Why isn't New Zealand richer and more productive? - <AUTHOR> http://marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevolution/2014/04/why-isnt-new-zealand-richer-and-more-productive.html <comment><USER2> It's refreshing to click on a headline in the form of a question and have the article explain why it's the right question to be asking, and not just following Betteridge's Law. I lived in New Zealand for about 5 or 6 years, and I saw huge numbers of people just living on welfare because they could - that's probably got a lot to do with low GDP. Normally, I would see that as a bad thing, but I think New Zealand's relative lack of corruption and the friendly disposition of almost everyone illustrates there is more to life than productivity, and the results of the atmosphere and culture speak for themselves. As fiscally conservative as I may be, I had to admire that. Additionally, I hate frivolous lawsuits, and having the government compensate you so readily for injuries really seemed to reduce the way people would resort to "just sue them". Perhaps there's moral hazard and I'm not smart enough to know how one would quantify that, but again - I had to admire that.

<comment><USER3> A good friend of mine studied abroad in Australia, and then met and moved in with a Kiwi and then lived in New Zealand with him for a while.

He has now moved to the US with her. Her brother is a good friend of mine, and is incredibly irritated with his lack of drive and motivation. I've hiked with the guy, and I don't think he's lazy at all. He just doesn't value money, and his view on life is that he's going to teach school, and do whatever it takes to make his lifestyle match his income, rather than the other way around.

He told me that this is a cultural thing in New Zealand. Nobody pressures you to achieve a certain level of material success. The view is that if you are self-sufficient, then you've arrived. Nobody judges you for not being a "good provider."

Me, as an American, I envy this. I have tremendous pressure from my extended family to make money, so I do. (Plus, in this country, you can't have a decent school system and/or health insurance unless you have a good job)

<comment><USER4> If someone is a bit more ambitious but still wants a mix of the aforementioned lifestyle I would recommend Australia. Much bigger population and resources and better opportunities than NZ with a good safety net that doesn't cost the government much and doesn't suffer rampant abuse. I wouldn't recommend NZ for an American, except for perhaps retirement; it would just be too tough, the isolation and small pop. would be crushing for someone used to living in a giant country of 330M consumers.

<comment><USER5> I don't know if I'd go that far. As an American who lived in NZ for a few years I got a very pacific northwest vibe from the NZ cities. If you like Portland or Seattle, Wellington is sweet as.

<comment><USER6> Hah .. I spent the first 25 years of my life in NZ (10 years in Wellington) and have lived just outside of Seattle since 2007. I tell people that the PNW is the closest to NZ that I've seen in America, both culturally and landscape.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Early-rising New Zealander here (it's 5am folks!).

Bullet points for starters:

1\. We are genuinely relaxed people, life is good, weather not too hot or too cold, food easy to get or grow, housing not horribly expensive, healthcare obtainable for all, education as close to free as we can make it and an overall low crime and corruption rate. So the majority of us go to sleep at night, overall, not worried about losing our livelihood one day to the next or not having enough to eat. Similar in this respect to the Northern Europeans.

2\. Tall poppy syndrome. We don't like people standing out from the crowd in terms of personality, flamboyance, income - to fit in, you maintain a level of 'bloke/girl next door'. Even if you have tons of money or you are flamboyantly dressy. If not, cue media outcry and attacks, so you move overseas where you can disappear among the masses.

3\. Geography! You have no idea how expensive it can be to live here. We work hard to export all our fine goods to you and work harder to import the things we love.

4\. The knowledge economy We are messing up here. Internet is too expensive, kids are not getting properly schooled in computing skills and we don't place a high enough value on STEM. If the government really really focused on STEM the next 10 years our next gen kids could have incredible lives, where distance is no barrier thanks to internet access and quality of life is incredible (those mountains, sheep and rivers/lakes are totally as amazing as you see in the photos).

<comment><USER8> Hi, how expensive is it? I mean, I live in Southern California, and a 3 bedroom house 17 miles inland is upwards of $500,000. Checking real estate in NZ, houses can readily be found within blocks of the beach for $300,000 NZD (257,000 USD). Seems like a pretty good deal to me...

<comment><USER9> Outside of Auckland, it's reasonably affordable. In Auckland, the average price is quite high relative to incomes.

Most of my friends who entered the market recently were looking at prices of between $650k-$850k for something smallish in an OK area.

This was for houses which were not new builds (70s/80s) and would need a bit of work to get up to scratch (insulation, plumbing, kitchen/bathroom remodelling).

So I've just been sitting and building equity and cash reserves. Who knows when/if it will return to earth, but I don't feel comfortable leveraging up that much, so as a single buyer, I'm sitting this one out.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Given its comparative geographical isolation, it makes sense for NZ to invest in it's digital economy.

NZ has its own competitive advantages:

(1) An educated population; (2) An English-speaking population (yes, this is an advantage. Regardless of the rise of the East, English is still the international language of business.)

But, clearly, it has certain disadvantages. Geographical isolation is one of those. It is difficult to close your trade deficit efficiently if your manufacturers are pummelled by shipping costs (and expensive labour costs). It's products are almost always going to be more expensive than it's competitors.

So, what should NZ do?

An obvious solution would be to invest in intangible exports (that's the technical terms for non-physical exports); exports that will bring money and jobs into NZ without having to saddle the costs of shipping.

This is what has happened in most of the west. But in most of Europe, we have invested in financial intangibles rather than digital intangibles. That's gone okay (hmm, okay might be a stretch). But it is unlikely to be the right move for NZ because it hasn't got an established financial center nor access to the Euro markets. (Actually with the rise of the China, which is geographically close to NZ, it might have a go at snapping up some of the renmimbi trade).

What does a country do with a highly educated workforce that needs to export intangibles? Software is the obvious solution.

Invest in Computer Science education at school, write an attractive set of tax laws for digital start-ups, and invest in high-tech infrastructure (i.e, be the first country to roll-out 5G).

In fact, the more I think about the it, the more this makes sense. As NZ is a comparatively small country with few concentrated geographical centres, it could roll-out super-fast broadband, 5G, etc, on the cheap.

Anyways, just a few thoughts.

<comment><USER4> Xero is a NZ startup success story but they have moved their main offices to Australia and the US. Tiny population and geographic and time-zone isolation are big obstacles for anyone trying to do things on a global scale.

<comment><USER11> As someone in Australia our decrepit internet makes it impossible to do anything resembling a startup. I can't imagine New Zealand would be so bad that they need to move here.

<comment><USER12> While as a fellow Australia I bemoan the woeful state of our internet, I don't think it makes it "impossible" to start a startup, in fact I know many startups in Sydney and elsewhere. It makes it more difficult, yes, and limits your options, but it's not impossible.

I can think of several reasons to move to AU from NZ as a startup; a greater talent pool and larger investment community for starters. It's by no means a slam dunk, but they're valid reasons.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> Having lived in NZ for a couple of years working at Victoria University of Wellington, the other piece of the puzzle is NZ suffers from crippling brain drain: their best and brightest students immediately head over to Australia where they can make more money and use the exchange rate to pay off their student loan quicker.

My read is that kiwis tend to come back when they're ready to start a family, but during those vital 18-25 years when the entrepreneurial spirit is strongest, they're simply not in the country. They're elsewhere.

The kiwis I talk to that are in that demographic here at Google all seem to be want to go back to NZ, but only if the prospects are there, such as Google opening a real-deal engineering office. But it's hard to convince companies that that is a worthwhile venture when Australia and NZ have freedom of worker movement.

Without the population to lead NZ forward, and with no companies willing to invest to drag it forward, I don't think we'll ever see NZ be richer and more productive. But as other commenters have noticed, I think NZ is perfectly happy with that, because they're happy with their lot, which is something to be envied.

<comment><USER14> That was my experience as well. The few folks who managed to work remotely for an overseas company did really well, but pay rates within the country were a lot lower than I expected.

Working at a distributed company, I really wish more Kiwis would apply to my company if only so I could have an excuse to go visit. :)

<comment><USER15> I'm an American with NZ permanent residency. I might be convinced to return there ;-)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> Living in NZ is, by and large, a lifestyle choice for smart, capable New Zealanders. It's trivial to work in Australia [1], reasonably easy [2] to work in the UK, and NZers have a good enough reputation to go to any other majority English-speaking country with little trouble.

Because the country is so small - and generally without a class system - it's possible, on a relatively small income, to have everything you might want. This has sometimes been reported as the "three Bs" \- a boat, a BMW and a beach house [3]. To have those three things in the UK without being born into them, you might have to have a business that employs 100; a decent tradesman working alone in NZ can get those by their early 30s.

I think a short answer is "because it doesn't want to be."

[1] When traveling from Canada to Australia for work on my NZ passport, I was held up for some time explaining why I was traveling, who I worked for in Canada, who I was going to see, etc. If I had instead said "Hello, I want to live in your country forever, and claim benefits", they would have rubber- stamped my passport and allowed me on my merry way.

[2] Changing, even over the last few years, with the whim of the UK government

[3] [http://techcrunch.com/2012/12/16/punching-above-their- weight...](http://techcrunch.com/2012/12/16/punching-above-their-weight/)

<comment><USER17> That sounds amazing.

Are boats and beach houses that much cheaper in NZ? In the US, you have to be quite wealthy, or quite an avid sailor, to own anything more substantial than a dinghy. Houses anywhere near a semi-desirable beach community cost >$1M. Even successful people in their 30s don't often buy second homes in that price range.

<comment><USER18> Way way less than that. I'm in this town on holiday currently. Check the prices!

