Back by Popular Demand: All You Can Jet - <AUTHOR> http://www.jetblue.com/AYCJ/

<comment><USER2> Dustin Curtis (dcurtis) and Alaska Miller (alaskamiller) took as many flights as possible in 30 days, the last time this deal was up. They used to have a page at <http://dustincurtis.com/30dayflight.html> but it's broken now. I can only find one story (which is really interesting!): <http://dustincurtis.com/to-fasten-your-seatbelt.html>

dcurtis, where's your 30-day flight site now?

<comment><USER3> I don't think there was anymore than this. I remember the first post with a big lead up to the 30 day trip - but I don't remember many other posts other than the one you linked to.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> I did this last year. Literally life-changing. While in school, I traveled every weekend. I spent 3 days visiting a friend in Bogota, Colombia. Incredible experience.

One of the best parts is that you only have to book 3 days in advance, so you can pick when you leave pretty casually instead of planning ahead. You can also cancel any time at least 3 days before, so you can extend your trip if things are going well.

Because of this, it's almost worth it even if you take just 2 round-trip flights in the month.

Online booking now will make things easier too (before it was by phone).

</comment><comment><USER5> I wonder if you could make airports your startup 'office' for 30 days like this. I always seem to be more productive on trains or planes.

<comment><USER6> Are you kidding me? An airport is the last place I'd want to work. Expensive and crappy food, tired and annoyed people, and the endless noise of foot- traffic and zooming carts and loud-speaker announcements make airports one of the worst places on planet Earth.

<comment><USER7> Isn't it weird? Two people talking in a library can be more distracting than a crowd.

<comment><USER8> Ah! Trying to up upvote on an iPhone gone wrong! Meant to upvote and downvoted.. Might two people proxy their votes to correct my error?

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> oh man. It's probably less fun than it sounds? but it sounds pretty fun. I'm currently trying to think of a justification. A whirlwind tour of USian data centres, perhaps?

<comment><USER10> Dude, aren't you a biker? Fuck it, go ride instead.

<comment><USER9> I sold my bike to a friendly pair of VAX SysAdmins a few months back, in exchange for the largest stack of twenties I've ever touched. It must have taken north of a week to get those out of the ATM. My girl has commandeered my "disposable" maxima (now that I finally replaced the window and fixed the brakes, it's a reasonable ride. Man, that window was out for two years, and it turns out that replacing the window was a 20 minute job and a $40 part. who knew?)

My current ride is a 2002 Toyota Sienna with the seats ripped out. It's damn useful, really; I now have freight capabilities, and the seats are serving in my new office. But it's about as far from a bike as you can get; I get to keep it until my parents decide if they want to actually get rid of it or not.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> You too can maximize your output of greenhouse gases.

Edit: Changed from "impact on the ozone layer".

<comment><USER12> I assume that JetBlue is making this offer for the same reason that any airline offers a discount tied to an abnormal schedule: they can't sell enough full-price (or even normal-discount-price) tickets to fill their seats during September, but they don't want to reduce the number of flights they offer, and once they've committed to flying the plane then the marginal cost per passenger is trivial.

In other words, the plane is going to pump out those greenhouse gases whether it's half full or three-quarters full, so your decision to accept this offer isn't going to make much of a difference.

<comment><USER13> Well, it'll pump out slightly more greenhouse gases when it has to support the marginal weight of one additional passenger. But the marginal energy expenditure for one passenger is most likely pretty thin.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> If you, like me, are in Europe remember we have ryanair. You fly pretty much everywhere for $50 or less on a lot of days. $499 pass gets you 10 flights and not just in a month.

Still, I'd love to do this if I was in the US since it would force me to keep traveling

<comment><USER15> Is this $50 + fuel tax + carry-on fee + baggage charge + a quid for the bog + check-in costs?

<comment><USER16> depends on the day but 50€ incl all fees is not uncommon for ryanair.last trip to london was 65€ for 2 persons without additional bags. my trip to the airport +parking was more than my ticket.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> What are the extra taxes/fees for going to the Caribbean or Costa Rica with the pass?

</comment><comment><USER18> Super lame that people upvoted this story. Way off topic for HN.

<comment><USER19> I hate to do this, but I'm going to quote the guidelines at you:

"Please don't submit comments complaining that a submission is inappropriate for the site. If you think something is spam or offtopic, flag it by going to its page and clicking on the "flag" link. (Not all users will see this; there is a karma threshold.) If you flag something, please don't also comment that you did."</comment></comment>


Jeff Bezos Defends Decision to Buy Washington Post - <AUTHOR> http://www.nytimes.com/2016/06/01/technology/jeff-bezos-riding-high-defends-decision-to-buy-washington-post.html?ribbon-ad-idx=4&rref=technology&module=Ribbon&version=origin&region=Header&action=click&contentCollection=Technology&pgtype=article&_r=0 <comment><USER2> Well, I don't really see Bezos' defense of the decision to buy the Washington Post, because I don't see a critique of the decision.

The presumption here is that there was some kind of implicit criticism, but I don't really see that.

Trump did attack Bezos, but that was not for buying it. (If I recall correctly, it was some convoluted theory about Bezos worrying Trump would increase his tax burden).

Is there a critique that Bezos should have let the Washington Post collapse rather than buy it?

Have there been any reports that he is exerting editorial influence?

<comment><USER3> As a Washington DC resident, I will say I've read the post since around the late 1990's. Although it's never really been a beacon of fine journalism, it was a pretty dependable paper - lately though the articles have titles that are oriented towards generating clicks rather than providing valuable journalism.

Rumor from the WaPo staff is that there is a strong emphasis on building web traffic and revenue, I assume that this is the cause for articles that are less relevant to an informed understanding of the world and more relevant to entertaining the reader's desires.

It doesn't take too much reason to imagine that if Amazon can predict and suggest products that you may enjoy (and purchase) then they will predict and suggest stories that you may enjoy (and load advertisements with them). It's part of a growing internet-wide trend to provide a constant flow of agreeable, "interesting" content that is tailed for you, as a unit of data, versus you as a human desiring a balanced view of the world (to include opinions not of your own vein).

However - I do agree that the article has not delved into this.

<comment><USER4> "Although it's never really been a beacon of fine journalism"

Sorry, can't let this go unchallenged. WaPo was THE beacon of fine journalism for decades. Life existed before the 90s.

<comment><USER5> And even in the 00s, pre-Bezos, it was hitting stuff out of the park:

2014 - Stop and Seize -- this series about police confiscating hundreds of millions of dollars from motorists without charging crimes was a hugely eye- opening piece of investigative journalism...was widely discussed on HN too, IIRC: [http://www.washingtonpost.com/sf/investigative/collection/st...](http://www.washingtonpost.com/sf/investigative/collection/stop- and-seize-2/)

2013 - The WaPo shared in the Snowden-related Pulitzer, but on its own, I feel that it did some of the best work off of the material -- both in a technical and journalistic sense, including this one about NSA infiltrating Google data centers: [https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national- security/nsa-i...](https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/nsa- infiltrates-links-to-yahoo-google-data-centers-worldwide-snowden-documents- say/2013/10/30/e51d661e-4166-11e3-8b74-d89d714ca4dd_story.html)

2010 - Top Secret America -- this to me was a highly underrated project that attempted to expose how utterly out-of-control and ungainly America's national security apparatus is. If you read it before the Snowden revelations, you probably would have just nodded your head: [http://projects.washingtonpost.com/top-secret- america/](http://projects.washingtonpost.com/top-secret-america/)

And many more...It's unfortunate that a lot of resources are now being poured into aggregate-Upworthy-baity-headline crap...but honestly, even that material is pretty good. It's just super unfortunate that their headline writer has completely engorged themselves on social media marketing. WaPo truly has some of the worst headlines of any professional publication today.

edit: as an example of some of the great work under the "PostEverything" banner, which seems like kind of the WaPo's attempt to compete with Vox/BuzzFeed/Daily Mail...I bookmarked this piece from a widow trying to explain how "the second year without my husband is in some ways harder than the first"...one of the few non-technical bookmarks on my Pinboard. In retrospect, the headline isn't bad, but the writing is still profound...I've actually been visiting WaPo via URL directly just to see what guest columns have been published...just need a plugin to hide the headlines: [https://www.washingtonpost.com/posteverything/wp/2015/11/04/...](https://www.washingtonpost.com/posteverything/wp/2015/11/04/when- the-second-year-of-widowhood-is-harder/)

<comment> at-fates-hands >> WaPo truly has some of the worst headlines of any professional publication today.

Are you including the UK publications in this comment? Their headlines put the US ones to shame most of the time.

<comment><USER5> Well, I do think that I suffer from a bit of British-envy...years of Monty Python/Peep Show/Ricky Gervais/Malcolm Tucker have conditioned me to think that the British are the superior culture when it comes to wit.

I honestly can't think of many times when a UK headline has annoyed me in the way the Wapo does. Probably the worst offender is the Daily Mail, but they're merely artless in how they try to cram the entire article into a headline. Sample from today: _" Moment of revenge: Husband is caught on surveillance footage brutally beating his wife's would-be rapist to death with a tire iron as he tried to flee NY apartment while still pulling up his pants"_

But the Wapo goes beyond artless, and right into the mindset of "our readers must be fucking dumb to not be clicking on our stories in droves. Let's explain to them why they should be clicking on our stories!"

\- "Trump announced his gifts to veterans. Here's what we learned."

\- "Cancer deaths rose during the recession. But why?"

