Are You a Blue Collar or White Collar Developer? - <AUTHOR> http://itmanagement.earthweb.com/columns/article.php/3848406/Are-You-a-Blue-Collar-or-White-Collar-Developer.htm

<comment><USER2> _With more than a hint of a defensive tone, he said that he didn't go to college. ... "Really? So where did you learn to write code?"_

The most interesting thing about this parable is that no one seemed to have been "writing code" before having gone to school to "learn" it.

I'm not a programmer because of my CS degree, I'm a programmer because I've been programming, learning to program, and continue to learn to program, for nearly 75% of my life, only half of that professionally.

</comment><comment><USER3> I think there is definitely a difference in personality types between "Computer Science" people and "software engineers", which the author is characterizing as white and blue collar. However, I think the white/blue distinction carries overtones of a class difference which isn't necessary.

A good engineering team needs CS people to be the "architecture astronauts" and pure engineers to keep them grounded and make sure something actually ships. Too many CS guys and you ship something needlessly complicated far too late; too many engineers and you ship spaghetti code that doesn't scale, because they're focused on results rather than architecture.

</comment><comment><USER4> Overall, the article was pretty good. I think the conclusion is right on (just get some enthusiastic developers and get to work).

The article made it seem (IMHO) that the different personalities were completely distinct. I'd have to disagree with that point, having majored in CS while at college, but I feel like I'm slightly more "blue collar" than "white collar". I think you can definitely have bits of both personalities. Just my 2 cents.

</comment><comment><USER5> This dynamic is a perfect example why you have to have unianimous enthusiasm for new team hires. The lack of respect for one another is astounding: I'd be shocked if they ever shipped any software together.

</comment><comment><USER6> Well I'm glad to see the raging class / education war raging in the comments of that post isn't taking place on HN.</comment>


How to Crack the Account Password on Any Operating System - <AUTHOR> http://www.joetech.com/how-to-crack-the-account-password-on-any-operating-system/

<comment><USER2> I thought I'd read this before. Courtesy of <http://searchyc.com> we get this, different site, exact same article:

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1180910>

Lots of comments there.

tl;dr - if someone can access your hardware, you're toast unless you use encryption.

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> Is it truly as simple as using the install OS X CD? Does it only work if you aren't using filevault?

<comment><USER3> Correct on both.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> For the record, that Windows weakness isn't because Microsoft are too dumb to design a secure OS in 2010, it's because in XP and Server 2000/2003, passwords <=14 characters are also stored in the older, weaker, unsalted LanManager hash format for backwards compatibility reasons.

If your password is greater than 14 characters this wont happen, and if you are using Server 2008, Vista or Windows 7 this wont happen unless you enable it explicitly.

Edit: Following Rider's link to a previous submission, it seems Ophcrack does attack NTLM hashes. Wonder if it rainbow-tables them in 10 seconds?</comment>


Reducers, transducers and core.async in Clojure - <AUTHOR> http://eli.thegreenplace.net/2017/reducers-transducers-and-coreasync-in-clojure/ <comment><USER2> Disclaimer: as a Clojure developer and functional programming evangelist, I do not want to be too critical of this article. It's a really great post about some incredibly valuable and advanced Clojure features.

That being said, it really bothers me when functional programming evangelists write out such horrible Python code examples. It makes Python look like it's _not_ a functional language. It perpetuates the idea that Python won't let you write elegant and stateless programs that behave in a functional manner.

If the author had not mentioned Python and had instead used it as pseudocode to represent the entirely non-functional way to write something, I would have been okay with it. But calling out Python specifically is just incorrect!

I have rewritten the code in a very pythonic manner that illustrates the functional capabilities of the language:

        even = lambda x: x % 2 == 0

        # alternatively, depending on your religious beliefs:
        def even(x): return x % 2 == 0

        def process(seq):
          return sum(x + 1 for x in seq if even(x))

Note the (parens) for the comprehension instead of [brackets], which creates a generator. The above code is lazy (in Python 3)!

And if we fire up a python repl and play around:

        In [2]: process(range(10))
        Out[2]: 25

I really love Clojure and use it daily, but I find the Python version to be far more legible. It reads more like english.

Anyway, the moral of the story here is that you can do immutable/functional programming with regular ol' Python.

<comment><USER3> Please use def over lambda when feasible (which is most of the time); using lambda needlessly hurts debugability and saves a total of three characters.

        def even(x): return x % 2 == 0

<comment><USER4> Furthermore I would prefer

        def even(x): return not(x % 2)

<comment><USER5> I would not. That's incidentally depending on non-zero numbers to become True, and zero to become False. I would prefer to think of the operation as "is x modded by 2 equal to zero?" rather than "does x modded by 2 become true when negated?"

<comment><USER3> Though you might find core developers disagreeing with that sentiment.

[https://stackoverflow.com/a/3175293/1763356](https://stackoverflow.com/a/3175293/1763356)

<comment><USER5> I do find it interesting, but it doesn't change what's easier for me to reason about.

I suspect that it will be easier for core Python developers rather that general Python programmers because they will be more intimately familiar with the conversion rules. I would be more comfortable with such a construct in C or C++, because I am more confident in those conversion rules. But, even though Python's are quite similar, I had to check myself before making my comment, because I knew they were _similar_ , but I was not sure what they were. The situation in the stackoverflow comment is also not quite the same: asking a question about the relationship of numbers (is x modded by 2 equal to zero) is a special case of using integers in a boolean context. Saying it's Pythonic to use an integer in a boolean context does not necessarily mean it's _best_ to always do so.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> I have probably read most transducer explanatory blogs that ever existed and watched many, many talks on transducers, etc. I have read books about them (as in book chapters about them). I use the built-in transducers almost every day and I consider them an essential tool. I have written the occasional transducer myself for certain purposes.

This is the best transducer explanation and breakdown I've seen!

Very well structured and IMO easy to follow for anyone who understands Clojure code already. Great explanation and progression that builds towards the full transducers picture! (edit: typos)

<comment><USER7> You need to checkout ClojureTutorials channel on youtube, where Timothy Baldridge goes very deep into transducers. But the videos are not free, I think there is a small subscription.

<comment><USER6> (I have subscription for Timothy's tutorial videos) I have watched most of them as well some time ago, they are great also!

I really like this one because of the "first principles" approach of starting with reduce and building from there.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Something I found interesting when playing with the example code is that, while folding in parallel certainly speeds up the execution for realized sequences, it may not make sense to realize a sequence that you're only going to use for one operation:

      user=> (require '[clojure.core.reducers :as r])
      user=> (def s (range 9999999))

      user=> (time (r/fold + (r/map inc (r/filter even? s))))
      "Elapsed time: 450.318641 msecs"
      25000000000000

      user=> (time (r/fold + (r/map inc (r/filter even? (vec s)))))
      "Elapsed time: 463.632907 msecs"
      25000000000000

Note the `(vec s)` instead of just `s` in the second timed run above

      user=> (def sv (vec s))
      user=> (time (r/fold + (r/map inc (r/filter even? sv))))
      "Elapsed time: 156.731683 msecs"
      25000000000000

Far from a ~3x speedup (in these contrived examples), realizing the sequence in-line yields approximately the same performance as if it was operated on lazily.

Something to keep in mind if you're trying to optimize your Clojure. This is still the best resource I've read on reducers/transducers :)

[edit: code formatting]

<comment><USER9> The performance disparity is even more dramatic on my machine. What's the reason for that - is it b/c of concurrent contention during vec/realization? Or ???

<comment><USER9> For posterity, I just answered my own Q. Performance overhead was just the cost of the linear cost of vec realization as you pointed out. At first it seemed like I was seeing additional overhead.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Possibly stupid question:

At the top of the article, we see `(reduce + (map inc (filter even? s)))` -- here, `reduce` is a two-place predicate, taking a function and a collection.

Later, `reduce` is taking a function, a 'base case' [], and a collection -- it's a three-place predicate, more in line with a signature for `fold` than what I'm used to seeing for `reduce`.

Is this a clojure specific overload thing? I'm not at all an expert in FP or anything so it might be fairly standard.

<comment><USER11> It's fairly common in functional programming languages for functions to be differentiated both by name and arity (reduce/2 being different from reduce/3.)

<comment><USER10> I feel like this is fairly opposed to things like partial application and currying in general, no?

<comment><USER11> It has implications for the viable syntaxes for partial application and currying, but is not opposed to it.

For instance, you could use a distinct sigil for an omitted argument for partial application.

<comment><USER10> Good point, thanks.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


The Redditor - community-created, unofficial Reddit magazine - <AUTHOR> http://www.theredditor.com/

<comment><USER2> It's really good, both the design/composition and the content selection. It doesn't have the kind of quality articles Hacker Monthly offers but feels a lot like a real magazine, great for some light reading.

Here's the RSS feed for new issues <http://theredditorissues.blogspot.com/feeds/posts/default> I remember I had troubles finding it the first time.

<comment><USER3> I don't think that's actually an rss of the issues. I hacked up a version that will pull _just_ the PDFs recently for a guy on reddit:

<http://thingist.com/labs/make_rss.cgi>

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> It must be as thick as a phone book. They've got quite a wider range of content to draw on than, say Hacker Monthly.

Interesting how their cover design has evolved. From issue 1 - 7, the font alone looks like it started in the 70s and evolved to the 201x's. The newest one looks great.

And how ironic would it be if the Reddit magazine makes more money in ad sales than Conde Naste the magazine company did from Reddit.

</comment><comment><USER5> I'm not a huge reddit person, there's a lot of crap there and I don't have the time to sift through it, but this publication looks pretty well put together and well designed. The content looks pretty good, they seem to have found some interesting and funny articles and comments.

And I didn't see any rage thingys or memes(or at least ones I would recognise) and that is definitely a good thing.

