Ask HN: Are you friends with your manager? - <AUTHOR> I'm intrigued by the psychology of the relationship between managers and directs.
For instance, can it ever be the same as it can be if you didn't work together for?
Do you instead maintain a layer of "professional distance", that means you won't ever be as close?
I imagine it could just depend exclusively on the personality each has... <comment><USER2> I get a long fantastically with my manager. We do happy hours every other Friday. I'd probably invite him to a BBQ at my house or something like that. But I don't think I consider him a friend. That said, I _am_ friends with some of my old managers, and (as a manager) with some of my old employees.

For current, active working relationships? Nope. We keep that professional distance. Once we no longer work together, I'm open to closer relationships with them. It usually doesn't happen, though.

The truth of the matter is that the thing most of us have in common with one another is that we work together, and once that's no longer true, there's just not that much more to the relationship, and so we inevitably drift apart.

<comment><USER3> I'm the same way. I'm friends with previous managers and reports but I try to keep current ones professional. Even if there are no playing favorites I want to avoid any perception of playing favorites for myself, my reports and my managers.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> I think it's dangerous to be friends with bosses, it can cause you to lose perspective on what the relationship between you and your work actually is: you sell your labour, usually for far less than it is worth to the company.

I believe it is healthier to have a stark perspective on what is actually happening in employer/employee relationships, and keep work as something that I do in order to be able to afford a place to live and food to eat and nothing more. Whether I enjoy whatever job I have at the time is secondary to this: it's a bonus, but again I try very hard not to let my job become a part of how I see myself.

If you let yourself become "friends" with your boss I think you're in danger of blurring these lines and getting into the strange position where not only must you do something you don't necessarily want to do, but you must do it or let a "friend" down. This seems like a fast-track way of burning out.

<comment><USER5> I _hope_ that I'm selling my labor to my company for less than it's worth. Otherwise, I've put a giant target on my back for elimination. The company is taking a risk by employing me and paying me no matter what I produce; I don't mind at all at they make a profit on the transaction and seek to keep it that way.

<comment><USER6> How does that mentality serve you when it's time to negotiate your salary or benefits?

<comment><USER7> IF you're worth way more than you're getting paid, negotiations should be super easy. This is probably a terrible analogy, but think of working like mining diamonds and the employer like selling cut stones. If you mine huge diamonds with fairly regular frequency asking to get paid more is a no brainer for you and the company.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> I think the major hangup for this discussion is that each of us probably have a different definition of what counts as a friend. I think there's certainly a gradient between "friendly" and "friend", but I honestly don't think the exact label matters much. For the sake of my discussion, I will consider a "friend" someone that I would want to hang out with 1-on-1.

But I think there are certain boundaries that both sides must be respectful of. For example, as a manager you need to make it clear to your employee/friend when you are communicating as a manager vs as a friend. That distinction should not be left ambiguous as that will make things potentially awkward if there is a disconnect.

As an employee, you need to respect that fact that your manager cannot tell you everything, and understanding that being their friend doesn't mean they will give you any special treatment. You should be extra careful to avoid this, as your manager will be sensitive if they notice you are trying to take advantage of the friendship in any way.

In the end, I think these boundaries can cause the friendship to not progress past a certain point if you are actively working together, mainly because it is just extra work to move past a certain level of friendship if so.

<comment><AUTHOR> I think you've nailed it.

It's something that's possible, but very difficult and it requires a lot of additional work to keep it going and progress the friendship.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> I like to think of my manager as working for me, rather than the other way around. I never receive orders from them, nor do I feel I need to impress or "perform" for them. But, they do have go out and find information for me, or do stuff to unblock me. Plus, it's their responsibility to keep me around and keep me happy. At the very least, it's a partnership, so that makes it easier to have a personal relationship.

<comment><USER10> Absolutely agree it's a partnership where both succeed together. If things are working well my manager is busting his but to promote me and I'm busting mine to make him look good so he can get his promotion.

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> I've been a manager for only 7 years now, but so far I've actively avoided managing personal friends.

Good work colleagues, having a pint after work once in a while, sure. But I wouldn't manage people I spend time with on the weekends.

I can easily see myself either being too harsh on them to compensate, or inadvertently giving them a pass instead of feedback when necessary.

</comment><comment><USER12> There are places where people are more friends, even with their managers. Sometimes it cannot be avoided. It can be great or bad. Great is rare, and managers cracking the whip makes people work harder, not smarter. If I get the choice, I prefer being friendly with eachother. There's no need to be mean, and there are ways to convey messages without condescending arrogance or unsolicited advice. Being friendly means a safe space to lift spirits and spread new ways of working and thinking. If you think somewhat similarly, you can even be allies and play to eachother's strengths. If your manager cannot ally with you, you should seriously consider finding somewhere else that got your back. Don't lean on it though. It can be gone in an instant, and you should stand on your own feet as much as you can.

</comment><comment><USER13> I suspect things are different, where I've been (UK, and Finland). But I'd expect to become friends with colleagues, take children on playdates, etc.

Often times colleagues will go for beer after work, especially on Fridays, and otherwise hang out at lunchtimes. Here in Finland I've sat naked in a sauna with upper-management, drinking beer, and relaxing.

Sure they're often not the people I'd expect to become friends with, but by virtue of having similar interests and spending a lot of time together you'll often have good relationships - not distant-ones - with colleagues.

(It is worth noting, for example, just how many romantic relationships start in the workplace ..)

</comment><comment><USER14> Yep. Last four jobs. In 3 of them, we were friends beforehand. Almost got hired by a fifth.

Huh I just noticed I have a tendency to work for friends.

It is much like a marriage. There's stuff that has to get done, and you have to work together to get it done. And like marriage, moving on can be tricky.

Trickier is befriending higher-ups. Keeping confidences is important when you know before your boss does.

I'm still friends with 2 of the 3 former bosses, so it is possible to maintain a relationship.

</comment><comment><USER15> I have an interesting professional and personal relationship with the boss - he secured me a contract with one of his clients so not only do we have a 9-5 together, but also work for the same client in the afternoon. Personally we're fairly close and like to talk about deep, risky topics you'd normally reserve for close friends although we only get together maybe once a month.

I sometimes wonder if professional distancing/shyness varies by region in the USA and the world - mine seems to lack all professional distance compared to my coastal peers. Someone I know worked in Brazil and they seem to go the extreme end of shunning distance with professional peers - traveling long distances to go their subordinates' weddings and such.

</comment><comment><USER16> All human relations are increasingly subject to the criteria of «is it good for the corporation?». Or, is it good for me financially. Which, considering how work is increasingly central to our lives is unfortunate. We're Charlie Chaplin in Modern Times without the factory.

</comment><comment><USER17> I'm friends with _everyone_ I know, including my managers, if I've had some sort of extended contact. I went kayaking with my last manager for instance. I've even made friends during interviews (where I didn't take the job).

I've had "managers" that I've only talked to once a month that I didn't become friends with but that's to be expected.

</comment><comment><USER18> A good manager needs to be able to have really hard conversations, including firing people.

It's great to be close, but it's important both people are fully aware of the power dynamic, and that it is real.

Your manager should be like a coach on a sporting team (in more ways than one) - you can go hang out after the game, but during practice they will wear you down. The important point here is the context - it's when and where.

Also, keep in mind, your job is just your job, and people are more important than a job. You'll have other jobs, and other managers, so if you value the friendship, go for it.

</comment><comment><USER19> I've always taken the stance that I don't mix personal and work. That way I have a clean separation between the two. Rough days at work, I can shift focus to a different social circle. However, a few years ago I joined a team and we all got along too well. It became a group of friends that worked and played together. It was great in so many ways and after 2 years we all parted ways.

I doubt I'll ever experience something like it again and we still are friends but we all wish we had a team dynamic like we used to have.

</comment><comment><USER20> Wrote a blog post on this a while back[0]. Short answer: no, not friends with my manager, nor my subordinates. We get along great, and have a good time at work-social events, but that's the end.