[http://www.trademe.co.nz/Browse/CategoryAttributeSearchResul...](http://www.trademe.co.nz/Browse/CategoryAttributeSearchResults.aspx?search=1&cid=5748&sidebar=1&rptpath=350-5748-3399-&132=PROPERTY&selected135=11&134=14&135=11&136=728&216=0&216=0&217=0&217=0&153=&29=&122=0&122=0&49=0&49=0&178=0&178=0&sidebarSearch_keypresses=0&sidebarSearch_suggested=0)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> The original PDF is here: [http://www.productivity.govt.nz/sites/default/files/internat...](http://www.productivity.govt.nz/sites/default/files/international- perspective-working-paper.pdf)

Figure 3 in Section 1 was really interesting, but maybe I haven't had enough coffee this morning:

[http://imgur.com/gvRugtl](http://imgur.com/gvRugtl)

New Zealand is in the lower-right quadrant, which I'm interpreting to mean that it is _predicted_ to be 20+% _above_ the OECD average, but it is _observed_ to be at 20% _below_ , i.e. -40% below expectations

So the _top-left_ quadrant would be the best performers, right? Those that were expected to be below the OECD average but are observed to be higher, e.g. Norway with a +25% above expectations?

(Now that I wrote this out, it makes more sense to me...I was having trouble divining where exactly the USA stood by being in the top far right, but it's more about the distance from the line)

<comment><USER20> The graph is claiming that countries should appear on the line - above the line are doing better than average; below the line are doing worse than average.

Vertical distance from the line is what you're looking for, so NZL is a crazy distance below. NOR, GRC and IRL are the furthest above the line.

However, another way to view this graph is to say that structural policies have no predictive power.

If you take out the outliers: the countries away from the central blob (e.g. Greece, Portugal and USA: all countries with exceptional circumstances), then the correlation is gone or perhaps even negative - meaning this is a poor model and a pointless exercise.

<comment><USER21> I went to the real source [1], which provides this data: [http://i.imgur.com/d46JG8Q.png](http://i.imgur.com/d46JG8Q.png), and plotted it. The R(square) value for the fit it 0.2. The Pearson r is 0.44 with a p-value of 0.02 i.e. potentially useful. Taking out Greece, Portugal and USA changes the R(square) to 0.002, the Pearson r to 0.05 with a p-value of 0.8, i.e without the outliers there is no correlation between the values.

So, indeed, the outliers are driving the association... However, one is not permitted to cherry-pick data, so the "outliers" have to be left in.

[1]Barnes, S., Bouis, R., Briard, P., Dougherty, S., and Eris, M. (2011).The GDP impact of reform: a simple simulation framework,OECD Economics Department Working Papers, no. 834, Paris, France: OECD.

PDF file: [http://www.oecd- ilibrary.org/docserver/download/5kgk9qjnhkmt...](http://www.oecd- ilibrary.org/docserver/download/5kgk9qjnhkmt.pdf?expires=1397838927&id=id&accname=guest&checksum=583ADE3E363128945532B8219957347D)

<comment><USER20> >However, one is not permitted to cherry-pick data, so the "outliers" have to be left in.

I respect why you think this, but I don't agree. Identifying points on the graph which don't fit with the pattern of the rest of the data is a reasonable way to identify outliers. Even if you choose not to exclude those, there's a greater problem:

Correlation is not robust if it depends on 2 or 3 points being in just the right place. And, robustness is one of the things you really ought to check for if you calculate Pearson's r. If you get different results with outliers in and out, that's a problem for your results.

In my opinion, any significant result here is just statistical noise.

See Wikipedia for further discussion: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pearson_product- moment_correla...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pearson_product- moment_correlation_coefficient#Robustness)

<comment><USER21> I agree that the statistics on this association are pretty lousy, even with the outliers in. However, one would preferably find an specific reason to exclude outliers, rather than rely on intuition.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> Because, as the article says, it's isolated and has a small population.

Tasmania, in Australia, is not as wealthy as the mainland -- it's small and isolated. There are dozens of similar examples.

Meanwhile, Singapore is small, but sits athwart what has been, for hundreds of years, one of the busiest trading lanes on the planet.

<comment><USER23> > Meanwhile, Singapore is small, but sits athwart what has been, for hundreds > of years, one of the busiest trading lanes on the planet.

You might want to revise that sentence. Singapore was nothing 100 years ago.

Wikipedia: Singapore ceased to be part of the British Empire when it merged with Malaysia in 1963. Singapore lost its hinterland and was no longer the administrative or economic capital of the Malay Peninsula. The processing in Singapore of raw materials extracted in the Peninsula was drastically reduced due to the absence of a common market between Singapore and the Peninsular states.[5]

Since Singapore's full independence in 1965, __it has had to compete with other ports in the region to attract shipping and trade at its port. It has done so by developing an export-oriented economy based on value-added manufacturing. __It obtains raw or partially manufactured products from regional and global markets and exports value-added products back to these markets through market access agreements such as World Trade Organization directives and free trade agreements.[5]

By the 1980s, maritime trading activity had ceased in the vicinity of the Singapore River except in the form of passenger transport, as other terminals and harbours took over this role. Keppel Harbour is now home to three container terminals. Other terminals were built in Jurong and Pasir Panjang as well as in Sembawang in the north. Today, the port operations in Singapore are handled by two players: PSA International (formerly the Port of Singapore Authority) and Jurong Port, which collectively operate six container terminals and three general-purpose terminals around Singapore.

In the 1990s the Port became more well-known and overtook Yokohama, and eventually became the busiest port in terms of shipping tonnage

<comment><USER24> Perhaps no revision is necessary.

Singapore may have been nothing 100 years ago, but trade through the region has been busy for much longer. Hence when Singapore decided to develop, it looked to the preexisting trade patterns, and developed accordingly.

<comment><USER25> You seem to think it was quite simple. It was not.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> Adam Smith noted cities were founded on "navigable rivers", because that's how trade works. Still true today for cargo ships. But today the internet is a river everywhere, for information goods.

New Zealand is the most beautiful place in the world, in my travels (circumvented the globe, but not been everywhere). Though I'm biased towards mountains.

So, theoretically, beauty+internet makes it a great place for software developers (and other information goods and services producers).

OTOH, NZ has prevented software patents (one of the few countries in the world to do so). Although many software developers love this, consider the question: will it increase investment in patentable inventions, or decrease it?

But in a way it's irrelevant: NZ itself is a tiny market. What counts is patents in other markets, US, Europe, Asia.

<comment><USER21> Circumventing the globe while traveling is a pretty impressive feat, unless you're an astronaut.

<comment><USER26> Well, I went _around_ the globe rather than through it.

<comment><USER27> He's suggesting you meant _circumnavigated_ , not _circumvented_.

<comment><USER26> To explain the joke: Yes, he caught that error of mine, but I found a retrospective justification as a way to get out of it, as a joke. That's why he replied "Well done!"

<comment><USER27> Gotcha.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Kiwi here - spent the first 25 years of my life in NZ (Taranaki and Wellington) but relocated to the USA (a year in the Bay Area, then just outside Seattle since 2007).

A few observations of factors that may be considered:

\- Distance from markets impacts competitiveness of exports

\- Distance from world / experience / culture / opportunities leads to exodus of young travelers (see "the Big OE", [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Overseas_experience](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Overseas_experience)) and braindrain

\- "Tall-poppy syndrome" ([http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tall_poppy_syndrome](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tall_poppy_syndrome)) reduces visibility of or desire for success

\- "She'll be right" culture ([http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/She'll_be_right);](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/She'll_be_right\);) apathetic, relaxed, or optimistic?

NZ has a very strong entrepreneurial culture but perhaps the challenges above or wrong choice of markets to target make that less effective econony-wise than it could be? There's an interesting read on that at [http://pando.com/2013/05/14/number-8-wire- entrepreneurialism...](http://pando.com/2013/05/14/number-8-wire- entrepreneurialism-how-a-cultural-myth-can-inspire-a-country/).

</comment><comment><USER28> When your country is as beautiful as NZ you don't have to worry about things like the GDP.

<comment><USER3> There was a humorous video on the net recently, where each US state had a quote attached to it. The one for Hawaii:

"Hawaii: If you lived HERE _points to stunning scenery_ you'd be lazy too."

</comment></comment><comment><USER29> Although I'm an Australian, I was born in South Africa, and so was rather surprised to find that there is a standing joke in Oz:

 _How does a Kiwi get a small business?, you give them a large business._

That's just a cruel joke and yet another data point in why Kiwis (rightly) think Aussies are pricks to them.

From my personal anecdotal experience of NZ:

* they have a much more laid back attitude

* many of the hard workers f-off to Australia to do it

* the government takes big stands on things, which is admirable but not indicative of a focus on business.

\- i.e. No American nuclear ships allowed to dock there.

It's not just the local prostitute trade that benefits by having a US naval base in town.

None of this is NZ hate, far from it... they do their own thing and they are fine with it.

<comment><USER30> _That 's just a cruel joke and yet another data point in why Kiwis (rightly) think Aussies are pricks to them._

You may have missed that it's actually friendly sibling rivalry between the two. Most of the kiwis I've known make their own comedic jabs at Australia. It's all in good fun.

 _the government takes big stands on things ... No American nuclear ships allowed to dock there_

This really isn't that big a stand. If NZ was where Borneo is, I doubt they'd have made that stand. NZ has effectively zero military needs due to its isolation. The closest potential threat to NZ is Indonesia, which is a quarter of the planet away. Not that Indonesia has any such desire, but Australia and PNG don't have the amount of armed forces required for an occupation, and the small islander nations just don't have enough people (with a few living off NZ aid in the first place).

</comment></comment><comment><USER31> Economist John Quiggin claims that low NZ performance relative to Australia is because of its central bank being fighting inflation to the point of causing unnecessary recessions.

Source: 4th paragraph here: [http://johnquiggin.com/2011/05/19/9813/](http://johnquiggin.com/2011/05/19/9813/)

Edit: Please note that the gravity model of trade is an approximate empirical observation of trade, not economic growth. Australia is just as isolated as is NZ and yet fares better.

<comment><USER22> Australia has a much larger internal market.

</comment></comment><comment><USER32> Compared to Australia, New Zealand has a significant Maori / Polynesian population. If you combine a part of Australia with a part of Fiji, you would get similar mix of people and also a similar economic output to New Zealand. While this obviously doesn't explain all of it, it is important to consider the historical and demographics reasons as well.

