Reflections on My Career at Microsoft - <AUTHOR> https://medium.com/@docjamesw/speaking-truth-to-power-reflections-on-a-career-at-microsoft-90f80a449e36 <comment><USER2> As a woman who worked at MSFT through the Ballmer era, I have to agree with this whole article. It really nailed it. Especially this part near the end where I never felt it would get better:

"But my former female colleagues who reviewed this document in advance of its publication are unconvinced. None of them report feeling emboldened by the new Microsoft. They continue to withhold reports of discriminatory management practices. They relate stories of reports of abuse going unpunished and continue to fear reprisals for speaking out. In fact, multiple reviewers noted, independently, the irony that the only reason I am comfortable enough to speak out is that I am a "50-year old white dude" and, thus, girded against reprisal from the body politic. So they remain silent when, in fact, they are among the voices Microsoft needs to hear the most. Apparently, Microsoft has dipped only a single toe in the river that flows to the future."

<comment><USER3> How do you get your employer to hear you? I don't think these problems are isolated to women. I think women just don't understand that there's an "old boys club" that attacks other men too. I know lots of men who say the same things.

Pitting employees against each other. The masters recruiting spies from among the ranks to report dissenting comments from the servants. Cutting back on coffee breaks. Not being allowed to report actual time worked because you're an exempt employee so your boss can say, "I'm not aware of any overtime being worked." Uh that's because you won't allow me to enter more than the minimum.

This happens to more than just women. Instead of pitting one bullied group against another, bullied _people_ need to rise up against a system that _rewards_ bullies at the expense of the employees with integrity!

Companies are losing SO much value from their greatest employees because they are _afraid_ to be noticed. You do something great for your employer and everyone else says, "Show off." or "You're making the rest of us look bad." or "Overachiever".

They force great employees to be mediocre. Even managers do the same thing. If you find a problem with your boss's code -- watch out!

This is not a problem _women_ experience. It's a problem _people_ experience.

<comment><USER4> I'm sorry but you are just wrong.

We can't go on our individual experience, the only way to understand women's perspective is to listen to what they're saying and how they're treated. The past few years has made it pretty clear (although there were certainly reports even before then) that women have faced, and continue to face abuse and discrimination to a degree that men don't.

What you're saying sounds to me like the "All lives matter!" response to the "Black lives matter" movement.

<comment><USER5> >I'm sorry but you are just wrong.

>The past few years has made it pretty clear (although there were certainly reports even before then) that women have faced, and continue to face abuse and discrimination to a degree that men don't.

Do you have anything to add besides "you are wrong" and (paraphrasing) "women are right"?

The point GP makes about an old boys club that attacks men and women equally rings painfully true to me also.

<comment><USER4> > The point GP makes about an old boys club that attacks men and women equally > rings painfully true to me also.

He's just saying shit. I can make one story up, but I don't need to.

Making up stories that seem likely doesn't make them true, even if you feel that they're right.

<comment><USER5> >Making up stories that seem likely doesn't make them true, even if you feel that they're right.

Ironic.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> >The Microsoft of the 2000s, under Steve Ballmer, was almost exactly the opposite (of gates).

>Bruised and battered by the consent decree handed down by the DoJ for the very same ambition that brought it to dominance, Ballmer's Microsoft was sales-forward and CAUTIOUS.

>It was... nervously clutching its pearls at the approach of Google in its rearview mirror

People bash Steve Ballmer for missing Search, Social Networking, Smart phones, Tablets and one other thing. They claim he had his head far up his rear end to see the competiton. He's called a buffoon and other names but ignore the fact that...

Microsoft was Caged. Had it's wings clipped. Had a huge target on its back. In case you did't know, any complaint by say Google in its early days and Microsoft would have been broken up!

This is the real reason behind's Ballmer's failure.

Gates hated politics, kept Washington at arms length and that cost them. In fact, if Gates had lobbied just a little bit, there would have been no case at all.

And that's why Google's lobbying like crazy cos it's life actually depends on it.

<comment><USER7> >>This is the real reason behind's Ballmer's failure.

Yes, I am sure it had nothing to do with him lacking the basic vision one would expect in any tech CEO and saying idiotic things like "no one would buy such an expensive phone" (about the iPhone).

If you look like a buffoon, you act like a buffoon, and you talk like a buffoon...

<comment><USER8> > saying idiotic things like "no one would buy such an expensive phone" (about > the iPhone).

This is something that people keep saying but he way actually right and at this point this is just an Internet meme.

I remember that moment. The iPhone costed $800 with a phone plan. Insane. Nobody does that even today, so in that regard he was right.

Only after the iPhone 3 and $200 phone with a contract did it ever start selling.

<comment><USER9> The original iPhone did $745M in revenue before the iPhone 3G was released (not 100% sure if that the one you're talking about since there was never a phone called the iPhone 3). Not exactly 'nobody'...

<comment><USER8> Then why did the price drop 4x and sales grew 3x with the iPhone 3g?

Seriously, if price wasn't a problem and Ballmer was wrong, why did Apple even drop the price?

Truth is this wasn't that long ago, I still remember it, and the price drop was a huge deal to a lot of people.

Articles like these were everywhere.

[https://www.npd.com/press/releases/press_090622.html](https://www.npd.com/press/releases/press_090622.html)

<comment><USER6> Thanks for the link. Many people feel that things we take for granted today were obvious successes in the past. Almost none of them ever hit the ground running.

Electricity, the internet, eCommerce, iPhone, even Bitcoin weren't obvious hits in the least. If the success of bitcoin was guaranteed or obvious, In 2009, I'd have bought 111,111 bitcoins for $100 at $0.0009 per bitcoin.

Now, I'd be a billionaire.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> I'm not so sure the problem with Microsoft was its toxic culture. So many of the key points in that article you could say ring true of Apple. Steve Jobs relished in the fact that people feared him. He literally built an entire company of yes men, right down to the chefs in the kitchen. It meant, when his strategy was right, the company did well. However, when it was wrong, it also hurt the whole company.

Tim Cook is the opposite of that in every way. He delegates, he wants efficiency, he is much more conservative in where the products go. Yet the culture of yes still exists.

The answer to all of these big corporations is just we need different theories of management and apply them across the board. Fire those unwilling to play along and grow a culture of collaboration.

<comment><USER11> > Fire those unwilling to play along and grow a culture of collaboration

Gosh that sounds like an oxymoron

<comment> jagged-chisel > Grow a culture of collaboration by firing those unwilling to play along

I can see a misreading of the original. This is my understanding.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> An interesting article, which I think accurately describes my brief time at Microsoft during the Ballmer era (our startup was acquired after the bubble burst).

But his definition of "made men" seems very vague and very convenient. The people who Nadella appointed to higher positions were almost entirely people who had been at Microsoft for many years. Why are some "made men" and some are not? The definition seems primarily about whether or not the author liked them personally.

<comment><USER13> There used to be a program at Microsoft where employees who were "destined to do great things" would be pulled out, given special training, and then have their careers accelerated.

On one hand, it is sort of a good idea if you can truly pick the "winners" (and some of the people who went through the program did amazing things!) but, well, in hindsight I think everyone reading this can see how internal biases would be reflected in who got picked for the program.

I don't know too much about the program, and I don't even remember now what is was called, but engineers who'd been there longer would talk about it sometimes.

<comment><USER14> There were at least two programs when I was there. I heard a lot more about them under Ballmer than under Satya.

HiPo -- for junior to mid level -- special training, networking, and seminars. MiniMSFT comments section mentions this from time to time.

Bench -- for mid to later career, usually on the way to "partner" or above level -- same as HiPo, but may be asked to work on a project with others in Bench, may see attention from VPs mentoring the group.

Neither one had any official impact on ratings, rewards, or career velocity. What they did do, however, was establish an elite and help that elite network across the company.

<comment><USER13> Ah thanks for jogging memory in regards to the names. :)

> Neither one had any official impact on ratings, rewards, or career velocity.

Ah interesting, my understanding was that people who can gone through HiPo were sorta blessed. Then again I guess in theory the people who get selected for HiPo should already be doing the work to make their career velocity look good.

