A note on programmer salaries - <AUTHOR> http://stephaniehurlburt.com/blog/2016/12/7/a-note-on-programmer-salaries <comment><USER2> By looking at her Linkedin, it is easy to see what companies she is talking about, some big names up there. I think her viewpoint is a bit naive though. Of course a company will pay market rate in a european city if that is what it takes to be competitive. The fact that they pay their US employees more might create tensions inside the company but in the end is just down to the fact that the market there is completely different and that is what it takes to be competitive there.

In the beginning of my career i also had similar thoughts like "Why does the company make so much money when i am doing all the work" but while running my own business later i realized that it is not as simple. The company has a whole lot of risk and work bringing in projects and keeping everything afloat, as a programmer i did not have to worry about anything of that and only later i realized how much value that has, especially in a region where programming and consulting gigs weren't really easy to get.

Location really matters for programmer salaries. I went from a smaller european city where all there was for programmers were small software/marketing agencies to a european tech hub with a lot of startups and a booming market. My salary doubled just by changing location and living costs are still comparable and i finally feel i am getting paid what i am worth, which is still far from US standards though.

<comment><USER3> Out of interest which European tech hub did you move to? Berlin? I am currently looking at making a move and would love to hear some first hand experience of the tech hubs in Europe that people have moved to.

<comment><USER2> Yes Berlin, i make close to 70k which is decent here for senior devs without management responsibility i guess and that amounts to ~3300 after taxes, health insurance etc. I could save more by getting a private health insurance, but that has its downsides too.

The main reason why this works is that Berlin is still really cheap compared to London but even compared to Hamburg or Munich. Rents are getting up though, still the amount of great food and entertainment for relatively cheap makes it easy to live with that salary.

I read an article from Buffer where they equaled 60k in Berlin to about 120k in SF or NY. I also think salaries in London are not substantially higher, while the city is so much more expensive.

I am still looking to go contracting at some point to make more money to raise a family, but for now while sharing an apartment with my girlfriend, it's decent money. Most of Berlin's working population gets far lower wages anyway, even in startups outside of development so for me as someone without an degree (yet), it always feels weird to earn substantially more than people that have a Masters in Business/Marketing.

<comment><USER4> The bad thing in Berlin is that 60-70K is really a ceiling, if you want to stay in non-managerial engineering, and that amount is not something unrealistic for engineers living in cheaper parts of the world working remotely, so there is not much incentive to move to Berlin.

Btw, why do you find London much expensive? I mean, you can rent (or mortgage) a decent apartment in the nice district for ~600 GBP per month. And the food, goods, appliances, etc... is similar, or cheaper. And most importantly - people speak English! :) The language factor was a revelation for me, after spending some time on the mainland Europe.

<comment><USER5> No way you find a _nice_ place to live _in_ London for £600, especially not a place of your own. If anything, you _might_ find a room somewhere, but it's probably not going to be nice and it's likely not even going to be in London.

If you commute by long distance rail for at least an hour, an hour and a half maybe, to some small town way outside of London maybe you'll find something at that cost – but surely not in London proper.

My rents over the years in London where, per month, in order of when I lived there:

\- apartment hotel studio in Limehouse: ~£2000-2500 \- room in shared flat in Queensway: £1000 \- 1-bed in Canary Wharf: ~£1650 (moved after a year because they wanted to back my rent by about 20%) \- studio in Angel: ~£1200 \- basement studio in Highbury&Islington: ~£1350

The studio in Angel was unbelievably cheap for a brand new building in a nice neighborhood. I was the first tenant. It had one of those beds you flip down from the wall kind of thing. Sounds off putting but it was actually a really smart feature, made the place feel like a 1-bed.

<comment><USER4> I'm talking more about Ilford, Barking, Wembley, etc...

<comment><USER3> Sorry but those are definitely not what counts as nice areas in London. I also doubt you would find something for £600 in some of those areas today.

<comment><USER5> I too doubted this, but I suppose it is _possible_ , though the pickings are slim at best:

[http://www.rightmove.co.uk/property-to- rent/map.html?locatio...](http://www.rightmove.co.uk/property-to- rent/map.html?locationIdentifier=REGION%5E87490&maxPrice=600&numberOfPropertiesPerPage=499&radius=10.0&propertyTypes=bungalow%2Cdetached%2Cflat%2Cpark- home%2Csemi- detached%2Cterraced&includeLetAgreed=false&viewType=MAP&dontShow=houseShare&letType=longTerm&viewport=-1.20263%2C0.774913%2C51.2122%2C51.8257)

Also note a lot of these would be likely £600+ since this doesn't show additional fees (estate agent, taxes etc.)

Now, this may seem like an abundance of results – but a number of these listings are actually house shares, parking lots, garages etc. Maybe you'd be ok with sharing a house (I wouldn't) but I'm sure we can all agree living in parking space is out of the question.

So maybe it's doable, but I think it'd be really hard work trying to find a place that's not kept together with shoe string and duct tape, while being in a decent area with a decent commute.

<comment><USER6> Dirt-low rents on Zoopla and Rightmove are usually baits. Call up the agency and ask them if you can see the flat. They will tell you something like "this flat has gone, but I have something similar". Finding a flat in London usually takes a month.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> I mean, it's pretty simple, but it took a long time to internalize: If you don't have anyone else making you an offer, then you're worth that amount.

In this case, you were worth $42k and $56k respectively. If you'd shopped around, you'd have been worth more. But you didn't, so you weren't.

That's not a bad thing, either. Security is nice, and interviews are a pain. But it really is that simple.

If you don't like your current pay, don't bother with negotiating for a raise. That's how you keep getting paid the same amount plus inflation. Go to the market.

That feeling you're talking about -- where the company rakes in millions and you're the reason why, yet you're paid table scraps -- it's because that's what you're worth. There's no greed. The company is just that valuable, and no one is making you a better offer, so that's how valuable you are.

There's not much sense in comparing notes or seeing how much everybody else is making, except as a way to incentivize you to do something about it (leave). If you like your security, then enjoy it. If you like your money, go talk to companies.

EDIT: Time to bust out one of the best comments of all time: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2439478](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2439478)

 _Turns out he was a doormat in negotiating, though his salary history was cringeworthy. It pained everyone to hear it, considering how nice of a guy he was. In all honestly, $60K was a big step up for him. [...] He spent the next day in non-stop meetings with HR, his manager and the CTO. That Friday he simply handed in his badge without a word, walked out and never came back. Until 3 months later. As a consultant. At $175 /hour._

(The most-popular comment list is interesting in general: [https://hn.algolia.com/?query=&sort=byPopularity&prefix&page...](https://hn.algolia.com/?query=&sort=byPopularity&prefix&page=0&dateRange=all&type=comment) Too bad when the scores were hidden, the list stopped working.)

<comment><USER8> While this is a simplistic view that might help you feel good about taking advantage of someone, it is ridiculously easily abused. And, quite frankly, scares me if I think about it for too long.

I don't want a society where there are people left behind simply because they did not make a job out of making more money. Nor do I want a society where services performed by folks leads to a massive wealth imbalance in workforces that don't have people specifically tasked with keeping this from happening. Especially with how anti union/similar setup current cultures are.

And to be clear, I realize that that ship has somewhat sailed. Nobody was specifically tasked with making sure women/minorities were paid fairly. As a result, we have an obvious problem. One where the incentives have aligned such that many companies do not have an incentive to fix it. (There has to be a term for the occurrence where virtue signaling is high, but actual virtue is punished. Anyone know it?)

That is, you are absolutely right in many senses. But I worry that as long as not all companies are paying more fair wages, than there is little incentive to be the one company paying fair wages. (There are incentives to pay above normal pay, but that can still be below fair. See again current women's pay gap.)

So, can you reduce it down to folks are ultimately paid what they are worth. And if they simply shopped themselves around they could get more, but they didn't so they have accepted their low worth, so they are, ipso facto, worth less. Great. I just think we have plenty of evidence that shows that doesn't actually work.

<comment><USER9> No different than shopping for a car and buying the first one you see. You HAVE to shop around for your career. Holy crap, it's the biggest investment of your life. If you don't care, it's nobody's job to care for you, and it shouldn't be. ALWAYS shop around or don't complain when you find out you're being paid below market.

<comment><USER8> My main problem with this is it is victim blaming, at large. And again, leads to situations such as women and minority pay being significantly lower for no good reason.

At an individual level, it is good actionable advice. At a societal level, it really is just victim blaming. And it is hard to day where the line is between those views.

<comment><USER10> Failure to self-educate, negotiate or maximize your leverage does not in any way make someone a victim.

What sick thought crept its way into our collective consciousness that has made us glorify being a victim above all else. We have been fooled into holding up literally the opposite of success as the highest virtue.

<comment><USER8> I haven't glorified being a victim. Quite the contrary. I just refuse to glorify anything the exploits and relies on someone being a victim.

That is, my question is what sick thought made it acceptable to take repression and holding down of full segments of a population under the guise of them individually not standing up for themselves acceptable?

Seriously, the evidence is quite clear that this attitude is complete nonsense and only works for people that have certain advantages already. I get that you feel you have worked hard for your position. So have I. I also get that I was additionally lucky that I was able to reap the rewards of my hard work. Many aren't. And to be ok with that is a truly disgusting collective consciousness problem.

<comment><USER11> >Seriously, the evidence is quite clear that this attitude is complete nonsense and only works for people that have certain advantages already.

Ahem... citation needed

<comment><USER8> I've been referencing the still existing pay gap between men and women. Same for minorities.

For this attitude to be accurate, the problem is simply that women and minorities are not educating themselves and/or are not "shopping themselves around." If you want me to cite studies showing that specifically is false, quite frankly I don't have time to dig around for that. You could find studies showing it is true.

