American Suburbs Swell Again as a New Generation Escapes the City - <AUTHOR> https://www.wsj.com/articles/american-suburbs-swell-again-as-a-new-generation-escapes-the-city-11561992889?mod=rsswn <comment><USER2> We just recently moved from a city to the burbs. Our choice was multi- factored. It was price of a bigger house, better schools, less congestion and crime.

My old house was 900sf, perfect for 1 to 2 people, but it got cramped when my son was born. We looked into expanding but for the cost of adding a room with a bathroom ($100k) we decided that it wasn't worth it.

With schools we got lucky, the elementary school was just recently built and looked great. But there was an issue, the schools that my son would be going after grade school were rated very poor. This was a concern.

Traffic bad and seemingly only getting worse. Traffic projects have been in endless gridlock between car commuters and the bicycle community.

Not sure about other large cities, but mine (Portland, OR) has a pretty big homeless and crime issues as of lately. Gone are the days of how clean our city is and now it's just littered with trash and tent communities. It's not uncommon to see a heroine needle if walking in a city park. In the last year, we had somebody try to break into my shed and my wife and 4 years old Son were confronted in our driveway by a homeless individual, who said that he was considering suicide.

I still have a soft spot for PDX and I think it's a great place, but we decided get out.

ha ha sounds like I'm repeating the same story of earlier genereations, ha ha nothing new.

[https://www.kgw.com/article/news/local/homeless/our-city- has...](https://www.kgw.com/article/news/local/homeless/our-city-has-become-a- cesspool-police-union-president-blames-mayor-for-homeless- problems/283-574760140)

<comment><USER3> > My old house was 900sf, perfect for 1 to 2 people

That is 80m2. I grew up in a 75m2 apartment (810sf) with my parents and two brothers.

I guess that "cramped" is a matter of perspective. :)

> Not sure about other large cities, but mine (Portland, OR) has a pretty big > homeless and crime issues as of lately.

It makes me sad to hear about that. We are in the XXI century and we have good ways of helping homeless people and reduce crime. I understand that you leave to a better place, but that does not solve the problem.

> confronted in our driveway by a homeless individual, who said that he was > considering suicide.

I hope that you have find a good place for you and your family but do not forget the people that you left behind. Their lives are a tragedy that can be averted.

<comment><USER4> > That is 80m2. I grew up in a 75m2 apartment (810sf) with my parents and two > brothers. I guess that "cramped" is a matter of perspective. :)

Also a matter of layout. The expected amenities in US apartments live little room for living space, particularly pantries and walk-in closets, and large appliances. Large bathrooms are also common. Having just moved to Europe, I am acutely aware of the trade offs; we have a lot of living space, but we also have had to buy wardrobes, get used to a much smaller bathroom, and generally adapt to different expectations.

<comment><USER5> Built in wardrobes are a thing. More space efficient than a separate wardrobe. I've had them in half my prior rentals.

<comment><USER6> For some anecdotal evidence, I've never seen an actual walk-in closet in Switzerland or Spain where I've traveled and/or lived so far, though I'm sure they may exist somewhere.

<comment><USER7> To be fair, a builtin wardrobe is different to a walk-in wardrobe. The latter _tends_ to be builtin, the former tends be built into "the space between walls". I'm not 100% sure I would call them more space efficient, however they don't poke out into the room, and so you end up two rectangular rooms, and with their wardrobes next to each other, as opposed to two non-square spaces with the wardrobes (typically) backing onto each other. So you typically end up with extra usable space.

A walk in robe on the other hand typically wastes space since it (in effect) introduces a new hallway into your house, since that is effectively what the wakling area in your walk-in robe is.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> This article blows my mind due to this single sentence:

 _The couple found a sprawling five-bedroom house next to a horse farm for $782,000, half the cost they would have paid in the Seattle suburb they left behind._

This implies that the family in the article was shopping for a $1.5M home in a "Seattle suburb" that is most likely in the Bellevue/Redmond area _in the year 2015_. In that year, the average sale price in the region was between $855K (Bellevue, WA) and $598K (Redmond, WA), implying that they were aspiring to live well above the median lifestyle in two of the richer suburbs in the Seattle area. [1]

I don't know how to square this family's story with the surrounding narrative in the article. This family could afford to live almost _anywhere_. They could afford to pay taxes to fund schools and other municipal services. They could choose to live somewhere that has _none_ of the problems the article decries, simply by buying in.

Methinks this is a story about false advertising on the part of "Millennial Mayberry", rather than suburban flight.

[1] [https://public.tableau.com/shared/9P33834MX?:display_count=y...](https://public.tableau.com/shared/9P33834MX?:display_count=yes&:origin=viz_share_link)

<comment><USER9> That's not what it implies. The article is just talking about the price of housing in Seattle. The journalist was comparing the cost of the home the family bought, with a theoretical similar house in the city.

Moreover, almost everyone is highly leveraged when "buying" a home. Hell, I my wife and I could swing a 1.5m mortgage if we really wanted to. According to mortgage calculator, a 1.5m house would take 60k down-payment and 1.5k/month[1]. That's very reasonable for a large portion of the population.

I've paid _triple_ that amount in rent for apartments.

[1]: 30-year, 60k realtor cut, 4.2% fixed rate, $2400 property taxes/year, average credit

Edit: Yeah I think the calculator is giving wrong results. There's no way that's possible.

<comment><USER10> >According to mortgage calculator, a 1.5m house would take 60k down-payment and 1.5k/month[1].

Did you miss a zero somewhere or did the calculator have a bug? There's no way 60K down and 1.5k/month is correct. It's much higher than that for a $1.5M home.

<comment><USER11> I was about to say the same thing. I put $33k down and financed $208k at around 3.5% (in the Upper Midwest). Three years on my payments are about $1280, after increased taxes YOY.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> I grew up in the suburbs outside of Atlanta, and last year I moved from rural East Tennessee to the Bay Area. Having lived in all three (rural, suburban, and city), the suburbs are definitely my least favorite.

Suburbs sort of combine the worst aspects of city and rural life; too many people around that you don't really get space, privacy, or scenery, yet not enough people for there to be any interesting restaurants, farmer's markets, museums, coffee shops, or really just anything to do.

I love the Bay Area because it offers all the amenities of a big city, yet all sorts of natural beauty is within an hour's drive away. One of my relatives visited recently and was shocked at how you can be in downtown SF one minute and then standing in an old-growth forest of redwood trees twenty minutes later.

Unfortunately, I imagine once my wife and I have children, expenses will become rather difficult. I'm not sure how well a tiny apartment will accommodate a growing family, especially if we have two or three kids. So... I'll probably end up back in the suburbs eventually, but I'm not in a hurry, and it certainly isn't my preference to be there.

<comment><USER13> > Unfortunately, I imagine once my wife and I have children, expenses will > become rather difficult. I'm not sure how well a tiny apartment will > accommodate a growing family, especially if we have two or three kids. So... > I'll probably end up back in the suburbs eventually, but I'm not in a hurry, > and it certainly isn't my preference to be there.

You may find that your preferences change as a result of having children. Also - there are a lot of different living options falling somewhere between San Francisco and Atlanta suburbs with regards to population density. E.g. a small city with a walkable downtown, restaurants, etc., but affordable enough to own a decent-size house and a car.

<comment><USER9> Suburbs are way worse for children than cities are. As a teen/pre-teen in a city you have independence, you can go to places with your friends and hangout. Suburbs make your children dependent on you for rides and consequently stunts their emotional maturity.

<comment><USER14> I have no doubts that a city is better for teens/pre-teens, but I don't think growing up in a suburb stunts their emotional maturity. I grew up outside of DC in a decent suburb, and was able to get around via bike and meet my friends at the mall, the movie theater, etc. This was 2004-2007ish, not the 80's.

I spent a lot of time exploring with my friends, and being independent. I think it would be hard to have this kind of experience in a rural town, but in a suburb, it seems pretty normal.

<comment><USER15> A typical suburban-sprawl house is in an exclusively residential pod, separated from the nearest commercial pod by several miles on a fast road with no bike lane. If a teenager on a bike can reach any kind of business without mortal peril, it's a different kind of suburb from the ones people react so negatively to.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> Kevin Drum's rebuttal, citing census data and Brookings estimates:

"there never really was much of a back-to-the-city trend in the first place... With only tiny variances, the suburbs have been gaining population for 70 years relative to cities (and rural areas)..."

Millenials' preferences appear roughly similar to the preferences of other generations.

It's almost as if millenials don't love avocado toast so much as they love defying sweeping stereotypes about cohorts divided by arbitrary birth years.

[https://www.motherjones.com/kevin- drum/2019/07/millennials-l...](https://www.motherjones.com/kevin- drum/2019/07/millennials-love-the-burbs/)

.