<comment><USER33> That's racist as.

</comment></comment><comment><USER34> If I were in charge of NZ, I'd probably try to bring in something like pacific fibre, even if it required government subsidy. After that, a focus on making the legal system and business environment very attractive to certain kinds of tech businesses -- maybe that is privacy and security, maybe a very permissive IP regime, maybe something else.

</comment><comment><USER35> Because you still need a critical mass of people and interactions to generate enough economic serendipity.

Zuckerberg won't just bump into Sean Parker unless they are in a melting pot.

</comment><comment><USER36> Comparing the GNP per capita of New Zealand to Australia gives some interesting results: [https://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=%28gross+national+prod...](https://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=%28gross+national+product+of+New+Zealand+%2F+population+new+zealand%29+%2F+%28gross+national+product+of+australia+%2F+population+australia%29)

The variance of the past few years (between 1:1 to 1:2) is quite high. I guess theoretically the biggest difference between the two countries is the mineral wealth of Australia?

<comment><USER37> Australia is doing unusually well recently, I think due to natural resources as you mentioned. This graph might give a better idea of what has been going on: [https://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=uk+gdp+per+capita+%2F+...](https://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=uk+gdp+per+capita+%2F+usa+gdp+per+capita%2C+canada+gdp+per+capita+%2F+usa+gdp+per+capita%2C+australia+gdp+per+capita+%2F+usa+gdp+per+capita%2C+new+zealand+gdp+per+capita+%2F+usa+gdp+per+capita)

<comment><USER38> I suggest that much of Australia's good performance will turn out to have been a bit illusory. We were extremely lucky to experience a significant terms of trade increase from ~2003 onwards, as world iron ore and coal prices increased.

Unfortunately for us, we pissed all that windfall up against a wall. I don't think we posted a current account surplus at all throughout the resources boom years. Instead, Australian banks borrowed money from overseas to lend to Australians so they could sell houses to each other for ever increasing amounts every year. The Australian economy grew because we borrowed from overseas. Existing property owners got to feel richer. As soon as we start to pay back all the debt in a significant way, our economy will shrink. Just as the dependent to worker ratio has peaked. We will have nothing to show for it. Certainly not fast internets.

<comment><USER39> >Australian banks borrowed money from overseas to lend to Australians so they could sell houses to each other for ever increasing amounts every year. The Australian economy grew because we borrowed from overseas. Existing property owners got to feel richer. As soon as we start to pay back all the debt in a significant way, our economy will shrink.

Sounds like the exact same finance became dominant in every other Western economy.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER40> I was raised in New Zealand, and spent the first half of my life (so far) there. I'm now happily raising a family in Melbourne, Australia. Some observations:

\- many of the people I knew in IT in New Zealand have left, especially for Australia; when I was there, this was known as the 'brain drain'

\- growing up in New Zealand, there was a strong anti-intellectual current to the culture, especially amongst Maori students (I came top in my year for Maori language despite there being fluent speakers in my school, because I did assignments and they didn't)

\- successful people in New Zealand are often criticised because of their success; this is known as 'tall poppy syndrome'

\- New Zealand is, politically speaking, entirely socialist; even their 'right wing' party is in favour of a welfare state, taxpayer-funded education and healthcare, and a wide range of 'sin taxes' and legislation designed to protect people from themselves (a.k.a. the 'Nanny State' to its critics)

\- Universities there simply aren't as demanding as overseas; my wife cross- credited a psych. degree from Australia, and she was more than half way through a NZ undergrad degree after one year of a degree in Australia

Note that I haven't listed NZ's many positive characteristics. Just saying that all of the above contribute to an environment that in my experience is less productive and less entrepreneurial than Australia.

</comment><comment><USER41> In New Zealand's technology sector, you're pretty much groomed to expect to have to move overseas to achieve anything worth something. All through university it was reiterated to me that I should move overseas to get the job I want and the money I want.

The problem is, this behavior is down to the fact that it's true, you do have to leave NZ to get anywhere in life (for the most part, unless you're happy only hitting it small). The most desirable companies to work for in the technology sector of NZ are essentially Xero and Vend right now, with your other choices being large corporates (Fujitsu, Datacom) or very small early stage startups with small amounts capital.

Startups don't thrive particularly well in New Zealand either, because there's nobody with enough capital to invest in them, so they often don't survive long enough or seek capital from overseas (like Xero/Vend, again, the exception to the rule).

The only natural thing to do is to move to a country with (a) more money, (b) more incentives, (c) more interesting work/problems to solve. The government of New Zealand does little to improve the situation and does not care about the technology sector much, doesn't work hard on getting better internet (we only have one cable to the outside world, and it's expensive to get bandwidth on it!) and doesn't encourage new, young companies to found here.

We just don't have much going for us here, in general, in the technology sector, but it's starting to change with initiatives like this from local government at least: [http://hightechcapital.co.nz](http://hightechcapital.co.nz)

It's sad. I wish the government would focus directly on optimizing NZ for technology companies, improve the internet, foster and encourage them (maybe even invest in them), help them get started in the world and meet investors. Some initiatives exist, like the Kiwi Landing Pad, but it's just not good enough yet.

<comment><USER18> I'll slip in the (in)famous Muldoon quote on the brain drain. He commented on smart Kiwis leaving for Australia, saying it raises the IQ of both countries. The political solutions haven't got much better of late, and despite PM Key trumpeting how bad the brain drain is, he hasn't done much to halt with his years in power. He has possibly exacerbated it. [http://i.stuff.co.nz/national/7779840/Key-changes-tack- with-...](http://i.stuff.co.nz/national/7779840/Key-changes-tack-with-brain- exchange-tag)

[http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_Zealand_humour](http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_Zealand_humour)

</comment></comment><comment><USER42> I grew up in Christchurch, NZ.

90% of my friends immediately left the country after university. This is mostly due to low income employment and lack of potential career development.

Like most kiwis I moved to Australia (two and a half years ago now), my income increased by 50% just by making the move. People in Australia (Melbourne) also seem a lot happier and successful (by their own measures, whatever they might be).

For my friends and I, other than the beautiful landscape there wasn't much holding us to New Zealand and quality of life is better in Australia.

<comment><USER42> Oh I should have mentioned that New Zealand does indeed have much better technological infrastructure than Australia though, two years after moving to central(ish) Melbourne the maximum internet speed is less than 1/10th what we had back in New Zealand years ago.

</comment></comment><comment><USER43> > Most of the rest of New Zealand's productivity gap…appears to come from an > underinvestment in knowledge-based capital.

I'm from the 'West Island' (Australia) but the culture is very similar. Money is made from physical things, technology is a semi necessary, semi dubious expense that should only exist as part of 'doing real things'. This is one reason a lot of Australians and Kiwis who have an interest in technology leave.

</comment><comment><USER44> It might be because when you live in paradise money does not have the same value and productivity does not limited to renumerated work.

</comment><comment><USER45> There's not much R&D because people who do that leave to go overseas ;)

</comment><comment><USER46> Because kiwis are too cool to worry too much about money and productivity.

</comment><comment><USER47> Because of Kim Dot Com.

</comment><comment><USER48> Singapore is also a tiny island with a limited population that has to import most everything. Over 40 years they've somehow created a culture of hard- working over-achievers and have one of the highest GDPs per capita in the world (they're currently #3). Being dependent on imported goods doesn't seem to be much of a problem here, so perhaps the secret lies in their carefully planned cultural shift. (But if it were me, I'd much rather be a Kiwi with a lower income and laid back lifestyle than a Singaporean with high expectations and a life of hard work).

<comment><USER49> Singapore is not nearly as isolated as NZ is. It's on a major ocean shipping lane and is just a bridge away from Malaysia. The problem isn't that NZ is reliant on imports (all countries are to a degree), it's that it is expensive to ship things there since it is out-of-the-way.

That being said, there probably is also a cultural element. I wouldn't really say it was a cultural shift. It's more that the relative stability and increasing globalization in the latter half of the 20th century gave Singaporeans the opportunity to realize their entrepreneurial ambitions.</comment></comment>


Fast food calories per dollar - <AUTHOR> http://reflectionof.me/fast-food-calories-per-dollar-0

<comment><USER2> I bet you could do a lot better with the dollar menu. Donuts might also get higher calories for dollar.

I wonder how Ramen compares? Or rice?

</comment><comment><USER3> This is interesting, but unless your goal is to get fat on the cheap, I'm not sure what you can do with the information.</comment>


Ask HN: In Washington DC till jan 3rd. Meetup? - <AUTHOR> I'm in Washington DC till jan 3rd and I'd love to meet some of the entrepeneurs / startups around here.<p>Is there any startup drinks organized here? <comment><USER2> There used to be an HN DC meetup but it seems to have become inactive:

[http://www.meetup.com/JoinHFDC/](http://www.meetup.com/JoinHFDC/)

<comment><AUTHOR> That's too bad realy..

I think I'll just contact a few startups around here to see what they're up to</comment></comment>


Bithacks.h - bit hack macros - <AUTHOR> http://www.catonmat.net/blog/bit-hacks-header-file/

<comment><USER2> Whenever I need to do bit manipulations, I always check the Linux kernel source. I figure that any bit manipulation I'd ever want to do is also done in the kernel, and I'm usually right:

[http://miller.cs.wm.edu/lxr3.linux/http/source/include/linux...](http://miller.cs.wm.edu/lxr3.linux/http/source/include/linux/bitops.h?v=22.214.171.124)

[http://miller.cs.wm.edu/lxr3.linux/http/source/include/linux...](http://miller.cs.wm.edu/lxr3.linux/http/source/include/linux/bitmap.h?v=184.108.40.206)

[http://miller.cs.wm.edu/lxr3.linux/http/source/lib/bitmap.c?...](http://miller.cs.wm.edu/lxr3.linux/http/source/lib/bitmap.c?v=126.96.36.199)

<comment><AUTHOR> These are great, I had forgotten about them!