</comment><comment><USER6> Needs some more testing on different browsers - Opera?

</comment><comment><USER7> Fucking hell yes! It's so easy not to know about this kind of thing.</comment>


Converting Boolean-Logic Decision Trees to Finite State Machines - <AUTHOR> https://medium.com/@cybermaggedon/converting-boolean-logic-decision-trees-to-finite-state-machines-180ad195abf2 <comment><USER2> "When analyzing cybersecurity events, the detection algorithm evaluates attributes against boolean expressions to determine whether the event belongs to a class. This article describes converting boolean expressions to finite state machines to permit simpler, high-performance evaluation. The open-source project Cyberprobe features this implementation. Conversion of rules to finite state machine (FSM) and application of the rules in FSM form is implemented in Python. Cyberprobe supports the use of millions of rules, which can be applied at greater than 200k events/second on a single processor core."</comment>


Nokia: We depend on uninformed customers and deception preserves brand value - <AUTHOR> http://www.asymco.com/2011/03/01/nokia-we-depend-on-uninformed-customers-deception-preserves-brand-value-and-uncompetitive-software-will-keep-us-competitive/ <comment><USER2> Nokia said that most people don't care about their announcements but rather follow the brand primarily. That's all good and probably quite true. Probably works so for most companies.

However, the thing with brands is that the value of a brand is _gradually_ built from good products and informed customers.

Conversely, a good brand also usually gives a decade of free running time while _gradually_ losing its value at the same time, even if the original level of quality and innovation is cut to a fraction of what it was.

During this death slope the brand won't attract many new customer while the existing customer base slowly shrinks. After the brand has been been pumped dry it becomes kind of ethereal and slowly ceases to mean anything to anyone except for the most die-hard fans who refuse to face the change.

As for Nokia, they were still going somewhere in the early 2000's so Nokia probably have maybe 2-3 years left of 'Nokia' if the company is lucky. By 2015 they're dead for any relevant sense unless they have showed something that both interests people _and_ differentiates them from the rest.

By itself Nokia would probably linger till 2025 if it wasn't for some big company who buys them out before that. The scavenger will feast on any Nokia IP that still has some value and finally sells and buries the rest of the pieces.

For now, their tangent is pointing downward and continues to do so if they don't start focusing. If they do, they might have some chance.

</comment><comment><USER3> Nokia's strategic announcements do spell doom for the Nokia Symbian app ecosystem, so if customers were buying Nokia phones for the Symbian apps, continued sales would indeed be based upon a kind of deception.

However, in reality, customers don't buy Nokia phones for the Symbian apps. So the spokesperson is correct that it shouldn't affect sales much.

</comment><comment><USER4> wow, what a misleading headline. My take on the situation is that Nokia just said that their customers don't rely on press releases, but instead have loyalty to the brand.

It's kind of the anti-Apple. Their big announcements are HUGE and people follow them because they are an event, not because they are "informing customers".</comment>


Nasdaq circut breakers – level 1,2,3 - <AUTHOR> https://www.nasdaqtrader.com/trader.aspx?id=CircuitBreaker <comment><AUTHOR> Nasdaq futures already hit the overnight circuit breaker. We'll see if we hit any more levels on Monday during regular trading hours.

Time to buckle up.</comment>


Help Wanted: Seeking Agents of Awesome for Team Twilio - <AUTHOR> http://blog.twilio.com/2010/03/help-wanted-seeking-agents-of-awesome-for-team-twilio.html

<comment><USER2> It was cool reading about all your geeks so far. Go team Twilio.

If I wasn't based in NZ and I wasn't working hard on my own startup I'd apply :)

</comment><comment><USER3> ow ow ow. is this aiming "for trying so hard it goes past trying too hard and enters an unexplored, painful dimension of clumsy, heartbreaking honesty"?

(so, would you hire someone telecommuting from s america?)

<comment><AUTHOR> haha if you had read our dry bios before you would have been bored out of your mind (or just stopped reading probably) - hopefully a bit of our personalities come out

re: telecommuting from S. America.. the only role open to telecommuting is the Developer Evangelist and it is 50% travel to developer communities in the U.S. -- for now. But when we're ready to address the Brazilian dev community (and others) I could see that working. I'm the hiring manager for that position, so if you're really interested you can email me at firstname.lastname@example.com

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Sounds perfect. When can I start?</comment>


SparkFun $100 free-day - writing a script? - <AUTHOR>

http://www.sparkfun.com/commerce/news.php?id=305
Essentially free $100 purchases (you pay shipping).. for the first 1,000 people. It's going to be a mad rush.
Just wondering what's ya'lls thoughts were for writing a script to make a purchase! <comment><USER2> trying to scam a company whose products are open source on a day when they are trying to give back to the open source community seems like a pretty fucked up thing to do...but hey, maybe you want to piss off a bunch of hackers and make open source companies look bad?

</comment><comment><USER3> sounds good...hes not cheating anybody. He is just trying to get into the first 1000 by having a program execute his order at the right time.

</comment><comment><USER2> ah, gotcha. Writing a script to make just one order at the right time seems fine, writing a script to make multiple orders is another story.

</comment><comment><USER4> cheat!</comment>


Keep Your Money - <AUTHOR> https://medium.com/@CoriMcElwain/80ad2e8ba125

<comment><USER2> I hate to be that guy, but I must admit that there are a couple of things that me put off about this app:

Firstly, I completely disagree with this notion that young adults should be cutting off in coffees and cocktails every so often so that they can buy more expensive stuff in the long run. If incurring in these small expenditures every once in a while derives enough value for you to feel that you are leading a satisfactory lifestyle and as a result make you steer away from the big, impulsive spends (such as cars and headphones), then why not spend the extra dollar on a coffee? Even if you it every single day, at the end of the month you'll only have spent 30$ extra. If you did that every day for 2 years, you'd still only have spent an extra 730$, which is way cheaper than buying a new car. The goal for young adults should be financial independence, not to be able to spend large amounts of money in dispensable goods.

Secondly, I don't see how the fact that the app "doesn't connect to your bank account or show depressing red info graphics". After putting in so much effort in reducing my spending, why should I have to manually input every dollar I spend into the app?

<comment><AUTHOR> I see where you are coming from in that young adults should be able to spend money however they choose and if the lifestyle they choose includes coffee every day and cocktails every weekend then that's fine. Financial independence is for sure the number one priority.

However what we were noticing was that many people (young adults in particular) had small hopes and dreams that required some amount of money that they simply didn't have. People wanted cars so they could easily get to a new job, a new musical instrument for their favorite hobby, or to take a trip somewhere they've never had the chance to go before.

It's all about how you want to spend your own money and everyone's priorities are different.

<comment><USER2> I understand the concept of the app and can definitely see its value. However, I'm not a big of a fan of the way it is described in this blog post.

From my personal experience using mint, I usually find that the big spends are the ones that really cause a dent on my monthly budgets and honestly, from a personal finance point of view, don't see much value in tracking only the small day-to-day savings. It is necessary to have a look at the big picture to contextualize the spending.

I do feel like keep is probably a good tool for staying motivated while budgeting and getting an instant reward for something that usually doesn't give an instant reward, but even so the effort necessary to manually input every single dollar I save into the app just seems like such a commitment. To me, keep would be really helpful as a complement to the services that do connect to my bank account (in my case mint), to help me decide wether I can have the coffee I like such much or if I should stick to the free coffee available in my office.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> Sorry to sound cynical, but this just seems like an over-inflated sense of saving that doesn't reflect reality. Sure, I could add in no Starbucks for the week and feel good about it, but then I don't usually have Starbucks anyway. Now, instead of doing something proactive and saving money, I've tricked my mind into believing I am saving money while I am not, thereby hindering any progress towards real goals that need actual savings, not 'mental accounting gimmicks'.

<comment><USER4> Simple Finance took a different approach -- saving bits away every day, and assuming you wouldn't notice anything but the lower day-to-day balance and could adjust accordingly.

Maybe the right answer here is to couple this app with a bank account -- so that when you say you didn't spend $3 on a coffee today, that the $3 ends up in an earmarked savings account (or at least deducted from the "safe-to-spend" balance) for that special something you're saving up for.

<comment><USER5> Yeah, an easy way to say "No coffee, I'm saving money" and then immediately save that money would be a killer thing for me. I try to minimize minor purchases when I'm saving for something, but I like to have my money compartmentalized; you put a few bucks in an envelope (or functional equivilant) and then when the envelope is full, you buy whatever you've been saving for. If there was an easy way to reduce the friction of moving the money into the envelope, I'd probably be way into that.

<comment><AUTHOR> The goal is to one day have this app moving money when you choose not to spend on the small things. That would for sure make the act of "saving" more real. For now we just wanted to test the concept of tracking when you don't spend money instead of when you do spend.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> The right way to have more money is to make more money, not cut out trivial expenses.

<comment><USER7> That's only partially true, and not really an option for most. Your trivial expenses are related to the amount of money you have. For most, a $3 coffee or $14 cocktail go from trivial to significant very quickly.

If you have 10x that amount of money, then your trivial expenses are also 10x more expensive. It's weekend getaways to Vegas vs a cocktail, $100 steak dinners vs a cup of coffee.

This app looks to try to teach some sort of understanding and self control in spending - which is important no matter how much money you think you have.</comment></comment>


Adobe Reader is world's most-exploited app - <AUTHOR> http://www.theregister.co.uk/2010/03/09/adobe_reader_attacks/

<comment><USER2> Half of my day job is supporting about 40 users in our companies New York office. The last 4 infections that I've been able to look into involved adobe reader in one form or another. I've only seen one malicious pdf file, most of the time it's JavaScript that loads reader and delivers a payload. I haven't quite figured out that part yet, and frankly I don't care enough. I'm satisfied knowing the cause.

