provided.

If you really want to make this model sustainable long-term I might even make the recommendation paragraph dynamically customized based on referring source (here's a WordPress plugin that would let you do this: [https://wordpress.org/plugins/if-so/](https://wordpress.org/plugins/if-so/)). History enthusiasts are likely to be intrigued by a different set of things from the book than HN's business & systems-thinkers or an RPG community interested in world-building inspiration.

Lots of people will read a general-interest article (quick & no cost), but to get conversions to an actual sale, you need to target specific interests.

<comment><AUTHOR> Great, thank you for the tips.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Thanks for the post. I was just in Seoul and at the Gyeongbokgung museum they had an entire section dedicated to salt, it's history, different forms, and importance. Until recently, in that expo and reading this article, I didn't realize just HOW important salt truly is.

<comment><USER11> If you have the chance, don't forget to taste the Korean "flower salt", which is basically salt in crystal flakes, as it naturally forms during evaporation. I haven't yet found a better salt for beef.

<comment><USER12> My favorite salt, and relatively affordable, is Celtic Sea Salt. There are so many varieties of salt out there!

<comment><USER13> Sure, as long as you don't claim its magically more healthy than other forms of NaCl. Not saying _you do_ ; just seen that regularly claimed by people who prefer/swear by certain salts.

<comment><USER12> I don't make any health claims; however, un-processed salts, such as Celtic Sea Salt contain much more than just sodium. They contain many other minerals.

In other words, Celtic Sea Salt is more than just NaCl.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> Wish we had used Kurlansky's book for European history: I now have some understanding of the Hanseatic League's origin! Who could have believed a book titled "Salt" could be so enlightening and fascinating:

Salt: A World History by Mark Kurlansky [https://amzn.to/2L2DO4N](https://amzn.to/2L2DO4N)

While this this sounds pedantic (who besides me would get excited about a good explanation the origins of "the Hanseatic League"?) but Kurlansky really makes it fascinatingly rich reading.

</comment><comment><USER15> The book 'Cod' by same author is also a really good, if not better book. I'm always impressed when someone can make a good story out of a seemingly boring topic.

[http://a.co/0tknqbI](http://a.co/0tknqbI)

</comment><comment><USER16> Pretty fascinating to see all the applications of Salt. You would think that the food industry is the largest application but not quite [https://eusalt.com/sites/default/files/page- documents/Salt%2...](https://eusalt.com/sites/default/files/page- documents/Salt%20Applications%20-%202016.pdf)

<comment><AUTHOR> Thank you. Kurlansky goes into some of the applications of salt in the book. I was thinking about adding a section to this article on how salt drove technological innovation, but couldn't quite capture all the different events coherently.

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> With the advent of refrigeration, we need salt less than ever. The problem is that brands have used it to gain a comercial advantage, to the point where if we eat some processed food and dont add any extra salt, we are already exceeding the daily recommended limit.

The link between salt and hypertension is well known by the general public, but less well know is that salt is a major cause of stomach cancer.

There is just so much salt hidden in everyday food, that we are not even aware of.

Yet, its possible to do a very salty tasting soup just by using carrot juice or celery as the base instead of water, as those vegetables are relatively high in sodium.

You taste it and could swear that the soup was salted, when there is no added salt.

<comment><USER18> Salt to hypertension thesis has been hit with a number of problems recently. As have many other "known" results in dietary and epidemiological studies.

Current research suggests that while salt is bad for people WITH hypertension the causal link between elevated consumption and hypertension isn't what was earlier believed. One study here [https://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/317099.php](https://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/317099.php)

<comment><USER19> I reached a point where I don't know what to believe, everything cures and causes cancer at the same time, every week I'll ran into an article about a new study contradicting some random common knowledge.

I guess the key is to live a balanced life, don't consume anything in excess and don't worry too much. "In medium virtus est"

<comment><USER20> My favorite guidance is Pollan's, "Eat food. Not too much. Mostly plants."[0]

Another piece of guidance I like is this (paraphrased): Eat absolutely anything you want. But make it all yourself. If you want cookies and cake and ice cream, great! Buy flour and sugar and butter and chocolate and milk and cream, and make them yourself.[1]

Now, these don't directly address your point about conflicting research. They give reasonable heuristics that work well, though. Now, clearly you can come up with pathological examples that follow the advice above - any of us could come up with dozens that are reasonable. But being precise and 100% correct is not the point of a heuristic.

[0] [https://michaelpollan.com/reviews/how-to- eat/](https://michaelpollan.com/reviews/how-to-eat/)

[1] Paraphrased from an interview in Cooked. The 4-part series was produced for Netflix.

<comment><USER21> With regard to salt, I like the advice "salt to taste": add salt to your food until it taste good. Salt has many roles in the body; it was simplistic and wrong to blame a oerson's high blood pressure on salt consumption.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> I'm reading that book right now. It's very well written and light considering the many complex subjects that it covers.

</comment><comment><USER23> it's also important for encoding passwords.

<comment><USER24> And in online conversations, spread all over the discussion threads

<comment><USER23> i should have guessed it, HN has no humor</comment></comment></comment>


Dealing with burn-out - <AUTHOR> http://jacquesmattheij.com/dealing+with+burn+out <comment><USER2> I've dealt with burnout twice in my life so far, and I'm going to make sure it never happens again. Both were post-crunch meltdowns. The first, when I was just getting in to the industry, and didn't know better. The second, not so long ago, when I should have known better.

The first thing I've learned is that I can't accurately judge my limits. Even if I feel okay and on top of the world... things start to slide. Suddenly I'm writing code so bad, I'm committing code that doesn't even work, but thinking it does, because my brain is in outright rebellion.

Both times, I couldn't code for six months. The first time, I just tried to hide it. I quit my job, and took another. I wrote almost no code in those six months and was paranoid I'd be found out and fired. I wasn't, thankfully.

The second time, I took a few months off work, and requested a change of job for a period of time, so that I didn't have to do any coding. The second time was really bad, I started having panic attacks just looking at code on a screen. I'd start sweating, heart racing. It was horrible.

What I ended up doing for most of those six months at home, was building little plastic robot models. No computer use. Just quiet, methodical, brainless work.

Eventually I recovered, and started coding again. I'm better than ever now, which is good. But I learned an important lesson, which is that working too much is always bad. I know, it seems like a lame ending to this story, but it's true and ultimately important.

<comment><USER3> Very well put. Very sorry to hear about your experiences - I think this highlights quite clearly what a serious thing burnout can be.

Hopefully you won't mind if I mention my experience - though I didn't do a computer science degree (something I very much regret), my engineering degree was a very difficult time for me - a family situation carried on throughout the degree, a very, very serious situation (and also very personal, so not going to go into detail), as well as very many other bad things happening to me on what was already a ridiculously difficult workload (my Alma mater has a great reputation based on working people into the ground).

There are so many stories I could tell about that time... will stick with just one, however - in my final year my dissertation supervisor treated me like a research assistant - going off and looking at stuff for him which he'd review then throw away, rinse + repeat all year until 2 weeks before the dissertation deadline when he told me I didn't have a project (if I didn't hand anything in that would have been my degree over with, I would have had to repeat the entire final year elsewhere, and would find it hard to actually get a job, so pretty damn major).

After 2 weeks of 18-hour days I managed to write a 100-page dissertation and code (in fortran!!) the entire model myself. I eventually got an A grade for the dissertation despite everything, but this supervisor told me afterwards I couldn't pursue a PhD with him because I was a bad student (yeah, kinda dodged a bullet there, not to mention that it would have been a distraction from what I've come to realise was always my calling - programming).