I saw all sorts of interesting stuff while I was at MS. It was a crazy place to work. It was sort of like working at a company that does everything 5-8 years too early, and then tries again 2-3 years too late.

* Tablets * eBooks * MP3 players * Smartphones * Smart TVs (Micorosft bought Web TV in 1997!! That is what, 15-20 years too early?) * Tablets again * Cloud based document syncing (See: What Sharepoint tried to be)

They also made some sort of automation creation tool for business users that, IIRC, got cancelled after one release and replaced with something else. I only know about it because I signed up to do internal user testing for it.

This is on top of all sorts of crazy one off projects. (In 2011 I was on a team attempting to make an autonomous household robot! How long before those become a viable thing outside of Roombas?)

<comment><USER15> It was only because they weren't good enough that they didn't succeed, not that they were "too early". Right idea, wrong execution, or frequently the hardware not being there yet, and not pouncing when it was.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> This was my experience of Ballmer-era Microsoft management hires at my previous company. They were the perfect combination of narcissism, manipulativeness, toxicity, and above all else, idiocy. They did a lot of damage, probably irrevocably. They were know-nothing bullies who liked to yell if you ever questioned them, completely convinced of their own superiority. I've heard a lot of similar stories about these people at other companies. It's a shame what people like this get away with.

<comment><USER17> Usually you call them tools. They turn your screw at the command of their superior in whichever way they are told to. They provide great leverage for a weak upper management.

<comment><USER18> So add misanthropy onto the list?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> I worked at Microsoft during the Gates/Ballmer era and my recollection is that the culture was toxic and definitely needed to change. But AFAIK this was a common thing about companies even in SV at the time. I knew contemporaries at companies like Cisco and SGI who complained about exactly the same sort of behavior (Know-it-all assholes who would berate anyone they thought was inferior, self above company, etc.).

Interesting read anyway.

</comment><comment><USER20> Says the made-man who stood in the way...

Seriously though, these sort of transitions take time, and people always underestimate just how much time. This is a huge cultural transition and you can't just fire all of the made-men one morning and usher in the new leaders to take there place. There is a real transition that has to happen on multiple levels and rushing it risks putting people in place that aren't yet up to speed.

I'm honestly surprised at just how fast it happening. And it is happening -- and quickly.

</comment><comment><USER21> I entered and left MS during the Ballmer era. I liked my co-workers and my immediate manager was awesome, but I didn't see the company making the right moves to get web right, and they seemed to afraid to even mention the name "Google". I never would have predicted the Nadella turn-around.

</comment><comment><USER22> I see all of these things as reasons to invest in Microsoft long term. As the author states: "Microsoft is killing it. Revenue is up. Stock is up. Industry stature is up. The places where Microsoft finds itself thriving all have one thing in common: key made-men were pushed aside for better people."

The fact that there are so many terrible managers still hanging around is like sludge in a jet engine. Once cleaned out (and that seems the direction they're moving), the company will hopefully skyrocket even further.

</comment><comment><USER23> > The unsurprising result is that Windows continues its tradition of boring...

Come on, I understand the criticisms of botched updates, but Microsoft under Satya has been anything but boring - the incredible push towards open source is something many thought could never happen!

WSL and the upcoming WSL2 are likewise anything but boring - Linux! In Windows!

<comment><USER24> Windows NT had personalities for decades. It's a very old capability.

<comment><USER25> They were there from the beginning. Personalities are a feature only Microsoft can use though and it's only now that they appear to be using it for something positive. It could be another embrace and extend attempt though.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> Is every MS employee now writing these "my career at microsoft) pieces? Looking for clicks for their blogs ? Seems like a recurring phenom. Topic X features on the front page of hacker news and then everyone imitates it probably just trying to get clicks.

</comment><comment><USER27> This quote was laughable:

"At its core, Microsoft is a company that makes its money the old fashioned way: by creating products of value that people willingly part with their money to use. They stand as a bulwark against the data mongering and user exploitation that Google and Facebook see as the future of humanity."

Microsoft has _always_ made its money by creating, maintaining, extending and exercising monopoly power. I don't have a reference for this, but as I recall, after the antitrust verdict, Microsoft "offered" to give schools free copies of Windows as part of its "punishment". I guess that really hurt them to have schools sending out all documents in Microsoft Office format. Only the latest versions of course, so that it created incompatibilities with every parent's version of Office, forcing everyone to upgrade if they wanted to read a note from their kids' teachers.

Since the Pentagon recently bought $10B in Microsoft products, I hope they consider that having a sole supplier is a national security issue, and force Microsoft to at least release an open spec of all Office document formats, and force them to update this spec at the same time product updates occur, if not months before.

It may be too late even for that since Office is now running in a Microsoft cloud. Maybe the Pentagon just bought $10B of Microsoft cloud services. In that case, the format doesn't even matter any more, because every document is born, lives, and dies on a Microsoft server somewhere.

Sure glad they aren't doing that "data mongering" thing.

</comment><comment><USER28> > At its core, Microsoft is a company that makes its money the old fashioned > way: by creating products of value that people willingly part with their > money to use.

Call me skeptical, but there's not a whole lot of products I willfully pay Microsoft for. Most of them I pay for with a strong feeling of resentment that I have simply no other choice, since there are no competitors to the market or the lock in is too strong.

<comment><USER29> Good point, I have never once felt "Wow, a new Microsoft product, can't wait to buy it!".

Instead it is usually more like "Oh shit, a new Mirosoft product, I hope I wont be forced to buy it to stay compatible".

<comment><USER30> Apparently you've never used Visual Studio. It is amazing.

Many of Microsoft's products are simple and boring at first glance. However, when you really want to flex it to do something powerful, the features are usually there. Their products have so many years of development in them and it shows because their products stand the test of time, particularly in the enterprise. I'm glad there are lot of other vendors entering the market though as it keeps companies like MSFT innovating.

<comment><USER31> > Apparently you've never used Visual Studio. It is amazing.

I've used it heavily for years, and I disagree with this assessment. I avoid it whenever I have the option.

<comment><USER32> So you just accept using a 2nd rate C++ IDE? Because there isn't any debate, Visual Studio is the best.

<comment><USER15> "There can be no criticism of Visual Studio" seems wrong on the face of it.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER33> I think a motivation for neglecting the web was to encourage people to develop desktop apps, with Visual Studio, on Windows.

</comment><comment><USER34> This part feels like it applies to every tech company I've ever worked at, especially in the context of all the high profile "repeat sex offender is quietly escorted out of the building with a payout" scandals at big SV tech firms in the last decade:

"Treating the culpables as untouchable sends a message to the current offenders that these behaviors are in bounds and those who practice them suffer no lingering effects. It does nothing to stop the fiscal regularity of companywide memos condemning ongoing sexism, racism and bullying. It does nothing to stop the revolving door of the majority of new college hires leaving the moment their signing bonuses become permanent. It does nothing to stop the cycle of sucking up to those in power in an effort to gain power for oneself."

</comment><comment><USER35> Reminds me a bit of the story of Charles de Gaulle. A war hero, a powerful man of his time that overstayed his welcome when the world changed around him.

</comment><comment><USER36> Having been a MSFT watcher through all three eras, I have to say I've been especially impressed with Satya Nadella.

I really thought the age of the web would spell Microsoft's downfall. I couldn't see past the desktop. But Satya found the cloud and brought back the mojo. Excellent move.

</comment><comment><USER37> I really love this line at the end of the article: "At its core, Microsoft is a company that makes its money the old fashioned way: by creating products of value that people willingly part with their money to use." I wish more tech companies embodied this ethos!

</comment><comment><USER38> I would be curious to see Gates' take in his maturity. In fact I visualize a more curious and playful Microsoft as Gates himself pushing it that way behind the scenes.

</comment><comment><USER39> Think author may be confusing a Microsoft issue with broader issue. Type A personality management was all the rage back then

</comment><comment><USER40> [https://outline.com/a3btTH](https://outline.com/a3btTH)

</comment><comment><USER41> >> At its core, Microsoft is a company that makes its money the old fashioned way: by creating products of value that people willingly part with their money to use. They stand as a bulwark against the data mongering and user exploitation that Google and Facebook see as the future of humanity.