\- "The world is about to install 700 million air conditioners. Here's what that means for the climate"

\- "This might be the darkest theory yet about why Donald Trump keeps winning"

The one advantage of newspaper print is that, compared to webserver space, it's very finite, which means that if a story was worthy enough to have hundreds of barrels of ink tapped to make it physical, then it was a story implicitly worth the reader's time. I guess now that you can just slap anything onto a website that headlines need to be written ("X and Y happened yesterday. Here's why it's important") as if readers now automatically assume that all webstories are without value, and thus need to be constantly reminded that some stories are worth clicking through.

<comment><USER6> While your criticism stands, I think the reasoning behind the click-bait headlines isn't "our readers need to be reminded that this is worth reading", but an exploitation of human curiosity: if the headline contains an implicit question, the reader is compelled to click through to discover the answer. It's annoying, but I guess it works, since Buzzfeed continues to exist.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> You buy a media outlet because you want media power - ie, political power. Direct profitability is a side effect at best, the point is to advocate for policies and coverage that allow you to make money by other means.

Look at NYT's ever-so-delicate handling of Carlos Slim and issues that relate to him, ever since he bought 1/6 of them. Not a whole lot of criticism of his telecom monopoly or his effect on Mexican politics, lots of advocacy for policies that drive international phone calls.

<comment><USER8> Sure, Carlos Slim owns a huge portion of the the NYTimes public stock, but he doesn't have any significant voting power as that is held privately. If a rogue editor/journalist criticized Carlos Slim, he would have no power to fire them, where as at the Washington Post Jeff Bezos certainly would.

<comment><USER9> The voting power is held privately, and Carlos Slim loaned them 250 million to keep the lights on several years ago, before increasing his ownership to 1/6\. I have to believe he holds _significant_ influence over their decisions, and any journalist raking him over the coals would see their career prospects at the NYTimes effectively end.

That said, Bezos owning the Washington Post seems worse still to me.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Why would he need to defend buying something? It's his personal funds (not Amazon) so it's like having Steve Balmer defend buying the LA Clippers.

The LA Clippers sold for 2 billion. The Washington Post sold for 250 million.

Why is no one demanding that Balmer explain whether he's a good owner for the Clippers?

<comment><USER11> This is why we should scrutinize such purchases.

title: "Amazon's CEO & The Washington Post Team Up to Smear Bernie Sanders - 16 Hit Pieces in 16 Hours"

[http://www.dailykos.com/story/2016/3/8/1497827/-Amazon-s- CEO...](http://www.dailykos.com/story/2016/3/8/1497827/-Amazon-s-CEO-amp-The- Washington-Post-Team-Up-to-Smear-Bernie-Sanders-16-Hit-Pieces-in-16-Hours)

<comment><USER12> This is only concerning if one assumes that Bezos had anything to do with these stories, or that the stories were unfair in some way. To supporters of Sanders, this might seem self-evident, but it's not necessarily that way to the rest of us.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> The last sentence shows an extraordinary goal set:

"...He predicted that heavy industry would move off the planet and "earth will be zoned residential and light industrial."..."

<comment><USER14> Yes, that struck me as well.

I wonder where the topsoil figures in Mr Bezos' vision; the bit where you grow the food. All life depends on that really.

<comment><USER15> [http://qz.com/493542/japan-is-building-a-giant-robotic- lettu...](http://qz.com/493542/japan-is-building-a-giant-robotic-lettuce- factory/)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> "he takes on ever larger civic and business challenges."

That's a nice way of saying he invests in lobbying tools.

<comment><USER17> Yeah, shame in trying to use money to get something done these days, like save the planet.

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> I'm no journalism connoisseur, so take this with several grains of salt. I've always enjoyed the WP more than other non-paywall news sources due what I _perceive_ to be less political slant (beats Huff-post, hands down).

What would you guys say the political slant of WP is? Is there some quality non-paywall news source I'm missing?

<comment><USER19> From an editorial perspective, more or less establishment left-of-center. I'm not sure I'd draw much of a distinction between it and the New York Times although--at least historically--the Washington Post (unsurprisingly) majored in US politics to a greater degree than the Times. In other words, pretty typical US major urban newspaper.

</comment></comment><comment><USER20> I think it's reasonable to view an outspoken owner has having organizational and cultural impact on his business enterprises in concert with personal gravity.

As in, if the WaPo is taking on some elements of Bezos' attitude or interests, that's a natural evolution and adjustment. For example, he's ambitious, and if he brings that ambition to the WaPo, then yes, it will likely be an issue with 'traditional' culture, or it might be a welcome change. It's hard to tell from the outside.

To me, Mark Cuban is a pretty good example in his ownership of the Dallas Mavericks. A relatively media savvy guy pushes his organization to be media savvy as well. Recently as evidenced by starting up a local entertainment firm "Another Mavricks Production" to partner with acts like Ludacris for fanbase engagement. Is that "anti-NBA" just because it's kind of new? I don't see it that way.

And, just as a closing thought, if Trump thinks the WaPo isn't treating him fairly, well, if Gawker manages to survive long enough to get around to flaying him in public, I'd probably click on the article.

<comment><USER21> A side from the stupid freethrow- interference gimmick, has Cuban changed the way the Mavs play b-ball?

He does have more freedom to redefine the genre, without destroying the core product, than a newspaper does

<comment><USER20> Yeah, he hired a Hall of Fame coach and won an NBA championship. They were a real bottom of the barrel team for ages. Cuban's fingerprints are all over going from "Terrible" to "Competitive" and I think that has to do with his wallet and attitude and attitude about his wallet.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> I totally see him running for the President in 2028.

</comment><comment><USER23> Under his ownership the paper has gone even further south in terms of being a trash publication. I've filtered it out of my news sites.</comment>


Money for Nothing - Paul Krugman - <AUTHOR> http://www.nytimes.com/2009/04/27/opinion/27krugman.html?em

<comment><USER2> Strange ... I thought Obama had put a cap on executive pay for institutions receiving federal money.

<comment><USER3> that cap is only going forward, it doesn't apply.</comment></comment>


Increasing wireless network speed by 1000%, by replacing packets with algebra - <AUTHOR> http://www.extremetech.com/computing/138424-increasing-wireless-network-speed-by-1000-by-replacing-packets-with-algebra

<comment><USER2> Summary: TCP throughput drops dramatically when packet loss is present. This technique uses forward error correction to compensate for packet loss, resulting in higher effective throughput over lossy links. Many WiFi and cellular connections are lossy, so this would be helpful in those cases.

They haven't improved the underlying link rate at all. In fact, the FEC overhead is going to reduce the effective link rate. However, in some edge- case high packet loss scenarios, the reduced packet loss will more than make up for the reduced effective link rate.

<comment><USER3> Yep. This appears to be nothing more than FEC. Maybe they used LDPC or LDGM, which are superior to traditional Reed-Solomon codes.

I remember doing research on FEC codes back in 2003-2004 for developing a protocol for sending large files over satellite links to multicast recipients when I was working for SmartJog.

<comment><USER4> > I remember doing research on FEC codes back in 2003-2004 for developing a > protocol for sending large files over satellite links to multicast > recipients when I was working for SmartJog.

Interestingly, this tool looks like it is useful for the problem you describe:

<http://www.udpcast.linux.lu/satellite.html>

<comment><USER3> Yup. I remember looking at udpcast. I did not select it because, amongst other things, it did not support encryption. And I don't think we could use IPsec.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Google, don't speculate. The primary source appears to be [http://www.mit.edu/~medard/papers2011/Network%20CodingMeets%...](http://www.mit.edu/~medard/papers2011/Network%20CodingMeets%20TCP-%20Theory%20and%20Implementation.pdf) and similar papers from the same authors.

</comment><comment><USER6> Ugh, remember when academia helped create the internet by releasing free publicly available unlicensed RFCs?

Edit: Not RFPs, duh

<comment><USER7> I'm not sure I remember how each successive advancement in signaling from 802.3-coax through 10gbE through gigabit wireless was driven by public RFCs.

<comment><USER6> That's a good point since most networking standards were developed under the IEEE which was always more industry oriented than the IETF, I think they're both mostly industry players at this point. But still, there is a rich history of free contributions by academia which I think is rarer today.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> See the original discussion & better article at <https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4686743>

</comment><comment><USER9> TL;DR They are using error correcting codes across packets to limit the impact of losing some.

</comment><comment><USER10> This looks like Fountain codes: <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fountain_code>

Basically, you split your data into blocks, XOR random blocks together and the client can recreate the data by solving the equation of which blocks where XORed with which.

A good tutorial is here: [http://blog.notdot.net/2012/01/Damn-Cool-Algorithms- Fountain...](http://blog.notdot.net/2012/01/Damn-Cool-Algorithms-Fountain- Codes)

And a fast implementation: <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Raptor_code>

</comment><comment><USER11> The linkbaity title links to a neat, proprietary way to reduce wireless packet loss.

</comment><comment><USER12> It's the job of the 802.11 L2 to hide correctable packet loss L3 so most radio link loss isn't passed on to TCP. This could just as well read "the wifi L2 error correction doesn't try hard enough".

This problem is very common but it wants fixing on the L2 and not TCP. Turning up the FEC on the L2 would reduce its capacity even further though since more of the bandwidth is taken up by the FEC (and so does this TCP level FEC).

3G gets it wrong on the other extreme, it pretends to always have 0% packet loss, your packets just sometimes show up 30-100 seconds late and in order.

