Simply Hired is shutting down June 26 - <AUTHOR> http://techcrunch.com/2016/05/31/simply-hired-is-shutting-down-june-26-reportedly-as-part-of-an-acquisition/ <comment><USER2> Throwaway to share my experience with them:

I applied in mid-2014 to a software eng position based on encouragement from a recruiter. I went to two onsites with five people in total, each of which passed me to the next round.

They had me come in for a third onsite(!) to meet with CEO James Beriker and some head of engineering. I had admitted to being let go for underperformance to the position I held two jobs ago (was doing fine at my current). I had explained this to each past interviewer who asked. Beriker just seemed to want to have fun with it, asking "well why the heck should I hire someone who's been fired?" He looked at my resume and said, "so, what were you doing between these positions ... oh right, that must have been how long it took you to find a job".

Whenever I asked for clarification on his other questions, he cryptically dismissed it with, "just, whatever you interpret that to mean".

I don't imagine that they're going to get a steady stream of good candidates[1] if they're going to put you through all that and still veto you for something they should have known very early on. I ended up working somewhere else and have gotten a total 35% raise since starting.

I also had an interviewer who did the thing where they get flabbergasted and insistent that you did it wrong because you use the opposite convention from the "official" solution, until you walk through it.

[1] In one interview, I derived the optimal solution to the Dutch Flag Problem despite not having seen the problem before.

<comment><USER3> there's an interviewing technique among senior execs to take on an aggressive, rude tone to interviewees to "see how they respond under pressure." One way to spot it is if they respond in a contrary way to everything and generally try to pick on you to find chinks in your armor.

the first time I experienced it I was pretty shaken up.

either that or the person you spoke with is just an asshole.

<comment><USER4> When I was in my early-mid twenties and trying to make the internal jump from top-tier Help Desk to SysAdmin I had a Director who did this.

The earlier interviews were fine. I was fairly green, but I seemed to get the basics of the position, was very eager to learn, and had the recommendation of my (large) department's management up to VP. They asked me technical questions which I did pretty well on. Then the Director comes in and immediately starts blasting my resume, my lack of real-world experience, asked why I was wasting his time and literally questioned whether I was worthy of being on the Help Desk at all.

I was shaken to my core. I spent the next three days questioning my abilities and feeling like I was letting the company down somehow. On the fourth day someone told me that this was his "interview style" and he was doing it to "stress test" interviewees. At that point I was pretty thrilled I didn't get the job and left the company shortly after for an entry-level SysAdmin job. I couldn't believe he would lay into a coworker (even a very subordinate one in a different department) like that without at least telling them why at the end.

I'm still shaken up by that interview to this day. Technical interviews scare the shit out of me.

<comment><USER5> Staying calm and speaking during confrontations is a learnable skill. I humbly recommend reading the book Crucial Conversations, if you haven't read it, then practicing the techniques.

I tell my "underlings" to breathe (with their diaphragm), to take their time, and to carry their voice.

[1] [http://www.amazon.com/Crucial-Conversations-Talking- Stakes-S...](http://www.amazon.com/Crucial-Conversations-Talking-Stakes- Second/dp/0071771328/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1464747772&sr=8-1&keywords=crucial+conversations)

<comment><USER6> Yeah, but another valuable skill is knowing that if you are treated this badly in an interview that even if you really want the job, sometimes it's best to walk away.

<comment><USER7> I would probably politely ask the person if they were acting like a clown as an interview technique or if they were in fact an clown. No need to bother with disrespectful people.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> "part-acquisition"

So in conclusion, someone bought up the scraps at rock-bottom prices just before a potential bankruptcy. Ouch.

I suppose it shouldn't be a surprise. They brought on a former Yahoo VP as CEO four years ago. As the article and one of the comments therein pointed out: it seems they didn't have much in the way of new technological or algorithmic advantages to build on and didn't have much in the way of direction-setting from the newly installed executive staff.

<comment><USER9> They _were_ acquired ...by the bank.

<comment><USER10> To be sold to patent trolls.

<comment><USER11> No patents

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> As one of the partners for the past two years this came as somewhat of a shock, although not entirely surprising. About two weeks ago they had a "maintenance" window to supposedly make changes to their entire infrastructure to enhance performance, etc.. so to completely throw all that out the window a month later is a little surprising. In addition, this was literally a short notice. I actually never received a notice from them. I saw the TechCrunch article earlier today and reached out to one of my contacts who confirmed. For once I am glad I read TechCrunch today.

From a partner perspective, their API is pretty good and easy to use, although their support has gotten really bad over the last year. I don't think they have many working on the support team and I have had tickets go weeks without even an acknowledgement. Only after opening multiple tickets or updating the ticket constantly do I get a response.

One thing I did notice though is that they did not seem to be developing or improving much over the last year. Their partner interface can be a little confusing if you need to do more than reporting. About a year ago I was told there were some upgrades coming to the interface and API to make it easier and that they were enabling real-time reporting. Neither of which came about. When I asked again I was told they were working to make their job postings more "mobile friendly", whatever that means exactly.

We initially chose SimplyHired over others because of some of their API functionality (i.e. you can search by O*NET code for jobs) and their revenue share was higher than Indeed. For the last 6-7 months though their revenue share seems to have taken a significant hit and not sure what is happening.

I tried to get some more details from the partner director, but she didn't seem to know who or what was going on with the acquisition. I would have to agree with others that it appears to be a "fire sale" or acqui-hire, as they are not offering their partners any alternatives. In fact the only help I was offered was dumping reports or data so we could go with another partner. Luckily we didn't have clients with jobs posted through their site so we don't have to deal with refunding job postings which could be a nightmare in a short period of time.

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> I'd love to know the real story. I'm not a UI/UX expert but it seems pretty clear they didn't put too much into user experience. I'm asked for my email before even showing me a job. Then I go search for another keyword and I'm given results on the other side of the country. Clicking any of those results I have to go click again to "Read More" (basically see the job description).

<comment><USER13> We had to block their domain in display campaigns because it was sending a lot of bad traffic. Have not had to do that with any other "real" job/career site.

<comment><USER14> Curious on what is the website you are redirecting the traffic to? Is it a job board/ATS/a just company job board?

<comment><USER13> Another job search engine. A lot of traffic so not a statistical blip. Usually it's only the viral/buzz domains and mobile apps that need to be blocked outright.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> I worked in an office below them for a few years. They seemed nice, thoughtful, ambitious, and hard-working, much like most folks I've met who choose to work at startups.

I feel sad to see any startup shut down since I know so many people like them; hell, that could easily have been me. I also feel sad to see the commenters here dance on their graves. I would prefer to celebrate the fact that they lived and battled for 10+ years, much longer than most startups. Kudos to them.

</comment><comment><USER16> I tried Simple Hired for job hunting years ago but back then they didn't handle searches for "C++" (WTF?). I tried it again today and they _still_ don't. Here are the first 6 results I got just now searching for "C++" (50% error rate):

Simply Hired: _Pediatric General Physician_ , Full Stack Software Engineer, QA Testing Analyst, _Surgical Technician_ , Entry Level Developer, Specialist Software Design Eng, _Director of Medical Staff Services_

Compare this to Indeed's results for the same search (0% errors): Software Developer/C++ and SQL, Sr Computer Developer - C++/Java/UNIX, C++ Developer, Software Development Engineer 2, Software Engineer, Software Engineering Specialist

</comment><comment><USER17> "As one of the bigger recruiting companies, the company gets about 30 million visitors each month and claims to search some 6 million jobs across 700,000 employers. In comparison, Monster claimed in Q1 it had some 50,000 employers in its database, and does not disclose MAUs. Indeed.com says is has more than 180 million monthly active visitors."

And yet they apparently can't make enough money to sustain themselves and need funding.

Perhaps it shows just how careful one have to be to put together the right metrics to measure your success by.

</comment><comment><USER18> It seems that with 30M monthly users, they could have somehow made enough money to keep things going, even if they had to lay some people off. Why on earth do you just shut down a site that has 1M valuable active users every day? Simply slapping some Adsense on a site with this kind of traffic would have generated enough to keep the doors open. Even if they are getting acquired, this seems like an insane move for the new owner.

<comment><USER19> Yeah. Indeed.com has the worst user experience and yet it is still running strong, simply because Indeed.com is everywhere!

<comment><USER20> (Disclosure - I'm friends with some folks at Indeed.) I'm also curious to what you dislike about the UX. Indeed certainly isn't going to win any beauty contests, but I think they have excellent laser focus on exactly what they want to do: the site is _very_ fast, simple, and has a minimal set of features that are useful without a bunch of extra BS.

<comment><USER21> I know I had to Greasemonkey the site up to get search parameters I wanted like the ability to retain a large number of results per page (100 is the cap) without having to go through advanced search every time, and doing a large regional search by filtering states I didn't want to move to and blacklisted companies from the results rather than screw around with the limited 100 mile radius.

<comment><USER22> You are not the typical user. (I say this with awe, not disrespect).

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> This was destined to happen i guess! SimplyHired has no USP, scrapers which can massively scrape jobs and SEO which gets users,that's about it. No clear direction and competing with Indeed, which has better tech must have been hard for them. Also, I wonder with $34 million in funding, why they didn't launch any products to cater the users/companies.

