Yale Fights to Keep Student Start-Ups From Defecting to Silicon Valley - <AUTHOR> http://blogs.wsj.com/independentstreet/2008/07/31/yale-fights-to-keep-student-start-ups-from-defecting-to-silicon-valley/

<comment><USER2> These guys don't seem to understand that the critical ingredient is investors. Half the startups we fund start out in Boston, which is much more of a startup hub than New Haven. And still most of the successful ones end up in the Valley, because that's where the investors are.

If YC doesn't cause startups to take root in Boston (not that we care; we're neutral on the question), this program is unlikely to make startups take root in New Haven.

<comment><AUTHOR> Paul, what about idea incubation? I went to a school similar to Yale in the mindset of Investment Banking, Consulting and Law School was the end-all-be- all; wouldn't this be a great resource for interested students to mix/match with successful alumni, interested board members and a rich network?

I'm strongly considering this for Georgetown.

<comment><USER2> What is idea incubation? Working on your startup's business plan while in school? Sounds like premature optimization. Or more precisely, what Trevor calls "turd polishing."

If you want to start a web/software startup, the best thing you can do while in school is just start hacking with your friends. Maybe a company will grow out of it, maybe not, but you'll get the two most important ingredients for a startup: expertise and co-founders.

But hack, don't plan.

<comment><USER3> ...don't plan. <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hill_climbing>

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Speaking as someone who vaguely knows many of the people who are involved in YEI, the yale students involved are very much in the same vein as the marketing folks who you'd see creating companies during the first web bubble, where the technology folks who actually do the design and whatnot are second tier.

There exist counter examples,but thats certainly the general trend

</comment><comment><USER5> Is it such a problem that technically oriented, entrepreneurial Yale students head out to silicon valley for funding? After all, I wouldn't expect Yale to try to dissuade finance-types from working on wall street. Instead, it would make more sense to tout the students' success stories in these two regions - ie., prove that you don't have to go to Stanford to succeed on Sand Hill Road, and that you don't have to go to Columbia to succeed on wall street.

</comment><comment><USER6> I graduated from Yale in '06 and sold the company I'd been working on throughout college nine months after I graduated. Yale definitely doesn't have a lot of entrepreneurs there, but we do have the Yale Entrepreneurial Society -- of which I was a member -- that acts as a support hub for the few entrepreneurs to get together.

They also have the Y50K, which awards $50k to the winning business plan. Funny thing is, my company didn't even make it to the final round, but we sold a year later for probably 10x the current revenue of all the companies that did make it combined (sorry, I had to, I still feel snubbed). The problem with Yale's entrepreneurial endeavors is that it's far more aimed at traditional business / pharmaceuticals / brick&mortar rather than smart techies with a great idea. And, well, my company involved gaming and VoIP and they didn't gave a damn about gaming. (We went on to win $75k and first place at Case Western Reserve University's business plan competition.)

<comment><USER7> Business plan competitions seem to be about giving away money to the wrong thing. The prizes go to the ones who can write what the judges want to read, not to those who can start a company. Perhaps they should give the prizes to people with product prototypes or who can demonstrate the existence of a market because they've sold something to it

<comment><USER2> "A prize poem is like a prize sheep. The object of the competitor for the agricultural premium is to produce an animal fit, not to be eaten, but to be weighed. Accordingly he pampers his victim into morbid and unnatural fatness; and, when it is in such a state that it would be sent away in disgust from any table, he offers it to the judges. The object of the poetical candidate, in like manner, is to produce, not a good poem, but a poem of that exact degree of frigidity or bombast which may appear to his censors to be correct or sublime. Compositions thus constructed will always be worthless."

\- Macaulay, "On the Royal Society of Literature"

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Isn't Yale where you go when you can't be bothered to start a company, because you're inheriting one from your family?

<comment><USER2> Emmett and Justin of Justin.TV went there.

<comment><USER9> Additionally, off the top of my head, Joel Spolsky and Olin Shivers.

Boolah boolah.

<comment><USER10> Joel went to Penn, didn't he?

<comment><USER9> From his webpage:

        I came back to the US for college, where I attended the
        University of Pennsylvania for one year, then transferred
        to Yale, where I got a BS in Computer Science.

So yes, but mostly Yale.

<comment><USER10> Thanks. I should have checked his site. I just remembered his name from an alumni thing at Penn.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> Great comment:

 _Yale has too much of a business/MBA/manager orientation (read: inefficient, simpleminded bean-counting).

Unfortunately, the entire country is seeing the fruits of a decade or so of "investment management's" influence.

Tech people need to understand that save for MIT and environs, the east coast is at best s second rate tech hub._

<comment><AUTHOR> Perhaps, but there will always be a select few that push the traditional boundaries and challenge the status quo. Maybe there won't be too many, but those that do can reap the rewards.

<comment><USER11> Yes, a very few will beat the odds. What benefit did they get for their extra risk?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> Maybe I'm reading this wrong, but wouldn't they just defect after the 10 week program, especially since the majority are tech startups?

<comment><USER13> After 10 weeks of working with Yale faculty and New Haven based lawyers, accountants, etc, they'd have much more reason to stay.

<comment><AUTHOR> Can you explain in more detail?

<comment><USER14> He means that they are already vested in a working relationship so why change a good thing.

<comment><USER11> They have a relationship, but what is it working toward and what is it good for?

How many of the lawyers in New Haven are or personally know partners at Wilson Sonsini? (If you don't recognize the name ....) I know paralegals with shelves full of "tombstones". How many can I find in New Haven? (Again, if you don't know what a tombstone is ....)

The important thing about Silicon Valley is that almost everyone involved has done it before. (Yes, it may be the first time for some/all of the founding team, but everyone else is a veteran.) How many people in New Haven can say the same?