In fact my degree choice was largely influenced by 'spiritual' beliefs held by my family, so I had the endless conflict of not actually liking my subject (I wanted to do maths or computer science) while trying to actually survive it.

I can't tell you how absolutely destructive that was, it's taken 6 years to even be able to cope with studying on my own, let alone doing the kind of work I need to go in the direction I want to with programming.

Anyway, now things are way more positive, focusing on studying the things I need to learn while avoiding burnout (see my other post). A lot of it is getting over the impact it has on self-esteem. Trust me, burning out like that is like a forest fire for the ego.

<comment><USER2> It's worth noting that just because you are enjoying yourself doesn't make you immune to burnout. My second bout of burnout was from a workload I chose to challenge myself with. I was a designer, programmer, and a team lead, and ultimately, was trying to cram three jobs in to a week. I loved it, and thought I had it all under control, until the day it all fell apart.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> I'm experiencing this right now. My productivity at work is dropping to nothing. Looking at the code base is getting harder and harder. Unfortunately, I am under a mountain of debt and am responsible for 3 other humans, so trying something new is not an option. Note to young programmers: please manage your finances wisely and not fall victim to the "they have X, so why can't I" syndrome. There aren't too many fields where you can make the kind of money we do, so don't trap yourself financially--it closes too many doors.

<comment><USER5> I've been there. Just know that this too will end. Take some quiet time out and use your analytical brain to think outside the box. I did that and found a way to manage my debt so that I didn't feel crushed by it (closed all credit cards, and took a loan on my 401k - paid it all off in 3 years). Started working remotely part-time and took the occasional day off. Little things help.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> Go to popular bar or night-club and you might be surprised how many burn-outs work there. I know because I was one of them. In addition to your typical starving artists, college student, and part-time model that work in the bar. I worked alongside the worldtraveller who wanted to make some coin before moving onto the next city, burnt-out programmer from Wallstreet. Programmer from SF that was working while his girlfriend was in school, thought it was a good excuse to get out of SF. Post-doc comp. sci who just doesn't want to be around computers for now.

The manager made it point to only higher beautiful people, according to him. But he also enjoyed the company of smart people (less likely to be on drugs) so went out of his way to hire college students and backpackers.

After a few weeks of carrying cases and kegs up and down from the cellar, and partying all night, I was in the best shape of my life.

</comment><comment><USER7> Alan Watts has a great metaphor for keeping your balance. He says it's like riding a bike. When you start falling on one side, your natural instinct is to turn in the other direction. Of course, if you do that, you fall very fast. The key to staying upright on a bike is to turn in the direction that you're falling into.

The metaphor translates very well to keeping your balance as a human being - go into the direction that you're falling into. In other words, if you find that your body and mind and subconscious is telling you, "I don't want to do X anymore!" don't try to force yourself to do it anymore. And if you find that the message is "I really want to do X" follow it.

Of course, to keep your balance on a bike, you need to pay attention to what your senses are telling you. And to keep your balance in life, you need to pay attention to what your subconscious is telling you.

<comment><USER8> Damn, my subconscious is telling me "I really want to play TTD all day."

<comment><USER9> There's a balance to be sure, and there's some learning about yourself that is necessary. For instance, there's a critical difference between the feelings "I'm burning out and do not want to do this task" and "This task is boring".

It's possible you're feeling lazy; it's also possible that you're closer to burnout than you realize and that is your brain/body telling you that you need a break. Only you can decide which is which. There are consequences to being wrong either way, but, well, _c'est la vie, non_?

I've had some success maintaining some longish work hours, even under the American-style "vacations are for people who live in other countries and don't have babies" regime, for a very long time with this basic approach because only rarely will I force it, and when I have to for some reason I always budget some days that I will simply take off from computing entirely.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> I agree that it's vitally important to keep burnout in mind when you're the type of person prone to it (I suspect a great many HNers are), however I wonder whether being over-cautious is potentially as, if not more, damaging in _some_ circumstances.

Let's say, theoretically ( _cough_ ;-) you're in a job you don't like which is absolutely making you miserable but is actually quite easy in many respects, what if the only way to actually get a job you might like is to work really hard outside of work-work?

The problem is that if you're the kind of person who cares about this stuff, it's worth anything to avoid a life stuck writing CRUD surrounded by people who don't care in a place where even the concept of code review or non- sourcesafe source control is laughed off by seniors ( _cough_ again ;-)

It's a fine line to walk in this kind of situation. To me, the key is to have plenty of scheduled breaks, accept + deal with f-ups (i.e. not doing the amount of work you wanted, it happens), have clear goals with smaller goals along the road, etc., and most important of all - do stuff you absolutely love. Nothing is guaranteed to protect you from burnout, however.

A lot of the problem with transitioning from somewhere sucky to somewhere decent is that, in order to actually be up scratch for a job like that, you have to put in a _lot_ of hours in your own time, especially if you don't have a computer science degree and have gaps to fill in.

IMHO, sometimes burnout is just a risk you have to run, though you can certainly work to minimise it.

<comment><USER2> _Let's say, theoretically (cough ;-) you're in a job you don't like which is absolutely making you miserable but is actually quite easy in many respects, what if the only way to actually get a job you might like is to work really hard outside of work-work?_

I am specifically in this situation right now, and below you can find my story about previous burn-out.

Frankly, I've set myself a schedule for extra work that is stiff but not brutal. I am for an hour and a half of work on my personal stuff per day. It doesn't seem like much, and I could probably do more, but I'm playing it safe.

I don't think I'm being over-cautious. I'm making good progress, I'm not sacrificing my personal life, and the benefit is that -- and this is the important part -- I'm not forcing myself on to a schedule I can't maintain. Which I think is ultimately the leading cause of burnout.

I keep a google docs spreadsheet of my work, so I know I'm not slacking. But I can load balance in a way I can't do at my job -- if something isn't entertaining, I pick a different part of the project to work on.

Ultimately I feel I'm on track to set myself free within two years tops, and I do so safely.

<comment><USER3> I absolutely applaud your reasoned approach - being reasonable about a schedule while _consciously_ avoiding practices which lead to burnout is the way to actually get out of the situation.

I think a key part of resolving burnout issues is separating feelings of self worth from hours worked; strictly enforcing _breaks_ as well as work is vital - you are doing what you can, while consciously avoiding burnout.

I definitely think logging stuff is a key part of the whole scheme; me being me, I feel like I've done _nothing_ , but looking back at my logs I can see I've put in quite a few hours.

Personally I'm aiming for around 3 hours each weekday, more on the weekend, but have for several weeks failed to meet this for various reasons. I've avoided beating myself up about it, rather trying to find ways to make the work more feasible. It's a hard thing to do.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Um, so, avoid burnout by not doing your job. It's cool that Jacques had that option and all, but how does that really help the vast majority of developers who don't? I'm burned out right now, but quitting my job isn't much of an option either.

<comment><USER11> I don't know your situation, and I'm only speaking from my own experience, but I've been in a situation where I was absolutely certain that quitting was not an option (because of mortgage/bills/the usual). Once truly burnt out, I had no choice but to leave, and it was only then that I saw, in hindsight, that not only had quitting been an option all along, but that it would have been _far less damaging_ in every way (financially, mentally, career-wise) to quit before I got burnt out. And there were _plenty_ of other, better jobs waiting.

<comment><USER12> Generally you're probably right, but people _do_ get stuck in jobs for real because of external constraints. A mortgage is not always one of them because it usually means you have capital to trade for your mental health.

Divorce, Healthcare needs, Child Support, Immigration Issues, are the kinds of thing that can leave people genuinely stuck. Not to mention the possibility of not being able to get a good reference because of being burned out.