<comment><USER23> Yeah, but Indeed seems to be making plenty of money: $434m rev in 2014, $300m 1/2 year rev in 2015!

I'm really curious what went wrong...

[http://press.indeed.com/press/indeed-2014-revenue-434-millio...](http://press.indeed.com/press/indeed-2014-revenue-434-million-71-year- over-year-increase/)

[http://press.indeed.com/press/indeed-half- year-2015-revenue-...](http://press.indeed.com/press/indeed-half- year-2015-revenue-300-3-million-57-year-over-year-increase/)

<comment><USER14> As i see, Indeed has better scrapers and SEO for a start. It established itself as a market leader in this business, also built simple products like letting companies directly post jobs, making it easy to apply from mobile(they acquired mobolt for this) and also working on Indeed Premium( a hired clone). With that kind of traffic, if simplyhired had launched any decent products to help recruiters, they would have easily been counting a lot of $$$$. A stale product is the reason for its death.

<comment><USER13> SEO + they did a really good job on their partner program. In simpler terms a shitload of free Google traffic along with a safer, diversified stream which cash flows very nicely. Both things that basically act as expanding moats the longer they are maintained.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> IMHO

VC is tightening, the job flow is slowing and those two trends were forecast to last longer than their funding sources were willing to stick it out.

Next up to bat are those whose client base is other 90%+ funded startups?

However, never up to bat are start ups producing cash or with the prospects of doing so. I don't think this is going to be a nuclear winter event, but that the gap between "making it" and "not making it" will grow wider. Those that are on the bubble are the bubble that'll burst, and sama will still win his bet. :)

</comment><comment><USER25> Most of us in this industry should think about the consequences of this case:

Employer/Interviewer: assume the other party is an idiot/faker

Candidate/Engineer: if the other party is an asshole, I don't want to work for them, because I don't want them in my daily life.

</comment><comment><USER26> This is somewhat sad... Out of all the aggregators, SimplyHired sent the highest quality traffic compared to Juju, Indeed, Jobs2Careers, etc.

</comment><comment><USER27> Is it just me or are several more funded startups shutting down in 2016?

<comment><USER28> Simply Hired's founder self-funded, FYI, I don't think there was ever any VC money involved.

At least when I worked for them circa 2010 that was the case.

Hope all the smart folks I worked with there land safely.

<comment><USER29>
        Simply Hired, founded in 2004 and based in Sunnyvale, had raised just over
        $34 million in funding from investors that include Dave McClure,
        Foundation Capital, Guy Kawasaki, Fox, IDG Ventures and Ronald Conway.

<comment><USER28> I stand corrected. I guess they burned a lot of the founder's money first. ;d

<comment><USER30> It seems like your memory from 2010 isn't even quite right. According to this article, they were taking investments at least since 2006...

[http://techcrunch.com/2006/04/18/simply-hired- takes-135m-fro...](http://techcrunch.com/2006/04/18/simply-hired- takes-135m-from-fox-and-foundation-capital/)</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


'Talking lasers' that beam messages to our ears in the works - <AUTHOR> https://nypost.com/2019/07/31/talking-lasers-that-beam-messages-to-our-ears-in-the-works-pentagon/ <comment><USER2> Now I just need to get my laser measure (the Leica here [https://helpatmyhome.com/best-laser-measure/](https://helpatmyhome.com/best- laser-measure/) ) to talk to me! Would be a big time saver.</comment>


GT to cut jobs, wind down sapphire plant; takes aim at Apple - <AUTHOR> http://www.reuters.com/article/2014/10/10/us-gt-advanced-tech-bankruptcy-plan-idUSKCN0HZ20820141010

<comment><USER2> "GT Advanced would be liable for $50 million for each violation of the confidentiality agreement".

Would these legal 'liabilities' be one of the first things shelved in the restructuring? Or would these contracts last beyond?

<comment><AUTHOR> I am no lawyer, but if I understand it correctly, that is one of the reasons why they want to restructure.</comment></comment>


Ubuntu 19.10 "Eoan Ermine" with ZFS Support Released - <AUTHOR> http://releases.ubuntu.com/eoan/ <comment><USER2> Looking forward to creating an encrypted filesystem with ZFS. The snapshots thing seems to be a good unique selling point of ZFS. Will be interesting to see how I go about creating an encrypted ZFS filesystem. Does anyone know - does the encrypted filesystem use LUKS as an abstraction layer on top of ZFS? (Or is the crypto a specific ZFS thing?)</comment>


Coq to Rust Program Extraction - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/pirapira/coq2rust <comment><USER2> Most of the action happens in this file: [https://github.com/pirapira/coq2rust/blob/rust/plugins/extra...](https://github.com/pirapira/coq2rust/blob/rust/plugins/extraction/rust.ml)

I have considered attempting to write a few code extraction plugins for Coq, but I took a long look at the extraction plugin for Scala ([https://bitbucket.org/yoshihiro503/coq2scala/src/1657d65c747...](https://bitbucket.org/yoshihiro503/coq2scala/src/1657d65c747bb9747a4ec32b3da36464631bcd18/coq-8.3pl2/plugins/extraction/scala.ml?at=master&fileviewer=file- view-default)) and lost all courage.

</comment><comment><USER3> Excellent idea in theory. Translating a formally verified system to actual application code is possibly the next frontier of system critical programming. A verified system along with a memory safe concurrent language should be able to avoid a significant set of common bugs. I hope to see some industry adoption.

<comment><USER4> It's been going on in safety-critical field with groups like Rockwell-Collins and Eschersoft extracting to Ada/SPARK. Rockwell also compiles formally- verified CPU, the AAMP7G. My proposal was to extract to SPARK, Rust, C, and Java simultaneously since all the best static verifiers are for those. What one misses other will likely catch.

<comment><USER3> Sounds awesome! What kind of equipment is this done for (if you're comfortable answering) ?

<comment><USER4> I work outside defense industry on purpose. No discomfort at all. ;) The remains of high-assurance safety and security fields are mostly used for defense (esp guards), aerospace, trains, private high-security, some industrial control (esp energy), some space, some medical, and plenty academics. Far as this conversation, here's an example of what I was talking about that mentions many others:

[https://www.cl.cam.ac.uk/~mjcg/cambridge-wilding- sept08.pdf](https://www.cl.cam.ac.uk/~mjcg/cambridge-wilding-sept08.pdf)

Specifics on how they do EAL7 CPU and crypto here:

[http://www.ccs.neu.edu/home/pete/acl206/slides/hardin.pdf](http://www.ccs.neu.edu/home/pete/acl206/slides/hardin.pdf)

Eschersoft's tools below. They also have C analyzer.

[http://www.eschertech.com/products/pd_and_spark.php](http://www.eschertech.com/products/pd_and_spark.php)

Specware from Kesterel Institute, like lots of their stuff, is pretty cool but I think efficiency dictates manual derivation of code. Gets you close to it, though.

ftp://ftp.kestrel.edu/pub/papers/specware/specware-jm.pdf

Esterel's SCADE w/ SPARK Ada below. Has huge list of application areas. I clearly forgot automotive in applicatino areas.

[http://www.sigada.org/conf/sigada2003/SIGAda2003-CDROM/SIGAd...](http://www.sigada.org/conf/sigada2003/SIGAda2003-CDROM/SIGAda2003-Proceedings/Vendor- Esterel-SCADE-Suite-for-Ada.pdf)

Note: There's also been hardware synthesis from PVS and HOL specs. Most cool stuff like that is hard to get legally due to ACM/IEEE/Spring BS. I mention it so you know it's been done. I even saw one manual, formal verification of standard cells themselves. Getting close to the bottom. If my brain was whole, I'd be pulling out solid-state, physics books & doing HOL models of process nodes' molecules to get a jump on their asses lol.

<comment><USER3> Cool stuff, you're work sounds really cool.

<comment><USER4> That's others work. I dont do formal methods. Glad you enjoyed it though.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> The seL4 microkernel generates C code from a formally-verified "executable specification" written in Haskell. They could instead generate Rust code that would extra typechecks and might be closer to the Haskell specification.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/L4_microkernel_family#High_ass...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/L4_microkernel_family#High_assurance:_seL4)

<comment><USER6> As far as I know, _The seL4 microkernel_ team _generates C code_ by hand _from a formally-verified "executable specification" written in Haskell._

Which is then verified by analyzing the binary code and linking it back to the spec.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> I wonder if it helped at all that Rust was originally written in OCaml and Coq is written in OCaml.

Idris produces C as one of its outputs, but this is producing similar proof code, not implementation here? I am trying to understand the secondary usage other than the primary of correspondence.

<comment><USER8> Well, very indirectly, in the sense that OCaml hackers will think alike to some extent, and all languages involved have strong types. But otherwise not very much.

This is producing implementation code. Basically, this is program synthesis via dependent types. See [http://adam.chlipala.net/cpdt/](http://adam.chlipala.net/cpdt/) for a deep dive into this concept; program extraction is introduced in the first chapter past the introduction.

