Ask HN: ZOS/Cobol Development in Canada? - <AUTHOR> Hey HN, I've been playing around with zOS in Hercules and the MTM Learning System for the past few weeks learning how the internal plumbing of the system works and how to create Cobol programs and using tools like DB2, CICS, JCL & whatnot and quite frankly I am absolutely in love with the system (as weird as that is to say about a development environment limited to the width of a punch card). I'm curious if anyone can weigh in on how the current landscape looks in Canada here and maybe give me some advice moving forward.
I currently do not have my CS degree, I attempted a few years back but failed out due to non-school related issues. Despite this, I have been working with Go/React/RN/GAE with a few projects and small utilities for my own use, primarily stuff to scratch my own itch. I'm much more comfortable and capable on the backend using concurrent and distributed code but can hack together a janky frontend. Most of these projects are unpublishable. That and I live in the middle of Saskatoon Saskatchewan, not too many CS jobs out here and most of my CS pals that have graduated and stayed are employed in other functions. So relocation is pretty much required but I'm not looking to leave the country.
I'm coming up short on ideas to build that would both expand my Cobol knowledge, familiarity/exposure to IBM system facilities and looks well in a Github repo. Could anyone point me in a decent direction for contemporary best practices/codebases or just give me some project ideas to go bash my brain against? Short of that any sort of advice here would be wonderful.
Thanks all, I appreciate it. <comment><USER2> Hi, I worked on the C/C++ compiler for zLinux, the COBOL compiler for zOS, and on the non-open-source version of Hercules.

If you've got zOS and COBOL knowledge then Toronto is the place for you. IBM develops their zOS software in Toronto (well, Markham) mostly. At least the compilers, DB2, and parts of WebSphere.

The other users are the major banks, and they're all headquartered in downtown Toronto. They're desperately looking for people with zOS and COBOL knowledge, I get plenty of recruiter emails for that despite not really having much COBOL knowledge.

Honestly, if you apply for any of those jobs with even a passing familiarity of COBOL you're pretty much guaranteed. Also, welcome to the mainframe club!

<comment><USER3> > Honestly, if you apply for any of those jobs with even a passing familiarity > of COBOL you're pretty much guaranteed.

This is interesting. How the companies there react to the fact that one doesn't have an academic degree despite IBM devops knowledge?

<comment><USER2> That I honestly don't know. Everyone but one person in the compiler area had at least a Bachelor's degree, and that one person had what was essentially a 4 year diploma. I'm not familiar enough with any of the areas or the bank hiring to know for sure.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> As others have said, Toronto should have about as many jobs as you can hope to find for such an obscure part of software development these days.

A lot of zOS shops hire remote developers these days too, because it's hard to find local people with the right skill set. I imagine it'd be pretty hard to get a remote position as your first job, but it's a good option for the second.

IBM themselves doesn't hire remote workers anymore though, at least I don't think they do.

Banks are your best bet for COBOL, as well as certain parts of the government. The IRS in the US still uses mainframes. Some big companies in the zOS world that you might look into are BMC Software, Rocket Software, and CA Technologies.

I would also recommend not limiting yourself to COBOL - plenty of mainframe programming is still being done in high level assembler, c, and c++. If you know CICS, DB2, and JCL already then it would probably be easy to get a job writing Java for mainframes as well.

Also, if you really love zOS and want a degree, Marist College in upstate NY has a degree program specifically for zOS. It's the only such program in the world, as far as I know.

[http://idcp.marist.edu/enterprisesystemseducation/zosprogram...](http://idcp.marist.edu/enterprisesystemseducation/zosprogramoverview.html)

I graduated college in 2016 and have been working at a small company that sells a high level assembler debugger for zOS since then. If you (or anyone else reading this) have any more questions about zOS programming or the mainframe industry in general, feel free to shoot me an email. My email address should be on my profile.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thank god I just found a use for my dusty C skills, but I will have to pick up Java. More languages in the toolkit never hurt right? As noted above the gameplan right now is to get over to the GTA and keep working on my skills until I can afford the move. A poster in the r/mainframe thread suggested trying to get my floor in the door with a position in Ops and working up from there would be a good idea. What are your thoughts?

The college looks interesting, but America. :(

<comment><USER4> Working in ops is a good plan - in the mainframe world, the people we would normally call system administrators are called systems programmers or sysprogs.

Sometimes you can find a specific position (being a sysprog for CICS and nothing else, for example) or a more general role. Either way it's pretty easy to move from sysprog to developer once you have some mainframe experience because mainframe experience is so rare these days. You'll also be working reasonably closely with the development teams, so that helps too.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> The following company offers mainframe access for $125 month. [http://maintec.com/mainframe-access.html](http://maintec.com/mainframe- access.html)

Number of USERID's: One USERID

Environment: Shared environment with RACF protection

Software Products: Only IBM Products Available (z/OS 1.4, TSO, ISPF, SDSF, JCL, DB2 V7.1, CICS V2.2, COBOL, Assembler, PL/1) including FTP.

System Availability: 24x7 (Any planned outages with be informed in advance)

Contract: Month – Month with one month cancellation notice

CPU: No Limit – Managed by WLM

DASD: Sufficient DASD is available. Additional DASD available on cost basis.

Support: 24x7 E-Mail Support Available

Emulator : Trial version available from -- [http://www.tombrennansoftware.com/](http://www.tombrennansoftware.com/)

Cost: The cost would be $125/Month for 1 Userid

Consulting: Additional support / consulting available for $95/hr.

I looked at these guys a few months back, just like you down the zOS/ Hercules rabbit hole. I lost interest and moved onto other things but never followed up with this company so I don't know how good they are.

<comment><AUTHOR> I've been using the MTM System, and while slow I believe they're keeping the lights on all year as opposed to only when the contest is running. If they shut her down, I'll have to pick this up as a learning system.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> Damn near every bank in Canada uses cobol on zOS and DB2. I'd suggest searching job postings at all major banks. Likely you'd need to move to Toronto though because that's where the bank HQs are. Also check out a company called CGI... they have a few Cobol/mainframe positions open right now:

[https://cgi.njoyn.com/CGI/xweb/xweb.asp?page=joblisting&CLID...](https://cgi.njoyn.com/CGI/xweb/xweb.asp?page=joblisting&CLID=21001&CountryId=CA&lang=1)

Also, check out the Cobol cowboys:

[https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-banks-cobol- idUSKBN17...](https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-banks-cobol- idUSKBN17C0D8)

</comment><comment><USER7> Small world, bud - I'm from Regina!

I don't work with Cobol, can't think of anyone who does and so I can't give you any specific help in regards to finding a job. About the best I could suggest would be to find one of the companies that do tons of consulting for the government of sask, find someone with as much or more grey hair than me, and send them a message on LinkedIn. There may be parts of the GOS that do Cobol work, though I have no idea if that would be central services, whatever the fuck they call the ITO now, or if they're deep in a department.

But, if you wrote this exact same post about a language I use all the time, I'd likely suggest that you find a busy open source project in that language and start trying to contribute. On Github, you can look up trending Cobol projects - maybe you'll find one that you're interested in. The joy of open source is that you'll often get to work with some amazing developers who can help you level up your skills. The other joy of open source is that if you prove yourself, most maintainers are excellent help during a job hunt!!

<comment><AUTHOR> Fucking rights bud, I know a few greybeards down with the city so reaching out would be a great idea. There's not much talent or tech here so It wouldn't surprise me to find an old mainframe running parts of the show.

As far as github there are only 758 total repos for it, so I'll need to do some serious digging to find something to work on that's active. Half the reason I made this thread was to get ideas on what to hack up and publish after all.

I'll tell you what, if you find yourself up is Stoon give me a shout. Would love to rip some shittys and hack some darts with ya. Just look me up on FB or email me :)

<comment><USER7> You know, I think you'll be pleasantly surprised by the talent in Saskatchewan. There are some incredibly smart developers here doing some very interesting things. Saskatoon in particular has a couple of very interesting startups. Our winters are an incredible advantage and people here, particularly older adults (75+) always root for innovation. Our media landscape is also very solid and if you're launching something, you can assume you'll be able to get meaningful coverage. The coverage isn't always as critical as it should be, but every place has things to work on.

I bet that if you ask around, you'll find some local Cobol. Heck, I bet there's some running at some of the credit unions.

Good luck to you!

<comment><AUTHOR> I guess what I meant is compared to $US_TECHHUB, definitely met some extrodinarly talented people but it seems a bunch that stuck around got shafted in the race for the few jobs avalible, but the praries have their own sort of flattened beauty.

You got one thing right though, the long winters make for ample amounts of time to work. Hit the Humptys on Albert during the early morning with your laptop and a window booth, beats those -30C blues into oblivion :)

<comment><USER7> I've had a couple of job issues in my day, so I can't deny the truth behind your first paragraph.

But, your second paragraph is just chilling enough that I have to ask who are you really? If your first name is Ben, this is the best prank I've ever been a part of...this really means a lot and I'm touched, though I can't for the life of me imagine how you remember 271 at Humpty's. Heck, I thought you were too smart to even know the less capable worked there!! :)

<comment><AUTHOR> Wish I was who you're talking about, name's Jeremy though. Sent you a message on Facebook though, hit me up bud :)

<comment><USER7> Hey Jeremy, good to meet you. I don't really use Facebook - in fact, I don't think I've actually updated anything since before my kid was born. My email though is in my profile. I'll try to figure out Facebook and get back to you, but if you don't hear from me, blame my age and email me! :)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> How did you get copies of zOS, DB2, CICS, etc.? I've played around with Hercules and really old versions of VM/CMS and MVS, but nothing modern, as I didn't think that one could legally do it. Maybe that's changed. I think it would really be in IBM's interests to make their z-series software accessible for those who want to learn on Hercules.