Obviously, it's up to each person to avoid these kinds of trap, but they do exist and they do damage what could otherwise be productive lives.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> Balance. Having any sort of hobby/interest that is physical and away from your desk is more important than you might think. Personally, I keep a garden and do home improvement projects, launching into one of these things tends to break the down cycle. Yours might be entirely different, but it also gives you a fresh viewpoint too. Think of it as a giant university, sometimes the guy down the hall in a completely different domain will have insight into what you're working on. You'll find building physical/meatspace things is not all that different from virtual.

</comment><comment><USER14> I took up a pottery class this past winter. It was perfect because it surrounded me with people who knew how to take things slow, sit down and focus on the task at hand. It provided the necessary mental shift I needed to not feel overwhelmed by the day-to-day ADHD-like issues of managing a huge project for the first time. I think that if I hadn't taken the class, I would have been more susceptible to burnout.

<comment><USER15> Thanks to your comment, I just sought out a local pottery class.

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> Labeling this "burn-out" might be a bit harsh. The guy was quite productive ... although he did things in a new field. This kind of change is sometimes very important for a person's mind. I recall reading that Jim Clark (of Netscape) spent an insane amount of time automating his yacht. In Jim's case, some of the non-trivial problems he solved ended up being commercialized. Same thing with this dude ... if he wanted to apply his experience to a renewable energy startup, he can very well make a high-value contribution to society. One final point ... as I was reading the post, I felt that this isn't all too different from doing a PhD :)

<comment><USER17> Yea, that didn't sound too bad and he didn't spend much time talking about the actual burnout itself.

Maybe there are two kinds of burnout; one is "tired of coding" and the other is "tired of life". The preferable one is quite obvious, although neither is much desirable.

<comment><USER18> Ahhh so only people who are single minded have the luxury to have their condition called burn out?

Have you been burned out? I have and I'm still recovering. And my condition ain't that bad either. But discord between what I have come to expect of myself and what others have become to rely on from me and the sad reality that mere thought of activities I used to excel in, make me physically sick.

First you get tired, then you stop enjoying your work, then slowly others change their opinion of you from being the coolest person you become a drag in their eyes. Then you loose job, then your spouse leaves you. And then the society calls you a looser.

Some people get lucky and see where it is going while in early stages. Others try to compensate and blow it.

And there's the third kind who yap about it while not having a slightest clue.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> Anyone else notice that the symptoms of overwork are rather similar to the symptoms of overindulgence/addiction?

</comment><comment><USER20> The symptoms (<http://jacquesmattheij.com/Are+you+suffering+from+burn-out>) are stated to be, sort of, phases.

Anyone speaking from experience: can a burnout be avoided by identifying early symptoms? If so, how?

<comment><USER21> Lol. Wow. I guess I officially had burnout. Not surprising, really, since I knew it myself when I finally hit the wall (but not the lead up).

I'm an entrepreneur and I've been working at my startup for a year. I stopped exercising (partially due to a long term sports injury I was recovering from) and I was heads down on my project full time. After some cofounders didn't work out, I resolved to work harder.

Oh yeah did I mention I was having a kid and looking to move? ;P Sure ingredients for burnout.

I thought I could be Superman. I think adversity would only make me stronger. It did but it broke me down before it built me up.

It culminated with the move and then the kid. After we moved, I spent about a month not working, not reading TechCrunch, and removed myself from most hardcore tech activities. I spent it renovating the house for the kid. It was still stressful but my mind rested from the startup.

At this time I started exercising again. I was out of shape but my injury recovered enough to do sports again.

I then had my child. And while it was a new addition in my life that required a certain amount of time there was a certain (re)birth in my desire to restart/continue my startup.

Now I'm working harder than ever and motivated. Yes, it's tough and when I think about all the ways my startup can go down in a ball of flames (or a whimper) it gets stressful. But the other 90% of the time I'm really excited and can't wait to work more.

The ultimate lesson, as stated below, was balance. The startup ended up being a longer haul than I thought. Like Mark Suster says, you can't ignore health and family as those two things are things you can't get back once they've left. They also have a way of keeping personal morale up which helps you continue your arduous journey.

I'm working as hard as before but setting aside personal time without feeling guilty about it. I find myself happier and working more efficiently.

<comment><USER22> "I spent about a month ... not reading TechCrunch"

Wait, and this was a bad thing?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> Energy wise it can also be unhealthy lifestyle: not enough vitamins, Not enough exercise, ... You don't feel it when you are young but getting older you can't get that easily away with abusing your body.

</comment><comment><USER24> I can definitely relate.

It's been about 15 years since I had mine. I slept a lot, too, and basically stopped all social interactions for roughly two months. Messed me up pretty good.

It's good that it happened early in my professional career and before I had any dependents. I am now able to better self-regulate and have been able to pull back when appropriate without getting in too deep.

But most importantly I learned not to take work so seriously. It's not really all that important in the grand scheme of things.

</comment><comment><USER25> I'd have to agree with iqster in that it doesn't seem to be burn-out as much as doing something new. He doesn't seem to talk much about the symptoms listed at <http://jacquesmattheij.com/Are+you+suffering+from+burn-out> although he said he has them (even "if [he] didn't know" it?). Not that I doubt his story or anything, but he seemed motivated enough to build new things and not sulk in depression (symptom #10).

 _"When you're burned out change, do something that is as far away from what you were doing when you were burned out."_

I guess this means he defines being burned out as tired of what you are currently doing, and not burning out on doing something productive altogether. In that case, he's probably right in saying that you should change when you're burned out.

<comment><USER18> Why are you and iqster twisting words?

How is becoming incapable of doing what you trained your whole life for, due to too much of it not burnout? He even lists symptoms he experienced.

Jacques was lucky that he had funds to start something unrelated (like living his life) and productive, but he kept repeating that his business could suffer if he didn't have people who could take care of it (or whatever). The fact is that he couldn't bring himself to do what he was doing until that point of life to make a living.

What does define burnout then?

<comment><USER22> How is it possible for you to become "incapable" of working? Aside from debilitating injury, of course.

If the only thing standing in your way is attitude and motivation, it's fairly trivial to get over it, sack up, and get back to work.

<comment><USER18> Its easy for an able bodied person to call person in a wheelchair lazy.

<comment><USER22> Poor analogy. I already excepted physical disability in my comment.

Physical conditions, or cognitive events such as stroke, that make you unable to work are NOT analogous to losing motivation or getting bored.

<comment><USER18> My mother has borreliosis. She got ill 10 years before it was known to be a disease. She is also a workaholic and for 10 years she was told that she ain't nothing wrong with her and that she's lazy by her very own doctor. And her response was: "mr. Doctor, now that I know how laziness feels, I promise I won't ever call anybody lazy again."

It's a tangent I know, but look at your attitude. And I sure as hell hope you don't ever burn out to find out how it feels and for you to tell me how well are you able to work. I'd rather have you ignorant for the rest of your life.

Let me say this much it might not be as hard as stroke, but It sure as hell feels worse than losing motivation or getting bored.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> Could it be that the human nervous system just didn't evolve to keep doing the same thing for years on end, and so our industrialized culture isn't good for us?

</comment><comment><USER26> I've had severe burnouts, and don't want to go through one again. It sucks and it's a waste of time. I've avoided it this far by simply refusing to sacrifice that much. There are some things (e.g. my relationship with my girlfriend) that I will not sacrifice. At 50 hours per week, I expect an explanation. At 60 hours, I want to be paid back in vacation time. If this means I'm fired, I'm fired. Unfortunately, not everyone has this option, but this approach has kept burnout at bay thus far.