<comment><USER13> No one said it was in the students' best interest, just that the goal was to get more companies to stay in New Haven.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> Well, of course. Because everyone knows New Haven, Connecticut is a global hub of technological innovation...

</comment><comment><USER16> The Silicon Valley ecosystem is too well established? (...even people from the other side of the planet are looking to Silicon Valley if they are into tech and coming to America).

</comment><comment><USER17> In like forth sentence I read "Business Plan".

Fail.</comment>


Introducing the Apple IIc G4: 2004's technology crammed into a 1984 body - <AUTHOR> http://www.theverge.com/2012/3/3/2842579/apple-iic-g4-hack-case-mode

<comment><USER2> Where introducing means linkjacking:

<http://mentalhygiene.com/meet-the-g4-apple-c/></comment>


Corkboard app, all in HTML/CSS/Javascript - <AUTHOR> http://corkboard.me

<comment><AUTHOR> Hey! Go to <http://corkboard.me> instead of the link set by ycombinator. corkboard.me automatically gives each person their own personal corkboard, but it does this through a 302 redirect. I should probably change this in the future, but for now go directly to <http://corkboard.me> for your own. (Admins, if you could change the link I'd appreciate it. Thanks!) -- Tim

<comment><USER2> It seems to have been updated to the direct link now. Neat simple site.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> It would be nice to be able to zoom in and out to see more or less at a time. In general, this concept lands itself well for Google maps API where you model your board as a map and it handles scrolling and zooming for you.

Edit: something similar to this <http://www.conwaylife.com/>

<comment><USER4> The zoom in my browser seems to work fine.

<comment><USER5> for me (ffox 3.5.15 on mac) it zooms the text but not the images, I would expect it to shrink/expand the images as well so you could see more at once.

<comment><USER6> Do you have View->Zoom->Zoom Text Only enabled?

(OT: you are using an out of date version of ff, latest is 3.6.12)

<comment><USER5> Hey, late reply but no I do not have zoom text only turned on.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Off topic as usual, but interesting from the developer and user point of view.

If you are going to give me a 10 char ID, please make it all lower case and without numbers, I hate hitting shift or having to move my eyes from the keyboard to the numpad and back.

So, aren't 26 lowercase chars enough?

26^10 = 141,167,095,653,376

A hundred and forty trillion options!

* Hey Tim, nice app btw.

<comment><USER8> I see this type of ID everywhere and I'm curious as to how they are created and how "random" they are (the chances of generating two of the same). A python snippet would be great, of course :)

<comment><USER7>
        id=''.join(Random().sample(string.ascii_lowercase,10))

<comment><USER9> Not really. Random.sample samples from a population multiple times: that means no doubles (unless they were in the population as well). Try it: sample 30 times from string.ascii_lowercase. Since you did it with 10, less than len(population), it didn't croak, but it also doesn't get you the numbers mentioned above.

Here's one I like better: "".join(random.choice(string.ascii_lowercase) for _ in xrange(len))

<comment><USER7> Hmm, if that's the case then 26x25x24... still gives you twenty trillion unique ids with non-repeating chars. Not bad after all.

Will have that in mind.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> I did a corkboard concept over a year ago but it was mostly a UI exercise that incorporated mouse gestures for input (there was no backend). [http://blog.pekpongpaet.com/2009/04/13/concept-virtual- corkb...](http://blog.pekpongpaet.com/2009/04/13/concept-virtual-corkboard- with-handwriting-recognition-for-large-interactive-walls/) Flash-haters don't hate

</comment><comment> mike-cardwell Doesn't work with some character sets. I just entered:

これは、いくつかの日本です

Then went away and came back, and all the characters had turned to question marks.

<comment><USER11> That's strange, Japanese input worked for me. (Chrome / Japanese Win7)

Maybe they fixed it?

<comment><USER11> Nevermind, you can write, just not save. I assume they're using a latin-based field in their DB...

<comment><USER12> That could be the case. I often don't notice encoding issues until my colleagues complain their entries in Japanese are messed up.

<comment> mike-cardwell This is one of the first things I test when I find a site like this. Most web developers don't seem to take into consideration things like character sets and encoding, yet they are so important.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> It would be nice if you allowed us to rename our corkboard (corkboard.me/[my_name_or_whatever]) to something more meaningful, then I can get to it from work or home without checking my delicious account.

<comment><AUTHOR> This is very easy to do. Will be in the next release. --Tim

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> Could you make it more obvious where to click and hold to drag?

I think you want to allow the user to select the text with the mouse without moving the note, but maybe some kind of styling at the bottom and top of the note to designate a "drag" zone.

<comment><USER15> I agree. It would be much clearer if you used a hover css property and put cursor: move;

<comment><AUTHOR> Noted (on my own corkboard!). Will come soon.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> Very cool! I need some more colors and other type of post-it (photos?) though before I seriously consider using it...

<comment><USER17> If you paste an image URL into a note it shows the image

<comment><USER18> not working under safari 4.0.4

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> Looks like a neat idea, but can you please add a Terms of Service page, even if it's just a brief one? That might set folks a bit more at ease for posting their TODOs and reminders.

</comment><comment><USER20> Looks really good. One small refinement: deleted notes could appear on a list in the corner say - maybe with a screwed up motif - so I can recover something I delete by accident :-)

<comment><USER21> You could even build in a wastebasket paper toss game :)

Great simple app.

<comment><USER22> Feature bloat alert!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> Very cool, well built.. but from a UX/UI perspective, it strikes me as a little bit odd that I would be sticking post-its to a cork board. Maybe a refrigerator or whiteboard texture would be more fitting. Or, so that you don't have to change your domain and branding, you can add thumbtack graphics.

</comment><comment><USER24> Works nicely in iOS too. Well done.