[0] [https://softbiz.io/posts/why-i-am-not-facebook-friends- with-...](https://softbiz.io/posts/why-i-am-not-facebook-friends-with- employees-or-my-boss)

<comment><USER7> I disagree with a lot the points in your article. The things you listed as cons with having office "friends" all sound like things no real "friend" would do. I don't generally use social media, so maybe I don't understand that aspect, but honestly if someone came to work and gossiped about me, they wouldn't be considered a friend. This article seems to specifically mean Facebook friends so I guess my opinion isn't super relevant as I don't use Facebook.

</comment></comment><comment><USER21> I prefer to work for managers who recognize me as a person who can grow in the team. I get a lot of support because I foster a relationship that our combined success is important. Is this friendship? No. But it's worked out very well. We both have our own friends. However, I haven't ruled it out - we just aren't a good match (often there are gaps between us in life stage).

</comment><comment><USER22> I'm friends with some ex-managers as well as my ex-reports. I've hired reports to new companies when I moved before. I still talk to them over text/slack since our department dissolved in the recession. I was hoping I'd be in a position to hire them all at a new place by now, but it hasn't worked out.

</comment><comment><USER23> My current manager was a peer until we decided to combine teams and for me to back to more of an IC role.

It's been weird for me ever since. Not friends. In fact, sometimes I've felt he's had the exact opposite of my interest at heart.

</comment><comment><USER24> Yes, I consider myself friends with my manager.

I also consider myself friends with 2 of my 5 direct reports.

These are people that I've known for half a decade or more, though. Also, I think the manager aspect came after the friendship aspect in most cases.

</comment><comment><USER25> I suppose you can't really answer that question for sure until you're fired. Do you still feel like friends? Then you are friends.

</comment><comment><USER26> I'm not friends with my boss, nor do I want to be.

I have a coworker who regularly chats with our boss on social media and it bothers me.

I feel like it's the road to nepotism.

<comment><USER10> And it is and it will will work in his favor

</comment></comment><comment><USER27> You cannot be truly friends with someone when there's an imbalance of power.

</comment><comment><USER28> I'm good friends while I'm getting raises.

</comment><comment><USER29> Your relationship should ideally be convivial, fun, mutually informative and beneficial for you both. You should be getting both guidance navigating your company's politics from your manager, and overall career growth by working on their team. Sometimes they won't be technically stronger than you, but in those cases they should be helping you grow in other ways (giving talks, mentoring others, taking on leadership tasks). In cases where they are technically more proficient you should be learning from them, perhaps not actively but at least they're pointing you in the right direction. During all this you're enjoying spending time working with this person professionally.

In return what you offer your manager is someone who's capable of doing work and becoming increasingly capable of working with less direction. Eventually you take ownership of initiatives. You should advocate for your team where appropriate, but never fanatically. You should be brave enough to speak up if you're worried about their course of action.

The main dynamic is this: In return for them helping you grow and navigate, you're trying your best to be someone who's self-sufficient, capable and someone they don't have to worry about.

There are a few things you should definitely not be doing. You shouldn't be spending too much time with them outside of work (an occasional happy hour or office event is a-ok). You shouldn't be getting drunk with them. You shouldn't be getting counseling or guidance on intensely personal issues like romantic relationships or personal life goals. Your relationship should pass a simple smell test: if you were to tell someone you were engaging in a behavior with your boss would they be shocked or surprised. If so it's probably not appropriate. Here's an example: "I eat lunch with my boss a few times a week." Seems fine to me. "I've eaten lunch with my boss every day for the last six months" Seems a bit off to me. Of course different people will have different limits-- it's up to you to set healthy boundaries that work for you.

Finally, when one of you moves on from the company, feel free to have any type of relationship you want with the manager. You're both now two independent people. I would still overall caution from becoming too intimate with them, but it's your life and you should trust yourself to steward it correctly. The reason I caution is that it's because you really don't know this person on a deeper level, and you might be surprised with what you find out. Most likely you'll maintain some professional friendship, perhaps even help each other out for several years, but after that lose touch. Ideally, you'll always look back on working with this person as a time of great fun, enjoyment and growth.

</comment><comment><USER30> A manager who is your friend is either a bad manager or a bad friend. One day he will have to decide between you and his own managers interests.

<comment><USER31> This really gravely misunderstands how teams are formed in a lot of growing companies.

5 new engineers start fresh out of college. They work directly under some VP of engineering. They become friends, as young people of like interests who work together every day are wont to do.

The company grows! Now you need to organize into an actual team. So someone becomes a team lead, and others stay ICs.

Do they now divorce themselves of friendship, since one is a manager and the others are not? No, that's stupid. They are friends where one is a manager.

Source: myself, and hundreds of thousands of other people who have been friends with their manager.

<comment><USER10> And the friends get benefits, that's life as much as people here don't want to admit it, life ain't fair that way.</comment></comment></comment>


How to square roots of numbers that aren't perfect squares without a calculator - <AUTHOR> http://gkurl.us/nixim

<comment><USER2> Hey, it's stupid-math-tricks back with a different scheme - hiding behind a URL shortener! Persistent, aren't you.</comment>


Missing Canadian man found 10k km from home in the Amazon jungle - <AUTHOR> http://www.nzherald.co.nz/world/news/article.cfm?c_id=2&objectid=11797657 <comment><USER2> While doing that journey on foot is no small feat, the most impressive is the fact that (to the best of my understanding) he crossed Darien Gap[1] on foot.

[1] [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dari%C3%A9n_Gap](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dari%C3%A9n_Gap)

<comment> happy-go-lucky The World's Most Dangerous Journey: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6Nv5QWTZyDw](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6Nv5QWTZyDw)

</comment></comment><comment> happy-go-lucky > "I've never felt alone,' he said. "It's been a lot of thinking for years, > sleeping in the open. It's very simple to live, we do not need many things."

I'm getting this positive feeling that nature must have cured him off schizophrenia.

<comment><USER3> Really? What about that quote indicates an absence of schizophrenia to you?

<comment><USER4> "If a tree falls in a forest and no one is around to hear it, does it make a sound?"

"If a person lives in a forest and no one is around to label them as a 'schizophrenic', can that person be claimed to have a disorder?"

When you're alone, you can't be compared against society's bullshit definition of "normal". You are just you. Imagine how freeing that is, to extract oneself from the judging glare and arbitrary definitions of your peers who think themselves better than you.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Perhaps he was looking for an entryway to "The Library of Babel" to find the "The Man of the Book".

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

My first thought that his obession was somehow conencted to Borges. Borges being the former director of the National Public Library of Argentina.

This mans story has Borgesque qualities to it in itself.

</comment><comment><USER6> is it possible for someone to walk that much distance while being malnourished? the article said that he scraped berries and remnants of food in trash, but 4-5 years like that? the article also mentions that he walked most of it, only occasionally getting a ride as a stowaway. this guy must have had incredible health, walking barefoot, without major sickness (infection, virus, etc), no money, no food, hardly any shelter, in shorts. i imagine the fact that he was in and around warm climate areas helped, he would not have survived if he went north or east.

<comment><USER7> Over 5 years - its less then 6km a day average.

<comment><USER8> 6 through untouched land is nothing like 6km on a paved road.

<comment><USER9> The majority of the 10k miles would have been on roads though, and although he may have spent the majority of the _time_ on foot, a significant chunk of the distance may have been in/on vehicles.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Guy walks across two continents to go to the library only to realize once he gets there that he forgot his wallet.

</comment><comment><USER11> I wonder how this started. It said his goal was to visit a library in Argentina. Is that what he wanted to do when he left, or did he pick that up on the way?

I know I've gone out for a drive or a walk to clear my head and found myself 90 minutes from home. Maybe this guy took it to a whole new level

<comment><USER9> I certainly don't know, but the implication seems to be that due to his schizophrenia, he became fixated on that destination, likely ascribing some importance to it that would not have otherwise been rational.

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> This is originally from the Daily Mail it seems? Who knows the level of fact then.

<comment><USER13> Looks like the original article may be from here? [http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/toronto/anton-pilipa- found-1.3...](http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/toronto/anton-pilipa- found-1.3968958)

CBC date is: Feb 07, 2017 15:31 ET

Daily Mail: Feb 08, 2017 16:38 ET

<comment><USER8> This post should r updated to link to the CBC post. The DailyMail is unreliable to the point that it is banned from being used as a citation from Wikipedia: [https://www.google.com/amp/s/amp.cnn.com/money/2017/02/09/me...](https://www.google.com/amp/s/amp.cnn.com/money/2017/02/09/media/wikipedia- the-daily-mail/index.html)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> >>police reached out on Twitter

Sigh! four-tops-itis reaches New Zealand

</comment><comment><USER15> Another Christopher Mccandless, it would seem.