This is possible because of a false dichotomy in your post: thanks to the Curry-Howard isomorphism, proof IS implementation.

<comment><USER9> > This is possible because of a false dichotomy in your post: thanks to the > Curry-Howard isomorphism, proof IS implementation.

From your own reference (section 1.3), "a correctness proof for a program [may have] a structure that does not mirror the structure of the program itself".

<comment><USER8> In context:

> Nonetheless, almost any interesting certified programming project will > benefit from some activity that deserves to be called proving, and many > interesting projects absolutely require semi-automated proving, to protect > the sanity of the programmer. Informally, proving is unavoidable when any > correctness proof for a program has a structure that does not mirror the > structure of the program itself. An example is a compiler correctness proof, > which probably proceeds by induction on program execution traces, which have > no simple relationship with the structure of the compiler or the structure > of the programs it compiles. In building such proofs, a mature system for > scripted proof automation is invaluable.

What this means is that the proof of the compiler's correctness will often look different from the implementation of the compiler, and the proof language can and should have different structure and produce different output. Isomorphic doesn't mean identical.

But, this section also doesn't refer to program extraction. That's introduced later. In the program extraction world, rather than having a program, and a proof of that program, you start with the proof, encode the program behavior into the proof, and extract the program mechanically from the proof. Keep reading and you'll see how :-)

Edit: Even more context, for those unfamiliar with coq:

> In comparisons with its competitors, Coq is often derided for promoting > unreadable proofs. It is very easy to write proof scripts that manipulate > proof goals imperatively, with no structure to aid readers. Such > developments are nightmares to maintain, and they certainly do not manage to > convey "why the theorem is true" to anyone but the original author. One > additional (and not insignificant) purpose of this book is to show why it is > unfair and unproductive to dismiss Coq based on the existence of such > developments.

Coq has a proof language that's very powerful, and very rich, but can also be very obtuse at times. Because a single proof statement might discharge a number of proof goals without really making it clear how, and because you can write your own proof "tactics" (functions/macros, essentially), you can write a proof that looks totally different from the program you could extract from it. Nevertheless, the fact that you can extract the program proves that the information required to construct the one gives you the other -- they're isomorphic. (We currently lack the tools to go from a correct program to the proof of the same, but this is a statement about ourselves, not about the correct program, modulo incompleteness.)

<comment><USER9> I skimmed the subsequent chapter to its end where program extraction comes up. It is invoked on a function called tcompile, defined on page 35. Meanwhile the theorem about the correctness of tcompile, called tcompile_correct, has only been stated on p.36 and concluded on p.37.

The program extracted from tcompile is surely independent of its proof of correctness tcompile_correct. I suppose that by the Curry-Howard isomorphism there must be some program corresponding to tcompile_correct, but it's probably not a compiler...

We may be talking at cross-purposes :)

<comment><USER8> I'm afraid I don't know enough about dependent types and PL theory to really explain this well, but bear in mind that you're on page 35. You can use program extraction on a proof itself and yield an executable program. You can use program extraction on anything in Coq, so if you use it as an implementation language you can compile it down to OCaml (or Rust now!) after proving your implementation correct.

I suppose it's possible that there are only some programs and proofs amenable to being written that way, but also suspect that's more due to the human difficulty than anything else.

<comment><USER9> Thanks but I only wanted to point out that there is a real dichotomy between an implementation and its proof of correctness, even up to isomorphism. But I maybe misunderstood what was being discussed!</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Butt-Head Astronomer - <AUTHOR> http://www.lettersofnote.com/2012/03/butt-head-astronomer.html

<comment><USER2> If I was working at Apple at the time of this letter:

1\. Open telephone directory

2\. Find another Sagan, Carl

3\. Claim it was them all along</comment>


Keepdisablingselinux.com - <AUTHOR> http://keepdisablingselinux.com/ <comment><USER2> Wasn't there a docker issue that was caught by SELinux?

<comment><AUTHOR> Yep, [http://rhelblog.redhat.com/2017/01/13/selinux-mitigates- cont...](http://rhelblog.redhat.com/2017/01/13/selinux-mitigates-container- vulnerability/)

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> Where is the _Caution loud music_ warning. lol</comment>


What Can Search Predict? - <AUTHOR> http://www.ysearchblog.com/2010/10/01/what-can-search-predict/ <comment><USER2> This article startled me into checking its publication date. The claim is so clearly obvious for the outlined applications (camera purchases, vacation bookings, movie grosses), it seems unreasonable to think nobody was doing this.

Here's an essay on "trendspotting", suggesting the concept came into vogue in the late '90s:

<http://www.radosh.net/writing/trends.html>

And here's an article citing analysis of AltaVista query logs in 1998 (and other query studies since):

<http://www.seobythesea.com/?p=224>

Perhaps because that was so hot at the time, folks I worked with in e-commerce in the mid to late 90's assumed this is what search engines were doing with their data -- data-mining it and selling the intelligence. Our reasoning was: "Well, if the grocery stores can predict what to stock on the shelves and what coupons to mail, surely the search engines can predict macro/economic/consumer trends, and that data must be incredibly valuable. That must be where they're getting their real revenue..."

But maybe they weren't. A month ago, PG suggested Yahoo was making too much money from ads to bother improving commerce related results with "Revenue Loop".

<http://www.paulgraham.com/yahoo.html>

Perhaps that held true of all the search engines? At least the idea was out there before this Yahoo research coverage.

[http://www.usatoday.com/tech/techinvestor/2003-01-02-web- mon...](http://www.usatoday.com/tech/techinvestor/2003-01-02-web- monitoring_x.htm)

[http://www.pagetrafficblog.com/google-predicts-what- searcher...](http://www.pagetrafficblog.com/google-predicts-what-searchers- will-search-for-12-months-from-now/6851/)

[http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn17050-innovation- how-y...](http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn17050-innovation-how-your- search-queries-can-predict-the-future.html)

Hmm. Maybe Google is just a long-term ruse to collect data for a hedge fund management AI.</comment>


Machines that suck CO₂ from the air might be cheaper than we thought - <AUTHOR> https://arstechnica.com/science/2018/06/machines-that-suck-co%e2%82%82-from-the-air-might-be-cheaper-than-we-thought/ <comment><USER2> I don't think that expense has been the problem, rather the efficiency has been the problem. Most of these machines only affect a very small area around the machine itself, even with the inclusion of fans to increase the area reached it is still so small that it requires lots and lots of machines in a public area to make a difference. The problem then is the space required to place the machines, e.g in urban areas rather than the cost.</comment>


PennApps Livestream. Demos starting 2:30 EST. - <AUTHOR> http://www.ustream.tv/channel/pennapps-demos

<comment><USER2> What's the point of livestreaming where you can't see anything displayed on the screen?

<comment><USER3> Hit play

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Damn I had my name down and was ready to go but got hammered with HW

<comment><USER5> You're missing out! Go to PennApps and do your homework :P

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> Anyone catch the winners?

<comment><USER7> This one won: <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=So5LnQB7iyE>

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> Hellllll yeah</comment>


Why France Has So Many 49-Employee Companies - <AUTHOR> http://www.businessweek.com/articles/2012-05-03/why-france-has-so-many-49-employee-companies

<comment><USER3> Nothing new here, this is what happens when politicians make their work easier by making everyone else's harder, case in point in Argentina because politicians there can't bother to fix the deficit they raised taxation to almost 60% across the board.

Result? everyone from rich to poor evades taxes and the grey market is over half the economy, with (some say) 2/3 of unskilled workers being paid cash-in- hand, no questions asked.

Because customs charge a similar 60% on imports plus a 27% VAT on top almost everybody in the country buys stuff from smugglers, from shoes and clothes to computers and even cars. Piracy and counterfeiting are so out of control that some companies are shutting down, leaving people on the street.

So at the end that country losses more money and has an even bigger deficit than if they had much lower taxes, why? because evading taxes is hard and risky, you are not going to bother doing it if it barely improves your numbers.

But at 60% taxation you might go broke if you don't evade! see the problem?

Lots of policies are ridiculous, but others are far beyond that: unrealistic, you simply can't ask that much and expect the economy to keep going.

EDIT: if you want to know more about the anti-business craziness going on in Argentina read this <http://bit.ly/lUbWOo>

<comment><USER4> However, it is to be noted, that high taxation is not the problem per se - <USER2> Scandinavic countries, taxation is also high, but the citizens get much in return: free healthcare, free (and very good) schools, some serious social security benefits, etc...

<comment><USER5> It's probably more about _fair_ taxation: knowing that you get something back and your neighbouring isn't paying less though making more.

<comment><USER6> _knowing that you get something back and your neighbouring isn't paying less though making more_

I think you've misunderstood the nature of the debate. Nobody is claiming that people making more are paying less, at least not significantly so. The complaint is that some people who are making more have paid a lower overall _rate_.

<comment><USER5> That's not what I meant. I simply meant to explain what I meant by fair: the same laws apply to everyone, i.e. corruption and tax avoidance are to be minimal, if people are to accept taxation.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Bottom-lining it: Business owners and managers want to enjoy the benefits of a developed economy with a humane social safety net and strong worker protections (i.e. an educated, skilled workforce) but will move heaven and earth to weasel their way out of contributing to it. Nothing new here. It's what's grinding the life out of the United States.