</comment><comment><USER10> Very well done. It's nice and simple as software should be.

</comment><comment><USER25> This thing would be great for story-boarding if it supported images and other media types. IFrame would be cool to be able to bring in external content into one of the notes. With a few more features, you got yourself a winner here. Making the controls contextual to the note could keep it simple. Let me know if you do decide to add other media types, I would be an avid user.

<comment><USER26> It does support images. Paste an image url into a new note, then hit return. For example: <http://corkboard.me/mTJPwxMRha>

<comment><USER25> Nice how does one add an image, I don't see any ways to add one. As well another nice feature would be the ability to group notes. So that when a user adds an image they could drop sticky's on it and then group them so that they move together.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER27> Kick Ass!. Plain and Simple.

Some refinements - Mac, 10.6.5, Firefox 3.6.12, Creating a new note only happens in the lower right corner. I have to drag it more to be able to use the note.

I would pay to use this on my small biz intranet. i.e license it.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks Jason! I thinking about ways of monetizing this. Send me your email or twitter handle and we can talk about getting you in as beta users (to tim [at] timothyjcoulter.com, free/low cost in exchange for feedback).

Bug noted. Will def check it out!

</comment></comment><comment><USER28> Great Job - A month ago I had the thought of creating a similar cork board concept app myself, using html/js/css - today I open HN and I see your app - well done!

</comment><comment><USER29> It appears that two browsers (Firefox and Chrome) on the same machine can edit a board, but it can't be edited by two or more machines at the same time. Bummer.

</comment><comment><USER30> Nicely done. I attempted doing something similar but it was not executed as cleanly as yours. Is there a way to pin items so I don't accidentally move them?

</comment><comment><USER31> Couple of bugs in Opera 11 beta.

New notes only appear in the middle of the entire board. When I close a note, it pops up a new one.

</comment><comment><USER32> Would be cool to be able to draw lines and labels for columns, rows or squares to organize the post-its.

</comment><comment><USER33> Really neat, but what if I get lost? Maybe some sorta thing to zoom out, not sure. But its really nice!

<comment><AUTHOR> Definitely. I'm thinking how I can implement that, possibly a mini-map or a snazzy zoom out feature. Definitely will come in a future release.

</comment></comment><comment><USER34> What can i say... you make my dream look bad :) good job, cant wait to see where you take it

</comment><comment><USER35> creating a new note by double clicking would be nice, since the rate of notes created by mistake would be lower :) plus the image url feature doesn't work with any of my browsers (Mac OSX 10.6.5 Safari 5, Chrome 8, Firefox 4)

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks! Noted. For the image url, are you pressing enter after pasting your URL? Let me know if that doesn't work, and if not, we'll drill down into why it's not working for you (def want to fix it if it isn't).

<comment><USER35> doesn't matter if i press enter or not.

<comment><USER35> png and jpg are now working :)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER34> Imagine how great this would be on a big multie touch screen

</comment><comment><USER36> Is the source code for this available, besides view source?

</comment><comment><USER37> Loving the simplicity. Can't wait to see where you take it!

<comment><USER38> Agreed. Looks like it has potential. Nice work!

</comment></comment><comment><USER39> very nice. i will use this as it is.

</comment><comment><USER40> That is really, really cool.

</comment><comment><USER41> clean

</comment><comment><USER42> Needs localStorage.

<comment><USER43> … but still retain server based storage

… and resolving my offline updates with the server

… even the provably incompatible ones

We are users! We want everything! Especially the impossible. And keep it free.

<comment><USER44> This could be awesome, if done transparently. The greatest appeal of this application is it's straight-up simplicity: you click, start typing and your notes are stored. Feature bloat would really detract from this experience.</comment></comment></comment>


Getting started with Competitive Programming – Build your algorithm skills - <AUTHOR> https://devletters.com/letters/getting-started-with-cp/ <comment><AUTHOR> Related - "Why you should do Competitive Programming, even if a little"

[https://devletters.com/letters/why-competitve- programming/](https://devletters.com/letters/why-competitve-programming/)</comment>


Fibonacci Numbers in the Real World - <AUTHOR> http://lee-phillips.org/lispmath/ <comment><USER3> The "right" way to generate Fibonacci numbers is not via the closed form, but by exponentiation of the matrix A = [0 1; 1 1] that defines Fibonacci numbers as an element of its endomorphism ring Z[x]/(x^2 - x - 1). This doesn't rely on explicitly computing the eigenvalues of A and scales well to more complex recursions. Sample Haskell:

      fib :: Integer -> Integer
      fib n = fst . loop (0, 1) base . abs $ n
        where pmul (a, b) (c, d) = ((a + b)*(c + d) - b*d, b*d + a*c)
              base = if n >= 0 then (1, 0) else (1, -1)
              loop acc sq m
                | m == 0         = acc
                | m `mod` 2 == 0 = loop acc (pmul sq sq) (m `div` 2)
                | otherwise      = loop (pmul sq acc) (pmul sq sq) (m `div` 2)

<comment><USER4> Indeed, this is covered in one of the references in my article, which didn't actually approach the issue of the "best" or "right" way to calculate the numbers.

<comment><USER3> Which reference?

<comment><USER4> The last one ([11]) to Nayuki Minase's article, where he lists several algorithms, including matrix exponentiation.

<comment><USER3> Thank you for the reference. The algorithm in the parent comment is not actually matrix exponentiation but the "fast doubling algorithm" in Minase's terminology, where you exponentiate the matrix algebraically using the Cayley- Hamilton theorem rather than using matrix multiplication.

<comment><AUTHOR> You have me confused. The usual "Russian Peasant Multiplication" can be adapted to produce fast exponentiation, or "exponentiation by squaring". Your code appears to be doing exactly that.