</comment><comment><USER16> I think I will be really heartbroken if I later learn this story to be fake or made up! Simply incredible.

</comment><comment><USER17> how was he able to cross so many borders without any ID?

<comment><USER18> About 10 years ago I knew another Canadian who crossed China-Laos-Thailand- Malaysia without a valid passport or visa (or pretty much any money whatsoever). This was after about 3-4 years in China with an expired visa. When you consider how short the Thai/Malay land border is in particular, if it's possible there, then it would appear that most borders are not very well controlled. This accords with my own experience visiting land borders in remote areas and speaking to local inhabitants (mostly China-Burma-Laos- Vietnam but also Algeria-Tunisia). Allegedly he turned himself in at the Canadian consulate and was flown home.

<comment><USER19> I am curious, do you mean he by some means simply managed to get border control to let him pass through, or he crossed the border without being controlled? E.g. crossing through sparsely populated areas / nature?

<comment><USER18> Crossed the border without being controlled.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Mental illnesses are as real as physical illnesses. While we have a long way to go in understanding and treating them (as we do with understanding of the brain and the body in general), most people suffering from mental illness can still benefit significantly from proper diagnosis and treatment. Writing off mental illness (or at least schizophrenia) as bullshit, as you appear to be doing, doesn't help anyone.

<comment><USER4> >> we have a long way to go in understanding and treating them

Who is this "we" at the beginning of your sentence, and who is the "them" at the end? Are "we" and "them" the same collective, subjecting themselves to their own analysis? Or is the "we" the collective of those who are apparently _not_ mentally ill, with "them" being the group being targeted for labelling? If the latter, what is your justification for assessing a group of people you do not belong to? Your own _manmade "science"_, with no basis in factual laws of nature required?

What is mental illness, as defined by our society? It's being affected by an "abnormal" state of mind, as proclaimed by those who self-label themselves as _not_ being affected. For the most part, "being mentally ill" is simply "being different". At its very core, every mental illness requires a second individual to "diagnose" the first.

Aside: I believe that "mental illness" is born in an individual by having been forced to cohabitate in tight quarters with millions of individuals they have no personal relationship with and who don't give a damn about them, while having no choice but to slave away at a job they despise, performing menial tasks that feed corporate greed while not providing a single meaningful contribution to their community... and for what purpose? To perpetuate the meaningless existence we have _created_ for ourselves? Society did _not_ have to work out this way, but somehow this is where we have ended up. It's depressing beyond belief, and it's no wonder so many people are fucked up.

<comment><USER20> > Who is this "we" at the beginning of your sentence, and who is the "them" at > the end?

Read more carefully. "We" is all of mankind, and "them" is mental illnesses.

> It's being affected by an "abnormal" state of mind, as proclaimed by those > who self-label themselves as not being affected. For the most part, "being > mentally ill" is simply "being different". At its very core, every mental > illness requires a second individual to "diagnose" the first.

No. Not all things are subject to relativism. If you believe you're indestructible and do something that gets you hurt or killed, then your cognitive functions have objectively malfunctioned. It doesn't matter if you realize it or not.

> I believe that "mental illness" is born in an individual by having been > forced to cohabitate in tight quarters with millions of individuals they > have no personal relationship with and who don't give a damn about them

What about, say, some European monarchs who went crazy due to generations of inbreeding?

<comment><USER4> >> Read more carefully. "We" is all of mankind, and "them" is mental illnesses.

You're likely right about the parent's intention. It's somewhat ambiguous with their sentence structure as that second sentence reads fine without the first, with the "them" referring to the "most people" after the comma. Upon second reading, I can see it makes more sense for "them" to refer to the previous sentence's "mental illnesses". There should have been a semicolon between and some restructuring. :)

However, I am still not satisfied with that distinction. The "we", even without an intentionally spliced "them", is still being used to try and say "we as a whole", when the reality of the statement is "we as a subset of the whole". Specifically because almost no "mentally ill" person will self- identify as such without having been subjected to years of subjugation to do so. Please find me the group of people, with a statistically significant size, who are both mentally ill and working to define the term "mental illness". They will be few and far between.

This reminds me so much of Jane Elliott's lifetime spent trying to teach people who claim not to be racist that they are in fact flat out racist. It's not a perfect analogy, but the root of the problem is very similar.

<comment><USER20> I don't get your point. Cats also don't refer to themselves as cats, and yet they're still cats. They're cats even if there's no one around to call them cats.

Also, this:

> the mentally ill only wind up labelling themselves as that after years of > pressure into conforming to that label by those around them

is not true. For example, a chronic depressive is perfectly capable of seeing that something is wrong with them, because their illness doesn't impair their cognition.

<comment><USER4> With chronic depressives believing "something is wrong with them", why do you think they believe so? Because they are _innately_ aware of that fact, or is it nothing more than a conditioned response? There is a __MASSIVE__ difference between "I know I'm not normal" and "Others say I'm not normal, ergo I must not be normal".

As for your analogy regarding cats... give me a break. Cats see you solely as a giver of food and oft unwanted affection. That doesn't mean that's all you are. Or... maybe that's exactly all you are, a dumb moving object whose only purpose is to dispense food. Perspective is everything.

<comment><USER20> > As for chronic depressives believing "something is wrong with them", why do > you think they believe so? Because they are innately aware of that fact, or > is it nothing more than a conditioned response? There is a __MASSIVE__ > difference between "I know I'm not normal" and "Others say I'm not normal, > ergo I must not be normal".

Just so we're clear, you're asking why I said something I didn't say. What I said was that a chronic depressive is _capable_ of being aware of their illness, not necessarily that they _are_ aware.

With that out of the way, let's consider a hypothetical conversation between a depressive A and two healthy people B and C.

A: Man, it's really difficult to get out of bed every morning, isn't it?

B: Yeah, getting up early is tough.

A: I don't mean just that, I mean just getting motivated to even get up.

C: Uh, not really. There's stuff that needs to get done.

A: So you don't have any problems getting motivated to get up?

C: Not generally, no.

B: Yeah, me neither.

A: Next you're gonna tell me that you've never considered killing yourselves.

B and C: No, never.

A: Huh. Must be just me, then.

Likewise, a colorblind person can realize that other people are experiencing light differently without being directly told.

> As for your analogy regarding cats... give me a break. Cats see you solely > as a giver of food and oft unwanted affection. That doesn't mean that's all > you are. Or... maybe that's exactly all you are, a dumb moving object whose > only purpose is to dispense food. Perspective is everything.

That analogy was in response to your point that "no mentally ill person calls themselves that". Now you're changing the subject to how other people view mentally ill people.

But anyway, basically your only argument is that reality is subjective, and there's no way to judge whose delusion is the illness, and that's BS. If you believe that the world is ruled an all-powerful Jesuit organization when there's no reason to believe this, and this belief causes you to endanger yourself or others, then that's an illness. The criterion is based on the effects of the belief, not on the belief itself.

<comment><USER4> >> capable of being aware of their illness, not necessarily that they are aware

Now you're splitting hairs to try and prove that your perspective is superior to that of those you're labelling. This is exactly the characterization of someone who is being (perhaps ignorantly) oppressive. In such a situation, one has no business trying to argue that they have a bloody clue talking about a subject matter that does not _directly_ affect them; and no, having a friend or family member who is "affected" is not "direct". You cannot claim to understand racism simply because you are a white person who happens to have a black friend.

>> let's consider a hypothetical conversation between a depressive A and two healthy people B and C

That whole discussion is one-sided. You're assuming that a majority consensus from B and C completely nullifies the possibility that A's perspective is _valid and normal_. The very fact that the word "normal" is used to indicate a majority consensus against the behaviour of a minority stinks of exclusivity and is outrageously abhorrent. 1,000 people saying that "situation A is normal" does not mean that 3 people saying "situation B is normal for me" is somehow abnormal. They are _both_ normal scenarios, each having a different section of the pie chart. Who the fuck is so high and mighty as to decide that Slice B of the pie is not normal because Slice A is larger? When the sophistication of the statistical analysis you are using to generate your world view requires a grade 5 level of mathematical comprehension, you're using the most selfish of non-analytical thinking to justify your personal bias.