<comment><USER17> What's not talked about so much is the ghettoization of the suburbs. If you look closely, many of the houses are rooming houses. It's harder to tell because 4 or 5 cars parked in the driveway is not abnormal in the burbs.

The suburbs built in the 1930s are being gentrified, and are now considered 'downtown'. The suburbs built in the 1940s-1960s are in now the edge of the city, inhabited by an older generation or retires that vote very conservatively as they try to stop change in their neighborhoods. The suburbs built in the 1970s and 1980s are starting to show their age. They are at the ends of public transit lines where rents in rooming houses are the cheapest. This is the area new immigrants are moving, as it saves money, but the commute is long. The suburbs of the 1990s till now are eating up small towns. This causes some tension between the new burbs and the more redneck locals that have never liked the city.

<comment><USER15> There's a widespread NIMBY view that small apartments are part of a "race to the bottom," and by enforcing a high minimum standard for living space, we can make all families better off.

But of course, if you're in the market for a small apartment, you're not getting a large-lot single family home to yourself. You're getting a roommate situation in one. Five commuting adults in a house is arguably a worse strain on infrastructure than a small apartment building would have been.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> This article doesn't jive whatsoever with my anecdotal experience as an urban dwelling elder millennial.

As my friends and family form families, they either stay in the city.

After all, having a kid or two and staying in NYC or SF is the ultimate status symbol.

Or they move to more livable cities such as Philadelphia from NYC or Austin from SF or Pittsburgh from Chicago.

The exception is moving back to the suburbs to be close to our boomer parents who of course still live there.

Seriously, no one I know my age (35) willingly moves to the suburbs. Curious if this is my bubble or consistent.

<comment><USER19> > Seriously, no one I know my age (35) willingly moves to the suburbs. Curious > if this is my bubble or consistent.

My anecdata is the total opposite. Every newly married couple I know that's looking to have kids has either already left city living or the migration is in progress. The well off ones keep their old spots as a pied-a-terre for a distant future but there's a universal distain for city life.

<comment><USER20> Where do you live? I can imagine that the suburban exodus is more true for Midwest and southern cities and less true for west coast and northeastern ones.

<comment><USER21> Most of the people I know in the Bay Area are leaving SF and headed to either the Peninsula or East Bay when they have kids. Most people I know with kids are in the Peninsula. I do know a couple in their 40s with kids in the city. They did the opposite, went from the Peninsula to the city years ago (before the city became very expensive).

I'd argue it's a lifestyle decision more than anything else. Each couple or family has their own reasoning about why they moved. The attitude in the city is much more keep to yourself. Suburbs are gossipy and people tend to pay attention to everything.

I would argue there are much more 'mega wealthy' people outside of the city.

<comment><USER20> Is it really fair to call the peninsula suburban? I guess south and east of San Jose, but the Bay Area is heavily urbanized and pretty dense.

<comment><USER22> Yes. Other than some corridors like El Camino, the industrial or office zones, or the various downtown areas, most of the peninsula are suburbs.

<comment><USER15> The El Camino corridor, an almost-continuous strip mall, is as quintessentially suburban as it gets.

<comment><USER22> Some parts are pretty built up with mixed use mid rises these days.

Agreed that it needs to get developed much more.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> Living in the St. Louis area, I can say that this example of Glendale used in the article is awfully strange. Makes me suspicious of other conclusions drawn by the author.

 _> Glendale, Mo., which is hobbled by the loss of such St. Louis corporate anchors as Anheuser-Busch."_

Glendale is a very tiny municipality (1 of 88) in St. Louis county with a population of 5,924 in 2010 and 5,886 in 2017. Over the same time period, median home prices are up from about $340k to $390k. Hardly what I'd call "hobbled."

In fact, St. Louis County as a whole (which doesn't include the city but does include some rather dense urban "suburbs") has remained relatively flat and St. Charles County, the next ring out, has seen steady growth.[0]

[0] [https://www.stltoday.com/news/local/metro/census-st-louis- ci...](https://www.stltoday.com/news/local/metro/census-st-louis-city-lost-st- charles-county-gained-and/article_738cfe8f-a15e-5da8-9ad7-a38d8027ea71.html)

<comment><USER24> People who don't live in the area are thoroughly clueless as to the geo- political makeup of what we citizens here call St. Louis. Proof of that are the countless articles pointing to the population of the city being less than 300K while completely ignoring the nearly 3 million of us who live in the area outside the 66 sq miles of the city.

And I haven't a clue how they make a connection between Anheuser-Busch--which is just as active in the city of St. Louis--and Glendale down the street from me.

</comment></comment><comment><USER25> There are so many confounding factors in any discussion about this, it's almost meaningless to try and draw generalizations across an age cohort without first stratifying by city.

The urban design of a region dictates what "suburb" means. A New England suburb is vastly different from a Florida suburb.

The zoning laws and building regulations of the past few generations dictate what older housing stock is available. In most cities this means the housing stock is overwhelmingly suburban thanks to the sprawling postwar housing policy.

Today's zoning laws and regulations decide the same but for the newer and nicer end of the housing stock. Some cities have moved to more density- friendly policy for new construction, some cities are still sprawling, and California is largely frozen in amber.

The composition of the housing stock as discussed above play a large part in the pricing of suburban vs urban living.

Another confounding factor is what the commute looks like, which again is dictated by the past century+ of public policy. A driving commute in greater Boston is generally worse than in your average midsized American city. But rail commutes are viable in many greater Boston towns, and demand trends upwards near rail lines.

Finally, as always, education is a big factor in housing for anyone with children. If all the urban schools suck I expect that pushes some families out of the city.

</comment><comment><USER26> One thing is that "suburb" doesn't necessarily mean the sterile tracks of ranch houses with nary a store or restaurant within miles that is the cliché. Many smaller towns/cities are technically "suburbs" in that they are within commuting distance of a large city but are still walkable/public transit friendly and have their own downtowns.

</comment><comment><USER27> I like to fantasize sometimes about having a giant house in Raleigh for the price of my one bedroom in SF. I just don't know anyone moving from SF to Raleigh. The people I know are moving to Berkeley or the peninsula after they have kids.

It'd be nice if they had done data to back up their demographic trend other than just claiming it based on anecdotal stories.

<comment><USER28> Curious, would you not prefer a modest house and early retirement or options to a giant house in another area? Maybe you can grab both right now, I don't know, but 3-400k can buy a house in extremely nice areas in flyover states, why not find a nice one, buy that and live relaxed?

<comment><USER29> > _...3-400k can buy a house in extremely nice areas in flyover states, why > not find a nice one, buy that and live relaxed?_

Although the general sentiment is agreeable, there's nothing _relaxed_ about maintaining a $400k home. I like to think of it as a different class of stress that's decoupled from work that pays the bills.

<comment><USER28> We can disagree on this one, the amount of time a home takes for maintenance vs a 9-5 isn't a close call for me.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER30> I'd love to see a study more controlled for cost of living.

> In the early 2010s, after the financial crisis walloped the housing market, > average growth rates in cities with populations greater than 250,000 > outpaced the suburbs. But over the past five years, the average annual > growth in America's big cities has slowed by 40%, to 0.69%, according to > census estimates.

I think it's no coincidence that when prices dropped significantly, Millennials flocked to cities. That's where the jobs are, and they could afford it.

Since most cities are not really accommodating growth, prices have ballooned, and people are being priced out.

I used to live in Raleigh and I knew a few people who moved to Apex. It was always the same story: "I'd rather stay in Raleigh but we can afford Apex." That's not to knock on Apex, it is a cute town, but the migration was driven much more by the simple price tag than anything else.

Meanwhile what's happening in Apex now is pretty much the definition of the Growth Ponzi Scheme (ref: [https://www.strongtowns.org/the-growth-ponzi- scheme](https://www.strongtowns.org/the-growth-ponzi-scheme)).

The thing that blows my mind the most is how easy it is to accommodate massive growth by simply requiring a connected street grid — what almost every American town and city did before WW2 and the suburban design social engineering projects of the FDR and Eisenhower eras. A grid can scale. The stupid cul-de-sac design is literally engineered to create traffic congestion. How much more land are we going to inflict that abomination on?

Really that's what this all comes down to: there are straightforward, known solutions to scale urban populations well beyond the relatively modest growth that we have in the US, but as long as we refuse to pull our heads out of the sand and grow _intentionally_ we will continue to have this phenomenon where growth ruins places - first in quality of life, and fiscally in a generation when Apex is not the hot new suburb any more but is saddled with the maintenance cost for hundreds of miles of unproductive infrastructure.