<comment><AUTHOR> Yeah, there's no legal way to do it. That being said IBM does run a training system for Master The Mainframe that's extremely useful and always has a few active users

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> Honestly, it's a dead end, with little innovation happening and alot of outsourcing. There are few/no new customers on these platforms and most new work is on platforms like Websphere if the bank loves IBM.

Tech is an amazing, growing, evolving field. Don't settle, and don't make your life dependent on IBM's fortunes — that time passed 30 years ago!

<comment><USER10> From what I understand, mainframes and similar systems have now reached a point where they're quite "sticky". That is, if they haven't already been replaced by now then there are excellent reasons why they're perhaps going to stick around indefinitely. For one, every time another big ransomware attack occurs, which has cost several big companies months of work and hundreds of millions of dollars to try and clean up, the Big Iron folks look at that and go "Thank goodness we're [relatively] immune to such attacks!" And I once had to personally step in and temporarily revive a zombie but somewhat critical Wintel server which had been attacked in some fashion (the server folks had just given up on it, although finding and correcting the problem itself was pretty trivial), and while I was doing that I remember thinking that such an attack was basically impossible on the bigger systems which I often work on. And so on.

Plus, the economics of "scale out" vs. "scale up" don't necessarily look so hot, at least once you reach a certain number of servers. These days you can avoid that to a certain extent my moving at least some of your work to the cloud, but the cloud folks themselves aren't immune to this, either, and I believe they're already starting to figure that out.

As far as tech being "an amazing, growing, evolving field", as an old-timer I've grown quite accustomed to looking into some "new" tech only to realize that it's really a rehash of tech from maybe decades ago, just with a new name and a new coat of paint. Given that supposedly at any given moment something like half of the folks in IT have less than five years experience (they're noobs, in order words), I guess that it shouldn't be too surprising that they keep running into problems and reinventing solutions to those problems which were already worked out decades ago.

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> The Canadian federal government uses a lot of COBOL.

My first job out of university in 1996 was maintaining COBOL programs that fed data from Revenue Canada to the CPP. My first task was to rewrite a COBOL program originally written in 1972 into "modern" COBOL-85! Which is to say that COBOL shops are not exactly on the cutting edge of technology. So I quit doing COBOL programming in 1998 after I'd paid off my student debt and taught myself C++ (although nowadays I use Python and Go).

Having said that, mainframes are still competitive in their niche (high performance batch processing) which is why they're still around. But as a career option you have to keep in mind that it won't be technically stimulating and you're probably vulnerable to the work being outsourced overseas to cheap body shops.

</comment><comment><USER12> Genuinely interested: When you say you are in love with the system, is it because you think of yourself as kind of a luddite programmer, or do you believe there's something that mainframes and Cobol do that other stacks can't?

Or are you looking for work that pays a premium due to the obscure skillset?

<comment><AUTHOR> Because it's the closest thing to alien tech that I've come across. It maintains compatibility for programs compiled in the 60s while still pushing the boundaries of modern tech. Hell, go take a look at a fully configured z14 and tell me that isn't a beautiful work of art (capable of handling thousands of users across thousands of virtualized or native systems). The interface is archaic as a poster under commented but there is some serious machine underneath it, with amazing amounts of documentation and established audited code. I cut my teeth on Linux/BSD systems and the way these systems are engineered is both elegant and thought out instead of heaping piles of duct tape. Although seeing the unit of measurement of "Cards" every now and again does get a giggle out of me.

Also: "Yeah but oh man, wouldn't you just love to get one of those Gibsons, baby? Ooooh!"

<comment><USER10> "capable of handling thousands of users across thousands of virtualized or native systems": Yeah, the systems that I often work on can usually handle those kinds of work loads with extreme reliability and efficiency without even breaking a sweat. Meanwhile the server folks will look at that kind of stuff and almost wet themselves.

On "cards": Open a terminal session or a command prompt on almost any system ("new" or "old"), and it will generally default to being 80 columns wide. Guess where that default comes from!

<comment><AUTHOR> I knew about 80 just being a standard but put into the context of punch cards it just makes sense. Same thing with cobol, max line length is 80, first seven are stripped from compile, comments start on line 7. Who thought 72 char lines were a good idea in a language? Guys that dropped a few too many stacks of cards.

Thank god for the continuation character.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> RBC in Toronto is using COBOL on IBM mainframes. They have plenty of in-house developers.

</comment><comment><USER14> I worked for a company that did integration work for the IBM market. Every Fortune 500 retailer we dealt with had zOS playing a big role in their enterprise and did not seem to have any plans to change that. Lack of a CS degree didn't hold back any of my coworkers. Most had some form of STEM degree but the degree didn't matter for experienced hires. It's tough getting that first job experience though.

Don't overlook OpenText though they hire a lot from U of Waterloo.

</comment><comment><USER15> Search for "IBM Z DevOps" they're trying to revitalise the platform with modern development practices.

Also banks are large users of Cobol so that ecosystem wpuld be good to keep an eye on.

</comment><comment><USER16> Never thought I'd be searching 'cobol jobs', but even a quick look reveals dozens (in Toronto). If you search for any other major city, I'm sure you'll fine a few others. Banks and other major slow moving big co.'s are probably the best bet.

</comment><comment><USER17> Lots of posters have mentioned the big banks in Toronto which is absolutely correct, but the big insurers use zOS heavily as well. Waterloo region has a number of big insurance companies and is a lot less expensive than Toronto.

</comment><comment><USER10> I see that you've already discovered /r/mainframe. Terminal Talk is a good resource to keep an eye on, too: [http://terminaltalk.net](http://terminaltalk.net)

</comment><comment><USER18> Check the banks - they all are likely to have mainframes somewhere.

<comment><USER4> Visa is a heavy user of zOS as well, as are some of the other credit card companies.

</comment></comment><comment><USER19> Looking for a Job? Try The Guaratee Company of North America's website and send a resume to the hr email. [https://www.theguarantee.com/en/about/careers](https://www.theguarantee.com/en/about/careers)</comment>


Flatland: A romance of many dimensions - <AUTHOR> http://www.geom.uiuc.edu/~banchoff/Flatland/ <comment><USER2> If anyone enjoyed Flatland, a similar back in the same vein is Planiverse, which takes the 2-dimensional world concept and fleshes it out with how physics, geology, weather, cosmology, biology, society and technology would work in such a world. Worthwhile if you have the time.

</comment><comment><USER3> This is a brilliant book. I loved it, have the hard copy and read it so many times.

I'd also recommend the Devil's Dictionary (<http://www.gutenberg.org/etext/972>) for another good old read.

</comment><comment><USER4> For the curious: This is available on the 99¢ Classics app on the iPhone, and it looks beautiful there.

<comment><USER5> And the Kindle for various prices. Not sure how beautiful it looks as I haven't purchased it yet.</comment></comment>


Sculptor who uses pencils as his medium - <AUTHOR> http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1298873/Now-thats-proper-LEAD-singer-Sculptor-carves-tiny-Elvis-tip-pencil.html <comment><USER2> From 35 days ago: <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1564285>

And 28 days ago: <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1584017></comment>


Good read. Fund raising exp by an Indian entrepreneur (2010 article). - <AUTHOR> http://beyondprofit.com/experiences-in-raising-funds-for-my-startup/

<comment><AUTHOR> I met this guy personally and I can say it is just straight from his heart. Amazing guy with so much passion to make a difference in this totally chaotic sector.

His narration of real experience in Indian farming sector and how the prices are determined is quite amazing.</comment>


Show HN: Log, inspect and debug HTTP/HTTPS requests and webhooks the easy way - <AUTHOR> https://logvoo.com <comment><USER2> This is really cool, like requestb.in but live updating!

requestb.in has a more modern design but logvoo makes that up with fitting more useful information on the screen. Also like the history version, that doesn't exists on requestb.in

<comment><AUTHOR> Logvoo's design is more in line with a Terminal/Console type look and feel.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> Cool, but seems there's a timezone issue, I just performed a post request, then it says `about * hours ago`(replace * with one number).</comment>


Why age in software is bullshit - <AUTHOR> http://scripting.com/2014/07/15/whyAgeInSoftwareIsBullshit.html

<comment><USER2> You may have data warehousing experience but you don't have experience in big data. You used Berkely DB ages ago, but don't have experience with Reddis. Why would you use Python on the server side when you can use NodeJS?

<comment><USER3> Do you really think that the new software components are that revolutionary? At best, they're an evolution of older ideas, and an experienced programmers understands the reasons for that evolution. At their worst, they're a re- implementation of old ideas that have failed, only their implementors didn't have enough experience to know that.