>> Now you're changing the subject to how other people view mentally ill people

Exactly. Those who label themselves as "non mentally ill" have no valid perspective of what it means to be "mentally ill". Seeing oneself as "normal" while comparing oneself against others who "must clearly _not_ be normal because I say so" is the entire problem. You have no frame of reference, because you can't put yourself in their shoes - end of discussion.

<comment><USER20> > This is exactly the characterization of someone who is being (perhaps > ignorantly) oppressive. In such a situation, one has no business trying to > argue that they have a bloody clue talking about a subject matter that does > not directly affect them

> Those who label themselves as "non mentally ill" have no valid perspective > of what it means to be "mentally ill".

This is what I call an argument from experience. "You've never experienced it yourself, so you have no business discussing it." This is equivalent to saying that someone who's never ridden a plane can't be an aeronautical engineer. How about something a bit more compelling?

Look, you're the only one since tempestn's comment (inclusive) that's used the words "normal" and "abnormal". If you want to argue that the pattern of emotions experienced by a depressive is normal, or that a delusion is normal, then that's fine. I don't agree but I don't particularly care either way. But are you at least capable of seeing that a depressive who neglects their responsibilities, or even kills themselves, has an _illness_? That if someone has a delusion that causes them to murder someone, then that delusion is an _illness_? Or are you going to argue that murder and suicide are good things?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> He forgot to return that book.</comment>


A Closer Look At The Christmas Eve Outage - <AUTHOR> http://techblog.netflix.com/2012/12/a-closer-look-at-christmas-eve-outage.html

<comment><USER2> Currently in a battle with management about whether to launch on AWS or not. They want to, engineers don't. Engineers are largely driven by raw CPU performance. Management, well, they seem to be thinking "no one ever gets fired for picking..."

Anyways, when you read all the effort Netflix has put into their cloud architecture (1) and the hiccups they (and others) have...I just don't know what hope our small team of 5 has of success. It seems like, to succeed on the cloud, you really need to build your app specifically for it (which we haven't done!)

1 - [http://techblog.netflix.com/2010/12/5-lessons-weve- learned-u...](http://techblog.netflix.com/2010/12/5-lessons-weve-learned- using-aws.html)

<comment><USER3> "engineers don't. Engineers are largely driven by raw CPU performance"

There are several reasons to not use AWS. CPU is _not_ one of them. Especially when you have the choice EC2 offers (though at a price)

But unless you're doing something _very, very_ CPU intensive (like doing heavy math like CFD, integer programming, etc) this is irrelevant. My bet is that you aren't.

<comment><USER2> I know I was vague, but we really are CPU-bound. We do some fairly heavy set and bitwise operations. Our smallest unit of work is about 3x-5x slower on AWS (while costing about 4x more than alternatives). This can't be further parallelized without a rewrite. The problem is compounded by the negative impact this has on concurrency - which _can_ be solved by adding more machines, but that just makes AWS that much more expensive.

A different, less important system, does image manipulation. This is also very CPU-sensitive.

<comment><USER3> Interesting

Maybe I need to rephrase what I said: AWS instances are very bad at CPU, but the flexibility to add more instances and different instance types can compensate for that

Yes, maybe you can try Linode or Rackspace to compare their CPU performance

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Chaos Monkey fights back :-) I wonder if there is a way for the CM team to do ELB outages. At some point you entertain the idea that Amazon goes offline but probabilistically is that similar to a 9.0 magnitude quake _and_ a 30M tsunami on the same day?

<comment><USER5> Correct. Probabilistically, I'd say it's the same as long as that earthquake is under the ocean. Yeah you'll get 30M tsunami with a 9.0mag earthquake (most likely, I'm no geologist).

So yeah, AWS going down should be something _every_ company that runs its services on AWS including providers like Heroku should take into account as far as their architecture goes. It's not a matter of if, it's a matter of when. You _will_ have downtime.

Period.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> Why is CPU performance on EC2 so terrible compared to dedicated servers?

</comment><comment><USER5> "The Netflix Web site remained up throughout the incident, supporting sign up of new customers and streaming to Macs and PCs, although at times with higher latency and a likelihood of needing to retry. Over-all streaming playback via Macs and PCs was only slightly reduced from normal levels."

This is simply false. I tried Netflix streaming on both my Macs and my Roku and neither worked. The site may have been up, but the streaming was down for Macs (and any computers in general I assume), not just TV boxes like Roku.

<comment><USER7> <http://dvd.netflix.com/> is down right now and has been every time I've checked today. "We're Sorry

The Netflix site is temporarily unavailable. Our engineers are working hard to bring the site back up as quickly as possible."

Of course it's not a priority over the streaming portion I'm sure for obvious reasons.

<comment><USER8> It's up for me for at least a little while now, but I think it was down for me all afternoon (Eastern timezone). This supposedly only impacted "some" of the DVD customers. [http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-12-31/netflix-says- some-c...](http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-12-31/netflix-says-some- customers-can-t-access-dvd-portion-of-website.html?cmpid=yhoo)</comment></comment></comment>


Google Chrome and Mozilla Firefox are bringing back the browser wars - <AUTHOR> https://venturebeat.com/2018/01/26/probeat-google-chrome-and-mozilla-firefox-are-bringing-back-the-browser-wars/ <comment><USER2> > _Google is doubling down on the user experience by focusing on ads and > performance, an opportunity I've argued its competitors have completely > missed._

I don't agree they've missed the opportunity. Both Brave and Firefox have made the point that their built-in tracking protection can improve the user experience by cutting page load times in half:

[https://blog.mozilla.org/firefox/tracking-protection- always-...](https://blog.mozilla.org/firefox/tracking-protection-always-on/)

And this is something the article author himself reported on in 2015:

[https://venturebeat.com/2015/05/24/firefoxs-optional- trackin...](https://venturebeat.com/2015/05/24/firefoxs-optional-tracking- protection-reduces-load-time-for-top-news-sites-by-44/)

Additionally, even with the change to WebExtensions, Firefox's add-on API offers more capability to developers of blocker add-ons than Chrome does. Giorgio Maone, the developer of NoScript, considers Firefox's add-ons API to be the best of any current browser:

[https://hackademix.net/2017/11/21/noscript-1011-quantum- powe...](https://hackademix.net/2017/11/21/noscript-1011-quantum-powerball- finish-and-rebooting/)

<comment><USER3> The ideal future of web browser evolution in my view:

\- Brave overtakes chrome.

\- Blockstack overtakes Brave.

Eventually (I hope) users will demand full control over both their data and the content they view.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Firefox's market share has not increased recently. According to the data I can find, it is slightly down over the past several months. Chrome is still just over 60% on both desktop and mobile.

So, why would Google be worried about Firefox? If anything, they would be worried about Safari, which is the primary mobile competitor to Chrome and is being marketed on the desktop as having increased performance and strong privacy features.

<comment><USER5> Because Firefox is actually great now. I just switched back to Firefox as my primary browser. I suspect others will do as well.

<comment><USER6> Firefox is excellent when it works. I've experienced pretty long loading times for a bunch of websites. I have experienced these for sites like gmail, youtube, a bunch of blog sites and Udacity. I know this is a Firefox problem because, the load times didn't persist when I immediately switched to Chrome. This is not consistent though, and Firefox is fast and really light on memory usage which is nice, as long as I can see the page in the first place.

<comment><USER7> Well, at least two of the sites that you mention are Google property, so it's not certain that Firefox is at fault there, just because it works better in Chrome.

<comment><USER6> While I can make a choice between Chrome and Firefox, I'm not really going to stop browsing some websites just because I switched browsers.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Switched to Firefox after Google supported inclusion of DRM into w3c standard and never looked back. It turned out latest Firefox is pretty decent browser.

<comment><USER9> So, you support an open web except not for people who want to protect their content?