<comment><USER31> > The thing that blows my mind the most is how easy it is to accommodate > massive growth by simply requiring a connected street grid — what almost > every American town and city did before WW2 and the suburban design social > engineering projects of the FDR and Eisenhower eras. A grid can scale. The > stupid cul-de-sac design is literally engineered to create traffic > congestion. How much more land are we going to inflict that abomination on?

Cul-de-sac design (and the related 3-leaf clover design where you have multiple cul-de-sacs all emptying into a single artery, allow for more private front porch experiences and kid-play areas.

It was a reaction to the inability of most residential towns to keep out the gangs, racers and high-speed commuters (ie, bad combo with pedestrians, kids playing in the street).

How do cul-de-sac designs cause congestion?

<comment><USER32> Cul-de-sacs without pedestrian (or cycle) path cut-throughs make journeys that could be a 3 minute walk unnecessarily long on foot, leading to a general increase in car use.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER33> For half a million bucks, down near my SoCal office, you can get one of the two or so available listings with about 1k sqft and maybe two bedrooms. You probably have to be a dual professional income household to live down there. Want a couple of kids to have their own rooms? Tack on another 50-100% of that price. I don't even get how folks in San Fransisco do it.

Go inland an hour or two, hundreds (thousands?) of listings with 3, 4, or 5 bedrooms and 2.5k+ sqft at the same or more affordable prices. You are literally going to double or more your housing costs by being in the city close to work.

I decided to go full remote and moved to the middle of beautiful nowhere. I'm closer to the grocery and restaurants (limited as they are) than before. My commute is going across the hallway to my own office space. My three kids all have their own rooms. Unfortunately, they will probably have to move closer to some city when they look for careers.

</comment><comment><USER34> The idea the article proposes, that $782,000 for a house in North Carolina is an example of "affordable housing", is incredible. Is the article's author a Rockefeller?

<comment><USER35> The triangle tends to be pricey. Good public schools, both primary and Uni level, lots of tech work, nice weather 10 months of the year, close to the coast and the mountains. Apex and Cary tend to get lots of Yankee expats (compared to Long Island 700K is nothing), also driving up prices there. Drive 20 minutes and you can get a nice place for half that.

<comment><USER36> I live in the same neighborhood as the individuals profiled in the article and my house (new construction, 2500 sf) cost less than half of that price, purchased around the same time. Even though Apex is growing quickly $782K is still very high by local standards. I'm sure it was still a "bargain" compared to Redmond.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER37> This might be a good time to mention a documentary called _The End of Suburbia_ [1], which lays out the case for the existence of the suburbs being fueled and sustained by the easy availability of cheap oil and then goes on to forecast the death of the suburbs as cheap oil stops being so easily available.

[1] - [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q3uvzcY2Xug](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q3uvzcY2Xug)

<comment><USER38> Do we have any estimates on when oil will stop being cheap. It was my understanding that the planet will be well and truly fucked beyond repair if we ever managed to use up all the easily available oil.

<comment><USER39> Hopefully oil won't become expensive because we used it all up, but because we finally price in all the externalities.

<comment><USER40> That's really well-put and succinct.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER41> I think the decision to move to the burbs is almost entirely out of the question as an LGBT. Urban centers are the only places with thriving LGBT communities, and I think I would feel very alone if I moved away from one.

</comment><comment><USER42> My family and I moved to the suburbs about 5 years ago. Less traffic, better schools and no weirdos wandering the streets at night.

<comment><USER43> Living in a big city, its funny/sad how big an impact the weirdos have on my opinion of the city.

</comment></comment><comment><USER28> I doubt it's a net loss for cities and compliments the swing a decade ago now that people have families and the suburbs offer more of the amenities they're looking for, similarly to downtown offering more amenities for the childless or single. Of course downtown's have things for families but they have a lot of other bosses, business, tourists, industrial...suburbs tend to serve families and retirees and businesses related to those demographics.

</comment><comment><USER43> It wouldn't be an "escape" for me, it's just if I want a decent amount of space and good schools and a subjectively "nice" neighborhood then I have to look at more suburban areas. I would like to be able to afford a reasonably big place in a nice green, walkable neighborhood in the city but I don't want to spend 10-20 extra years of my life working to afford it.

</comment><comment><USER44> Is there a way to live in the city without paying exorbitant fees to an HOA for crumbling infrastructure and their cronyist maintenance contracts?

Every time I look at real estate, the HOA fees pretty much make condo living a no-go. I'm somehow supposed to believe that it takes $800/mo to service a small 2-br apartment? In many cases that doesn't even include utilities.

<comment><USER45> This often includes either a) full-time staff, in the case of building with doormen or maintenance staff, or b) payback of construction loans or mortgages taken to pay for maintenance.

But: do you live in a house? I assume you haven't had to maintain it much yet...new roof, new heating, new sewer line, renovations, etc. all cost tons of money. I'd be surprised if for a house > 50 years old, you're paying less than a few hundred a month on maintenance on average.

<comment><USER46> The rule of thumb for home maintenance is 1% of purchase price per year. Which isn't $800/month for most people, but is around the few hundred per month you mentioned.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER47> Nothing sucks the soul and joy of life out of me more than a suburb, yet cost of cities and the space needed to raise kids mean they're not all negatives. I just wish we could do better, because no one should be forced to live in such soulless place,yet no one should have to pay so much to afford an extra bedroom.

</comment><comment><USER48> Given the problems cities are having these days, and the cost of housing (and the lack of housing), I'm not surprised.

</comment><comment><USER49> Do Not Get Priced Out</comment>


Ask HN: What does a typical day look like for you? - <AUTHOR> Also, could you please specify what's your "job title" and for how long have you been doing it. <comment><USER2> Arrive ~9.45am. Drink coffee and catch up on stuff till ~10.30. Start writing Javascript (Vuejs currently) and sometimes get to fiddle with the backend (Laravel).

Medium company (+150 people), small team (3), standups are in Slack.

Leave around ~17.00 - 19.00

8.6/10.

</comment><comment><USER3> Could you share yours as a starter?

</comment><comment><USER4> I'm a web developer and work for a media corporation where we brand news landing pages. Here is a sample of what we do: [http://www.multivu.com/players/English/7893651-ges-avatar- di...](http://www.multivu.com/players/English/7893651-ges-avatar-discover- pandora-exhibition-taiwan/)

I love it. It's fun. Everyday I come into work and there is usually a job or two waiting for me. Some times are more busier than others, but every landing page, for the most part, is unique, and I get to be creative doing it. There are times where a client wants a new job to look like their last, so it sometimes "streamlines" the work, but we do try to make every page different. Been working at this business for almost 5 years -- I was a contractor for this very same company before they hired me as a full-time employee.

As a contractor, I used to work from home and actually held two jobs -- so my life had been that I would be working from 8 AM to 2 AM, 5 days a week, for about a year and a half. I even tried to find time to work on side projects. Sleep? Yeah, hardly any. Something had to give. Only 24 hours in a day! But that was a few years back. The second job laid me off before they went under themselves just 6 months later: lesson to all companies out there--IF YOU REFUSE TO KEEP UP WITH YOUR COMPETITION AND THE LATEST TECHNOLOGY, YOU ARE GUARANTEED TO FAIL. I was upset at first before realizing I could somewhat have a normal life again. Imagine working 5 days a week from 8 AM to 2 AM for over a year with almost no time off (excusing the weekends). And where was all the money I was making going? Aside from paying rent, all it did was pay off my student loans... and then I ended up owing the IRS $6,000. I gained a lot of experience though.

Long story shorter about the second job: I had been a web developer for a company that installed Solar Panels and I worked on the software that was displayed on the kiosks in buildings (they usually put them in the front lobby so people could see how much energy a building was using or saving). I worked on the graphics and made it all work with the building`s data. It was a platform that was done in Flash so I had to work in Flash. As you know by now... Flash has pretty much become a thing of the past, and all companies were using HTML5 and Angular and others out there, while my company just had this hard on for Flash. And when Flash went, so did they.

Anyways, as my life is now, I currently work the evening shift at my job, 3 PM to 12 AM. Since I can't sleep after work, I shifted my entire "life schedule" so that I stay up all night and I sleep the morning away, and wake up anywhere between 10 AM - 12 PM. During the hours I am awake after work, usually from 1 AM until 6 AM, I'm working on my own side projects.

I prefer to do it this way because I've tried it the other way around: Going to sleep after work and getting up early. The problem with this is: There are things to be done during the day and people (family/spouse) are bothering me during the day to run errands and stuff like that, so I have tried, but trying to get [my own] work done is almost impossible. They still bother me when I'm sleeping sometimes, but I'm usually unconscious and I don't remember. If not that, than everyone is being loud and I cannot focus at all. And as a programmer/developer, you know you can't just immediately "get into it" unless you really have to.. it takes time to relax your mind into the code.