<comment><USER11> The still existing pay gap for men and women, when women make 105% of what men make for the same job title and experience?

You need to study more.

<comment><USER8> Sounds like you have a source. Because that is a rather bold claim.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> Short story: I started out very hard on myself and pushed myself 24/7 to be the best I can be. My first job was $65k/yr, raised to $75k/yr at the end of the first year. I had a strong suspicion I was worth more, but I took a strategic approach to finding out. A year later I took an offer at $140k/yr. A year and a half later I accepted $195k/yr ($165k base + $30k bonus). In my current state I'm stuck somewhere between wondering when this will end and yet knowing very concretely the tremendous amount of value I create at organizations (not just in engineering proper, but also team development, leadership, best practices, biz/ops, etc.). I'm optimistic I'll be able to keep this upward trajectory going, it just may not continue to be in the form of salary.

<comment><USER13> Go work for Microsoft or Amazon?

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> Any advise on how to get a wage on the ranges mentioned on the article (or in the comments) while living OUTSIDE the USA?

I live in Central America, but work for a Seattle based startup as a remote contractor and make $32K.

Whenever I read about "common" salaries for programmers in the US an internal conflict unleashes on me.

On one side what I make is on the middle-high range when compared to the local market, but it seems it is low when compared to US salaries.

I often wonder if I'm fooling myself and the guys with those salaries in the US are actually more skilled than me and there is no point on comparing.

For the record I have a bachelor degree on computer science (from a local university), was Cisco CCNA certified (expired already) and consider myself to be a fairly competent full stack programmer, in the sense that I can build a web application from zero and handle everything from setting up the server and designing the DB to developing the user interface (html, css) and programming the back-end (in PHP)

I have recently reached the same conclusion that the person on the article, and I'm planning to launch a SaaS side project of my own and let the market decide the real value of my work...

<comment><USER15> If you can build and deploy a webapp from zero to nothing you could make 120k usd in San Francisco, cause that's what bootcamp grads are doing and pretty much the only thing they bring to the table is webapp skills.

Visa and etc might make it harder for you, but if it were me I'd start browsing for remote positions at San Francisco companies.

<comment> purple-again $120k is San Fran could easily be a worse quality of life than $40k in Central America (too broad to say for certain).

<comment><USER16> I've seen this sentiment posted before and it's pretty much untrue. At 120k/year, even spending 4K/month on rent, your leftover pay is still more than my gross salary. I know SF is expensive, but if you can't have a nice QOL on a the leftovers of a 120k salary, your location isn't the problem.

<comment><USER17> $120k in SF probably amounts to take home just under $6k/mo. $4k goes to rent, so you have $2k for everything else.

That's not a great QOL. For comparison, I ran the Mexico City / SF cost of living on Numbeo[0]. $38k in Mexico City would need to be $140k in SF for comparable quality of life.

(side note -- this COL calculator is super neat! anyone have any evidence of the accuracy?)

[0] [https://www.numbeo.com/cost-of- living/compare_cities.jsp?cou...](https://www.numbeo.com/cost-of- living/compare_cities.jsp?country1=Mexico&country2=United+States&city1=Mexico+City&city2=San+Francisco%2C+CA)

<comment><USER18> I have. it grossly underestimates.

a while ago, this and other sites said I needed 120k in LA and 140k in SF to maintain my south america 40k.

turns out I moved making more than the SF salary in LA. and it still falls short on what I have money to do on short trips and night life.

I guess it is acurate if you dont go out every friday and saturday and never, ever leave the city for the longer holidays.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> > "That feeling that I am actually the one making this work, and I'm also > perfectly capable of talking with people and selling it"

The last part of this sentence is what is important. I'm a decent programmer, having built a few apps both for web and phones. My colleague is a better programmer. We're getting tons of work (by me selling) and outsourcing lots of it to other programmers we know, because they can't sell. Selling is hard, building trust is harder and doing so continuously is even harder.

My point, although a bit drawn out, is: It doesn't matter how great you are as a developer if you can't sell. Running a business is another kind of hard than dealing with race conditions. You can probably learn how to do both.

</comment><comment><USER20> I am continually surprised that _anyone_ in tech signs employment contracts in Europe. If you're good, and know how to work well remotely, contract work at 130-150€/hr is plentiful. Working 32 (billable) hrs/wk with 6 weeks vacation - more or less what you'd do as an Employee - that's an income between 190-220k. But every employment contract I've heard of here (France and Germany) maxes out at 90-100k for even director level positions.

I'm still shocked by it every time. Especially since the same person who makes you that offer will complain that it's so hard to find talent. What a surprise! Who would think, it's hard to hire people by offering less than half their market rate.

<comment><USER21> Hey there,

Londoner here feeling quite constrained with salaries, curious where you find 130-150/hr remote gigs. Mostly through a personal network? Or a recruiter? Really curious.

<comment><USER3> Same here. I would love to find those remote gigs at that price. I am contracting in London in the data space and would jump at the opportunity to work remotely for that amount.

There definitely is a very real salary ceiling in the tech world in London.

<comment><USER21> How do you like contracting?

I'm on salary at the moment, but it would take a lot for me to make anything near what the day rates for 3/6 month contracts are paying.

<comment><USER3> I am really liking contracting. It is just a different way of working compared to permanent but I prefer it. I am ex consulting so like the ability to have new projects / clients on a 3 to 6 month basis. It also allows for a lot of freedom.

One thing to remember though is that those day rates do get taxed pretty much the same as a permanent job if you pay all your earnings out to yourself. The tax laws have closed a lot of the loop holes.

I would be very happy to discuss contracting further if you were interested. Drop me an email if you want.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> Salary progression for me

First job (India) 2006 - ~$4,000 per year

Second Job (India) 2008 - ~$10,000 per year

Third job (US) 2010 - $105k

Fourth Job (US) 2012 - >$150K

Things have gone well since then too. The main thing that has kept things going up so far is really practicing before interviews to try and get better and never shying from looking for better opportunities. The company and I have a transactional relationship, not an emotional one.

<comment><USER23> how long did you stay at each job?

<comment><USER24> It has the dates right there...2 years each is looks like.

<comment><USER23> Must have been before my first covfefe or it got edited :) thanks

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> I'm a junior developer in a megacorp, where I sometimes think about how I'm not getting the salary I could be getting if I moved to SF, negotiated a bit harder, pushed for quicker promotions...

But I'm not the lowest paid person in the office. Even the junior devs who started well after I did and haven't had as many raises aren't the lowest paid in the office.

I'm fairly sure the lowest paid people in the office are the cleaning contractors who come in after hours, almost certainly with far less flexibility, worse working conditions and worse job security than the programmers whose mess they vacuum.

Not that this stops me from pursuing career progression, but it'd be nice to see software developers show a bit of solidarity with people who aren't lucky enough to be able to work with tech and who live paycheque to paycheque, rather than discussing how they're going to negotiate their way up to being in the global 0.5%.

<comment><USER26> Developers are in a completely different situation than a lot of other people. The money we might get by aggressively negotiating would mean a lot more to other people. But refusing to negotiate or to that raise won't increase other people's salary. Having empathy with other people's situation doesn't require us to ignore our own higher salaries. Political action (whether company or government) or charitable contributions would be a lot more effective in improving peoples lives.

<comment><USER25> So, how generous are programmers as a profession?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER27> The salaries are much lower compared to the large sales contracts because the company is compensating you for uncertainty.

If you stick with a company, you're guaranteed whatever your salary is even if the company doesn't make any sales. If they're doing really well in terms of sales and contracts, then they pocket the difference, but if they're not, you pocket the loss.

I personally agree with the author that it's worth getting paid for the uncertainty with your own company (in most cases the rewards outweigh the risk assuming you have enough to float on for a year or so while you're learning), but some people find that stressful and are willing to pay a pretty hefty premium for that certainty of a regular monthly check.

<comment><USER28> Every contracting company I worked for, had me full-time on projects. If they didn't have work for everybody, they laid off. They covered their 'risk' that way. Its a hoax that they took 25% (or more) to cover 'risk. It was to cover their vacation home payments.

<comment><USER29> They were covering the risk of default (Or rate adjustment) on their loans. Whether said loans were necessary is another matter.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER30> It seems like these kinds of salaries only really exist for full time employees in the US. As a software architect (engineer team size ~100) in the UK I was only making £65k. I could have shopped around and got more, much more if I went to London but still nothing like I read about in the US.

I ended up leaving full time employment for contracting/consulting.

<comment><USER14> I completely agree... It is even worse if you live on latin america.

The really sad part is when you take into consideration that programming and CS jobs in general are one of the jobs on which you can generate the same value being on-site or at the other end of the world.

So in theory there is no reason why you couldn't do the same thing someone in the US is doing and get paid the same amount.

Oh well, such is life...

<comment><USER31> >programming and CS jobs in general are one of the jobs on which you can generate the same value being on-site or at the other end of the world.

This is one of those things that seems like it should be true in principle, but doesn't seem to be true in practice. I don't believe my employer is generous. I'm certain if they could generate the same value for a significantly lower cost they would.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER32> > And negotiate.

Even better, negotiate collectively. It's easy to lay off one person but you cannot lay off a whole branch (or all employees ideally).

I know I'm dreaming but there are decades if not centuries of experiences of worker struggles about better salaries or working condition. And well, there are just basics, to be learnt about. If you are on a one-by-one negotiating with your boss in private, then you are in an environment where you've already lost.

It's no surprise that in all other industries salaries working conditions are negotiated (and fought for) collectively.