<comment><USER10> How exactly does DRM facilitate an open web for anybody, including content creators?

<comment><USER9> It lets content creators put their content on the web without fear of everybody ripping it off? Why don't you explain wow it prevents an open web for anyone at all?

Regardless of your answer, I'm _super_ glad that things didn't go the way that your crowd wanted them to. I got what I wanted and I'm so glad I can watch Netflix in my browser. :)

<comment><USER11> > It lets content creators put their content on the web without fear of > everybody ripping it off?

It doesn't prevent anything, I can still rip off the content if I want to. DRM was never affective at anything, other than making life harder for everyone. Show me a single DRM technology that hasn't already been defeated.

> Why don't you explain wow it prevents an open web for anyone at all?

If Netflix won't release their binary blob to your platform/browser you won't be able to access it. You are forced to run code made by an organisation that doesn't have your best interest in mind.

See: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sony_BMG_copy_protection_rootk...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sony_BMG_copy_protection_rootkit_scandal)

> I got what I wanted and I'm so glad I can watch Netflix in my browser. :)

You basically got Flash, that's what you got. :D

<comment><USER9> > It doesn't prevent anything, I can still rip off the content if I want to.

So, you should throw away the lock on your front door and your car too because anyone can break into those just as easily.

> If Netflix won't release their binary blob to your platform/browser you > won't be able to access it.

I don't care about that at all.

> You basically got Flash, that's what you got. :D

What I got is the movie companies and the streaming companies sending me their content. If they want me to run the equivalent of Flash, that's fine with me.

A toddler would basically agree with my argument. Some big content creators want your web browser to be able to do certain things that _you personally_ don't want them to be able to do. By not allowing them to do things the way they want, you're closing the web off to them.

Nobody is stopping you (or anyone else) from creating content and using non- DRM distribution. So you're actually arguing for a closed web, not me.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> This is original browser war Netscape vs Microsoft and honestly, I don't see nothing like that today: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qEFu-B1wj1E](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qEFu-B1wj1E)

</comment><comment><USER13> I tried to switch to Firefox recently but couldn't do it. Here are my main issues with Firefox:

\- not all settings get synced across devices \- All extensions are enabled in private mode without any way to turn it off. I like to sign in to another account in private mode without having my password manager auto-fill my accounts information.

</comment><comment><USER14> As is the Beaker Browser! Next release coming in February.

<comment><USER15> yes, was about to mention this one :)

decentralized! (but based on Chromium, no?)

[https://beakerbrowser.com/](https://beakerbrowser.com/)

<comment><USER14> Yep, chromium fork</comment></comment></comment>


How We Built A Data Center With Commodity Hardware And FOSS - <AUTHOR> http://www.searchenabler.com/blog/build-your-own-data-center/ <comment><USER2> Looks a bit shonky to me, but if it works, good for you.

I worked for a design agency back in about 2004 which had the same sort of infrastructure internally. They had a cheap desktop Exchange 2003 box, cheap desktop Fileserver, cheap desktop SQL + App server, cheap desktop mp3 server, big old DLT drive, SDSL router, switch, a KVM, cranky old monitor, keyboard, mouse, mounds of cable, a well underpowered UPS and a garfield all wedged under a couple of tables.

Some muppet knocked over a coffee cup and it spilled through the gap between the tables into the monitor causing a cascade failure and a small fire which melted pretty much everything under the table. It took the company out for 2 weeks until Dell could ship new kit in.

There is a reason to do it properly IMHO (and experience!)

<comment><AUTHOR> We will avoid coffee at our garage ;)

We tried to control cost by assembling stuff, using commodity hardware etc. But did not use low quality stuff. Our UPS is from Eaton, Server components are standard ones like Seagate, Intel, Router/Switches from Cisco, D-link.

<comment><USER2> In that case I withdraw my comment :)

Best of luck - sounds good.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> Commodity hardware _seems_ a good/cheap option - and I don't know, this might be fine for them.

I built a couple of racks for clustered decryption using commodity hardware; after a few months "burn in" the failure rate proved to be way higher than expected. Which, when you think about it, is logical - they are running 24/7 (compared to if you were using the hardware "normally").

After having to replace three servers inside a month we started to cycle into server hardware. This was a _lot_ more expensive up front, but is reliable and the failure rate is almost non-existent in comparison.

So; buyer beware.

Even so; it is good to see someone else hacking together their infrastructure :)

<comment><USER4> what components were you having issues with the most?

<comment><AUTHOR> SMPS and UPS batteries. I think as pointed in other comment, we need to have temperature & humidity control.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> The very first thing you should do if you want to bolt-together your own hardware out of commodity devices is invest in static control technology. This is often not understood by those without experience in electronics manufacturing. Static electricity can cause damage to components that will not surface for months. Because of the nature of the mechanism it is almost impossible to know that static was the culprit when a motherboard, memory or drive fail.

In our case, we, among other things, do a lot of hardware manufacturing (as in buy the chips and build our own boards). Because of this we invested in custom conductive flooring and everything else above the floor is also static-aware. For example, all rolling carts and shelves are wired with redundant contacts that touch the floor, thereby making a connection.

The above is an extreme for the occasional builder. At a minimum you should setup a working environment that has a conductive surface like an static- dissipative mat and wear a conductive wrist strap connected to the mat as well. There are also ionizers and other tools that would be good investments.

Handling components around server racks should never happen without regards for static electricity safety. The rack should be grounded and you should wear a conductive wrist strap connected to the rack.

I'll bet that a lot of failures in consumer/commodity builds are due to this very issue and not necessarily connected to bad or questionable components. If you buy components built by reputable manufacturers they will have been manufactured in tightly controlled environments already. Don't break the reliability chain by handling these components in uncontrolled environments.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks Martin for inputs. We got connected to hardware expert in Bangalore, who would be visiting our premise and helping us sort out some of the stuff you mentioned. Sharing really helps. If would not have put together this article, we would not have got so many inputs neither would have got people voluntarily approaching us to help :)

<comment><USER5> You need to think like an electron. Create conductive paths for static electricity everywhere you can. Tables, shelves, floors, racks, desks. The floor we have is specifically designed for clean rooms. As I understand it, it is epoxy mixed in with carbon to make it somewhat conductive. In order to install it they first clean and acid-wash the existing floor. They they scrape it to make it rough (to improve adhesion). Then they apply flat copper conductors crossing the room in various directions and generally ending near grounded wall outlets. Finally, they apply multiple coats of the conductive epoxy on top of the whole thing. The copper foil is longer than the width or length of the room. The excess is connected via a thick wire to the grounding circuit. The floor becomes the foundation upon which all else (in terms of static control) is built.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Reminds me of a "datacenter" me and some house-mates built in a basement when in uni.

We stuck the servers on top of a few pallets so they wouldn't be submerged in water when it rained. The power was fed from the living room above and the network cables pushed through gaps in the floor boards to all the bedrooms. The adsl router was nailed to the wall on the top floor above the beer fridge and ran smoothwall I think it was.

We even tried running a serial link for a monitoring terminal in the living room over standard audio cable .. it kinda worked .. and was called teethanet for some reason.

Overall it worked like a charm and I don't remember there ever being downtime .. even when there was a foot of water surrounding the servers.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for sharing xd. We had our share of problems initially, but now pretty stabilized with hardly any downtime.

<comment><USER6> What happens with your network when the power goes down in your area, do you lose connectivity to the outside world?

Also, I just realised that I may have come across as a bit patronising! That wasn't the intention, I was just relating to what can be done with a lack of resources and a bit of ingenuity :)

<comment><AUTHOR> We have Eaton online UPS, which as of now can provide 4 hours of power backup. We've also got 3KVA power generator which runs on fuel, used only in event when power failure is for longer durations and UPS batteries need to be re- charged. Pretty common here.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> The problems you will face are not obvious and immediate problems. For example, a year from now, a server might fail, and you find out that you can no longer obtain that specific model of motherboard or RAID card that was used in that server, so you have to replace the entire thing (purchase all new). Or, you find that a drive in your RAID array fails and you can no longer get a drive with the exact same model and disk geometry as the other disks in the RAID, so you are unable to rebuild the RAID and have to basically start from scratch.