I keep reader up to date but often these exploits hit either right after an update as been released so the patch hasn't been applied, or there just isn't a patch yet. It's almost enough to make me switch to foxit. I just have to do the research to see if it supports the advanced features (forms, digital signatures, encrypted files) that people are using.

</comment><comment><USER3> Bear in mind that the primary reason Reader is the "world's most exploited app" (it probably isn't, but it's one of them) is that it's ubiquitous. It's one of a small group of apps where a break can hand you tens of millions of machines.

Very few apps (I actually can't name one) with that market footprint fare better than Reader is now. Microsoft has poured supernatural amounts of money into Internet Explorer, and they're still getting in the paper over IE zero day.

</comment><comment><USER4> Because who could have predicted allowing Javascript in a document format was a bad idea.

<comment><USER5> Imagine what would happen if Firefox rendered PDFs natively.

<comment><USER6> I'm sure I read that Chrome was adding this feature. I heard about it just after the Google-China hacking thing which was apparently partly due to Adobe Reader.

<comment><USER4> It wasn't. iDefense retracted that part of their report.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> I Still never understood why Adobe thinks reader has to do so much. It just has to show a paper. If they would have stuck with that all would have been fine. But they will always be Adobe..

<comment><USER5> Corporate stuff! They want Reader to be ubiquitous so that the competition can't get in.

Reader doesn't just have to show a paper in an office. It could have a form. It could have a CAD drawing. It could do all sorts of magic that a business can come to rely on.

Imagine how much simpler it is to send a PDF to a client to sign and "submit" as opposed to managing faxes.

<comment><USER7> Then they should put out a reader lite. which would only allow basic functions. Since most of the non corporate world use nothing but these.

<comment><USER5> That would be admitting there is something wrong with their program, and it would increase the risk of people not being able to read the format. You would end up with two different PDF 'standards' and it wouldn't help anything.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> A lot of people prefer to receiving PDFs because they are safer than MS Office documents. Maybe not eh?

<comment><USER9> PDF's are not inherently insecure. It's just that Adobe Reader is crap (and any sane person would have switched to a better option a long time ago).

<comment><USER10> Can you list one of those options?

<comment><USER11> Foxit Reader if you are on Windows, Preview if you're on a Mac, evince if you're on Linux.

I personally do not use Adobe Reader on any platform. I found the alternatives to be both leaner and not lacking any relevant features.

<comment><USER12> Lately Foxit has been feeling even slower and more bloated than the current Adobe Reader, at least on my setup. I'm pretty happy with SumatraPDF, although it is not terribly featureful so I have Adobe Reader installed as well.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


A company got screwed in the Facebook with a single customer complain - <AUTHOR> https://dl.dropbox.com/u/8199739/Social%20Marketing%20gone%20horribly%20wrong.pdf

<comment><AUTHOR> This is an incident take place in Facebook, related to a leading Sri Lankan daily deals site named Anything.lk

This thread show's how they acted to the customer complains on facebook and they got screwed.

As one commenter mentioned in the above thread, This materiel could be used to show how care you should take on for your social media strategies.

<comment><USER2> Your title makes it sound like the company got screwed, when it seems it's the customer (you?) who was on the receiving end.

The he said/she said aside, the title and content are disingenuous at best.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> Impossible to tell what is really going on in these sorts of posts where someone tries to escalate their anger at a company to posts on HN and probably other boards as well.

From what I just read, the company tried to make accommodations and was reasonable and polite and some of the people in the thread were being troublemakers.</comment>


Data show panic and disorganization dominate the study of Covid-19 drugs - <AUTHOR> https://www.statnews.com/2020/07/06/data-show-panic-and-disorganization-dominate-the-study-of-covid-19-drugs/ <comment><USER2> This article is great at explaining the questions that I (as a layman) had of why still after many months we don't have much trial data on COVID-19 that we can trust. When I was asking here on HN why the trials are so small and usually don't finish, I got the answer that it's extremely hard to run a clinical trial.

But this article shows that the trials were badly designed for an illness with a large amount of deaths in a small time: they need to be big, and the data collected must be minimal (death/survival), and the opposite was happening.

<comment><USER3> Some (perhaps many) of these trials weren't so much badly designed as not designed.

When you're overwhelmed by patients and have no good treatment, and have to try something, it's possible to try something experimental and write that up. That's then called a "trial", but it's designed by people who are up to their necks in work.</comment></comment>


Wild bees are recycling plastic, study finds (2014) - <AUTHOR> http://www.mnn.com/lifestyle/recycling/blogs/wild-bees-are-recycling-plastic-study-finds <comment><USER3> The planet will be here a long long time after we're gone.. And it will heal itself, it will cleanse itself, because that's what it does. It's a self correcting system. The air and the water will recover, the earth will be renewed and if it's true that plastic is not degradable, well, the planet will simply incorporate plastic into a new paradigm - the Earth plus Plastic.

The Earth doesn't share our prejudice towards plastic. Plastic came out of the Earth. The Earth probably sees plastic as just another one of it's children. Could be the only reason the Earth allowed us to be spawned from it in the first place. It wanted plastic for itself. Didn't know how to make it. Needed us..

Could be the answer to the age old philosophical question "Why are we here ?"..

Plastic, assholes!

:)

\---

George Carlin [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7W33HRc1A6c](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7W33HRc1A6c)

<comment><USER4> The planet will be here, it will incorporate the plastic in some way, like it does with everything. The issue was _never_ about the planet itself. Planets don't have minds (that we know of) and don't care. They just are. It's only us, humans, who care about how the planet looks like - because we can only survive in a tiny band of possible planet states, and live comfortably in even tinier band.

<comment><USER3> Yes. That's what the man says. "The planet is fine. We are fucked"

<comment><USER4> Sorry. Didn't realize at first you're quoting George Carlin. I'm watching the video now. It's the first time I hear about him. I see now that anthropomorphisation of planet is a part of humour.

Sadly, too many people think that way for serious - that the planet is important for itself, that this particular state it's in ("blue marble") is somehow meaningful for the planet itself, or valuable for reasons not related to having humans on it.

<comment><USER5> > or valuable for reasons not related to having humans on it.

If there is life outside then it might value the blue marble.

And it is also possible that it could become valuable for non-human (AI?) reasons later.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> While its undeniably sad that we litter so much in our environment - its very very cool that nature is adapting in the way it is to our dirty habits - <USER2> the same vein I'm expecting a species of something will evolve to eat and biodegrade plastics, rubbers and other similar materials.

<comment><USER7> While great for the environment, this would be terrible for things we don't want to degrade!

<comment><USER8> It is also not a good strategy for the organisms involved since what we produce, especially the organics, changes fast and we're about the only source..

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> This opens an interesting question, what if we could slightly modify plastic to make it more useful to other species, maybe beavers, maybe bees, maybe ants, maybe woodpeckers, maybe there is an specific trait that one (or many) of this kind of animals seek for when using materials (or eating)

<comment><USER10> The better solution is to start using biodegradable plastic where necessary, and avoiding plastic altogether where there are reasonable alternatives.

<comment><USER11> Note that there are two kinds of "biodegradable" plastics. Vegetable based plastics (which are definitely unproblematic when left in the environment) and "OXO-biodegradable" plastics which are just normal plastics (like PE, PP, PS) with additions that make them break down quicker than normally. If a bag feels like a normal plastic bag then it will be one of the latter kind; vegetable based plastics have a different feel to them (kind of rubbery), to my understanding; since they are produced in a different way (by a different industry), and more expensive, you rarely encounter them.

The Wikipedia article on OXO biodegradable plastics[1] seems to be heavily edited by industry participants. Last I heard[2] was that OXO-biodegradable plastics are basically cheating, as they leave the plastic in the wild, just invisibly (perhaps even making things worse as then it can't be collected anymore?). The Wikipedia article argues that the fragments will be decomposed by organisms. I don't know which is true, but wanted to point out that there are two kinds and you should be careful not to mix them up in discussions.

        [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oxo_Biodegradable
        [2] from the film Addicted To Plastic [3]
            or other places, not sure anymore
        [3] http://www.crypticmoth.com/plastic.php

<comment><USER12> I don't see the issue even if the plastics are invisibly dispersed in the wild. I use styrofoam in my potting soils, for a reason.

<comment><USER13> Not all plastics are safe for human ingestion, and if you disperse them in the wild, that's where they end up sooner or later.

<comment><USER12> Ah, I made the assumption that a vegetable oil based plastic would at worst break down or go rancid. And tiny bits of rancid oil wouldn't be harmful. However, if they're using other chemicals to produce these, then it's entirely possible that they would be unsafe. My bad.

<comment><USER11> I explicitly said that vegetable based plastics are _not_ a problem. What we're worried about are the OXO plastics, which are _not_ vegetable, but mineral oil based.

<comment><USER12> I obviously misread your comment. My bad. Not a good day for commenting for me.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> Cue George Carlin quote in 3... 2...

<comment><USER15> How about a remix by melodysheep (John Boswell) instead? [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3FFgVayrWjs](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3FFgVayrWjs)

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> Very interesting! and answers some questions in previous bee-centric discussions re: wild bees.

</comment><comment><USER17> This isn't recycling, though. The bees are using the material, not recycling it.

<comment><USER9> If a human uses wasted plastic is called recycling, don't know what would it be any different for bees.

<comment><USER18> Isn't re-use the slogan-compatible word? I'm not sure if the bees are disqualifed if they use the plastic for a different use or how much physical alteration matters.

<comment><USER19> Yeah, reuse it the proper word for both scenarios.

<comment><USER20> Reduce, reuse, recycle!</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


My MacBook Pro exploded and burst into flames - <AUTHOR> https://www.reddit.com/r/apple/comments/bulbhv/my_macbook_pro_exploded_and_burst_into_flames/ <comment><USER2> This started to happen to mine at work too. Luckily I got it down to IT before it started on fire.