This statement is so true, its golden.</comment>


Even virtual assistants are sexually harassed - <AUTHOR> http://money.cnn.com/2016/02/05/technology/virtual-assistants-sexual-harassment/index.html <comment><USER2> A friend of mine tested this behavior on Cortana shortly after installing Windows 10.

Based on how clever and varied the responses were, all I could figure was that people at Microsoft had spent a lot of time crafting specific responses to all manner of filthy queries.

> _Harrison is one of eight writers who creates Cortana 's dialogue in the > U.S. In addition to writing jokes and coming up with casual banter, her team > has to figure out the best way to shut down vulgar conversations._

Mystery solved. I have to admit, eight people sitting in a corporate office discussing the fine details of how their virtual robot responds to suggestive questions is kind of sad, and yet really bizarre.

What a time to be alive.

</comment><comment><USER3> This is the very definition of a non-issue. Yes, people ask weird questions to virtual assistants, but that's _because_ they are virtual. It's literally victimless, just like shooting someone in a FPS hurts no one.

<comment><USER4> You obviously have not read the article:

>One smart way to learn how to handle harassment is to talk to real assistants, which Microsoft did for Cortana. After all, they've been putting up with similar behavior for years.

<comment><USER5> It's still not harassment. It's a _computer program_.

<comment><USER6> My experiences were people who deliberately tried to ask the weirdest stuff (not only sexual, even mostly not) on the first day they had access to Siri or Cortana - not because it's victimless, because it's curiosity, i.e. "How was this program primed with answers regarding topic x?"

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> As another comment points out, this could be a case of "well, she's just a program. No harm, no foul."

However, I am male, so all of my opinions here are immediately moot; obviously I am merely trying to create a world where I won't be prosecuted for whatever vile crime I will inevitably commit.

Fight strawmen wjth strawmen, I guess. (Or is "strawmen" sexist?)

</comment><comment><USER8> More than a decade ago, a friend wrote a sexual chat bot disguised as a real woman to sell hosting and other stuff. Many people were really engaged with her. It seems the Turing test doesn't matter in this context.

An article about the author was written in 2008 in Spanish. This is the Google Translate link: [https://translate.googleusercontent.com/translate_c?depth=1&...](https://translate.googleusercontent.com/translate_c?depth=1&nv=1&rurl=translate.google.com&sl=es&tl=en&u=http://www.pagina12.com.ar/diario/suplementos/radar/9-4661-2008-06-08.html&usg=ALkJrhi1ep7xP8b3dvPPDY7UBvHMndgbng)

</comment><comment><USER9> > " Robin Labs, which makes a voice-assistant for drivers, thinks there might > be a market customizing personalities."

Shades of Genuine People Personalities [http://hitchhikers.wikia.com/wiki/Genuine_People_Personaliti...](http://hitchhikers.wikia.com/wiki/Genuine_People_Personalities)</comment>


The Binary Vector Clock - <AUTHOR> https://arxiv.org/abs/2004.07087 <comment><USER2> This is clever, but can someone who knows more about Ethereum internals comment on whether waiting for nonce order is a real problem in the network?

This only allows a modest amount of reordering (~dozens of tx for reasonably sized nonces?) before progress is still blocked totally on a delayed transaction</comment>


Google +1 Button Discovered - <AUTHOR> http://www.yvoschaap.com/weblog/the_google_1_button_discovered

<comment><USER2> +1 is available outside of the US, I'm using it from Peru right now. Just enable it here <http://google.com/experimental>

<comment><USER3> I'm in .au, have it enabled via /experimental, and am using Chrome, but I don't see the +1 button anywhere.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> [https://madrelease.google.com/_/doodad/button?url=http://new...](https://madrelease.google.com/_/doodad/button?url=http://news.ycombinator.com&height=75)

Huh, well that link for me worked a couple times, no more.

Here are the sprites:

[https://ssl.gstatic.com/s2/oz/images/stars/po/ESAPv1/buttonS...](https://ssl.gstatic.com/s2/oz/images/stars/po/ESAPv1/buttonSprite.png)

</comment><comment><USER5> Looks like it's already broken. Just get a red ! button.

<comment><USER6> There's an update at the bottom of the post saying Google took it down...

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> I only see a frame with this message inside:

      Google
      Error

      Server Error

      The service you requested is not available at this time.
      Service error -27.

Thats the way they took it down? :s</comment>


Why most doctors don't wash their hands - <AUTHOR> https://www.3quarksdaily.com/3quarksdaily/2020/08/why-most-doctors-dont-wash-their-hands.html <comment><USER3> The only thing the article does to address the topic of the headline is include this link [0]. The rest is a combination of anecdote about a doctor failing to wash his hands and history about hand washing.

[0] [https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK144026/table/parti_ch1...](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK144026/table/parti_ch16.t3/?report=objectonly)

<comment><USER4> Seriously. Reading that title, I expected an article about some counterintuitive reason that it's _better_ for doctors not to wash their hands.

I have to believe most doctors, by far, do wash their hands.

<comment><USER5> My wife's an occupational therapist (so, should be lumped in with the PTs who are "less likely to wash their hands") and she's pretty religious about hand washing, keeping work clothes separate, changing shoes when she leave the hospital, etc. I have to imagine it's cultural from the various facilities she's worked in, because she's not otherwise (outside of post-work) a germophobe or anything.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> > There was an awkward silence. I expected him to offer a feeble excuse. Blurt > out that the woman was crazy, or that she was talking nonsense. Get > defensive, say he used the had-rub solution outside her room or washed his > hands at the sink by the nurses' station. But he did none of that. "Tell her > I'm sorry," he said instead. "I'll ask my colleague to take over her care."

I wish behavior like this was more celebrated. It's incredibly rare and incredibly difficult.

<comment><USER7> Agreed. It is shocking to me how rare simply accepting fault is. Maybe, 10% of the time, at best? I wish there were some better incentives to actually behave that way consistently. I often find myself thinking "Man, why am I even trying to be nice or do the right thing here when all these other assholes meander selfishly through life and have great outcomes too?"

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> I would be really interested in reading a article on "why doctors don't wash their hands" but this ain't it. Interesting stuff on Seimmelweis but otherwise fluff.

I am an EMT and was on a particularly bloody call and noted the paramedic was not wearing gloves... Part of it might be related to the joke that ALS stands for "Aint lifting shite" but if I had more time on the call I might have asked him...

The use of PPE and washing hands are interesting topics and am often interested in things I see wrt this.

</comment><comment><USER9> I have read the story of Ignaz Semmelweis many times, and pretty much always it is framed as the abhorrent injustice of a comically evil establishment resenting and destroying a saviour-figure out of sheer bloody-mindedness.

This is the first time I have seen sensible explanations, namely that Semmelweis was really bad at promoting his discovies and successes:

> It did not help that Semmelweis was a tactless, difficult, and angry man who > lacked people-skills. For one, years after his research, he refused to > publish his findings and reasoning, because he considered it "self-evident." > Further, he openly berated even the most powerful doctors who dared to > challenge him or failed to wash their hands.

<comment><USER10> Really that is still on society for being so fucking insane that they care more about their petty delusions od hierarchies and egos than lives of mothers.

To put it on him is a vile form of victim blaming and tone policing, a tactic of vile bullies to in defiancr of all justice and logic insist it is the fault of the victim for being upset at an outrage. The self evident should be especially obvious given the number of deaths from botched autopsies and self inflicted wounds around corpses. Only an absolute monster would shove a corpse part in the loins of a new mother but they were effectively doing the same thing when even stray cuts could kill. Semmelweis was the only sane man by being so furious. Others were making blood sacrifices to the gods of social norms.

<comment><USER9> Thanks for proving my point so impressively.

That is not how you make the world a better place. You don't change people's behaviour by villifying and verbally abusing them. _You_ are fully prepared to make blood sacrifices to your own imagined moral superiority.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> I'm torn between thinking maybe being shamed by your colleague taking you off a case is an effective punishment and believing that doctors should face more serious punishments for hand washing failure. A doctor failing to wash hands is probably inflicting a similar societal danger as driving drunk - <USER2> really could get hurt or die. It doesn't seem like the kind of thing that should just be shrugged off.