<comment><USER18> ah yes. the great union collective fear that was masterly imbued in the mind of every middle class american.

even down to the point of dictionaries now listing syndicate as organised crime. yes, there was some cases. but steve jobs also was convicted of organized crime literally on wages fixing and he never made it into a dictionary as a synonym to organized crime like they did to unions.

</comment></comment><comment><USER33> And meanwhile I'm dreaming about making more than 500 euro/month working as a ASP.NET/C# dev

<comment><USER34> Eastern europe?

<comment><USER35> In Eastern Europe he'd be severely underpaid unless he is an intern or has less than a year of experience, I have 1.5 years of experience and just landed a job where my net pay is more than 1k EUR - and I'm a fairly average programmer

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER36> i think programmers and a lot of other people get paid way too much. i used to wash dishes and the other guy who washed dishes, who worked right next to me, was an immigrant. he worked 12 hours a day every single solitary day. without him, the restaurant would grind to a halt. so, like stephanie, he was a huge part of all the money that was made. and yet, he gets paid less than minimum wage. he works harder than anyone else i have ever known and yet he gets paid a pittance. he make their business possible and yet he is paid a pittance. let me tell you that seeing programmers make 50k a year for basically no work compared to my friend, its amazing to me. and when i see white collar workers complain that they only make 100k, it makes me angry. the vast, vast majority of white collar workers are not worth anything close to what they are paid. i know a guy who works four hours a week and is paid more than 80k. four hours of typing per week. the level of privilege is astounding among programmers. so please dont complain.

<comment><USER37> I don't think you're actually arguing that programmers get paid too much.

You are arguing that dishwashers get paid too little. Your argument is that dishwashers produce a lot of value and you're right about that. The restaurant is willing to pay probably as much as $50/hour for a dishwasher if not more. The problem is that people are willing to take the job at $15/hour so there's no incentive for the restaurant to pay more.

<comment><USER23> You just said it yourself: the market dictates the price and it is not tied to effort or anything just.

People mostly get paid just the right ammount according to the market, but from any other percepective the numbers are pretty aribtrary and by no means justifiable. At most one could say that some people don't work hard on their carrees and e.g. try to make a living from beeing an artist (or in oter words: don't optimize for money). But this is not true for the dishwasher either.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER38> European developers can only cry when they see numbers beyond 100k and even that is very, very unrealistic for seasoned senior devs in the "richer" european countries.

</comment><comment><USER39> Yes well I don't know where these enormously successful companies are in europe with millions going to some non-deserving CEO. Sure there may be some that do reasonably well, but It is quite a cut throat industry. 100k+ salaries seem downright ridiculous from an european perspective. (When not talking about facebook, google and other wildly successfull companies mainly serving the ad industry)

</comment><comment><USER40> Taking advice from the article to share about salary:

I have 2.5 years of software development experience but no formal education. I am paid 65k/yr but as a remote contractor, so I pay my own taxes and healthcare, which effectively makes my salary about 57k/yr. I'm considering looking for a new position. What is a reasonable salary to ask for?

Edit: I live in California and prefer to continue working remotely

<comment><USER41> This may be unconventional advice, but with your level of experience, I say don't try to maximize compensation right now. Instead, look to find the best experience possible so you can have the best narrative possible when you've got 5-7 years experience. At your level, my guess is you'd top out at around $90k/yr if you bargained hard. Senior and Staff engineers can easily make twice that, especially when you find a situation with decent equity. So figure out the shortest path to get to those senior levels so you can start interviewing for those jobs as soon as possible.

As a hiring manager, I've interviewed people who have 5 great years of experience who I'm very comfortable hiring into those senior roles. And I've also interviewed people who have 15 years on paper but when you dig into it, it's the same one year of experience 15 times over. They're an easy pass from a hiring standpoint. Not everyone looks at candidates the way that I do, but it's still extremely common for some people to move up much faster than others. Anything you can do to be one of the group that moves up quickly will make you more money in the long run.

Things you can be looking for right now instead of money:

\- Try to find a team where you're the weakest member. It may be scary, but you learn from working with talented engineers and if you're the strongest member of the team, you'll stagnate.

\- If you've got more than 18 months in a position and you feel you're not learning something important, jump to a new position. Diversity of experience is usually better than a single, longer experience even if it's good experience.

\- As much as it gets trashed around here, chase the latest buzzword technologies. The more technologies you can prove you know, the more you can prove your ability to learn and the more money you're likely to get offered.

\- A chance to take on responsibility beyond your years. If someone is willing to offer you a senior title with senior responsibilities but only pay you a junior salary, that's worth something. The next time you jump, you'll be able to jump into a senior-paid role.

The advice changes once you get through your rapid advancement years, but for someone just starting out, I think the above is pretty solid. Focus on growing yourself...the money will follow.

<comment><USER15> Curious why you think a 2 year software developer would top out at 90 in California. That's the lowest I've seen a bootcamp grad (no university computer science) get as their first engineering job.

<comment><USER41> He said he wanted to stay remote. If he was willing to come to the Valley or SF or even Silicon Beach, he could get more.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER42> It's mostly a question of negotiating position.

If you have some savings, you can take longer to search for a new job, or you can give yourself the upside option of starting a new business. If you're broke, you basically have to take whatever you can find before food runs out.

At the moment, there's pressure on people's budgets coming from rent. Asset prices are inflated thanks to cheap money (in several places around the world), and that pushes up rents as well as mortgages. This adds to everyone's burn rate, and transfers both actual wealth but also opportunity people who owned homes before it all went crazy.

(Another thing that ate up opportunity for the masses was that they didn't let the economy fail.)

> "That feeling that I am actually the one making this work, and I'm also > perfectly capable of talking with people and selling it"

I've come to this conclusion as well. It's narrow minded, but I do tend to think that technologists are actually the only people making the world better.

Organisers (leaders, management, bureaucrats, sales) have existed since the dawn of civilisation. What do they do? They use influence to manipulate some group of people to behave in some way that they like. Sometimes it works for everyone, sometimes it works just for them. But they've always been around, and we've never lacked for people who thought they were good leaders.

Technologists, by contrast, make new things. That's in the word. And by making new things new ways of organising society arise, often benefitting a lot of people.

What's interesting about our time is that there's a perception, pretty much unfounded, that technical people aren't social. And with that the idea that there are certain people (called BSers when they do it badly) who are naturally more social and thus better at handling relations such as sales. It is of course totally wrong; you can practice social skills as much as you can practice algorithms.

</comment><comment><USER43> Where is a good site to calculate worth? I've been using Glassdoor, but this article and thread make me feel skeptical.

I thought I've done well in my negotiating (in D.C.): 80k -> 90k (9m) -> 95k (12m) -> 105k base (1y7m, new job) -> present 2y2m later.

I now feel as if Ive shorted myself. I guess I shouldn't compare to Glassdoor? My salary is above the median listed at Glassdoor. The article makes me feel under-valued. The numbers I see just seem crazy. At the same time, I know my talent is greater than that of most "seniors" I work with, have led teams, and my product engineering has been fast and "impressive".

My boss assured me that Im on the fast track to promotion, but now I feel as if after 1y at my new company, I must request a significant raise, like 20%, or move on again.

</comment><comment><USER44> Large companies are like a big analog machines run largely by human power. The machine absorbs lot of power and produces large output. The large output shouldn't be compared to that of individual's share for helping run that machinery.

</comment><comment><USER45> My salary progression:

First job, Ukraine C# Developer 6000$/year

Second job, Ukraine C#/Java Developer 7200$/year

Third job, Poland, Dynamics AX Developer 7200$/year, got raise to 13000$/year

And now I'm moving to Germany as a Junior Dynamics AX Developer for 40 000$ + bonuses

</comment><comment><USER46> In your new company, do you/would you split the revenue evenly with devs you hire?

</comment><comment><USER47> I made my best money about 5 years after graduating. Became a specialist at a very specific technology, got ~$150/hr for a little over a year. Of course Econ 101 kicked in and supply for that skill increased and so salary went down. Since then just trying to hang on. Consulting fees continually harder to justify vs low-bidders and contracts harder to come by. 15 years later gave that up for corporate. Not doing bad but also not making 300K/yr. Though I do have good benefits now. Anyway hopefully Stephanie does well.

</comment><comment><USER48> > My first job out of college I got paid $42,000. ... This was in 2013.

Me too. I was able to get it from $41,000 to $42,000 by asking for more. I'm up to $48,000 now! Nice job.

</comment><comment><USER49> "Within a year, after leading several projects"

What the hell? Is that a normal career progression for a junior developer straight out of college?

<comment><USER50> It's not uncommon to let capable junior devs run a small project with someone more experienced having oversight.

</comment></comment><comment><USER51> I like her matter-of-fact "I'll just start a company and making millions of dollars instead!" If it were only that simple?

<comment><USER9> Well, she says if she falls on hard times, she'll just pick up contract work. There are plenty of gigs out there for talented devs.

</comment></comment><comment><USER52> This is how things are the world over.

I once worked for a company which was happy to support a grad student in the US, but would not pay me a similar RA/tuition salary here. This, even if I had better results to show in a shorter period.

Equity is alien, and generally connections/networking commands more salary than skills/knowledge. Really sad TBH.

<comment><USER40> Where is "here" for you?

</comment></comment><comment><USER53> I'm an Android dev w/ Angular 2 and web app dev skills in . the UK.. I'm not even remotely scratching the surface of what engineers are being paid in the US. I'm making the transition to contracting.. working 12 - 14 hours permanently for peanuts is ridiculous.

<comment><USER54> (Throw-away account)

I have similar skills working in London for a "major search engine" (you've used it within the past 90 seconds I bet) - I guess I am one level below being considered "senior".

£65K basic, about £15-20K annual bonus and roughly $40K in stock grants a year, so works out at about £100K a year when all is said and done (or about $130K) before taxes.