So at night, while everyone is asleep, I can work in peace. The other thing is: If I wake up early, I find myself often needing at least an hour nap before work or I find myself tired and falling asleep at work. If I sleep till the 10 AM - 12 PM schedule, I don't need a nap, and I'm not tired at work.

I normally only eat once a day, so between 12 - 2 PM I will make something to eat. I mainly live on the ketosis diet, so my meals are often packed with a lot of fat which keeps me full throughout the day, though I do keep almonds or pistachios at my desk for a snack if I find myself hungry later on.

For exercise, I ride my bike to work, which takes me about 10-15 minutes each way, and works out my legs. I live an apartment complex that comes with an indoor heated pool and jacuzzi, so that works out my arms and helps me relax.

During some waking hours, I also run a popular website, [http://www.confessionsoftheprofessions.com](http://www.confessionsoftheprofessions.com), which focuses on jobs, careers, and the workplace -- technically it runs itself, but I get many people contributing articles and infographics, which I have to process and get prepared to publish on the website, so this has basically become a part-time job that I don't get paid for... but it does help with networking, gaining exposure in the world, and helping others as well in the process as they help me. There are just too many benefits that are beyond the financial aspect of it. I normally take a few hours during the week to focus on this website, preparing all the articles and infographics sent to me during the week, scheduling them for a time to get published. Wait times usually range from 1-3 weeks. Since this is a [less than] part-time kind of deal, and the website is free, there is always a waiting period before people get published, but I've had very few complaints about it. As I can only respond: It is a free publishing platform and it is in demand and popular. I only publish once or twice a day and I could probably publish a lot more than that, but I've found a formula that works for me: doing it this way creates that supply and demand as well as that need to keep coming back to the website to see "today's confession".

On the weekends, when I'm off from work, I'm either sleeping, running errands, going to concerts, hiking, watching TV, or working on my side projects. And that is my exciting life.</comment>


GoDaddy's Domain Registration Totally Screws .me - <AUTHOR> http://www.techcrunch.com/2008/07/17/godaddys-domain-registration-totally-screws-me/ <comment><USER2> I tried registering a domain, and wasn't able to when GoDaddy's servers were being hammered. I'd used GoDaddy for years, but I have to say, I've seen the light, they've lost my service.

Why is it so hard for companies to take my money when I try to hand it to them? They had to have known that the demand was high for these .me domain names. There's no excuse for them to have prepared for this kind of traffic.

Heh, now that I think about it, Apple's iPhone situation is remarkably similar to this one. ;-)

</comment><comment><USER3> And here I thought semaphores were well understood.

</comment><comment><USER4> I had no problem .me-ing at dynadot.

<comment><USER2> Me too, I've moved to Dynadot for my domain needs after this incident...

<comment><USER5> Me too, permanently.

What techcrunch doesn't make clear is that this wasn't just some inter- registrar communication problem. Godaddy itself was selling the same domain names over and over and over for hours!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> I had just bought ping.me from godaddy, i got a successfully bought mail too but after 20 min I get a mail telling me, I can't buy it because it is already registered.

Then i did a quick twitter search and found 2 other people had also bought ping.me . Wondering who will get that domain.

<comment><USER5> I'll bet you my foot that it wasn't someone who used godaddy...

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> "Earlier this year GoDaddy won the rights to distribute domains under the extension .me, which belongs to the country of Montenegro."

Blast! I thought it meant "me" as in "myself" and that it was meant for personal pages and such... I didn't see Montenegro mentionned anywhere, in fact namecheap says .me is for personal pages...

I wondered why the heck I hadn't heard of .me before today, now I know.

So .me is officially for Montenegro but is a new de-facto "standard" for personal pages? Or I've been mostly conned out of 80$ (2 domains)?

edit: I'll still put those domains to good use eventually. One domain for me, one for my company, one for each of my projects. Perfect!

<comment><USER8> I don't really see a difference. No one seems to mind that ".tv" stands for Tuvalu and not Television.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> Anyone get any good .me's? All the ones I could think of were taken :-/

</comment><comment><USER10> i thought that it must be too good to be true when i snagged you.me (or so i thought-hehe)

</comment><comment><USER11> Dynadot was great for me too.</comment>


Ask HN: Good Remote Work Literature? - <AUTHOR> I've been working remotely for the last 4 years of my life. In my latest company, I just realized how little literature has been written on the topic of remote working. I've been seeing some forms of reports on the status of remote working [0], but I couldn't find any in-depth materials (whether blogs, essays, papers or even books) with some qualitative thinking on remote work and the future of work. We have been flooded with solutions and tools without a deep understand of our working flow and caveats.
Ie: why are things happening in a certain way? What are the school of thoughts? What are the best practices (synchronous vs. asynchronous, remote vs distributed)? What is the Keynes vs. Hayek of the subject? What are the implications of remote working on organizational structures (eg. functional vs. divisional)? What can and cannot work? What's the tool stack one should adapt depending on the org configuration?(Slack + Zoom for sync, etc) How does this should adapt as the org changes over time?
Do you have specific resources you could recommend me to read on the topic?
This write-up I just published on the blog is the closest example to what I'm looking for: https://sametab.com/blog/future-remote-working/
[0] https://buffer.com/state-of-remote-work-2019 <comment><USER2> GitLab is one of the most successful remote companies. Their handbook is free to read. [https://about.gitlab.com/handbook/](https://about.gitlab.com/handbook/)

But what you are looking for is this one: [https://about.gitlab.com/company/culture/all- remote/](https://about.gitlab.com/company/culture/all-remote/)

<comment><USER3> They pay salaries based on the location of the employees, which kinda sucks.

<comment><USER4> They go great lengths to justify why salaries are paid location based: [https://about.gitlab.com/2019/02/28/why-we-pay-local- rates/](https://about.gitlab.com/2019/02/28/why-we-pay-local-rates/)

I think that's a wise decision because it allows you to stay where you are without pushing you into another country just to benefit from lower living costs while having a comparatively high income.

<comment><USER5> Yeah, to attract people already living in high COL areas you have to pay them well otherwise they'll work local which will track to the living expenses.

<comment><USER6> But why not move to a higher COL area if you can get the same living style. If you're putting x% of your savings away (this is what COL does) then the person in the higher COL nets more savings.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Echoing the recommendation for Remote elsewhere in this thread. I also recommend Cubed: A Secret History of the Workplace.

Cubed does not address remote work per se, but it does help explain the history of the office and how that became the de facto workplace for cognitive labor. It also discusses the history of the theory of management, which is a relatively young scientific subject, maybe 130 years old, which is predicated on one assumption: everyone is in the same building!

As a proponent of remote work, I believe what is happening right now is practice is outstripping science. It'll take several years before science catches up to study what entrepreneurs and companies have already figured out through trial and error.

<comment><USER8> I've not read Cubed. It sounds interesting. But the topics you mention brought to mind similar themes in Peopleware by DiMarco and Lister. I'd add that to the list, though not related to remote working.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> Distributed.blog is a new podcast series by Matt Mullenweg (co-creator of WordPress and CEO of Automattic, a fully-distributed company of nearly a thousand folks). The podcast explores distributed work, the future of business, and what it means for the global economy. [https://distributed.blog/](https://distributed.blog/)

<comment><USER10> Great resource, thanks

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> The team at Doist (creators of Todoist, Twist) just released long-form guides on remote work (e.g. asynchronous communication, taxes, product design, management, hiring, project management, etc.)

[https://twist.com/remote-work-guides/](https://twist.com/remote-work-guides/)

</comment><comment><USER12> I'm also interested in how to RUN a remote company as i've found myself in that position without previous experience. I've found most material online to be related to how to work remotely as a person but not how to actually run the comapny.

</comment><comment><USER13> Shameless self-plug, but I wrote about my decade long experience of remote work here[0], and included some further reading material that I've personally found useful. There are some books dedicated to this. I am actually toying with the idea of writing a book on this and would love to get your thoughts. Ping me at @vpetersson if you wanna chat.

[0] [https://blog.viktorpetersson.com/remote- work/2019/05/18/a-de...](https://blog.viktorpetersson.com/remote- work/2019/05/18/a-decade-of-remote.html)

</comment><comment><USER14> I wrote two free books specifically on productized services.

The first book discuss how to productize your services and hire and manage remote workers (and it covers the tools and techniques to work remotely). The second book is mostly about value proposition and marketing.