The point about hand gel is a good one. I have containers of Purell and find that I enjoy washing my hands with it much more than with soap and water. I actually think of Purell as a slight positive, writing this, I'm considering Purelling my hands just for fun. I think this is probably the best technological solution: make sanitizing hands a fun experience that people want to do rather than a slight cost that people often ignore.

Another potential solution might be applying some kind of coloring agent to hospital surfaces so that doctors who haven't washed in a bit will get increasingly red hands. That's probably less desirable though.

<comment><USER12> The coloring agent idea is neat, but seems infeasible to me. You'd end up staining documents, clothes, and whatever else, plus you'd have to dedicate custodial staff to reapply it.

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> A lot of discussion about Semmelweis, but the actual reasons:

"Some factors that hindered hand-washing were days with busy workload and a feeling of not being watched.

A World Health Organization (WHO) report has also listed other barriers to adherence with hand-washing guidelines, including:

      Working in the ICU, surgical unit, or emergency rooms
      being a nursing assistant (rather than a nurse), or physical therapist
      Sinks are inconveniently located/shortage of sinks
      Lack of soap and paper towels
      Male sex
      Handwashing agents cause irritation and dryness
      Understaffing and overcrowding
      Wearing gloves and the belief that using gloves avoids the   need for hand hygiene
      Not thinking about it/forgetfulness
      No role model from colleagues or superiors
      Skepticism regarding the value of hand hygiene
      Disagreement with the recommendations"

<comment><USER14> What is 'male sex'? Something about men don't want to be seen as washing their hands too much or?

<comment><USER8> thought the same thing - men not washing hands after nookie? And whats this about sinks being too short? Distractingly crappy data categories.

<comment> munk-a As a certified tall person I can confirm I am less willing to do things low to the ground. So sinks being too short seems legitimate. I do understand the other side (short people) have it harder though - if a sink is too tall for you then it's pretty much impossible to use.

Also, male sex is referencing being of the male gender it has nothing to do with intercourse. Feel free to question the legitimacy of the category, but the category itself is pretty clearly defined.

<comment><USER15> > So sinks being too short seems legitimate.

Before people get too carried away with this, it said " _shortage of sinks_ ".

<comment><USER8> yes - bad joke in the vein of "male sex" \- the categories are sloppily generated in the WHO example. But you are right - the sinks are in short supply...

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> This caught my eye, from the article:

>A World Health Organization (WHO) report has also listed other barriers to adherence with hand-washing guidelines, including:

>[...]

>Sinks are inconveniently located/shortage of sinks

>Lack of soap and paper towels

>Male sex

>Handwashing agents cause irritation and dryness

Uh, what? One of these things does not belong.

I was actually curious about this, so I followed the link to the WHO report. It cites two studies as evidence of "male sex" being a factor affecting handwashing adherence. I looked through the full text both of those studies, and...they make no mention of any such thing. One has zero instances of the term 'male' or 'man', the other has three as it comments on the demographics of the studied _patients_.

All this to say...where did this supposed factor come from?

<comment><USER16> Both studies[1][2] mention doctor's sex as a factor. "Effect of education and performance feedback on handwashing: the benefit of administrative support in Argentinean hospitals", for example, has these figures (calculated as Number of handwashings/Number of opportunities [to wash their hands?]):

> Male vs female: 46% (1989/4350) vs 53% (5895/11,181)

[1]: [https://pdfs.semanticscholar.org/f3c8/bb1914d5226c719df53dd8...](https://pdfs.semanticscholar.org/f3c8/bb1914d5226c719df53dd864e675d5061d4a.pdf)

[2]: [https://pdfs.semanticscholar.org/8887/835e725b4347a5392e095a...](https://pdfs.semanticscholar.org/8887/835e725b4347a5392e095a81ae2087f6d957.pdf)

<comment><USER12> Thank you! I thought I must have been missing something. I have no clue why my ctrl+f returned only 3 results for the second study. I just trusted that the searches were accurate because the abstracts didn't mention sex as a factor.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> There is a lot of confusion about PPE and disinfecting. People wear surgical masks thinking they are making themselves safe - which they arent. I think also people use magical thinking with disinfectants.

I remember one EMT call where my partner got blood on her arm. She impulsively reached for the handsantizer but I told her to wait. Took her back to the hospital (we just left) and let her wash with soap.

I felt in the moment like an alcohol based wash would just irritate her skin and open pores or perhaps breakdown the skin . When the alcohol evaporates much of the crud would still be there whereas washing with soap feels like you will better handle the issue with surfactant. Might have been wrong.

<comment><USER17> I would guess that having infected blood on you, and potentially smeared in your car and other places, is quite a lot worse than drenching it in alcohol even if not fully cleaned. Why not both?

<comment><AUTHOR> I wiped a LOT of blood — infected and not — off my fingers, hands, and arms in the course of practicing neurosurgical anesthesiology for 38 years (now retired).

I'd guess hundreds of times.

Often — especially nights and weekends — there's no other anesthesiologist available to come to the O.R. for relief and a chance to wash it off.

In those cases, I'd ask the circulating nurse to get a bunch of towels and run them under hot water at the scrub sink, then give them to me to wipe off as best I could.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> I thought most hospitals had hall monitors who were writing people up for not foaming in and out of each room. Maybe that's not everywhere or is just university hospitals.

<comment><USER19> I unfortunately spent a good deal of time in hospitals from last Christmas (yes, literally Christmas) to mid-March. I noticed no hall monitor even at the university hospital, and having read _The Checklist Manifesto_ , out of curiosity I was paying attention to hand washing. As I recall, most if not all washed hands as one would hope.

</comment></comment><comment><USER20> If there was interest in achieving high compliance and the expect reduction in mortality, why wouldn't it be sufficient to randomly spot check hospital staff hands for infectious agents and have a program of escalating fines then suspensions followed by loss of license for persons who are consistently above-threshold?

The aggressiveness could be gradually increased over time to prevent a disruptive loss of workforce given the existing poor practices.

</comment><comment><USER21> I was not impressed with the lack of handwashing at our local hospital. Last time I was there I noticed they'd put up signs encouraging patients to ask their care provider if they'd washed their hands. I had a nurse come out, bring me in, then start putting in an IV without washing his hands. I asked him if he'd washed his hands and he very quickly answered "yes" and put the line into my vein - while I was calculating the number of doors and surfaces he'd touched coming out to get me and then lead me into the interior rooms. It was excruciating asking him about that.

Most of my doctors visits seem to involve the doctor not washing their hands when they come in, and then not washing their hands after examinations.

I am baffled by this behavior - you would think that they would know the best how important hand-washing is.

It's wild in that article how hard he found it to give feedback to his colleague about his hand-washing. As a patient I find it incredibly uncomfortable mentioning it to medical staff, and yet it is so important.

I wish the article had actually done a deep dive into why this seems so widespread and what could be done to change it.

<comment><USER22> If possible, I'd try to find another hospital/doctor. My wife (breast cancer surgeon) has the worst skin in the world and it's because she's adamant about washing her hands as she walks into a room and as she walks out of the room (even before COVID). Meanwhile, I have these dainty soft keyboard hands that she is envious of. But, it's not just that she's strict about it, it's that her hospital as a whole is strict about it and minimizing post-op/wound care/consult infections. It's bad for the patient and it's bad for the hospital (re: not profitable).

<comment><USER21> I've seen it at multiple medical facilities here unfortunately. Maybe it's a Portland thing?

<comment><USER22> it's possible. it's a change that has to start at the top and most hospitals in an area tend to be owned by the same company

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> This is absolutely horse shit. My mom is a provider and has always washed her hands before and after every patient. If they're not there is something very wrong with them.

<comment><USER12> The article did include a link to a study [1] about the low rates of handwashing among doctors and nurses. Although the article neglects to note the second line in the abstract's conclusion heading:

>In general, the study methods were not very robust and often ill reported.

[1] [https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/infection-control- an...](https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/infection-control-and-hospital- epidemiology/article/systematic-review-of-studies-on-compliance-with-hand- hygiene-guidelines-in-hospital-care/36AD78694A4A2BA831A598E9C935C92E)

</comment></comment><comment><USER24> I've seen this a lot. It's sad.