<comment><USER4> That was satirical.</comment></comment></comment>


Ask HN: Boilerplate SaaS app for Python? - <AUTHOR> I am looking to create a SaaS application. It needs to let users register, login, subscribe to a plan by paying with stripe, cancel plan, upgrade plan....etc., it feels awfully like I'm reinventing the wheel. Basically I am looking for something like https://github.com/RailsApps/rails-stripe-membership-saas but for Python. I am using django and flask, but find that someone must have solved all these generic problems. The closest thing I found was https://github.com/zhaque/django-saas-kit but it hasn't been active for quite some time. Anyone have a suggestion? Basically I am looking for a boilerplate SaaS python application I can use for my own project which comes with the basic features like user authentication, subscription management. <comment><USER2> I mostly use flask. I have not come across a complete SAAS boilerplate in flask but you can probbaly put one together by using some of these great flask extensions:

        Flask-Security [0] . Takes care of the following:

            Session based authentication
            Role management
            Password encryption
            Basic HTTP authentication
            Token based authentication
            Token based account activation (optional)
            Token based password recovery / resetting (optional)
            User registration (optional)
            Login tracking (optional)
            JSON/Ajax Support

        Many of these features are made possible by integrating various Flask extensions and libraries. They include:

            Flask-Login
            Flask-Mail
            Flask-Principal
            Flask-Script
            Flask-WTF
            itsdangerous
            passlib

        Additionally, it assumes you'll be using a common library for your database connections and model definitions. Flask-Security supports the following Flask extensions out of the box for data persistence:

            Flask-SQLAlchemy
            Flask-MongoEngine
            Flask-Peewee

        Using stripe with Flask [1]: Follow this guide on stripe's docs.

[0] [http://pythonhosted.org/Flask-Security/](http://pythonhosted.org/Flask- Security/)

[1] [https://stripe.com/docs/checkout/guides/flask](https://stripe.com/docs/checkout/guides/flask)

</comment><comment><USER3> [https://github.com/baffolobill/django-private- saas](https://github.com/baffolobill/django-private-saas)

<comment><USER4> no license; can't use

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> Have you looked at web2py ([http://www.web2py.com/](http://www.web2py.com/))</comment>


Prior art for an icon for "clear-all-fields?" - <AUTHOR> http://worknotes.scripting.com/november2012/11712ByDw/anIconForClearallfields <comment><USER2> That's a hard one. When there's no standard it's always tricky to be the canary in the cage. I'm guessing a word is out of the question.

Whatever icon you go for, be sure to test it. In my experience, many discovery problems come down ambiguous or vague icons

Jared Spool has 3 short rules about icon choices: [http://www.uie.com/brainsparks/2009/06/28/old-news-about- ico...](http://www.uie.com/brainsparks/2009/06/28/old-news-about-icons/) worth a read.</comment>


Don't Charlie Sheen Your SEO - <AUTHOR> http://www.searchengineoptimizationjournal.com/2011/03/09/charlie-sheen-seo/

<comment><USER2> SEO is only 'bad' if the particular optimizations you make are targetted by search engines for de-prioritization. You can't know what is 'good' and 'bad' SEO for the future. Heck, Google won't even say how they calculate it no one really knows.

Also, if quick press getting hits are bad, then why would you write an SEO article about Charlie Sheen? Surely the 'white hat' practice would have been to leave Charlie Sheen and his antics out of it.

How much long term value do you expect an SEO article about Charlie Sheen to have?</comment>


HFT - Flickering Quote Credit: Rebuttal (originally appeared in Nanex) - <AUTHOR> http://www.directedge.com/Portals/0/docs/Flickering%20Quote%20Credits-%20A%20Rebuttal.pdf

<comment><AUTHOR> Quick background - The rebuttal is written by William O'Brien, CEO of DirectEdge (a major stock exchange that has been accused of favoring HFT in the past)

This is a good example of how frustrating some of these debates can be. Some of the arguments are valid on both sides, but they are almost couched in inflammatory language.</comment>


Help us scale our ruby app to 10B requests/month - <AUTHOR> http://www.jobscore.com/jobs2/500friendsinc/sr-ruby-on-rails-engineer-help-retailers-compete-with-amazon/d-_LJq3l4r4y7RiGakhP3Q?ref=rss&sid=68

<comment><USER2> It's easy! Stop using ruby, switch to something good. Problem solved.

<comment><USER3> Or they could challenge an antirubyst that they can do that, and if they accomplish it, he would have to pay them the money for a good course on a new language and framework. Strangely everybody is good at talking bad about Ruby, but would you take the risk to take the challenge? Otherwise you are just being incoherent at affirming Ruby is not good. And if you are, it means you can't be a good developer.</comment></comment>


Replacing Disqus with GitHub Comments - <AUTHOR> http://donw.io/post/github-comments/ <comment><USER2> I've collected some more alternatives to host comments on a static site: [https://darekkay.com/blog/static-site- comments/](https://darekkay.com/blog/static-site-comments/)

<comment><USER3> and thanks to your article, I now know about Hexo. That's cool. Thanks for that!

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Really interesting idea. Off topic a bit, but I've been thinking that comment moderation really needs an overhaul. It seems like more sophisticated algorithms could be used (is number of upvotes really the best we can do?). I think of weighted upvotes (obviously) as well as controlling for things like time visible and number of views. It seems to me that moderation could be made almost fully automatic - with just a bit of oversight perhaps to confirm judgement (weighing) of sets of users. Isn't this just predictive analytics being applied to those who view comments?</comment>


A short soft skills course - <AUTHOR> https://www.createcapsule.com/ <comment><USER2> It costs $84 for an individual. I support their right to charge whatever they want for their product, but I had to click through about three pages to get to that info, so I though someone else here might want to know that up front.

<comment><USER3> This sentiment gets shared a lot. In cases where someone is shopping around for a specific product, it definitely makes sense to make the price as obvious as possible.

But in cases where the service needs to be explained and demand generated AFTER explanation in can be counter productive to lead with pricing.

<comment><USER4> That's why I have noticed a lot of sites lately don't show a pricing page at all. And no amount of looking and searching through the site will turn up a price list. Just places to sign up to learn more.

But if you google the product name and the word pricing, they will have a dedicated pricing page in the search results that isn't linked to from anywhere inside the site.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> > Working on yourself shouldn't feel like work

Yes, it should. It should be difficult, challenging, at times it should make you want to give up, confusing, even painful. It should take quite a while, too.

<comment><USER6> Working should produce results. How it feels is incidental.

<comment><USER5> Let's imagine someone goes to the gym everyday and never feels a struggle whatsoever. Just straight up leisure. Somehow that person ends up with the desired results of working out.

Now someone else goes through the same process, but it's at least a partial struggle. That person has bouts of wanting to give up, of having to fight through pain and discomfort. That person wakes up half the time and their monkey brain is telling them to skip the gym today, just go back to sleep.

Person B has earned much more than a six pack in this scenario.

<comment><USER7> Apart from more suffering, I fail to see what person B has earned more of.

<comment><USER8> The ability to persevere. You will face difficult challenges you are unprepared for; knowing how to handle such challenges when they appear, and having practice persevering... that's a very important win.

<comment><USER9> Boils down to problem solving capabilities which is always useful.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> If you're looking for alternatives, I recommend reading "How to Win Friends and Influence People" by Dale Carnegie. Get the OG version (even if it comes with forwards or whatever), not the "for the age of the internet" or whatever version.

It sometimes uses outdated language but it is to date the _best_ compilation of "how to interact with other humans effectively" advice that I've read, and I've read lots of these sorts of books.

Honestly, I think it should be required reading in highschool, if nothing else because of the huge focus on empathy would be very healthy in interpersonal communication in our country.

<comment><USER11> This is my personal experience. I read HTWFAIP when I was in 8th grade. As a young teenager I was a timid person and I placed huge importance on what other people felt about me. As an adult in 40s, I am still timid and never say no. I say yes to everything and I usually get assigned to shitty tasks. I wish I wasn't such a people-pleaser and I wish I had the guts to say no. I attribute my current professional breakdown to reading HTWFAIP which by its very title hopes to be a book through which you can influence others. I wish I did not care so much about what other people thought about me and I wasn't such a back-bone-less people pleaser. I hate "How to Win Friends and Influence People"

<comment><USER12> I also didn't care for the book. But my problem was that it seemed disingenuous. It claimed to be about influencing others, when in fact it was about being genuinely interested in others. Halfway through i put it down because it gave no indication that it would actually get around to explaining HOW to develop an interest in others.

<comment><USER13> > It claimed to be about influencing others, when in fact it was about being > genuinely interested in others.

Isn't influencing others simply a side-benefit to being genuinely interested in them? I would imagine that is the natural outcome. I would be glad for people to go into the book wanting to "fix other people" or "take advantage of others" and come away wanting to genuinely care for others.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> Hi everyone,

WOW, thank you for all the feedback and signups! My name is Jasmine and I'm the creator of Capsule. To sign up free, just submit your name and email (no need to complete the PayPal screen), and I'll send you an activation link (check for email@example.com). I did NOT expect to get featured today, so thank you for bearing with the slight delay!

I originally wrote Capsule for myself and for my friends -- busy professionals who "didn't have time for self-development" but were struggling with problems we all face, whether relationships, career uncertainty, stress or self-doubt. I'm also an independent introvert - the type to want to introspect as opposed to seek therapy. So, I set out to create a one-stop-research-shop. An avid reader, I quit my hedge fund gig to bring you only the research that I found compelling from a sea of content :) My hope is, if it can help me, maybe it can help others, too. Any and all comments appreciated and will help improve the product -- many thanks!