1) [http://www.productizebook.co](http://www.productizebook.co) 2) [http://www.productizemarketing.co](http://www.productizemarketing.co)

</comment><comment><USER15> [https://github.com/lukasz-madon/awesome-remote- job](https://github.com/lukasz-madon/awesome-remote-job)

<comment><USER16> Table of Contents > Humor > [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IW3lhfVpLL4](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IW3lhfVpLL4)

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> Related question: how do you manage payroll in all the different countries? I noticed Gitlab hires as contractors but curious if anyone is using international PEO or other solutions

Edit: Looks like Gitlab uses CXC and Safeguard Global as employers of record

<comment><USER18> We're working on something at Remote. While working at GitLab, I saw the issues they were having, so we're building an alternative to CXC and Safeguard.

Launching a little launch page later today, but feel free to email me if you're in need of some help: job at remote dot com.

<comment><USER19> Is the launch related to Employ? [https://remote.com/employ](https://remote.com/employ)

Have not come across remote.com previously; a focused job board is useful, but Employ looks game-changing. (Note: I do not know what exists in this space already - if anything.)

<comment><USER18> It is!

Happy to chat about it in detail if you're interested.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> You should read: The Year Without Pants: WordPress.com and the Future of Work

Its a real treat.

<comment><USER21> Seconding this!

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> Edit: I have not seen anything coming from the economic literature about remote work. Sadly economists are focused on bigCorps and VCs who are not remote-friendly.

Some of the best articles from remote workers i saw recently:

[https://a.wholelottanothing.org/2019/08/09/tips- from-16-year...](https://a.wholelottanothing.org/2019/08/09/tips- from-16-years-of-working-from-home/)

[https://mikeindustries.com/blog/archive/2019/08/a-year-of- wo...](https://mikeindustries.com/blog/archive/2019/08/a-year-of-working- remotely)

More links like this here: [https://reworkin.com/](https://reworkin.com/)

</comment><comment><USER22> The ones who come to mind are Zapier and Basecamp, which has been mentioned earlier.

[https://zapier.com/learn/remote-work/](https://zapier.com/learn/remote-work/)

</comment><comment><USER23> [https://leanpub.com/geographicallydistributedagileteams](https://leanpub.com/geographicallydistributedagileteams)

</comment><comment><USER24> I read this years ago and remember nothing about it, but it's a start: Remote by Jason Fried and DHH - [https://basecamp.com/books/remote](https://basecamp.com/books/remote)

<comment><USER25> +1 for REMOTE for having at least some perceived authority (authored by successful / well-known business owners who practice what they preach), and for explicitly addressing each of several audiences. It's not particularly deep, but it might be useful.

<comment><USER26> I second this. It's an interesting and good read but it is more a sell on the philosophy of remote work and its benefits than a practical guide that goes into specifics.

No remote work literature review would be complete without it, but it might potentially be less interesting for a reader who has already been working remotely for 4 years, other than to mostly validate what they probably already know.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER27> There is a lot of academic work on this subject among researchers on teams/virtual teams, see e.g. the work of Pam Hines and Melissa Valentine at Stanford, Mark Mortensen at Insead. There is also a whole literature in 'Computer Supported Collaborative Work' in CS depts.

</comment><comment><USER28> I recommend the book "Work Together Anywhere" by Lisette Sutherland and her other contributions (i.e. talks). She talks on many aspects of remote work: starting from benefits and how to convince your boss, through team dynamics, to what tools to use.

</comment><comment><USER29> In this context: Does anyone have experiences with Tandem, especially this feature where you can see what your peers are doing (showing the app name of your focused window, I think)?

<comment><USER30> No experience with it, but I struggle to imagine it being useful where the viewed person is a programmer. A day is split between, what, a browser and a terminal emulator? And an IDE if used?

<comment><USER29> I agree but this might be already useful. The biggest challenge for most when they work from home is lacking social pressure leading to procrastination. When I read about Tandem's take on this, I thought that's a smart, subtle solution. You could still game the system by just using your phone but still: Any cheating results in odd behavior on Tandem and probably to more discipline. Maybe I am wrong but I need just people who tried Tandem and share their experiences.

<comment><USER31> Isn't this really an incentive problem? I find it hard to believe that snoopware will foster a high trust environment.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER32> Read my book - The Remote Project Manager - on Amazon. It covers the challenges of managing teams remotely as well as how to best use the available Technology. Gren Gale

</comment><comment><USER33> I've been collecting remote work material (books, articles, discussions, talks) here — [https://www.notion.so/scenery/Remote- Work-2c76a8c189f248c2b9...](https://www.notion.so/scenery/Remote- Work-2c76a8c189f248c2b94977e204fbea37) whilst working on my own remote tool — [https://www.scenery.app](https://www.scenery.app)

</comment><comment><USER34> I found the book 'Work together anywhere' by Lisette Sutherland extremely helpful. You can skip past the first five chapters if you already are in this situation.

It's really helped me work with a remote team. The book has tons of good recommendations as well, so it's practical as well as helpful.

</comment><comment><USER35> This is by no means an in-depth research on the topic - just a remarkably well-written chronicle related to remote work.

[https://williamkowalski.com/brief-life-happiness-engineer- au...](https://williamkowalski.com/brief-life-happiness-engineer-automattic/)

</comment><comment><USER36> Not quite what you asked for, but I'm finding it enlightening:

[https://daedtech.com/developer-hegemony-the-crazy-idea- that-...](https://daedtech.com/developer-hegemony-the-crazy-idea-that- software-developers-should-run-software-development/)

</comment><comment><USER37> Related: Is there a dedicated HR tool for remote companies?

It's been quite burdensome figuring out payroll, benefits, employment forms, etc. for int'l employees (contractors and full-time). I'd love a slim version of TriNet/BambooHR/etc that makes all of this easy for us.

</comment><comment><USER38> > remote vs distributed)?

Matt Mullenweg on why he prefers distributed > [https://www.ted.com/talks/matt_mullenweg_why_working_from_ho...](https://www.ted.com/talks/matt_mullenweg_why_working_from_home_is_good_for_business)

</comment><comment><USER39> I recently joined GitLab to lead its all-remote initiatives. I've lived and worked remotely in a variety of settings (all-remote, remote-first, part- remote, etc.) and I'm building out pages within GitLab's publicly accessible All-Remote section to hopefully answer questions like these. The hub is here (as mentioned by langitbiru — thank you!): [https://about.gitlab.com/company/culture/all- remote/](https://about.gitlab.com/company/culture/all-remote/)

We're sharing what we've learned scaling the company to over 800 people across nearly 60 countries, 100% remote with no offices. The goal is to share this knowledge and see other organizations replicate, iterate, and evolve.

Some of the more recent ones are below.

People: [https://about.gitlab.com/company/culture/all- remote/people/](https://about.gitlab.com/company/culture/all-remote/people/)

Jobs: [https://about.gitlab.com/company/culture/all- remote/jobs/](https://about.gitlab.com/company/culture/all-remote/jobs/)

Hiring: [https://about.gitlab.com/company/culture/all- remote/hiring/](https://about.gitlab.com/company/culture/all-remote/hiring/)

Compensation: [https://about.gitlab.com/company/culture/all- remote/compensa...](https://about.gitlab.com/company/culture/all- remote/compensation/)

Learning and Development: [https://about.gitlab.com/company/culture/all- remote/learning...](https://about.gitlab.com/company/culture/all- remote/learning-and-development/)

Informal Communication: [https://about.gitlab.com/company/culture/all- remote/informal...](https://about.gitlab.com/company/culture/all- remote/informal-communication/)

Meetings: [https://about.gitlab.com/company/culture/all- remote/meetings...](https://about.gitlab.com/company/culture/all- remote/meetings/)

Part-remote: [https://about.gitlab.com/company/culture/all-remote/part- rem...](https://about.gitlab.com/company/culture/all-remote/part-remote/)

Remote work conferences, summits, and events: [https://about.gitlab.com/company/culture/all- remote/events/](https://about.gitlab.com/company/culture/all-remote/events/)

Advantages and benefits: [https://about.gitlab.com/company/culture/all- remote/benefits...](https://about.gitlab.com/company/culture/all- remote/benefits/)

Disadvantages: [https://about.gitlab.com/company/culture/all- remote/drawback...](https://about.gitlab.com/company/culture/all- remote/drawbacks/)

More to come! If you have questions on making all-remote work, hiring all- remote workers, or managing/communicating in an all-remote environment, leave a comment! We're always looking for challenges happening across the space, so we can ideally find and document solutions.

</comment><comment><USER40> I quite liked the book 'Remote: Office Not Required' from the founders of 37signals.com

</comment><comment><USER41> curious for things like this more explicitly from workers' perspective, rather than like running a company in general.</comment>


PayPerPost - I'm speechless - <AUTHOR> http://www.techcrunch.com/2007/05/27/payperpost-now-lets-bloggers-set-their-price/ <comment><USER2> Somehow I can't feel bothered by this. If anything it will raise awareness that everything on the internet should be taken with a grain of salt. And who is writing a "self-less" blog anyway? My guess is: nobody. So let's just discard the myth of the holy blogger.