It's not that I object to working more than 40 hours per week. Considering the time I spend reading about technology and learning new things, plus side projects-- programming, writing, game design-- I've probably been working 65-75 hours per week on average since high school. But if a boss wants direct control over _all_ of that 65, there better be a damn good reason for this arrangement to exist, especially because I learn a lot more on self-directed work than I do by doing what I'm told to do.

I think this is a great essay. I think motivational crises happen because "work" for most people is psychological monoculture, and we're not built to be that way. I get annoyed when people idealize hunter-gatherer existence, but it was better in one regard: people did a lot of different things (making clothes, building houses, finding food) for work. Specializing for a few years to solve a hard problem is great, but no one's working life should be limited involuntarily to one tiny corner of one discipline, a sub-specialty for which if demand for it collapses, that person is utterly fucked.

If you want to see the desperation of the modern working person, consider what working people do on their vacations: picking their own fruit, hiking, working on open-source projects. They're so deprived of opportunities to actually _work_ by their office jobs that when they have free time, they actually do activities that most humans would consider work. I wrote about this phenomenon here ([http://michaelochurch.wordpress.com/2010/10/25/those-who- wor...](http://michaelochurch.wordpress.com/2010/10/25/those-who-work-for- free-and-are-paid-to-do-nothing/)). It's the fact that their lives are consumed by work-that-isn't-work that makes these motivational crises so common.

Unfortunately, outside of the most innovative few percent of technology startups, burnout is treated as a feature rather than a bug. Look at Wall Street or the mainstream "corporate ladder". It's a war of attrition: wear people down until 95 percent have motivational crises and quit or get fired, then choose the (badly damaged, but still functional) remaining 5 percent to be the next generation's leaders.</comment>


Natural language processing and customer experience - <AUTHOR> http://blog.geckolyst.com/2016/10/14/nps-the-superpower-that-drives-sales/ <comment><USER2> This is _nothing_ to do with "Natural Language Processing" and the title is thereby completely misleading. I hope the mods change it.

In fact, the whole thing feels like nothing more than an advertisement/promotion. Personally, I'm borderline on flagging it as inappropriate because of that.</comment>


The Changelog Episode 0.3.1 - Websockets - <AUTHOR> http://thechangelog.com/post/927103350/episode-0-3-1-websockets

<comment><USER2> Is there a transcript anywhere?</comment>


Ask HN: Moving from Middle Management Back to Engineering - <AUTHOR> I made the switch from Engineering to Engineering Management about 4 years ago.
Given where I was at the time I think it was a good career move and I feel like I've learned a lot including many things about being a good Engineer I learned from the manager perspective.
I've recently made it to the 'manager of managers' position and am doing well generally.
The problem I'm struggling with is that I don't love it nearly as much as I loved Engineering. I spend all of my days managing stakeholders, engaged in politics and generally not having much of an idea if my team's are successful because of or in spite of my leadership.
I'm exhausted at the end of every day in a way that I never was as an Engineer and at 37 with a young family I feel like this energy sapping slog takes away from my ability to be a good dad. I also can't see the next 25 years being that much fun from my current position.
So I'm considering switching back. I have 12 or so years as an engineer and have done well on that track prior to switching.
Anyone have any good anecdotes positive or negative on the switch back to front like engineering from the manager track after a few years? Or those that didn't and pushed through some kind of inflection point into senior leadership that was easier than middle management?
Thanks! <comment><USER4> I did this recently, and discovered that I'm just plain burnt out in general with the whole industry. Between the egos, the never ending stream of self- inflicted wounds (tech debt), and the political jockeying I've just had it.

That aside, it is a tougher transition back to IC than I thought it would be. My new manager asks what I'd do, management wise, sometimes, but I don't like being put in that position: there's a reason I left management. Also, even though I wrote code frequently on my own time and contributed to designs, that's not the same as being in the thick of it, and my skills deteriorated noticeably. That's a hard thing to manage.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for this. I've talked to a few people about the 'rusting' skills, most said that over time they come back but also expectations are higher at more senior IC levels.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> Yup, I did the same thing. What I _hated_ as a manager was that it felt helpless sometimes. I was running a big project with two tech giants, well funded, and we were spending weeks negotiating extra days to the project. I felt like I could have just gone in and fix the problem myself with that time. But someone had to explain the issues. We've had all nighters too - <USER2> has to be present and do nothing as moral support.

A big part of it is politics. I think we had fairly good politics - <USER3> politely informed one another that we would throw them under the bus, and then have drinks after work apologizing for that. But I'd rather be spending my energy doing something positive rather than writing documentation to appease a party.

On the bright side, it is fun being a "boss". Sort of like those video game bosses where you send minions to do something, where an international team is flown in and still can't fix it. I come in and spend a day or two fixing it while on paternity leave. Of course, it was just assembling the results of the rest of the team; not taking credit for that. But that kind of thing is not appreciated as an engineer.

Being an engineer pays a little better - similar salary + free devices + free repairs. Not as many expensive dinners. No fully sponsored international flights and fancy hotels. But I get to work 8 hours and go home. I get actual time off to work on my own fun projects.

</comment><comment><USER6> This doesn't answer your q but can I ask you how you went from IC to a manager assuming your focus was front-end engineering? The front-end community career track ceils at the IC level quite often and it is rare for FE engineers to jump to management level.

Happy to DM you if you don't feel like taking this up on the public channel. Thank you!

<comment><AUTHOR> Actually backend mostly - from the API layer right down to infrastructure and some systems level stuff.

I went from an IC to a manager when the tech lead position turned into an em position in the start up I work for.

I just went with it, without giving it much forethought.

<comment><USER6> Ahh, that makes sense and falls in line with what I suspected. Thanks for the clarification!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> I also went from being a developer to being a manager-of-managers and back (after being a manager for 9 years). I've never regretted going back to being a developer.

As a manger, I found it stressful being responsible for the work of an entire team, frequently working long hours to help fulfill commitments. I also found personnel issues stressful, especially having to lay off people. Like you, I enjoy development work much more than management work.

</comment><comment><USER8> Have you considered starting a side business that solves a smaller but profitable problem. You might be underestimating your value as a manager by throwing it away.

<comment><AUTHOR> I had but I wouldn't even know where to start.</comment></comment>


5 Awesome Productivity Apps for Android Phones - <AUTHOR> http://www.productivitybits.com/5-awesome-productivity-apps-for-android-phones <comment><USER2> The fact that none of the apps are linked gets my spidey sense tingling. 3 of the 5 are google apps, btw.</comment>


Chaos has reportedly erupted inside Facebook as Apple revoked FB's certificate - <AUTHOR> https://markets.businessinsider.com/news/stocks/facebook-chaos-after-apple-blocks-internal-iphone-apps-report-2019-1-1027910304 <comment><USER2> The joys and perils of walled gardens, where somebody's else owns what you've bought and you have to play at their rules.</comment>


Ask HN: How to find remote freelance work for a graphic designer? - <AUTHOR> Short: my girlfriend is a good graphic designer, her account on Elance of 2 years got closed for no reason and now she doesn't know  where to turn to.
Long: I'm a developer (I do everything from server management to psd to template to html to php to ruby etc), 6 years in office experience (London, Hoxton), around 4 years freelance. Since I started working freelance, I wanted to have a good designer as my go-to person, could find someone reliable and good enough for my standards. So I made my girlfriend who was always good at drawing (fresh out of uni with an unrelated masters at the time) learn photoshop, illustrator and a few other tools. She's ace with vector graphics, her psd/ai files are a pleasure to work with, she's creative and intelligent (I'm biased, but seriously). I actually managed to pull it off and make her a good designer for a developer to work with.
This worked well for us, for the last 2 years, she would help me out when I needed her and find work via Elance when I didn't need any design services.
In the last few months, I've been focusing more on optimising and reworking existing applications, making them faster and more efficient for my ongoing clients, so I haven't needed a designer for a while and about a week ago, Elance closed her account out of the blue, her feedback was flawless, great ratings, top 10% on lots of tests. We tried emailing them a few times, but after googling and finding out that they just drop hordes of accounts from time to time we understood that it's a complete waste of time.
So I ask you HN, where could I point her? I feel as a failed partner for having her change the course of her professional career and now seeing it come to a very abrupt stop. <comment><USER2> Did she setup a portfolio site apart from Elance? If she got that then may be post the link here, good designers are always in demand. Or provide a way for people to contact her/you.