Further, that is then exactly what is quoted in reference [11], just as leephillips says. There it is then taken a step further and specialized to the calculation of the Fibonacci numbers.

So the referenced paper seems to cover what you have said, and go even further. To that end, I'm confused as to what you are saying. Are you agreeing that the paper does what your code does? Or are you disagreeing, in which case, could you be more explicit?

Thanks.

<comment><USER3> You are correct that this code uses "Russian Peasant Multiplication." The question is: what is being exponentiated? One choice is the matrix A = [0 1; 1 1], whose powers are A^n = [F_{n-1} F_n; F_n F_{n+1] if we compute those powers _treating A as a matrix_. This involves some redundant computations since F_n is being computed twice.

An alternative method is to use the following identity:

      (aA + b)(cA + d) = acA^2 + (ad + bc)A + bd
                       = (ad + bc + ac)A + (bd + ac)
                       = ((a + b)(c + d) - bd)A + (bd + ac)

(In fact, A^n = F_n A + F_{n-1} I_2). This step requires 3 multiplications and 4 additions and is more-or-less equivalent to the "fast doubling" algorithm in reference [11], which is more optimized. But this derivation is completely generic---it just relies on the characteristic polynomial of A, namely A^2 - <USER2> - 1 = 0.

In the case where A is not the Fibonacci matrix but something much larger, working with polynomials modulo the characteristic polynomial of A is much faster than working with A as a matrix.

<comment><AUTHOR> Right - that helps. Thanks for the clarification - very helpful.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> SICP shows us how to do this as an exercise 1.19. [http://mitpress.mit.edu/sicp/full-text/book/book- Z-H-11.html...](http://mitpress.mit.edu/sicp/full-text/book/book- Z-H-11.html#%_sec_1.2.4)

In scheme:

      (define (square x) (* x x))
      (define (fib n)
        (fib-iter 1 0 0 1 n))
      (define (fib-iter a b p q count)
        (cond ((= count 0) b)
              ((even? count)
               (fib-iter a
                         b
                         (+ (square p) (square q))      ; compute p'
                         (+ (* 2 p q) (square q))       ; compute q'
                         (/ count 2)))
              (else (fib-iter (+ (* b q) (* a q) (* a p))
                              (+ (* b p) (* a q))
                              p
                              q
                              (- count 1)))))

</comment><comment><USER6> What, no discussion of Fibonacci-Lucas identities? :)

See my ancient post [http://pythonista.wordpress.com/2008/07/03/pure-python- fibon...](http://pythonista.wordpress.com/2008/07/03/pure-python-fibonacci- numbers/)

Pretty graph here: [http://stevekrenzel.com/articles/fibonacci](http://stevekrenzel.com/articles/fibonacci)

</comment><comment><USER7> This is a very important rebuttal to the "The Mathematical Hacker" article because it shows Maths is useful but should not be taken too literally. Even Knuth uses assembly language of a hypothetical machine in his Art of Computer Programming books because any discussion on optimisation is incomplete without the context of which machine we are talking about.

<comment><USER8> I really don't understand this sort of response.

The right way to understand the behaviour of computations on a real machine is inherently mathematical. This is why, for example, we have an entire discipline of numerical analysis, just for starters.

Programmers very commonly make elementary mistakes in computation precisely because they don't understand this, and don't approach the problems mathematically. Ignoring overflow, or pretending floats have infinite precision is antithetical to thinking about these problems mathematically.

Conversely, any mathematician worth their salt will approach computation on a computer not as a black box, but as a concrete implementation. Mathematicians make lots of programming errors (some of them quite egregious and easily avoidable). Misunderstanding floating point representations or the overflow behaviour don't tend to be among them in my experience.

By the way: Knuth used a hypothetical machine to avoid the quirks of a concrete one distracting from the discussion.

<comment><USER7> My response can be very simply stated as the well-known adage - Profile Before Optimizing

I am not completely discounting Numerical Analysis here. Mathematicians can make entire mathematical models of a machine but it will be at a certain level of abstraction. In practice there will be abstraction leaks due to some quirks of the implementation or real world dependencies.

So one should not merely depend on the mathematical model.

<comment><USER8> A more important and often overlooked adage - make it correct before you try to make it fast.

My confusion at your (and others, not meaning to pick on this one) response is more fundamental than that. There is no way in which thinking about these things is somehow divorced from thinking about things mathematically.

To me "Merely depending on a mathematical model" isn't a problem that actually happens much. Failing to think about these things, on the other hand, very much is.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Opera silently puts advertising in SpeedDial - <AUTHOR> Hi, I'm a long time Opera user, since the 90s, but now when Chromium is used as the main engine I can see Opera uses sneaky ways to put advertisers on my custom SpeedDial screen, I've seen this from time to time, sometimes they put 4, sometimes 1 sponsored page. Do you see the same sneaky behaviour? <comment><USER2> On Android, I got a "starter set" in Speed Dial, including: Play Now Free VPN Amazon CNN

then later, they snuck in: Nordstrom Walmart Booking.com

</comment><comment><USER3> I think they've done it in Presto too, when updating to a new version.

<comment><AUTHOR> No! They didn't. I've been using Opera for more than 15 years. I would notive immediately.

<comment><USER3> I definitely got bookmarks at the very least. Not sure about speed dial, that may have been only on fresh installs or on chromium. It's been quite a while since Presto last updated. :)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Firefox has sponsored tiles too. It's easy to turn it off though.</comment>


"Man Becomes the Sex Organs of the Machine World" (2012) - <AUTHOR> http://2012diaries.blogspot.com/2012/05/man-becomes-sex-organs-of-machine-world.html <comment><USER2> "We refer to the question: What sort of creature man's next successor in the supremacy of the earth is likely to be. We have often heard this debated; but it appears to us that we are ourselves creating our own successors; we are daily adding to the beauty and delicacy of their physical organisation; we are daily giving them greater power and supplying by all sorts of ingenious contrivances that self-regulating, self-acting power which will be to them what intellect has been to the human race. In the course of ages we shall find ourselves the inferior race.