Another thought: whose review of a product is likely to be more neutral, the one from a blogger who bought it with his own money, or the one from the blogger who got the product in the mail for free? My guess is the one who got it for free might actually be more "objective", because otherwise there is that psychological effect that people estimate things higher that they paid for, so that they don't feel stupid. See also <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cognitive_dissonance> (Cognitive Dissonance)

<comment><USER3> "Another thought: whose review of a product is likely to be more neutral, the one from a blogger who bought it with his own money, or the one from the blogger who got the product in the mail for free?"

We should try this with politicians and juries -- instead of letting them come up with policy on their own, we should bribe them so they'll look at it more objectively.

</comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> "The new product is a widget that bloggers can add to their blogs that announces their willingness to sell blog posts."

What's next, you walk into a financial advisor and you see a poster "will reccommend anything for a fee - enquire within"?

<comment><USER4> This is really a bad idea - it corrupts what is so attractive about blogs - that they represent the genuine opinions of the bloggers. If there is a disclaimer in the blog about the sponsorship, however, no problem.

<comment><USER3> Maybe it's time to stop treating 'blogs' as a monolith, since they're as definite a medium as, say, "Ink-like substances on tree-like materials." Some blogs will become less reliable if they can get paid to advertise -- just as some blogs got less reliable when people realized they could distort facts to support their political favorites.

If you want a blogger you can trust, you're already screwed. Blogging makes you exactly as anonymous as you want to be, so it's almost certain that what people refuse to disclose is whatever will hurt them most.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Ethically, the worst startup of 2006 :(</comment>


Justice Department asks Supreme Court to let Trump block his Twitter critics - <AUTHOR> http://lite.cnn.com/en/article/h_1bc48dce3cd661be7d4f5b9a3c2e4066 <comment><USER2> Looks like Twitter painted themselves into a corner.</comment>


Canada's tech sector is hemorrhaging talent [audio] - <AUTHOR> http://www.canadalandshow.com/podcast/ep-147-why-johnny-cant-innovate-canadas-tech-sector/ <comment><USER2> If you want canadian talent you can get it, but you cannot pretend you deserve it. You must work for it.That means identifying talent in university before the Microsoft or Google recruiters get ahold of their resume. It means finding developers before the skill is obvious for the big corps. Then you treat them well and have them start their career before graduation.

During my university the local division of Coverity did a good job of this. They sponsored the programming club events. They sent real engineers to every career fair. They gave internships to 2 years. They kept on skilled programmers throughout the year. One guy I knew got married and bought a house while working part time there even before graduation.

I would say that company grabbed the majority of the high-performing nice-to- work-with students from my year. The only ones they did not get was me (video game programming japan), and my friend (C++ standard library programming at google).

Or you could whine about why you deserve to get Canada's best at insulting wages. Maybe that will work.

<comment><USER3> >Or you could whine about why you deserve to get Canada's best at insulting wages. Maybe that will work.

Had a opportunity with a Ontario based startup, their starting package was 40k and they wanted me to relocate. When pushing for a better salary, I was told this was the best they could offer. Fucking insulting wage for a backend developer (Go/Appengine)

<comment><USER4> Again and again, why don't Canadian companies understand that CS graduate can easily earn 100k in the states and can actually afford a house? How can they offer what they offer and stay competitive?

<comment><USER5> I grew up in Vancouver, went to high-school there, whet to UBC there. My family is in Vancouver. The majority of my friends are in Vancouver. I own real-estate in Vancouver. I eventually want to move back to Vancouver. I can safely say I love Vancouver. However, I currently live in Seattle. Why? The money!

As frustrating as it is to admit, and as uninteresting as it is, the simple answer is usually the most appropriate:

Canadian companies like their tier-2 low wage talent (and some tier-1 low wage talent - who prefer Canada). Its good enough for their usecases, and it gets the job done. Meanwhile, they like to complain that they can't hire tier-1 low wage talent.

That is the only answer I can come up with!

<comment><USER6> Seems the philosophy Canada is going with is 'revolving-door', by balancing emigration with immigration[1][2]. What happens when the economy slows and there's record household debt? There should be more bedrock jobs than just a derivative function of the global economy.

[1][http://www.canadianbusiness.com/innovation/how-canadas- immig...](http://www.canadianbusiness.com/innovation/how-canadas-immigration- policy-is-failing-high-tech-startups/)

[2] [http://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/john-mccallum- substantially-...](http://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/john-mccallum- substantially-increase-immigration-labour-shortages-1.3718831)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> When I was searching for entry level SWE jobs in Canada in 2011 after abruptly dropping out of grad school, I applied to ~50 positions and interviewed at around a dozen (public+private sector) in Vancouver + Alberta, all paying $50K-$60K.

A year later, Google swooped in with an offer that quintupled my compensation. The thing that struck me about it most was the supposedly-intense Google programmer interviews were actually far less difficult than most of the all- day interviews I did for Canadian institutions. I was a bit outraged that these interviews could be so tough for such meager compensation, especially given the cost of living in Vancouver. I was surprised they were able to get away with it, and it looks like it's starting to bite them in the ass, for which I am glad.

Edit: The specific places I would name, if anyone's curious, are Zymeworks and SAP in Vancouver, as well as staff research positions at UBC, University of Calgary, and the BC Cancer Agency.

<comment><USER8> You make $250k-$300k/yr for an entry-level software engineering job?

<comment><USER9> yeah, sure. for google/apple/facebook/etc. 150k cash + 100k+ equity and bonus compensation sounds about right. on a good year, add another 100k. on a really good year, add another 250k. on a really really good year, add a couple million. who do you think is buying all these houses?

the first step to making this kind of money is not settling for anything less, because opportunity is the biggest cost. when was the last time you turned down 150k to wait for a better offer?

<comment><USER10> I've worked at Google for 8 years.

The only way you are likely to see "another 100k on a good year" is if you sell _all_ the RSUs you've got that year.

I've see a few people "add a couple of million" when their project of 7 years succeeded, but these were very senior people.

I think it's an illusion to think that rank and file SWEs will ever have an "add a few million" year.

> who do you think is buying all these houses?

I see very few rank and file Google SWEs being able to afford anything within 1 hour commute of Mountain View.

<comment><USER9> so what you're saying is, you've seen everything i've described happen, at least to "a few people", and you're just one guy.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> Any Canadian developer will tell you the problem is the abysmal pay that Canadian companies offer.

I love my country and would love nothing more than to stay here, but when moving south of the border means a 50% bump, it's hard to stay in Canada.

It doesn't help that most Canadian CEOs talk about the issue as if they're entitled to Canadian graduates working for them without making any attempt at matching US pay packages.

<comment><USER12> > Any Canadian developer will tell you the problem is the abysmal pay that > Canadian companies offer.

Companies can't pay money they don't have. In my experience as a Canadian founder, Canadian companies are just poorer. We'd love to pay more but then we'd be bankrupt.

<comment><USER13> Are not most of your customers (at least for tech companies) in the US? Wouldn't the weak Canadian dollar help you in that respect? I understand taxes are higher in Canada, but in the US most tech companies have to contribute to medical insurance.

<comment><USER12> In our case, most of our customers are not in the US. But, with the exception of local customers and and customers that have Canadian subsidiaries (we deal mainly with enterprise customers) -- most customers pay in USD. If you're a large US tech company looking to near-shore, the low dollar is great; but, not so much if you're a local company.

* Our non-salary expenses are largely paid in USD (hosting, cloud services, etc) * Developer salaries are in a global-ish market and we've seen salaries shoot up greatly because of the falling dollar to compete the falling purchasing power of the CAD * Large US companies opening up local development offices further driving the * Revenues lag the costs of salaries and other services -- we have to pay our staff, hosting, cloud services before we receive revenue. Of course, this is always the case, but with the falling dollar you feel it more, especially in the case of salaries

In short, this is not manufacturing where your inputs and salaries are largely localized. At best the falling dollar is a push and at worst it's a negative impact. Really, it's currency volatility that is more the issue, if it would stabilize and stay that way for a few years, it would make planning and adapting much easier. This year alone, we've seen 0.68 dollar and a 0.79 dollar.

Add to this:

* The general "Canadian Discount" US VC give to Canadian companies and the stinginess of Canadian VC * The SRED roulette -- it's not really free money as described, you have to spend it then pray the government will give you the tax credits. In my experience what's decided as SRED-able can really depend on who the reviewer is, it's more of a lottery than anything else unless you can dedicate someone basically full time maintaining SRED records. Also, you can't pay for salaries and services with tax credits -- they only help for the next year if you have profits.