I'll check with our team's manager if he's looking for someone.

<comment><AUTHOR> Hey, I wasn't sure how correct it would be to try and self-promote on HN, was more looking for steps to take/routes to follow to help her on her way, but here is her Behance: [https://www.behance.net/mondesgate](https://www.behance.net/mondesgate) and here is her email: firstname.lastname@example.com</comment></comment>


Show HN: Yet another url shortner xiv.in, comments please - <AUTHOR> http://xiv.in

<comment><USER2> It shortens an [https://](https://) link to [http://](http://), and it also shortens invalid links.

Trying to add a js alert I noticed the preview allows arbitrary html to display, but the end result was useless - [http://xiv.in/ZW4NL](http://xiv.in/ZW4NL) and trying different schemes caused http to be prepended to the url by default.

I would suggest trying to validate the urls, and at least attempting to connect and get a response once before hashing them. This will at least result in less junk in your database (or wherever you're storing them) if you dump invalid links altogether.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thank you, will check and fix it.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> Why would I use this? (Not saying I wouldn't, just want to know why you built it and why I should use it instead of an existing service.)

The benefit of Bitly is that users recognize the link. It doesn't make them feel like they're about to get a virus.

Furthermore, Bitly has lots of nice features and actively fights malicious links. So the truth is, users actually _can_ trust Bitly links a bit more than a service that just started up.

<comment><AUTHOR> Yes agree that there is trust factor, also there are dozen of similar services. However I came across inquiries for shortening api services which are free / cheap. as per that there was bit of exclusivity required.

At the moment all still in flux. Thanks for your honest comments.

<comment><USER4> IMO, what would be cool would be an open API where you don't need any kind of developer key to create a short link.

Isn't Bitly free too?

<comment><AUTHOR> Yes, api is there already. Its simple http post based one. Other important factor we are thinking is NOT TRACKING any links.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Make the shortened link clickable, so I can right-click -> copy link and then paste it wherever I need.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks, will definitely add it.

<comment><USER4> Another idea would be to auto select the link when you click it. This means you could have a "workflow" similar to: click, cmd/ctrl + c, done

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> curl -I [http://xiv.in/GYBX3](http://xiv.in/GYBX3)

...

Location: [http://s.xiv.in/GYBX3](http://s.xiv.in/GYBX3)

...

Why one useless redirection?</comment>


Victory on "The Price Is Right" Made Them Change Their System - <AUTHOR> http://www.urbo.com/content/this-guy-cheated-on-the-price-is-right-and-made-them-change-their-entire-system <comment><USER2> It might be different now, but I'm pretty sure back in the Bob Barker era contestant selection wasn't random. The entire audience had to introduce themselves to the producer one by one and answer his questions about where they were from, what they did, and if they were there with anyone. The people selected were fairly attractive and charismatic. The selection also leaned toward people who came with larger groups. I assume so they could get camera shots of cheering and helping during the games.

<comment><USER3> Yep, it's still like that now, too! I was on The Price is Right a few months ago, and I got called to "come on down" to be a contestant.

Before the show, producer Stan Blits greets every member of the audience while they're waiting in line. He chats with each audience member (for about 20 seconds) to gauge their liveliness & enthusiasm. As he's chatting with each person, he gives a subtle hand signal to an intern who is standing behind him with a notepad. For each audience member who he thinks might make a good contestant, the intern writes down the person's name on the notepad.

After the audience is seated, he continues to refine the list by standing on the side of the stage and observing the potential contestants in their seats. He checks to see which ones are still energetic and cheering while they're sitting in the audience too.

<comment><USER4> So that could be easily gamed too is what you're saying.

<comment><USER5> Well, people smart enough to be the kind of contestant they want, are still fulfilling what the producers want.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> [http://www.esquire.com/news-politics/a7922/price-is-right- pe...](http://www.esquire.com/news-politics/a7922/price-is-right-perfect- bid-0810/)

This esquire article adds a layer of intrigue about a guy signaling from the audience and helping everyone on that episode win.

</comment><comment><USER7> Short version: TPIR used to recycle prices/products, so with studying it is easy to guess prices of products on the show. Many contestants and avid fans know this, and one of them got extra lucky in the showcase showdown by guessing the exact price, at about 1/1000 odds (after accounting for common sense and attentiveness) , which is likely to happen eventually for a daily show like TPIR. (Or possibly he was cheating or plain lucky after all. The article claims that showcases are generally $24k, and the winner's was $23743, but the opponent had a $30k showcase and bid it within $550 accuracy)

Now they randomly vary the products/prices slightly, as they should have done all along.

<comment><USER8> Here's a little psychological trick I always wanted to try, if I ever got to the showcase showdown on TPIR. Suppose the other contestant passes the first showcase to me, and I believe it is the lower valued of the two showcases. I bid one dollar. If the other contestant is not paying attention, they just might bid two dollars on their showcase. That strategy works on contestant's row when everyone is bidding on the same item, but it will fail during the showcase showdown, because my bid of one dollar will be closer to the actual price of my showcase than their bid of two dollars will be to the actual price of their showcase.

I don't know if I would have the guts to really try it but I think it might actually work (assuming the host didn't interfere and tip off the other contestant).

<comment><USER9> How likely is someone to do the $2, though? My guess is they would be really confused by the $1 bid then just bid as they would normally.

<comment><USER8> It's risky, sure. You would have to have a good read on the other contestant, like maybe someone who bid $1001 to get out of contestant's row, so you know they are inclined to use the plus-one-dollar strategy. I probably wouldn't have the guts to try it myself, but if someone did and pulled it off it would be legendary.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Also of interest, the less 'predictable' nature of the show made me completely loose interest in it when they modified the format.

I felt like the old format rewarded the contestants for studying and knowing the answers, even if unintentionally by just buying stuff in their life. The luck element was more about where / when you got selected and how well other contestants used their advantages.

</comment><comment><USER11> This reminds me of a great thought piece that I studied a lot during my gaming years: Playing to Win.

[http://www.sirlin.net/articles/playing-to- win](http://www.sirlin.net/articles/playing-to-win)

Particularly relevant to the Jeopardy contestant that buzzed in when he didn't know the answers to block others from getting the cash.

<comment><USER12> I'm reminded of the first season of Survivor.

I didn't watch, but followed along on (IIRC) a Diplomacy discussion forum of all places; it seemed clear that Richard was playing an extremely strategic game, even deliberately sandbagging an endurance contest when it was down to 3 players, knowing that the woman who won it would have to eliminate the other, much more popular male contestant to have a chance to win the vote of those who'd already been dispatched.

<comment><USER13> I believe it. Playing Diplomacy, especially for years on Dipbounced, taught me more about strategy and game theory than any other resource. The community of players are all deep thinkers and incredibly ruthless. We used to have 2-3 day Diplomacy sessions back in college where we'd just do game after game and I miss it sorely.

If you were to ask me to pick the most pure strategy games, Diplomacy would be #1 and maybe EVE Online would be #2.

<comment><USER14> I'm looking for hardcore Diplomacy players to fill out the roster of a one- move-a-week, online-only game. Send me an email if you're interested.