</comment><comment><USER13> I see lots of comments talking about FEC. That's not how the article reads to me. Granted the author (or I?) may be completely out in left field, but here's my take on what it says:

Let's suppose you have a mathematical process that outputs a stream of [useful] data. The description of the process is much, much smaller than the output. You can "compress" the data by sending the process (or equation) instead. Think π. Do you transmit a million digits of π or do you transmit the instruction "π to a million digits"? The latter is shorter.

Now, reverse the process: given an arbitrary set of data, find an equation (or process) that represents it. Not easy for sure. Perhaps not possible. I recall as a teenager reading an article about fractals and compression that called on the reader to imagine a fractal equation that could re-output your specific arbitrary data.

If I've totally missed the article's point, please correct me, but explain why it also talks about algebra.

EDIT: I re-read and noticed this: "If part of the message is lost, the receiver can solve the equation to derive the missing data." I can see the FEC nod here.

Guh. I guess I'm blind tonight. "Wireless networks are in desperate need for forward error correction (FEC), and that's exactly what coded TCP provides." I cannot for the life of me understand why they'd need to keep this a secret.

</comment><comment><USER14> There's a company in Ottawa implementing a similar idea, but based on carving up packets and then inserting one or more redundant XOR packets (RAID-style). Their name for it is IPQ: <http://liveqos.com/products/ipq/>

They have a patent on this: <http://www.google.com/patents/US20120201147>

(Disclosure: I was an intern there in 2009, when it was IPeak Networks.)

</comment><comment><USER15> Has anyone done an experiment to see what simply duplicating every TCP packet sent over wireless does? If you're in a situation where you're limited by random packet loss and not by raw bandwidth, I imagine it could help...

Obviously this is a much weaker and less efficient solution that what is proposed in the paper, but this would be trivial to implement. I believe netem allows you to simulate this.

<comment><USER16> There was an RTS game in the late 90's that did something like this. It was peer to peer, with peers broadcasting their input events to each other and running mirrored simulations in lockstep. So the bandwidth used was trivial since you can code a keypress or mouse click in just a couple bytes, but any packet loss would degrade the game for all peers. So they just duplicated the last packets input data in successive packets. No algebraic coding or any other attempt to save bandwidth, since the data was already trivial.

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> Is this likely to be any different from introducing a little error-correction?

Also, how were we not doing this already?

Also, I need a writer. Whoever wrote this up made it sound WAY cooler than when I explain error correcting codes.

<comment><USER18> As it says, in wired networks packet loss is almost entirely due to congestion, so adding error-correction is unnecessary - better to just throttle down when you see it.

TCP is old and reliable and there are massive costs associated with switching to anything else. I think that's why we weren't doing this yet, and I think that's why this initiative will fail too.

</comment></comment><comment><USER19> This is one of those posts where the comments on the site are better than the article submitted.

It also means less power consumption on mobile phones. There will be no need to increase signal power to get better speed or voice quality.

</comment><comment><USER20> I'm not up-to-date on networking technologies, but it's surprising to me that some sort of error correction hasn't already been made a standard yet.

I wonder if something along the lines of old-school Parity files would work in the packet world? Basically just blast out the packets and any that were lost, you just reconstruct using the meta-data sent with the other packets.

</comment><comment><USER21> Isn't the downside of FEC encoded packets increased latency? Instead of sending each packet immediately, don't you need to accumulate n packets to encode as a group? Or does the math allow incremental encoding? Simple parity is incremental, but the FEC on DSL lines always added 40ms of latency.

<comment><USER22> 40ms extra latency on wifi is nothing compared to packet loss.

<comment><USER21> Really? My wifi RTT to the metropolitan core is 15 ms, and over LTE it is 47 ms. Not a worthwhile tradeoff at 40 ms unconditional additional RTT delay.

I imagine the higher latency was used to offset lower bandwidth due to FEC encoding loss, by amortizing it over more bits.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> What's funny here is that wireless networks already use FEC at the physical layer. This just adds more, less conservative, FEC higher up for apps where it makes more sense to reduce throuhput and increase some average case latency to avoid worse case latency and worse case throughput.

</comment><comment><USER23> My friend did something similar to the concepts in this article, except he applied it to compression of audio. It was basically finding patterns in the audio and transforming these into equations. Interesting stuff.

</comment><comment><USER24> What a remarkably easy to read article.

</comment><comment><USER25> Captivating title...</comment>


Cover Letters: Always Send One - <AUTHOR> http://blog.doismellburning.co.uk/cover-letters-always-send-one/ <comment><USER2> The site appears to be down, so my comment is without having read the actual article.

As someone who is involved in the hiring process pretty regularly, I would say about 10% of the resumes we receive come with cover letters, but only a small fraction of those letters make it _obvious_ that they've been tailored to our company. Maybe 3 out of 10 will do this. Giving people the benefit of the doubt, half the cover letters we do receive are not unique to us.

Honestly it's probably better not to send a cover letter than it is to send one you've copied and pasted from the internet or that you're sending in identical copies to 50 employers. We don't count not sending a cover letter against anyone, but a bad one can hurt your chances of a phone call.

In my experience though, a good, unique cover letter will all but guarantee you an in-person interview. We'll do an initial phone screen that is mostly for baseline technical competence (talk about projects, etc, we're not going over algorithms or anything here), then a single panel interview that we try to keep under 1 hour and are successful with the majority of the time.

<comment><USER3> > In my experience though, a good, unique cover letter will all but guarantee > you an in-person interview.

I wish. The amount of time I put in to an application seems to have no bearing on my almost-nonexistent response rate, so I rarely bother with much effort anymore.

<comment><USER4> I have actually seen an inverse relationship with the amount of time invested in the application process. I spend 45 minutes laboriously transferring every little detail already on my resume into the fill-in forms of their candidate blackholing system, also upload my resume, and include a cover letter: no contact.

I locate my HTML resume on my file system and click "send": I get an e-mail response within days, and take the first call the same week.

So I'm willing to write a custom cover _paragraph_. I say where I saw the job posting and the single detail in it that most influenced my choice to respond.

But I only do so at the end, if the application process hasn't already gone over 20 minutes.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Always send a cover letter. Resumes are form content, by themselves they do not offer enough differentiation from the next joker with a word processor. The cover letter is the easiest and most traditional way to define yourself as more than a bunch of facts.

Part of working at a company is getting good at written communication. It should not be a lot of work to whip up a personalized cover letter for each company you apply to, assuming you're not just putting your resume on blast. If it feels like it is, then you should work on those skills rather than just cop out of the responsibility.

<comment><USER3> I'm probably unusual, but I have major writer's block and anxiety when writing about myself. I can write clear, detailed communications about nearly anything with little effort, but it takes me 45 minutes to write three paragraphs about myself.

<comment><USER6> Well, the beauty is that you only have to do it once. Nobody that receives a cover letter from you is likely to see another one you ever send out, so it's okay if they have some of the same content.

I personally keep each cover letter I write in a Google doc. When I have to whip up a new one I just go back and find some useful bits that apply to the position I'm interested in. That gets the ball rolling enough that the last 15% is easy to get through.

I only have so many skills I want to highlight in a cover letter, so having 10-15 sentences already laying around to cherry pick from gets me 80% of the way there on new letters.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Honestly I've reviewed a lot of applications, working for a small non-profit, then a large tech company, and now a tech start-up. I never read the cover letter, and the recruiters rarely pass them on to me. And it never makes a difference.

</comment><comment><USER8> Here's the problem with the cover letter: the dominant strategy is to describe that you're a natural fit for the job, which sends up all sorts of BS flags in the reader.

The alternative, suggested here, is to be a little self-deprecating. Mention why you might not be the perfect candidate, but you'll shine anyway. Have you heard of price anchoring? It's everywhere, and if you start the hiring manager off with "could take a chance on this person, maybe a diamond in the rough" ... well, that's not a great place to start.

So if you're writing a cover letter, I'd recommend you make it sound like you're perfect for the job. But the strongest feature is "I've been doing this at my last job and want to do it somewhere else." That's a hard thing to make up if you don't have it already. And either way, it's not unique -- the "best" cover letter for a job is generally pretty discernible from the job posting. Which makes that cover letter table stakes and doesn't set you apart from the crowd of candidates they're actually going to talk to.

<comment><USER5> > And either way, it's not unique -- the "best" cover letter for a job is > generally pretty discernible from the job posting. Which makes that cover > letter table stakes and doesn't set you apart from the crowd of candidates > they're actually going to talk to.

I really don't think that most people even send a cover letter, much less put that much effort into determining what the 'best' such letter to send is.

Life isn't a poker game, 99% of your success comes from just showing up. Most people don't even do that.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> I'd say for large companies(Google, Fb, MSFT, etc), theres no need to send a cover letter. These companies get thousands of applications every single recruiting cycle. Is it even possible for HR to review every single cover letter? Anecdotally, I've had many friends get interviews with big companies without sending a cover letter so not having a cover letter probably won't hurt your case.

For small companies/startups, a cover letter is probably a good idea though.

</comment><comment><USER10> Yeah I disagree when sending a cover letter to a big company. When you send in your resume, it will take on a life of it's own and honestly this can work in your favor. The resume gets passed around by HR and hiring manager to hiring manager. It would be hard to avoid poisoning the thought process of the hiring managers if you have a cover letter attached.

<comment><USER2> How would a cover letter "poison the thought process of the hiring managers"?

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> Alternate point of view here from someone who has done a lot of hiring.

I find this advice really odd because it's a struggle to find someone who can actually do the job and you are always desperate for technical talent.

I have never seen any emphasis placed on cover letters or resumes when screening candidates. Instead it's usually things like online coding tests and phone interviews.