Actually, corporate taxes are lower for a Canadian Controlled Corporation than the equivalent US company, but that doesn't really factor into things like salaries. Taxes are on profits and salaries are before profits. Also, most Canadian companies, especially in the tech sector, also have to contribute to medical insurance. You're going to have a hard time recruiting without extended health care benefits.

All that said, I am positive on running a company here. Just would like less uncertainty in terms of exchange rates.

<comment><USER14> You're going to have a hard time recruiting twenty-somethings without vision and dental, really?

I pay for that stuff out of pocket and it's like, $500 a year.

<comment><USER15> Keep in mind that _because_ Canada has no public dental coverage, people who live the serial-entrepreneurship life, never signing on with companies large enough to have benefits-plans, just have constantly worsening teeth. I have a non-negligible number of friends here who want to work at a bigcorp for a while just so they can finally get coverage to do 5+ root canals. (As it stands, they're just constantly taking anti-inflammatories and antibiotics to get through the days.)

<comment><USER14> You can get your dental work done in third world countries for cash for cheap. I got my wisdom tooth out for $30 in Vietnam. Same procedure is $400 in Canada.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> I listened to the podcast yesterday and while the premise is correct, the episode is actually lousy at explaining any of it, discussing anything that happened at the meetings with "leaders", and ultimately had the wrong people discussing the topic. This ended sounding like a platform for Dan Debow to talk about whatever agenda he wanted with little REAL pushback from the host.

The only reassuring thing about this podcast was the brief mention that Ted Livingston (of Kik) was at those talks with so-called "leaders of Canada". I mean, do we really expect the likes of Galen Weston, Magna International, and the like to really talk about innovation or tech? Other than Kik, which of those companies would any person on HN really be interested in working at?

<comment><USER17> This is sadly how policy decisions get made in government. The smart people building stuff are usually busy building stuff and are turned off of events with titles like "leaders of Canada". At the same time, a lot of the successful Canadian founders, who would have time for this, found success via acquisition by US companies and aren't around to attend.

I'm curious if there are articles about Canada hemorrhaging math/finance talent to New York? Or is this just something we perpetually complain about in tech as if talent/industry centralization wasn't a phenomenon in almost every big new market in history.

All of our good Canadian musicians, comedians, and actors go to the US and become big, countless have done so. That's how we can tell if their good or not, usually. And nothings wrong with that. No one complained when Drake signed to a US label when his new career took off...

<comment><USER18> >All of our good Canadian musicians, comedians, and actors go to the US and become big, countless have done so.

Not the Tragically Hip. But they always seemed happy with that.

<comment><USER19> You know, I think it's a myth that they aren't popular there. They're no Rolling Stones, but they still fill concert halls and festivals!

But they never sold their souls to the States and they seem very proud of it.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> When I was searching for jobs, could not just believe the startup offers. $35K - $45K in Vancouver. I would have felt like a slave working for that kind of money in Vancouver. Albertan co-op guy would easily earn double that. I have not researched other nuances of this situation, but it put me off that scene entirely. Unfortunately, great white north will keep bleeding talent.

<comment><USER21> $35-45k sounds insane for Vancouver. FWIW, jobs I currently see advertised in the Toronto/Waterloo region (both on Stack Overflow and by recruiters) for mid-level devs are more like $70k-$110k.

<comment><USER12> $70k-$110k is pretty much standard for mid-level devs in Vancovuer as well.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> Vancouver: consistently ranked as one of the world's top ten most expensive cities, with salaries half of what you can make in Seattle.

The Vancouver technology sector is also a joke compared to Seattle... To the extent that hootsuite is a 'big deal' there.

<comment><USER12> Actually Vancouver is never ranked in the top ten most expensive cities in the world. This is a myth that gets put around Vancouver due to Demographia's horrible annual which gets broadcast everywhere and horribly misinterpreted. They only look at a handful of Anglosphere cities and only look at housing affordability. But housing affordability is meaningless for gauging how expensive a city is -- you don't have to buy a house, you can rent, etc. Also, they have a stated goal of encouraging lower density and promoting sprawl and have ties to the automotive industry.

If you look at actual studies of the cost of living in cities around the world, like from Mercer or the Economist, Vancouver is closer to the upper middle in terms of cost of living.

<comment><USER22> > you can rent

Vancouver literally has a 0.5% rental vacancy rate right now. If you put up an ad on Craigslist for an apartment for rent it'll get 50 replies in two hours. People are getting into bidding wars on apartments.

<comment><USER12> Yes, it's an increasingly tight market right now -- I just moved at the start of August -- but rents are still reasonable here for a city of Vancouver's size and development. Though this may change if the market if the current tightness, which only started about 6 months ago, maintains for a few years.

The point remains, if you rent in Vancouver the city doesn't rank very high on the most expensive cities in the world list.

<comment><USER15> I'm not sure what you're saying here: the value of a commodity is measured by the probability distribution of being able to buy that commodity for a given price. If it's hard to find a unit to rent at price $X, that's the _same thing_ as units being more expensive than $X. Imagine paying an agent to watch MLS and leap on offers for you, or paying other people to temporarily leave the market, or just spending your work-hours at home on the phone to realtors, etc. The inefficiency of those things is, itself, part of the cost of the unit.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> I grew up in Vancouver and miss it daily but none of the salaries would allow me to purchase a house anywhere closer than New Westminster. Instead now I live in Sydney, Aus and have the same cost of living but a salary that's scaled appropriately.

<comment><USER20> Hell man, I even miss Edmonton. Haha. I also moved to Australia.

</comment></comment><comment><USER24> The issue is the wages, in Vancouver where a house is easily in the many millions companies seem to think it's fine and dandy to pay 80k a year in the high range, ultra high range is 120k/y and get this - low level assembly and C programming generally pays less than ruby or js.

</comment><comment><USER25> Companies in Canada don't pay as much because a) there is a talent pool who will take what they are offering, b) they don't make enough revenue from a given dev to justify high salaries, or c) their investors do not see the risk/reward payoff of investing in top tier devs.

As for a), yes, Canada's multiculturalism attracts migrants, who in spite of their talent have a crappy negotiating position and are easily taken advantage of. Everyone has a story of the guy who barely speaks english but who can code getting worked like a dog for peanuts.

for b) for software in Canada, you sell to the 5 banks or government. it's recurring license fees from stable customers but in a limited market.

And c) there is no market for software in canada that would justify a billion dollar valuation. Those valuations were based on cornering a user base to use as a sales channel.

Further Canada's de-facto official policy of currency debasement to keep industrial exports afloat means limited purchasing power for citizens, therefore anything that succeeds has to succeed somewhere else.

It's a great place to outsource your dev shop, kind of like a more reliable India or Belarus, but as a market it's just not large enough for to reap the network effect / micro-margin/infinite scale benefits of software solutions.

</comment><comment><USER26> Does anyone know why the pay is so much lower? It seems lame to blame it on "culture" (if it's really true, that's a great arbitrage opportunity). Are there systemic country-wide forces that push down on the salaries?

</comment><comment><USER27> A huge factor that I don't see any comments about yet, is the exchange rate. Look at this chart of the USD/CAD in the past 3 years:

[http://www.xe.com/currencycharts/?from=USD&to=CAD&view=10Y](http://www.xe.com/currencycharts/?from=USD&to=CAD&view=10Y)

A 35-40% swing in the purchasing power of the currency is a pretty big deal.

<comment><USER23> This was still an issue when the currencies were closer to parity but the swing only makes things worse.

<comment><USER28> It'll never stop being an issue. You're in tech you go to SV, you're in entertainment you go to LA, you're in international criminal law you go to The Hague, you're in particle smashing you go to Europe, you're into iron ore mining you go to Perth, etc.

Countries will just blow tax money trying to change things. Focus on your core competencies.

<comment><USER29> What are Canada's core competencies? Where does it have a comparative advantage?

<comment><USER14> Potash, diamonds, gold, seal fur, oil sands. We basically dig things out of the ground and sell them to the US, it's really lame :(

<comment><USER30> You forgot maple syrup. We have even have a strategic supply of the stuff

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER31> As others have said, the salaries aren't particularly enticing and this is being felt strongly in a place as expensive as Vancouver. Interestingly, I think this might drive a boost in immigration - the reason I can stay in Vancouver is by having my job here, or going through the immigration ordeal with another company. I don't think it's a particularly healthy situation whichever way you look at it.

</comment><comment><USER32> Grew up there, went to Queen's, but after one crappy job in Ottawa in 1995, I left for the Bay Area for good.

Now when I go back I'm struck by the high prices, high taxes, and a general (and sadly very Canadian) aversion to risk.

I used to brag about Canada and honestly felt it was a better place to live...I don't think that any more.