They took the hard drive out. Opening the case released pressure on the swelling battery. As soon as it was open the battery started swelling faster. The case could never have been closed again. The whole enclosure bent like a soda can. I should have figured out earlier what was going on. The first sign was the computer started to seem wobbly if you stuck it on the desk and typed on the internal KB. I thought the little rubber feet on the bottom were worn, in actuality it was the case starting to deform. What finally figured it out for me was the swelling started to make the keyboard stop functioning properly. Some keys were stuck.

It got stuffed in a bag and run over to the Apple store (which is only about 200 yards away).

Never heard a word about it again, they threw my HDD in another MBP and I was off and running with almost no downtime.

Of course that was like a 2013 MBP, that would not happen with the 2018 one I have right now since they can't be opened with a screwdriver and the internal SSD is soldered.

<comment><USER3> >the 2018 one I have right now since they can't be opened with a screwdriver and the internal SSD is soldered.

I'm going a little offtopic, but I cannot believe this. I haven't owned a Mac since having a 2010 MBP (which I loved dearly for 6 years), but I cannot imagine owning a laptop that doesn't allow me to switch the internal drive. It was annoying enough with all of the screws on the 2010 model.

I'm sure there is some justification is for this beyond "we want you to buy a new one if something goes wrong", but I'm coming up blank.

<comment><USER4> Yes... soldered RAM, hard drive and everything into a pricy motherboard so if any of the cheaper components fail, you can pay for a whole new motherboard.

<comment><USER5> Simply not true. The ssd can be removed / swapped. Only the ram is soldered.

<comment><USER6> Huh? The SSD has been soldered on the MacBook Pro since the 2018 version afaik.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> I'm sitting here typing this response on a 2016 MBP (the first gen with the butterfly keyboard and touchbar). Due to some thermal issues, I unscrewed the cover to blow the dust out and discovered my batteries are all swelling. Yikes. I wonder if there's a follow-on recall in a year or so for this generation. I bought a battery replace kit from ifixit so I might kick the can down the road for a bit longer, time will tell.

More broadly thinking though, Unix/BSD underpinnings OS, driver support, and hardware that sacrificed thin/light for components that were reliable and some DIY capability? I kid can dream

<comment><USER8> I think the swollen batteries are quite common in the MacBook Pros. Seems to be plenty of reports on the net. Typically people seem to notice this when the trackpad or keyboard starts acting funny.

Not sure if Apple even considers that as a defect or if it is just the way some of the batteries are expected to behave when they get old.

<comment><USER9> Which is really odd that I have never experienced or seen it in the older laptops. Perhaps it's a fairly new thing in the increasingly common thin form factor (Apple or otherwise but I haven't heard much of others).

<comment><USER10> Older laptops left space for the batteries so they could swell slightly without damaging the laptop. Apple's design leaves no such space.

<comment><USER11> Are Apple using cylindrical cells or pouches? Cylindrical cells doesn't swell in the same way and have pressure cap before they crack the shell. Pouches probably has to swell abit before their cap pop.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> And Apple just announced the battery recall [https://www.macrumors.com/2019/06/20/apple-2015-macbook- pro-...](https://www.macrumors.com/2019/06/20/apple-2015-macbook-pro-recall- program/)

<comment><USER13> It'll be interesting to compare the public reception of this incident versus the Samsung Galaxy Note 7 event, especially given Apple's PR prowess. Seems like a similar sort of incident, though maybe even rarer to actually encounter given how old the laptops are now.

<comment><USER14> The difference here is a single (known) instance of a 4 year old product vs widespread issues with a brand new one on release.

<comment><USER15> Well, I think it's more likely that the fact that it's a notebook will make this less of a PR issue. HN is kind of a unique place, but out in reality land the set of people who take their 15" notebook with them everywhere, including the airplane, is much smaller than the number of people who take their phones with them everywhere. So it's hard to capture the public imagination with a notebook.

Apple releasing a new phone is an event not only for a lot of developers, but also for your average teeny bopper and housewife.

Apple releasing a brand new laptop is just...

not.

<comment><USER16> Also, most people aren't going to grab a camera and start filming when their laptop catches fire in their house so they can post it to the internet. That limits the number of videos like this you'd expect compared to a similar smartphone fault, which is more likely to happen in public with other people standing around idle that might film it. I'd venture a guess that this is very far from being the first such fault in four years, especially given how willing Apple was to announce a recall.

<comment><USER17> If your smartphone catches fire, in a lot of cases _your camera_ just caught fire!

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> My desktop caught fire once. I pulled the plug and the fire went out. Turns out the graphics card burst into flames. That had never happened to me before in 40 years of desktops.

I had a fair amount of smoke damage that needed cleaning up.

Now it sits on a piece of sheet steel instead of the wood floor.

Edit: I usually assemble my desktop cases from mail order parts. This desktop happened to have a metal case rather than a plastic one - my future builds will all be metal cases.

<comment><USER19> Well, they did warn you [https://proxy.duckduckgo.com/iu/?u=https%3A%2F%2Fak1.ostkcdn...](https://proxy.duckduckgo.com/iu/?u=https%3A%2F%2Fak1.ostkcdn.com%2Fimages%2Fproducts%2F73%2F428%2FL13344732.jpg&f=1)

<comment><USER20> I don't get it, can you explain?

<comment><USER21> Read the text on the GPU

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> For those wondering - it is the 2015 MBP Retina 15" [https://www.reddit.com/r/apple/comments/bulbhv/my_macbook_pr...](https://www.reddit.com/r/apple/comments/bulbhv/my_macbook_pro_exploded_and_burst_into_flames/epe2rz1/)

<comment><USER23> I would put money down that his serial number is not included in the recent recall. As usual, Apple seems to be in denial of the extent of the issues.

<comment><USER24> Would you agree to bet a donation (the EFF or something else you like?) We can ask the reddit user to check their serial.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> I also had my battery swell recently to the point where the bulging was visible and noticeable as the mbp wouldn't lay flat on the table anymore. When I consulted the apple store (Berlin) about it they told it I need not to worry about it and I wouldn't be eligible for a battery swap as the mbp was performing 'nominally'. I was sceptical and let the battery drain over night, it ended up turning off at ~30% supposed capacity. I brought it to an 'unofficial' repair shop who instantly opened the mbp, the bottom lid was thrown off due to pressure after removing the last screws. The battery was swollen to the point where it looked like it was about to burst and the repairman was visible nervous. He ended up removing the battery on a outdoor table and replaced it.

Something similar happened to one of my colleagues too, albeit after just 3 months of ownership.

<comment><USER26> > When I consulted the apple store (Berlin) about it they told it I need not > to worry about it

Those people are assholes. Literally.

> Once you notice the battery is swollen or compromised in any way, you should > immediately stop using the device. Turn the power off, and above all else, > do not charge the device. Once the battery has reached such a point of > failure that the battery is swollen, you must assume that all safety > mechanisms in the battery are offline. Charging a swollen battery is > literally asking for it to turn into an exploding ball of noxious flammable > gas right in your living room.

[https://www.howtogeek.com/244846/what-to-do-when-your- phone-...](https://www.howtogeek.com/244846/what-to-do-when-your-phone-or- laptop-has-a-swollen-battery/)

<comment><USER27> Literally?

<comment><USER28> [https://www.salon.com/2013/08/22/according_to_the_dictionary...](https://www.salon.com/2013/08/22/according_to_the_dictionary_literally_now_also_means_figuratively_newscred/)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER29> > _I produce music for a living - FIVE days without my computer is > unacceptable_

Then get two computers as a backup?

While here it's Apple's issue, it could just as well be your fault that the laptop died (e.g. dropping it).

Then you wouldn't have any laptop, but also no justification to demand an immediate replacement or deem not receiving one "unacceptable"...

<comment><USER30> >Then you wouldn't have any laptop, but also no justification to demand an immediate replacement or deem not receiving one "unacceptable"

My computer failed to start one morning, it was my work only computer that I use for my job(work remote from a village) so I went in the city with the PC, I found a shop, the person there tested my RAM,CPU and other parts, the motherboard was broken, I baught a new motherboard , paid the poerson to replace it, I also asked for a GPU upgrade and a cleaning.

In a few hours I was back working. If this was a MacBook there is no store in the small city I live near, I would probably had to find someone that could "illegaly" test the laptop and that would use his connections to find me some "illegal" parts and wait for those parts to arrive.

I am also using my PCs after the warranty expires and fix them if a component breaks(like memory). My old AMD Phenom 2 is still running (my son uses it for lite gaming). is the one that I had to replace the motherboard. (I also bought a quality APS to keep my equipment safe)

<comment><USER31> Based on this information I infer that you have a desktop machine. If you had a PC laptop you'd be equally screwed, with zero chance the shop had a spare motherboard for your machine.

Granted you'd be equally screwed with a Mac Mini or iMac but fundamentally this has nothing to do with Apple vs PC. Desktop PCs that can be changed with standard parts or even custom built are not the market norm anymore and entered the specialised market realm long ago.

Your post also reads very much as "You're wrong to use Apple" but you have to realise that they produce a very reasonable solution for many. My use case covers a wide spectrum of mobility, security, dev, music, and photo/video editing, and while alternatives can do things like that they won't do so as efficiently and with the same quality across that whole spectrum _for me_. It would be foolish to shoot myself in the foot by nerfing my workflows every single minute of the day for a rare event. I do have a spare machine (which does not need to be the latest and greatest so can come out pretty cheap), which allows me a very quick turnover to continue working, well within an hour of a fatal failure (and that's even though I have an Apple Store 5 min away from my place).