...

Day by day, however, the machines are gaining ground upon us; day by day we are becoming more subservient to them; more men are daily bound down as slaves to tend them, more men are daily devoting the energies of their whole lives to the development of mechanical life. The upshot is simply a question of time, but that the time will come when the machines will hold the real supremacy over the world and its inhabitants is what no person of a truly philosophic mind can for a moment question."

\- Samuel Butler, 1863

<comment><USER3> What he seems to have missed is that no matter how complex the machine, it always has a creator and a master. Even the most sophisticated AI was designed someone who, deliberately or not, encoded that AI with biases likely mirroring that of its creator (e.g. racial bias in facial recognition software). Even if we achieve the singularity and have software making other software ad infinitum, the biases are there in the original program.

<comment><USER2> I dont think we need the singularity for machines to take over. The systems that run society are bigger than any of us and nobody can hold every single one of them in their head. If some emergent property or bug cropped up, most people would keep doing what the computer says, because theyre a small fish and we do what the system tells us. Whos the master now?

<comment><USER4> That's conditioning and it can be broken. Most people like to be led, does not matter if by machine, system or man. It takes much less thinking.

<comment><USER5> "I was only following orders"...

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> I've always been interested in notional "starting points" like the appearance of writing representing the beginning of "history."

Since reading "Sapiens" I buy into YNH's definition of the beginning as the point where culture takes over from genetics as the driver of progress. He attributes this to the paleolithic revolution, and supports the hypothesis that this poit represents a breakthrough in language, enabling cultural concepts like tribalism, money, priesthood or whatnot and leading to much more sophisticated group and intergroup behaviours. That resulted in a creature that was no longer an animal a meaningful sense.

From that point on, human behaviour evolves so much faster than genetics that natural selection is replaced, as the meaningful driver of change. Biology becomes a legacy and a platform, but the culture grafted onto biology is what matters historically.

It's hard, with our biases, to put younger events like the industrial revolution into context alongside palaeolithic events... but it certainly seems like a revolution on that scale.

In any case, speculating about the present... It seems plausible we are currently at a point where technological advancement is (a) driving change rather than culture and (b) cultural institutions can't keep up.

The wild card is that technology can influence biology (and culture) in ways that culture could not. But. whether technology replaces us or subsumes us doesn't seem that different to the eye-in-sky perspective. It is technological progress that dictates progress from now on...

<comment><USER7> Hah, that's what Sapiens is about? That idea about social/culture vs. biology is almost straight out of Lila, by Robert Pirsig. He sets it up as a progression of giant leaps. Inorganic > Biology > Social > Intellectual, with each level being justified in its own priority over the patterns of the ones below it. (The community is more important than the cows — idea of ending slavery / freedom is more important than the social status quo)

Both of his books are incredible.

<comment><USER6> I'll check it out.

Not exactly what the book is about, more a foundational assumption in the big narrative. Most of the book is about the subsequent examples driving history.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Machines can eat petroleum and electricity like cows can eat grass. That's why we have symbiotic coexistence with both of them.

If machines could only eat human food, there would be a lot less of them. For example, it takes two acres worth of land to make enough biodiesel annually to fill up an suv gas tank. Properly cultivated, that could feed a significant number of people.

<comment><USER9> That's about to become a problem once a sufficiently large share of humanity is economically obsolete and not worth feeding by the industry.

With an automated agriculture and seed production in the hands of a few companies (among which Monsanto/Bayer), it becomes trivially easy to start producing GMO seeds that are toxic to humans in massive amounts.

<comment><USER8> What if we could power people with electricity though? I am sure they would be far more energy efficient vs. machines. 1888 calories = 2.95kw hours per day. So less than $1/day of electricity. Someone just has to figure that one out. We could probably live indefinitely off of a big enough solar array.

<comment><USER9> Now that's an interesting take :-)

Distributing said energy to cells would be non-trivial, and you'd still need nutrients.

Also humans need rest and unlike machines, the range of environmental conditions in which they can rest is narrower than their operational conditions (all of which are rather narrow and non-existent beyond the biosphere). Also, you can't suspend or reboot humans. Once they crash, they must be recycled.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Title of the year. I like the thoughts provoked by the title better than the actual text, in fact.

</comment><comment><USER11> The Butlerian Jihad is coming

<comment> 52-6F-62 Happened before him, didn't it? (Albeit, with a decidedly less philosophical bent)

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

<comment><USER12> Everything happened earlier than you think [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antikythera_mechanism](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antikythera_mechanism)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> Not very effective sex organs at that. Eventually, we'll be dispaced by something that does the job more effectively.

</comment><comment><USER14> And with the advent of dating apps, we, the machines, are selectively breeding them.

<comment><USER6> If 23 and me buy tinder... constant vigilance!

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> The idea that form communicates to us more strongly than function is particularly strong and resonant. We have moved into an era of fashion in hardware and software: look and style sells more than underlying functionality. Apple have rode this particular wave most noticably and successfully out of the tech giants, but the entire marketplace has shifted into this niche.

</comment><comment><USER16> Don't miss the "view full essay" link. A user in the comments mentions a different take, worth a read as well.

<comment><USER17> Why don't we just switch to the full essay. URL changed from [https://mcluhangalaxy.wordpress.com/2016/04/19/man- becomes-t...](https://mcluhangalaxy.wordpress.com/2016/04/19/man-becomes-the- sex-organs-of-the-machine-world/). Thanks!