<comment><USER15> I just tried to visit the site on mobile Safari with adblockers[1] enabled, and all I see is a blue background with no content: [https://ibb.co/z5cH5FC](https://ibb.co/z5cH5FC). Going to Chrome on iOS (where the adblockers don't work) worked fine. Thought I'd share!

[1] On Safari, I have 1Blocker and AdGuard — General enabled.

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> The course description certainly strikes a chord with me but there's no trial, no opinions on it outside their website, it looks like they've barely started(in late June this year), basically no way to find out the course quality whatsoever so I'm not going to buy a pig in a poke.

Maybe OP can elaborate on that submission?

<comment><USER14> Thank you for the feedback! That makes a lot of sense, and we've included a free option based on your comment. Just input your name and email, and we'll add you to the course, no payment info needed. We're indeed a young company (incorp in March), but the research behind the course has been long in the making. All scientific sources (139 of them) are cited in-text so you know the exact attribution of each takeaway.

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> I'll probably get downvoted in this crowd by saying this, but I attribute my soft skills and self-awareness (which aren't directly linked, but I would argue that if you have good awareness of how you are perceived and an honest assessment of strength/weaknesses, that has a direct line to social and emotional intelligence) to psychotherapy.

(I'm also of the opinion that regardless of mental health status, every person can benefit from a good therapist. Note, I said good. A bad therapist can be worse than no therapy.)

A lot of soft skills really do come down to introspection — and while it's certainly possible to get those insights outside of a psychologist or psychiatrists office (my psychiatrist also does psychotherapy, but it's more common for the disciplines to be separate), having a third-party pose questions and stimulate discussions is something difficult to replicate by self-study alone.

<comment><USER18> I have never been in therapy so I can't weigh in there, but I am commenting to say I hope you continue to feel free to talk about mental health services, which seem to often be unfairly stigmatized. I hope this community wouldn't downvote that.

</comment></comment><comment><USER19> $84 is really steep for a product I don't even get a sample of.

They really should offer the first lesson for free so people know what they're paying for.

I pride myself on my strong soft skills, so I know I won't be paying that kind of a price on these lessons just to see what they look like.

<comment><USER14> Thanks for the feedback! We'll set up a free trial for anyone who includes name and email during signup (no need for PayPal). We are always looking for ways to make the content even more advanced, and would really value your feedback as someone who already has strong soft-skills.

</comment></comment><comment><USER20> I'm going just off the website, but this honestly feels like one of those personal development courses that your employer pays for and you go to and feel like it's a waste of time.

</comment><comment><USER21> Am I the only one who abhors the term soft skills?

I have been trying to put my finger on what about it rubs me the wrong way so much but can't quite figure out why the phrase makes me so uncomfortable. Part of it is the implication that we're all socially inept computer nerds, part of it is the implication that technical skills are "hard"...

</comment><comment><USER22> This seems interesting, but without knowing what a course looks like, I won't sink $84 into it.

If the creator(s) are reading, I would suggest making the first chapter free. That would work better to get visitors to sign up & pay. For example, from what I can see there are 9 missions, so the first is free, pay to continue.

<comment><USER14> Thanks so much for the feedback! We've changed it to the first week free, so you can see the entire course in that span if you'd like. Hope you like it!

<comment><USER23> When I click on the plan with the first week free, it asks me to pay. How do I access the free week without paying?

<comment><USER14> If you include your name and email (no worries about the PayPal page), we will send you an activation link. Let me know if you did not receive this link and I'll send you one personally.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> DISCLAIMER - I am a customer.

I found Capsule very valuable. The content is 2nd to none, they boil down some huge concepts that span thousands of pages across multiple books/papers into dense and digestible bites of material. Very high bandwidth and efficient.

I see a lot of commentary about the price being high. I'm not sure whether they have the right price point or not, but what I would say as someone who considers myself pretty frugal, I would compare the value I got from Capsule to a series of books and probably therapists that would've cost hundreds or thousands of dollars (and many more hours).

<comment><USER25> What is it like inside? Is it videos, content pages or some soft of interactive tutorials?

<comment><USER24> No videos, it's written content with questions to answer/reflect on.

There's also a way to write in to a real-life person/team with follow-on thoughts/questions after each section. I've done this a number of times not really expecting much, but have been blown away with how fast and thoughtful a response I've always gotten. Almost feels like you're getting personal coach (which they are really underselling IMHO).

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> Soft skills really means learning the corporate protocol, which is basically top-down control, akin to military. Leadership means understanding and contributing to the hierarchical nature of companies. There's nothing wrong with this except when it comes to software companies that should be more creative yet they push these soft skills almost like military has code of conduct. In any software company, if everyone could code, they would, and then they would realize soft skills are just an indirect way to influence what people code without knowing how to.

<comment><USER17> I completely disagree with this assessment. Soft skills may be synonymous in some areas as "corporate protocol" or politics, but it's really about effective communication — and that's beneficial regardless of what you're doing or what type of place you work in.

>In any software company, if everyone could code, they would, and then they would realize soft skills are just an indirect way to influence what people code without knowing how to.

This is completely untrue and is frankly, insulting. It's not an either/or. You can know how to code or know how to architect a system or do design _and_ also have soft skills. Moreover, the idea that non-coders can only have an indirect influence on what people code seems to be a fairy fundamental misunderstanding about how projects work.

Plenty of people can code and don't — and plenty of people who don't code don't have any interest in doing it — still have major roles in software development. Look at Steve Jobs.

If anything, the soft skills are what allows a programmer or a program manager or PM or designer or architect to help express the case for any something is coded a certain way or why it isn't.

Being able to explain and communicate design decisions — and to be able to talk through problems and blockers is incredibly important, not just to push or influence a decision, but to solve problems or come up with new innovations.

<comment><USER26> > the idea that non-coders can only have an indirect influence on what people > code seems to be a fairy fundamental misunderstanding about how projects > work.

Knowing how to code and actually coding is different. I'm claiming if everyone could (in a software company) have the knowledge of coding, they would, as this would influence virtually every decision being made. Of course most people are happy not knowing how to code, but if they could snap their fingers and simply know everything about developing their own products, they would.

Usually this is dealt with "methodologies" like agile. Technical and non- technical people have to close the "gap" so that the stakeholders (who usually don't code in any advanced way) are happy with the direction that is being taken. There's a lot of efforts wasted in meetings to coordinate and prevent non-technical leaders from making the wrong technical decisions.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER27> Can anyone not related to the company attest for this course? Does anyone else know of a soft skills course they recommend?

<comment><USER24> Yes, I can attest that the course and company are first rate. See previous comment -> [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20508974](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20508974)

</comment></comment><comment><USER28> A bit confused about the point of a personal improvement program if you can't use it as a pretext to fire yourself after.

Or maybe that would be the best improvement program of all?

</comment><comment><USER29> Thank you for being so quick to respond to user feedback - shows how dedicated you are to shipping a high quality product :)

</comment><comment><USER23> It says the first week is free, but then it asks you to pay? How do we access the free first week without paying? @jc3110

<comment><USER14> Hey @babblingfish! Thank you for the ask! All you do is submit your name and email -- you can skip the PayPal page for now :)</comment></comment>


3TB Seagate hard drives coming this year? - <AUTHOR> http://www.zdnet.com/blog/hardware/3tb-seagate-hard-drives-coming-this-year/8258

<comment><USER3> I had a Seagate drive. It was on the ground, and I accidentally kicked it - <USER2> fell over and promptly broke.

I lost no data, fortunately, but since then I keep any Seagate Freeagent drives ALWAYS on the floor, flat, because tipping over is bad, and dropping off a table is bad, so this way I should be okay.</comment>


Ask HN: Why there is a number(1,2,..) in front of each link? - <AUTHOR> <comment><USER2> The links are ranked, and the number indicates the ranking.</comment>


The Goertzel Algorithm - <AUTHOR> http://www.eetimes.com/design/embedded/4024443/The-Goertzel-Algorithm

<comment><USER2> Shouldn't this be "faster tone detection algorithm".

I don't see how to perform a convolution with this algorithm, which I would be able to do if it was an FFT.

There are many algorithms for FFT that are faster, e.g. the split radix FFT, Gentleman and Sande's approach, the Matrix Fourier Algorithm and scores of variations on a theme. The article doesn't make clear whether this is one of them.

<comment><USER3> You are correct. The title is very misleading.

<comment><AUTHOR> My apologies, this stuff is still pretty new to me.

<comment><USER2> Thanks for changing the title.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Not explicitly stated in the article : The reason this is so fast is that you're only detecting a single frequency. If you wanted to detect a few (M, say), you'd have to keep updating M sets of Qs. While M<<N this is really efficient (and each one looks like a notch filter, or something).

But for larger M, it's better to do the FFT, since that gives you back O(N) frequencies in O(NlogN) time - because of the tricks it can do with N if it's a power of 2.

<comment><USER5> If you only want to detect one frequency, can't you jut use the "slow" fourier transform?

<comment><USER6> Yes, the discrete Fourier transform (DFT) detects N frequencies in parallel, where N is the block size, and you can disregard the uninteresting frequencies. The fast Fourier transform (FFT) is an efficient algorithm that computes the DFT. For detecting M frequencies where M << N, the Goertzel algorithm requires less computation than the FFT. Also, the Goertzel algorithm allows targeting more exact frequencies regardless of the sampling rate (Fs), while the FFT's bins have a fixed spacing of ±Fs/N.