<comment><USER30> Not true,IMO

1 I would have got the person at the shop check it and tell me if I need a new laptop or a new part, this happened to a laptop of mine and I decided I would get a new laptop, then the shop person offered to buy the display and RAM from me and I sold it, so a different person would be able to fix his laptop

2 a spare part can be found from a different laptop or ordered online by the shop, so they can order it at the time I arrived with my broken laptop

I don't think that I would have been screwed but let me know if you still disagree.

<comment><USER31> > this happened to a laptop of mine and I decided I would get a new laptop

Equally true for Apple hardware, that you can get in most reasonably sized shopping malls basically anywhere over here (France). Most places that sell laptops also sell Apple hardware.

<comment><USER30> Maybe I do not understand your point, but can you go with a broken Apple laptop , without a schedule to shopping mall, have someone test it, tell you a diagnose and how much will it cost, ifv you decide you want a new one would the shop offer you money for the working parts of your Apple laptop( Apple is trying to make this illegal, reusing parts)

<comment><USER31> Oh, maybe it's just me that was confused and did not understand your case. Let me fix that: you went to the shop for a diagnosis maybe expecting a simple operation and was told the computer requires unexpectedly expensive repair, so you bought a new one instead? I thought you knew it beforehand since it was old already.

In that case where there is no Apple sanctioned repair presence such shops either usually sell Apple hardware and gladly perform support and diagnosis if that can bring them a sale, or they're nice enough to help you anyway with the diagnosis out of good will (people are generally like that in digitally scarce areas) and will direct you to get a new one at the mall (or, they're dicks and then, screw them).

You have every right to call me an optimist about human behaviour though ;)

<comment><USER30> Right, is the same here in Romania, a third party shop will try to help you fix any laptop,phone,tablet , I dislike the fact that Apple is attacking this shops with lawsuits, FUD campaigns, preventing others to buy parts etc.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER32> This made me wince.

I haven't backed up my mac in 10 months now simply out of laziness, it contains some sensitive client work that NDA doesn't allow me to put in the cloud, it's millions of dollars worth of work and contracts, if I lose it, my company loses those clients as well.

And my MBP gets really hot sometimes. Expect a TIFU from me at anytime.

<comment><USER33> You can use a service like Backblaze[1] and encrypt the backups with a password. This is saving you a LOT of worry and risk for $6/month.

[1][https://www.backblaze.com](https://www.backblaze.com)

<comment><USER34> I'm pretty sure the recovery process for backblaze includes them decrypting your files on their infrastructure and then sending to you. Or something like that. I did a ton of research into the different options recently and didn't like backblaze because of that.

However, I decided to give them a try anyway as I was partly researching for a friend who desperately needed backups and didn't care about that as much. So I installed backblaze on a machine and was surprised to find that 1) the exe is apparently modified per user so you don't have to login (memory hazy) and 2) it _immediately_ starts uploading _everything_ which really pissed me off. Like I get it, full system backups, but still I want some acknowledgement of what's about to happen and options to pare it down if I want. Nooope.

So yeah I don't think Bacblaze is gonna work for GP with their NDA given they can't restore without breaking it.

<comment><USER35> I'll point out that nothing stops you, with any service at all, from encrypting yourself then backing that up. Ie., it's completely fine with Backblaze to dump everything into an encrypted sparseimage first, and then back up _that_ rather then your drive directly. That's not to say getting a couple of simple external USB HDDs and then rotating them into a firesafe offsite once a week isn't a good idea too, or having a NAS, or any of an endless number of other solutions.

But in many cases using a 3rd party cloud service has advantages, and if you take care of encrypting contents yourself so that you just plain can ignore any security or lack thereof it'll make more options available, and possibly cheaper ones. It's all just bits and bytes.

<comment><USER34> This is true but it adds a lot of complexity and brittleness for the average person.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> I believe with the recent recall, Apple's doing the bare minimum in a PR damage control. A lot more batteries have to be affected than they're letting in.

My MBP mid-2015 has swollen batteries twice in 3.5 years. Now I have to pay $500-750 (Authorized Service Providers quote), as Apple Care expired, for something that increasingly looks like Apple's fault.

<comment><USER36> If you are Australian, then they _must_ fix this, regardless of if you have Apple Care.

</comment></comment><comment><USER37> Hmmm 2016 MacBook Pro here -- just brought it back to have the keyboard serviced. Checked the website and it says:

>The serial number you entered is not eligible under this program because either:

>It's not in the affected serial number range.

>Our records show that your device has already been serviced as part of this Program.

Opened up Cocunut Battery and have relized they replaced the battery without telling me. It's done very subtely on the service completion document -- "Replaced Top Case with Battery" \-- are these parts not seperate?

<comment><USER38> > are these parts not seperate?

No they are not. Anyone getting their keyboard replaced gets a new battery. Anyone getting their battery replaced gets a new keyboard/top case.

This is one of the reasons that out-of-warranty repairs for the butterfly keyboards were $700 (before the repair program was launched).

</comment></comment><comment><USER39> Note that this is a 22 day old Reddit post (seems relevant as it's few weeks before the battery replacement program announcement).

<comment><USER40> Yes - I'm finding it rather unfulfilling that there's no update as to what the resolution was!

"If you don't talk about this incident any more on social media, here's a shiny new MacBook Pro. Otherwise, you get the ashes of your old laptop."

OK just spitballing because we have no idea if they offered up a replacement or left him in the lurch.

<comment><USER41> You write like it's a bad thing, but if this is resolved by Apple doing right by their customer, isn't that a good thing?

Obviously, that is a rage post (understandably). OP seems to no longer be enraged... problem solved, right?

<comment><USER40> My opinion is that it would be helpful to the public to know how Apple is handling the situation. Maybe they aren't obligated to inform us, and the individual is not obligated to keep us up to date either, but I would like to know how things turned out.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER42> Those fumes in the video can't be healthy, right?

Why is this person standing there just inhaling that? I would be very concerned about breathing battery-fire fumes, no?

Maybe they are not as toxic as I think? What should one do if this happens? Pouring water might make things worse, right?

<comment><USER43> I wouldn't breathe it. It probably won't kill you, but it won't be healthy, either. If anything, it would be like breathing the fumes from welding on galvanized steel.

Now - maybe you haven't done this; I'd suspect many haven't. Galvanized steel has a coating of zinc, which boils at a much lower temperature than steel melts at. So when you're welding on such steel, the smoke and fumes given off (which even when welding normally should be avoided) are particularly nasty:

[https://www.bakersgas.com/weldmyworld/2011/12/03/side- effect...](https://www.bakersgas.com/weldmyworld/2011/12/03/side-effects- welding-galvanized-steel/)

A mild case of it basically feels like a very terrible cold/flu - but it can be deadly in great amounts. I'd suspect (but I'm not sure) that lithium fumes might cause similar symptoms.

And just for sake of completeness, because a lot of people aren't aware of it - if you weld, never, ever weld on anything that has been soaked with brake cleaner that contains tetrachloroethylene. It will release phosgene gas, which is deadly in small amounts:

[https://www.brewracingframes.com/safety-alert-brake- cleaner-...](https://www.brewracingframes.com/safety-alert-brake-cleaner-- phosgene-gas.html)

That's from a guy who survived such an accidental exposure - but he's now messed up for life. You can still buy this kind of brake cleaner in some states, but it's not for sale in others (I believe its banned from sale in California).

It's not so much that particular chemical, as it is the chlorine makeup of the chemical (the -chloro part); you could probably generate such gas by heating and vaporizing household bleach or pool chemicals that have chlorine in them, if you wanted to. But neither of those are likely to be used around steel and mechanical work like brake cleaner is.

</comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> Related to: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20235259](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20235259)

</comment><comment><USER44> (CNN, June 20) Apple recalls batteries in some older 15-inch MacBook Pros: [https://www.cnn.com/2019/06/20/tech/apple-recall-macbook- pro...](https://www.cnn.com/2019/06/20/tech/apple-recall-macbook- pro-15-inch/index.html)

For everyone who's involved, seems like it's not a one off.

</comment><comment><USER45> Isn't this always going to be a risk with high energy density batteries made from components that are volatile, especially in oxygen?

I suspect that the quality of manufacture will be a significant factor in mitigation of that risk, but is there a currently available battery design that produces enough power for enough time without carrying some risk of ignition?

</comment><comment><USER46> I have the 2015 15" MacBook pro too and it has a bunch of battery related issues. Last August, I used it until the battery died. The next day I turned it on and the computer was super slow and laggy. The CPU usage was maxed out and I couldn't figure out what was causing it. I rebooted the thing, reinstalled the OS, and tried all sorts of things to reset the battery but nothing worked. I didn't use it for two weeks and then the problem fixed itself. I haven't had the issue again and am too lazy too fix it.

Since then, there's another issue that surfaced. The laptop turns off whenever it reaches 100% charge. Have to see if it's covered under this recall...but probably not knowing my luck.

</comment><comment><USER47> "[Ineligible because our] records show that your device has already been serviced ..."

Cool, thanks Apple. Glad I got to pay like $700 for this when my 2015 MBP was overheating so much last year that the battery swelled and broke the motherboard. I just did a quick live-chat with one of the tech support people... no chance for a refund on the work I had done 8 months ago to replace the battery and repair damage it caused. It really sucks that people who proactively dealt with this can't get compensated for what is now acknowledged as a manufacturing flaw.

</comment><comment><USER48> I wish there was a better support for MacOS X on Virtual box, so you can virtualize it on a Linux/Windows laptop with latest hardware, in case you need it.

Apple hardware is too pricey and sucks recently

</comment><comment><USER49> While I do appreciate Apple's particularly literal approach to 'halt and catch fire'[0] this is a good reminder to have my battery replaced as soon as I'm near an Apple store. I wonder what the statistical probability of this actually happening to _my_ device is?