<comment><USER2> The Linux kernel is a fantastic resource. Any time I need to do some systems programming that I haven't done before, I check to see how it's done in the kernel.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> Another related bit twiddling resource: <http://graphics.stanford.edu/~seander/bithacks.html>.

The comments accompanying the code are interesting too.

</comment><comment><USER4> Another great resource for tidbits like this is _Hacker's Delight_, by Henry S. Warren, Jr. It covers a number of other tricks outside of bit twiddling, as well. Worth checking out for anyone who finds this sort of stuff fascinating.

Link: [http://www.amazon.com/Hackers-Delight-Henry-S- Warren/dp/0201...](http://www.amazon.com/Hackers-Delight-Henry-S- Warren/dp/0201914654)

</comment><comment><USER5> anybody interested should probably consider hakmem, too. <http://inwap.com/pdp10/hbaker/hakmem/hakmem.html>

and probably alan mycrofts more useful c-interpretation: <http://www.cl.cam.ac.uk/~am21/hakmemc.html>

</comment><comment><USER6> For this sort of thing, it would seem helpful to release it under "any license viewed as free by the FSF" or similar. Is that sort of statement likely to cause problems? Or at least license it MIT/BSD/whatever. For such a small piece, it would be nice if projects can just import it without having to move from "all code is BSD" to "all code is BSD except bithacks.h which is MIT, but we also comply with that license".

<comment><AUTHOR> MIT license is compatible with BSD and GPL licenses, so I don't see a big issue there. But I could put it in public domain, so that there were no license issues at all.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> So this is nice, but is it super fast/efficient? It would seem to me that this sort of thing is where inline assembly, on a per processor basis, would really make a huge difference. Is this sort of thing well enough known that compilers already do it for us? Anyone know a lot about this sort of thing?

<comment><USER8> In general, this will probably get you close to maximum performance. Most CPUs implement shift, rotate, AND, OR, XOR, and NOT instructions, and usually not much else in the way of bit manipulation (besides maybe a few very specialized intrinsics for popular encryption algorithms/hash functions (see SSE)). DSPs and more domain-specific microcontrollers generally have more bit-banging instructions, and you might be able to make better use of them with assembly or intrinsics.

A smart compiler could theoretically transform your crappy implementation of "is the Nth bit set?" into something more intelligent, but it is rarely profitable enough to do so, as programmers who write code in which bit-banging is the bottleneck typically know how to do this themselves; in fact, most of the macros linked are what I consider to be the most parsimonious implementation.

One thing where an intrinsic will definitely beat a C-level implementation is population count (how many bits are set in this int/long?) Many recent x86 parts and many DSPs implement a POPCOUNT/BC instruction which will outperform even a smart LUT-based implementation (without the memory capacity/bandwidth requirement too). There's an interesting anecdote about that instruction here (<http://www.moyogo.com/blog/2005/09/secret-opcodes.html> ), no idea if it's true.

<comment><USER7> Thanks for the good reply!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Catonmat never fails in fascinating me, regardless of how stupid this may sound, the more unpopular the language he implements his tutorial/illustration in, the more I realize how unimportant the language actually is. As long as we can/are reuse/reusing what we write, we can rest in the idea that what we do/did now/before actually matters for what we can/are do/doing in the future/present.

<comment><USER10> As languages go C may be a lot of things but I don't think you can call it "unpopular".

<comment><USER11> Indeed. I'm always surprised at the number of people I meet (and, distressingly, the number of posters on this site) that honestly believe that "most" software is written by web geeks or IT droids in scripting languages or Java or .NET.

That, and the fact that this belief persists as they turn off their digital televisions, click their garage door remotes, text a friend on their phone, fire up the engine in their personal vehicle, and drive to work stopping carefully at all the carefully automated traffic lights, swipe their ID card and sit at their desk where they can _finally_ get to see some software.

<comment><USER2> Quoth a friend of mine who is a computer engineer at GE, "Java doesn't keep the lights on."</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Sun's StartupCamp 2 - <AUTHOR> http://www.startupcamp.org/ <comment><AUTHOR> May 7, 2007 in San Francisco (just before JavaOne (good or bad :-))

Also note that it's being run more or less as an Open Space conference.</comment>


Hash Bang Null Hack: pass 2+ args when 1 allowed - <AUTHOR> http://nongnu.org/txr/txr-manpage.html#N-01DF6FA2 <comment><AUTHOR> Synopsis of the idea:

       #!/path/to/interpreter one-allowed-arg<NUL>trailing material<LF>

The kernel is written in C, and so its hash bang mechanism only sees "#!/path/to/interpreter one-allowed-arg".

The interpreter executes with that argument, and then opens the script, looks for the NUL character in the first line and retrieves and parses the additional arguments { "trailing", "material" }, combining them into { "one- allowed-arg", "trailing", "material" }.

Advantage: this can be retrofitted into just about any interpreter without disturbing the language. Alternatives like encoding the extra args on the following line are more disruptive.

Tested on Linux, MacOS, Solaris and Cygwin.</comment>


The smug style in American liberalism - <AUTHOR> http://www.vox.com/2016/4/21/11451378/smug-american-liberalism <comment><USER2> It's hard for me to know what to think about this article because the author doesn't make his position clear. He says liberals are wrong to think that conservatives make decisions against their own best interests because they are stupid.

Does the author think that conservative decisions are in fact in their own best interests? Or does he agree with liberals that the decisions are foolish, but thinks conservatives make such mistakes for some other reason than a lack of intelligence? Or perhaps some other position?

This matters, because what liberals should be doing differs considerably for each case.

<comment><USER3> "If the smug [liberal] style can be reduced to a single sentence, it's, Why are [conservatives] voting against their own self-interest? But no party these past decades has effectively represented the interests of these dispossessed. Only one has made a point of openly disdaining them too."

His position is that neither party represents the economic concerns of the 99%. But only one will express open disdain for people who try to hang on to traditional values -- and generate mobs cheering and (often successfully) pushing for various sanctions against them like the imprisoning of Kim Davis (cited in this article) or the forced resignation of JavaScript creator Brendan Eich as Mozilla CEO due to his personal support of California Proposition 8.

The failure of empathy in American left is staggering, and it's something I've been quite worried about for several years now. This article is very good at expressing exactly what the problem is.

"I am suggesting that [liberals] wonder what it might be like to have little left but one's values; to wake up one day to find your whole moral order destroyed; to look around and see the representatives of a new order call you a stupid, hypocritical hick...To work with people who do not share their values or their tastes, who do not live where they live or like what they like or know their Good Facts or their jokes."</comment></comment>


Slick or Slack? (HotorNot for code)  - <AUTHOR> http://www.chadfowler.com/2008/4/1/slick-or-slack <comment><USER2> Interesting implementation. I tried to build a social code site (<http://www.usethesource.com/>) but it didn't really take off.

</comment><comment><USER3> Why this method of voting works so well for photos on likebetter.com is that you can make split second decisions. I'm not convinced that this would be all that "fun".

</comment><comment><USER4> It would be cooler if it integrated with <http://codepad.org/>

</comment><comment><USER5> I don't know if I love this or hate it.

Sometimes I'm afraid if I look at enough "slack code", I may go blind.</comment>


45 Useful JavaScript Tips, Tricks and Best Practices - <AUTHOR> http://flippinawesome.org/2013/12/23/45-useful-javascript-tips-tricks-and-best-practices/

<comment><USER2> 12\. No! That is not a good shuffle. Search for "javascript shuffle" to find a correct Fisher-Yates implementation.</comment>


Show HN: CSS and SVG Hello World Animation – Earth and Moon Rotating Around Sun - <AUTHOR> https://codepen.io/conrad-sollitt/pen/MWKKzjx <comment><USER2> "not to scale" ... cool thing, nice animation

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks, yep not to scale and in fact I just made up the land on the planet as it ended up looking better when I kept it simple.</comment></comment>


Good engineering managers don't do one job–they have three - <AUTHOR> http://qz.com/365469/good-engineering-managers-dont-do-one-job-they-have-three

<comment><USER2> The headline used the wrong terminology. The article, which is an interview with Jessica McKellar, quotes her as saying:

> "When engineering management is done right, you're focusing on three big > things," she says. "You're directly supporting the people on your team; > you're managing execution and coordination across teams; and you're stepping > back to observe and evolve the broader organization and its processes as it > grows."

It's better to say that an engineering manager has three _roles_ , not three _jobs_.

Also, the original article is at [http://firstround.com/review/this-is-what- impactful-engineer...](http://firstround.com/review/this-is-what-impactful- engineering-leadership-looks-like/) and is titled "This Is What Impactful Engineering Leadership Looks Like"

Were it up to me, I would change the link to the original source and title.</comment>


Ask HN: What's your #1 pain point when asking for a raise? - <AUTHOR> I'm creating a "stress-free" guide to salary negotiation for software engineers, and I'd love to know what those in this community feel has been the biggest pain in the butt or burning question when it comes to getting a raise.<p>I'll reply with advice to your questions here as well (I've helped hundreds of SEs already, but want to do more research), thanks for taking the time to help me out! <comment><USER3> I get a raise every year without asking. I frequently get offers from other companies that are willing to pay me much more than I currently make. The biggest stress is that I don't want a raise.

What I want is to work less. I currently work slightly less than 40 hours a week, and have a few weeks of vacation. Ideally I would like to work 4 or fewer days per week and have 5+ weeks of vacation time per year. I have attempted to negotiate this with my current employer as well as potential ones. I have never been successful. Everyone wants me to waste my life away sitting at a desk in their office.

TL;DR: How do I successfully negotiate more time off instead of more money?

<comment><USER4> Become an independent consultant/contractor.

<comment><USER3> Does that come with health insurance and a 401k? I'm very risk averse.

<comment><AUTHOR> No, you can usually increase your billable rate to make up for that difference. If for example your current salary would be $100k/2080 (work hours in a year) you'd be getting paid $48/hr. You'd likely set your contracting rate at at least $60/hr to make up for the difference or no PTO, insurance, 401k, etc.