<comment><USER8> No, the bottom line is that people respond to incentives, and that politicians are too blind to notice even the most obvious of perverse incentives in whatever schemes they happen to dream up.

<comment><USER7> How about this for an incentive: Want your children to grow up in a developed country with a social safety net so that they won't trip over toothless senior citizens scavenging for recyclables in garbage bins to sell for spare change to pay for a place to sleep for the night?

Great, then be a responsible entrepreneur and don't try to slither through every crack in every law designed to keep the society that your kids will grow up in healthy.

<comment><USER9> The economic illiteracy on HN is a little baffling. The incentive to live in your utopia is apparently not sufficient enough for those entrepreneurs who are probably much more concerned about breaking even.

<comment><USER7> People running multiple 49-worker companies and opening satellite factories up in developing countries to avoid sharing profits with their workforce(s), having once-a-week meetings, and the like are struggling to break even?

If you would like to see the terminal state of a laissez-faire society, you can visit Hong Kong. More luxury cars on the road than anywhere else you'll ever see and plenty of the toothless, recyclables-scavenging senior citizens that I referenced earlier as well. Hundreds of thousands of people living in literal wire mesh cages because that's all that they can afford. A wealth gap that yawns like a chasm.

It's easy to advocate policies when you think that you'll never have to actually submit yourself to living in the society that those policies will ultimately create.

<comment><USER5> I think the argument here is not that it's a bad idea to create a safety net state. The argument is that as long as no law is broken, there is no such thing as "exploiting a loophole". Politicians should just learn to design better laws with less loopholes.

<comment><USER7> _A_ : So you have three 49-person companies ... That's odd.

 _B_ : I employ no more than 49 people in each of my companies and start new companies as necessary to avoid sharing profits with my employees, having to deal with worker councils, and the like.

Playing corporate twister to evade the clear intent of laws sure seems like loophole exploitation to me.

In addition to working around the intent of laws that empower workers, organized groups of business owners are constantly trying to overturn those laws and, in the meantime, discourage enforcement.

<comment><USER5> I think the problem is with "intent of laws". Laws should minimize the degree to which intent plays a role, because intent is subjective, and therefore subject to very expensive and wasteful litigation.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> To me, it seems like a decent structure, and I wish that the US had something similar. As the article says, there's nothing stopping the business owner from starting multiple 49-person companies. Therefore, the system isn't technically holding anyone back. It's just slowing down their greed and consolidation of resources, which is a good thing.

There's also nothing stopping the companies from outsourcing non-core work to other 49-person companies. Seems like there's a lot of market opportunities that entrepreneurs aren't taking.

<comment><USER4> Take a look at how Denmark handles it. Companies are basically free to hire/fire as they wish, but there is strong social security, meaning if you loose a job, you're not without income.

The problem with such stringent firing laws is that they only give security to the people _who are currently employed_. However, they do not necessarily benefit the society, i.e. new workers won't be hired when they're needed, and companies won't expand, and the economy won't develop as rapidly, simply because it's too hard to fire someone when you don't need them anymore.

<comment><USER10> I don't see it that way. I see it as a society that that imposes big rules on big companies in a way to help keep many companies smaller.

Maybe the details don't work out well. Perhaps 50 is too small. There are probably other issues in the details, but in principle, it seems interesting and useful.

<comment><USER4> > in a way to help keep many companies smaller

That's an interesting idea, but mostly unnecessary - in most economies, the majority of the economic output is produced by "small companies" (including contract workers), so such incentive does not seem to be needed.

And if it were needed, you shouldn't encourage the existence of small companies by preventing the successful companies from growing larger, but by enabling entrepreneurs with setting up new companies without much hustle! By effectively imposing a limit on the company size, you just incentivize business owners to bundle up a bunch of small companies (as you correctly noticed in your original post), however, that is a purely bureaucratic dead- weight cost to the employer, and therefore to the employees and to the society, that produces no actual value, only takes it away! No wonder lawyers thrive in this environment!

<comment><USER11> >That's an interesting idea, but mostly unnecessary - in most economies, the majority of the economic output is produced by "small companies" (including contract workers), so such incentive does not seem to be needed.

Your fact contradicts your point. Productivity-per-worker is enormously higher in small companies. If a country could get all its workers working in small companies rather than most of them wasting their abilities in large companies, imagine how much more productive it would be.

>By effectively imposing a limit on the company size, you just incentivize business owners to bundle up a bunch of small companies (as you correctly noticed in your original post), however, that is a purely bureaucratic dead- weight cost to the employer, and therefore to the employees and to the society, that produces no actual value, only takes it away!

Successful companies would just go ahead and actually split into smaller companies - unless you're scrambling for every cent, the costs of the duplication involved are pretty minimal, and the benefits can be huge as the income from more successful projects is reinvested rather than being used to prop up failing ones. It may hasten the demise of some zombies, but that's no bad thing.

<comment><USER4> I'm no expert in economy, management and logistics, but I imagine that companies become large because of _economies_ of scale, not because of _productivity_ of scale. It's hard to mass-produce cars in a company of 49 workers (or 490, for that matter).

Also, 5000 workers might be less efficient (per head) than 50, but at least you know that if 10 are missing (sick leave/vacation/...) at any given time, your production will continue uninterrupted.

<comment><USER11> As facile as it sounds, companies generally become large by growing. If you're making money it's natural to hire more workers to increase your profits, even if that means you're making less money per worker. As your workforce gets bigger there's not enough to do on your core product, so you start to branch out... and before you know it you're where Cisco is today. "economies of scale" - aka cost synergies - only really become a reason for enlarging companies if you're talking about mergers between mature companies, long past the point where they were really economically productive.

Growth seems to be the measure of success, both for investors and entrepreneurs, so I don't see this stopping any time soon. But imagine a world where, once companies got to the 20-50 person stage, they started paying dividends rather than expanding. There are probably other limiting factors, but if everyone was working in such a company and they were as successful as they are now, productivity would skyrocket.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> " "If you make a mistake in your hiring plans, you can't correct it."

This is the problem right here. It doesn't give the business owner the freedom to fire bad workers easily.

It's funny because unions are mini versions of France (and they come with all of the same problems).

<comment><USER13> We have a trial period when a company hires someone, I think it's 4 months that can be extended to a maximum of 7 months. During this period you can fire the new hire if he or she doesn't fit.

So if after 7 months you suddenly realize that you've hired a bad worker, you're doing something wrong.

Being able to fire people easily is good for the business owner but bad for the employees. That's part of the reason unions exist and are useful.

<comment><USER12> "Being able to fire people easily is good for the business owner but bad for the employees. That's part of the reason unions exist and are useful."

This line of thinking has ruined the auto industry in the US and it's one of the the reasons we have a terrible education system.

If I have a bad worker (even after 7 months), I should be able to easily get rid of them (with cause). As a business owner, I shouldn't have to waste my time going to court or having some sort of 3rd party vote on whether I can fire them or not.

Businesses will never thrive in this sort of environment.

<comment><USER14> I have no experience in business or the workplace, but I wonder if the "need" for unions would be lesser if it was easier to get a job, i.e. it doesn't matter you've been fired, because you can easily find a job somewhere else?

<comment><USER15> Historically, in the United States anyway, unions were less about making it harder to fire people (per se), and more about forcing employers to think about things like safety, reasonable work hours (supposedly, one of the first major labor wins was the bakers' 10 hour day), reasonable wagers, and harassment.

An employment market with too few workers (where it's easier to find a job) is good, but isn't enough if all the jobs require 14 hour days, working with deafening machinery with little to no safety equipment or training, for paltry wages.

Now, if we're honest, modern unions work for all of those things too, even if major unions are sometimes seen in less positive light sometimes.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> Contrary to its stated bottom line, the main idea I got from this article is that being an employee in France is pretty sweet.

<comment><USER17> Good luck getting a job, though.

<comment><USER13> It's extremely easy to find a job as a developer in Paris. The problem is always with the unskilled workforce, in France and elsewhere.

I find all the reactions in this thread about how we should "just remove all those silly laws and the unions and let the good job creators do what they want and everything will be great and everybody will have a job" a bit naïve, to say the least.

The problem is complex and global, the "49 employee company" is just a red herring.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> When even Germany has a comparatively flexible labor code, you're doing something wrong.

<comment><USER5> Germany's labor code is very flexible compared to the rest of Western Europe.

<comment><USER18> Which countries comprise Western Europe for you? Is, say, Denmark included in that set?

<comment><USER5> I'm not expert on labor laws in Europe, sorry. I do know that my country's labor laws are certainly more strict than Germany's. I'm from Belgium.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19>
      After the owners of the Lejaby lingerie factory in
      Yssingeaux won court approval in January to fire about
      half their 450 employees in France and shift production
      to Tunisia, the company found itself thrust into the
      center of this year's campaign.

So Tunisians are to France what Mexicans are to us?

<comment><USER20> There is fundamentally something wrong with needing to go to court to get permission to fire your employees.