The main reason why you should go with real server type components is the support lifetime. You can be fairly confident that you can get replacement parts be it CPU, memory, raid controller, motherboard, or disk drive, for at least 5 years after purchase. Otherwise you will find that when your components die, you will be completely unable to repair them due to lack of available parts.

Good luck to you, but I've been down this road before and if you cut corners in the beginning, it usually costs you more money to do it right later on.

<comment><AUTHOR> Our assumptions is we can recover cost of equipment within warranty period (Most of the components have 3 yrs warranty) Also, most of data redundancy is handled at software level, I feel thats the best usage of FOSS like Hadoop/Cassandra. We can avoid expensive high end hardware and build system with commodity hardware components and rely more on cloud technology. You might still be right, but hope things work out.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> My questions about the data center are what kind-of climate controls they're using (not listed in the article) and how they're making sure that the generator and UPS are always in good condition. At my previous job we were able to correlate many component failures to poor climate conditions (too hot, too cold, too little humidity, too much humidity).

I also recall back in college setting up a 110 node linux cluster. Before they upgraded the HVAC system in the server room the cluster generated so much heat you the power cables started to shows signs of heat damage (we had to shut the cluster down until the HVAC was beefed up).

I've also had a bunch UPS where the batteries fail, and need to be replaced periodically. I also wonder how that figures into the cost of their data center (it's an issue at a big data center as well).

<comment><AUTHOR> Ya, we faced battery failure problems. We are using standard cooling via Air conditioners. I think we will face more problems as we scale in this aspect, need to work out.

<comment><USER9> If you had wind and enough control of the building, you could funnel wind over water to cool, no power required. That was a method to make ice, a thousand years ago.

I love what you've done for so little cost.

<comment><AUTHOR> We don't have sufficient control as we are in rental premise. Superlike your suggestion :)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Most parts of India suffer power outage of more than 12 hours a day. I understand that you have UPS and power generators, but does it provide enough reliability to run your servers on it?

I have UPS and generator at home; the cost of running a power generator exceeds $1,000 a month but it is still not reliable.

Wouldn't servers at Hetzner cost cheaper and more reliable than hosting in your garage in India? You can get an i7 server with 16 GB RAM is for $60 and 32 GB for $72, and no hardware setup & maintenance cost.

[http://www.hetzner.de/en/hosting/produktmatrix/rootserver- pr...](http://www.hetzner.de/en/hosting/produktmatrix/rootserver- produktmatrix-ex)

<comment><AUTHOR> Ravish, we are based out of Bangalore and so far we never had 12 hours a day power outage. Max we have faced 4-5 hours of power outage for couple of occasions in summer. In general power outage is not more than an hour or two in a week, which is manageable with UPS & Generator combo.

From Hertzer pricing page, add 1Gbit port cost of 50$ a month, data transfer charges etc would make it much more expensive. Considering our usage, we felt private infra would be a better choice.

<comment><USER10> Do you have 1 Gbit leased line in Bangalore? How much is the data transfer cap and who is your ISP?

<comment><AUTHOR> There is no data transfer cap for ILLs. We use You & Tulip. 1Gb port i mentioned, as we need high speed communication across nodes. We use Cassandra, Hadoop so internal data transfer rate is very high. So for internal communication 100Mbps creates bottleneck, but definitely sufficient for external communication / bandwidth.

I commented from what i got from pricing page. Apart from basic server cost, there's always associated extension hardware/data/software cost which generally makes it much more expensive.

If you have more details on cloud setup using Hetzner and associated cost, we would be happy to explore.

<comment><USER11> Hetzner can set up a private gigabit vlan upon request[1]. They charge a one time setup cost for the switch (30 euros) and 15 euros/month/server. Internal and incoming traffic is free. With this setup, internal data transfer is at 1 Gbps while external transfer is at 100Mbps.

      [1] http://devblog.supportbee.com/2012/06/04/building-a-dependable-hosting-stack-using-hetzners-servers/

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> Interesting write-up, but I expect you will have some problems over time with this.

In my experience the computer failures are relatively easy to manage. Power will be your primary issue, and to a lesser degree, internet. When we ran a lot of servers on UPSs, the UPSs start to become a major pain. UPSs fail much more often than hard-drives. And when the battery dies it cuts off power to the computer. You're using low-end desktop machines, so you probably don't have dual PSUs in each machine (if you did you could run each PSU to a different UPS). UPSs are also much more likely to fail when the grid power fails. So the power goes out, your UPSs will kick in, then 30 seconds later one or TWO fail. Can your power distribution can handle that? I'm no UPS expert, but this seemed pretty common across a variety of UPS products.

As for internet, multiple links is a good start. Load-balancing outbound traffic is fairly straight-forward. Inbound traffic is much harder. Really you need BGP. A BGP-based set of links isn't cheap, and doing the configuration yourself is hard if you don't have experience with it. The alternatives that aren't IP routing based are usually based on DNS, which is better than nothing. But the effectiveness of it is dependent on how your users servers/clients/browsers implement DNS caching. It will work OK for some users but some will cache the stale link IP for 24 hours -- not cool.

You certainly can work this way, and probably get three nines of uptime. But I can say now that we switched to a decent colo I sleep a lot better. We can focus more on building product, adding value for our customers, than screwing around with the utilities.

FWIW I'm basing this off of my experience in the United States.

</comment><comment><USER13> Could Co-Location/Dedicated servers not give the same benefits with regard to costs? The cloud was not designed for continuous predictable workloads (although people use it for that purpose).

</comment><comment><USER14> Perhaps good idea to use something like [http://www.amazon.com/HP-658553-001-ProLiant-Server- System/d...](http://www.amazon.com/HP-658553-001-ProLiant-Server- System/dp/B005KKJPCO/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1341589314&sr=8-1&keywords=hp+mini+server)?

<comment><USER15> It's small, it's a server, it's cheap, but it's also terribly underpowered. Any desktop i3 CPU is three times as fast. It doesn't support more than 8GB of RAM or more than 4 thin (LFF) HDDs, so you cannot use it as a storage device or RAM database.

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> How does this compare with colo? Did you compare costs and benefits?

Edit: Never mind, I just realised colo won't work for you because they'd probably expect servers that fit correctly in their racks and your computer cabinets probably won't.

</comment><comment><USER17> I wonder if this is more efficient. We rent hardware including power and connectivity for about the same as they monthly pay. But we had no upfront investment, and no hardware to mess around with (which saves time).

</comment><comment><USER18> Good example of "Jugaad" :)

<comment><USER19> Interesting! I wasn't aware of that concept, but Wikipedia has a page on it:

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jugaad>

I only know the word from Sikh prayers in the sacred language of Gurmukhi. For instance, it's part of the Mul Mantra, in which it means "throughout the ages". As I'm not well versed in Punjabi or Hindi, I didn't know it had other meanings.

<comment><USER18> Hindi word 'Jugaad' means finding a work around and less costly way of doing things. It mostly comes in form of sharing/saving/using a resource wisely. e.g. In India, Missed call does not charge anything to the caller. So it is often used as a way to indicate something or signal some event. For example, asking a friend to give you a missed call when they reach home. Some pics about Jugaad here: [http://www.quora.com/India/What-are-your-thoughts-on-how- the...](http://www.quora.com/India/What-are-your-thoughts-on-how-the-concept- of-Jugaad-is-practiced-by-todays-youth-of-Indian-metro-cities)</comment></comment></comment>


Dumb Things Finance People Say - <AUTHOR> http://www.businessinsider.com/29-dumb-things-finance-people-say-2013-11

<comment><USER2> '3\. "Earnings missed estimates." No. Earnings don't miss estimates; estimates miss earnings. No one ever says "the weather missed estimates." They blame the weatherman for getting it wrong. Finance is the only industry where people blame their poor forecasting skills on reality.'

I reckon the software industry could give that last claim a run for its money. Ignoring incompetence, sometimes there simply isn't an elegant solution that fits time, budget, stability and technical debt constraints, yet it's somehow not an estimate issue.</comment>


Heartbleed hack case sees first arrest in Canada - <AUTHOR> http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-27058143 <comment><USER2> _> >"I hope the actions of hijacking Justine's account help draw attention to how big a deal this is," the hacker wrote on the social network. "I suspect a lot of people would not have taken it seriously otherwise. Be thankful that the person who got access to the server information was kind enough to let you all know (and at least try and be funny with it) instead of simply sitting on the information."_

It's not clear to me that the hacker was malicious.