<comment><USER5> Also in the US, tack on an additional 7.65% for Social Security and Medicare taxes that would normally be paid by the employer, which is now technically yourself.

<comment><USER6> > Social Security and Medicare taxes

Why do they show up as being deducted from your salary in your statements then?

<comment><AUTHOR> Because as a W2 employee you pay half and your employer pays half. As a W9 employee (contractor), you pay both.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> "I really appreciate the work you do and think you do deserve a 20% bump, but I am confident HR will shut this down becase of [budget/end of year/upcoming org changes/bad lunch yesterday]. We'll do our best and get back to you [soon/never]."

Another big one is the "We are locked by HR on base comp, but we'll be sure to make you whole at year end!". When year end comes you dont get paid anyway (if they know you won't leave).

Would love to find a stress free counter to these :)

EDIT: Ultimately, IMO, you must be ready to walk out when negotiating a raise. Otherwise you won't get anything material.

<comment><USER8> > you must be ready to walk out when negotiating a raise

This. Otherwise they can say any sad story or excuse and make you stay forever without a raise...

<comment><AUTHOR> In smaller companies where decision makers are usually more empathetic towards the employee, there are various other ways you can get them to move without having to use an external offer as leverage. At bigger companies that are more restricted by process, they do this for a reason and ultimately data speaks louder than words. Assuming you've exhausted the usual strategy of establishing your value that is not fully compensated and they're just not moving, if you have a competing offer for $20k more, they now have no choice but to increase the urgency with how they approach you up the chain.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> I'm not sure if this is addressing the question precisely, but I think it's relevant. One of the main things I've learned over the years is that _you_ have to be your own advocate when it comes to raises/promotions. I've known a lot of developers who became disgruntled over years because they didn't think the company was taking the initiative and giving them what they thought they're worth.

It wasn't until it sunk into my head that, generally speaking, there's an inherent conflict of interest between employer and employee. The employer wants to get the best bang for their buck; have talented people work for them at the lowest reasonable price. On the opposite end, the employee obviously wants to get paid the most they can get. It's because of this that (most of the time) an employer won't proactively seek out reasons to pay you more. Once I truly realized this, I became a stronger advocate for myself (because nobody else will be). This is usually the advice I give to younger developers who are working their way up the latter.. aside from saying that you should actually build your case for why a raise/promotion is appropriate. Do the work - <USER2> more than is expected of you - and be your own advocate.

<comment> a-priori Yes, this conflict exists. On the other hand, if a large gap appears between an employees' salaries and their market rate, that increases the company's turnover.

Turnover is very expensive, somewhere between 6 months and 2 years of salary per employee that turns over. So an employer should proactively offer raises to keep their employees' salaries near market rate and help avoid turnover costs.

It's short-sighted to keep salaries low. That's not to say companies don't do short-sighted things though...

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> True story. I was earning £50,000 in London ~ 6 years ago. I asked for a £10K raise after I'd been given more responsibilities and had taken up mentoring duties too. I was given a £5K bonus and told to wait until year end for a £5K salary rise. I wasn't satisfied but was informed that HR had overruled the dev manager. I was offered a lucrative contract as a freelancer, so I resigned. I was immediately offered £70K, another bonus and an improved benefits package, because HR has called my bluff and got it wrong. I walked. Never looked back. Process. It's a killer.

</comment><comment><USER11> I need "real" salary data for my area. Both as someone who asks for raises & gives them.

<comment><USER12> [https://www.glassdoor.com/index.htm](https://www.glassdoor.com/index.htm) and [https://www.onetonline.org](https://www.onetonline.org) have always been reliable data points. I do find that they are typically 10% lower than what I've been offered for various positions and 20% lower than what I was able to negotiate for.

<comment><USER13> Last time I was looking into it, Glassdoor didn't seem to do a good job of covering bonuses and stock grants, which are very important factors.

<comment><USER12> That's true for larger companies like Facebook and Google that grant stock and other forms of comp. But for most companies you're primarily compensated through a salary.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> As a person who decides salary and raise and bonus I would like to hear about your impact. Many requests are because "you need it" or its what's paid elsewhere.

Open with: I built the good thing that saves us $5k/mo. My design is clean and easy for a new guy to maintain. My work-product is obviously valuable and from that I deserve financial recognition.

When I used to negotiate my own salary I used that approach. one time (in 2001) it worked to take my salary up by $3k/mo - I had only been there 3 months.

Be prepared to walk. Remember that recruiters can get you a new gig in weeks. Hold that for 6mo while finding the right one

</comment><comment><USER15> I think "having to ask" is the #1 pain point.

Money is usually not a topic people are comfortable talking about.

<comment><USER16> This is bang on. Anyone here willing to share how you convince yourself to ask for a pay raise?

<comment><USER17> Know that you deserve it. I keep an up to date LinkedIn profile, and when recruiters contact me I ask them if the position they're hiring for will pay more than a certain figure (my benchmark is usually 50% more than my current annual salary). Your benchmark value may be higher or lower, but either way it should help you gauge market conditions.

Also when you're taking a broader market into consideration, be sure to consider quality of life. Yes I may get more money somewhere, but it might be a miserable product/team/culture which reduces the value of that position. Or I might have a shorter commute, fewer hours or more vacation, which would add to the value of the other position.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> Here is my current situation. I don't know if it'll help much.

I got a job about 4 years ago as a software engineer which required my wife and I to move to a new state (away from family). I actually wanted to move out of state which is why I applied for the job in the first place. We had no commitments. We lived in a small modest apartment. The first two years I received a raise and a bonus without me having to negotiate at all.

Within the past two years however, we bought our first house and had our first child. I have not received a raise or bonus these past two years. Now is the time I actually need it.

I fell into the trap. They were willing to pay to keep me here but now that I'm stuck here, they don't need to offer me an incentive to stay. I've lost my leverage when I bought a house and had a kid.

<comment><USER8> If you are good at what you are doing, make sure you have saved money for at least 3 months of living. That is your leverage back. Then ask for a raise - if they keep saying "it's not the best time for the company" and other bs, just quit. Go to a nice vacation, refresh your mind and start looking for something new. If you don't feel secure about finding a new job start looking now, before you even ask for a raise. That should make you more confident.

<comment><USER19> Why burn an income when the situation doesn't seem dire yet? Take the vacation, come back refreshed, if things are still not good enough, start looking, but keep your paycheck.

Many people assume that not being local to the company is a non-starter. My experience has been that companies will make a lot of things happen for the right fit. Network, talk to people and see if you can fill the need that company has.

<comment><USER8> Of course you can do that, but in my opinion that just delays the change. If your company hesitate to give you a raise I doubt you will increase your chances by taking holidays.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> Do I openly say that I've been interviewing, received job offers, etc?

<comment><USER7> Although i would argue that asking for a raise should always come first, before interviewing. If it doesn't happen you do interview and leave the company.

It is also good to interview occasionally to simply know your current market rate. If you're already got offers though, it sounds like you know it as is.

<comment><AUTHOR> Exactly. You don't want them to feel like you're overly mercinary and didn't even give them a chance to fix the problem by just being open about how you feel you're not being paid what you're worth. There is a LOT that goes into that first conversation being an effective one and even more that goes into the follow up. But absent progress, ultimately highest leverage way to get them to move is to objectively establish your value with a competing offer. The largest raises I've ever seen have come on the heels of informing your company about another offer, but that's only valuable to you in THIS job if you're wanderlust hasn't already taken full root.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> \- Just like a job interview, you need to anticipate the questions / objections that might be brought up, and prepare to pre-empt them.

could be something random where you dropped the ball on something in the past year, and you almost forgot about it, but it would be brought in the review process.

</comment><comment><USER22> It's something I've long since learned to get past but when I was first starting out the biggest pain point was learning that I _am_ worth getting the top end of the market salary for what I do not the low or mid range of the market salary.

It didn't really get better till I learned that if necessary I could always get a raise by switching companies.

If I could sum it up I would say the biggest pain point was knowing my own worth in the market.

<comment><USER16> How did you figure out which salary bracket you fit into?

<comment><USER22> I picked the bracket that was 1 higher than the one I "felt" like I was in. Human Beings tend to lowball ourselves. After a few times of doing this and seeing them meet your price though you start to get a sense of your own worth.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> I have worked mainly at nonprofits. Some of them with lots of money, some with hardly any, but salaries are always taken from a relatively fixed budget. I've been fortunate that I've rarely had to ask for raises, but my eagerness to ask for more has absolutely been suppressed by the knowledge that if I got it, someone else wouldn't. (Sometimes my salary is coming from the same pool as my team's, even).

</comment><comment><USER24> How can I negotiate a salary raise if my Manager isn't the person who decides whether to make the raise or not?

He only makes recommendations and more often than not those recommendations are not listened to by central HQ. Should I ask to talk with the section director? What is a viable strategy in this case? I am preparing a viable BATNA at the moment.

In any case I'm very interested in those recommendations!!

</comment><comment><USER25> Knowing what other companies are actually offering for compensation without actually pursuing an offer. Sites like salary.com and glassdoor are helpful but I don't have a ton of faith in their numbers.

EDIT: I want to be certain what I think and claim is market rate is in fact market rate.

</comment><comment><USER26> for me, its the realization that if i don't get what I want, i risk feeling disheartened about my job in the future - especially if its a job i enjoy.

there is a risk/reward benefit that one enters by asking for a raise, where if all things were to stay the same, I could walk away relatively unscathed.

this could change depending on whether or not you were asking for a raise because you feel you deserve it, financial necessity, or both.

</comment><comment><USER27> Great initiative mate, looking forward to this :).

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks. Until the party gets started, I wrote a blog post on this a while ago that people seemed to like that you can check out here. :)

[http://www.mgadams.com/2015/06/30/the-software-engineers- gui...](http://www.mgadams.com/2015/06/30/the-software-engineers-guide-to- negotiating-a-raise/)

</comment></comment><comment><USER28> > you must be ready to walk out when negotiating a raise

that's so true...</comment>


Swithu Sharing images, sounds and videos - <AUTHOR> http://swithu.com/

<comment><AUTHOR> This is a site I have been working on for a month or two now.