<comment><USER21> There would be something fundamentally wrong if your employees could not go to court to contest their being fired.

<comment><USER5> If fired for an urgent reason, without compensation, then surely.

If fired with a sensible (defined by law) severance package, then absolutely not.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> Worst. Logic. Evar. "if cars are more complicated today than ever, why shouldn't our labour laws be as complicated?"

</comment><comment><USER12> After reading through the article, it looks like one big shell game to me. They are forcing companies to keep people employed, even if profits are low.

Not only that, they are trying to solve the job problem by just adding a bunch of jobs to the government dole.

Eventually, this will catch up to them and it won't be pretty. I just hope the proper people are blamed and they learn from their mistakes.

</comment><comment><USER23> The books "A Year In Merde" and "Au Revoir To All That" are poignant reads.

</comment><comment><USER7>
      Tired of delays in getting orders filled, Pierrick Haan,
      CEO of Dupont Medical (not to be confused with chemical
      company DuPont (DD)), decided last year to return
      production of some wheelchairs and medical equipment to
      France. The 150-year-old company, based in Frouard in
      eastern France, created 20 jobs making custom devices at
      a French plant—and will stop there. Faced with France's
      stifling labor code, Haan probably will send any
      additional production of standard equipment to what he
      calls "Near France"—Tunisia, Bulgaria, or Romania. "The
      cost of labor isn't the main problem, it's the
      rigidities," Haan says. "If you make a mistake in your
      hiring plans, you can't correct it."

The cited reason for moving production back to France (from where?) is production delays, which is safer than admitting quality problems.

The company is based in France and the fact that it had to move its manufacturing back to France constitutes an admission that the French workers are more productive than the previous batch of non-French workers.

The manufacturing jobs that this company is going to create in what Haan ludicrously refers to as "near France" (developing economies where labor is much cheaper -- but Haan isn't chasing cheaper labor, oh no) will be lower- skilled and/or that the resulting products will be labeled "Made in France" because those twenty workers in France were made to breathe on them or affix stickers to them at some point?

<comment><USER24> Please don't post 3 separate root comments replying to the same story, making it look like there's a lot of people agreeing with you when there are not.

Instead, edit your comment to add updates.

<comment><USER25> His three comments address three separate points. If he put all 3 points into the same comment, then it would make the subsequent reply thread much more difficult to follow.

<comment><USER24> They all have the same faintly fanatical tinge of opposition to whatever specific point the article might be trying to say, while disregarding the overall message.

<comment><USER7> No, you are mistaken _again_.

I am _quite_ clear on the overall message of the article. I think you get the point of it as well but you're intelligent enough to not bother trying to defend the indefensible, so you complain about me and ad-hominem me as a fanatic.

The gist of the article is that many French business owners are willfully weaseling out of meeting their social obligations as set forth in the laws of the society in which they live and run their businesses.

There's really no way to put a pretty face on that. It is what it is.

It's explicitly stated in the article that the people in question are keeping the headcounts at their enterprises artificially low by starting multiple 49-person companies and, in other cases, by farming out the low-skilled bits of their process to countries with much lower wages and much weaker worker protections specifically because of wage and workplace rule differences.

The best justifications that the businesspeople quoted in the article can come up with is that they don't want to have to see their workers' reps every week, that it's a pain to ensure that their HR people are aware of periodic changes in social security witholding rates, and the like.

They are eerily silent about profit-sharing, which is one of the responsibilities that they are evading, and evidently none of them had the stomach to try to explain why it would be a good thing for society for them to be able to suddenly lay off large numbers of employees without having to provide any sort of justification.

<comment><USER24> My view is I would not start a business in France in a thousand years (I'm swiss and have a house in France) because of the legislation and generally disgusting attitude that french people have towards their employers.

Work is not a right, it's a privilege. Moreover, it doesn't exist in a vacuum. We live in a globalised world where if you're not competitive on the world scale, you're dead or dying. Laws that severely constrain firing make french companies uncompetitive.

I recall a news story about an entrepreneur who had to lay off 25 of his 125 employees because there wasn't enough revenue. As someone who has laid off people before, I can guarantee you that he sweated blood before coming to this decision. So what did his lovely remaining employee do in response? They went on strike.

My reaction to this would be: "Oh really? Then I'll shut down the business and move to another country."

You're a fucking fanatic. That's why you've been downvoted all over this thread. Grow up and learn that the socialist-fanatic point of view is not the only one (not even in France).

<comment><USER7> This is a case of the pot calling the kettle black. Judging by your posting history and your attacks in this thread you are, at the very best, an ill- mannered fanatical libertarian type and possibly suffering from emotional/psychological problems.

I'm someone who currently lives in the sort of society that I suspect you would build given a chance ... whereas you seem to live in the UK and, as you mention, have a residence in France and Swiss citizenship. Better yet, I live on the very edge of the developed world smack dab next to one of the places where dangerous and low-skilled, low-wage work gets done in your "globalized world".

I also own and run a business that employs people and I manage to do it without behaving like a 19th-century robber baron or whining about not being able to treat everyone around me like Bob Cratchit or some other poor, downtrodden SOB in a Dickens novel.

To the extent that I have been down-voted, it's because HN posters skew to a younger, less-life-experienced demographic ... or self-deluded wannabe tycoons like yourself -- who don't see the idiocy in lecturing someone with many years of experience of having their boots on the ground in a near-laissez-faire environment in the developing world from a comfortable perch in a developed economy where the negative effects of your sociopathic tendencies are at least somewhat restrained.

At any rate, I appreciate the few moments of entertainment that your mouth frothing has given me.

<comment><USER26> > _possibly suffering from emotional/psychological problems._

> _At any rate, I appreciate the few moments of entertainment that your moth > frothing has given me._

These are not needed and are offensive. Please would you consider striking them, especially the psychological problems? Using mental health problems as an attack is not acceptable.

> _To the extent that I have been down-voted, it's because HN posters skew to > a younger, less-life-experienced demographic ... or self-deluded wannabe > tycoons like yourself_

You might want to think a bit more about why you're getting downvotes.

<comment><USER7> Given the other poster's unnecessarily hostile and repeated personal attacks and use of profanity (e.g. _"You're a fucking fanatic."_ , _"Grow up and learn that [...]."_ , etc. from just that last post)., I honestly suspect that he is fighting some sort of personal demon.

As I said, I'm getting downvoted here because, in general, the postership skews towards younger, sheltered types with relatively little life experience. Then there are some slightly older folks who have gotten some experience under their belts but who are convinced that if they could just treat everyone else and society at large worse, they could scramble up over them and declare themselves kings of the hill.

The end result is that HN sometimes ends up being a venue for people who have grown up in privileged situations in developed countries, benefiting enormously from social safety nets whether they're conscious of that or not, to gnash their teeth over not being able to tear apart those same social safety nets.

They don't seem to grasp that, if they had grown up in the sort of place that they want so badly to create, they themselves would likely be stuck on the bottom couple of rungs on Maslow's hierarchy of needs, preoccupied with just earning enough money to feed, clothe, and house themselves. They aren't even eager to go and live in places like their dream kingdoms, because those other swashbucklingly entrepreneurial places aren't as nice to live or raise families in as the evil socialistic, freedom-destroying places that they currently live.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER27> This is a bug for me, it seems we have a discontinuous function in the Code Du Travail !

</comment><comment><USER7>
      "For the 100 employees we have in France, we have 10
      employee representatives, for whom we have to organize
      weekly meetings even when there is nothing to discuss,"
      Haan says. "Every time a social security contribution
      changes, which is frequently, we have to update software
      and send our HR people for training. We can't fire anyone
      without exorbitant costs."

Instead of viewing the weekly meetings as a chance to touch base with his employees, learn about them, pick their brains for ways to improve the business, and the like ... he whines about the requirement to have the once-a- week meetings.

Then, he complains about having to tweak their payroll/withholding software and send the HR folks for training.

He must shed actual tears when regulatory agencies in the countries he sells his products into change the requirements that affect the design and source materials so that he has to have them tweaked or even redesigned from the ground up.

Sociopathy in management/leadership is a very real problem.

<comment><USER4> What the fuck are you talking about?

He's not complaining about having to tweak his accounting software - he's complaining about having to do that frequently, and seemingly without any good reason.

Usually, when regulatory standards about material products change, they change for good reasons - e.g. poisonous plastics in children's toys. Anyone can understand why such changes are needed. However, if you're changing this or that detail of a country's tax code, without any good motive (i.e. when the politicians are obviously just picking up the low-hanging fruit to please the superficial (majority of the) public, but allow the deeper, structural problems in the economic incentives to persist), you just incur an unnecessary cost on the companies!

Kinda reminds me of the "menu costs", an implicit cost associated with inflation, which is the cost of reprinting the restaurant menus when the prices change too much. An economic cost that exists because of the inherent inefficiencies of our system.

<comment><USER7> How often do you think that the French government is changing the social security contribution requirements? Every week?