Not sure how that compares to your pay, but I know that mine is lower than the people on my team doing the same job but based in SF or NYC - not by a _huge_ amount, but certainly in the tens-of-thousands.

I know deep down in my heart that I should go contracting to double my pay and get a much more flexible work-life balance, but I just cant yet bring myself to quit mainly out of pride and because I expect when it comes to contractor interviews people will just not understand why I quit "major search engine" (plus I'd be throwing away about a hundred grand in stock that hasn't vested yet).

Golden handcuffs - first world problems suck.

<comment><USER55> > people will just not understand why I quit "major search engine"

Don't know how you got this idea. No-one will care.

<comment><USER54> You may be right.

My fear is that people would assume I was sacked/forced-out for being crap though, since there is such a mystique around the company and people dream of getting a job there. Perhaps in a few more years things will tarnish a bit more.

<comment><USER55> Nah, don't worry about it. If anything people will respect you for following your passions, but more likely they just won't care. Strong developers are rare, no-one will question how they arrived in their interview room, they'll just be glad you're there.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER56> I felt the same way in 2007 when I was making $36k in my first job. My mind changed after I had competing offers and actually negotiated, and am making several multiples of that initial amount. Now I'm in the camp of "you get what you ask for".

</comment><comment><USER57> > I could do this myself without him. It didn't feel right

You may be about to learn a hard lesson. Anyone can do a job. _Creating_ a job is hard.

Good luck

<comment><USER58> She is now doing just that. Check out some of her work, she has started a company creating a texture compressor and speaks/runs workshops pretty regularly. I am not a graphics programmer but find some of the material she shares really interesting.

</comment></comment><comment><USER59> a good opportunity is to bring more value to the company than simply the code you write (easier to do in smaller companies with a shallow hierarchy). i recently switched out our payment processor after shopping around and reduced our transaction fees by $70k/yr into the foreseeable future. negotiations tend to go more smoothly afterwards.

<comment><USER60> That's great! These are the kinds of things I tell juniors to put on their resume. There's big value in demonstrated cost-cutting ability.

</comment></comment><comment><USER61> if you are bad at negotiation you should hire someone to do it for you.

<comment><USER62> That is an interesting idea. I haven't heard of anyone doing that in the tech world.

<comment><USER63> Good recruiters do this for you.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER64> > _I couldn 't shake that feeling I got from my first gig in programming. That > feeling that I am actually the one making this work, and I'm also perfectly > capable of talking with people and selling it-- and yet they make millions > and I make a tiny fraction._

So... do it. The author claims to be just as good at business and selling. So... do it. If you're sour about it and think you can do it, then do it.

HN used to be a place where people understood that it took more to running a tech business than being a programmer. Pounding the pavement is hard. Getting clients is hard. Securing funding is hard. Legal work is hard. Securing staff is hard. Dealing with burn rate is hard. Finding market fit is hard. Complying with regulations is hard.

If you can do all of this (I can't - I have no entrepreneurial bone in my body, and am a lifer salaryman), then do it. It's very satisfying even if you're not made filthy rich from it. But don't sit there as a salaried employee complaining that you should be given the lion's share because you do 'all the work'. Chances are, you're missing a hell of a lot that is being done.

Thankfully the author is actually following up on this, but I see this kind of mentality a lot in our industry.

Short form: if you think you can 'do all this' _and_ you're sour about not getting enough money for your skills, then you only have one option towards satisfaction: do it.

</comment><comment><USER65> Salaries in the US seem really high compared to those in the Netherlands. I have 2 bachelor and 2 master degrees in STEM. I made €10/hour (about $12) giving private math and programming lessons, while I earn roughly €13/hour (about $15) at my entry level job (after tax deduction).

I would expect my salary to grow at my current job. I also feel that I would have been hired at my current job if I just had my bachelor degree.

<comment><USER66> Going on only those credentials you should be able to get a better paid job, also in the Netherlands (I'm Dutch).

<comment><USER67> What would good salaries be for an experienced resarch engineer in software doing specialized work in the Netherlands?

<comment><USER66> It depends but my ballpark estimate would be around 70k but it depends on many factors. I'd surprised if those skills go for less than 50k.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER68> The thing is most of the people in the tech industry are moving towards programming and app development. Looks like the programming sector will get saturated in the next few years. The average salaries are going to take a hit as well.

<comment><USER69> An increase in the number of people attracted to programming jobs does not necessarily move the supply curve of people who are good at programming.

<comment><USER70> I have a friend who suggests the opposite of the grandparent's assertion. Since every new line of code represents technical debt that must be serviced, each new programmer generates a maintenance burden sufficient to occupy the time of 2 more programmers.

<comment><USER71> Assuming programmers generate a net increase in lines of code. (When working on a mature codebase, I'd expect that the better the programmer, the more likely this number actually is to be _negative_.)

<comment><USER70> I agree that it is _possible_ for programmers to have a net-negative impact on LOC, but I didn't really address that because I can't think of many realistic long-term employment solutions where that would be the normal expectation (driveby consulting gigs don't count).

Even if you walk in and are able to eliminate large quantities of cruft in your first, say, 3 months on the job, once you pare the core down and simplify, the company will continue to want new features and changes, which will typically necessitate some growth.

I think the best realistic option would be a relatively-modest gain in net lines over the course of a year, commensurate with the number of new features.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


What happened to Microsoft's Midori operating system project? - <AUTHOR> http://www.zdnet.com/article/whatever-happened-to-microsofts-midori-operating-system-project/?ftag=YHR05c7fbahttp://www.zdnet.com/article/whatever-happened-to-microsofts-midori-operating-system-project/?ftag=YHR05c7fba <comment><USER3> Here's the blog of one of the developers:

[http://joeduffyblog.com/2015/11/03/blogging-about- midori/](http://joeduffyblog.com/2015/11/03/blogging-about-midori/)

He is planning a whole series of entries about Midori.

<comment><USER4> Yes - a lot of this is on the edge of what I understand about low-level programming, but I find it fascinating!

<comment> vezzy-fnord He hasn't really gotten into low-level details yet, but rather design principles along with fault and security models. It should be interesting to see it unfold.

<comment><USER4> One man's design principles is another man's low-level :)

But this is one reason it helps to complete your Computer Science degree. A lot of "operating system" design principles seem low-level to me, as a simple high-level programmer.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Midori was Microsoft's version of DEC's "No output division". They basically shepherded all the super senior people there to fool around with shit and not impede progress elsewhere. No real product was ever expected.

<comment><USER6> I'm curious why they keep the super senior people if all they can do is:

        - Produce no output in a no output division, or
        - Impede progress elsewhere.

Obviously I'm missing some part of the argument, can you elaborate?

<comment><USER7> DEC had an explicit "never fire anyone if you can possibly avoid it" culture.

There were no significant lay-offs until the last few years.

You might think that's insane, but it created a lot of loyalty. And I'm not sure it's any less sane than the current religion of cutting head counts at the first downturn in profitability, losing all the good people (because they'll be the first through the exits), and crushing the morale of the rest - never mind other popular stupidities like off-shoring to countries that don't speak English, or hiring back fired employees for vastly more money as contractors, because they're the only ones who can make stuff work.

Meanwhile I keep wondering if MS should reinvent itself as a straight R&D company. The research and blue sky side regularly does supercool stuff. The management, strategy, and customer satisfaction cadres - maybe not so great, actually.

<comment><USER8> They had a net income of $4.62 billion last quarter, how is that "not so great"?

[http://www.reuters.com/article/2015/10/23/us-microsoft- resul...](http://www.reuters.com/article/2015/10/23/us-microsoft-results- idUSKCN0SG2M520151023#oAperPSST3TXZy1t.97)

<comment><USER9> He didn't say they don't make money, he said they don't do supercool stuff. Money is supercool stuff too, but not in the same way.

<comment><USER8> What other cool stuff can "management, strategy, and customer satisfaction cadres" even do? And if just because "management, strategy, and customer satisfaction cadres" is not doing "supercool stuff" (whatever it means), the company should focus on R&D, then the vast majority of companies should cease to exist. Like it or not, companies are here to make money.

Saying MS should reinvent itself to be a R&D company is like saying Toyota should stop making cars because their normal cars aren't running by water, auto driven, and charged by solar panels yet. Ya, what's the point? Use your money to research on energy, AI and what not. Never mind where that money comes from.

When I read these absurd statements I think the author is either trolling, has an agenda, or is living in a bubble.

<comment><USER7> Actually I'm just a typical user - albeit with some coding and product design experience, which most users don't have - but with opinions ahared by a significant percentage of other typical users.

Consider:

The Win 10 keylogger/spyware issue Win 10 forced upgrades. The nonsensical "one OS for all devices" strategy. The Nokia acquisition. Silverlight. Kin. Zune. IE6, and the disastrous effect it had on the web design industry. Win 8, and the disastrous effect it had on the PC hardware industry. (Never mind the fact that MS took a perfectly usable and popular OS - Win 7 - and broke it almost beyond all imagination.)

That list is nowhere close to being comprehensive. (How many people remember that MS tried to create a library services and publishing division?)

In what sense were these strategic successes?

Now, a lot of smart people work at MS, and every so often they produce something that could be a game changer - like the Courier project.

Somehow the game changers never ship. What does ship is - too rarely great.

Where does that disconnect come from, if not in strategic direction and management?

<comment><USER10> "The nonsensical "one OS for all devices" strategy."

Which will probably make their mobile devices rise from nothing to something relevant

"IE6"

IS6 was a amazing browser at the time, the most advanced for years. The main problem was it didn't have a auto updater.

"Win 8, and the disastrous effect it had on the PC hardware industry. (Never mind the fact that MS took a perfectly usable and popular OS - Win 7 - <USER2> broke it almost beyond all imagination.)"