</comment><comment><USER25> I think doctors don't wash their hands is like someone who is adapt at washing dishes to know when soap is not needed to wash certain dishes to be good enough to not get you sick. They take a chance but save them a little time. Of course if they just accidentally came in contact with a patients private parts or something "wet" they are most likely to.

</comment><comment><USER26> Doctors are motivated only by their income, and since washing hands won't add to that, they see it as waste of time in which they could "treat" another patient

<comment> munk-a Getting the premiums on your malpractice insurance is certainly a strong effect on your income - if they were intelligent actors they would foresee this and wash their hands.

This is just plain old stupidity.

</comment></comment><comment><USER27> Does anyone ever really know why anyone (including the self) really does or does not do anything?

We can all offer a narrative, but that's just our confabulation module narrating post hoc. The split brain experiments proved that to be the case.

We are all just advanced versions of GPT3.

Discuss

<comment><USER28> Why we act at all is not relevant here. The fact is that policy and training produce behavioral outcomes. So if you want to change a behavior in a group of employees, you can train them. What to train them on, how to train them, and how to encourage adherence to the training are the subjects here. You can choose to spend your energy in philosophy or psychology but that's too big a question if you just want to understand how and why doctors wash their hands.

<comment><USER27> > What to train them on, how to train them, and how to encourage adherence to > the training are the subjects here

Yep.

The fact that enough doctors are in breach of the protocol, despite all the training and motivators, suggests we do need to look deeper.

I'm not sure why you would reject psychology or neuroscience insights into the causes of behavior. Aren't those the disciplines that provide a scientific basis for constructing training protocols? Philosophy just tells us that the scientists are limited by conscious awareness, which means they don't have access to the data to be able to determine themselves why they do or don't make a behavior.</comment></comment></comment>


Relax to the sound of rain with Rainfor.me - <AUTHOR> http://rainfor.me/ <comment><USER2> I'm sure that I can hear a faint amount of music in the background.</comment>


Brexit wins. An illusion dies - <AUTHOR> https://medium.com/mosquito-ridge/brexit-wins-an-illusion-dies-b60b6efad2d7#.crbik48mx <comment><USER2> As an european I think the Brexit is actually beneficial for us in the middle/longterm.

\- International companies will move from GB to ireland/continent, germany is in a good position to capture the financial industry (Frankfurt), Berlin already is a great startup hub.

\- the brexit is a strong signal for the other EU states to get their shit together and fix obvious problems.

\- its in the interest of all EU states to be as hard as possible when negotiating with britain and outright damage them when possible. No politican will say this loud, though, but it will happen. "Out is out". Harsh consequences will make other states think twice before considering an exit, too. thus, stability.

\- The british economy will collapse completely, they are by far not that important globally. The pound already goes down dramatically, trade partners have been EU states mostly who will get doctrined from brussels to punish GB. We do not need anything that _must_ be imported from the UK. Short-term EU companies operating on GB will suffer, though. But this will be overshadowed through the international focus on continental europe instead of UK/London after a while.

\- the US already said that the UK isn't very important and are not very eager to make deals separately. And we do no longer have to deal with "special care" for british wishes, which often are the cause of endless discussions and bureaucracy.

\- Scotland and n.Ireland may "exit" the UK, further minorizing the role of the UK in the world. Might be possible that they join the EU independently.

So all in all, this may be good news for the EU, even when we sacrifice a generation of UK citizens for our benefit. Maybe in a few decades a demolished, isolated england will try to get into the EU again.

Still, it makes me said, since I really enjoyed my stays in London and would prefer a big, strong, united europe.

<comment><USER3>
        > this may be good news for the EU, even when we
        > sacrifice a generation of UK citizens for our benefit.

As a British citizen, I'm appalled by the sentiment expressed here. It flies in the face of the ideas and values upon which the EU was founded. I'm not going to say anything beyond that.

<comment><USER4> As an American what shocks me is the accusations of racism, the anger, and the outright attacks on the British. Talk about fair-weather friends.

<comment><USER5> Yes, the outright attacks are not ok but if you look at the more vocal parts of the British Brexit voters a lot clearly have racist motivations. People I considered almost friends posted on Facebook about throwing all Muslims out after brexit, blaming foreigners in general for a lot that is wrong. Things like: 'it has gone too far, I feel like I live in Islamabad here! OUT!'. These people voted for the Brexit to refuse and throw out foreigners. In their minds anyway. So it is not strange as that is what people see.

There are many who voted for other reasons but those are far less vocal.

<comment><USER6> It was expected that racists would vote for brexit loudly anyway. The problem is why everyone else, and especially what you would consider moderate people voted against EU (which is not really a vote against immigration; and it will barely stop it)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Frankly to get a grips with it all it may be best to split both the left and the right in two.

Social left and worker left.

traditionalist right and financial right.

EU has been a boon for financial right, by flagging it as a project for european peace and understanding to the social left.

But this has alienated social left from worker left, who they were close allies with after WW2.

So instead the worker left has teamed up with traditionalist right, who share their distrust of EU but for different reasons.

<comment><USER8> You may have already seen it, but the 4 sections you describe are very similar to this: [https://www.politicalcompass.org/](https://www.politicalcompass.org/)

The basic idea is that there are two axises, not one (social and financial).

<comment><USER9> I think those kinds of plots only make sense when you lay more or less in the middle. A political position is not just how you position yourself in an objective predeterminate political space but also how you define that political space.

<comment><USER7> Like how most of what is seen as right wing in the European nations, is seen as left wing in USA?

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> I wonder what this will mean for the London tech scene. A LOT of people there are from other EU countries. I will affect the American giants too. Google and others have big development centres in London where it is easy to attract top talent from around Europe. They could re-focus to Ireland or Germany, but it will be harder to make people move there for a job.

<comment><USER11> Why can't the UK have open borders to skilled immigrants and not so open to unskilled immigrants?

I do not believe the UK is going to crack down on tech engineers and phds that want to work in their country.

<comment><USER10> > Why can't the UK have open borders to skilled immigrants and not so open to > unskilled immigrants?

You would have the extra friction of proving to the UK government that you are skilled. There would probably be a requirement for formal education, so self- taught programmers are in trouble.

I admit I am speaking in my own interest here, as a Swedish person living and working in the UK. When I got a job here I just packed up my stuff and moved. I showed my passport to the border machine and that was it.

If I needed a skilled worker visa, I would probably have had to pay a certified translator to translate my diploma, send in both translation and original, and hope they send them back. Do the same thing for a dozen other documents. The employer would need to submit something, which may be fine for Google but harder for a startup. Then wait for months, because the home office has no incentive to be quick.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> > A large section of the working class, concentrated in towns and cities that > have been quietly devastated by free-market economics, decided they'd had > enough.

As if if the UK had _not_ been an EU member the last 30 years the situation would have been better.

At least so far they had some advantages (presence of the financial district, easy access to a large market), those will disappear too.

The end result could very well be a _much_ worse situation for those voting 'leave' when the ones voting 'remain' will see a relatively small effect.

<comment><USER13> It will most definitely be worse.

The phyrric victory possible here is that Brexit leads the way for other exits, sundering the EU resulting in worse economies everywhere.

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> It is amazing how we have been enjoying healthy growth and improvements everywhere in the last 100 years and people still think there is something to fight against "neoliberism". You don't trust a system where multiple agents are free to decide with capitalism, but you think everything will be solved with 1 agent ruling them all with a super Leviathan state. He doesn't want to be compared to fascists, but that's exactly along the lines a fascist would think. I don't know, personally, I am going to try and get German citizenship, at least those guys are somewhat reliable and don't do pointless referendums (because you think something is going to change? No, all will stay exactly the same, but at least you can feel happy at the thought of not being a EU state, I guess).

<comment><USER15> Sometimes not being an EU state is not something to be happy about. For example now Poland is being taken over by right-wing party, which reduces citizen rights, violates constitution, oppresses minorities, removes the separation of the state and church. There are voices that we should leave the EU. But European Union and its framework is the only institution that from time to time keeps them at bay. When we leave EU, we are lost, the regime will be able to do anything.

<comment><USER16> >Poland is being taken over by right-wing party

Funny, two years ago everyone here was calling them a left-wing party.