I can see this being more important for executive/sales/marketing positions that require soft skills that aren't easily gauged.

</comment><comment><USER12> Let me try; :)

Hi, I'm John Doe

I saw your ad for Backend Software Developer at LaterPay and was very interested, because I believe paying for digital content should be fast, convenient, and fair. I think people should be able to buy the exact piece of content they want.

As a Software Developer who lives in Slack and keeps code in GitHub, I really enjoy running stuff in AWS.

and so on and so forth :) It all sounds like BS for me

</comment><comment><USER13> Cover letter should be short: one or two sentences. One sentence is better than two.

Just briefly explain why this job interests you and give a hint of why you is a potential match.

</comment><comment><USER14> No. I hate receiving them it's just garbage. Resumes' themselves are garbage. They tell no stories and give no information in the tech field.</comment>


Data Replication in NoSQL Databases - <AUTHOR> http://highscalability.com/blog/2012/7/9/data-replication-in-nosql-databases.html <comment><USER2> FWIW, this is an ongoing discussion I have with Steve Kleiman at NetApp (R3 vs RAID). There was also an interesting adventure at Google where I showed that Google storage for Gmail cost more than NetApp storage (didn't go over well :-). Basically you get 'free' storage as long as you need compute resources, this was also the thesis of the original GFS paper. Its only when you have dense storage needs (archival is an example) do you end up needing more spindles and fewer CPUs.</comment>


Why you can't get your medical test results delivered directly to you in CA - <AUTHOR> http://www.tedeytan.com/2012/08/01/11261

<comment><AUTHOR> This law is ridiculously arcane. I simply don't understand why CA will not allow patients to receive results themselves.</comment>


IPhone Leak Investigation On Hold As DA Ponders Gizmodo Shield Law Defense - <AUTHOR> http://techcrunch.com/2010/04/26/iphone-leak-investigation-on-hold-as-da-ponders-gizmodo-shield-law-defense/ <comment><USER2> It seems like Gizmodo could have avoided a lot of trouble if they had acted in a somewhat professional manner. They could have easily examined the device, taken it apart and re-assembled it, and returned it to Apple, and _then_ published the story without revealing that they had paid $5k for it and without revealing the identity of the guy who lost it (the justification of which still mystifies me, at least in the manner in which they did it).

At any rate, I wonder if the shield law coming into play now is more related to weather or not they feel they can legally extract information from the equipment rather than weather or not it was legal for Gizmodo to purchase the device, or for the "finder" to sell it. IANAL, of course.

</comment><comment><USER3> This iPhone raid is a reminder that only the government has the legal monopoly on trespassing, breaking-and-entering, and theft -- which are _functionally_ equivalent to this raid & confiscate operation. These monopolies are in addition to those on kidnapping (arrest, imprisonment) and murder (executions, military actions).

But... do not be alarmed.

<comment><USER4> And the alternative is? I don't know of anyplace worth living in that _doesn't_ have laws and a means of enforcing them. Do you?

<comment><USER5> It may not be about completely different alternatives but instead the degree to which government power should be limited.

<comment><USER3> Exactly. The argument is not, "Well, it could be worse." it is, "It should be better than this."

When you give an entity the legal right to trespass, break-and-enter, steal, kidnap and kill you better be _damn_ sure it is only done against "bad guys". Otherwise, that entity _is_ the bad guy.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> All of this for a damn phone.

</comment><comment><USER7> _The DA will now reevaluate whether those shield laws do apply, and will not begin going through Chen's possessions until they've reached a decision in the next few days (he says they're in no hurry)._

So a guy finds a $5000 phone in a bar, sells it to the media, has the media look at it, and then returns it to its owner. The state, in an effort to prevent others from doing this, breaks into the writer's house, takes $5000+ worth of his property, are going to look at it for a few days, and then they'll return it.

I smiled.

<comment><USER8> Do you know what the police do to people when these people take someone by force and keep them in a location where they don't want to be (kidnapping)? They take those people by force and keep them in a location they don't want to be.

And do you know what they do when a person kills other people?</comment></comment>


How the Internet Is Taking Away America's Religion - <AUTHOR> http://www.technologyreview.com/view/526111/how-the-internet-is-taking-away-americas-religion/

<comment><USER3> Really weak result. One factor over a short time period in a single country without throwing in the dozens of other variables? This is exactly the sort of result you expect to go away in subsequent time periods. (Also, the OP's confusion about correlation/causation in the hilarious bit about logistic regression certainly doesn't increase my confidence in this result.)

<comment><USER4> I agree, though I wouldn't be surprised if it were true right now. The Internet is undoubtedly the greatest tool that has ever been created for spreading religion, but in the short term it probably just magnifies whatever the larger social/religious fads are, e.g. new atheism.

<comment><USER5> It's also the greatest tool that has ever been created for destroying superstition and myth. We're in the golden age of critical thinking, something that is very destructive to religious belief.

<comment><USER6> > something that is very destructive to religious belief

I think history's greatest logical thinkers would beg to differ with you. The history books are always trying to be rewritten by someone BUT religious thought has driven this critical thinking and logic for millennial. Also explain why more people are Christians now then ever? Percentage and Numbers???

<comment><USER7> Because there are more people now than ever. Are you trying to make a parody?

<comment><USER6> Read the word percentage

<comment><USER7> Oh, that part is just factually inaccurate, at least as far as I could find in a brief search. The only reason it's even staying flat is because it's stealing from other religions. The overall amount of religious people is shrinking, especially in affluent/educated countries.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> I changed the url from [1] to the article it cites, which is more substantive. But should we link to the actual paper [2] instead?

1\. [http://www.npr.org/blogs/alltechconsidered/2014/04/21/303375...](http://www.npr.org/blogs/alltechconsidered/2014/04/21/303375159/americas- less-religious-study-puts-some-blame-on-the-internet)

2\. [http://arxiv.org/abs/1403.5534](http://arxiv.org/abs/1403.5534)

<comment><USER9> No, it's confusing enough already that this post is filled with obsolete NPR and NPR-quoting comments. (Though I appreciate that your change wasn't done invisibly!)

I think it would be better to let someone submit the paper separately, or for us all to just upvote your comment.

<comment><USER8> People say this a lot, but it isn't clear to me how this would work. Would you like to discuss it? Email to email@example.com is probably best so we don't disrupt the thread.

Edit: Oops, version conflict. I was talking about a bit you edited out (about multiple links).

<comment><USER9> Annoying, isn't it? :)

<comment><USER8> I know much better than to play Reddit with you.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Allen was my professor at Olin. In a facebook comment to when another prof posted an article about this "study" he did (which was purely for computational statistics purposes, not to really make a theological statement), his response:

"I'm so proud. Structure of all responses to my paper: (1) New study says Internet is a tool of Satan, (2) correlation does not imply causation, so this paper is stupid, (3) here, on the basis of no evidence at all, is the real cause of religious disaffiliation."

The way the internet has contorted the original study to make sensationalist commentary is pretty hilarious.

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> I think that there is much more of a culture of admitting to things these days that would be more socially unacceptable than even back in the 90's. I also think that they are low balling it saying "Downey predicts the most likely changes between now and 2040 are that the percentage of people without a religious preference reach 25 percent. " I expect that number to be reasonably higher in the united states, it would be very interesting if it was 25% of the worlds population with out a preference in 2040.

<comment><USER11> I think there will be regions where it will be much higher (the south, bible belt, etc), but there are parts of this country where it will also be much lower (New England/the west coast). If immigration is opened up at the farm labor/blue collar end of the skill spectrum, there will likely be an up tick in religious observance in areas that might otherwise trend downward (California).

<comment><USER12> I think you switched lower/higher around (the GP was talking about people _without_ religious observance.)

<comment><USER11> You are correct. My brain was thinking those _with_ observance. Early morning/tired posting victim. Thanks

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> It is intuitive that exposure to a wider range of ideas than found in one's home area undermines religious faith, but interesting to have this confirmed. Anecdotally I have noticed signs of this worldwide.

The phrasing "blame on the internet" (along with college, apparently) implies a bias for religion over more agnostic views, but I guess this is NPR reporting the religionists' interpretation rather than NPR's.

<comment><USER14> What's intuitive to you could also be called confirmation bias. And I don't believe this article really proves it at all.

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> The more fascinating question is why the widespread availability of knowledge and information hasn't done a _better_ job of overcoming provincial superstitions.

<comment><USER15> To the downvoters: what did you find objectionable about my contribution?

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> Would issues of faith - by definition, those things you can't see or prove - require homogeneity? Pinpricks of doubt would likely erode such delicate beliefs. In a connected world, where you can interact with those who don't look like you or have your experience, it seems those pinpricks would be easier to come across.

</comment><comment><USER17> _But what of the other 50 percent? In the data, the only factor that correlates with this is date of birth—people born later are less likely to have a religious affiliation. But as Downey points out, year of birth cannot be a causal factor. "So about half of the observed change remains unexplained," he says._

Increasing year of birth means increasing human knowledge. While it was convincing a long time ago to have a god for thunder, for fire, for love and a thousand other things, we learned that thunder works without any god. And now people learn that the universe works without any god at all, i.e. monotheistic religions are no longer as convincing as they used to be.

<comment><USER18> _Increasing year of birth means increasing human knowledge._

What, since the 1990s? No, don't be silly. There may have been a bump due to improved _access_ to basic human knowledge. Is this what you mean?