As with everything, there are trade-offs associated with these three options.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> You can find C code for the Goertzel algorithm at: <http://www.exstrom.com/journal/sigproc/index.html>

</comment><comment><USER8> Cool, but news? Article is from 2002.

<comment><USER9> Well, it's some kind of news because I've never heard about that :-D

I find it really interesting

<comment><USER10> How about this then? <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Discrete_Hartley_transform></comment></comment></comment>


How Breaking Bad inspired my DIY responsive device board - <AUTHOR> http://blog.twintechs.com/how-breaking-bad-inspired-my-diy-responsive-device-board

<comment><USER2> So after you factor in the cost of supplies, mobile device cases and the Ghostlab license, is this really that much of a savings? Is it worth going cheap on something that is going to hold $3k - $5k worth of devices?

<comment><USER3> So depends on your use case, I guess. What are the other viable alternatives? If this were for an office where it was always going to be up, then no, I would go with something sturdier. But for something temporary.. ?</comment></comment>


New StackOverflow code of conduct - <AUTHOR> https://stackoverflow.com/conduct <comment><USER2> > "If you bothered to read my question, you'd know it's not a duplicate."

2 of the 4 examples of unacceptable behavior are responses to overzealous moderation. I can't see this helping with any of SO's real problems.

Every SO question I've asked for many years has required _constant_ monitoring to correct people who don't actually read the question and either 1) try to answer a totally different, easier question or 2) try to get my question closed. It's exhausting and really makes me wish it had competition so I could abandon it entirely.

The first few items in their code of conduct should be:

1\. Carefully read the question before you answer or comment.

2\. _Carefully read the question_ before you answer or comment.

3\. Remember you're not helping the asker if you repeat answers he already tried or specifically anticipated and said aren't helpful in his question.

<comment><USER3> Here is an important key to written communication. If someone doesen't understand your written message, the problem is not with the reader. The problem is with you (the writer).

I write clear Stack Overflow question and I don't have the problems you describe.

<comment><USER4> > If someone doesen't understand your written message, the problem is not with > the reader.

Not necessarily on SO. Pretending to not understand a question has become a form of mockery on SO in many cases. You see these responses in many questions that have valid and accepted answers.

There are badly worded questions, sure. But there are also pretentiously shallow attempts to close some questions as quickly as possible.

<comment><USER5> There is also a difference between people who find it difficult to explain complex technical questions in a manner that is easy to understand and thos who probs dont care cuz thei r 2 lzay 2 write and its ur problem

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> I like to believe StackOverflow has a financial incentive to solve this issue with their jobs site. It's my impression that there's a high barrier to being accepted as part of the community for new users, who I would expect to be on average younger developers more interested in finding a new job. These are users who I imagine SO would like to be users of their revenue-generating jobs platform.

For the last 6 months, my company used both Indeed and SO for recruiting. I much prefer SO and expected the quality of candidates would blow away Indeed. And generally there was less chaff on SO, but there were also less applicants in total and in the end we hired about equally off both platforms. Indeed proved much cheaper.

The connection the SO Q&A site and the SO jobs site occurred to me after I created a new profile for the SO Jobs (technically, Talent) platform and then posted a couple questions as a new user, an exercise I've practiced before. And as before, even though I am an experienced user who knows how to write a quality question, my questions were immediately downvoted almost reflexively by other users. It was enough to almost turn me off the project.

I tried to explain this to our SO sales rep and he said that they were aware of the problem and trying to address it. I suppose this code is what he was referring to. My contract recently expired and my company decided not to renew at this time.

<comment><USER7> Happened to me too. I accidentally asked a question accidentally from my wife's account, who has low points on SO. The question was also heavily downvoted, which was clear and according to the site's policy.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> > If you Google it, you'll find tutorials

Telling people to google something is rarely helpful.

It's great that Google shows noteworthy results for you, but that's not necessarily true for somebody else, possibly years after you wrote the answer. Also, unlike you, the other person might not be qualified to separate the wheat from the chaff.

<comment><USER9> Especially when SO is trying to be the resource that is top result in Google for the question! I did Google, this answer about "You should just Google this" is the result!

At least noindex the closed questions, SO :(

<comment><USER10> The downside to this is some closed questions do have great answers on them from before they closed it.

I always wonder why I get more duplicates as my top hit than the question SO left open as the "original" because it at least feels like those are what I hit far, far more.

<comment><USER11> There are hundreds of duplicates for some questions: [https://meta.stackexchange.com/questions/9686/what-is-the- mo...](https://meta.stackexchange.com/questions/9686/what-is-the-most-rampant- duplicate-on-stack-exchange-sites/168289#168289)

...often, with slightly different terms used. So there's a very good chance a given search will find one of the duplicates rather than the original. This is an explicit goal: it helps searches; in fact, if you're not logged in and you land on an unanswered duplicate, Stack Overflow will redirect to the original.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> I agree the people answering the questions and moderators could stand to be a little more kind.

Can we talk about the elephant in the room though - the tsunami of low effort questions from 1 rep users who are clearly students looking for help on their homework?

I didn't use StackOverflow until I was a working professional - while I was in school I hung out in the labs and talked to TAs or my professor if I was stuck. Now it seems like SO has become the default TA service for everyone foreign and domestic. It's exhausting to see question after question of people essentially asking for hand holding/TA service.

I stopped answering questions for that reason because I felt like I was only helping one person at a time instead of doing the community a service.

<comment><USER13> I completely agree, but on the other hand there's another problem as a corollary here. Stack overflow's knowledge database is quite immense. And it's a fraction of the knowledge that's available on the internet. Whenever I get stuck on a technical type issue it can usually be solved in a matter of seconds of searching. And I mean that even applies to really quite esoteric things. Want to have a discussion about converting reflection calls into cached and strongly typed delegates when the types involved are only known at runtime, and how to most effectively optimize this? Yip, there's a great discussion on SO about it.

So when I run into a isolatable technical problem that I can't find a solution to, it's _incredibly_ obscure and _incredibly_ esoteric. So you end up with this sort of dichotomy where it becomes more and more difficult to formulate 'good' questions. It's either somebody asking something that's been asked already, or could otherwise be found in a few seconds of duck-duck-going ( _damn.. that really doesn 't roll off the 'tongue' as well as googling, does it?_) or something so incredibly obscure that you'd be better off on a specialized outlet than on a general purpose one like Stack Overflow.

<comment><USER14> Stack Overflow needs some type of beginner area. I should have the ability to choose to exclude the beginner area from my Google and Stack Overflow searches.

<comment><USER15> This used to be a common feature of the type of forums that predated SO... For example, [https://www.gamedev.net/forums/forum/71-for- beginners/](https://www.gamedev.net/forums/forum/71-for-beginners/)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> The biggest problems in my opinion are the drive-by downvotes. If you're not willing to fix the problem, you should not have the right to engage.

Downvotes should be tied to some sort of criterion that the asker/answerer can meet, like in a code review. If you get downvoted, you should have the ability to notify the downvoter "alright, I fixed the issue you had with my question/answer", and get the downvote undone. If the downvoter doesn't engage, undo the downvote automatically after a certain period. This process should be completely public, and have a log/history that everyone can see.

Same with flagging as duplicate. As the asker you should have the right to defend yourself against overzealous flagging, and be able to let the mods know why some other question is not actually a duplicate. Flagging as duplicate should be phrased as a question to the asker: Hey, did you see this question? Does this answer your question? And the asker should then be the one to decide whether or not it does.

<comment><USER17> At least force the downvoter to categorize their reason from a dropdown (e.g. slashdot), with an optional line of description. Hacker News could benefit from that too.

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> As a recent user who now has mod status (500+ reputation), I find moderators don't get any recognition really _maybe my perspective is skewed_. We talk about how unfriendly SO is, but moderators do keep the quality of SO in check to some degree, even at the cost of "marking it as duplicate" among other things. Its almost like stackoverflow has the same issues as subreddit moderators, perhaps they could learn a thing or two here? I've had to mod my own subreddits as well

I know recently stackoverflow has started to push fake posts under the "review queue" to gauge if you are actually moderating correctly.

I still get frustrated as a user asking a question on stackoverflow. I have had my share of questions marked as duplicates. I tried arguing and fixing the wording of it after the fact, it still is downvoted (-1) and still marked as duplicate.

<comment><USER19> Wait, so SO is creating trick posts to find out if their completely uncompensated moderators are doing their job? You'd immediately lose me as a moderator when that happened.

<comment><USER18> As a new moderator (as of 2 months ago) they threw in about 20% trick posts to see if I was moderating correctly. They told me when I failed and passed them.

Example, on June 2018. [https://i.imgur.com/YIVXX87.png](https://i.imgur.com/YIVXX87.png)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> > ...moderators will remove offending content and send a warning... > > ...moderators will impose a temporary suspension... > ...moderators will > expel people...

I'm sure all of this helps the mods to deal with naughty users, but I think SO really has 2 big issuers:

1\. Crappy, zero-effort, badly worded, badly explained questions 2\. Crappy moderators

The first one seems to be a solved problem - 9 times out of 10 if I see a question like this appear on SO it is flagged within _seconds_.