<comment><USER13> Very tempting offer that I passed along to a couple of people. At the moment I'm preparing to change jobs and launch a business simultaneously and I'm trying to reduce any commitments that I have.

Thank you for the offer.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> My show that I've "solved" is cutthroat kitchen. In this show, you don't need to be the best cook until the final round. Before that the object is to "not lose".

The solution - buy the sabotages. Give the sabotages to the cook with the most money. Taking everything personal and retaliating hurts your chances of winning because it increases your chance of losing the round -- and if your retaliee loses, the remaining contestants have way more money than you. Caring about how much money is in your hand also hurts your chances of winning because you become less likely to buy the sabotage.

Bidding strategy is also interesting.

<comment><USER16> > Caring about how much money is in your hand also hurts your chances of > winning because you become less likely to buy the sabotage.

I haven't seen the show, but if you buy all the way to zero, what's the point of playing then? Is there a prize besides the amount of money you keep? Because if I won and only walked home with $100, it would seem like a waste of time.

It does seem like a good strategy on that game would be to intentionally not win though, as you don't want to come across as a strong cook until the very last round.

<comment><USER15> I hadn't thought of it that way, but that is a good point.

You start with $25k, then bid on sabotages.... you take home what you keep. It's usually a few thousand, but once I saw someone take home $25k.

If I were an aspiring chef or successful chef -- I see the show as having more risk than possible reward. If you lose, you might be subject to criticism of your cooking, when it should be criticism of game theory.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> >buzzing in when he didn't know the answers to prevent other contestants from winning money

Can anybody explain this part of Arthur Chu's Jeopardy strategy? Don't they still get the chance to answer? Or is his strategy that he'll figure it out within the allotted time?

Also was anyone else unimpressed by the main character in the articles uncanny ability to predict weather in Las Vegas? Let me guess, it will be hot.

Also how did he win a Southeast Regional Emmy for working in Las Vegas?

<comment><USER17> _> Can anybody explain this part of Arthur Chu's Jeopardy strategy? Don't they still get the chance to answer? Or is his strategy that he'll figure it out within the allotted time?_

As I recall, he went hunting for Daily Doubles to take them off the board and away from other players who might be able to answer them. Only the finder gets to pose a question for those.

<comment><USER6> But that has nothing to do with:

>buzzing in when he didn't know the answers to prevent other contestants from winning money

<comment><USER18> I think it does. He chose daily-doubles when I didn't know the answer and bet low. It denies the others the D-D and means he didn't lose much.

This is explained in detail later on.

It's not the most felicitous of phrasing but it makes sense to me.

<comment><USER19> Are the Daily Doubles not randomly-placed? How do you "hunt" them?

<comment><USER20> They're actually not distributed evenly, so it is possible to hunt and find them with a reasonably high probability of success. This has probably been discovered multiple times by people independently, but was most widely publicized by Flowing Data two years ago. I don't know if the producers ever explained why Daily Doubles are more likely to appear in certain places. Perhaps they intend for observant contestants to be able to guess at their locations.

[http://flowingdata.com/2015/03/03/where-to-find-jeopardy- dai...](http://flowingdata.com/2015/03/03/where-to-find-jeopardy-daily- doubles/)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> It's nice to see more websites using Esperanto words. ("Urbo" is the Esperanto word for city.)

</comment><comment><USER22> I'm only surprised no one did this sooner. It's not a hard system to beat, the whole show is based around if you remember what a gallon of milk costs.

<comment><USER23> The whole story is shockingly boring. It's like a counting cards except you don't even need to know probabilities.

</comment></comment><comment><USER24> re: Michael Lawson, This American Life has a great piece on his story both before and after Press Your Luck.

[https://www.thisamericanlife.org/radio- archives/episode/412/...](https://www.thisamericanlife.org/radio- archives/episode/412/million-dollar-idea?act=4#play)

</comment><comment><USER25> I've no idea what's going on on this page, but my iPhone got really hot and Firefox (on my desktop) warned me that the page was running slow. The profiler on Chrome hung when trying to profile the page and I had to kill the tab in task manager.

<comment><USER26> Privacy Badger on my Chrome Windows shows 22 trackers and uBlock Origin blocked 49 requests. That's a lot of bloat that is probably eating the CPU.

<comment><USER25> I'm not convinced it's the volume alone. I'm using ad blockers on all of my devices, and I've seen mainstream media sites with more than that. It could be an errant script that's not being caught by an ad blocker and has wound up in an infinite loop.

<comment><USER26> I wonder if there is a javascript Hot Spot detector you could use to identify it.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Bruce Willis to fight Apple over ownership of his iTunes Library - <AUTHOR> http://www.guardian.co.uk/film/2012/sep/03/bruce-willis-apple-itunes-library

<comment><USER2> Unfortunately a fake. I fell for the same thing earlier.

[http://techcrunch.com/2012/09/03/bruce-willis-itunes- music-l...](http://techcrunch.com/2012/09/03/bruce-willis-itunes-music- library/)</comment>


To Learn Programming, Make Mistakes - <AUTHOR> https://datarebellion.com/blog/to-learn-programming-make-mistakes/ <comment><USER2> There is truth in the post, but I wish the author went into more-specific details.</comment>


Shell Magic: Set Operations with uniq - <AUTHOR> http://blog.deadvax.net/2018/05/29/shell-magic-set-operations-with-uniq/ <comment><USER3> This is a neat hack! For two input files, the intersection and relative complement can be done more straightforwardly with comm.

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

      # show only items in both a and b
      comm -1 -2 a_list b_list

      # show only items unique to a
      comm -2 -3 a_list b_list

      # show only items unique to b
      comm -1 -3 a_list b_list

<comment><USER4> Can also use

        comm <flags> <(command 1) <(command 2)

To use the output of a command as input. This also works with diff and other commands.

<comment><USER5> More accurately, it can be used for any command which expects a file and doesn't do anything too weird in reading it (e.g. doesn't seek to the beginning and read it again)

The '<( ... )' is just giving the path to that command's stdout as a file descriptor.

        $ ls <(echo hi)
        /proc/self/fd/11
        $ vi <(echo hi)
        # opens vi with 'hi' as the contents

<comment><USER6> Thank you. I was just thinking of looking into how it was implemented.

<comment><USER7> It is called "process substitution", and can work the other way around:

[http://www.tldp.org/LDP/abs/html/process- sub.html](http://www.tldp.org/LDP/abs/html/process-sub.html)

With fish:

[https://fishshell.com/docs/current/commands.html#psub](https://fishshell.com/docs/current/commands.html#psub)

But there it only works one way:

[https://github.com/fish-shell/fish- shell/issues/1786](https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell/issues/1786)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> If your input is already sorted (like this article assumes), you can use "sort -m", which is a lot faster. Also, to print only lines with duplicates, use "uniq -d" instead of "uniq -c | grep 2\ ".

Union: Instead of

        cat a_list b_list | sort | uniq

do

        sort -m a_list b_list | uniq

Intersection: Instead of

        cat a_list b_list | sort | uniq -c | grep 2\

do

        sort -m a_list b_list | uniq -d

Relative complement: Instead of

        cat a_list b_list b_list | sort | uniq -c | grep 2\

do

        sort -m a_list a_list b_list | uniq -u

Note the change of approach here: instead of making lines from b_list appear twice and grepping for that count, make lines from a_list appear twice and have uniq only print lines that aren't repeated.

</comment><comment><USER9> I like shell set operations scripts, because they are quick and easy.

I prefer `awk` over `uniq` and `comm` because awk tends to be faster at set ops that can skip sorting and deduplicating.

Here's my script for union, intersection, etc. See README on GitHub. Suggestions welcome.