<comment><USER17> Good point, raw increase in human knowledge is probably not a good explanation. But it is almost a quarter of a century since 1990, the rate at which new knowledge is obtained is constantly increasing, the Internet made access to this knowledge easier than ever before, people have - I guess - <USER2> time available to spend on such topics, the Internet enabled discussions in a way not possible before, ... Therefore a better explanation is probably easier access to knowledge than raw increase in knowledge.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Myth: Less people go to church now then in the past.

Really weak since more people go to church now then they did in 1994! :) The numbers show that more people attend church percentage wise then ever in history of America. Don't even look at World Wide church attendance because it might make your mind explode on how much Christianity has grown.

It is always shocking how people report the death of religion without the numbers. I think people who are religious are the origins of this myth.

Look at this one look at USA [http://hirr.hartsem.edu/research/fastfacts/fast_facts.html](http://hirr.hartsem.edu/research/fastfacts/fast_facts.html)

Worldwide (Based on CIA world facts and few others [http://fastestgrowingreligion.com/numbers.html](http://fastestgrowingreligion.com/numbers.html)

<comment><USER19> Your ignoring population growth. As there is around 50 million more people in the us now than there was in 1994.

"In 1990, 20.4% of the population attended an Orthodox Christian church on any given weekend. In 2000, that percentage dropped to 18.7% and to 17.7% by 2004. Olson explains that while church attendance numbers have stayed about the same from 1990 to 2004, the U.S. population has grown by 18.1% — more than 48 million people. "So even though the number of attendees is the same, our churches are not keeping up with population growth," he says." [http://www.churchleaders.com/pastors/pastor- articles/139575-...](http://www.churchleaders.com/pastors/pastor- articles/139575-7-startling-facts-an-up-close-look-at-church-attendance-in- america.html?p=2)

[http://fastestgrowingreligion.com/numbers.html](http://fastestgrowingreligion.com/numbers.html). Global Christian growth rate 1.36% is below the population groth rate of 1.41 %. Which is a sign of a slow death, Islam at 2.13% on the other hand is well above that.

<comment><USER20> "The numbers show that more people attend church percentage wise then ever in history of America."

<comment><USER19> More people lie about attending church which is the only way you can get the 40% figgure. But actual attendance has not been keeping up with population growth.

"Q: How many people go to church each Sunday? A: For years, the Gallup Research Organization has come up with a consistent figure — 40 percent of all Americans, or roughly 118 million people, who said they attended worship on the previous weekend. Recently, sociologists of religion have questioned that figure, saying Americans tend to exaggerate how often they attend. By actually counting the number of people who showed up at representative sample of churches, two researchers, Kirk Hadaway and Penny Marler found that only 20.4 percent of the population, or half the Gallup figure, attended church each weekend. As added proof for the accuracy of this smaller percentage of churchgoers, if 20.4% of Americans (approximately 63 million in 2010) attended the nation's 350,000 congregations weekly then the average attendance would be 180 people per congregation which is almost exactly the figure that numerous research studies have found."

<comment><USER6> This is a study of dishonesty more then attendance. You can't go and just ask, "Do you go to church every weekend. People will lie. Also read the table of church growth over the past 40 years on the page you just quoted. Christianity falling is just as much a "Known Truth" as much as above 50% divorce rate of first time marriages.

Care with studies. Most Christians "just know" Christianity is falling away and pay big money to people who predict the death of the faith (George Barna AKA father of Christians divorce rate is the same or higher then non-Christian divorce rate though the one issue is his numbers were all a lie). The truth is that it has grown in mind blowing numbers and really hasn't slowed down except in Mainline denominations and Catholic Churches. The vast majority of stats are if people were honest to the question did they go to church. The surprise is most people are dishonest that they attend church weekly. Case in point East Sunday attendance is huge compared to normal weekly attendance.

I think people are just being blind to the meteoric rise of Christianity in the past 100 years. In 1910 more then half the Christians in the world were European.

Here is a good academic study. [http://www.gordonconwell.edu/resources/Center- for-the-Study-...](http://www.gordonconwell.edu/resources/Center-for-the- Study-of-Global-Christianity.cfm/)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> When my mother went to Catholic schools in the US in the late 1940s and 1950s, every teacher was a member of a religious order.

When I went to Catholic schools from the late 1970s to the 1980s, about half the teachers were in religious orders, half lay people.

My cousin goes to Catholic schools right now. None of his teachers thus far have been religious, all have been lay people.

Such a shift in the past half century, along with other trends, is bound to affect religious devotion.

The Internet probably has an effect. I think the effect it has is one of degree. Years ago, people seemed to be divided into fundamentalists, and those who might doubt, say, that Joshua made the sun stand still in order to prevent sundown so that the Israelis could defeat the Amorites, or that the pope as Vicar of Christ speaks infallibly on matters of faith, and so forth. On say Reddit's /r/atheism there are so many secular people, that doubting people become complete atheists as opposed to moderate or liberal Christians. Those who doubt stop believing things completely, whereas in the old days they may have stuck around and been part of a church's liberal/moderate wing.

There also seems to be a counter-trend where those who stay in the church become even more fundamentalist. Michael Harrington wrote about this in "The Politics at God's Funeral". It creates a cyclical effect - as the moderates leave, the fundamentalists make the churches more and more fundamental and fanatic, driving out the moderates still left, which gives the fundamentalists even more power and the church drives out those moderates still left and so on.

<comment><USER15> > as the moderates leave, the fundamentalists make the churches more and more > fundamental and fanatic, driving out the moderates still left, which gives > the fundamentalists even more power and the church drives out those > moderates still left and so on.

That's a fascinating point. The question is, as this circular process reaches a new equilibrium, what are we left with?

<comment><USER22> In some cases, maybe a secretive minority willing to die for the incredible belief in their cause and not enough moderates to criticise their behaviour?

Bit like what you can see with friends who push their partying too hard. They alienate more conservative friends but find agreeable social partners elsewhere, gradually re-filling their social circle with other hard partiers. Over time, perhaps what was normal seems boring and the behaviour gets worse?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> I remember reading a piece about how Catholic church is trying to ban people from using condom and thought it was pretty ridiculous that they were against safety. A fellow Android developer was catholic and started a long rant about how condoms promote infidelity and adultery -_- and he literally sat in front of the screen for hours writing a huge rebuttal to what I have said.

Another time I advised him against purchasing mutual funds because as a Economics/Finance major, we learned that mutual funds have many lot of questionable hidden costs and their market performance aren't the most sound vehicle for investing one's salary but he basically told me that he trusts the sales person because he is also Catholic. He was newly wed, living with his parents, had a baby on the way, and made the same salary as me which wasn't much. I didn't feel bad though.

What I got from this is that even with the face of evidence and hard facts, some people are just that attached to religion, an old artifact for a time when science and logic were persecuted and laughed at, it was just shocking to see it continue so rigidly.

<comment><USER24> So... did he make money on the mutual funds? If so, joke's on you, right? Evidence and hard facts seem to support his position on the other issue, now, don't they?

<comment><USER23> I think he's divorced now so it probably doesn't matter.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> This reminds me of the graph correlating a decrease in the number of pirates to global warming.

</comment><comment><USER26> Correllation != Causation

</comment><comment><USER27> "Thou art god, I am god. All that groks is god."

</comment><comment><USER28> Could be the Internet, could be the phase-out of TEL...

(For the uninitiated, yes, this is trolling.)</comment>


W.E.B. Du Bois on the beauty of sorrow songs (1903) - <AUTHOR> https://www.laphamsquarterly.org/music/unforgettable <comment><USER2> I adore sad songs. I cannot really explain why, if you don't understand. My girlfriend doesn't get sad songs, and I just cannot explain it to her.

When I am happy, sad songs can make me sad, and I don't want to hear them. But when I am slightly or more sad, or just want to feel myself, I enjoy a sad song. It makes me feel connected to myself.

Giving in to sadness is a nice way for catharsis and healing the soul. Sometimes in life there is sadness. Denying it will only make the hurt be bigger. Giving into it can give room for new things. I read once that flowing tears causes for hormones to flow where you get happy again and see new opportunities. In the Netherlands whe have a saying about children; "Johnny cries, Johnny smiles".

There are too many lies on Facebook and Twitter anyway. Sometimes shedding a tear can give way for honesty, truth and realness.

<comment><USER3> The article, written in the early 20th century, has nothing to do with sad songs in the, "sad songs hurt so good sense", but rather in the African American's shared pain (from slavery) and catharsis through music.

I suspect the same holds true for the American Indian, Jews, and any other enslaved/victims-of-genocide peoples.

Not that all humans don't suffer, far from it, but the article in question is decidedly not about that sad song on the radio.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> The aching and the beautiful often come together, strangely. Pain makes poetry.</comment>


Warn HN: CrashPlan are deleting backups older than 6 months with no notice - <AUTHOR> I received an email from CrashPlan today informing me they have deleted one of my backups. [0]
They have a retention policy [1] that states backups from PCs that have not connected to the service for 6 months will be deleted. However, this policy has never previously been enforced and is not highlighted during signup or setup. I've been a paying user of CrashPlan for around 8 years and was not aware of this policy. The computer in question was listed as not having been active for nearly 2 years. I have several other backups that have been inactive for up to 5 years. I have not yet received any emails about these other devices, but I can only assume I will be soon.
I received no prior warning or notification that this was going to happen.
I contacted support [2] and they claimed the new enforcement was due to a recent audit of the service.
Although the email I received informed me that the data had already been removed, as of this moment it appears to still be accessible. Support have so far been unable to tell me how long it will remain available for, so I'm in the process of downloading many gigabytes of old backups as fast as I can in the hope some automated process doesn't delete them before I have restored them all.
Not the kind of action I want to see from a service that I need to trust with backups of my data.
[0] - http://pastebin.com/SrJuwgDV
[1] - http://support.code42.com/CrashPlan/4/Subscriptions/Backup_Retention_Policy_For_Inactive_Cloud_Destinations
[2] - http://pastebin.com/ee32yhzB <comment><USER3> Hello All,

Jarrod from Code42 here. Sorry about the scare. Wanted to clarify a few things.