The seconds one has been pervasive for years, and is a much harder problem to solve. Mods flagging unique questions as duplicates is something I've experienced far too many times - and often as soon as one mod hasn't read the question and flagged it, other mods see the flag, then don't bother to read the question and flag it.

I think there should actually be an easier way to flag poor decisions by moderators (to flag... well, the flags!), and I think there should be a similar 3-stage disciplinary system (warning, suspension, expulsion) for mods that repeatedly take shortcuts or make crappy decisions.

</comment><comment><USER21> Best of luck to the SO team trying to improve the culture of its users. I hope they succeed.

<comment><USER22> Yeah, good luck to them but I closed my 15+ accounts (yeah, you have to create a different account per topic), many of which had 4 figure ratings going back years, because of this pointless (to me) chasing of new users and bringing in "be nice" type rules. I spent hours moderating and commenting as well as answering but it seems like loads of other long-time users just gave up due to the waves of "plz to give me teh code" muppets.

</comment></comment><comment><USER23> I don't mind this one: the 'stuff you commonly see and demonstrations of better ways to handle things' is a little more consutructive than what I was expecting.

</comment><comment><USER24> I notice that mediawiki development also has a code of conduct expectation. Is this following that trend, or is the Stack Overflow code of conduct different?

</comment><comment><USER25> It's funny how examples of discouraged posts are clear and concise while their alternatives are verbose and harder to understand.

<comment><USER26> Not being an asshole often requires using a few extra words. It's worth it.

<comment><USER27> A turd in a candy wrapper is still a turd.</comment></comment></comment>


Multiple Workspaces in Chrome OS - <AUTHOR> https://bugs.chromium.org/p/chromium/issues/detail?id=309256 <comment><USER2> To save someone the click: this is a feature request, not an actual shipping product/feature.</comment>


Google's QUIC protocol: moving the web from TCP to UDP - <AUTHOR> https://ma.ttias.be/googles-quic-protocol-moving-web-tcp-udp/?updated <comment><AUTHOR> This was on HN in July but has an update based on a comment from Jim Roskind, designer of the QUIC protocol.</comment>


Advice : Working for company that uses payroll as a cashflow management tool - <AUTHOR>

Lots of startup people here, so I assume more than a few of you have been in this situation.
I am working for a startup that has been persistently skipping payroll, sometimes paying late, sometimes not at all, always with vague explanations about how the company is doing or why they missed payroll this time.
The company in question has a very interesting product and is primarily dealing with funding issues, so I am reluctant to cut ties completely, but it is reaching a point where nobody trusts management to deliver (lack of communication, vague when they do communicate, etc).
I am curious to hear from others who have been in this situation, how you dealt with it (besides simply quitting), and whether the company you worked for got its act together or eventually just tanked. <comment><USER2> Company is screwed. Start searching for another job now, while you're still employed, and jump if you get a decent offer. It's easier to hunt for a job when you already have one - take advantage of that and get out before they announce that the company is bust and everyone is laid off.

<comment><USER3> I have seen it too many times to count. The problem is for the one success story that pulls through at the 11th hour there are thousands where the employees come to work one day and the doors are locked. I always started looking the first check that was not paid and left as soon as I had another offer. The odds are that the company will not survive very long.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> When a company isn't paying it's bills, it is likely on it's way under.

To the degree you aren't getting paid, you are not actually working for the company. And leadership which will forgo paying employees while allowing them to come in and work on their projects is not behaving ethically.

If you are in the US, companies which are not meeting payroll are frequently also not paying payroll taxes and using the withholding portion of each employee's salary to cover operating expenses.

</comment><comment><USER5> IANAL, my understanding is that it's _illegal_ to ask people to work if you can't pay them. The company almost certainly knows this; if they do, and if this specific situation is illegal, then they're knowingly screwing you by knowingly breaking the law.

</comment><comment><USER6> I was in this situation during the 2000 bubble burst.

Many of the developers accepted equity in leiu of paychecks, and then began drinking heavily at the office.

The company in question eventually met their obligations and is still operating today. I would caution that most companies in the above scenario do not make it out alive, though.</comment>


Fuck You Max - <AUTHOR> http://zedshaw.com/fuck_you_max.txt

<comment><USER2> I was looking for the point at which Max did anything to deserve this kind of bullshit response from Zed but I can't seem to find it. Yes, he asked for free "content" which is definitely deserving of scorn and a firm "No and Buzz Off", but "Fuck you", "moron", "piss off asshole" are a smidge over the top (and yes, I know who Zed is so possibly I shouldn't be surprised). There are plenty of people who deserve this kind of response but if this is how he responds to everybody who wants something from him I'm afraid for his blood pressure. Just say No and move on.

<comment><USER3> > _but "Fuck you", "moron", "piss off asshole" are a smidge over the top_

On the other hand he could have responded with this:

      for I in range(2**20):
        print "Fuck you, Asshole"

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Anybody who describes their new venture as "essentially (github|Facebook|twitter|LinkedIn) for (teachers|whittlers|horse whisperers|epidemiologists) should be shot with balls of their own shit for their laziness.

</comment><comment><USER5> Typical Zed, but reading Max's email I have to agree it's quite offensive.

</comment><comment><USER6> i don think thats a real response. Probably what he wanted to write.

</comment><comment><USER6> Point 5 i love it.

</comment><comment><USER7> Facepalm</comment>


The Duqu 2.0 Technical Details [pdf] - <AUTHOR> https://securelist.com/files/2015/06/The_Mystery_of_Duqu_2_0_a_sophisticated_cyberespionage_actor_returns.pdf

<comment><USER2> Wow this only got 9 points. Prediction: in the next couple days to a week a blog spam article giving 1/100th of the information in this white paper will get voted to the front page.</comment>


Detected an anomaly in YouTube search for Laravel - <AUTHOR> Hi all, I was going through Google Trends for laravel and I found something interesting but I can't seem to know why there's a serious dip in YouTube Search for laravel. Take a look at the image below. This dip occurred an year ago between 6 August - 12 August 2017. Does anyone know why this happened. The only explanation I have is that, YouTube might have changed their search algorithm but could it result in 75% less search.
Link to the image: https://ibb.co/cvLGAe
Link to the Google Trend: https://trends.google.com/trends/explore?date=today%205-y&gprop=youtube&q=laravel,%2Fm%2F0jwy148 <comment><USER2> There is note which reads "An improvement to our data collection system was applied from 05/08/2017."</comment>


Hackers publish Medvedev's Twitter password, warn about iPhone vulnerability - <AUTHOR> http://en.ria.ru/russia/20140821/192210841/Hackers-Publish-Medvedevs-Twitter-Password-Warn-about-iPhone.html

<comment><AUTHOR> Any news on how they did this?</comment>


It Started as an Online Gaming Prank. Then It Turned Deadly - <AUTHOR> https://www.wired.com/story/swatting-deadly-online-gaming-prank/ <comment><USER2> I don't think it's fair to say that swatting was a "prank". Bad reporting. They shouldn't even pretend this narrative was ever true.

>his idea of a prank

For example, there is no evidence that the perp thought of it as a prank. The perp was paid for some of his bomb threats and swatting of others. This is aking to calling a mob enforcer "pranking" someone by breaking their legs. Simply saying that they broke the persons legs for fun, instead of money this time, doesn't make it suddenly a prank. They know what they are doing, and the goal is fear.</comment>


Benchmark: Apache2 vs. Lighttpd (Static HTML Files) - <AUTHOR> http://www.howtoforge.com/benchmark-apache2-vs-lighttpd-static-html-files <comment><USER2> totally useless benchmark... yea, of course lighttpd is faster in standard configuration, but what if he would have turned off 20 or so useless apache mods that are not needed for a machine serving static requests? If you really want performance from apache you can make it very fast, and there's tons of different ways to have kick ass caching inside apache. Though I'd say that lighttpd is probably faster with tweaks. The reason to go for apache is battle tested stability, robustness and extensibility.

<comment><USER3> Actually, asymptotically (as you peel off the overhead) I'm sure they're in a dead tie. Ultimately, serving a static file consists of reading the header, opening the target file and calling the sendfile() syscall. The bulk of the work is obviously the data transfer, and on a modern OS that happens in the kernel. I have a hard time believing that any web server is going to significantly distinguish itself on the basis of header parsing, of all things.

And since when is service of static files a significant performance problem anyway? Unless you're youtube, this is the _easy_ part of web application optimization.

<comment><USER4> Unfortunately, if you take a look at the Apache source code you'll see that a ton of hooks are inserted into the entire process all over the place, adding a ton of useless calls that don't benefit you anything in exchange for allowing certain uber-cool tricks to be done _in the future_ by other devs, but unfortunately affecting their own bottom line.

<comment><USER3> I have read through the apache source, actually. If those hooks are disabled, they're just a branch not taken. Compared to the work of moving a 32k (or whatever) file through the page cache and out the network interface, it's just noise.

I'm not holding up apache as a model of clean code, mind you. Like all mature software, it's terribly crufty in places. I'm just saying that serving static files is something that even crufty software can do quickly. If you want to show up apache, this isn't the test to use.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> pointless discussion. apache2 can saturate the typical outbound connection for static files. you can't push any more data than that. this is why people gave up on the linux kernel http daemon so long ago...its pointless.

in any case your static files should be on a cdn like akamai.</comment>


We've seen Carl Benjamin's rank misogyny before – remember GamerGate? - <AUTHOR> https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2019/may/09/gamergate-carl-benjamin-ukip-mep <comment><USER2> A friendly request to stop posting stuff like this on HN.