W/re to "menu costs", if you're running a restaurant in Weimar-era Germany or some other milieu where hyperinflation is running rampant, then maybe you'll have to use xeroxed paper menus for a while. Obviously the cost of reprinting your menus is not going to be your chief problem. Under normal conditions, "menu costs" and the like (reconfiguring software to increase or decrease workers' social security contributions) is not going to be a business-breaking expense.

Pretending that it's such a hassle that it will drive him to madness or sink his business is ridiculous.</comment></comment></comment>


JavaScript resources you need to know about - <AUTHOR> https://javascript.christmas/2019/13 <comment><USER2> Gonna bookmark this one for Christmas break. Thanks!</comment>


The end is near: 11 Zynga games are victims of cost-cutting - <AUTHOR> http://venturebeat.com/2012/12/31/the-end-is-near-for-11-zynga-games-victims-of-cost-cutting/

<comment><USER2> Previous (yesteday's) discussion on this:

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4987737>

</comment><comment><USER3> The "human side" of this [1]: My little sister is absolutely crushed that her pet, Tyko, is going to go away forever. She was in tears about it last week.

1\. Yes, I realize the real human side of this is the people getting laid off.

</comment><comment><USER4> _In place of PetVille, we encourage you to play other Zynga games like Castleville, Chefville, Farmville 2, Mafia Wars and Yoville._

Loving it. I didn't know their portfolio was so diverse.</comment>


US Capitol is on lockdown.  Shots heard.  - <AUTHOR> https://twitter.com/KateNocera/status/385832285792378880 <comment><AUTHOR> The capitol police officers dealing with this situation are currently not being paid due to the government shutdown.

I bet that changes soon.

<comment><USER2> Things are so ridiculous right now they may get in trouble for "illegal work".

[http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/the- switch/wp/2013/09/30...](http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/the- switch/wp/2013/09/30/federal-workers-who-check-their-e-mail-during-a-shutdown- will-be-breaking-the-law/)

</comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> USA Today Story:

[http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2013/10/03/uscapit...](http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2013/10/03/uscapitol- lockdown/2916679/?sf17942749=1)

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> One injury:

[https://twitter.com/BuzzFeedNews/status/385835454597459968](https://twitter.com/BuzzFeedNews/status/385835454597459968)

Other reports say it is a police officer.

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> Shooter has been arrested:

[https://twitter.com/TimGriffinAR2/status/385832923800162306](https://twitter.com/TimGriffinAR2/status/385832923800162306)</comment>


Ask HN: Which Mac do Apple employees use? - <AUTHOR> There has been a lot of talk recently about Apple abandoning the desktop market, or at least the professional desktop market.  Im wondering if someone can comment about which machines are used by Apple employees to do their job at Apple.<p>Are Apple's own programmers using 3 year old Mac Pros? <comment><USER2> "Most people had a plain 27" iMac. Fusion drives were not even allowed." \- Max Howell

[https://twitter.com/mxcl/status/792050644093902848](https://twitter.com/mxcl/status/792050644093902848)

</comment><comment><USER3> When I worked there until mid 2015, I had a top-spec retina MBP mated to a pair of thunderbolt monitors. It was definitely possible to get a Mac Pro if you wanted one, but you needed to express _some_ kind of need.

</comment><comment><USER4> I weren't a programmer - but I used an Late 2011' iMac 21.5" up until I quit last year. So no they don't get a new computer every year unless your someone who's using it for marketing.

<comment><USER5> Do people work from home at all? Are they given employee laptops?</comment></comment>


A Secret Code on Madrid Security Bollards - <AUTHOR> https://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/secret-code-on-madrid-security-bollards <comment><USER2> What a cool little mystery, and article! I'm glad that the answer is actually quite satisfying and poetic (and not, for example, some mundane artifact in manufacturing the bollards).

> Still, a question does remain, one that might never be answered. "There's > actually only one bollard that correctly points to those cities," Muñoz > Sainz says. The rest were installed without regard to the direction in which > the pattern was positioned. At the time, no one cared too much. The > bollard's creator never told anyone the logic behind his design, until now. > "And today even I don't know where the correct one is… It's been a long > time."

This is a totally solvable problem. Given n bollards with coordinates, and m cities with coordinates, it should be quite fast to calculate which is the prototypical bollard. I'd explore this question if I had more time this weekend -- many upvotes if anyone else wants to tackle that!

This article also introduced me to the online encyclopedia of integer sequences ( oeis.org ). As a computer scientist with a limited math research background I had no idea that this tool existed. The laundry list of applications it offers for the fibonacci numbers [1] is remarkable! Interesting to think of the sheer human achievement that was required to build that list.

[1] [https://oeis.org/search?q=1%2C1%2C2%2C3%2C5%2C8%2C13&languag...](https://oeis.org/search?q=1%2C1%2C2%2C3%2C5%2C8%2C13&language=english&go=Search)

</comment><comment><USER3> So the lines on top of the bollard point to other cities. Also only the original bollard was correctly installed while all the others were installed without being properly aligned.

It turns out the original artist never told anyone what the lines meant meant, but the design was interesting enough that they kept it around.

Super cool.

<comment><USER4> Even when you tell people it doesn't help.

The compass rose in the floor of the Spokane airport is rotated incorrectly. If you visit, it's down at the end of the rental car area by the last sets of doors.

<comment><USER5> Things like that always irrationally annoy me.

In Bratislava, Slovakia, there's a similar rose set into the floor (under the tower at Michael's Gate). One of the type that indicates the direction and distance to various international cities. And it's wrong.

It shows the distance to the north pole as 4667km. And the distance to the south pole as 4667km. Slovakia is nowhere near as equatorial as the maker would seem to wish.

<comment><USER4> I feel like - you had one job? Try harder? I don't know. I understand your annoyance completely.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Interesting to see that it was artistic instead of something more mundane, because my hypothesis would be a casting batch/date code --- something like this:

[http://mmcdetroit.com/Date_Codes/date_codes_17_l.html](http://mmcdetroit.com/Date_Codes/date_codes_17_l.html)</comment>


Greece debt crisis: ECB 'to end' bank emergency lending - <AUTHOR> http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-33303105 <comment><USER2> ECB statement:

ELA to Greek banks maintained at its current level

\- ECB takes note of decision on Greek referendum and the non-prolongation of the EU adjustment programme

\- ECB will work closely with Bank of Greece to maintain financial stability

\- Emergency liquidity assistance maintained at Friday's (26 June 2015) level

\- Governing Council stands ready to review decision

\- Governing Council closely monitoring situation and potential implications for monetary policy stance

The Governing Council of the European Central Bank today welcomed the commitment by ministers from euro area Member States to take all necessary measures to further improve the resilience of euro area economies and to stand ready to take decisive steps to strengthen Economic and Monetary Union.

Following the decision by the Greek authorities to hold a referendum and the non-prolongation of the EU adjustment programme for Greece, the Governing Council declared it will work closely with the Bank of Greece to maintain financial stability.

Given the current circumstances, the Governing Council decided to maintain the ceiling to the provision of emergency liquidity assistance (ELA) to Greek banks at the level decided on Friday (26 June 2015).

The Governing Council stands ready to reconsider its decision.

Mario Draghi, ECB President, said: "We continue to work closely with the Bank of Greece and we strongly endorse the commitment of Member States in pledging to take action to address the fragilities of euro area economies."

Yannis Stournaras, Governor of the Bank of Greece, said: "The Bank of Greece, as a member of the Eurosystem, will take all measures necessary to ensure financial stability for Greek citizens in these difficult circumstances."

The Governing Council is closely monitoring the situation in financial markets and the potential implications for the monetary policy stance and for the balance of risks to price stability in the euro area. The Governing Council is determined to use all the instruments available within its mandate.

[https://www.ecb.europa.eu/press/pr/date/2015/html/pr150628.e...](https://www.ecb.europa.eu/press/pr/date/2015/html/pr150628.en.html)

<comment><USER3> The Greek version of monopoly - they cleaned out the bank early, and everyone loses (game over!)

<comment><USER2> The ELA freeze was for Sunday. It will be reviewed on a daily basis.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> They have to impose capital restrictions fast...

What Would Greek Capital Controls Look Like?

[http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2015-06-01/how- greek-...](http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2015-06-01/how-greek- capital-controls-would-work-if-deadlock-persists-q-a)

<comment><USER5> Varoufakis apparently told BBC that the banks might stay closed tomorrow and that capital controls could be imposed.

[http://twitter.com/suttonnick/status/615112479828348928](http://twitter.com/suttonnick/status/615112479828348928)

edit: scratch that. [http://twitter.com/yanisvaroufakis/status/615127339102531584](http://twitter.com/yanisvaroufakis/status/615127339102531584)

<comment><USER4> Not imposing capital restrictions is suicide, i don't know if Yanis varoufakis is an economical genius a madman or simply amateurish.

<comment><USER6> Alexis Tsipras is genius the referendum means he doesn't have to do his job.

He can just say "See you all decided not me."

<comment><USER7> It's his actual job - to represent and follow the opinion of the people. It's called democracy. And if the opinion of the majority is wrong, then, in this case, so be it.

<comment><USER8> He's not a representative, he's an administrator. Representing the people is the job of parliament, _his job is to lead_. He cannot just switch sides whenever it suits him.