[0] - [https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Halt_and_Catch_Fire](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Halt_and_Catch_Fire)

</comment><comment><USER50> Typing this on a 2015 13 inch macbook pro with 4 out of 6 batteries swelled.. I'm pretty sure I could get Apple to service it but I will attempt to do locally here in Shenzhen. It is around 50USD to replace the batteries on the spot with a "new, original" pack..

The dilemma is, do I want an "original" pack back in?

</comment><comment><USER51> Is there a way to make these batteries fail-safe?

Could the device itself know when the battery is bulging, on fire, whatever?

Could the power connectors themselves be designed to disconnect if the battery expands?

</comment><comment><USER52> I have had several, note plural, swollen batteries from older MBPs when they were the external kind and not the internal as now.

<comment><USER53> I've seen this on non-Apple laptops too. But, since this is 'hacker' 'news', anecdotes that do not work in Apple's favor get several front page postings here.

</comment></comment><comment><USER54> It was only 3 days ago all the Apple fanboys were coming out in the comments saying it hurts the Apple brand when a third-party battery catches fire, so you can't allow people to repair their own phones. SMH.

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20234022](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20234022)

</comment><comment><USER55> Wonder if this is a similar situation to the exploding Samsung notes. Faulty battery manufacturing.

</comment><comment><USER56> Seems like the person filing is inhaling a fair bit of smoke. Wonder how toxic that is.

<comment><USER57> That was my first thought. I'd be out of there. Though you might want to ensure its not going to catch that floor on fire.

</comment></comment><comment><USER58> This is a new low for Apple. A lot of memes were dedicated to exploding Samsung Galaxy Note devices and that has been laughing stock for years now. Bursting batteries in a "Pro" line of Apple devices is unacceptable. If you don't want to set your pants on fire don't buy pro from Apple.

</comment><comment><USER59> Will these be banned from planes? (similar to samsung note)

</comment><comment><USER60> Keyboards, batteries... what is wrong with you, Apple?

<comment><USER61> Don't forget the screen cable breaking and requiring the screen to be replaced.

</comment></comment><comment><USER62> So, turn off my seedbox when I leave home?

</comment><comment><USER63> First a samsung phone and now this.

</comment><comment><USER64> I wonder if they have grounds to sue, over Apple producing an unsafe product.

<comment><USER65> I find that to be very unlikely. Batteries are known to have failure modes that include explosion. It's certainly not unique to this laptop, or even laptops alone. This is the only case I've heard about and it's a 4year old laptop that had been repaired.

As such I don't think it's a fault in the design, necessarily.

</comment></comment><comment><USER66> Also in the news today, many houses caught fire due to electrical faults. [0]

Things go wrong. The world isn't perfect. There are many millions of MacBooks Pro in circulation.

Next.

[0]: [https://duckduckgo.com/?q=house+fire&iar=news&df=d&ia=news](https://duckduckgo.com/?q=house+fire&iar=news&df=d&ia=news)

<comment><USER36> Wait till it happens to you.

</comment></comment><comment><USER67> Perhaps it is time to stop making everything thinner and produce a sturdy notebook with a decent keyboard again.

It appears that it was possible with the T60 a decade ago.

<comment><USER68> The 2015 is the last model with the decent keyboard, so that's not the problem here.</comment></comment>


The New York Times to Offer Open Access on Web and Apps for the Election - <AUTHOR> http://mobile.nytimes.com/2016/11/04/homepage/new-york-times-open-access-election-2016.html?_r=0&referer= <comment><USER3> I lost all trust in the NYT after Wikileaks revealed how they sabotaged Bernie Sanders and acted as a PR agency for the Clinton campaign.

[http://observer.com/2016/10/wikileaks-new-york-times- propped...](http://observer.com/2016/10/wikileaks-new-york-times-propped-up- clinton-subverted-sanders/)

[https://medium.com/@Starkweather/new-york-times-edited- berni...](https://medium.com/@Starkweather/new-york-times-edited-bernie- sanders-article-for-clinton-campaign-5156a43755ca#.by7rmq5is)

[http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/bernie- sand...](http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/bernie-sanders- hillary-clinton-wikileaks-john-podesta-emails-smear-negative- lies-a7358516.html)

<comment><USER4> I read the leaked emails referred to in these articles, and I don't see much that is troubling about NYT's behavior.

This is just how journalism works: the reporter has to request/negotiate access to the source. The PR folks will obviously try to spin everything positively to the reporter; that's their job. Afterward, the reporter writes up a story as objectively as possible. When some part of the story happens to be flattering, the PR people will obviously high-five themselves. When some part of the story is negative, the PR people will be disappointed and try to get the reporter to see their side.

See this article [1] from Mark Leibovich for an NYT reporter's account of one of the issues addressed in your links.

[1] [http://www.nytimes.com/2016/10/14/magazine/anatomy-of-a- medi...](http://www.nytimes.com/2016/10/14/magazine/anatomy-of-a-media- conspiracy.html?_r=0)

<comment><USER5> However there are documented instances, with Politico for instance where stories were given prior approval by the Clinton campaign before publishing. There's lots of evidence that reporters colluded with the Clinton campaign. That's not 'negotiating access.' Reporters ethically are bound to not give sources the ability to approve stories. Otherwise those stories might as well be press releases.

I went to journalism school and giving sources prior-review over a story is about as unethical as it gets.

Getting access to a source doesn't mean softballing everything for the benefit of the source. With the email scandal for instance, those stories could be written with or without cooperation from Clinton -- you simply say: we're running this story, care to respond? If they are 'mad' at you, they are the ones that miss out on getting their side represented. Reporters ought not be 'negotiating' anything. We have a story, we're going to run it; if you want to respond, here's your chance, if you don't want to respond, we can report that as well.

Journalists in many organizations have sold themselves out. It's no surprise that most of them are Clinton supporters. The days of Walter Cronkite objectivity have seemingly passed.

The media colluded against Sanders not even to mention all of the Republican candidates.

<comment><USER6> > email scandal

On this topic, I find it mildly amusing that, for all the accusations of bias, it was actually the New York Times that broke the story of Clinton's private email server.

[http://www.nytimes.com/2015/03/03/us/politics/hillary- clinto...](http://www.nytimes.com/2015/03/03/us/politics/hillary-clintons-use- of-private-email-at-state-department-raises-flags.html)

<comment><USER7> Some reporters can break stories too, and the same newspaper can have cronies too.

There is a good email in wikileaks where Jake Tapper is pushing back against a slanderous story published against him. Made me respect him for that. There is also another one, where a buzzfeed reporter is introducing a collegue cordially and professionally.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> I am disgusted with the NYT and media in general. I am a lifetime democrat, and in my opinion the news media has treated outside candidates like Trump and Sanders very unfairly. People should have information to make their own judgements, and not have the 'news' be a one hour infomercial for one candidate or another.

I am also unhappy with so many of my friends who only see one side of things, one side not respecting the opinion's of the other side. We need more civility and more respect for other people's opinions.

<comment><USER6> The usual narrative is that coverage of Trump and Sanders couldn't be more different, with Sanders struggling for attention while Trump received vast amounts of free advertising. There is a lot of truth to it, but, according to a study:

> Sanders' media coverage during the pre-primary period was a sore spot with > his followers, who complained the media was biased against his candidacy. In > relative terms at least, their complaint lacks substance. Among candidates > in recent decades who entered the campaign with no money, no organization, > and no national following, Sanders fared better than nearly all of them. > Sanders' initial low poll numbers marked him as less newsworthy than Clinton > but, as he gained strength, the news tilted in his favor.

And for Trump:

> By our estimate, Trump's coverage in the eight news outlets in our study was > worth roughly $55 million. Trump reaped $16 million in ad-equivalent space > in The New York Times alone, which was more than he spent on actual ad buys > in all media during all of 2015. In our eight outlets, the ad-equivalent > value of Trump's coverage was more than one-and-a-half times the ad- > equivalent value of Bush, Rubio, and Cruz's coverage, more than twice that > of Carson's, and more than three times that of Kasich's. Moreover, our > analysis greatly underestimates the ad-equivalent value of Trump's exposure > in that it's based on only eight media outlets, whereas the whole of the > media world was highlighting his candidacy. Senator Cruz might well be > correct in claiming that Trump's media coverage was worth the equivalent of > $2 billion in ad buys.

It's an interesting read.

[http://shorensteincenter.org/pre-primary-news- coverage-2016-...](http://shorensteincenter.org/pre-primary-news- coverage-2016-trump-clinton-sanders/)

<comment><USER9> What's the media supposed to do about Trump? Keep quiet about the outrageous thing he did today because they already reported 4 outrageous things he did last week?

Trump has received more media coverage because he has simply said and done more things that are newsworthy.

<comment><USER10> I think that's the rub, "newsworthy". He never really got in the news for the right things (if there were any I don't know).

After August, if he sat himself in a closet and never did or said anything (and that recording never was released) he would of won very easily.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> Could the admins switch the link to the non-mobile version[1]?

[1]: [http://www.nytimes.com/2016/11/04/homepage/new-york-times- op...](http://www.nytimes.com/2016/11/04/homepage/new-york-times-open-access- election-2016.html)

</comment><comment><USER12> I feel that NYTimes is the only news organization that has been able to transition to the Digital Era. Does anyone else know of any other old-school news organization that nicely transitioned to the Digital Era?

<comment><USER13> NPR ([http://www.npr.org/](http://www.npr.org/)) seems to be doing ok - <USER2> have a good mix of online reporting, audio from radio reporting, special features for events such as the election, and a number of successful podcasts associated with their various shows.

<comment><USER14> NPR is a non-profit that offers all of it's reporting for free. (Their income mostly comes from donors.) Their a bit of a special case since they're happy to lose money on their online offerings.

<comment><USER15> That's the thing. I don't think they're losing money on the online offerings. I think people pay by becoming donors and then use the online offerings.