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> I've been envisioning a tinder-for-bots app. It could use tinder's existing bot population (50%? 90%?). It'll have a "I am not a human" recaptcha on sign up. It'll feature influential celebs s.a Siri, kortana, Alexa and Tai. I only need to figure out monetization.

<comment><USER19> My friend Siqi Chen built Frieds for Sale lol

</comment></comment><comment><USER20> [https://www.wikiwand.com/en/Darwin_among_the_Machines](https://www.wikiwand.com/en/Darwin_among_the_Machines)

</comment><comment><USER21> First comment on the site has link to intersting article with same title [https://everything2.com/title/Humans+are+the+sex+organs+of+t...](https://everything2.com/title/Humans+are+the+sex+organs+of+the+planet)

</comment><comment><USER22> Incredibly insightful. Great timing.

</comment><comment><USER23> So, the Matrix? Kind of?

</comment><comment><USER24> Anne Clark - Sleeper in Metropolis [1983]

</comment><comment><USER12> "Marshall McLuhan, casual viewin', heads buried in the sand."

</comment><comment><USER25> reminds me of the unabomber's tech manifesto

</comment><comment><USER26> This site is becoming weirder and weirder.

<comment><USER27> I mean, finally. We were getting a bit bored of the "latest in web design 1/2/3".</comment></comment>


LifeLock CEO's Identity Stolen 13 Times (2010) - <AUTHOR> http://www.wired.com/2010/05/lifelock-identity-theft/

<comment><USER2> And he's still the CEO. [http://www.lifelock.com/about/leadership/management/](http://www.lifelock.com/about/leadership/management/)

</comment><comment><USER3> $2,390 is a substantial amount of money for AT&T?

</comment><comment><USER4> First, this article is from 2010.

Secondly, I wonder how bad his credit rating is given his record of stolen identity.

If I shall be evil for a moment, he could pretend to be scammed too.

But 13 times is perphas a little low. If the number has been known for three years (2007-2010), I would expect a dozen more scams though.

My third thought is what exactly do banks, credit unions and AT&T really do with SSN anyway? Do they talk to government servers and ask for history of me? I can understand banks and loaners might be interested in my IRS stuff or my court orders. I am not famiilair in this area. Could someone knowledgeable enlighten me?

Because if they do, I'd be crazy to suggest we could use crypto to solve stolen SSN number so that we can verify and replace a new ID.

Generate asymmetric key pair. The government API encrypts a challenge, bank decrypts it, solves the challenge, encrypts it and sends back. We can even go with passphrase! Or one-time token. I'm sleepy, but that's my crazy thought.

Actually, what good is my SSN anyway? Does it really mean who I am?

</comment><comment><USER5> Oops.</comment>


Dell to Sell Itself for $24.4 Billion - <AUTHOR> http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424127887324900204578285582125381660.html

<comment><USER2> I can't be more excited by this news. Michael Dell is in a pretty unique position to do something innovative in the PC industry.

Remember when Dell told Steve Jobs that he should close shop? <http://news.cnet.com/2100-1001-203937.html>

Your turn, Michael.

Let's see if you can turn Dell around like the way Steve Jobs turned Apple around!

<comment><USER3> I'm less excited. Think about it: what would it take for a startup to buy servers from Dell again, rather than renting them?

<comment><USER4> I'd argue that Dell has the strongest brand out of all of the Windows OEMs. I think they'd be in a good position to take a few short-term losses and pursue establishing a position similar to Vizio's: a high-end manufacturer. That, coupled with their experience in B2B could absolutely revitalize their company.

<comment><USER5> Isn't Vizio a low end manufacturer? Their TVs certainly are. I've never seen one of their PCs though.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Why don't they just shut it down, and give the money back to the shareholders?

<comment><USER7> Although I do not like Dell's products or doing business with Dell, I don't hold that against Michael Dell. At the time he said that Apple was not on a course to succeed. It's true that since then they have made several high- risk/high-reward course changes and succeeded, but even with the benefit of hindsight his comment was reasonable.

I certainly wouldn't want to say that shutting down and giving the money back to shareholders was a terrible idea because Apple was going to successfully disrupt several different consumer markets where everyone gave them no chance AND was going to reinvent its own supply chain management.

In hindsight, shutting down and giving money back to investors was probably the second-best outcome after the outcome of performing one of the greatest business comebacks in history. Had they stayed the course and continued to do what they were doing when he said that, they'd have Blackberry'd themselves.

JM2C, obviously, and as an Apple fan I'm delighted they didn't follow that advice, for the same reasons I'm delighted they didn't sell themselves to Sun for $24 a share way back when, even if that was a substantial premium over their $18-or-whatever stock price at the time.

<comment><USER6> There was a very wide middle path open to Apple where they just stayed a profitable niche computer maker, and even that would have been a better bet than liquidation. Dell's statements were already falsified by 2001 before the iPod even came out, because Apple was three years profitable and on the verge of solving their Mac OS problems with Mac OS X.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Can't read the article. Paywall block.

<comment><USER9> Try clicking on the link to the article here, appears to circumvent it:

[https://www.google.com/search?q=Dell%20to%20Sell%20Itself%20...](https://www.google.com/search?q=Dell%20to%20Sell%20Itself%20for%20%2424.4%20Billion)

<comment><USER10> Interesting, when coming to the link from Google[1], I didn't hit the pay- block.

[1] - <http://goo.gl/TfUlG>

<comment><USER11> Google acquires them to do so. I read it somewhere.

<comment><USER12> Requires. Acquires would be scary.

<comment><USER11> brainfart. :D

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> Avaya did this and it worked out well for them. Hopefully this will help Dell. They have a good product. Just seems like they've hit a rough patch.