If a restore has been initiated from the archive of the device in question it's considered "connected" and your data won't be deleted. To be clear - <USER2> automated process is going to remove your data while you're restoring.

You are correct in your assumption about the other devices— we are in the process of enforcing this policy when we previously haven't. We realize that many users won't be aware of this existing retention policy. That's why we've been testing different messages to small batches of users (small meaning .3% of our user base) and seeing how they respond.

Like the email says many of the affected archives are from backups that were once connected to an older device. This often happens because people aren't aware of our "adoption" process that is used to connect and existing backup to a new device. Because silent, continuous backup is very "set it and forget" many folks just end up backing up their new machine instead of getting rid of the old backup. Bit by bit the data in those forgotten archives adds up. Thus why we've begun enforcing this policy.

We're trying to learn as much as possible from these small test batches so that we can clean up some of these "dusty archives" as we call them sooner rather than later while making sure we do right by our customers. I've certainly learned a lot from the feedback you've provided here.

Please let me know if you have additional questions.

Best Regards,

Jarrod

<comment><USER3> Hello Everyone,

Great questions, let's dive right in.

One thing I wanted to clarify is that this policy only affects devices that have not connected to CrashPlan Central in 6 months or longer. This does not affect volumes that have not connected to the device in that period of time. (i.e. an external hard drive that has not connected in 6 months.)

Many of you are inquiring about the notification emails being sent before/after the archives are deleted. Like I mentioned in my previous reply, we've been testing verbiage to small groups of our users who are affected. Our goal here is to dial in the messaging so users take action as opposed to ignoring the email (something we routinely see from our some of our customer base). In some cases, we sent very direct emails in order to provoke action from the sample base.

We want users to address any old archives that have not connected. Part of CrashPlan's ability to maintain the archive health and integrity relies upon regular connection from the device. CrashPlan is able to routinely perform maintenance on the archive by comparing checksums between both device and CrashPlan Central.

[https://support.code42.com/Administrator/3/Monitoring_And_Ma...](https://support.code42.com/Administrator/3/Monitoring_And_Managing/Archive_Maintenance#Validation_And_Healing)

From the feedback we've received so far (including this thread), it's evident we should provide advanced warning prior to deletion of these archives. We'll continue to refine our messaging to reflect this.

Thank you again for all your feedback.

Jarrod

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> I can understand the policy and the action, but the notification should come prior to deletion. And possibly include a per machine opt-out for paying customers. (For the record I am a paying customer and have a couple old backups, but haven't yet run across this.)

<comment><USER5> +1 for the per machine opt-out. I have some older machines that I only use infrequently but still want to use CrashPlan on. It's unlikely any would be turned off for six months, but one of them did have a multi-month disconnect from CrashPlan due to a weird Java version conflict.

(Also, because I tend to keep my older machines and still want to use CrashPlan there, it's harder for me to use the "adopt a machine" method. I bought a new computer and just finished re-uploading about 200GB of near- identical data.)</comment></comment>


Lean Startup Machine SF - Customer Development-athon Weekend - <AUTHOR> http://sf.theleanstartupmachine.com/

<comment><USER2> If you're near the Boston area in February, definitely check out the New England College Hackathon! (A similar coding-oriented event)

<http://nech2011.eventbrite.com/>

College students will be coding, and developer volunteers will be serving as advisors.

It's free too, be there!

</comment><comment><USER3> This looks fantastic. We need one of these in Santa Monica for the SoCal startup community.

</comment><comment><USER4> Love the Lean Startup Movement in the US... Hope to get some momentum in India as well.

</comment><comment><USER5> Looks like a great project, I wish I was in town for it!</comment>


Show HN: Shiny.js simulates reflections on the web for mobile devices - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/rikschennink/shiny <comment><USER2> This is pretty cool. I could see Apple or someone taking this idea and running with it. Like Face ID, they could use the front-facing camera with a NN to determine the location of nearby light sources, then provide an API to render 3D and reflective surfaces in a environmentally consistent way. Perhaps not just reflective highlights, but actual reflected and refracted images from the camera.

<comment><USER3> Apple used to have a few of these sorts of effects scattered throughout iOS back in the skeuomorphic days; the volume slider in particular made heavy use of it

[https://www.theverge.com/2012/6/13/3082329/ios-6-button- tilt...](https://www.theverge.com/2012/6/13/3082329/ios-6-button-tilt-change- reflection)

<comment><USER4> I love little effects like this. Skeuomorphism might've been a bit overbearing in iOS 6 but I'd really like to see it find its way back in a more reserved capacity. "Flat" and even the newer "flat + depth" is very dull.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> I don't get it... This is for devices that already have a reflective screen.

</comment><comment><USER6> I am a bit biased. It is nice effect to see but also I take it as a complete waste of the device resources, namely a battery.

<comment><USER7> I would be very upset if a website that I had to use, say a bank website, decided they needed to use this. I consider this to be user hostile.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> I did a similar implementation before (2017) but for huge landscape background images (tweet with video): [https://twitter.com/cheeaun/status/820821687239221249](https://twitter.com/cheeaun/status/820821687239221249)

Commit with code: [https://github.com/webuildsg/geekbrunch.sg/commit/b995205094...](https://github.com/webuildsg/geekbrunch.sg/commit/b995205094262c74343a9d736dd747e3a7f0ca07)

Now the site no longer uses this effect, but using another (much) cooler effect.

</comment><comment><USER9> It isn't working well on Firefox for Android (at least not for me). It is very laggy, so much so that I would say that there is no shiny effect at all.

<comment><AUTHOR> Nuts, that doesn't sound good, I haven't been able to test on Android because my Android device does not have a Gyroscope :\ Hope to fix this next week.

<comment><USER9> It's more like "blinking" on my device. I have a samsung s9 and I am willing to test any update if you hit me up later.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Not massively useful, but a fun option none the less.

</comment><comment><USER11> This is a cool idea.

The website says it is untested on android and it shows how weird and inconsistent browsers are.

On android firefox it looks like the iPhone example but the light movement is very choppy (maybe hardware acceleration is missing or something like that).

On chrome the movement is smooth but the markup is not rendered correctly.

<comment><USER12> _maybe hardware acceleration is missing or something like that_

It's doing some _seriously_ slow stuff behind the scenes. For example, when the library initialises it creates a 64 * pixelDensity square canvas and then loops through all the pixels in it one by one using a randomly generated transparent color value to draw a 1x1 rectangle to each one (See the 'generateNoise()' function in [https://github.com/rikschennink/shiny/blob/master/src/index....](https://github.com/rikschennink/shiny/blob/master/src/index.js)). That's just slooooow. HTML5's canvas API has a putImageData method that is _much_ faster because all you're _really_ doing when you fill an image is assigning values to a UINT8 typed array with 4 values per pixel.

It'd be relatively straightforward to achieve this effect using WebGL and a quad to overlay the element, and just pass in the orientation data as a vec2 uniform. That's how some of the effects in my React Neon library work ([https://react-neon.ooer.com/](https://react-neon.ooer.com/)) for mouse coordinates. Although, that said, Neon is Chrome-only because it relies on ResizeObserver at the moment. One day I'll fix that...

<comment><AUTHOR> It does that once, and it does it to prevent having to ship an image or base64 encoded string to create a noise effect. It's a balancing act between a bigger library and CPU usage. It takes the CPU 15 milliseconds (it's more than I expected, but it's on page load). Good to know that putImageData is faster, will look into that.

What is most likely causing the chopiness is that it's animating background gradients. There is a lot of room for improvement there, instead of animating the background gradient we could transform a layer instead.

Anyway, PR's are always welcome.

<comment><USER13> 15ms for that is ridiculously slow, but if you're doing single pixel rectangles... that would do it.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> Based on the description I thought it was a kind of "fake glare effects for testing website readability"-thing, but it's more like another lib for the [https://github.com/dsalaj/awesome-quirks](https://github.com/dsalaj/awesome- quirks) list, I guess :)

</comment><comment><USER15> Quick feedback: I got a little confused on the Github readme because the gif shows a video record of the phone. The physical reflections on the glass of the phone seem to be masking the virtual reflections on the credit card image!

Once I went to demo website on my mobile phone everything made perfect sense!

Maybe the gif should be an actual screenvideo?

<comment><USER16> Agreed with this comment -- I starred the library, its very cool, but you could show it off better with a 3d model that the user could move around with their mouse (not sure how hard that would be to accomplish, haven't looked at the code yet).

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> For desktop devices (without gyroscope but with cursor) this quite asks for "cursor following tilt", like [https://micku7zu.github.io/vanilla- tilt.js/](https://micku7zu.github.io/vanilla-tilt.js/) .

<comment><AUTHOR> I'm kinda hesitant to do this as it's not really what you expect to happen on a device that is stable? Where on mobile it responds to the tiniest twist or turn of your hand which results in familiar reflection behavior.

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> Admittedly, I didn't read the source code, but looks like this would use the gyroscope API (edit: it does)? Probably wouldn't use this profusely, but it seems like a nice addition for things like credit card inerfaces. Pretty neat!