That's just your opinion.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> R/programming discussion is very interesting, there are ever few Midori developers in it:

[https://www.reddit.com/r/programming/comments/3t50xg/more_in...](https://www.reddit.com/r/programming/comments/3t50xg/more_information_about_microsofts_oncesecret/)

</comment><comment><USER12> It always seemed like MSFT was about to position M# right into same niche as Rust. Both languages had the mantra of safety and zero cost abstraction.

<comment><USER13> Didn't they hire the guy from BitC? BitC and ATS looked like the only interesting safe high perf languages for a while eh? Rust now has all the interest though.

<comment><USER14> Both BitC and ATS are big on formal program verification; rust has the interest because the number of people outside of academia that are interested in formal program verification is approximately zero.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> I thought their was some advancements in realtime GC attributed to the Midori project?</comment>


Show HN: Rebrickable - Combine your LEGO sets to create other sets - <AUTHOR> http://rebrickable.com/ <comment><USER2> I came across your site a few months ago and thought it was extremely cool. Great Job! Can you please tell us about your tech stack?

Ultimately, the site didn't solve my problem though, which was to get some reuse out of my lego collections. But that wasn't a shortcoming of your site ... rather, I concluded that Lego has explicitly designed most of their models to be "non-reusable". I.e. even though I have about 10 flagship models (all technic), I don't get 100% completion on any non-trivial set.

As I recall, initially you site didn't have too many MOCs. That might be one way of solving the problem. Consider a gigantic set like the Unimog ... listing a bunch of MOCs made solely from this set would address the problem of reuse.

One more thing ... one of the things I was trying to do using your site was figure out what sets to buy in order to be able to complete the legendary "Motorized Bulldozer" set. Your site says ... if you get X, you'll be 97% complete. if you get Y, you'll be 96.5% complete, etc. That isn't what I wanted to know. Rather, if you said ... buy X and Y to get 100% completion, that would solve my problem. In fact, if you provided options with different combos, that would be even better (due to availability and preferences). E.g. To get to 100%, buy X and Y, or, buy X and W and K, or, ...

Thanks for creating a great resource for the AFOL community! Good luck!

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks. Yes unless you have hundreds of sets it appears there is very little chance of getting a 100% complete build. However, some people would argue this is a good thing as it forces you to figure out how to get the extra few % yourself :) I want to add some more functionality here to try and assist people in finding suitable replacement parts.

As for the MOCs, yes originally it had only a few but now that is accelerating. There are 34 right now with about 50 more in my backlog. As it becomes more popular, more people contact me asking to submit their MOCs. I still need to build the self-submit feature!

The idea of listing sets to buy to reach 100% is a good one. I haven't been too sure how much people actually find that section useful. The idea in my mind was "if you buy this set you are effectively getting 2 for 1".

Tech stack: Linux, PostgreSQL, Memcache, PHP with jQuery for front end stuff. Nothing very fancy but the algorithms have been designed (several times!) to be very fast.

</comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> I've spent the last 6 months working on this site which has been a hit with the lego community, would love to get any and all feedback!</comment>


Influence – The Psychology of Persuasion - <AUTHOR> http://www.2uo.de/influence/ <comment><USER2> Becoming better or more successful by reading about biases seems difficult. After reading Kahneman, Ariely, and others, I've sort of come to the conclusion that a lot of people naturally behave in a way that exploits others' biases. These people gain a slight edge (or many) in life. However, learning to avoid or exploit biases is very difficult - unless you just have the kind of personality that already benefits from many biases.

For example, Steve Jobs could be thought of as having a personality which benefits from many biases. A few that I remember instantly: overconfidence bias (others believe you more if you're confident) and halo effect (one positive thing, like good looks, makes people think that you're good in other things too). Probably many others. Any one of these alone - probably wouldn't result in much. He hit a delicate balance, and his personality just worked out. He probably didn't know anything about bias research, and emulating the success of his personality by studying biases would be nigh impossible. Of course, biases aren't the sole reason for his success, but can explain parts of his life, and how he influenced people.

So studying biases helps us a little. You learn to understand human behavior a little better. You can maybe fine-tune some parts of your personality. Most stereotypical geeks for example, probably don't act confidently enough. But changing your behavior radically to avoid or exploit biases is still very difficult.

<comment><USER3> >Becoming better or more successful by reading about biases seems difficult.

Recognizing biases in yourself can also be really useful. If you know that this thing you are feeling is irrational and that negotiators are trained to make you feel that thing, you become much less vulnerable to manipulation.

Re-read the bits on Consistency - more than once a good negotiator has gained significant advantage over me using techniques under that heading.

<comment><USER4> "Seems difficult" – You bet!

Also, the trick is to go beyond reading. Most people read once or twice, go "ah, that makes sense", and then forget about it except when it's pointed out to them a little too late.

Benjamin Franklin had this stuff figured out. If you want to become better or more successful, it has to become a part of your regular study and practice. You have to revisit the principles over and over again. You have to analyze your day each day and ask yourself what you could've done better, and decide how you're going to do things differently the next time around. So on and so forth.

<comment><USER3> >You have to analyze your day each day and ask yourself what you could've done better, and decide how you're going to do things differently the next time around. So on and so forth.

If you are negotiating big things every day, you are... well, really you are a professional negotiator and you probably shouldn't be listening to me. If you are a professional negotiator and you aren't better at negotiating than I am... you had better find another line of work.

I mean, yeah, we all negotiate little things every day, but for most technical people, even most technical people who do a little business, we have a few big negotiations every now and then, negotiations which can have serious negative consequences if we screw them up, and then a bunch of little negotiations every day that don't matter nearly as much as our technical performance.

I think those big negotiations, yeah, going over what happened, especially after a big screwup is a good idea, yeah, but it's not something that is going to happen every day. It doesn't make sense for me to spend too much time thinking about the guy who talked me into co-locating a server at cost yesterday. It's super minor compared to, say, developing a better burn-in procedure or figuring out how to set up customer-accessible zfs backups.

I also think that it's good, I mean, if you are not a negotiation specialist, to make it clear that you will give a go/no go some time _after_ the negotiation, after you give it time to let your emotions settle and look at it more objectively. Remember that when negotiating in real time, if you are a primarily technical person, you are probably dealing with a professional negotiator, and should assume that they are as good at their job as you are at yours; this means that they are going to dramatically outclass you as a negotiator.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> A colleague of mine is really passionate about Cialdini's work, and he actually put together over 50+ examples of the principles of Persuasion used in marketing, sorted by category. [1]

I personally found it quite useful to peg the principles to real-world ideas, and the visuals help with memory/recall.

As I mentioned in another comment– it's pretty easy to look at a principle in action and go, "Yeah, that makes sense." The real challenge is to then look at your own material critically, and see where you can implement it, what you're doing well, what you're missing out on, and how you can do better. That takes a lot of rigorous attentiveness and practice.

The really cool thing is– as long as you're not making stuff up (eg: faking social proof for a product that nobody actually likes), you're going to legitimately improve perceptions of your product. For instance, if you do a search for your product on Twitter and you find that there are people saying positive things about it, it's totally worth quoting those tweets on your signup page! And so on.

___

[1] [http://www.referralcandy.com/blog/cialdini/](http://www.referralcandy.com/blog/cialdini/)

</comment><comment><USER5> I had a copy of this book before my car was broken into and my belongings were stolen. I was about 75% through the book. I had to wonder if there was something in that book that could ironically explain the break-in.

If you liked this book, here are a few others I enjoyed that cover similar themes. They are all more or less about the psychology underlying every human interaction.

\- How to Win Friends and Influence People (a classic by Dale Carnegie)

\- Meta-Talk (Gerard I. Nierenberg, Henry H. Calero)

\- Games People Play (Eric Berne)

\- What Every Body is Saying (Joe Nevarro, Marvin Karlins)

\- Conversationally Speaking (Alan Garner)

These books provide a great foundation for anyone who needs to deal with people on a daily basis (ie. everyone), and are especially useful if you want to be aware of fast-talkers trying to take advantage of you.

<comment><USER6> You will like this list [http://www.social-engineer.org/resources/seorg-book- list/](http://www.social-engineer.org/resources/seorg-book-list/)

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> It's frustrating to see the Milgram experiment universally misunderstood: "In the Milgram experiment the participants continued to give (ostensible) electric shocks despite very strong signs that the experiment has gone too far, just because the supervisor in the lab coat told them so."

That statement is false. It is _one_ of the potential interpretations of the result, but it is not the dominant view (though it is conventional wisdom). Look at the actual script the (actor) scientists told the participants and look at the data of how many participants tend to object and when.

People do not inflict the fake punishment "just because the supervisor in the lab coat told them so" they are doing it because they are repeatedly told that the participant is OK and that this is part of the experiment; they know that they themselves are not scientists so have reason to defer to the expert; and they have a social understanding that an experiment which literally killed one of the participants would probably not clear the ethic committee.

<comment><USER8> For anyone else interested, here are some examples[1] of the ways in which the experimenter strayed from the script:

 _" In listening to the original recordings of the experiments, it's clear that Milgram's experimenter John Williams deviated significantly from the script in his interactions with subjects. Williams – with Milgram's approval – improvised in all manner of ways to exert pressure on subjects to keep administering shocks.

He left the lab to 'check' on the learner, returning to reassure the teacher that the learner was OK. Instead of sticking to the standard four verbal commands described in accounts of the experimental protocol, Williams often abandoned the script and commanded some subjects 25 times and more to keep going. Teachers were blocked in their efforts to swap places with the learner or to check on him themselves.