<comment><USER14> I've read the article, but I still don't understand what happened to Dell and why did they make the buyout. Could you explain it?</comment></comment>


The health care toll today's work culture exacts on employees - <AUTHOR> https://www.gsb.stanford.edu/insights/workplace-killing-people-nobody-cares <comment><USER2> Work has become a strange thing. I see people foregoing their best years stuck in an office, in the hope they can enjoy their later years. What utter nonsense. I'm not sure what the right answer is, but society has got something very wrong, as our work culture seems to surgically remove the wonder and enjoyment from our days. Hardly surprising that it drives people to ill health. Glad I broke out of that cycle a long time ago and quit my corporate job. The job was torture, quitting was scary and bumpy, but looking back it was an excellent decision.

<comment><USER3> I find this idea bizarre. It's like humans enjoyed their time for millennia and only now we have to work.

For all human history, the conditions of people were dire. Today people might be stuck in an office in their "best year", but people in the past had to toil all day to barely scrape by and didn't even have that many years to live.

It's only now that we live these comfortable lives with houses, heating, electricity, technology and a sea of information at our fingertips. These things all exist and keep functioning because people work.

And yet some think that "society has gone wrong", as if the past was paradise.

Work has been a human universal through history. There is surely an argument to be made about the fact that now we are so productive that we might not need to work as much as we had to.

At the same time I think we should be grateful that we live in the best life conditions ever seen by humanity.

<comment><USER4> This is actually false. The average American worker today works more hours per year than a 14th century peasant ([http://blogs.reuters.com/great- debate/2013/08/29/why-a-medie...](http://blogs.reuters.com/great- debate/2013/08/29/why-a-medieval-peasant-got-more-vacation-time-than-you/)). Hunter-gatherers only worked 2-3 hours per day.

Despite technology allowing us to work less, we work more. Yes we should be grateful of technological advancement, but too many people are unnecessarily depressed and suicidal, and it doesn't have to be this way.

<comment><USER5> I work my ass off. Lot more hours than would be technically necessary. High tech as well.

I've also gone hiking in the mountains in California. Been on the beach in Italy. Walked around in the center of Munich.

As a 14th century peasant I probably never even knew those places existed.

I can also get pain medication if I have a headache. I can go to a doctor to fix my broken bones if I happen to get one. Oh, and the likelihood of dying of a random infection or chicken pox is exceedingly low.

Is is worth spending more time in a nice, warm, comfortable office to be able to do all of those things? Hell yes. Is it all shits and giggles all the time? Of course not.

<comment><USER6> But that is a false dichotomy. Your working long hours in an office in no way helps or correlates with the ability of being able to travel, or to have headache medication.

<comment><USER5> Technically, you're probably right.

Realistically I also like to live in a nice house, do have to (well, by choice obviously) take care of three kids and like to enjoy a luxury here and there.

That takes money. I have tried multiple times to build my own companies, but sadly haven't been successful in that.

So that's for the travel argument.

As for the headache medication argument - I have that only because thousands of people have spent a lot of time in offices and labs developing those drugs and treatments.

Personally, my work mostly revolves around making wind turbines more efficient at producing energy by helping with data analysis. I also like to think that's my small way of offsetting the environmental damage I do by travelling. It's probably not enough, but still. something. So yeah, I'd say spending time at the office correlates quite nicely.

<comment><USER7> If you care about offsetting environmental costs of travelling, etc. consider donating to coolearth.org! About 70$ can offset an average carbon footprint for a whole year I think... It's one of the most effective charities against climate change and comes recommended by people such as Will MacAskill and Peter Singer who have founded a movement concerned with effective charity or "doing good better". [https://www.effectivealtruism.org/doing-good- better/](https://www.effectivealtruism.org/doing-good-better/)

<comment><USER8> It's kind of sad to realise reading a comment like this now makes me instantly suspicious about whether or not this is "true" enthusiasm or something motivated by profit. It's a fundamentally hard problem to solve, but IMO it is one of the bigger hurdles facing places like this now.

<comment><USER9> Even when you're not doubting the recommendation enthusiasm, it's hard to not be suspicious of the charity itself, given how badly most of them are managed.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> I've had the chance to see the toll that a stressful environment (big tech company) can have on physical and mental health - I've experienced it personally and noticed it in others that I work with.

The part about a big tech company being a stressful environment isn't the thing that surprised me, but rather people's responses to how they react to either being on the receiving side of the stress, and management's failure to respond to this or even try to talk about it.

The thing that bugs me the most about the entire situation is that most of the stress that seems to exist, mostly exists because of people who have no idea what they're doing, make decisions they have no business making. Then you have engineers that either come from cultures that are high in agreeableness, or they've never been very assertive themselves and just accept these decisions, thinking it's a situation of "if I don't do this I'm going to get fired".

Most of the people I work with don't even consider the option of just taking an extended period of time off to prevent being burned out because they're basically tied to their employment due to work visas (you guessed it, Indian and Chinese workers) and a lot of them are trying to support family back home. So even leaving their job and taking extended time off isn't a viable option.

Don't even get me started on how I've seen people's physical and mental health completely deteriorate. I know lots of people in my organization that are extremely depressed and wouldn't even be the least bit surprised if I heard they ate a bullet tomorrow.

This whole industry has just motivated me to work to achieve financial independence/early retirement as soon as I can just so I never have to think about working with incompetent people in my life again, or at least, have the financial freedom to cut those relationships once they do arise. It sucks because I know I'll be working on tech related projects for the rest of my life, but I have to ignore the desire to work on things that will actually make a difference so that I can build up that nest egg to have the financial freedom and peace of mind to actually pursue it.

<comment><USER11> At some point, you have to admit that the stress is intentional. That it is a part of a misguided strategy to extract maximum value from employees, while minimizing managements political exposure.