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks! Indeed it does use the gyroscope. Unfortunately (as always on the web) the implementation apparently differs a lot per device so I'm now gathering test devices to make it respond the same on iOS and Android.

</comment></comment><comment> amiga-workbench Its a bit broken on my Mi Mix 2S.

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vs8VmNEdCog](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vs8VmNEdCog)

<comment><AUTHOR> Oh no! Hope to fix this by the end of next week (with some additional test devices). Thanks for shooting a video!

<comment> amiga-workbench I wouldn't be surprised if the accelerometer axes were mixed up on my device.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> Cool effect. It works fine on my Moto G5 using Chrome. But the page feels really slow. I guess that's because of my low end CPU.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for testing! Code is not really optimized at this point in time, I'm looking in to switching to GPU acceleration which should improve performance a lot.

</comment></comment><comment><USER20> iOS does something like this with the Apply Pay Cash card in Wallet: [https://twitter.com/supcat/status/1083537384233328640](https://twitter.com/supcat/status/1083537384233328640)

</comment><comment><USER21> Brb, implementing this on all my websites.

</comment><comment><USER22> Are Firefly quotes allowed here?</comment>


XChat and HexChat: When distributions get it wrong - <AUTHOR> https://tingping.github.io/2018/03/02/when-distros-get-it-wrong.html <comment><USER2> I really don't see the point of this rant. So, Debian distributes XChat and one of Debian's maintainers even contributes his time and expertise to patch XChat, and someone who forked XChat some years ago is pissed about it. What's the point of all of this? Yeah, Debian is great and this is just a small reminder of the awesome work Debian does to maintain the software they distribute. Why is this suddenly wrong?

<comment><USER3> IIRC there's some animosity due to the fact that windows builds for xchat aren't (or weren't, I'm not exactly up to date on this) available for free.

In any case hexchat is available as package for debian as well, so I don't much see the problem.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Wow, I didn't realize a maintainer could get something into Debian with so little oversight.

<comment><USER2> Where do you see any lack of oversight? XChat is a well-established application that exists for over a decade, and a maintainer is even contributing his time to keep it up-to-date. That's what I expect of Debian, and what makes Debian so awesome.

The only take from this blog entry is that the maintainer of a rival project appears to be miffed that one of the main linux distros isn't keen in killing off his rival.</comment></comment>


The rise of the sober bar - <AUTHOR> http://www.bbc.com/capital/story/20190510-can-you-have-any-fun-at-a-bar-with-no-booze <comment><USER2> I wish there were better non-alcoholic drinks that aren't sweet or hot. There's only so many mocktails or teas I can drink.

One of the best part of pubs/bars is sitting down for a session and chatting for a couple of hours. A cold beer is still refreshing the second or third time around in a way that a sweet or hot drink isn't.

I can occasionally get lucky with a decent non-alcoholic beer in a bar, though it tends to be more miss than hit.

<comment> 52-6F-62 I'd be interested in a non alcoholic stout that rivalled Guinness. Bonus points if it's not a calorie bomb so I can drink a few. Highly improbable, I know— but I'd love it.

<comment><USER3> As a German, I feel like I need to recommend "Malzbier" [0], which is a quite sweet malt beverage, but its varies by brand. I can't tell you if the English language Wikipedia article [1] represents a broader class of drinks, though.

[0] [https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Malzbier](https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Malzbier) [1] [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Malta_(soft_drink)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Malta_\(soft_drink\))

<comment> 52-6F-62 Looks like there's a variety sold here in Canada. I'll keep my eyes open around the city to see if I can give it a try.

Sounds like it's sweeter and maybe closer to an English malt beer than an Irish stout, but it sounds like it might be close

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> I used to drink quite a bit in high school, university and my early twenties. At some point I decided that I wanted to start programming and build a side project but found that having one or many drinks would write off the evening or next day that I had planned to learn and develop myself.

So I stopped drinking alcohol and over time just began to prefer the clearer state of mind. Eventually, it just seemed like alcohol was unnecessary money and calories, and would end up tainting any free time I had ahead of me. So I preferred not to drink.

Not that I have anything against drinking alcohol in moderation but I really think there is a good opportunity to do interesting non-alcoholic drinks that you could have on a night out.

<comment><USER5> I think many miss the point of drinking alcohol. While I perfectly respect those who avoid it, the primary benefit of alcohol is to provide the proverbial "social lubrication."

It "loosens" people up and tends to make people more friendly and open to socialize with (approachable), even some of the most defensive people I've met. Many in society today are fairly antisocial or fall into small groups at social events that can be more difficult to start a discussion and mingle with. They're frequently more judgemental at that point and may avoid people based on ill conceived prejudices, limiting otherwise worthwhile relationships they may form.

Alcohol helps break that barrier and lets people talk who would otherwise rarely, if ever, talk. Sometimes this is fruitful, sometimes it's not. It gives people a social "out" when it's not fruitful or their social groups judge/criticize them for talking to someone different/odd, "well I was tipsy."

If viewed as an optimization problem, alcohol effectively provides a stochastic gradient descent, mutation, momentum/inertia, annealing, or whichever minima escape mechanism you prefer to explore social spaces beyond what you've already found.

<comment><USER6> Smokers will say that cigarettes help them loosen up and meet people too.

They both cause cancer. I think you are glorifying poison a little much

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> I'm hapa and I've noticed that boba shops are basically sober bars for Asian people. Whenever I go back home I get boba with my old friends (who don't drink) and inevitably see someone from my high school class. I'm in my mid 20s btw.

<comment><USER8> Similarly, here in Berlin there are plenty of Turkish and Arab places which are (either rigorously or primarily) alcohol-free. Also open late, also can have a nice atmosphere.

Then there are the clubs where most people are using some drug other than alcohol. It's obviously not quite the same, but I find it easier to avoid drinking when there are lots of other people keeping off alcohol to avoid killing their high. Generally, I've found the hardcore party people to have a healthy attitude that it's every person's choice what they do or don't put into their body.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> Interesting, I'd be a patron if one of these were near me. I have the perfect storm of mild bitter-sensitivity (I can choke down light beers, but something higher in IBUs will make me retch), being the stepchild of an alcoholic, and no particular fondness for being tipsy. Given how much of my socialization happens at bars, it would be nice to have a wider variety of options than just nursing the sweetest cider on the menu for hours.

It reminds me of my father's situation, who has been a vegetarian my entire life; growing up in rural Pennsylvania he'd quite often have to settle for ordering the mac and cheese from the kids' menu whenever we went out to eat anywhere. I think he'd weep with joy if he saw the sheer abundance of options available to my vegetarian friends in modern Boston.

</comment><comment><USER10> So, it's like a coffee shop before wifi.

<comment><USER11> It sounds like they're distinguishing themselves by curating a 'rowdy' atmosphere. I'm too young to remember coffee shops before wifi but I assume people didn't dance.

<comment><USER10> Around here was have 'christian' coffee shops, they are usually owned by a nearby church.

They have non-alcoholic drinks and baked goods, along with things like card tables, darts/pool, video games, that sort of thing.

</comment></comment></comment><comment> tuna-piano Referenced bar's menu: [https://getaway.bar/assets/images/menu_041619.pdf](https://getaway.bar/assets/images/menu_041619.pdf)

and yelp: [https://www.yelp.com/biz/getaway-new- york-2](https://www.yelp.com/biz/getaway-new-york-2)

There are a variety of historically enjoyable and useful establishments that may no longer serve as much of a population in todays world.

Perhaps sober bars are just the beginning?

-Sober bars

-Atheistic churches (social, life events, service)

-Shopless malls (social, activity, meeting place)

<comment><USER12> -Atheistic churches (social, life events, service)

These already exist. I think Unitarian Universalist churches are the most common ones, but at least where I live we also have Sunday Assembly.

<comment><USER13> I grew up in one and this describes it fairly well. None of my family believes in god but appreciated the community. There is an orientation towards general spirituality, however any individual defines it for themselves but the purpose is more for general community and moral thinking, etc.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> I guess my question is, why can't you get the same experience at a regular bar? I grew up in a pretty small town so whenever I went to the bar with friends, I could just get a Pepsi or something similar if I was the DD. The bartender never pressured me to drink and neither did my friends. I always felt like that if I said I do not drink or if I was the DD, people would back off. I can see the societal pressure whenever going to the bar to drink, but is it really so much that you cannot resist? I am genuinely curious.

<comment><USER9> Bars could indeed offer these options trivially, it may simply be that they've never considered it, or considered that there might be a demand for it. As the perpetual DD throughout my college career, if you're not a fan of sucking down sugary soda or virgin Bloody Marys, be prepared to sip water for the night.

<comment><USER15> It's not really a great business plan for most bars. A typical non drinker will have maybe 1 fancy drink then be happy with nursing a water for the night. Someone who is drinking alcohol and getting in the mood will often pay for 4-6 drinks. The more you get known for being a place that has good sober alternatives the more you are going to get sober people coming in for that atmosphere. At that point it might be wiser to just base your whole business model around it like these places are doing.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> First of all, I'm extremely in favor of social spots that don't revolve around alcohol. But what in the hell is going on with that price point? I would have thought you were paying for rent + alcohol + labor when it comes to a regular alcoholic cocktail, but one of those things is missing from the equation. Is it just that it's in NYC? Is their overhead so high they need to charge the equivalent of a meal per drink, or is it a status/luxury thing? Maybe my standards are out of wack.