The slavish obedience to authority we have come to associate with Milgram's experiments comes to sound much more like bullying and coercion when you listen to these recordings."_

You can watch one of the examples in this video[2] (at 1:30). Having administered several shocks already, the man playing the role of the teacher asks the experimenter, "Who's going to take responsibility if anything happens to that gentleman?" The experimenter begins his reply by saying, "I'm responsible for anything that happens to him," which was contrary to the script, and the teacher continues with the shocks.

Later studies have attempted to replicate some of the results though,[3][4] so that is not the end of the story.

[1] [http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/crux/2013/10/02/the- shocki...](http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/crux/2013/10/02/the-shocking- truth-of-the-notorious-milgram-obedience-experiments/)

[2] [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yr5cjyokVUs&t=87](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yr5cjyokVUs&t=87)

[3] [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Milgram_experiment#Replications](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Milgram_experiment#Replications)

[4] [http://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2015/01/rethinking...](http://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2015/01/rethinking- one-of-psychologys-most-infamous-experiments/384913/)

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks! The replies of you two are about the best you can hope for when posting your own article here.

(I won't change the article because I'm representing Cialdini's book here, not further research, but those comments were very interesting)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> My notes from the book, if you're considering reading it, or want a future reminder:

[http://sivers.org/book/Influence](http://sivers.org/book/Influence)

</comment><comment><USER10> How reproducible is the empirical research this book bases its claims on? If it's about par for the course in social psych, take a peek at the Many Labs projects.... many of these clever, thought-provoking experiments have turned out to be clever, thought-provoking false positives.

</comment><comment><USER11> These tactics are everywhere money is involved. These are used against me dozens of times a day, in advertisements, marketing, and just going about my business.

I think that everyone has a duty to render themselves immune to these and other tactics. It's idealistic, for sure, but a lot of today's societal woes make sense in the context of people mindlessly acting out others' persuasions beyond the scope of their own rational self-interest. It's especially sickening just how many of these people see only the emotional content of the arguments presented to them and nothing else....

</comment><comment><USER12> A good follow-up book, which is more general in its scope but mentions similar behaviors, is "The Social Animal" by Elliot Aronson.

</comment><comment><USER13> I like to read about this, because I'm often confused about human behavior. Sometimes I'm tempted to leverage it, but I can't shake the feeling of how shallow and amoral it is, or just even dehumanizing. That said, there are times when you need to ensure certain things for yourself, free for all, and it become a competitive advantage.

</comment><comment><USER14> 95% of people make any decision based on what their peer group does. Only 5% make up their own mind on any given issue.

This changes issue by issue and people who make up their own mind on some issues, follow the 95% peer group on others.

This is the most revelatory insight for me from a book packed to the brim with insights and science and evidence and wit

</comment><comment><USER15> Funny, I just purchased that book a few weeks ago. It's very interesting to me; I hadn't realized humans are so susceptible to manipulation (including me).

I wish you could just hand someone a list of logical, rational arguments and they would read the list and change their mind, but no, things don't work that way.

<comment><USER16> If you want to see how susceptible we are are to manipulation, go see a good magic show (no pun intended).

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> I think this is useful for learning how to defend against those trying to influence you. As one of the top salespeople in my field, I can confidently say this tactic is not a necessity.

</comment><comment><USER18> Of current relevance, Cialdini discusses the statistical effect of publicized suicides on imitative suicides, and particularly on suicides by airline pilots. Disquieting stuff.</comment>


Ask HN: What new startups are creating products that are changing the world? - <AUTHOR> Slack is technically pretty boring, given that it's just hosted chat. But it's important because its adoption enables people to work remotely, which reduces long commutes, expensive housing, etc.
Twitter, Facebook, and YouTube are also technically boring but have had also had huge real-world effects.
What are some other newer startups that, like these, are having a big positive (or mixed) impact in people's daily lives? <comment><USER2> \- Labelbox (labelbox.com) is pioneering how teams can actually build real- world computer vision products and bring them to market. They are making great labeling tools and workflows available to everyone.

\- Figma (figma.com) is making design tools accessible to everyone. It's super easy for anyone on earth to participate in digital design.

\- Loom (loom.com) is tapping into video medium and making high bandwidth asynchronous communication super easy.

</comment><comment><USER3> Scale API seems like a fairly simple product (technically wise), however, they have presented a better UI for self-driving car companies to annotate their training data.</comment>


Ask HN: Early in career – is it a bad idea to change jobs after six months? - <AUTHOR> For some context: I am in my mid-twenties, have a computer science degree from a top ten American university and moderate experience developing software applications. After graduation I did a bit of research and worked as a bartender/waiter while going through the whole post-grad thing.
I eventually decided on taking a white collar job in technology. I was hired into a subsidiary of a well known CPG company as an Information Systems Specialist. When I was brought on board, I was told that I would be assisting the head of the IS department in documenting ERP customizations, developing/optimizing SQL, and working closely with other departments in order to build customizations and automations. It sounded great.However, my boss wasn't located in the same office as me and only spent 6 days on location "training" me. My "training" was consistently interrupted as my boss had to go put out fires multiple times per day.
Four weeks later I was brought in to HR and told that my boss resigned without notice and that I was to fly to the HQs the next week to do a knowledge transfer.
The parent company, of course, stepped in and said they would "allocate resources". So far I have had little assistance from them. What little assistance I have from them, ironically, ends up being more work.
Now I'm drowning in work, with no one to give me priority or direction. I have politely let my new boss in the parent company know that there is too much work and that I don't have priorities to work within and I am told that I should just say no whenever someone asks me to do something. The work I am asked to do is important and I don't feel comfortable telling individuals high up in the subsidiary no.
I was given a decent raise in light of my situation. But I'm finding it increasingly difficult to deal with the stress of managing all of this. I am very seriously considering finding a new job, but am concerned that my short tenure in this position will look bad. Thoughts? <comment><USER2> > The work I am asked to do is important and I don't feel comfortable telling > individuals high up in the subsidiary no.

Your boss told you to say no. You tell people "no", and refer them to your boss, and keep your boss informed of what your current workload is.

You are drowning in work because _even after being directed to do so_ you refuse to stop accepting new requests when you are overloaded.

Saying "no" is an important skill.

<comment><USER3> It is funny... this is such an important trait we screen for it in the interview process. The requests/scenarios become more and more absurd until they should say no.

<comment><USER4> Sounds like an adversarial game and a great way to start breaking trust with the candidate.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Welcome to software engineering.

I am only partially joking. These types of situations are not uncommon and can actually work out to your benefit if you can take advantage of it. Your new boss told you to say no more often, he/she is giving you a lifeline and you are saying you're scared to take it? Instead of a direct no try saying it as, "I really would like to work on your issue and you have expressed its importance but I am limited in how much I can accomplish and right now my schedule is full. I may be able to get to it in X time period, but I can't make any promises today. However, if you'd like to have this prioritized then you can feel free to speak with Mr X who is my boss." And then you document the details either just to yourself, or you can send a heads up email to your boss.

This happens a lot in companies of all sizes, people make requests of engineers (generally young/new ones) and see just how much they can sneak around the system. One of the most important skills as you mature in your career is to say no. Saying "no" but getting your work done will not get your fired, saying "yes" and failing to keep up on your work will. Think of it this way, if these are higher level people then you that are making requests and their compliant about you is you said no because your schedule is full, it really won't go too far. If instead their compliant is you told them yes and then you never did it, their complaint will be valid.

<comment><USER6> Yep, exactly. I've been doing this now going on 30 years, and I felt like OP at my first job back in '92, so I bailed on it. I found another quickly and immediately felt the same way. I bailed on that one, too, thinking I was just picking the wrong jobs. After four job changes in four years I realized this is just how professional software development feels - and that's part of the reason it's such a high-paying profession.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> I don't think you need to worry. What would make short stints a red flag is if they're common -- having a single short stint early in your career is unlikely cause you difficulties.

Remember, the people considering your application are well aware of the realities of the workplace, and one of those realities is that every so often a job is just a bad fit. In those cases, leaving it sooner rather than later is a good thing for everybody concerned. When I'm looking over resumes, if I see someone who has generally worked for years at each position, but has a couple that only lasted a few months, I see that as perfectly normal.

</comment><comment><USER8> I just had something happen that reminded me of this thread. Hopefully this helps:

Often, in our ticketing system, some random person assigns me a ticket. In these situations, I just assign the ticket back. In general, my rule is that: _I only take assignments from my direct manager or someone I 'm working closely with._ All tickets (tasks) that come from outside my small working group must be triaged with my direct manager's involvement.

(I created an email rule for Jira just so I can see these situations.)

There's many reasons why random people try to rope me into their tickets. Sometimes it's laziness. Other times it's entitlement. (You're such-and-such a role so obviously you'll solve my problem for me.) Sometimes it's just passing the buck. Rarely, it's a genuine ask for help; but in those cases I hold firm that whoever is asking for help must retain ownership of the ticket. (Basically, I'll look at someone else's ticket as a favor, but not as my deliverable.)

In the worst case, there are managers who try to rope people into their work as a means of playing power or political games. I don't understand why people do this, but that's when I rope my manager in if some bozo tries to get me to do their work for them.

</comment><comment><USER8> 1-2 short stints early in your career don't mean much.

 _What 's important_ is that you leave for a better job. Focus on where you're going, not where you're leaving. (I once took a job with a few too many warning signs, and in hindsight I should have stayed put.)

Honestly, every person filtering resumes has different things they look for. For every person who filters you out because you had a short stint, there will be someone who filters you in because your new job looks so much better.

Oh, and good jobs have ups and downs. If you generally like the work, believe in the company, and like the people you're working with, you can figure it out.

</comment><comment><USER9> Don't list that you worked for that company. It's not your fault that the company is full of idiots.