We have all of these safeguards in place to ensure our leaders neither go off the rails completely, nor simply follow the popular opinion du jour with the predictable disastrous consequences.

If we would do that in the rest of Europe, aid to Greece would have stopped a long time ago.

<comment><USER9> Well, it should have stopped a long time ago... Or to be more accurate, financial help should never happen in the first place. But that's another long story.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> tl;dr ECB has leaked to BBC they will cut off emergency lending that covers the panic withdrawals. This will kill the deal and force a grexit, even before 5 July referendum. However French PM does not think they have enough independence to do that.

So we have a democratic nation potentially forced to leave Euro, after democratically deciding it no longer wants the austerity imposed, being forced to leave by non democratic ECB while the democracies that appoint the ECB think it is going too far.

What's that quote from Hunt For Red October - "with all these planes in the sky, it's only a matter of time [before we start a war]"

The lesson for democracy - force governments who are going to adjust fiscal measures past a certain point to get referendum approval

\- and look how well that works in California...

<comment><USER11> What's the alternative for the ECB? Give €129 bn to Greek banks to replace the deposits that are bound to flee this week only to see it lost when they default after saying no in the referendum? The Greek banks would have been bust long ago if it wasn't for the ECB's emergency lending; they've been provided with €60 bn in liquidity over the last 6 months to replace the deposit flight. Not sure how you can characterise that as Greece being forced to leave by a decision from the ECB. Looks more to me like they have to leave because there are no other options left.

<comment><USER12> The alternative is to start investing in Greece. To build up it's economy so we can end the Greek Depression. As it stands now the austerity packages have cut 30% off of the economy and increased the unemployment rates to nearly 30%, 50% of the youth. Those are Great Depression size numbers. Hard to collect taxes when people are not working. All these bailouts are basically just the Troika hand wringing about giving money to themselves while the country they are helping is bled dry. To date the IMF have made about 2.5 Billion, Germany profited to the tune of 100 Billion.

<comment><USER11> I asked what the alternative for the ECB was and you suggested the alternative was to invest in Greece. Are you suggesting that the ECB should invest in Greece to build up its economy or are you conflating my question regarding what the alternative for the ECB was with a question which I did not ask regarding what European institutions in general should do?

<comment><USER10> To roughly answer the above questions - the ECB and IMF need to stop. This is above their pay grade.

This is a problem caused by a fixed exchange rate (single currency) at the wrong rate for Greece and co. Without a mechanism to adjust prices for differences in cost and productivity Euros looked really cheap to borrow from germane but olive oil looked really expensive to buy in. (Germany presses and bottles and exports more olive oil from Greek olives than Greece does)

The only way to solve the problem long term is to move the money from richer (urban) parts of Europe to poorer rural parts. Stupid ideas like the CAP don't really help. Redistributive taxation across Europe (ie Federal taxes and Federal government) are the next step. But that is waaaaay out of the ECBs remit.

Syriza is basically saying - fine break my legs, but only if you can promise a European wide discussion on how we got into this mess and what a federal Europe will look like

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> There were similar leaks from ECB to force Irish to take bailout. Anyway we will see on monday, right now some ATMs in athens are still working.

<comment><USER14> Since this is [citation needed] I dug around. Seems like yes, the ECB pressured Ireland into accepting a bailout by threatening them to shut down ELA. But in fact they did it in a secret letter from Trichet to the then finance minister. Getting that letter released took some pressure, as well. [0][1]

So, the only similarity seems to be the ECB threatening to pull ELA. There has alreay been debate that the ECB is already overstepping their mandate, but I can't find an English source for that.

0: [http://www.irishtimes.com/business/economy/o-reilly-hits- out...](http://www.irishtimes.com/business/economy/o-reilly-hits-out-at-ecb- for-lack-of-transparency-on-irish-bailout-1.1716321)

1: [http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-29942060](http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-29942060)

<comment><USER13> My source is former Irish financial minister talking at parliamentary commission, which investigated crisis, a few months ago. Dont really remember details.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> They say that newspapers readers and television viewers love a train wreck, a situation where everybody knows very bad things are coming and we all pop the popcorn and watch. It's a sad reflection on human nature, but audience numbers prove it out.

But wow, the Grexit is painful even when put into the train wreck category. It's going on and on, and the invective, hate, and hard feelings linger and fester. The amount of misery this has produced seems vastly out of proportion to the incident itself. I wonder if severe, immediate action taken at the beginning of the crisis wouldn't have resulted in something much less painful than this. 25% shrinkage in the economy and _then_ massive bank closings? Good grief. It's becoming reminiscent of post WWI Germany.

</comment><comment><USER16> >after five years of lender-imposed austerity that has increased Greek unemployment

That's a very easy target. Probably easier to ignore the high cost of hiring, bureacracy, corruption,...

</comment><comment><USER17> Several people are interpreting "stays the same" as good news for Greece and contrary to the article. I interpret it as the opposite: it will not expand further to meet the demand, thus Greek banks will run out of money. I didn't have the impression anyone expected the full amount to be recalled.

<comment><USER2> The article was incorrect by stating ELA would be "turned off", as it will merely be frozen, or at least the ECB is saying so.

However if the ECB follows through on this, the end result may be the same and it's only a matter of time before the entire ELA bailout is unwound like in Cyprus.

<comment><USER17> The article seems a little confusing/confused but not strictly incorrect. There is no statement that the full amount would be recalled. The value of ELA has effectively become the extensions - the newly-lent money is being withdrawn daily. "Ending" this and refusing increase the limit could be considered the same.

</comment></comment></comment><comment> the-dude Just now : ELA continued : [http://www.ecb.europa.eu/press/pr/date/2015/html/pr150628.en...](http://www.ecb.europa.eu/press/pr/date/2015/html/pr150628.en.html)

<comment><USER18> The title is not particularly clear. "Continued" means that the ELA is maintained at the current level.

Put another way, there will be no further increase in ELA and the Greek banks have used the previous allotment, so their coffers are running dry. It will be a very tough week in Athens.

</comment></comment><comment><USER2> The BBC should know better than this, using "unnamed sources" to quote a rumour as fact.

No decision has been made yet, so this is just misinformation. Expect more of this over the next days.

<comment><USER19> Unfortunately this is extremely common in many countries where politicians and civil servants want something out without having it tied to them.

If you've been following the greece coverage, there's been lots of documents leaking from various sources on both sides of the negotiations. Last week when the initial greek proposal and the IMF "red-lined" version were in discussion, both were leaked on the day...

<comment><USER20>
        > in many countries where politicians and civil servants
        > want something out without having it tied to them

I wonder if there are any democracies where this mechanism _isn 't_ used

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> What kind of capital controls? in this situation it is quite an oxymoron. With a different currency you can control the exchange rate or limit how much one is allowed to exchange, however Greece still has the same internal currency - the Euro. You don't have a Greek euro only - its the same currency.

To me all these conflicting reports smell like panic; decision makers just don't know what to do now, and the BBC does not know what to report. Sounds like 2008 all over again.

<comment><USER22> Cyprus imposed capital controls while remaining in the Euro. Restrictions on bank transfers and cash crossing the border.

<comment><USER21> interesting. Now how is the economy supposed to function with limitations on bank transfer? Wouldn't that make it difficult to repay debt?

<comment><USER22> Lots of paperwork, I think. Every non-trivial transfer requires approval. Here's how it used to work in the UK until 1979: [http://www.bankofengland.co.uk/archive/Documents/historicpub...](http://www.bankofengland.co.uk/archive/Documents/historicpubs/qb/1967/qb67q3245260.pdf)

Edit: yes, this makes commerce difficult. A finance correspondent I follow on twitter says to expect petrol rationing.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> And now it will continue:

[http://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-33304674](http://www.bbc.com/news/world- europe-33304674)

</comment><comment><USER24> Flagging this, way too much un-informed nonsense in this thread, lots of heat and little or no light.

</comment><comment><USER25> As I understand it, one of the major underlying issues this whole time (aside from the silliness of trying to integrate Greece's economy with Germany's) was the ECB's refusal to act as the lender of last resort. This seems like an affirmation of that.

If Greece exits the Euro, I wonder if that will embolden other countries to do the same.

<comment><USER26> The ECB has _effectively_ acted as a lender of last resort to Greece for a looong time (just look at ELA [1] for example), although for political reasons this fact has been sugar-coated so as not to scare the electorate in states that pay for Greece (and are now beginning to see what has been clear to anyone who looked at the figures, namely that the money is gone!). Greece was effectively bankrupt years ago. The main underlying issue is that Greece has been unable or unwilling (depending on whom you ask) to ensure that tax revenues roughly match government expenditures.

[1] [https://www.ecb.europa.eu/mopo/ela/html/index.en.html](https://www.ecb.europa.eu/mopo/ela/html/index.en.html)

<comment><USER25> But there aren't many countries in the First World that run revenue neutral or better. The U.S. certainly doesn't, and most countries with fiat currencies and their own central banks don't. I realize it's "possible" in the broad sense, but Germany aside, it's a big ask of Greece (and austerity thus far has done about bupkis to actually deal with the fallout of the financial crisis).