<comment><USER11> Yeah at the end of the day they are renting a space in NYC and not charging an entry fee. Most of the cost of drinks at a bar are for things other than the alcohol itself. Also, it sounds like they are offering expensive juices and other ingredients to make up the money not spent on alcohol.

<comment><USER17> With 15/hr minimum wages, restaurants and bars in NYC have to aim for something like 8% of revenue spent on rent to break even (meaning you need to target 50-60k a month before you begin to break even on a fairly small space)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> Alcohol has never made sense _to me_. I've tried it over and over, especially in university, and I've never come to appreciate it. I'm 6'2 270lbs and about half a beer in I lose situational awareness and peak cognitive performance and feel vulnerable and it's just a really unenjoyable sensation.

But I always loved going to bars with friends and socializing. So this concept is quite exciting to me.

<comment><USER19> Yeaaah so that's placebo.

<comment><USER20> What is?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> I don't understand people who don't drink, or who have/develop alcohol problems,but feel the desperate need to participate in alcohol culture.

Go play a sport, a video Game, go grab a cup of coffee. Beat off to porn, have a cookout, go to a concert. Go watch a sports game.

If you feel left out.. So what? Then have a beer in moderation.

</comment><comment><USER22> It sounds like a savvy business move. My kids have been coming home from university and are not interested in alcohol when offered, other parents report the same. They really have a negative association with any drinking, in part because of the binge drinking they see at school, but they also associate craft beers, wines, and fancy cocktails with older generations that seem obsessed with waiting in long lines to sample the next cool IPA.

On the other hand, they are growing up in an era where weed is either legal or de-criminalized, so perhaps they just have more options.

<comment><USER23> > My kids have been coming home from university and are not interested in > alcohol when offered, other parents report the same.

I did the same thing as a student, because I didn't want to come off to my parents as a heavy drinker. Refusing a beer in front of them, then getting shitfaced with my friends the next night was a pretty common occurrence. You shouldn't take everything your kids say at face value -- and I don't mean that as a bad thing, kids should keep some secrets from their parents, it helps them grow up and learn to be independent.

</comment></comment><comment><USER24> This isn't about alcohol. It's about loneliness and the loss of community. This type of establishment fills the social space that a church might have had several decades ago.

<comment><USER17> I'm actually surprised there aren't more options for social spaces. Cafes are a sort of social-anti-social space, but past that it's somewhat lacking. Local gaming stores for nerdy-style board gaming nights tend to do well.

Where's the big room full of people on comfortable couches enjoying some Smash Brothers?

<comment><USER25> I think you might have a good idea there. With great execution, I could see something like that taking off.

<comment><USER17> It's been my entirely unattempted thought for a decade now, and will probably stay that way hah.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> Utah (unsurprisingly) has a really good rising "sober bar" scene. Lots of unique soda shops with custom sodas.

Still, I'm not a huge fan of soda because it always leaves a sugary film in my mouth that I dislike. I'm a bigger fan of juice-based smoothies. I would love to see more nut/plant "milk" related options (with various spices for flavoring instead of sugar). Pistachio milk is delicious but I've only ever had it home made.

</comment><comment><USER27> Drinks at bars always seem far to expensive in my opinion. I just can't see how $13 for a drink that will last 15 minutes is worth it.

</comment><comment><USER28> Side note: _In 2016 just 56.9% of UK over-16s had had a drink in the week before, the lowest percentage on record since the office began asking the question in 2005_

This is an incredible statistic. ..especially considering what it would be if you removed other drug users, religious abstainers and those who can't for medical reasons. Humans and mind altering substances..

</comment><comment><USER29> As a former drinker who really loved beer, within the past few years there's been a good number of dedicated NA craft breweries start up and they've endeared themselves to me in a way no brands have. My favorites are Wellbeing Brewing Co, Athletic Brewing Co, and Surreal Brewing Co.

It's been tough being in a neglected market but things are changing.

</comment><comment><USER30> Back in the original rave days, a lot of 'juice bars' opened up that didn't sell any alcohol, but nobody was sober inside.

<comment><USER31> Did they sell grapefruit juice?

</comment></comment><comment><USER32> Does anyone notice that the text of this article appears to be vibrating up and down? Made me nauseous almost instantly. I'm on a Macbook, using Chrome.

<comment><USER33> Not for me. Two years sober.

</comment></comment><comment><USER34> This just reeks of first world problems. People who "don't drink" (you know the ones), take pride in it, and when it turns out they don't have as much fun as their drinking friends, complain that alcohol and partying are "pushed on them" and justify their need for complete teetotaling spaces.

I mean, these spaces already exist. They're called Starbucks, Costa Coffee, and so on. They're fancy tea houses and smoothie stores or whatever. Why not just go there instead?

<comment><USER11> Maybe the people who you have in mind aren't the target demographic. There are plenty of people who prefer not to drink (or want to drink less) that basically never talk about it.

People don't dance at Starbucks.

<comment><USER34> People don't dance when they're sober, period. Even in cultures where alcohol isn't traditonally consumed, either another substance is used or very energic and rhythmic music is performed in order to induce trance-like states. People don't magically start moving when there isn't anything to entice them (drinks, or money for professional dancers).

<comment><USER11> You obviously haven't been out with very extroverted people before. People can be very suggestible, I think it's probably possible to create a space where people dance without alcohol or anything else.

<comment><USER34> Yeah, they're called nightclubs with outrageous prices for drinks, or juice bars. Been to a few myself. But somehow I doubt your idea of "a space where people dance without alcohol" involves loud rave-type music. Maybe you could clarify

<comment><USER11> Loud 'party' music? Yes. Rave music? Not necessarily.

<comment><USER34> Alright, I'm intrigued. What use case isn't filled by most nightclubs?

-Bouncers often compulsively search you in order to make sure you don't bring extra alcohol inside

-Prices are at a ridiculous premium, typically to profit from the artificial scarcity but also in order to discourage and punish drunken behavior

-Loud party music galore

What exactly is missing?

<comment><USER6> "but also in order to discourage and punish drunken behavior"

No club is trying to discourage patrons to have drinks.

Also, some people like conversation. You can't have that at a nightclub

<comment><USER34> Depends where you live. Many clubs display prohibitive/punitive fares on purpose, by the owners' own admission - not everyone is a rational market agent.

In many clubs there are also areas (usually smoking ones, but also backrooms, lounge areas, and so on) where the sound is muted and conversations (and other things) easily take place.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER35> I'd like alcohol & drug free parties and night clubs. Preferrably kid friendly ones.

<comment><USER36> I am sorry, but who brings a kid to a night club? I hope you are kidding.

<comment><USER35> Maybe I'm stretching the definition of night club, but why can't you envision one that isn't hostile to the idea of having all ages be able to participate?

The best parties of my life were for all ages.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER37> > ...and the menu features a list of $13 (£10) cocktails with ingredients like > tobacco syrup...

So instead of alcohol they serve nicotine-induced cocktails. Swap one drug for another. I'll stick to alcohol, thanks.

</comment><comment><USER25> > the menu features a list of $13 (£10) cocktails

How did we get here?</comment>


Utah and Georgia install tech that lets roads talk - <AUTHOR> https://www.foxbusiness.com/technology/utah-and-georgia-install-tech-that-lets-roads-talk <comment><USER2> It seems like camera or radar systems at intersections would be easier for advanced warning of someone running a red light than having to fit every car with a radio that broadcasts its speed etc.

Apart from that, this is a concept that's a long time coming, but assuming it can be made sufficiently anonymous and optional, seems like a good idea. Like maybe cars should only broadcast a random percentage of the time so that it doesn't look weird for a car not to be broadcasting.

</comment><comment><USER3> Interesting tech, but why not (also) broadcast this information to displays to the side of the road or above it? Much like some other warnings are already displayed on highway signs about black ice, accidents and a whole variety of other hazardous conditions.

Focusing on "smart" cars does come at the detriment of drivers and passengers of older cars who do not receive these warnings, and means that only the drivers and passengers of modern vehicles benefit from these alerts. Even putting aside from the obvious fairness issue of such a system, what good is it if only a fraction of drivers can be reached?

Public safety alerts should not be limited to a limited group of people who could afford the latest tech.

</comment><comment><USER4> Note that the stock photo in the article is not an accurate depiction of the road this system is being installed on in Utah. The photo is of a long interstate, while BCC is a tight, twisty and technical canyon climb beloved by local bicyclists, car enthusiasts and motorcyclists.</comment>


ImpasseBreaker [Updated] – Negotiation as a Service - <AUTHOR> https://www.impassebreaker.com

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks so much for your your recent feedback and comments about ImpasseBreaker. It was extremely useful. I've added a variety of new features to IB, along with two test accounts so people can check out the platform anonymously before creating an account. And a new term-sheet wizard allows users to create term-sheets with non-financial terms to accompany negotiation invites.

All feedback is welcome. I'm particularly interested in how non-lawyers view the platform. I've heard from plenty of my fellow lawyers. I'm curious to know what non-lawyers think. Is this something that you see being using person to person or b2b, without a lawyer? Or in its current version does IB feel like a lawyer's tool/platform? This is a very general, subjective inquiry, but the gut feedback is quite useful.

From a law firm economics standpoint, something like ImpasseBreaker may be perceived as a threat. If it works in the disputes context, a lawyer loses money. So although the dynamic is present in many, many negotiations -- negotiating over nickels and dimes, while everyone knows what the final number ought to be -- this is a problem that lawyers may not all want to see fixed. I'm curious if and how this will work for non-lawyers.

Many thanks,

Stephen</comment>