[https://github.com/sixarm/setop](https://github.com/sixarm/setop)

        #!/bin/sh
        set -eu
        op="$1"; shift

        case  $op  in
          ∪|u|union|or|∨|add|addition|'+'|'|')
            awk '!seen[$0] {print} {seen[$0]=1}' "$@"
            ;;
          ∩|i|intersection|and|∧|'&')
            awk 'FNR==1{argind+=1} seen[$0]+=1 {next} END { for (key in seen) { if (seen[key]==argind) { print key } } }' "$@"
            ;;
          ⊖|d|diff|difference|xor|⊻)
            awk 'FNR==1{argind+=1} seen[$0]+=1 {next} END { for (key in seen) { if (seen[key]==1) { print key } } }' "$@"
            ;;
          ex|except|exclude|subtract|subtraction|'-')
            awk 'NR==FNR{seen[$0]=1;next} seen[$0]=0; END { for (key in seen) { if (seen[key]) { print key } } }' "$@"
            ;;
          extra)
            awk 'BEGIN{argindmax=ARGC-1} FNR==1{argind+=1} argind<argindmax {seen[$0]; next}!($0 in seen)' "$@"
            ;;
          disjoint|n|not|none)
            awk 'seen[$0]==1 {x=1;exit} {seen[$0]=1} END { print x ? "FALSE" : "TRUE"}; exit !!x}' "$@"
            ;;
          *)
        esac

<comment><USER10> A few comments. First, wow, I love how this looks like dark magic.

Those mathematical notations, are you using them because it makes it easier to see how it corresponds to actual Set Theory/theorems? If so, could you just as well have used an alphanummeric identifier like "left" "union" "right" or - would the code break without this notation? I'm on deep waters here, I don't know this. But set theory seems to pop up a lot in my line of work, essentially doing joins in datasets using Tableau - so my interest in the nitty gritty of this field is increasing.

<comment><USER9> Thanks! To answer your questions...

> because it makes it easier to see how it corresponds to actual Set > Theory/theorems?

Yes. These are the Unicode symbols for set theory.

> could you just as well have used an alphanummeric identifier like "left" > "union" "right" or

Yes. You can use any of the words in the case switch statements, such as `setop union file1 file2`. You can also edit the script to add your own words if you like.

You can see simpler versions of these scripts in our GitHub repos. For example the `union` command is [https://github.com/sixarm/union](https://github.com/sixarm/union)

> set theory seems to pop up a lot in my line of work

More and more in mine too. Thank you for your comments!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> I've a summary of the operations at:

[http://www.pixelbeat.org/cmdline.html#sets](http://www.pixelbeat.org/cmdline.html#sets)

Note comm output is a bit awkward to parse, so I use another coreutils `join` command to process already sorted data

<comment><USER12> Thanks for the list, there are many useful examples.

Another way to get the last date in current month (== the number of days in a month) is:

        : $(cal); echo $_

<comment><USER7> For the curious, `:` is the noop builtin in bash. I use it mostly as I would use `pass` in python, since empty conditionals or functions are a parse error.

        if whatevs; then
          :
        fi

<comment><USER12> And to elaborate even more:

':' is the command, and '$(cal)' – which equals the unquoted output from running the 'cal' command – are the arguments. The last day of the month is thus the last argument of ':' and can be referenced with the '$_' variable.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> The cut and join commands are also useful. I'm pretty sure you could prove all basic database operations can be done using the shell.

<comment><USER14> In fact I wrote an image/tag database solution entirely in shell/coreutils.

It's too disgusting to share.

<comment><USER13> After playing around with join just now, I remembered why I hate it - <USER2> requires your inputs to be sorted which makes it abominably inconvenient.

</comment></comment></comment><comment> hn-minutiae Here's another collection of set operations - I refer to this a couple of times a week at least. [http://www.catonmat.net/download/setops.txt](http://www.catonmat.net/download/setops.txt)

<comment><USER10> Whoa. That is a great resource.

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> Hard to resist this - "Unlike the intersection, the Set Difference is a bit harder to scale up to more than two lists. It is concievable, and I may even have done it, but I'll leave it as an exercise to the reader to develop that."

An inefficient solution which involves unnecessary sorting: for each file_i, 0 <= i < n in the set of n files, cat it 2^i times before combining to pipe through sort and uniq -c. Every possible set operation combination can be determined by grepping the result for a particular combination of counts. Intersection would calculated by grepping for 2^n - 1 while symmetric difference would require egrep to pick out any of 1, 2, 4,..,2^(n-1).

<comment><USER13> The way I would do it, assuming we have list1.txt, list2.txt, list3.txt, ... and want to calculate (1 - 2 - 3 - ...) :

1\. Use sed to add "1<tab>" (that's a one digit and a tab char) to the first list to difference by and save as "prefix.txt".

2\. Use cat to combine all the lists, sort | uniq -c | sort -n | sed <reformat to make tab delimited> | sort again and save as output.txt.

3\. join prefix.txt and output.txt on each whole line and cut the second tab delimited field to produce the final result.

So in order to be in the result, a list item must appear in exactly one list and that must be the first list. That should be what we want (?)

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> The Debian 'corekeeper' package includes a cron script that uses this.

[https://sources.debian.org/src/corekeeper/1.6/debian/corekee...](https://sources.debian.org/src/corekeeper/1.6/debian/corekeeper.cron.daily/)

It's actually possible to simplify the set operations a little in that case.

[https://bugs.debian.org/cgi- bin/bugreport.cgi?bug=895143](https://bugs.debian.org/cgi- bin/bugreport.cgi?bug=895143)

</comment><comment><USER17> For completeness, to scale relative complement up to N lists you would need to repeat the last list 2^N times. So it'd look something like:

        rel_com() {
            for i in $(seq 1 $#); do
                for j in $(seq 1 $(bc <<< "2 ^ $(expr $i - 1)")); do
                    echo ${!i}
                done
            done
        }

        sort -m $(rel_com a b c) | uniq -c

Then you have a N-bit number with the i'th bit representing membership in the i'th file.

</comment><comment><USER18> I've always used grep for this with the -f option to read a list of patterns from a file and -v for inverted search as necessary.

</comment><comment><USER19> Nice. I've wondered several times how to have the equivalent of {1, 2, 3} ^ {3, 4} from Python, but in bash.

</comment><comment><USER20> On a related note: [http://btorpey.github.io/blog/2017/05/10/join/](http://btorpey.github.io/blog/2017/05/10/join/)

</comment><comment><USER21> If you use _awk_ , which has associative arrays, you avoid sorting, and can keep everything POSIX.

</comment><comment><USER22> I like bash's <(...) operator and often use diff -u with it:

      diff -u <(cat file1) <(cat file2)

Obviously, the 'cat' commands can be more complex commands, which make this more interesting.

</comment><comment><USER23> No need to use cat:

      # sort a_list b_list | uniq
      a
      b
      c
      d
      e

</comment><comment><USER24> See also

[https://github.com/pkrumins/set-operations-in-unix- shell](https://github.com/pkrumins/set-operations-in-unix-shell)

</comment><comment><USER25> Thanks! Will be using these for debugging. I commonly compare `cat data.csv | wc -l` vs `cat data.csv | sort -u | wc -l` to check unique inputs

</comment><comment><USER26> Aaargh! "cat | sort" is an antipattern.

Sort accepts a list of files as arguments. "sort [flags] file1 file2 ..." is more concise, more efficient, and is less likely to run out of space.

<comment><USER27> And for people like me who want the file name first on the line, this format works in Bash at least:

</dir/file sort | uniq >outfile

<comment><USER28> I always find it really confusing when the command-line begins with a redirect.