Every company is full of self serving idiots that will throw you under the bus for their own personal gain. The trick is to avoid these useless idiots, and to defend yourself when you have to deal with them.

Also, the only way to climb the ladder and make more money is to jump ship. You will never earn a decent amount of money by sticking around, and accepting the company's pathetic 2% COLA raise, if you even get that. Meanwhile, they just paid their executives $100+ millions in performance bonuses. And they claim there isn't any money left over for you.

<comment><USER10> > Also, the only way to climb the ladder and make more money is to jump ship. > You will never earn a decent amount of money by sticking around, and > accepting the company's pathetic 2% COLA raise, if you even get that.

It sucks so much how true this is.

I've been in the same job for 3 years. I've received a nice 5% bump every year. The work I do today compared to 2 years ago is easily 30% more beneficial to the company, but it's insane to ask for a 30% payrise in the same role.

I'm in the final stages with a new company. They're offering me a 30% higher salary bump and a direct channel into a more interesting sub-niche.

I'm leaving a company where I've passed the barrier of "figure out our internal sludge" and the culture fit challenge, but I have to jump ship to get more money. How did this become the norm?

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> It won't look bad, but you do have other things to consider. You got a quick raise -- that's good. The company sounds understaffed in IT and perhaps is less than competent. Crisis can become opportunity.

<comment><USER12> Was thinking the same thing, I don't know what the original posters career goals are but this is a perfect opportunity to launch into management. If one where so inclined they could explain to the management at the subsidiary as well as their boss that they need funds to hire and build a team to manage the workflow. Prioritize said workflow by getting agreement by all parties and then managing that workflow out to the team.

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> Stop wondering and go find out if these six months will be a problem for a new employer. The worst thing that could happen is that you'll be rejected. I've switched jobs after 2 months and the next one after 9 months and so far I had no issues looking for an another job. Sometimes I got questions about the company I was 2 months in so I just removed it from my resume because it was annoying.

</comment><comment><USER14> For getting interviews, your resume will only look better with more variety of experience. Most people scanning resumes to pick candidates for interviews are just looking for relevant experience and bullet points... the more the better, they aren't going to think a lot about why you were at a specific job only for 6 months.

Once you have an Interview (or a phone screen) they may ask about it, but then you can explain and it's unlikely to be held against you.

</comment><comment><USER15> Generally, you want to secure around a year if you are intentionally working the career ladder. It can be difficult to convince an employer that you will stick around long enough to make them money if you jump job to job.

That said, you need to consider your long term goals. If you are job hopping for experience, you might want to consider contract work, or independent work first. As an employer though, I don't consider a 6 month stint to be a bad thing. You need to be prepared to tell me why you're jumping ship, and what you are looking to achieve at my place of business.

Nobody can tell you a "right" answer though. It is entirely dependent on your own goals and ethics. You don't owe anybody anything in your journey to the top, so do what feels right and keep moving forward.

</comment><comment><USER16> > Now I'm drowning in work, with no one to give me priority or direction.

When you feel that "drowning", probably you are not enjoying the work load, which is quite important for the happy-you. I understand you are in the early days, did you try to make your decisions on the priority? Sometimes, you may be better, who knows. Give it a try.

> The work I am asked to do is important and I don't feel comfortable telling > individuals high up in the subsidiary no.

This is the situation you've to face in your life, every day. Saying "no" is perfectly "yes", be bold enough to say "no". But just give a thought on the after-effects, if those do not put you in trouble, it is perfectly alright.

Good luck.

</comment><comment><USER17> I've been through 7 or 8ish companies in 7 or 8ish years, have burnt out horribly, have at times sacrifices my mental health for that of my employer, amd have been fire or otherwise let go from 6 companies. I think the gaps in employment _may_ be an issue, but otherwise I think it's less that my record is bad and more that finding good work is grueling in tech. So if you quit and find a new job or if you stay for longer and find a new job, it is probably going to be difficult. Also, never sacrifice yourself for your company beyond reason.

</comment><comment><USER18> If the comp and work are good and there is just too much of it I wouldn't look for another job. It's hard to find interesting work. It's even harder to find interesting work that pays well.

This sounds like a process problem that your current manager has inherited from your previous manager. This problem also probably caused your previous manager to get so burnt out they quit.

It sounds like there is no process to intake new work and prioritize it. Talk to your manager about this. If you want brownie points propose how you can implement this process.

</comment><comment><USER19> I'd say look for a new job. Sounds like the IT department at your company is poorly run. Especially at the start of your career I think it is important to work at a well-run company so that you can learn from the best and not start to resent your career choice.

Most decent companies and interviewers will give you a chance to explain your reasons for leaving after only six months. It's quite normal for devs, especially for recent graduates, to move around before finding their niche.

</comment><comment><USER20> It really depend on what you're doing. From what I'm seeing, documenting ERP customizations, developing/optimizing SQL is not a place you want to be.

Move out if you can, granted, a lot of places on these kind of things tend to be easier on the task load, but it's not true in your case. Have you tried to automate? Are you drawning in powerpoint presentation and word documents? All of these are important to know.

</comment><comment><USER21> Put yourself in an interviewer's position hiring you. "So you were given more responsibilities and a decent raise. And you bailed before you really spent any time seeing what that was like?"

My suggestion, try to find opportunity here. Successful technology implementations are much more about building relationships and understanding people's roles, responsibilities and workloads and a lot less about SQL, code, gear, etc.

<comment><USER13> It is easy to dodge that question, all that you need to do is to imply that the workload was impacting your work/life balance or that the new set of responsibilties does not match the market rate even after the "decent" raise. I remember saying something similar during interviews after a company that gave me a 10% raise expected me to handle twice the amount of work and responsibility.

</comment></comment><comment><USER22> I switched to a new job after 6 months into it because the management wasn't good. I knew why I was doing it. Firstly, justify it to yourself and it'll be easier to answer when the question of "why" arises!

</comment><comment><USER23> Engineering manager here.

As other commenters have said, this situation is common. That's not to say it's okay - it isn't. The question I'd ask you is, "before you bail, what can you learn from this experience?"

One of the primary duties of a manager is to act as a diffuser of potential stressors. Given your experience level, all the inputs you are receiving should be landing on your managers desk first. Those inputs should then be filtered, grouped, prioritized, contextualized (to whatever extent is necessary for you to understand what you're being asked to do) and _then_ handed to you at a rate that enables you to complete work and learn the systems you're interacting with.

It's okay to push back on requests. It's also a good idea to develop a system for doing so.

One of the things I repeat often with my direct reports is, "everything has a place." Every request, every escalation, every task we're asked to work on - it all goes into a ticket system. Everyone on my team knows to accept the input and inform the source of the input (often another engineering manager) that their requests will go into our work queue and will be prioritized against our other objectives at the appropriate time.

You seem to be operating without those systems in place. What I'd suggest is that you develop a queuing and prioritization system for yourself. The next time someone asks you to do something, maybe try saying:

"I'll be happy to dig in. Let me get a few pieces of information from you and I'll put this in my queue. Mind if I follow up with you next week?"

A couple things could happen in response. They could escalate and use their coercive power (they outrank you) to force you to do the work immediately. This is when you can invoke your manager. You could respond with,

"Understood. I will inform my manager and we will prioritize accordingly."

Usually these situations won't escalate. If you appear to have your act together, others will recognize that. If you have a system of note cards or an issue tracker you're using to capture their requests, they may be more inclined to leave you to manage your own work queue. If you're also equipped with a prioritization rubric (it can be arbitrary, just start with org chart hierarchy of the requestor if you don't have anything else to go on), even better.

As the saying goes, "manage your time or others will do it for you." No matter how stressful this may seem now, this may be an opportunity to learn some time and work queue management skills. The earlier in your career you begin cultivating these skills, the better.

I'm happy to elaborate on any of the above.

<comment><USER24> I agree with this. Definitely learn to push back. I've been in a similar situation albeit in aviation systems engineering. The way I dealt with a lot of incoming request was to always point out that I had things that were already on the back burner. I would phrase it along the lines of: "I am currently doing Y, and was planning to do X and Z next. Is A you're asking me to do urgent? If yes, I can do it after Y of you're okay with X and Z being delayed." This usually got me a response that indicated want the priority was. I would also really try not to let the current work I was doing being stopped. Stopping something midtask would always make the same item I was working on take longer, so I would push back if they tried to stop current work midstream. I would say: "I'm X hours away from accomplish this task. Can item A your asking wait until then?" That usually got me some good relief.

One item to note that this is also an opportunity to request some training, either formal or informal. Find the skill that if improved would easily increase your task output, find formal training for it in the area or nearby. If you can put a cost benefit analysis on a 1 page word doc, you might be able to take this opportunity to improve your skills as well.

</comment></comment><comment><USER25> > But I'm finding it increasingly difficult to deal with the stress of > managing all of this.

What's the REAL challenge here for you?

Any Bozo can quit and find a new job. It takes BRAINS to learn how to Manage Yourself.

On this subject, Drucker is brilliant. > [https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/2477223.Managing_Oneself](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/2477223.Managing_Oneself)

</comment><comment><USER11> > while going through the whole post-grad thing.

OT, but what is the whole "post-grad thing"? You earned a PhD?

</comment><comment><USER26> Dear OP: here's some career advice: you're not thinking right or doing right if you can't figure this out for yourself. Just like I've said on reddit's lpt form reality is you gotta figure it out for yourself and stop shopping your life around on the internet

<comment><USER27> "Don't ask for help and just figure it out yourself."