>reduces citizen rights, violates constitution

They haven't done anything that the previous party didn't, but since the previous party lost this election the very same people who did it for the previous 8 years suddenly act like they have the moral high ground.

>oppresses minorities

Not wanting uncontrolled immigration is not "oppressing minorities".

>removes the separation of the state and church

This has never been as severe as people like to claim, even back in 2006.

<comment><USER17> _> Not wanting uncontrolled immigration_

So you don't want what your country benefited dramatically from in the last 15 years, when Polish people moved to UK to work, sending home additional capital and reducing demographic pressure. I apologize if this sounds inflammatory, it's not meant to but: it is, objectively, a very hypocritical position.

<comment><USER16> That was in regards to the immigrants that Merkel tried to push on us.

<comment><USER18> The EU parliment had a meeting where basically what was said was "this is a huge issue, everyone should help by taking some" and then Polish government decided to get on a high horse and not accept anyone. It flies directly in the face of united Europe and I really hate what they(the government) are doing.

<comment><USER16> Are you really surprised that the when there are so many reports about immigrants causing problems for the countries that take them in? No one here wants an another Cologne.

And I find it really amusing that you talk about "united Europe" in the context of non-European immigrants. It is not okay for one country to cause a huge wave of immigration and then basically going "we can't take these people in so you have to and do it unconditionally" \- which only encourages even more immigration.

<comment><USER18> Those people arrive at EU shores, therefore they are EU's problem. If they arrived at Polish shores(as unlikely as that is) Poland would be asking for support of the rest of EU as well.

<comment><USER16> >Those people arrive at EU shores, therefore they are EU's problem.

Can't argue with that, but this doesn't mean EU has to take these people in, neither it gives them the right to enter the EU. Several dozen years ago these people would get their boats sunk.

<comment><USER18> And 100 years ago they maybe would even be shot - problem solved! Fortunately we live in a civilization that is much better and we don't treat people in need like shit. At least I hope we don't. If someone is genuinely escaping from war, they should be given shelter, I hope there is no discussion about this.

<comment><USER16> The "genuinely escaping" is the key word here. Many of them had an option to stay in Turkey and they didn't because they thought that in Europe they will get more things for free.

I really recommend watching "With Open Gates" on Youtube and listening to what the immigrants have to say. If the picture of immigrants in the video is the reality, then the government made a very good decision by not taking these people in.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> From a French perspective, I'd like to state again that everybody is talking about the economical EU, but forget it's only one of the side of it.

For me the main benefit is that my grand father has a tatoo with a number on his wrist, but my brother is in a loving relationship with a blue-eye blond german.

No matter how you slice it, peace is a very nice think too have in an instable world with so many different people living so close to each others.

</comment><comment><USER20> I'm from Ireland. The potential reinstating of "the border" in the north of Ireland, effectively rebuilding a physical wall based on the outcome of this brexit, is a concern. The psychological effect it will have on Ireland as a people will be tectonic.

<comment><USER21> [also Irish, currently living in Scotland]

Off the top of your head, what do you think the odds of this turning into a United Ireland would be?

Surely both sides of the border would rather unify than go along with this madness? Or am I dreaming?

<comment><USER20> I recall having very heated disagreements with a friend years ago; she believed Ireland would unite in our lifetime, I believed the idea itself was too young for anyone to take seriously. Maybe this is the catalyst needed to advance the conversation.

A United Ireland in our lifetime would be heart-explodingly amazing; however just as the UK voted Leave, Northern Ireland could well vote Stay.

<comment> k-mcgrady >> "Maybe this is the catalyst needed to advance the conversation."

I've said this in another comment but I think it is. We now have an issue that will effect all the people in the North and is more important than the usual sectarian divide. If border controls come into place and it starts to effect people's daily lives (e.g. People living in border counties and working on the other side) there's actual a real debate to be had for once. A border poll has already been called for this morning but of course the secretary of state has dismissed it. I think Scotland will need to vote for independence before Ireland has a shot at it.

<comment><USER20> Ireland's already independent.. Just perhaps not all of her ;)

The sad thing about the possibility of a real debate is that those proposing the unification still have literal blood on their hands. The conversation morphs from those proposing unification to being _about_ those proposing the idea, and how they've been involved in horrific violence not-so-many years ago. The point of the debate is lost in the mire from that point on.

I believe it'll take a generation removed of the troubles to be capable of grasping the possibility. But I would LOVE to be proved wrong!

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> AFAIK, Brexit has won the votes, but that doesn't mean it will happen.

>Referendums are not legally binding, so legally the Government can ignore the results; for example, even if the result of a pre-legislative referendum were a majority of "No" for a proposed law, Parliament could pass it anyway, because parliament is sovereign.[0]

[0]: [https://www.wikiwand.com/en/Referendums_in_the_United_Kingdo...](https://www.wikiwand.com/en/Referendums_in_the_United_Kingdom)

<comment><USER23> It would be electoral suicide for a government not to follow through with this though.

<comment><USER22> I think it won't be, the margins are too close, only 2% or so. so basically you are ignoring 48% of the people over 52% of the people... if it was something like 30/70 that would be suicide

<comment><USER24> The only conceivable way that a UK government can ignore this result is if the EU comes back with a substantial offer of change including a significant compromise on free movement. That could be used as a reason to trigger a second referendum.

I can't see that happening though and all the rhetoric from the EU and EU nations has been "goodbye and thanks for all the fish".

I expect the government to drag its heels for a while before it invokes Article 50 while it sorts itself out but industry will be clamouring for clarity so it won't drag on indefinitely.

<comment><USER25> > if the EU comes back with a substantial offer of change including a > significant compromise on free movement

That's not going to happen - not because of the "gooodbye" rhetoric, but rather because freedom of movement has been embodied as one of the core principles of the EU. Free movement of goods and people are inseparable. This is even laid down in the bilateral agreements with Switzerland and Norway. The Swiss just tested the waters with the latest referendum on curbing EU- immigration but they haven't followed through. The EU has drawn a line in the sand here and I seriously don't expect them to concede this point.

<comment><USER26> _> Free movement of goods and people are inseparable._

Only when talking about people as goods, i.e. as human resources. When talking about people as humans, the borders inside EU are closed real quick when there's a G8 summit et.al. and politicians want to keep protestors from other countries out.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER27> If the UK ceases to exist I wonder if England would be permitted to rejoin the EU at some point?

<comment><USER12> That would be some pretty tough negotiations. Probably better for England to apply to become a territory of the US.

<comment><USER28> That would be _just a bit_ humiliating though... never gonna happen (but you never know either, hmm)

<comment><USER29> Minor discussions did once occur.. [http://www.independent.co.uk/news/wilson- wanted-uk-to-be-us-...](http://www.independent.co.uk/news/wilson-wanted-uk-to- be-us-state-1075874.html)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER30> While I'm strongly of the opinion that this decision is a bad one for the United Kingdom, and mostly because of the economic havoc just about every expert foresees, we shouldn't forget two things:

a) Experts are sometimes wrong. Economic experts are usually wrong. (Personally I think they happen to be right in this case)

b) Some Brexit supporters also see the economic risks and accept them, because of democracy, sovereignty etc. pp.

And while I'm a pragmatic who would weigh economic consequences heavily, God damn!, I can totally respect that!

</comment><comment><USER31> I don't see why people are thinking businesses would move. With a weaker pound, a UK office is cheaper to run, investment will go further and exporting UK based products/services to the EU or US will be more competitive. If anything UK might be more attractive for a business.

The downsides might be freedom of travel for employment but hopefully there won't be much difference for skilled migrants. I don't believe it would get as hard as the US.

<comment><USER32> Any idea how many EU multinational headquarters and logistics centers the UK has, versus Switzerland or Norway? Right...

What about financial centers?

Make no mistake. This will have a significant impact. Even my small laser cutting service company in Riga, Latvia (<shameless plug>[https://lusis.eu</shameless](https://lusis.eu</shameless) plug>) has to charge non-EU clients extra because of the real barriers exporting outside of the EU.

<comment><USER31> I'm interested - what precisely are the barriers you see?