<comment><USER10> Yes, how do you parse that - ie. what does it even mean?

<comment><USER28> It's just a convention that redirects come after the command they're redirecting. There might be shell options that influence this, but I think all these are generally equivalent:

        foo bar < a
        foo < a bar
        < a foo bar

<comment><USER29> It is POSIX shell parsing behaviour that redirections can appear anywhere in the command (obviously, not in the same word as another parameter, nor inside a quoted string). They have to be stripped out by the shell before execution: [http://pubs.opengroup.org/onlinepubs/9699919799/utilities/V3...](http://pubs.opengroup.org/onlinepubs/9699919799/utilities/V3_chap02.html#tag_18_07)</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Ask HN: Is company 'culture' bullshit? - <AUTHOR> Genuine question. We're discussing team culture in our place of work at the moment, we're a young company and we're trying to define a 'culture', or at least the lead is. But I'm sceptical, from almost all my experience with people discussing company culture, it has been buzzword laden and pithy.
Is company culture, just company policies? The individuals in a team, a mixture of those, or something else entirely? I'm really struggling to contribute to the conversation because I just don't 'get it'.
I've often scoffed at companies claiming to have a 'great culture', because what that usually translates to is 'we've got a table tennis table and sometimes associate with each other after working hours'. No one seems to have one set answer to what a company culture is, or how to create one, if you can create one at all? Or does it just arise coincidentally?
Any advice greatly welcomed! How, if at all, do you cultivate a 'culture', is it important? And... what does the term really mean for you and your companies?
Thanks in advance! <comment><USER2> I am not sure you can define a culture, it already exists and is developing "naturally" in your team. What you can try is to find out what are the motivating trait of your existing culture by talking with your peers, and formalize / identify the top one and put in a poster ?

For example, is your team good at solving hard problems, deliver on time, have great customer satisfaction, etc ? (I don't believe you could say yes to all answers if you are totally honest..)

Identify the 3 keys aspects that actually exist in the company and support/encourage those behavior.

</comment><comment><USER3> > Is company culture, just company policies?

No. Policies are just a way of trying to influence the culture. They're about the only official way company as an entity has for this task.

I would say that the culture is what people in the company "reward" for doing. If you admire others for their friendly attitude, you'll get more of that. If you praise others for their smirky remarks, you'll get that more. It's very hard to plan and design this deliberately.

</comment><comment><USER4> I work for a company here in New York and company culture is very important. We define company culture with our brand, and also the people that work here. Everyone is nice and everyone is engaged and you could say that we make an effort to hire really nice people. Everyone here is respectful and you feel like you are coming to see your friends are work. We celebrate work anniversaries and the company is always streaming social media pictures, tweets about what is going on at headquarters. Today for example one person here does a snapchat takeover and we record ourselves and post what life is like at HQ. I am a shy person so it is a little difficult for me to be this open and social but the people here are nice and mean well so it is ok. I love this place and it is one of the best places i've ever worked. :) so in other words this place is only great because they built a culture here and it is working for them.

</comment><comment><USER5> I work for a company that puts culture first. Our core values of positive, supportive, self starting have always existed since the early days at the company. These values have led the company in difficult situations and force individuals to look at things differently than otherwise.

However, they are very realistic. For example, positive is about finding the path out of trying situations with a level head. Not "everything is great" when it's really on fire.

I think it's very important because I've seen the difference it makes. It is also why we're at nearly 5 stars on Glassdoor with 100% CEO approval. We've grown so much and putting them at the forefront is key.

Nothing to do with ping pong.

</comment><comment><USER6> Culture is about unspoken expectations and what people do that they're not specifically told to do.

When people finish a project 10 minutes before they planned to grab lunch, do they leave for lunch early? Do more of their own work? Sit down and help out a colleague? Chat about Game of Thrones by the water cooler? Play ping pong?

Speaking of lunch, do people eat at their desks? Together in the kitchen or a conference room? Alone outside the office? Together outside the office?

At the end of a hard day, what do people do? Stick in their chairs and surf Facebook so the boss thinks they're putting in lots of hours? Go home to their kids? Get into nerf gun wars? Play video games together? Have a beer together in the office? Go out to a bar?

How competitive is your culture? Do people default to collaborative modes instead? Where there is competition, is it friendly and constructive or vicious and inclined to sabotage?

How much autonomy do people really have? How much hierarchy? How much process and bureaucracy? What do you look for on a resume and in an interview? How do your managers identify good work and how do they recognize and reward it? Do certain roles get more appreciation than others? Do people speak out loud in your open office, or whisper out of consideration for the people around them or take their discussions to a conference room? Do people actually take vacations or does that unlimited vacation policy just make them afraid because they don't know how much they're expected to take?

These questions and a thousand more define the cultural differences between companies. They're the reason I might consider working at a large company (Google? IBM?) but certainly wouldn't work at Amazon or Goldman Sachs. They're why I like the small startup-minded company I'm at now but not the culture at most Kool-aid drinking startups. They'll affect what sorts of people you retain and what sort of results you get out of them. They affect morale and (via morale and burnout, among other things) productivity.

Now here's the crux, and this is very important:

Culture is introduced from above AND from below.

From above, you're responsible for what personalities you hire and what skills and personal values they bring. You're responsible for what work behaviors you reward. You set the example for how rigid hierarchy is, for how much vacation people take, and for whether people are expected to spend 7 hours in the office or 11.

But you can't force-feed culture either. Culture is set from below by the personalities and personal values of the people you hire. How well they get along. What they like to do when they have 10 minutes free or after work.

If your employees are more into knitting or WoW, buying a ping pong table won't suddenly make them ping pong players. Taking everyone to a bar and forcing them to socialize won't make them friends, but it might make some people resentful.

All you can do is avoid hiring (and quickly fire) poisonous personalities, and offer encouragement and support (in the form of money or time) to activities that people already express interest in as a group and that you see as constructive.

<comment><USER7> There are 2 versions of culture:

1) The "culture" that management and recruiters talk about 2) The way that @cauterized talks about, which includes all the subtle and not-so-subtle ways that people work and interact in the company

1 is complete bullshit. It's the equivalent of (unironic) motivational posters, and is just a series of buzzwords for PR.

2 is very real, but it's not something you can easily see from the outside, and it's not something you'll ever get an honest answer on in an interview. The best way is to have a friend in the company that will tell you exactly how things work.

<comment><USER8> I feel the more #1 is defined, you end up with an old boys club that alienates.

#2 seems to just mean: hire professionals who have integrity. Stuff that sounds really obvious, but hard to quantify. Anything more seems to encroach into #1. Which is bullshit or counter productive to the goal of creating a culture.

My take on culture is: we don't have to be friends or even acquaintances, but we must have respect for each other and be able to get things done. If we become friends, that's great. But a great friend isn't always a great coworker.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> If it's dictated, it's not culture - it's fiat.

<comment><USER7> It's funny (in an office space sort of way) when a company that's been around for a while comes out with a "values" statement. "Grown adults, these are now your reasons for living!"</comment></comment>


Show HN: I'm making Nicetweeps to make your Twitter consumption more focused - <AUTHOR> https://nicetweeps.com <comment><AUTHOR> Hello hackers, the maker here!

In this kind of work from home situation, there's no better way to save your time than making sure your Twitter consumption is on point. Thus, we should only read what we gotta read: the more focused timeline or list. That's the motivation behind the product, to ease you finding the right people to follow based on your interest.

It's based on NextJS and hosted on Vercel, with styled components under the hood. I also deploy it as static website, since I don't use any database other than some JSON files.

That said, I'm looking forward to hear what you think. Feel free to give me feedback on the tech things or anything else.

Thank you!</comment>