The world is already full of hatred as is. We don't need more.

Thanks.</comment>


Snowden: I wanted to "correct the excesses of government" - <AUTHOR> http://news.cnet.com/8301-13578_3-57592691-38/snowden-i-wanted-to-correct-the-excesses-of-government/

<comment><USER2> He's full of bologna: he wanted an out after violating his contractor terms and himself spying on user accounts on the network, so, while the NSA misuse is an issue, it was a known issue for years and he's just masterful at trying to save his own ass. And failing.</comment>


Launchpad: JSFiddle for GraphQL servers - <AUTHOR> https://launchpad.graphql.com/new <comment><USER2> One of the creators of Launchpad here, happy to answer any questions! If you're looking for some examples to get started with, you can find those here: [https://github.com/apollographql/awesome- launchpad](https://github.com/apollographql/awesome-launchpad)

Please add your own if you build something cool!

<comment><USER3> Probably best to link to the blog announcement, [https://dev- blog.apollodata.com/introducing-launchpad-the-gr...](https://dev- blog.apollodata.com/introducing-launchpad-the-graphql-server-demo-platform- cc4e7481fcba) , to give context of what this is about, instead of directly into the launchpad UI.

<comment><USER2> Yep! Someone else posted it so didn't get to make that call :) I think we learned we need to make the UI itself have a mini tutorial.</comment></comment></comment>


Aftermath – 42s - <AUTHOR> https://tyler.io/aftermath/ <comment><AUTHOR> I've added the 42s because this is a meta post about us... and 42s is the average amount of time we hners spent reading that post.</comment>


Why startup dad is kicking your ass.  - <AUTHOR> http://emilhajric.com/3-reasons-why-startup-dad-is-kicking-your-ass

<comment><USER2> Okay frankly this is a stupid article. Trivial or unsupported generalizations. The author is _in high school_ and preaching on why parents are more effective startup founders.

</comment><comment><USER3> It is true that some amount of personal pressure will get you to be more productive. But, err too far on the side of too much and you burn out. So, while I can see why startup dad may be able to outperform a founder in a more relaxed position, it is not necessarily true that those conditions are good.

A little pressure is good. Too much pressure is bad. It is a fine line between the two.

<comment><AUTHOR> Hmm. I don't think _that_ pressure is that bad, it really depends on how you handle it. For instance, look at UStream guys. Brad is a startup dad, from the navy/army. During service he was probably put under much more pressure and back then he was still a dad...so it really boils down to how well you handle the pressure coming at you.

Burnouts? Definitely. I don't handle pressure that well, so I have so many of them! :(

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> All of the startup founders that I know are internally driven and do not depend on the environment and/or circumstances to motivate them.

Just because I have more time than you does not mean that you use your time more efficiently than i do. I have 12 hours a day to code and thats just what I do. I dont sit around for 9 and code for 3 just because I have time to. I code for 12 because I want to. I can also fly across the country on a moments notice and stay up all night for a client if needed.

Can startup dad?

My point is that IMHO nothing that limits your flexibility and distracts you can possibly give you an advantage as a startup founder.

<comment><AUTHOR> Yes. I'm not a startup dad and I get where you're going at. Internal driven is a large portion of what motivates people. I'll take myself for example, before I even knew what a startup was I was building parsers and what not. I needed money really bad so I started looking into consulting which then lead to startups, etc.. Entrepreneurs are internally driven because a lot of them have been through a lot of bad environments and want to create a better life and fuel the economy(which is related to the first point)</comment></comment>


Oracle buys Sun: understanding the impact on open source - <AUTHOR> http://arstechnica.com/open-source/news/2009/04/oracle-acquires-sun-ars-explores-the-impact-on-open-source.ars <comment><USER2> "When Sun liberated the Solaris source code, the company deliberately chose a license that would make it difficult for the code to be adapted for use in the Linux kernel. Oracle will probably dual-license the Solaris code so that it is available under the GPLv2 in addition to the CDDL. This will allow key Solaris innovations—such as ZFS and DTrace—to be ported to Linux."

DTrace, _finally!_

</comment><comment><USER3> > As a major player in both worlds, Oracle has every reason to want to > encourage greater collaboration between the Linux and OpenSolaris > communities. I suspect that this will lead Oracle to rethink Sun's licensing > decisions for OpenSolaris.

Found that bit interesting, it hadn't occurred to me that Oracle might alter licenses to Sun IP in a way favorable to Linux.

</comment><comment><USER4> A far more optimistic view than my initial take. The arguments are well reasoned. I hope it really turns out this way. Opening the JCP would be a VERY good thing and could bring some much needed life back into the Java language.</comment>


Echelon (signals intelligence) - <AUTHOR> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Echelon_(signals_intelligence) <comment><USER2> If you live in the valley long enough, you get involve in some wierd shit. In the pre-Internet days, I worked on a search engine that we believed was used in Echelon. Mind you my info is about fourth hand because the tiny company I worked for sold the software to a defense contractor who sold it to ... the NSA. I remember the bugs were a piece of work. They didnt give any of the search terms, let alone the documents. One was that the parser barfed if the document contained more than 4k 03's in a sequence.

The company figured out that is was Echelon after the flap emerged and Echelon was disappeared/disbanded/re-purposed. The feedback that we got was that it was the Israelis that were doing the commercial espionage. Some of the other governments were angry that the Israelis were involved at all.

OTOH we could have been given a complete pack of lies to divert our attention from the real group.

</comment><comment><USER3> I've heard, but have no way to prove, that Echelon allows domestic spying by arranging for member countries to collect data flows of the other member countries. Presumably this is then shared by some agreement that falls outside what is left of the domestic wiretapping restrictions.

Could be nonsense, but after learning that MKUltra was real, who knows anymore. <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_MKULTRA>

<comment><USER4> The idea that they have the power to spy and don't use it, when they could and without consequences is a little hard to fathom. Besides, there is very little legally nowadays that is really off-limits in that area. And whatever may not be (like the AT&T spying scandal was), can quickly be covered by new laws (with bi-partisan support).

<comment><USER5> The problem is who 'they' are

The CIA/NSA etc spying on the US and UK's enemies?

Or US companies spying on UK companies to gain a competitive advantage?

If you were a BP boss would you be confident that they weren't handing your emails over to the Whitehouse during the gulf spill?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Echelon is largely old news. The best modern, public look at the current series (yes, series, and disparate at that) of systems is James Bamford's latest book, "Shadow Factory". It is full of fairly technical details, names, and places.

[http://www.amazon.com/Shadow-Factory-NSA-Eavesdropping- Ameri...](http://www.amazon.com/Shadow-Factory-NSA-Eavesdropping- America/dp/0307279391/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1300225377&sr=8-1)

<comment><USER7> If I were paranoid and/or involved in intelligence work I might wonder whether these ancient facilities were retained to divert attention from newer intelligence-gathering facilities.

Disclaimer: I'm currently working my way through the TV series "24" :-)

<comment><USER6> Most of these facilities are still in use. Some are occasionally decommissioned.

IIRC, one such place out in the woods, back east was decommissioned and purchased for use by amateur astronomers some years back.

They probably had a field day opening the door for the first time. The equipment was all stripped out prior, but I'm sure they got a kick out of the expensive wiring & elaborate shielding _everywhere_.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> I heard about this for the first time on J. J. Abram's Alias and researched it. I was quite surprised to see that it's real.

</comment><comment><USER9> We hear about this quite often in the New Zealand media. People are often protesting outside the big "bubble" things and on the odd occasion (I think twice) people have jumped the fences and gotten past security to "pop" the "bubbles", causing "millions" in damages, a couple of guys are on trial atm for this, or very recently were

<comment><USER7> Please elaborate on what this "bubble" is that you speak of... Do you mean "listening facility" or something like that, or does "bubble" mean something more specific in your context?

<comment><USER9> Oh yeah, sorry I should have said domes for the radio dishes or what ever they are

[http://www.thelivingmoon.com/45jack_files/04images/Bases/Wai...](http://www.thelivingmoon.com/45jack_files/04images/Bases/Waihopai_dome_collapsed_719999.jpg)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> I don't live far from Menwith Hill. Interesting Read.

<comment><USER11> Any unusual signage or anything around there? I used to live within driving distance to a State penitentiary in the US. It was out in the middle of nowhere (at the time), surrounded by farmland. On all 4 roads that marked the border around it were numerous signs, "Do Not Pick Up Hitchhikers!"

<comment><USER12> It's on google street view -- have a look for yourself ;)

[http://maps.google.com/maps?f=q&source=s_q&hl=en&...](http://maps.google.com/maps?f=q&source=s_q&hl=en&geocode=&q=Menwith+Hill&sll=37.0625,-95.677068&sspn=54.357317,78.398437&ie=UTF8&hq=&hnear=Menwith+Hill,+Harrogate,+North+Yorkshire,+United+Kingdom&ll=54.008828,-1.688161&spn=0.020024,0.03828&t=h&z=15)

<comment><USER11> Looks like beautiful country. I can't read the signs from the satellite, though... ;-)</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Root Cause Message for NA14 Disruptions of Service – May 2016 - <AUTHOR> https://help.salesforce.com/apex/HTViewSolution?urlname=Root-Cause-Message-for-Disruption-of-Service-on-NA14-May-2016&language=en_US <comment><USER2> The transparency is refreshing.</comment>


Dashboard Metrics that Actually Work - <AUTHOR> https://segment.io/academy/dashboard-metrics-that-actually-work

<comment><USER2> > And tracking the wrong metrics is almost as bad as tracking nothing at all.