<comment><USER32> It may sound silly, but here's a few: * extra customs checks, even if there is no customs rate * different VAT procedures from the common market * courier and postal services delivering strictly within the EU, or charging a premium for dealing with the barriers of delivering outside of it

Apart from that, anecdotally, even within the EU, we noticed that UK customers were strangely much less informed about SEPA bank transfers (between € accounts, within EFTA) than even non-EU EFTA members.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER33> I'm not entirely sure how what is being discussed in the article has anything to do with the EU. Surely that same problem applies in the absence of the EU and its replacement just as much.

</comment><comment><USER34> could anyone elaborate why exactly the referendum was mostly a vote on migration? I myself think that view (which is the basis of the article) is too limited

<comment><USER35> It wasn't. The press just decided to present it this way. It was a vote on sovereignty of the UK of which control on migration was one small part.

</comment></comment><comment><USER36> WOW! GB left the EU and they did not even need to elect a communist party or have Varoufakis mouthing off. Maybe Greece should grow a pair and go now too. Maybe join GB.

<comment><USER37> Right.... after they refund all the billions from the recent support packages from the EU....

</comment></comment><comment><USER38> It baffles me to say it's negative to be hypocritical in that regard.

My position in these cases is simple: I want what's best for me and my people and fuck the rest.

Europe has had a history of pointless and toxic altruism that has lead us to this point. Think of the refugee crisis for example. The "all humans are equal regardless of where they were born" and the "please I'd do whatever it takes so people don't label me as a racist" rubbish has ruined our culture.

<comment><USER39> > My position in these cases is simple: I want what's best for me and my > people and fuck the rest.

Sorry, but this shit right here is what's ruining your culture.

<comment><USER16> Why? Everyone else is doing the same thing</comment></comment></comment>


FBI's search for bomb threat suspect highlights use of malware for surveillance - <AUTHOR> http://www.washingtonpost.com/business/technology/fbis-search-for-mo-suspect-in-bomb-threats-highlights-use-of-malware-for-surveillance/2013/12/06/352ba174-5397-11e3-9e2c-e1d01116fd98_story.html

<comment><USER2> >> _The FBI's elite hacker team designed a piece of malicious software that was to be delivered secretly when Mo signed on to his Yahoo e-mail account, from any computer anywhere in the world, according to the documents._

i have to ask; could this secret delivery actually be anything else than an executable file attached to an email?

edit: ok, they seem to use phishing attacks for this sort of thing. but both methods definitely do not deliver anything just because you log in to your yahoo account, as the article states.

<comment><USER3> If yahoo sends you FBI made tracking and demasking cookies instead of a regular one that would work though they claim they didn't help. Could also have found out what vpn this guy used and had them redirect Iran originating traffic to the FBI fake yahoo MITM login full of java exploits or sent him a malware image and turned on image preview on his account.

So turns out this guy is just trolling on cruise control because why not, not like he's going to be extradited for harassing Americans. Likely there's a work station at every Iranian military base in the cafeteria that says 'troll FBI here'

</comment></comment><comment> vezzy-fnord FBI has been using malware for ages.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carnivore_%28software%29](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carnivore_%28software%29)

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magic_Lantern_%28software%29](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magic_Lantern_%28software%29)

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Computer_and_Internet_Protocol...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Computer_and_Internet_Protocol_Address_Verifier)

Other governments as well:

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FinFisher](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FinFisher)

Entire (legitimate) businesses are dedicated to selling malware for use by governments and law enforcement agencies.

<comment><USER4> Carnivore (a.k.a. DCS3000 and DCS6000) isn't exactly "malware" \- it's the system that resides in phone company/ISP machine rooms to do CALEA "lawful intercepts" of email headers. See: [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DCSNet](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DCSNet)

There have been rumors to the effect that the DCS systems run on Solaris, and have been hacked and cracked so that other than FBI can monitor things using it ([http://www.cooperativeresearch.org/context.jsp?item=a2003dcs...](http://www.cooperativeresearch.org/context.jsp?item=a2003dcsnethack#a2003dcsnethack)).

Also, calling a business that sells malware to Law Enforcement is something of a stretch. If you mean "legitmate" as "lawful", then you're strictly correct. If you want "legitimate" to also encompass "ethical", or "upstanding" or something of that sort, then I don't see it.

<comment> vezzy-fnord Are you sure Carnivore and DCSNet are presently related? I had thought DCSNet and ISP-bound traffic monitors like Carnivore were separate.

That's interesting. Though I had always been stuck with the impression that FBI technology primarily made use of Windows as an OS and Perl as a scripting language.

I meant legitimate as in lawful.</comment></comment></comment>


GitHub open sources Atom - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/blog/1831-atom-free-and-open-source-for-everyone <comment><USER2> this is an article from may 2014, not really news ;)</comment>


FreeWAF – High-Performance WAF Built on the OpenResty Stack - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/p0pr0ck5/FreeWAF <comment> unix-junkie I appreciate naxsi for its ease of use and efficiency: [https://github.com/nbs-system/naxsi](https://github.com/nbs-system/naxsi)

</comment><comment><USER2> Looks cool, but seems to be a pretty inactive project, unfortunately.

<comment><USER3> Last commit was less than two months ago, and all but one open issue is tagged "enhancement".

It could be a lot more dead.</comment></comment>


From Surveillance Communism to Surveillance Capitalism and Beyond - <AUTHOR> https://www.forbes.com/sites/johntorpey/2019/11/08/from-surveillance-communism-to-surveillance-capitalism-and-beyond/#7f1e5e903d33 <comment><USER2> All the Stasi were missing were computers to make sense of all the information and connect the dots. Modern surveillance is insanely intrusive!

</comment><comment><USER3> My parents survived full blown communism regime and the stories they eventually shared with me instilled healthy fear of omnipresent surveillance.

And despite this, I am still debating whether wife's request for shark IQ with camera is a good addition to our household ( incidentally, does anyone know if it can be hacked, or at least its feed can be accessed? ).

I don't know. Maybe we just never really learn and are doomed to repeat mistakes of the past.

<comment><USER4> You could limit it's network connectivity (firewall anything but the home server). If it can't work offline, then it's kind of useless to me personally. I like tech that can outlive the OEM.

<comment><USER2> One of the more advanced Roomba's I looked at required it to be online to setup and function. Ended up getting the cheap offline model which does the job without the security risks.

<comment><USER5> I'm curious; that offline model, does it map space as well as their new top of the line models?

<comment><USER2> Not the one I have. It just kinda bumps all over the place like it has no memory but it does clean the floors so it's not a total loss!

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Surveillance communism: Your neighbour might hear you and report on you. The government might go after you.

Surveillance capitalism: "We will give every person a location tracker and microphone, and make them pay for it! Then sell data to anyone."

<comment><USER7> I tried to get my father to grasp that this isn't the 50s. These aren't file cabinet with dubios ability to find info ever again and massive amounts of space required to store. Data today will be sucked in and may sit but eventually will get indexed and become searchable in seconds. The percentage of your life represented in this data is only getting higher, and collection of all at the current rate will be ubiquitous.

A good example is a authoritarian could take power and decide to reducate any one posting comments not espousing the ideals of the ruler in power.

The data from the past couple years would build you a nice list for your next sessionnof your reeducation camp fun.

<comment><USER8> >A good example is a authoritarian could take power and decide to reducate any one posting comments not espousing the ideals of the ruler in power.

This already happens on a horrendous scale in China. Since we're buying pretty much everything from there, will it be long before they gladly sell us mass surveillance infrastructure?

>The data from the past couple years would build you a nice list for your next sessionnof your reeducation camp fun.

Imagine a sinister big data implementation of the ironic punishments in Dante. It's possible should the political will arise. There's already enough contempt for privacy in Western governments, it's not too hard to think of what's on the horizon.

<comment><USER9> > Imagine a sinister big data implementation of the ironic punishments in > Dante.

A big "church" with many followers in Hollywood already make you take a detailed personality survey and use the answers to sow doubt within yourself during the following "interview". So yeah, it's probably very easy for someone with more data.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> The guy that posted his ebook about data dictators here the other day said something similar. Basically AI and data is the next cold war. And democracy isn't likely to survive it</comment>


Show HN: Extensive logging facility for iOS apps: database, Telnet, HTTP server - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/swisspol/XLFacility

<comment><USER2> This is not the first library I've seen like that. I'm curious, though. Do any apps actually use logging this extensively? The telnet certainly seems a bit over the top.