That said, governments are __not__ hacker-friendly like Google, Facebook, Twitter, etc. Never hack the government thinking you're doing them a favor, they will never see it that way. You will be arrested.

</comment><comment><USER3> Direct link to the CRA response [http://www.cra- arc.gc.ca/gncy/sttmnt2-eng.html](http://www.cra- arc.gc.ca/gncy/sttmnt2-eng.html)

"Regrettably, the CRA has been notified by the Government of Canada's lead security agencies of a malicious breach of taxpayer data that occurred over a six-hour period."

That seems to be implying that another government agency (RCMP? CSEC?) monitors at least the CRA network and does some kind of deep packet inspection and/or packet logging. So are they logging every packet that gets sent to the CRA network? Or did they know about it beforehand and could detect it in real time with an IDS?

<comment><USER4> Also mentioned in that link is Shared Services Canada, which appears to be a division that's tasked with bringing the various departments' IT infrastructures under a single umbrella. From their website ([http://www.ssc- spc.gc.ca/index-eng.html](http://www.ssc-spc.gc.ca/index-eng.html)):

"Shared Services Canada was created on August 4, 2011 to fundamentally transform how the Government manages its information technology (IT) infrastructure. Its mandate for the provision of enterprise-wide IT- infrastructure services represents better value for money and a more reliable IT infrastructure to support modern government operations."

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> "Hey, I didn't know it was a crime to miscount the length of a string [by several thousands]." -> Not recommended as legal defense

</comment><comment> at-fates-hands Interesting the difference between this article and other articles reporting on more recent hacks. Those articles always point out how much jail time the hacker is facing.

I suspect the Canadian authorities aren't as ruthless with their computer crime laws as the prosecutors are here, but you never know. Any idea what the kid is facing in terms of punishment??

<comment><USER6> "Unauthorized Use of Computer" is maximum 10 years in prison in Canada, which is pretty much equivalent to American law. The additional mischief charge will probably get dropped.

[https://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Canadian_Criminal_Law/Offences...](https://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Canadian_Criminal_Law/Offences/Unauthorized_Use_of_Computer)

> is guilty of an indictable offence and liable to imprisonment for a term not > exceeding ten years, or is guilty of an offence punishable on summary > conviction.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> Googled his name and found his Github profile:

[https://github.com/Stephsolis](https://github.com/Stephsolis)

He mentions a school assignment for "CS2212" which means he is likely a CS student at Western University in Canada.

<comment><USER7> Why not let him choose to publicize his defense or have a trial first?

Edit: parent comment was edited after I posted this.

<comment><USER6> No part of my comment accused him of being guilty. His name is on every news site around the world.

I found the fact he is a CS student relevant to the news article. As is the fact he has a git repo where he coded a Java crypto library, when he's being accused of exploiting a crypto library.

<comment><USER7> I didn't accuse you of accusing him of being guilty.

There will be plenty of time to rummage through his life, internet and not, no need to rush into it.

"Person accused of hacking good with computers, uses them" isn't exactly a revelation.

<comment><USER8> >Their will be plenty of time to rummage through his life, internet and not, no need to rush into it.

If find that those type of comments, event if well intended, in the end they are not helpful. First because dmix wasn't "rummaging through his life" but pointing out public facts related to his abilities has a coder.

Second because I wonder when will be the time to discuss this? Once nobody talk about it anymore and it becomes completely irrelevant and forgotten? Now is the exact time to discuss this.

<comment><USER7> There is little need for the internet at large to discuss anything about this teenager.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> A lawyer I consulted with is defending him, making him out to be the victim by the RCMP. Seems like a tactic to distract people from what he actually did. [http://www.lfpress.com/2014/04/16/london-teen-charged-in- hea...](http://www.lfpress.com/2014/04/16/london-teen-charged-in-heartbleed- breach-of-taxpayer-data)

Of course he's from my town, and of course he's taking computer science. This was my first instinct when I heard of the case, that it was some kid thinking he was safe behind his computer screen. I only say this because I seen it A LOT in this town while going to school.

</comment><comment><USER10> Google is one of the company which is affected very badly by HeartBleed bug, Almost all the services like YouTube, Gmail by Google are affected. Amazon, Yahoo! are also in the same list. We just need give attention to Apple & Microsoft who are not affected by Heartbleed. Check out detail list which shows list of company who are affected or not by this issue. [http://www.dazeinfo.com/2014/04/17/google-inc-goog-worst- aff...](http://www.dazeinfo.com/2014/04/17/google-inc-goog-worst-affected- heartbleed-bug-change-passwords-prevent-data-theft/)

</comment><comment><USER11> Sounds like someone forgot to use Tor.

<comment><USER12> Probably relying on the claim by some that it was completely undetectable unless you have full packet capture which for the CRA is pretty much a guarantee.

<comment><USER13> ...or that sysadmins are used to script kids the day a glitch comes out. (Hopefully)</comment></comment></comment>


How El Chapo Was Finally Captured, Again - <AUTHOR> http://www.nytimes.com/2016/01/17/world/americas/mexico-el-chapo-sinaloa-sean-penn.html <comment><USER2> A somewhat serious question: Why didn't they just shoot him?

<comment><USER3> Because the Americans want him, most likely for information he probably won't give up.

The Mexican gov't can use this for leverage to get something from the US gov't.</comment></comment>


Shariff: Social media sharing buttons without compromising privacy - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/heiseonline/shariff <comment><AUTHOR> This project is maintained by the german tech publisher heise. There is a demo on [https://heiseonline.github.io/shariff/](https://heiseonline.github.io/shariff/). It is possible to run a shariff-backend to let the buttons show share counts (normally that is self-hosted, but I'm running one for all serendipity blogs). And there are several plugins to easily integrate that into engines like Drupal, Serendipity and Wordpress.

In my experience it works very well. This is a re-submit after it was not shown here for a long time, and I got asked in the sharebutton.io comments ([https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12209595](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12209595)) to provide an alternative discussion thread.

<comment><USER2> Thanks for sharing! The strong backend makes it worthwhile.</comment></comment>


Pokemon Creator Draws Creativity from Autism (2011) - <AUTHOR> http://www.autismkey.com/pokeman-creator-draws-creativity-from-autism/ <comment><AUTHOR> "Sparked by his lost love of insects, [Satoshi Tajiri] wanted to reawaken an awareness of nature in urbanized youth. Gameboy seemed the perfect medium. The communication aspect of Game Boy profoundly touched Mr. Tajiri and the fact that it had a communication cable lead him to realize that actual living organisms could move back and forth across the cable. At that time, the cable was only used for players to compete against one another, but he wanted to design a game that also involved interactive communication. He envisioned the competitive aspect of Pokemon as being ritualistic and respectful, like two Karate champions or sumo wrestlers."</comment>


People don't understand how segmentation works - <AUTHOR> http://productpeople.tv/2013/01/02/sacha-greif-part1/

<comment><AUTHOR> Sacha Greif recently shared his thoughts on pricing ebooks in this podcast interview.

There have been a few high-profile designers and developers releasing ebooks, and ebook packages (PDF + videos + resources). The most recent example was Nathan Barry who had 4 packages: $39, $99, $249, $999 <http://nathanbarry.com/webapps/>

When asked about the criticism Nathan received about his pricing strategy, Sacha had this to say:

"People don't understand how segmentation works. If you want to buy a car, you could buy a Ferrari or a Honda. You know those two cars are for different audiences. No one complains about the price of Ferraris; people understand that they are expensive. It's the same with ebooks; just like you can buy a cheap car or expensive car, you can buy a cheap [ebook] package or expensive package. If you think the expensive package is too expensive, it just means you are not the target audience. People think it's crazy that Nathan Barry is charging $200 for his ebook package; but they're not the target audience. He doesn't want you [the individual] to pay that; but rather the office manager at the big company, who isn't spending his own money."</comment>


I suck at web design, so I made a contest to design rubycommitters.org.  - <AUTHOR> http://tenderlovemaking.com/2011/01/04/rubycommitters-org-design-contest/

<comment><USER2> <http://www.no-spec.com/>

EDIT: Actually, I feel a bit bad for posting this - still, I do believe that spec-work isn't good for designers. Competitions aren't necessarily the most productive way to go about creating a new web design for an open source project.