Looking to get a feedback while I build it. I try to find at least a few hours a day to work on it and would love to implement your ideas.

Thanks</comment>


On React and WordPress - <AUTHOR> https://ma.tt/2017/09/on-react-and-wordpress/ <comment><USER3> It's too bad that this particular point has become an issue with so many good open source projects. I still think that the risk, even for startups considering acquisition exits, is low (see this great post from a patent/IP attorney [1]), but the fact that it's enough to cause players like the ASF and WordPress to move away from it just means fewer players and less innovation in the ecosystem.

IANAL, but I wish the lawyers at Facebook would take one for the team and relax a bit on this (hey, more work for them, a plus!). If you're going to sue Facebook over patent infringement, you're probably going to spend a lot more on the suit itself than the eng costs rewriting a view layer.

[1] [https://firstname.lastname@example.com/react-facebook-and-the- revok...](https://email@example.com/react-facebook-and-the-revokable- patent-license-why-its-a-paper-25c40c50b562)

<comment><USER4> I agree that the risk of running into legal trouble with Facebook is pretty low for many companies. However, that doesn't make it feel any less dirty. It would be nice if the lawyers at Facebook would take a chill pill on this one but that will never happen. It will be interesting to see where OSS projects from Facebook go moving forward given that the noise surrounding their patent clause seems to get louder and louder.

On a side note - I'll bet WordPress get's rewritten in Vue.js

<comment><USER5> Why not Preact? It seems the react compatibility would be very helpful when they already have such a significant investment into react.

<comment><USER6> Personally, I have a hard time imagining that any Facebook patents you use with React wouldn't also apply to Preact.

Then again, I think this whole patents issue is mostly FUD. The number of companies who have to reasonably consider suing Facebook for patent infringement is small and they know who they are.

<comment><USER7> My understanding is that you lose access to React if you sue Facebook over any patents at all, not just ones that may be relative to React.

<comment><USER8> You don't lose access to React. You lose access to any patents in React, but _not_ the copyright. We don't even know of any React patents, so for all we know the entire document does nothing.

<comment><USER9> From Facebook's FAQ about this issue:

"Does termination of the additional patent grant in the Facebook BSD+Patents license cause the copyright license to also terminate?"

"No."

[https://code.facebook.com/pages/850928938376556](https://code.facebook.com/pages/850928938376556)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> People who ridicule the notion of FUD causing actual harm, pay attention: this is a perfect example of the chilling effects of FUD on software projects.

Automattic didn't drop React because it doesn't like the license. Automattic dropped React because the FUD surrounding React's license might rub off on them (and WordPress). It's their right to do so and it's in the best interest of WordPress to avoid being dragged into the patent FUD but it's important to understand that this isn't an act of protest against Facebook, it's FUD in full effect.

<comment><USER11> Comfort can hurt. Automattic is not comfortable with the Facebook license and you say it like it's a baseless FUD but even if they get a 1% chance of going to court against Facebook then they rather not take that risk of litigation anytime in the future. It's a business decision for the long term as rewriting doesn't cost that much for them.

<comment><USER12> So let's see.

1\. Possibility of Automattic attacking FB with patents = 0%. (No issues here with React)

2\. Possibility of FB attacking Automattic with patents (No issues here; Patent grant doesn't get revoked for countersuing).

3\. Wordpress end users getting attacked by FaceBook (Again no issues here, grant doesn't get revoked for countersuing).

4\. Wordpress end users planning to use software patents against FB - The guys who actually have a problem.

So basically, the FUD helped individuals/trolls/companies who want to wield software patents as a weapon; to the detriment of the wider community which sees software patents as evil.

<comment><USER13> > So basically, the FUD helped individuals/trolls/companies who want to wield > software patents as a weapon; to the detriment of the wider community

This is just beyond ridiculous to characterize the FB patents addition as some sort of social good needed in the battle against patent litigation, like they are doing everyone a favour. The patents addition in the license is there to protect FB's interests. Words that specifically benefit the interests of a megacorp do not belong in an open source license meant to be used by everyone and anyone. It sets a terrible precedent that can be used to justify a whole range of different companies adding their own clauses, each of which that can be plausibly argued for. And all of that requires other companies to conduct legal counsel, altering which companies would be adopting WordPress - <USER2> a kind of decision making process and barrier that few if any in WP would or should desire. And it's not even worth it considering there are equally attractive alternatives out there.

<comment><USER14> Sadly there's not. I like Vue, but it doesn't have the maturity or ecosystem of React. Plus React Native is a great addition to open source that Vue has yet to fully counter. There's also GraphQL, which is published by this license as well. Lots of great, revolutionary tech impacted by this license.

<comment><USER13> WordPress is looking for a way to create modern interfaces in a more streamlined way and are looking for a tool to make that easy. Any number of libraries and frameworks are perfectly viable or can be made viable, most of which are operating from the same set of ideas while delivering the same benefits.

The size of React's ecosystem, bus factor and the availability of React Native all are nice but overstated in their importance relative to alternatives and obscure the many other considerations the WP community weighs up.

Further more, React's ecosystem size conveys marginal benefits given that use of React in core would have been constrained (it's not like core devs would be tapping into many additional React-based tools for core work).

React Native has not proven itself to be as stellar and promotes lock-in. If we come to rely on additional FB-engineered architecture to such a degree WP bets its future on the decisions made by a corporate giant with goals very dissimilar to WP and with decisions that may change down the line. This idea that FB has somehow has the closest thing to the holy grail and so we must all jump aboard the FB train is a very foolish and shortsighted one in my view. WP was wise not to adopt it.

<comment><USER14> Wordpress itself depends on its ecosystem of plugins to make it so powerful. React is no different. There are 40,000 packages on NPM for React. That's something no other JS library comes close to save for JQuery. That does matter. I think Vue may very well get there some day. It's just not there yet. Maybe the WordPress support would be enough to take it mainstream.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> >> rewrite Gutenberg using a different library. It will likely delay Gutenberg at least a few weeks

I love this. How many times in my career have I heard "the rewrite will take us <some short period of time>". Good luck with that estimate.

<comment><USER16> We've migrated reasonably large React projects to Preact using the amazing preact-compat : [https://www.npmjs.com/package/preact- compat](https://www.npmjs.com/package/preact-compat) \-- it was really as simple as wiring aliases in the webpack config!

<comment><USER17> Isn't it unclear if preact violates Facebook's patents?

<comment><USER16> The current understanding is that none of the patents in the portfolio currently covers React (and by extension, preact). But flipping the switch would satisfy the first-order requirement of not imposing the FB patent grant upon users of WP

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> Lawyers. They sure are spoiling the success for the React folks. You can bet Facebook has alot of them and you can bet their political influence is strong with the upper management.

Lawyer: "this thing, this point in the contract, it's VERY VERY important". The more lawyers you get in the room, the more beard pulling, wailing and hand wringing there would be about the dire, dire consequences of taking this stupid clause out. And of course the world would come to an end if no-one listened to lawyers.

After I fucked several business deals listening to lawyers say how contracts should be changed, I decided to make my own decisions about what matters and what doesn't in a contract.

The real problem for ReactJS is that someone at facebook is listening to the lawyers wring their hands about some possible future that will never happen. facebook should just grow up and tell its lawyers to shut up and go back to doing.... whetever it is they do.

<comment><USER6> > some possible future that will never happen

Facebook has been subject to numerous patent litigations and is very likely to be involved in future patent litigations. Maintaining a defensive patent portfolio is an important part of preparing for such litigations, so Facebook's lawyers certainly aren't idly protecting their patents.

<comment><USER18> But that's irrelevant here. FB is likely getting sued by patent holding companies who aren't reliant on or using React. So the patent clause doesn't really get FB anything against patent trolls.

It does get them leverage against legitimate patent holders. There have been reports of companies having to pay in some roundabout unspecified way royalties to FB for React as part of a large patent licensing deal.

I'm somewhat skeptical of these reports, but if there is direct revenue to FB from this clause it would be the Occam's Razor explanation for their intransigence.

<comment><USER6> The patent clause isn't designed to give Facebook leverage. It's designed to grant patents _unless_ you sue them. Even though patent trolls don't use React, Facebook wants to ensure that they don't grant patent licenses to patent trolls.

> There have been reports of companies having to pay in some roundabout > unspecified way royalties to FB for React as part of a large patent > licensing deal.

If you can provide any direct evidence of that, I'd be fascinated. I highly suspect it's FUD.

<comment><USER19> But Facebook can infringe on your patents if they know you have a heavy dependency on React. They won't sue, just infringe. And you won't be able to sue them with zero losses, you will lose at minimum React.

<comment><USER20> No, you'll only lose the _patent_ license for React, leaving you with exactly the same _copyright_ license you would have had with plain BSD. There is no scenario in which the PATENTS file (not clause) enables Facebook to infringe on others' patents any more than they would have been able to do with plain BSD. If you think this makes using React risky, then you'd also have to believe that using thousands of other BSD-licensed projects has been risky for years. That is, if you want to be logically or legally consistent.

This "adds risk" argument is very familiar from other FUD campaigns (e.g. Microsoft's) against open source in general. It's pretty weird to see people who claim to believe in open source pushing arguments that work against most open source.

<comment><USER21> Seems that the real issue is that Facebook asserts/implies they have patents relevant to React, and that they are willing to enforce them in court under certain conditions. This creates an uncertain situation. The patent grant helps somewhat, but limits your freedom of action should Facebook e.g. steal your technology. Look at the four possible scenarios:

        Facebook | Your Company | Outcome

        Grants patents conditionally | Does not sue Facebook | Things hum along nicely
        Grants patents conditionally | Sues Facebook | You're liable for patent infringement
        Doesn't grant patents | Does not sue Facebook | You're liable for patent infringement
        Doesn't grant patents | Sues Facebook | You're liable for patent infringement

The patent grant is fine if you think you'll never, ever want to sue Facebook. But should a dispute arise, you'll quickly find the technological rug pulled out from under you. You've now built your entire business on Facebook's asserted IP and have no recourse but to license it or try (futilely) to defend your infringement in court.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> It's getting hard to recommend React when the company controlling it clearly has threatening licensing ideas.