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER27> Its times like these that I seriously consider buying more bitcoins. Capital controls are totally unjust, in a free country. And it can happen in any country. The governments need to get their act together, instead of punishing innocent citizens. Why does a centrally controlled currency even need to exist in the first place?

</comment><comment><USER28> It's about time. Greece has been behaving like a gambling addict, asking for money to repay the old debts only to waste them in expensive restaurants, buying iPhones, and gambling even more.

<comment><USER29> Gambling addict? What an incredibly unfair and childish characterisation.

Greece is not a person, Greece is a nation state. It has implemented severe fiscal cutbacks after being forced to by its creditors. Cutbacks which have ruined the country's economy, massively increased poverty, and made it more difficult to pay back its debts.

Now its people have voted in a government that wishes to make different reforms. Ones that also keep the book balanced, but do not hurt the weakest in society as much or destroy economic productivity.

<comment><USER30> While I am certainly sympathetic to the Greeks for the hardships they have faced and will undoubtedly face in the years to come, it is incredibly unfair to deny the Greeks' own responsibility in all this.

This entire mess started with Greece not having its finances in order, and essentially lying about this for years to the rest of the Eurogroup. After it became clear how dire the situation was, the Eurogroup stepped in and helped Greece by giving them money (LOTS of money). Had the Eurogroup not done this, Greece would have defaulted on its debts years ago, and the country would have gone bankrupt.

Now if someone offers to help you by giving you money, provided you meet certain conditions, you can either accept and comply with the conditions, or you can refuse. The fact is that Greece gladly accepted the billions upon billions of euros, and the conditions that money came with.

I am fully aware that the measures demanded by Greece's creditors are tough. Some would say it is doubtful whether they are actually effective at all. And the demanded measures are certainly driven partly by political motives. All this is true.

But it is mind-boggling to me that after the Eurogroup provided several hundred billion euro's in aid to Greece, anyone would turn around and claim the current crisis is in no way the Greeks' own fault.

<comment><USER31> > While I am certainly sympathetic to the Greeks for the hardships they have > faced and will undoubtedly face in the years to come, it is incredibly > unfair to deny the Greeks' own responsibility in all this.

Nobody is denying that fact. But it seems you are forgetting that Greece made a lot of tough decisions for its people when asked by its creditors to "reform" yet it is just not sustainable, it's like asking the greeks to commit suicide.

> and essentially lying about this for years to the rest of the Eurogroup

And who do you think helped cook the books? Goldman Sachs

If a country gets out of the Euro, it will set a precedent and other countries might do that in the future. The euro is an insane experiment anyway. It cannot work. Too many structural and economical differences between euro countries. UK was smart enough not to get into that mess. It seems that the only country really profiting from this is Germany. While they are obviously not responsible for that mess , there is a lot of resentment against Germany in southern European countries and France. For these countries the Euro is just the Deutsche Mark 2.0.

<comment><USER32> > And who do you think helped cook the books? Goldman Sachs

Did GS get any "punishment" for this? And does this take away all guilt from Greece?

> The euro is an insane experiment anyway. It cannot work. Too many structural > and economical differences between euro countries.

As someone without an economics background, I'm interested to know what these insurmountable differences are?

<comment><USER33> > Did GS get any "punishment" for this?

I guess the punishment is that former GS executive Mario Draghi now runs the ECB.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Most Americans Say Government Doesn't Do Enough to Help Middle Class - <AUTHOR> http://www.pewsocialtrends.org/2016/02/04/most-americans-say-government-doesnt-do-enough-to-help-middle-class/ <comment><USER3> Assuming that starting and owning small businesses are the backbone for a strong middle class, then yes the gov't doesn't "help" enough. But instead of actively helping, maybe it would be better phrased as not passively hurting. The left rallies around regulation and benefits that frequently require or assume big business, and right's "pro-business" stance is also focused on big corporations, free trade, etc.

Have some family members running "Mom and Pop" sized businesses and it's very tough for them to make a living.

<comment><USER4> In my experience (have some family members running small businesses as well, including my father) the crunch seems to be coming from the fact that the middle class has just enough money to make mortgage / car payments - <USER2> keep them in the middle class - but not enough left over to spend at small businesses. If compensation was rising in accordance, there wouldn't be a problem. However large corporations are hoarding cash like crazy and leaving employees out in the cold which in turn harms small businesses.

</comment></comment><comment> rm_-rf_slash This is why campaign finance is the #1 problem facing American democracy today. It's not about the election, it's the re-election. It's about the sausage-making. Even if you come to Washington without the support of wealthy donors, you will have to work with people who do. Representatives in the pockets of special interests will favor them because those are the groups that truly hold politicians accountable, because losing re-election is akin to flushing a political career down the toilet. So policy tends to favor the special interests, even when the popular majority opposes it.

I do not believe it is possible for a powerful state like America to avoid corruption, because high concentrations of power insulate themselves from accountability (which is a threat to power like any other), and it takes immense power to reap immense benefits (whether those benefits reach the general population or are at the expense of others is a different story, like the CIA-backed coup in 1950s Guatemala which broke the back of local communists/socialists and ensured greater profits for United Fruit Company and lower costs to American consumers).

Therefore, I advocate a citizen's veto amendment, allowing the public to reject laws passed by representatives who only give a damn about the constituents during election season. If corporations and wealthy individuals are going to control Congress and the Executive, the people ought to retain the right to say no.

<comment><USER5> The one bright spot in this cycle, IMO, has been the utter failure of the campaign finance machines to have much of an effect.

JEB blew through $100mil (reportedly). I hope each and every one of those donors considers it wasted money, and are more reluctant to do it again.

<comment> rm_-rf_slash Like I said, re-election is what matters. It's not about money winning elections, it's about politicians spending their terms serving their donors once they're in office so they can stay in office.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> "Overall, 62% say the government doesn't do enough to help the middle class, while 29% say it does about the right amount and 6% say it does too much. Roughly the same share (59%) says the government does not do enough for poor people or for children (59% each), and 66% say the government doesn't do enough to help older people."

Basically, people think the government doesn't do enough. I would like to see views on taxes included in the same survey.</comment>


Top-10 Web Application Security Vulnerabilities (2007) - <AUTHOR> http://www.owasp.org/index.php/Top_10_2007

<comment><USER2> The Top-10 is just a start. As a penetration tester and sometimes-trainer, I find it's when developers start to see practical demonstrations of what these vulnerabilities can actually allow a malicious party to achieve that the eyes really get opened. Particularly when those demonstrations are within their own applications.

Check out the rest of the OWASP site, and play with WebGoat ([http://www.owasp.org/index.php/Category:OWASP_WebGoat_Projec...](http://www.owasp.org/index.php/Category:OWASP_WebGoat_Project)).

Take a look at the 'Web Security' section here: <http://code.google.com/edu/courses.html>

Start following some of the many webappsec blogs floating around the interwebs, subscribe to mailing lists, read tweets: <http://www.gnucitizen.org/> <http://ha.ckers.org/> <http://jeremiahgrossman.blogspot.com/> <http://www.webappsec.org/lists/websecurity/> <http://twitter.com/#search?q=%23WebAppSec>

There is a huge amount of information out there.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks, that's great information. Do you mind if I add it to the (public) notes on my web-page? How should I cite you?

<comment><USER2> Go for it, no need to cite.

<comment><AUTHOR> Posted. Cited anyway.

<http://www.shinyfish.com/wiki/WebApplicationSecurity.html>

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> Obligatory link to the 2010 list of the top 10 risks: <http://www.owasp.org/index.php/Top_10_2010-Main>

Interesting how many items are still there from 2004 to 2007 to 2010.

<comment><USER4> IIRC, I think I analyzed and organized those pages in 2007. Looks like the big ones (XSS, injection) are still pretty much the same. In fact, looks like most of my work is pretty much the same, but some shiny new graphics have been added. :)

You'd be surprised at the number of pages I come across that still have these basic insecurities. Thankfully, automatic checking is making really basic CSRF attacks less prevalent.

I'm sure tptacek or someone more familiar with the current hotlist would have more to say, though.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> I'm on a team that is writing documentation for developers to mitigate the OWASP Top 10 and CWE 25. You'd be surprised how many intelligent, bright developers think that because their code is behind the firewall it is safe and acceptable to leave those kinds of holes wide open.

<comment><USER6> Add SSL to the list, along with hidden form parameters and request headers. It's as if nobody's ever heard of using cURL or an HTTP proxy, even if for debugging purposes.

<comment><USER5> We're actually covering code analysis, testing, and fuzzing tools as well. Great depth of information coming out of this thing. :)</comment></comment></comment>


Ask HN: What were your favorite CCC talks this year? - <AUTHOR> Every year, I usually see some talks bubble up onto the frontpage or some recaps posted, but I'm not sure I've seen anything yet.<p>What are your favorites/highlights from this year? https://media.ccc.de/c/34c3 <comment><USER2> Dude, you broke the Future! by Charles Stross [https://media.ccc.de/v/34c3-9270-dude_you_broke_the_future](https://media.ccc.de/v/34c3-9270-dude_you_broke_the_future)</comment>