Seems like terrible career advice and terrible life advice to me, but I'm no expert on either.</comment></comment>


The Atanasoff Berry Computer - <AUTHOR> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atanasoff%E2%80%93Berry_Computer

<comment><USER2> The strangest part of the ABC's story is _why_ the original was dismantled. From John Gustafson's paper on the reconstruction:

> It was constructed in the basement of the physics building at ISU, which at > the time was an open area interrupted only by support pillars. The basement > was later finished with poured concrete walls and standard doors; the > standard door width is 0.84 m. Hence, the computer was boxed in. After > Atanasoff left ISU for Maryland, the ABC was seen only as an orphaned device > taking up otherwise useful space. Since its frame was welded angle iron, the > only way to remove it from the room was to cut it apart with a hacksaw. I > feel we have most of the answer to the question: Why was the ABC destroyed? > The answer is that it was 0.07 m too wide to go through the door. In > reconstructing the ABC, we made one practical modification: we narrowed the > frame enough so we would be able to go through a standard door.</comment>


Ask HN: Refunding an investor? - <AUTHOR> Hi, I raised some money on a convertible debt note about a year ago. We recently pivoted and one investor asked if they could have their money back. The note has not expired. Can I give the investor back their money without refunding the others? Should I give it back? We can afford to but would rather note... Thanks <comment><USER2> It's usually a good deal to buy out an investor that isn't on board with your current direction. Otherwise, they'll be a nuisance going forward. Better to make room on your cap table for new investors that are on board and will want to put in money in later rounds.

You should get specific legal advice about refunding one investor but not the others depending on your documents and situation. You should tell the other investors what's going on.

And remember not to take money from this guy next time. Fickle investors suck.

</comment><comment><USER3> Ask your other investors and BoD. If they are onboard refunding one investor, go ahead.

It is a convertible note so there most probably a conversion and payback timeline in the note. If BoD/other investors decline to agree to refund now, let the investor know his options from the convertible note agreement.

Good Communication is the key to managing that investor going forward.

</comment><comment><USER4> If they're friends and family, figure out a way to do it and avoid strife. Otherwise tell them to put on their big boy pants and suck it up.</comment>


Unscreen – Remove Video Background - <AUTHOR> https://www.unscreen.com/ <comment><USER2> discussed recently in [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22495518](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22495518)</comment>


The Pirate Bay Mystery - <AUTHOR> http://thepiratebay.se/

<comment><AUTHOR> So, there's a bit of a mystery going on with thepiratebay's site. In the source there's been various clues that have been changing over time. A couple of folks over at reddit were working on it, but I don't think anyone has come up with anything.

Basically, in the source, they have stuff named like:

"key lowercase" and "WeAreTPB" "aes.png" and class="pipe vi Makefile"

There also appears to be an image of an AES key on the page. And before they allegedly had "thecluesareallthere" as one of the classes. I'd imagine there's some kind of encrypted thing in the image or video. Maybe somebody here will find it interesting.

<comment><USER2> What is the reddit link?

<comment><AUTHOR> New one: [https://www.reddit.com/r/thepiratebay/comments/2rml8a/update...](https://www.reddit.com/r/thepiratebay/comments/2rml8a/updated_again/)

Older one: [https://www.reddit.com/r/thepiratebay/comments/2q23mm/the_ke...](https://www.reddit.com/r/thepiratebay/comments/2q23mm/the_key_is_an_aes_key/)</comment></comment></comment>


What's happening to OS/2 (Gordon Letwin, Usenet, 1995) - <AUTHOR> http://groups.google.com/group/comp.os.ms-windows.misc/msg/d710490b745d5e5e?&hl=en

<comment><USER2> In the early 90s, IBM made classic "big corporation" mistakes, especially with respect to how wily Microsoft was.

They also made classic "big corporation afraid to cannibalize it's old profits" mistake, and more arguably, they made some ickky design decisions in OS/2, like not going with fork/exec when starting a process, not having a good, clean definition of "a process",and some other things.

Why bring this up again now?</comment>


Going off chain for storage - <AUTHOR> http://www.goland.org/off_chain_storage_and_the_enterprise/ <comment><USER2> Looks like the site has double-scroll bar, I could be wrong. viewing at 1536x864 on a 13.3" screen.</comment>


Cloud computing. What is it? - <AUTHOR>

<comment><USER2> A BS buzzphrase.</comment>


Detroit tries unconventional approach to restoring its housing market - <AUTHOR> https://www.washingtonpost.com/realestate/detroit-tries-unconventional-approach-to-restoring-its-housing-market/2015/11/26/a98db95a-7670-11e5-b9c1-f03c48c96ac2_story.html <comment><USER2> This does rather drive home how important location is in real estate. Similar things have happened in the UK on a smaller scale in collapsed pottery town Stoke-on-Trent: [http://www.stoke.gov.uk/ccm/content/housing/private- housing/...](http://www.stoke.gov.uk/ccm/content/housing/private- housing/empty-homes/clusters-of-empty-homes- programme.en;jsessionid=aZgRIeFmyKRe)

</comment><comment><USER3> "Bank buys fixer-uppers and sells at a loss to prop up neighbourhood prices" sure sounds funny out of context.

</comment><comment><USER4> Wire gigabit cable to all these houses. I wonder what would happen next.

<comment><USER5> There is a push for 10G internet in some areas of Detroit: [http://rocketfiber.com](http://rocketfiber.com)

It isn't clear from the article what neighborhoods have been targeted, but I bet the "Civic and business leaders" from the article include Dan Gilbert, who formed Rocket Fiber, and he's trying to line up infrastructure there.

EDIT: The site advertises 1G and 10G for residences.

<comment><USER4> Next silicon valley........</comment></comment></comment>


Trump and the "batman effect" - <AUTHOR> http://slatestarcodex.com/2017/01/03/trump-and-the-batman-effect/ <comment><AUTHOR> If time is scarce - just read the end of the article with an incredibly spot- on summary ( from "There's an old joke..." onwards )

</comment><comment><USER2> We are going to get the hero we deserve</comment>


The Manipulators: Facebook's Social Engineering Project - <AUTHOR> http://lareviewofbooks.org/essay/manipulators-facebooks-social-engineering-project

<comment><USER2> Only tangentially related to the article, but I've been trying to understand lately why Facebook wants us to view our 'top stories' feed over 'most recent' stories. Facebook has gone from setting 'top stories' as the default when you log in, to hiding 'most recent' stories on the mobile app to the 'more' tab, to pushing old stories that get a random like or comment to the top of your 'most recent' stories feed. This is incredibly annoying, as when I log in to Facebook, I want to see news that is new, not the same posts I've already seen multiple times. Does anyone know why they do this? Does it somehow drive increased user engagement?

<comment><USER3> I'm guessing they've done at least some A/B testing on this...so yes, I imagine that despite what users _think_ they want, FB has found that their imperfect "Top Stories" algorithm is more engaging than just the raw feed by "Most Recent".

As a user's FB usage grows over time, it's likely that their network of friends will grow, sometimes exponentially. What does not grow is the screen- space for the newsfeed, nor the user's ability to scroll through the increased number of updates. While it's true that some newsfeed updates get tracking because of advertising play...such as "Jon Smith Likes Candy Crush!"...that's still less annoying than, "Jon Smith scored 54304 points in Candy Crush and earned Legendary Candy Cane +1!"...which could feasibly dominate your newsfeed depending on the gameplaying habits of your friend.

Now, of course you could manually filter these things out, e.g. "Ignore all Candy Crush posts by Jon Smith" or even "Defriend Jon Smith"...but this requires manual work by the user...and if it becomes more work than leisure to enjoy one's news feed...then it's likely that FB's A/B tests have found users preferring the filtering to be automatically done, even if it lets some shit through.

Keep in mind that FB has long had the ability to create custom groups...so that you could, for example, see your feed according to people you've put in the "My university friends" group. There is even a "Close friends" group that you can manually curate, or that FB automatically fills for you. FB has basically buried the group filters...probably because users weren't actively filtering things themselves...and in terms of the "Close Friends" group...FB considered manual filtering to be redundant...after all, FB can detect how often you message/chat with another user, how long you wistfully page through their photo albums, etc. etc...if those metrics aren't key factors of the people whom you really care about...well, it's pretty damn close.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Berkman Center recently held a workshop on FB algorithm awareness & social science audits, [https://civic.mit.edu/blog/natematias/uncovering- algorithms-...](https://civic.mit.edu/blog/natematias/uncovering-algorithms- looking-inside-the-facebook-news-feed)</comment>


Visopsys - <AUTHOR> https://visopsys.org/ <comment><USER2> Surprised I've never heard of this. An OS still maintained by a single developer. It sounds like it's missing a ton of modern features but is still a beautiful labor of love. [https://visopsys.org/about/](https://visopsys.org/about/)

</comment><comment><USER3> Cool project. But that download graphic just screams spam, unfortunately. (I had to hover over it to make sure it wouldn't take me off the site.)

</comment><comment><USER4> Port it to ARM == Worldwide success.

Underpowered cheap *Pi boards (the ones often left rotting in a drawer after being swapped with newer ones) are just asking for it to build kiosks and other low footprint embedded appliances.

<comment><USER5> The Broadcom hardware on the RPi is far worse documented than typical PC hardware.

ARM is an immense set of different boards only unified by most parts of the core of the instruction set (which extensions of the ARM instruction sets are supported, depends on the chip).

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> What niche OS is good for low power microservers? No GUI required, but good networking.

</comment><comment><USER7> I wish it were not monolithic but I understand why it is.</comment>


Xpra: Screen for X - <AUTHOR> http://xpra.org/#

<comment><USER2> So it's like a 'screen' for X11? I tend to just use a VNC server for this, might have to give this a try next time. Although I would think for non *nix clients, VNC is more practical.

EDIT: Wow, just read the title ... at least I understood what the thing does. -_-</comment>