Better use something else open source or just pay a license fee to someone for a clearly licensed commercial framework.

<comment><USER23> I don't understand this: how are you not strictly better off with the patent grant? This whole fiasco seems to be nothing but FUD. See [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14780979](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14780979)

tl;dr:

        License with no patent grant: Facebook can sue you for infringing patents,
        even if you are using a clone!
        License with patent grant: Facebook cannot sue you for infringing patents,
        unless you do it first.

<comment><USER24> The patent grant isn't the problem it's the termination on any action against Facebook. Hence if Facebook infringes on patents you own you can't take action against them if you are using React.

<comment><USER25> It's not "termination on any action against Facebook", the termination is only for:

1\. filing a patent infringement against Facebook (for anything, related or unrelated to React)

2\. filing a patent infringement counterclaim against Facebook for patents _related to React_ (after Facebook have first filed a patent infringement claim against you for patents on anything)

3\. filing a patent infringement against _anyone_ for patents _related to React_

[edit]

> if Facebook infringes on patents you own you can't take action against them > if you are using React.

You can take action against them, you just don't have a patent grant once you do.

<comment><USER24> > You can take action against them, you just don't have a patent grant once > you do.

Which opens you up to being countered-sued right? It seems that this leaves Facebook to freely infringe on any patents of React users without consequence.

<comment><USER25> Only if they have a patent on [edit: something in] React, or on anything else that you use (regardless of it's from Facebook)

[edit2]

Also, patent lawsuits are costly. If you're going to start one against Facebook the cost of switching away from React first would be negligible.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> The Drupal community struggled a bit with the decision as well (see [https://www.drupal.org/node/2645250](https://www.drupal.org/node/2645250)). It seems there are a number of open source communities and enterprise development shops who are just not comfortable with the patent clause. React had a lot of momentum, but it seems alternatives like Vue.js are going to be the long-term winners in terms of being 'the next jQuery' in terms of longevity as a front end standard.

<comment><USER27> The next jquery will be probably Polymer (since it is a library). VueJS/Angular are bigger frameworks.

<comment><USER28> I very much agree with this. Web components are usable in and out of any framework and once browser support will be there I think they'll be huge. Until then, Polymer helps fill in the missing pieces.

Reminds me of jQuery before browser vendors integrated things like selector querying.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER29> I'm willing to bet $100 they will switch to Vue. It's similar to react (which they want), arguably easier to learn, and the WordPress community comes from a php background, which has already embraced Vue. This is a big plus for plugin developers.

<comment><USER30> Vue would be great but preact seems to be a viable option too. Even riot could ..

<comment><USER31> As other commenters have mentioned - if your project violates React patents, and you switch to Preact, it almost certainly continues to violate those same patents.

<comment><USER32> Vue is also based on React, it uses the same exact principles internally, although in a less concise and more complex way as it leans heavily in Angulars direction on the outside. All templates are either transpiled or evaluated into createElement-like functions, from then on it has a v-dom and works/diffs/renders/composes like React.

This could "violate a react patent" according to you:

      const Test = () => createElement("div", null, "hello word")

No one has ever seen nor referenced a patent for this, but if we're really at that point then i'm afraid everything would violate such a patent.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER33> Fear. Uncertainty. Doubt.

Many trumpet the problems with patent infringement cases, particularly in the odd calculations of "damages one would have avoided if the infringement potential were known". Few trumpet the real cases of fear, uncertainty, or doubt killing business opportunities. Acquisitions are called off when the IP review finds GPL in a product, or your proprietary networking technology losing its patent protection to Amazon (because someone signed up for AWS for a month, years ago).

I believe WordPress made the correct leap not to embrace a "license taint" that would smell bad to cautious users.

<comment><USER22> AWS dropped that patent clause a couple of months ago, apparently ([https://www.geekwire.com/2017/amazon-web-services-drops- cont...](https://www.geekwire.com/2017/amazon-web-services-drops- controversial-patent-clause-standard-user-agreement/))

</comment></comment><comment><USER34> I'm glad to see this post. People don't like the Facebook license for React and are willing to invest time and money to steer clear of it.

I still don't understand why Facebook changed the RocksDB license so quickly but then took a hard stance on the React license.

<comment><USER35> Because React is far more weaponizable and less niche than RocksDB will ever be.

</comment></comment><comment><USER36> Note that WordPress is ditching React not because they believe there's any problem with React's license and patent grant, but because they think their _users will be confused and angry_.

In other words, the baseless and meritless outcry about a perfectly OK patent grant caused this, not the patent grant itself.

The subject became taboo, like female nipples in America, and WordPress doesn't want anything to do with the nipples of the open source community.

<comment><USER37> >> users will be confused and angry

What an ironic statement, considering that that combination can be lethal to a company.

Besides, have you ever heard anyone say why they prefer to use Facebook even when they are aware that it is tracking their every move? Usually the answer is "convenience". By the same token, not getting confused or angry is also a great convenience to the user. Very few Wordpress users actually care about the baselessness or meritlessness of using one JavaScript library over another. They just want Wordpress to work.

<comment><USER36> I fully agree! I think WordPress made the right move, and I would have done the same in their position. But it's sad that we now have baseless taboos in dev land.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER38> Interestingly, Facebook _did_ remove its PATENTS clause on another project they have recently - zstd - [https://github.com/facebook/zstd/pull/801](https://github.com/facebook/zstd/pull/801)

<comment><USER25> They dual licensed under BSD and GPLv2: [https://github.com/facebook/zstd/issues/335#issuecomment-323...](https://github.com/facebook/zstd/issues/335#issuecomment-323606863)

I expect they did a thorough analysis to work out if any of it was either already patented, or patentable. That doesn't mean they don't have patents though.

</comment></comment><comment><USER39> I understand why Matt came to this decision and ultimately agree with it. As someone who builds products based on WordPres for other companies, I can understand the concern. Imagine I build a site that uses WordPress 4.9 (or whatever release Gutenberg is will come out in) for a startup. Facebook legitimately copies a startup infringing on their patents (think about the Snapchat/Instagram feature battle), and the startup sues Facebook. They then have their react license revoked and can no longer use WordPress. The same thing applies with React native.

On the other hand, I do understand Facebooks reasoning. I'll definitely be watching this over time and hope that a legitimate solution will arise.

</comment><comment><USER40> The last time the PATENTS file was changed was 3 years ago. It has passed the smell test for Microsoft (and dozens of other large companies) with literal buildings full of attorneys who have more experience with licenses, patents and everything between then most.

This issue seems to be a bunch of nothing. What am I missing here?

<comment><USER22> Microsoft probably has a separate IP licensing agreement with Facebook. After all MSFT invested in Facebook in the early days, 10 years ago.

[http://www.nbcnews.com/id/21458486/ns/business- us_business/t...](http://www.nbcnews.com/id/21458486/ns/business- us_business/t/microsoft-invests-million-facebook/)

</comment></comment><comment><USER32> Not a day goes by ... same came up in the project we're working on as our partners got wind of it and are now complaining. It seriously worries me as it's getting harder and harder to justify React although the technology is sound (perhaps close to perfect). The worst part is that this is already threatening v-dom in general (like Preact, Inferno, Vue, etc.) as people are falsely claiming FB holds a claim on it.

The React team should re-think their approach. Is it really worth it to dedicate time and spirit on technology that is dear to us all, that is meant to enable amazing applications, but Facebooks lawyers make it hard for us to use, doesn't even matter if our lawyers understand the patent clause correctly or not because they're the ones having the last say, and as this is snowballing out of control they tend to say no.

Dan, Sebastian, Pete, Jason, Brian, Dominic and so on, wish they'd get together, start a competitor called Fiber, or put FB under severe pressure.

</comment><comment><USER41> > _As our general counsel wrote, we made the decision that we 'd never run > into the patent issue. That is still true today as it was then, and overall, > we've been really happy with React._

Okay.

> _…I 'm here to say that the Gutenberg team is going to take a step back and > rewrite Gutenberg using a different library._

Am I the only one missing the "why"?

> _…passing down to our users._

Is that the "why"? If so, what does he mean by it? Meaning: What is the "danger" that Matt says Automattic will never run into, but that WordPress users will run into?

<comment><USER42> > _Is that the "why"? If so, what does he mean by it? Meaning: What is the > "danger" that Matt says Automattic will never run into, but that WordPress > users will run into?_

He answered that already. He doesn't believe there's much (if any) danger, but:

"we have a lot of problems to tackle, and convincing the world that Facebook's patent clause is fine isn't ours to take on. It's their fight".

So what they don't want to "pass down to [their] users" is not something they believe is an actual danger, but the anxiety about the licensing that users would face and the arguments etc that will erupt over this.

<comment><USER43> In other words they're optimizing for bullshit avoidance - absolutely a valid decision. Or another way to put it would be that they don't want to be in the business of having to sell Facebook's legal turds. ("Sell" as in "persuade people to accept.") There are other client-side frameworks that don't carry that kind of baggage.

Frankly they get bonus points in my book just for the mere act of divesting from something Facebook owns, so that would've been a good enough reason for me. But hey, they also get to retain their right to sue Facebook if needed.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER44> A lot of people here are projecting their dislike of software patents onto this whole issue which is a big mistake.

IANAL but I don't see anywhere in the PATENTS file where it restricts this issue to software patents. In fact it explicitly talks about any software, technology, product or service.

That means you essentially can't sue them over any patent ever. Not just software.

With Facebooks history of "liberal borrowing" when it comes to product, it would be prudent to assume this same strategy might be applied to non-software products and services.