<comment><USER3> Why do you feel bad?

One of the biggest common gripes here is the non-technical partner who "just needs a programmer" to get the project off the ground. Everyone bashes those types, yet this exact thing, except for exploiting designers, is on the front page. There'd be a riot if some marketer came on this board looking for a programmer, cheap.

<comment><USER4> Developers do speculative work for clients all the time. So, for that matter, do software security people, and the dollar value of an hour of software security work dwarfs both web devs and designers. But don't feel bad, because lawyers also do work on spec, and their bill rates crush ours.

Designers need to stop acting like some kind of special priesthood. Yes, people try to take advantage of them, just like they try to take advantage of everyone else. The answer isn't to brand every contest, audition, or consult project as immoral and exploitative.

<comment><USER5> As a programmer who founded a Digital Advertising and Design group this past year with a very talented designer, you couldn't be more wrong.

As a programmer, I have much more leverage when selling my services over that of a designer. There are a lot more "designers" out there than there are "programmers" and people use that to their advantage.

The fact is, you can go with cheap design because "it works" for most people (that's not to say it sells). However, with a cheap programmer there are a lot of the times that the code doesn't even work. That's the difference, and IT IS exploited.

Edit: That's not to say a designer shouldn't come along and contribute to this - I`m merely defending no-spec, which I agree with. You can design for free, but don't do it with the anticipation that you will earn a living from winning the spec contest, do it because you want to support the project. This is much like a programmer would commit to an open source project.

<comment><USER4> I think you're overstating your case. _So far_ , you haven't been put in a position where you had to deliver functional code of some form to win a bid for a project. Give it time.

If you're doing so well right now that you wouldn't even contemplate going out of your way to win a particular client, congratulations. I understand that's not an uncommon position for dev firms to find themselves in in 2010-2011. Just understand that the pickier you get about who you want your clients to be, the more work it will take to acquire those clients.

<comment> tomh- Just out of interest, what kind of functional code for what kind of projects? I imagine we are talking fortune 500 clients here?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> There were supposed to be hearts in the title, but I guess they got stripped out, so here are some hearts:

<3<3<3<3<3

<comment><USER6> O/\O Have a high five, well played sir.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> I felt like helping out, so here's my entry: <http://karrisaarinen.com/rubyc/>

Tried to bring the minimalistic Japanese feel to it, like Ruby is.

(The signature on the upper corner is only for the heroku preview. I wanted to sign it for the competition, but didn't want to write my name anywhere on the site)

</comment><comment><USER8> Why not just buy a nice theme on <http://themeforest.net> or any of the other template websites and modify it slightly?

</comment><comment><USER9> The place you'll want to fork to get to work: <https://github.com/tenderlove/rubycommitters.org>

I am constantly blown away by how overly complicated rails is for getting a simple site set up. It almost seems like this site would be better as just plain html (or a simple sinatra site...). But oh well, I digress, sounds like fun.

<comment><USER10> A static site generator like <http://nanoc.stoneship.org/> would work too.

<comment><USER11> Or even better, Jekyll, which is the tool that powers GitHub Pages: <http://pages.github.com/>.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> Am I the only one who briefly paused before clicking on that link at work?

<comment><AUTHOR> I like to think that everyone does that. ;-)

[https://skitch.com/aaron.patterson/r8s8i/keywords-google- ana...](https://skitch.com/aaron.patterson/r8s8i/keywords-google-analytics)

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> 99designs.com lets you host contests like this. It's a great site. I have used it a lot lately.

</comment><comment><USER14> how is this different from 99designs?

<comment><AUTHOR> There are Love Bucks at stake.

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> <http://www.builditwith.me>

A web site that connects design & development entrepreneurs. It exists to make creating apps easier by connecting you with like-minded designers & developers with the same goal: create cool & useful apps. Build It With Me will help you bootstrap your ideas into actual apps.

<http://collabfinder.com> (this site is not responding as I enter this)

Why'd we make it? Because we want to make it easier for likeminded developers and designers to meet and collaborate with one another. In other words, we want to help folks actually build the lovely projects they're thinking about.</comment>


The Google+ Firehose Stream - <AUTHOR> https://plus.google.com/u/0/113117251731252114390/posts/bmHVPNCqyZq

<comment><USER2> None of your friends posting on Google+? Check out this random wall of text instead!</comment>


Global Peace Index (GPI) - <AUTHOR> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Global_Peace_Index <comment><USER2> Delighted for Portugal's continuous presence in the top 5.

</comment><comment><USER3> All these lists are great but as someone who comes from a place that has no respect for free thinking and the right to free expression, the only indicator that matters to me personally is a "freedom of speech index".

Peace doesn't mean much if it's enforced by the collective to silence the individual through the threat of violence.

Let's not forget that Saddam Hussein and Gaddafi led their Nations with greater "peace" than their successors.

</comment><comment><USER4> It is interesting how the United States ranks lower than some African countries in the midst of war. Something to consider.

<comment><USER5> There appear to be several components of the methodology that are not adjusted for country size.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> It would be great to have the composing variables available, i.e. uncompressed into a single number.

I wanted to play around with multidimensional data about global trends like these for a while now, but looking up all that data can be a drag, if possible at all.

<comment><USER7> The report also contains "domain scores" for "ongoing domestic and international conflict", "social safety and security" as well as "militarisation" in appendix C: [http://visionofhumanity.org/app/uploads/2018/06/Global- Peace...](http://visionofhumanity.org/app/uploads/2018/06/Global-Peace- Index-2018-2.pdf)

Of course those are still just single numbers aggregated from many different factors. However, the sources for those factors are named and are in many cases available online (although sometimes paywalled, or offering no convenient download functionality).

Uppsala Conflict Data Program [https://ucdp.uu.se/downloads/](https://ucdp.uu.se/downloads/)

IISS Armed Conflict Database (paywalled) [https://www.iiss.org/publications/armed-conflict- database/](https://www.iiss.org/publications/armed-conflict-database/)

UNHCR Refugee Population Statistics [https://data.humdata.org/dataset/unhcr- refugee-pop-stats](https://data.humdata.org/dataset/unhcr-refugee-pop-stats)

Global Internal Displacement Database [http://www.internal- displacement.org/database](http://www.internal-displacement.org/database)

UNODC Crime Statistics [https://dataunodc.un.org/crime](https://dataunodc.un.org/crime)

The Economist Intelligence Unit (paywalled) [https://data.eiu.com/](https://data.eiu.com/)

World Prison Brief [http://prisonstudies.org/highest-to-lowest/prison- population...](http://prisonstudies.org/highest-to-lowest/prison-population- total?field_region_taxonomy_tid=All)

Stockholm International Peace Institute [https://sipri.org/databases](https://sipri.org/databases)

United Nations Register of Conventional Arms [https://www.unroca.org/](https://www.unroca.org/)

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> I am a liberal-minded man that live in a Russian provincial city and witness low crime rates and non-existent internal conflicts yet we seat below Pakistan. I think this rating can be safely considered trash

<comment><USER9> Your country has attacked Georgia in 2008, invaded Ukraine in 2014, participated in the Syrian civil war in 2015. You could get drafted and sent to war.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> For a decade or so I've had this semi-joke of curating "The League of Reasonable Nations." I add and remove countries over time. It's a subjective categorization of countries that I find to be "reasonable".

It's interesting that these countries repeatedly show up in lists together, like GPI. I think it has to do with my own biases + liberalism + development + peacefulness.

<comment><USER11> That's really interesting! I've been also noticing a similar pattern myself, in which such a list seems to be comprised of pretty much most of Western Europe, AUS+NZ and some other northern, semi-European (as a way of speaking) countries e.g. Canada and Iceland.

Another, half-joking way of looking at it would be 'countries that do not present a significant immigration towards the US'

<comment><USER10> I bet the list also lines up with socialised medicine.</comment></comment></comment>