Tracking the wrong metrics can be much worse than tracking nothing at all. You might end up optimizing for the wrong metric you selected.

</comment><comment><USER3> Click: [https://segment.io/academy/dashboard-metrics-that- actually-w...](https://segment.io/academy/dashboard-metrics-that-actually- work/)

</comment><comment><USER4> Although I figured it out, the url you provided doesnt "actually work". Nice article though!</comment>


Ask HN: Is it legal to build an educational course on a specific book? - <AUTHOR> I want to build an online educational course on a specific book (written in the early 20th century) to help others consume the valuable content.
I don't have plans to charge for the course, just build it and host it so others can benefit from it.
I need to use the name of the book in my app to make it easier to find people who know about the book, but have never actually read it or absorbed its content.
Do you think I am breaking any laws by calling it something like "Book X Educational Course" or similar? <comment><USER2> If the book is adopted curriculum (approved for classroom use in one or more states) you might run into the powerful textbook publishing industry. A book as old as you mention (early 20th century) does not seem likely to still be a current adopted textbook. You would have the usual copyright and fair use concerns.

</comment><comment><USER3> Many university lectures subsidise their salary via a slight variation on this.

</comment><comment><USER4> "written in the early 20th century". Are you sure it's not public domain by now?

</comment><comment><USER5> There are people who record the reading of books and upload those recordings to youtube. How does that work then?

</comment><comment><USER6> You mean, like "Bible study" ?</comment>


Ask HN: Why, you all intellectual people not quitting Facebook? - <AUTHOR> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FXdYSQ6nu-M<p>I just went through this video about Cambridge Analytica whistleblower that talks about How and Why they did what they did. And it sounds so scary when they talk about Changing Culture which could be done by Changing People.
It sounds like a script from Black Mirror and now it seems like we are living in a black mirror.
As a person myself who uses fb. I wanted you guys to ask why even after knowing all these things you guys can't quit FB.
I am interested in more of matrix points that describe concisely why you are on FB and after this thing has happened what you are going to do about it in near future? <comment><USER2> I quit years ago. Setting aside the condescension in the title, it's probably useful to analyze the reasons people nowadays aren't voting with their actions as much as with their online activism or even personal opinion.

Restricted to the FB scope. Some of many:

\- Human need for social connection (which FB preys on)

\- Ignorance (and poor sense of privacy) and carelessness (even though people waste hours on it, they don't think it's an important part of their lives)

\- FB's self-preservation engagement tactics (your attention = clicks = $$$) (FB: "you're deactivating your account? but look! all of these people will miss you. Oh. You meant delete? Google it.")

\- Ego and insecurity (you can selectively display to others what you want of you, hide what you don't want, block what you don't like, anything to enrich your fake sense of online self)

\- Fast food equivalent of catching up with people

\- Fear of losing contacts (and fear of loneliness)

\- Detachment from moral responsibility (why should I feel guilty for something FB is doing?)

\- ...

<comment><AUTHOR> Sorry if the title gives you the feeling of condescension in the title but by Intellectual, I mean people who can assess the situation and can act according to it. The people who know right and wrong about it.

I am from India and here I can guarantee you that 95% of people are not even aware of whats going on in this social media ecosystem. What it does, what the impact of it and everything. And hence I felt like why people who know that it's bad why they cant get rid of it.

Now coming to your points.

\- The human need for social connection (I really feel that nobody really get some valuable interaction out of any social media. The only exception being when you talk to someone special and someone you won't have access directly in your circle.) I think what most people relate to social interaction is via liking other people's posts and also getting your post being liked in return which is equivalent to your 4 point getting the dopamine hit and boosting your ego.

\- Ignorance point is right but its also being complemented with the fact that they are being bombarded with these values that these companies have cooked to tell that whatever they are doing clicking and scrolling is somehow adding value to their lives.

\- I agree with your 4th point Ego is the only thing that we get as in case of dopamine hit. But do you really want to go that path?

\- Fast food equivalent of catching up but again my same argument ? are you really catching up ? or is it the just fake perception of catching up?

\- I am running out of time but I also disagree with your last two points about losing contact and detachment because I don't think these things are fulfilled by them. It's just fake values that we start believing in and start perceiving how to be in contact and detachment the way these big companies want us to believe.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> \- I'm able to use the tool in a way that is responsible and provides value to me. It's a rolodex of all the different people I've met in my life with up-to- date methods of communication to easily reach them. That's valuable.

\- At times, I have certainly abused the tool, but I'm quick to catch myself when I feel this happening.

\- I only post things that I would be comfortable saying in public. It's like a public scrapbook for me. I have people added from all different parts of my life, including work.

\- I don't use it _that_ much. It's a bit like personal email in terms of pace. High frequency communication doesn't happen on Facebook for me, it happens on iMessage. I know some people who use FB Messenger or Facebook itself for high-frequency communication, which is fine if that's what they prefer, but that's not me.

</comment><comment><USER4> I manage a promotion page and unfortunately this page isn't even close to being popular enough to get people to visit it on other channels.

But to me this whole disaster wasn't such a surprise. If this was a revealing moment for the people who often read this site I could only ascribe it to ignorance and naivety. It has been blatantly obvious that Facebook and all the other big internet companies who serve "free" services have been doing this all along.

On the other side, for some people Facebook and others really are essential just like I couldn't do without Whatsapp since everyone here uses it. To me all of this seems like a failure of the law too, people should be protected from these things. Nobody would physically sign a contract without thinking about it and that's the thing we do online all the time.

</comment><comment><USER5> I have an empty profile that I can't delete since I manage a few business pages. You need an FB personal profile in order to open a business page. That's the only reason why I still have a profile (empty). I removed all pictures, comments, posts, etc. It's literally an empty page.

</comment><comment><USER6> A few reasons:

1\. For me, the damage is already done. Facebook has over a decade of data from me, and even if I were to delete my account the Cambridge Analytica story shows that Facebook has already shared that data. Even if there was a way for Facebook to delete all of my data, they've already lost control. It's like taking the bullets out of a persons gun after they have shot you. You're still wounded.

2\. Facebook has largely become the social network where you interact with people you don't really care about. My feed is full of third-party content, and stuff about people I haven't seen in years - people I knew from school, people I don't even like, etc. If I delete Facebook I delete my ability to be nosy, and I think that's why a lot of people won't delete their accounts. Whether you're perving on the guy/girl at school that went from zero to ten, laughing about some asshole from school now has a shitty life and several failed relationships, or how many kids the girl from your English class has popped out since leaving school, Facebook will always be the platform for that.

3\. Despite its flaws, it's the closest we've got to a universal social network. I do BJJ a few times a week, and outside of a few people I know that everyone at my gym is on Facebook, so if I want to chat to any of them I can use messenger, or I can add them as a friend.

Most of all, I genuinely don't believe anything bad will happen to Facebook as a result of this. Their higher-ups might get a grilling from ministers/congress, but they will get away with their crimes - and make no mistake, these should be serious crimes. Facebook allowed access to their data under false pretences, and the first news to come from the arrest warrant was that Facebook engineers were on-site right away at Cambridge Analytica. In a just world, Facebook would be fined for every breach of a persons data, to the tune of tens of billions. The fine should be so great that it forces Facebook to scale back their operations and completely restructure their business. In reality, someone might go to jail at Cambridge Analytica, but this practice will continue. If anything, this practice will be promoted as an unethical, but unpunishable tactic across the world.

</comment><comment><USER7> 80%+ of private events I attend are hosted on facebook (nearly 100% of social ones.) Every gig I attend I find out about due to Facebook (easier than reading a print gig-guide.)

<comment><USER8> Same. There really needs to be a good alternative to manage and discover events in your area, but most will probably fail due to the missing userbase/users' reluctance to switch to a new platform.

Some organizers/venues in my area put you on their guest list and have lower entrance fees for people who are "going" to their Facebook event. The only way I see a switch happening is if they agree to only offer those rewards for users of the new platform. But some of them are already showing dissent and setting up their own mailing lists/group texts, so I still have hope!

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> B/c breaking a habit is really, really hard. Like asking smokers why don't they quit even in light of known risks. It is not a matter of users being intelectual or not, it is a matter of rewards that reinforce the habit. Think of that silly moment when a person _shares_ a picture of a mundane act, like a meal about to be eaten. What is the reward?

FB is an epidemic. It will go away when ppl (most likely new generations) develop resistance to it.

</comment><comment><USER10> I got family on Facebook I can't find anywhere else. Some of them died and their account memorized with pictures and comments. I find new family members too.

Facebook is like Microsoft Windows, you want to get rid of it for Linux but the apps you need and people you know still run Windows and need help.

</comment><comment><USER11> I never shared anything personal, I don't have any real photos. I don't follow anything/anyone so my wall is empty. I have it for messenger, oauth and one page that I administer.

</comment><comment><USER12> I use it for Tinder and Bumble.

</comment><comment><USER13> snip - self censorship</comment>