I completely understand why WordPress is doing this. It makes a ton of sense. WordPress powers some ridiculous percentage of the web. They are doing The Right Thing (tm) by not stopping every single one of those users from bringing a patent complaint against Facebook. Software or otherwise.

</comment><comment><USER45> _I 'm here to say that the Gutenberg team is going to take a step back and rewrite Gutenberg using a different library. It will likely delay Gutenberg at least a few weeks, and may push the release into next year._

Just a few weeks? Is it that trivial to swap out a library?

<comment><USER46> The only way I could see them doing it in a few weeks is swapping it out with something with a very similar api like inferno or preact.

</comment></comment><comment><USER47> A candidate I'd consider: Preact. While it doesn't have quite the same support as regular React does, it is touted as having a mostly-compatible API and its license is pure MIT.

</comment><comment><USER48> vue.js will make me want to use Wordpress again

</comment><comment><USER49> This is not an appropriate vector to 'fix' patent law. If you want to fix software patents, it should happen across the board and not by companies selectively weaponizing their projects and polluting the whole ecosystem in the veil of open source contributions.

</comment><comment><USER50> Why does the Facebook license try to push an agenda with a perpendicular concern to the open sourcing of Reactjs? Was the purpose of opensourcing Reactjs a way to not get sued? They lost credibility in my eyes on their intention.

<comment><USER51> There was an article about that recently - it wasn't proactively pushing an agenda so much as, if FB wanted to release any software as OS, without the grant, the lawyers would have had to review every commit to avoid violating someone else's patent.

<comment><USER25> Do you have a link? That would be interesting to read.

<comment><USER52> [https://medium.com/@ji/the-react-license-for-founders-and- ct...](https://medium.com/@ji/the-react-license-for-founders-and- ctos-b38d2538f3e5)

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15214508](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15214508)

<comment><USER25> Thank you very much. That's very informative.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER53> I hope they choose Elm.

<comment><USER14> Elm would be cool, but would probably isolate WordPress from the massive JS community. Community matters.

</comment></comment><comment><USER54> That's why I stopped selling tech.

I say I do mobile apps and not React-Native apps.

Maybe I do then NativeScript next year or PWAs with Angular.

</comment><comment><USER55> I respect their stance, but if I were a contributor I'd be bummed. This issue still strikes me as much ado about nothing.

</comment><comment><USER56> So Calypso, which has been in the works for 2+ years, is going to be completely rewritten?

<comment><USER57> Completely rewritten is a bit of an overstatement. It depends on what road they choose. They could go with a react-API compatible library and the work should be minor. They could go to angular/vue/... which is more work, but they all work component based, so you can keep the entire structure.

</comment></comment><comment><USER58> I don't understand why can't you just replace all React with Preact or Inferno-compat. That would take 2 minutes, wouldn't it?

<comment><USER59> If Facebook has patents covering React, these probably also cover Preact, so you'd actually be in a worse position: Potentially violating patents and not having any sort of grand.

<comment><USER58> How? Isn't Preact totally different? How can Facebook patent other people's code like that?

<comment><USER25> You can patent the idea or algorithm that the code implements, so long as the code isn't old enough to be considered "prior art".

<comment><USER58> So all other frameworks that use the concept of virtual dom are also owned by React?

<comment><USER25> They can only be owned by their copyright holders, which is separate from patents.

If anyone had a patent on virtual dom / diffing, then they could sue anyone else that used an implementation that was implemented in the same way as the implementation in the patent. That doesn't then mean that they "own" those implementations, only that they can use the courts to stop others using them or pay to licence their patent.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER60> Did nobody at Automattic read the licence of react before started using it?

If this is the case, learn from it, please.

</comment><comment><USER61> Too bad I wasn't able to setup Hot Module Reloading yet, otherwise I'd switched to Preact. Not because I am concerned of the license itself, but because we are heading towards an acquisition exit and I don't want that to be a factor - who knows, where we're at in like five years?</comment>


Is Facebook Just a Platform? A Lawyer to the Stars Says No - <AUTHOR> https://www.nytimes.com/2018/05/21/world/europe/facebook-libel-paul-tweed.html <comment><AUTHOR> Hat tip to Adrian Chen for posting the quote below on Twitter. Surely, nothing can go wrong.

"In a February debate over revenge porn televised on the Irish national broadcaster, Mr. Tweed squared off against Niamh Sweeney, Facebook's policy chief for Ireland. Ms. Sweeney said that one way Facebook was trying to address the issue was by inviting individuals to preemptively submit naked or other embarrassing pictures of themselves so the company's software could block efforts to post the images. (A pilot program is underway in Australia.)"</comment>


California Auditor's Damning Report About Automated License Plate Readers - <AUTHOR> https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2020/02/california-auditor-releases-damning-report-about-law-enforcements-use-automated <comment><USER2> If a private citizen builds an ALPR, and installs it on their property, capturing license plates for vehicles breaking the law (in my scenario, violating sound ordnance) while passing the property, then that individual will not be allowed to provide the information to the police, or use that information to predict when the extremely loud motorcycle is going to pass by his house again? I understand the dystopian future they're trying to avoid, but they should try living in my house, up against a busy street, where some inconsiderate fellow citizen thinks it's their right to wake me up every morning at 4am.

Let's say I tweet the lic plate number and measured decibels for each vehicle which exceeds the noise ordinance to the police twitter feed, that's illegal?

</comment><comment><USER3> I would like to know 3 things that license plate cameras can do that a police officer can't. From the perspective of a citizen who wants to live in a free and safe society, but also understands the importance of personal privacy. I'll start:

\- Can locate the plate of a stolen car more rapidly than relying on human observers by reading and querying all plates

<comment><USER4> \- Remember EVERY license plate \- Take a photographic record of the car belonging to the license plate \- Remember where and when it saw that license plate every time. \- Inform every major law enforcement and intelligence agency of the car's whereabouts in real time. \- Collate that data between LP cams scattered throughout the state.</comment></comment>


Whole World Should Be Up in Arms About the EU's Looming Internet Catastrophe - <AUTHOR> https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2018/09/why-whole-world-should-be-arms-about-eus-looming-internet-catastrophe <comment><USER2> Won't the "link tax" simply result in new services publishing an open licence, similar to GNU?

It does seem like an open goal for the likes of Google, Facebook and Twitter, as I can't see news sites wanting to risk losing vast amounts of their traffic, however I can't see why they would want to manage potential hundreds of licences with small publishers and aggregators.

</comment><comment><USER3> I don't live in the EU, so despite how bad I think the outcome of the link tax will be, I want to just egg them on to do it. Either it will be bad for them and I will experience some grade A schadenfreude, or I will be wrong and will have learnt something.</comment>


AWS Lambda Supports Traffic Shifting and Phased Deployments with AWS CodeDeploy - <AUTHOR> https://aws.amazon.com/about-aws/whats-new/2017/11/aws-lambda-supports-traffic-shifting-and-phased-deployments-with-aws-codedeploy/ <comment><USER2> This solves a huge gap. Blue/green and canary rollout is critical for highly- available services.

We'd been half-solving it by doing a "sandbox" deploy, running a health check, then "promoting" to prod by then deploying to our prod environment. Automatically, without manual steps or verification, of course. But it's not true blue/green like this, doesn't account for accidental environment parity issues or drift, and doesn't accommodate canary rollout.

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> Puzzled by the relationship of SAM and Cloudformation in lambda ecosystem.

SAM seemed like an effort to create an open spec for this type of App but looks more and more bespoke to AWS.

<comment><USER2> For us, SAM is just a shorthand DSL for Lambda-ecosystem CloudFormation templates. It's much more concise and expressive than vanilla CloudFormation for typical Lambda use cases.</comment></comment>


Unsporting scandium (2014) - <AUTHOR> https://www.nature.com/articles/nchem.2090 <comment><USER2> In the time since this article was published some major scandium deposits were discovered in Australia:

[https://aluminiuminsider.com/aluminium-scandium-alloys- futur...](https://aluminiuminsider.com/aluminium-scandium-alloys-future/)

It seems like scandium is to aluminium what molybdenum is to iron: able to dramatically improve qualities at minuscule alloy fractions.

<comment><USER3> Here's another project in Australia that promises to produce scandium. I doubt any of them will actually be built into a producing mine, though.

[https://www.proactiveinvestors.com.au/companies/news/222183/...](https://www.proactiveinvestors.com.au/companies/news/222183/australian- mines-cobalt-and-scandium-assays-indicate-potential-for-flemington-resource- boost-222183.html)

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> > Adding 0.5% scandium to aluminium greatly increases the metal's strength > while maintaining its light weight, as well as raising its melting point by > 800 °C so that, unlike ordinary aluminium, it can be welded.

Wait, what? That has got to be a typo. That would more than double the Al melting point of 655 C.

<comment><AUTHOR> It's not a typo, but you need much more than 0.5%. Here's a phase diagram:

[http://www.arc.nucapt.northwestern.edu/refbase/files/Royset-...](http://www.arc.nucapt.northwestern.edu/refbase/files/Royset-2005.pdf)

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> Surely all metals would be unsporting in a cricket bat, not just scandium.</comment>


Why Seaside, and What the persistence options are - <AUTHOR> http://www.cincomsmalltalk.com/blog/blogView?showComments=true&printTitle=Why_Seaside,_and_What_the_persistence_options_are&entry=3391426948

<comment><USER2> I really need to learn more about Seaside/SmallTalk. While I learned Scheme in school and believe Lisp is ultimately where it's at, I have a feeling that Seaside/SmallTalk would be a good waypoint between Python and the Hundred Year Language.

<comment><USER3> It's Smalltalk, learn that and then go join the Seaside-Dev list and dive it, it's fun and if you like Lisp you'll like Smalltalk, just for different reasons. Smalltalk is simple, elegant, consistent, and extremely powerful and has the same "mini language" culture the Lispers have. Smalltalk was heavily influenced by Lisp.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> More evidence that Perl is languishing: Mr. JAPH himself is hacking Seaside.</comment>