<comment><USER16> Most of their donors are older and primarily use the radio.

<comment><USER15> Most, but not all.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> Wikileaks revealed that the NYT was in coordination with HRC's campaign to publish flattering stories. I think the credibility of the news organization is over.

<comment><USER18> They survived the Judith Miller controversy. What is it about the HRC-NYT emails that ends their credibility in ways that Judith Miller didn't?

edit: I can't think of a good reason to downvote this question (please do explain), but I'll rephrase: the Judith Miller Iraq reporting was bad to say the least, and they got rid of her. In this case I am under the impression that the problem is a few isolated cases, but I'm not well educated and am possibly missing something. What about these emails makes this a sweeping issue over the whole organization, as opposed to a few reporters having abused their welcome?

<comment><USER19> Judith Miller and the NYT's (and news media more generally) credulous Iraq War boosterism were much more damning. Most of the folks involved, either on the media side or the government side, suffered absolutely no consequence to their reputations.

<comment><USER17> > Most of the folks involved, either on the media side or the government side, > suffered absolutely no consequence to their reputations.

I still cannot believe this. In fact, it's probably the single most poignant fact of the Iraq war. It shows us that the NYT was not outraged by the "mistake" but supported what was effectively a propaganda effort.

This is why I liken the NYT to America's Pravda. The stories it runs help to bolster the legitimacy of certain institutions and create PR and misdirection as needed to allow the status quo to continue.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> Oh you mean unlike the login-wall they've put up for every article in the past two weeks? That open access?

Edit: I'm pretty mad that every NYT link I've been clicking for what has felt like two weeks has asked me to login. I was forced to finally make an account. Screw that. I'd pay if you gave me an option that made sense. I'm not going to drop $500+/year to subscribe to all the places I read from when I only read what is posted on HN and Twitter. You'd think Apple would at least help out here since they have it all nicely integrated on the Apple News app to handle subscriptions for them.

<comment><USER21> Then don't click on NYT links, or others that require you to subscribe. HN conveniently marks the source.

<comment><USER22> PWDR

<comment><USER21> paywall; didn't read?

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> As is the Washington Post [http://www.adweek.com/fishbowldc/the-washington- post-is-taki...](http://www.adweek.com/fishbowldc/the-washington-post-is- taking-down-its-paywall-for-election-day/160304)

<comment><USER24> Just an additional reminder that Amazon Prime members can get six months of Wapo Digital for free.

</comment></comment><comment><USER25> Devil's advocate: reporting on the polling numbers as they come in can cloud the decisions people make at the polls, and the entire process of trying to determine who's winning serves no useful purpose in daily life other than as pure subjective entertainment.

Normally I would say we should all just use online voting ( _edit: online registration & mailed voting_) the way 3 states (Washington, Oregon, and Nevada) currently do. They provide real-time statistics on their voting results via their website. But at the same time there's those risks of security holes. For example, I took 30 seconds to look at Washington's voter registration website, and found this via Google: [https://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:ues5ma...](https://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:ues5maE5tbsJ:https://weiappletsqa.sos.wa.gov/LanguageAdmin/Pages/Applets.aspx+&cd=2&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=us) This makes it appear as though some admin functions may have been accessible publicly in the past.

It is nice to get a look at their content management, though ([http://weihelp.sos.wa.gov/help/support/_layouts/viewlsts.asp...](http://weihelp.sos.wa.gov/help/support/_layouts/viewlsts.aspx)) as we can see some of the behind the scenes operation like ticketing, bug reports, content, and other features and documentation. So from an "open & transparent government" aspect it's nice, but probably needs to be balanced more against how much information or access is given.

<comment><USER26> Washington uses 100% paper mail in ballots, not online voting.

<comment><USER25> Ah my bad, online registration and mailed voting which is displayed online.

<comment><USER26> No worries, I wasn't sure if you meant online registration or not. I don't think any state offers online voting (thank goodness).

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER27> enough about all of THIS... Suffice it to say that the NY Times is a tool of entrenched power and serves as a pseudo-intellectual gatekeeper that is willing to publish stories based upon leaked information but is unwilling to stand-up and defend the sources of such information. It's willing to be like NPR and appear to be thoughtful, but won't actually do anything to change the status quo. With their International Herald Tribune arm it becomes all the more apparent that they are more-or-less a mouthpiece for the American executive branch: State Dept, CIA, DOD, etc. as well as the entrenched specific corporate agenda that's been masquerading as the public interest for over 60 years. That they have no credibility with regards to altruistic token gestures doesn't even begin to describe why I could care less about their crappy content that they seem so self-impressed with as to think merits payment. This is the Internet. I would think a publication like the NY Times could have figured out a way to transfer their same advertising-based print model to the net, what with minimal distro costs and all the rest of us doing so and what-not... very well. They shall remain the valued premise of a tiny market segment that is only shrinking. Good luck with that one.

</comment><comment><USER28> Check out Google too: [https://techcrunch.com/2016/11/07/google-will-display- electi...](https://techcrunch.com/2016/11/07/google-will-display-election- results-as-soon-as-polls-close/?ncid=rss)

<comment><USER29> Nice. Last time their exit polls were fantastically accurate.

</comment></comment><comment><USER30> The NYT always offers open access... you just need to disable javascript.

</comment><comment><USER31> Is it strange that I don't trust any electronic voting systems at all? I feel like without a paper trail, federal elections can be easily manipulated secretly.

<comment><USER5> They can be manipulated even with paper. Look at the absentee ballot scandal in Florida.. DNC operative filling out thousands of absentee ballots in secret rooms.

<comment><USER32> What scandal? If this did happen, we'd know about it. Googling around only pulls up results from exceptionally dubious sites, which in turn all seem to be based on the same trivially fabricable non-evidence.

Scandals like this do happen and do get reported:

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

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER33> Another discussion I'd like to see come out of this election: the idea of information as a public good.

[http://people.ischool.berkeley.edu/~hal/Papers/japan/japan.h...](http://people.ischool.berkeley.edu/~hal/Papers/japan/japan.html#SECTION00060000000000000000)

Neither the advertising nor the paywall/subscription models are serving to either provide the public with information, or to foster _quality_ and _relevant_ information. Both are in fact the problem.

Addressing an open-access model, _with a tax-based compensation for authors and publishers_ strikes me as a vastly preferable model.

<comment><USER34> How is this not a suggestion that we nationalize the media?

<comment><USER33> It is a suggestion that we nationalise the _payment basis_ for media. Authorship and publishing could/would remain independent.

It's strikingly similar to the extant instances of mechanical copyright licenses, which apply to "cover" performances of musical works, in that:

1\. Grant of licence is automatic (hence "mechanical").

2\. Payments are automatic (handled through copyright clearance organisations, e.g., Harry Fox in the US).

3\. The original author _cannot deny_ the licence.

The principle difference I'm proposing is a base level of compensation based on a broad-based tax. Preferably indexed to wealth and/or income.

Previous discussions:

A Modest Proposal: Universal Online Media Payment Syndication: [https://www.reddit.com/r/dredmorbius/comments/1uotb3/a_modes...](https://www.reddit.com/r/dredmorbius/comments/1uotb3/a_modest_proposal_universal_online_media_payment/)

Richard Stallman's "Internet Sharing" content syndication proposal: [https://www.reddit.com/r/dredmorbius/comments/3p0bp6/richard...](https://www.reddit.com/r/dredmorbius/comments/3p0bp6/richard_stallmans_internet_sharing_content/)

Content Syndication: Phil Hunt's Broadband Tax / Content Compensation Fund proposal: [https://www.reddit.com/r/dredmorbius/comments/1vknhc/content...](https://www.reddit.com/r/dredmorbius/comments/1vknhc/content_syndication_phil_hunts_broadband_tax/)

<comment><USER35> Even with a much simpler model, the publicly-funded BBC seems to be a better news source for me than my typical American sources.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER36> >The New York Times is inviting readers to take advantage of its reporting, analysis and commentary from the lead-up through the aftermath of the 2016 election.

Aftermath? Somehow this smacks of already leading the narrative.

<comment><USER37> in what way? Are you referring to the slightly apocalyptic connotation of the word? Or are you suggesting there won't be a conclusion to the election?

<comment><USER36> Aftermath: the consequences or aftereffects of a significant unpleasant event.

Why is the election of a new President an "unpleasant event"? For some, it may not be. So, the NYT is leading the narrative already.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER38> You also get free access if you just delete your cookies once you have reached the free article limit...

</comment><comment><USER39> Same with financial times - ft.com Open access for election

</comment><comment><USER40> Great move by NYT. Smart and generous.

<comment><USER41> How is that generous when it is very convenient and opportunistic for NYTimes propaganda efforts for their candidate?

<comment><USER42>
      "propaganda efforts for their candidate"

You're confusing their Opinion section with their news coverage. Completely separate groups with no overlap. Though I don't blame you for not knowing. Its not obvious - and thats a problem.

This is your 2nd time posting the same comment?

<comment><USER43> Well the restrictions being lifted apply to both the news coverage and opinion section, don't they?

<comment><USER44> It would be, frankly, ridiculous for them to offer "open access" and have that actually include only news coverage and none of the opinion sections.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER45> Also, the LA Times is offering a free week (requiring registration).

</comment><comment><USER46> Is that an admission that if people hit a paywall they don't proceed to pay for the high-quality content behind it?

</comment><comment><USER47> NYTimes never again. Fuck you.

</comment><comment><USER41> This is very convenient and opportunistic for NYTimes propaganda efforts.

</comment><comment><USER48> The same NYT whose profit shrank by 95,7% in the last quarter because of the extremely biased reporting?