<comment><USER33> Canada is a great place to live for most people, frankly, probably better than the US.

It's not a good place for talent.

<comment><USER34> >Canada is a great place to live for most people, frankly, probably better than the US.

No it's not. Most youth have zero dreams related to property ownership, as everything near the core and cities that are near the core are prohibitively expensive. There is a general apathy and malaise here.

"Just move outside of the city" they say, to suburbs that are also priced 500k+, and _just_ far enough to _only_ have to spend an hour and a half commuting to your city job.

<comment><USER33> Having lived all over the world, all over Canada, and in Texas and Cali for many years, I can assure you that Canada is pretty good.

You have clearly never lived in the Silicon Valley if you're talking about housing.

Housing in the Valley is beyond unaffordable. A choice job at Google and you still won't be buying a home.

You're probably young, and single. Your class has always struggled with home ownership. Most couples can afford to get in on the housing ladder by buying and apartment, and in some year, buy a home.

That said - Toronto and Vancouver are distorted markets right now. Everywhere else in Canada is pretty normal and home ownership is similar to most places in the US that are not NYC/SF.

<comment><USER29> > A choice job at Google and you still won't be buying a home.

That's just not true. Housing is very expensive, but a "choice" job at Google pays enough to buy a home. The same goes for Apple, Facebook, Amazon, and the other large companies. Their compensation for mid- and senior-level people is so good that it's difficult to convince them to leave, even for considerable startup equity.

<comment><USER33> Median home price sale in Santa Clara is 1.25 Million dollars.

That's like $7K a month mortgage payment. $82K/year. You need to be earning $200K to pay that.

There are surely a lot of people at Google earning $200K, but not that many in relative terms. Most devs with a few years experience won't earn that.

If you need to earn $200K to be able to afford a home, I would say that's ridiculous.

Most Google developers are very talented and educated, and will not be able to buy a home. That sucks.

<comment><USER35> > Most devs with a few years experience won't earn that.

How sure of that are you? I don't have a lot of data points, but 3.5 years of experience got me a 270k offer from Google. I find it hard to believe it was _that_ much higher than average.

<comment><USER33> Average base salary at Google is 128 according to this:

[http://www.businessinsider.com/a-google-programmer-blew- off-...](http://www.businessinsider.com/a-google-programmer-blew- off-a-500000-salary-at-startup--because-hes-already-making-3-million-every- year-2014-1)

<comment><USER35> I don't think base salary is a very good measure of compensation at places like Google. Are you suggesting that RSUs and bonuses be valued at $0?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER36> Amusingly, I've been informed that my company's corporate overlords have decided to focus on growing Vancouver as their "centralized" west-coast- development location, rather than Seattle, primarily due to salaries.

So I guess we'll have to see if that works out for them.

<comment><USER37> For awhile Facebook was using their Vancouver office to 'park' foreign talent until they could secure H1Bs for them to go to the US offices, because it was much easier to get a work visa for that talent in Canada.

</comment></comment><comment><USER38> Getting by as a tech worker in Canada is possible. The way I made it work was to take remote roles. Don't live in the Vancouver or Toronto areas, if possible - that's just not going to work, given the out-of-control cost of living associated with both areas. There are still plenty of places one can live in Canada that are not saddled with such costs.

<comment><USER15> What exactly is the benefit of living in Canada if you're outside of the cities, anyway? From what I can see (having lived in both urban and rural Canada, and the US) Canadian cities have a unique character, but rural Canada is pretty much the same as rural America. If you don't care about living "near" anything, why does it matter what country you're doing it in?

</comment></comment><comment><USER39> Wait and see British coming to Canada. Brexit changed the odds.

<comment><USER40> Actually planning that move myself. My Canadian wife and I had it planned before Brexit, but Brexit seems to have justified it! Threads like this are a little disconcerting however.</comment></comment>


CommonMark –  a rationalized version of Markdown syntax, with a spec - <AUTHOR> http://spec.commonmark.org/dingus/ <comment><USER2> Direct link to the question I immediately had: why a spec is needed (or more likely: why it didn't exist before)

[http://spec.commonmark.org/0.25/#why-is-a-spec- needed-](http://spec.commonmark.org/0.25/#why-is-a-spec-needed-)</comment>


Pixelapse launches new UI - <AUTHOR> http://blog.pixelapse.com/post/51028016101/quicker-cleaner-fresher

<comment><USER2> I really really REALLY love pixelapse. It's completely changed the way I work with my clients.

I spend half the year in NYC, half the year in Vietnam. Working from Vietnam has always been a little painful because of internet connectivity and one particular client's insistance of storing designs for apps internally on their servers. This would require me to VPN out of Vietnam and then ReadyNAS into their servers and then hunt through a maze of folders for the files I need. Slooooow.

Pixelapse has insured that I've always got the latest stuff on my laptop, plus providing feedback/questions on specific designs and visually seeing changes has been a big boon.

The one thing I would like to see change is their pricing structure. I wish you could add collaborators ala carte. The cap on collaborators at 9 for $150 a month is little too much. I will just create one account for an entire company and everyone will share that to get around it. I'd rather not do that. So PLEASE PLEASE add ala carte collaborators or something that makes more sense.

<comment><USER3> Hi jawngee! Thanks for the kinds words about us. We're really fortunate to have passionate users like you. :)

Regarding pricing - it's definitely more of an art than a science. We're by no means perfect and are learning from our customer's needs as we go along. Rest assured though, we've thought about cases like your team's a ton and and we'll have some good news to share very, very soon!

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> This is my first time hearing about this (honest to god), but I have to say I do like the homepage design. The combination of clean blue and white with tasteful screenshots do make me want to send this some designer friends and see if this can be helpful to them.

</comment><comment><USER5> Link your blog's logo to your homepage.

<comment><USER3> Clicking on the logo should take you to the homepage already. We might've missed it somewhere though; could you point me to it?</comment></comment>


Ask HN: Has anyone setup successful algo trading (retail)? - <AUTHOR> There was a recent thread on Zipline that had some interest. Would be interesting to have a survey to know if any retail trader has been successful setting up an automating trading system at all ? <comment><USER2> I have yet to find the time to do this myself, but my research concluded that Michael Halls-Moore's @mhallsmoore blog project qsforex[0] is the best place to start. I have used Oanda as a broker and found their service to be great. Plus, As far as I know Oanda is the first to the retail market with an open API. Although, I haven't yet used Oanda's API[1] as mentioned in the setup. Check out quantstart's write ups[2] for the best info on getting started with algo trading.

[0] [https://github.com/mhallsmoore/qsforex](https://github.com/mhallsmoore/qsforex) [1] [https://www.quantstart.com/articles/Forex-Trading- Diary-1-Au...](https://www.quantstart.com/articles/Forex-Trading- Diary-1-Automated-Forex-Trading-with-the-OANDA-API) [2] [https://www.quantstart.com/articles#algorithmic- trading](https://www.quantstart.com/articles#algorithmic-trading)

<comment><AUTHOR> Interactive Brokers can be used as well (I have heard Oanda's fills are not as good as Interactive Brokers). I am looking to see if anyone has actually setup a profitable system.</comment></comment>


In Italian town of 3k, 50-75% of Covid-19 cases are asymptomatic but contagious - <AUTHOR> https://www.reddit.com/r/Coronavirus/comments/fjuj24/5075_of_covid19_cases_are_completely_asymptomatic/ <comment><USER2> But what percentage are pre-symptomatic? If cases are doubling every 5 days, and it takes 5 days for symptoms to show, might that explain result?

However the Italian study appears to agree with this preprint about another complete population study: [https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2020.03.05.20031773v...](https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2020.03.05.20031773v2.full.pdf)

That paper shows that the effect is age related: People over ~50 have a ~50% chance of being asymptomatic, under 50 years is ~10% asymptomatic.

</comment><comment><USER3> Doesn't this suggest the number of cases in Italy or the US is probably in the hundreds of thousands, or millions?</comment>


Leaping Years and Drawing Lines  - <AUTHOR> http://research.swtch.com/2008/02/leaping-years-and-drawing-lines.html

<comment><USER2> I certainly hadn't associated Bresenham's algorithm with leap year algorithms but it is a good explanation.

</comment><comment><USER3> For the gcd, I've always liked this version from python's own unit test:

      def gcd(a, b):
        while a:
            a, b = b%a, a
        return b</comment>


Headcounters: my first wordpress plugin - <AUTHOR>

it took me 90 minutes to write this wordpress plugin: now it's your turn to install it! I'll paypal 100$ to the 100th user that installs it!<p>http://github.com/etozzato/headcounters ;) <comment><AUTHOR> and 1$ to the 1st, 10$ to the 10th and 1000$ to the 1000th! LOL</comment>