<comment><USER3> I can see streaming log output to a terminal as being handy during debugging.</comment></comment>


fabricate: The better "make". Finds dependencies automatically for any language. - <AUTHOR> http://code.google.com/p/fabricate/

<comment><USER2> """For a start, fabricate won't say " __* missing separator" if you use spaces instead of tabs.""" - No, but it will say "IndentationError: unindent does not match any outer indentation level" if you mess up Python's indentation :-)

</comment><comment><USER3> You don't need to enter in dependencies with 'make' either (suffix rules or makedepend). Don't get me wrong, fabricate looks great, but let's not misrepresent the power of make in the right hands. From the docs:

       files.o : files.c defs.h buffer.h command.h
             cc -c files.c

I don't know a programmer beyond the introductory level that still writes this in their make file. :-p

<comment><USER4> Right. Make already _knows_ how to convert .c to .o, all you need to say is

        files.c: defs.h buffer.h command.h

and there are tools such as makedepend (for C and OCaml, off the top of my head) that _generate those listings automatically_ , so you just add this to the Makefile:

        include (autogenerated dependency listing file)

While the mandatory tab in Make syntax is a genuine wart, make has been around long enough that there are several other tools that know how to work with it.

(Now, having the scan for access time changes added as a warning to Make might not be a bad idea. "WARNING: You forgot this dependency")

<comment><USER5> > make has been around long enough that there are several other tools that > know how to work with it.

I'd prefer an improved from-scratch 2nd-generation tool instead of using one that simply wraps around a complicated 1st-gen one that I'd rather not touch.

Make has more warts than just the tab characters. Lots of obscurely-named variables, for starters.

<comment><USER6> You might want to check out tup. It uses the dependency tree in a fundamentally different way from make, in order to improve build times. <http://gittup.org/tup/>

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> It looks like they hardcoded gcc as the compiler in the example. What about trying to port a program to a platform without it (or that calls it differently), that needs extra compilation flags, etc.?

A lot of the seemingly esoteric stuff in Makefiles is there to make porting feasible (and the rest is autogenerated by autoconf, automake, etc.). Not just which files an operation depends on, but e.g. the options used for building shared libraries correctly on this platform, paths for libraries, etc. While the build system will remember what it found as dependencies, _it still needs to know what to find the first time_. (It will note header files as dependencies, though.)

</comment><comment><USER7> I have a machine with two quad-core CPUs, I want to run 8 parallel jobs at a time!

Most of these make replacements start with design decisions (like using Python) that pretty much rule out ever reaching what make does best, and which is essential to get my build times improved by at least a factor of 6.

Using a tool (like CMake) to generate your Makefiles is an excellent solution, heck, even a Python script that generated a Makefile and then ran make would be to prefer over this tool.

<comment><USER8> Using Python does not prevent parallel execution of tasks. It's just the build tasks graph that gets created by a single process, but then the build system can use all the available CPUs to actually execute it. See e.g. -j flag to SCons [http://www.scons.org/doc/production/HTML/scons- user.html#AEN...](http://www.scons.org/doc/production/HTML/scons- user.html#AEN2099).

<comment><USER7> As I said, generating a Makefile (i.e. the dependency graph) from Python would be fine, which conceptually sounds like what SCons do (from your comment).

But look at the build file example on the fabricate page, it is a user supplied build file with a build function which calls a compile function which loops over sources. Having the fabricate system take input like that and do parallel execution is as hard as solving the halting problem.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> We've been using memoize to build stuff for a while now, but we needed something that worked under Windows too. So here's our "fabricate" build tool. It's BSD licensed -- enjoy!

<comment><USER9> Does it scan your entire filesystem for atimes so as not to miss the .h files over in /usr/include, and if not, how does it know which directories need scanning?

<comment><AUTHOR> No, it defaults to recursively scanning the current directory, but you can easily override this if you want, eg:

        setup(dirs=['.', '../lib'])

<comment><USER9> Is there a way to override it to just use strace?

<comment><AUTHOR> Sure is. This will do it:

        setup(runner='strace_runner')

<comment><USER9> Neat! Thanks!

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Do I miss something? That example is like three times longer than an equivalent Makefile would needed to be, and I need to know Python, obviously. For a trivial project, I guess that Make would be easier to use, and for something more complex, I think I would have to do quite a lot of programming, with Fabricate…

<comment><USER2> What misses in my opinion is 'build by convention'. Most things that you want to build have recipes that are mostly the same. You have some sources that you want to compile and then link against some libraries. Using some platform specific compiler and linker flags.

So, instead of writing a program to do the build I would rather see a simple DSL that allows me to specify just the minimal amount of configuration to get things going.

For example building the example on the fabricate wiki page, should not be more complicated than:

      :program programname : program.c utils.c

(This is actually an a-a-p recipe that will do the same. Throw this in a main.aap file and you get everything that fabricate does, build, dependency checks, clean, etc.)

I don't mind to script the build when things get more complex. But only then and only when there really is no simple built-in alternative.

Fabricate seems to be more like ant in the Java world. Where you specify in detail what your build should do. Most people have agreed by now that it is a waste of time and instead use Maven, which completely works on simple conventions and standard rules.

<comment><USER11> What's a-a-p?

<comment><USER2> See <http://a-a-p.sf.net>

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> I haven't tried fabricate yet, but I think the number of build-tools out there is a sure sign that something fundamental is broken.

<comment><USER13> I think it's just the nature of the beast, and an example of a complex problem with a lot of different solutions.

</comment></comment><comment><USER2> I wish someone would pick up <http://a-a-p.sourceforge.net/> again. It is a great build tool written by the Vim author. I've used it to build complex projects in the past with a minimal amount of aap configuration. It is much less verbose than fabricate.

</comment><comment><USER14> Not to be confused with Fabric (<http://www.nongnu.org/fab/>), also a very cool python tool.

</comment><comment><USER15> looks a lot like SCube only way more verbose for the simple case. <http://code.google.com/p/scube/wiki/Example1>

The problem with this and other Python build tools is They are a _huge_ pain to use on older systems that either don't have a recent enough version of Python installed or don't have Python installed at all. It's just not as portable as Make is in that respect.

</comment><comment><USER16> The central problem with these sorts of "make replacements" is they miss out on the whole thing that makes make useful. I care not a whit about implicit rules, and I would welcome a real language over GNU make's function apparatus (filenames with spaces in them tend to get split in the functions, due to the fundamentally macro style), but without pattern matching rules and a real dependency engine I won't even think once about it. I use both far, far too often, in almost every makefile I've ever written.

<comment><USER17> gchpaco, could you give an example of a situation where you'd use a _real_ dependency engine, which could not be solved (at least not easily) by using fabricate.py? I know such cases exist in theory, but have never run across a need, so I'm interested.

<comment><USER16> Since fabricate makes Python, a full language available, it's not that there's things that cannot be expressed, it's really about ease. So I'll tell you about something I did when I was a grad student.

I was using an up to date TeX install. My advisor wasn't. To placate him, I had to copy all of my packages, and all the packages they referred to, and so on down the line so that he could compile my papers. I did this entirely within make + some small shell scripts. The fact that I could write scanners for %.tex and %.sty and %.cls and have GNU make (obviously) automagically use them to build the dependency scripts I instructed it to include was immensely convenient. This is not impossible to do procedurally, but it was inconvenient, and the all-make solution had the attractive side that whenever there were bugfixes to the packages they got automatically included in what I was doing.

A better example, come to think of it, is the typical LaTeX woe; you can't build the final .dvi until you have accurate page numbers, references, tables of contents, indexes. You get all of those by--building the .dvi. So there's a strange circular dependency here. Make doesn't deal with this especially well, although it can be done. Ant and SCons don't even try.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> Spot on. A must have for every developer.</comment>


No to Software Patents - <AUTHOR> http://webshop.ffii.org/ http://petition.nosoftwarepatents.in/ - Say No To Software Patents India. <comment><AUTHOR> <http://petition.nosoftwarepatents.in/> \- Center For Internet & Society - Sign the Petition for No Software Patents.</comment>