[http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3897406/New-York- Tim...](http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3897406/New-York-Times- reports-95-7-percent-fall-quarterly-profit.html)

And the exactly same numbers by Reuters but with completely misleading headline as if everything was fine:

[http://www.reuters.com/article/us-newyorktimes-results- idUSK...](http://www.reuters.com/article/us-newyorktimes-results- idUSKBN12X1HU)

Funny how the NYT now makes about as much profit as I do as a contractor. Maybe I should buy them and put their journalists to more profitable use, like for example letting them clean toilets or work the streets.

Edit: Why the downvotes? Does somebody dispute the fact that the NYT's profits are down by 95,7%? Or would somebody dispute that this company wouldn't be making more profit if it sent its employees to clean toilets or sell their bodies?

I believe I made here a sensible business case for saving the NYT.

<comment><USER49> You talk about bias, but then cite the daily fucking mail.

For people who aren't aware, most of the UK press is scum, and the daily mail is certainly among the scummier end of UK newspapers.

<comment><USER48> That's why I cite Reuters below which reports identical data. Profit fell by 95,7% down to about $400k.</comment></comment></comment>


Suggest HN: Please keep hnsearch.com up (shutting tomorrow) - <AUTHOR>

Reiterating this [1] post.
"The new replacement hn search (hn.algolia.com) doesn't accept basic search syntax.
Searching for "arkos" or arkos returns the same number of results with fuzzy matches. http://hn.algolia.com/#!/story/forever/prefix/0/arkos
I tried other standard search syntax found on Google or SOLR, but it did not work. For example, -argos, NOT argos, etc. I tried to find search query details in their documentation, but did not find any.
Please keep hnsearch.com working in the meantime, and don't shut it down on March 15th, 2014."
1: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7355425
Jyu's comment is also highly relevant:
"When the announcement to shut down HNSearch was made nearly 40 days ago, I thought Algolia would have ample time to catch up. It was lacking back then, and there was plenty of feedback for them to work with.
With the hard cutoff date nearing, it doesn't seem Algolia will be close to matching functionality.
A couple other features are date range search, and phrase search. Actually, just include all the SOLR query syntax: http://www.solrtutorial.com/solr-query-syntax.html"
The small piece of good news:
"hn.algolia.com is also fully opensource, so pull requests are welcome: https://github.com/algolia/hn-search" <comment><USER2> You should try again your queries :) We added support of phrases queries (using the "" syntax) and not (using the - syntax). Btw, as we always said we are more than open to feedback and feature requests & pull requests.

</comment><comment><USER3> Shouldn't this be directed to Octopart? "HN" does not decide if they continue running their site.</comment>


Ask HN: Advice on finding a junior developer position - <AUTHOR>

As the title states, I'm looking for some advice or constructive criticism on my work in order to find a junior developer position. I'm having quite a bit of trouble getting any response back from anyone. Maybe I should be gathering funds to pay for one of these "developer bootcamps", although I don't like that idea.
My inquiries usually go as follows, and may be a bit too honest:
I did not go to school for CS, and don't have a degree. I would like to relocate and I'm not really looking to work remotely as I would like the experience working around more seasoned developers.
I worked in automotive and roofing before rupturing a disk, and wasted no time getting into web development and all things related. I know what hard work is.
github: http://www.github.com/jamesdullaghan homepage/portfolio(code can be found in online-portfolio in github): http://www.jamesdullaghan.me Latest project(prototype that hasn't released yet, hence screenshots): http://www.jamesdullaghan.me/articles/5
This isn't a pitch to find work for myself, more what can I do to increase my odds in finding a junior level developer position. I'd also love some objective criticism. Maybe some direction.
It is much appreciated. <comment><USER2> Hi JDSD,

I appreciate your candor and motivation to switch gears and go in a new direction. I have some suggestions I'll share. They're just my two cents, so take them for whatever they're worth to you.

First of all, I agree that your inquiries are probably too honest... Or, perhaps, don't really paint you in very good light. It's not necessarily about lying, as much as it is about recognizing that some information without crucial context can be misleading. I suspect your inquiries--as you've described them--are doing just that.

There's lots of good material in your inquiry, I'd just reword it a bit. Rather than starting off by with the fact that you didn't go to school for CS and don't have a degree, start off with the good news. Get them interested. Get them on your side. Then acknowledge some negatives. So start off talking about the projects you've worked on, the languages, frameworks, concepts, etc. that you know. Share your github account. Stress all the value that you bring to the table. Then segue into talking about how "I don't have a degree in CS, and in fact don't have a degree at all; However, this isn't a bad thing. In my case it means that I have a diverse array of experiences that prove useful for stepping outside the box and discovering unique innovative solutions to challenging problems." This wording frames your situation in a positive light, rather than a negative light.

I also wouldn't mention your background in roofing and automotive. It makes you sound blue-collar through and through, and conceptually is difficult to overcome when a hiring manager is considering who to bring in for interviews. And I wouldn't mention your ruptured disk since it makes you sound like a potentially expensive employee to insure. You can express your willingness and desire to work hard and your enthusiasm for development, but be careful about what you share about your past. I know what this is like because when I was going through college I worked part-time in a skilled labor job at a private terminal at the airport. Explaining that past employment to a hiring manager at a bank was tricky. I had to show them how--even though it didn't seem relevant at first--my experience over five years at the airport actually _was_ an asset. I did this by abstracting from the day-to-day and talking about how my position at the airport developed my character (etc.).

Lastly, relocation. This is a really tricky one. Truth be told, in my opinion, the only out-of-town developers who will be contacted by recruiters and hiring managers are those who are at minimum seasoned mid-level developers. Junior developers--even with experience--aren't likely to get many call-backs if they're approaching employers who are in another city or state. The sad truth of employment is that you've _got_ to be local. And this means that you're going to have a take a leap of faith. Pick a city with tons of software jobs and move there. Just being there and showing that you're credible is probably the single most crucial factor. If you want to work in banking, move to a finance hub. Likewise, since you want to be a junior developer (I hear you, that's my goal, too), move to a city with tons of developer opportunities: San Francisco (and the surrounding area), Los Angeles, Seattle, Austin, New York City, Salt Lake City, Dallas, Houston...etc. If you do searches for "javascript" on Indeed.com, the number of results will give you a good (if rough) idea of how much demand their is for developers in a given area.

But yeah, being there is critical. This is why my wife and I and our daughter will be moving to Austin this fall--so I can look for work as a junior developer. Simply saying that you'll move is much different than actually doing it, and employers know this. They'd rather not waste their energy (from their perspective) on possibilities that might not pan out. At least if you're "in-town" then that's one less barrier to getting you in the door. And while remote working is more and more common, it's still less common than working face-to-face in an office, so I'd probably drop that aspect of your inquiry and just focus on how motivated you are as a junior developer candidate.

Best of luck! I hope my advice was helpful. And if you find yourself in Austin, hit me up and we'll grab a beer or something.

<comment><AUTHOR> Wow. I am really grateful for this response. As I was reading through what you've written, I got the feeling I was putting off a negative image of myself which is definitely not helping my case.

Wording things in a way that highlights my positive aspects is not lying, as you've put it. This puts me more at ease to speak about things I excel in.

I agree that my previous work experience can be viewed as "blue collar". I hadn't considered it may be difficult for a hiring manager to overcome.

And about taking the leap of faith, I think that might be what it boils down to. It's a difficult thing to do alone, but I think you may have given me the push I needed.

I really appreciate the response. I wish you and your family the best of luck. I will record your username and if I end up in Austin I will shoot you a message.

Thanks again.

<comment><USER3> _I agree that my previous work experience can be viewed as "blue collar". I hadn't considered it may be difficult for a hiring manager to overcome._

It's not the fact that you've done "blue collar" work in the past that's the problem; it's the way you introduced yourself as the guy worried about his inexperience who did "blue collar" work until it became impossible. You should be introducing yourself as a self-taught developer with an unconventional background rooted in hard work.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> I don't mean to be negative, but a few thoughts:

>I did not go to school for CS, and don't have a degree.

Where do you want to live/work? Depending on where you want to work this may be more permissible or less. In the valley if you have a good rep and past projects this will matter less, but in many places in the US this is actually a non-starter. If you love programming have you considered that working (even part-time) towards a B-S in CS might be worthwhile?

>before rupturing a disk

I'd advise just saying an injury. This is a little bit a case of too much information, esp. for a perspective employer.

>github:....

Everything I see is Ruby. This is fine, people often have a primary language, but you should pick another language, very different kind of language, and write a project in it. This shows people you are flexible and are the kind of professional learner who can re-tool quickly. I'd suggest considering C,C++,Go,Java,Scala or Haskell.

</comment><comment><USER5> I.....I....I'm....I.....

I...I....

And that's your problem. Not a single thing about them. It should read something like this...

 _I noticed you 've been working on innovating in X industry, and I've noticed recently that many folks are moving in X direction. Are you planning on moving in this direction to?

I've recently done a, b, and c. By leveraging b and c, I can help you achieve X. a is note worthy because, while not directly related to x, it shows I have skill f.

I'm looking for jr developer positions that allow me to grow, and projects a, b, and c will help you achieve x (faster, better, more completely, etc)...._

Your pitches need to be about how you can help them and less about you. I've sent emails that basically said, "Your industry is heading in x direction, here's what I think about that. Oh, by the way I'm at least good enough to do fizz buzz" and gotten fairly positive responses out of that.

<comment><AUTHOR> Very good point. Shows more confidence and direction. Even my responses in this thread are inward. Kind of self-involved.

Hopefully this can help someone else in a similar situation. Working on a rewrite now I will share soon.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> 1) Your message is a bit confusing. Not sure if you're a developer or designer.

2) If I'm thinking like a hiring manager or founder, it would be a huge risk (for both of us) to relocate someone inexperienced. Remove that part and I bet your response rate doubles.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for the reply. I am capable of both, but not really great/expert at either. That is great feedback though. I will clear that up with a small message.</comment></comment>