<comment><USER12> I think you nailed a large part of it, in this modest short paragraph. It's a little strong to say that it's ALWAYS intentional -- but frequently management has a very high emotional IQ and they're not oblivious to the effects of top- down policies.

If anything what was once intention for one person, turns into style/culture/rationalizations for many others. Let me try to turn the abstraction into an example. Have you ever heard a manager say about someone who works very very hard, "(S)he is passionate about technology"? My favorite one in the world is, "This is a startup, what do you expect." "This is a startup, if you want a 9 to 5 this is not the place for you."

As an older but still young enough (I hope) techie, I've learned to see that the platitudes and promises, the myth about changing the world or bullying about working hard (because what you describe reminds me of bullying) affects YOUNG PEOPLE the most.

And those young people, maybe a small percentage will make a lot of money at a young age. I know a few and I'm not even in Silicon Valley. Many others will piss their 20's away working long hours and drown their livers with company- sponsored drinks.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> I've always found it very effective to use a "just say no" policy to out of hours work or more work than I can handle comfortably.

People stop taking advantage when you stop letting them. More than you might expect actually respect it. I don't think this way of working has hurt my career progression, and it's certainly done wonders for my mental health.

<comment><USER14> Yep yep yep.

I've had to fight numerous battles with my boss, along the lines of, "I don't care who scheduled the meeting, I already have plans tonight, and it's not reasonable to make me change them with no notice."

This mentality has turned out to be (a) well worth it for my marriage, and (b) not actually a big deal in the scheme of things.

<comment><USER15> >" I already have plans tonight, and it's not reasonable to make me change them with no notice."

I find the fact that you even feel you need to include this part disgusting. I'm paid for 40 hours a week. You are not required to pay me overtime. You do not get a second extra of my time

<comment><USER14> Well, yes.

I am salaried, and they do pay me well, so I'm willing to work more than 40 hours from time to time, when schedules are tight.

I think that for me, my criteria for being OK with more-than-40 are probably something like: (0) it had better not be _that_ much more than 40, (1) it had better not be an exception, not the rule, and (2) it had better be something I can plan for, so I'm not jerking around my family/friends.

<comment><USER16> Additionally, if the company gives you other perks, it's often worth it.

If I can generally set my own hours, and you give me a ton of vacation time, pay me well, and give me other good incentives just for working there, I'm _much_ more likely to put in a few extra hours every now and then if something comes up.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Having a boring office job is really depressing, and it's a shame that you're not allowed to complain about it because there are people in third world countries worse off. Rather than comparing ourselves to impoverished countries, we should take the lead in using our technological advancement to create more humane societies that don't tie people to jobs they hate living paycheck to paycheck.

Europe certainly has a better model here than the US (more vacation, unemployment benefits), but there's room for improvement (eg. basic income).

Personally I left my office job in NYC about 4 months ago and have been traveling for the last 2 months (in South America). Being here and meeting other travelers (especially European), digital nomads, etc. has really made me realize how toxic American rat race work culture is. One Colombian I met who spent time living in the U.S. summed it up the best - Americans only seem to think about money.

Now I know some of you will say "but Colombia is poorer than us!" That may be the case, but it doesn't dispute the fact that our culture has become toxic - money/work obsessed, 2 weeks/year vacation, usurious amounts of student loan debt, etc.

If you need an example of a country with a bit more sense - I met a 28 year old Finnish guy here in Colombia in the middle of a multi-month vacation. His job back in Finland? Working in the deli section of a supermarket selling sausages. Completely blew my mind. If he were born in America and in the same occupation, he would probably not have the time or money for a 2 month international vacation. I've got friends the same age in professional occupations (eg. economist for the government) forgoing vacations until they pay back their 6-8% interest student loans. Europe in general has a much healthier attitude when it comes to work/life balance than America. Though on the bright side, at least we have it better than Asia (minus the student loan and healthcare part).

<comment><USER17> As a Colombian myself who studied and worked in the US in the past, I can confirm how the focus on money as the principal mean of finding happiness is specially strong in American culture. This distinction I believe, makes it very hard for people in the US when things don't work out the way they wanted.

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> There is no downtime anymore. You can never truly get _away_ from work in an age of 4g connectivity everywhere.

I'm doing a bit of consulting with a startup at the moment, and one of our team members recently disappeared off on vacation. Good for him, I thought. Two days later, he popped back up on the company slack, working away from his tropical beach.

To be clear, this is not a case of digital nomadding. This is 10 days of vacation time that they somehow guilted him into throwing away after he had actually flown halfway around the world.

20 years ago, there was an expectation that when you left the office, you were unreachable except in an emergency. I don't see any hint of that expectation anymore. It's a combination of employers with serious boundary issues, and empoloyees fearing the ramifications of pushing back.

You really need to stand up for yourself these days. But at least I've found that if you do so, it generally works.

<comment><USER19> > There is no downtime anymore. You can never truly get away from work in an > age of 4g connectivity everywhere.

You can. Get rid of your phone. Most of us don't have a job that actually requires a phone, and it's really as matter of your work willing to take advantage of the fact that most of you won't push back when pressed. You can take advantage of the fact that they won't pay for you to carry a phone.

I finally got rid of my phone about a month ago. Started off deleting all the apps, stopped carrying it. Finally, took a roofing hammer and smashed it to bits. I may purchase a pay-as-you-go "brick" and leave it in the trunk of my car for emergencies, but otherwise I will never have an internet connected device that I carry on me at all times. It's needless for most of us.

You can talk about how convenient it is to have things like Maps at all times, and to be sure that is convenient. Just requires a little forethought and planning. Don't give into the FOMO, smash your phone.

<comment><USER20> Well done.

Perhaps a middle ground is having a dedicated work phone, and then turning that off when you are not on the clock and not rostered to be on call.

<comment><USER21> Android Work Profile can help with this. You can turn off the work profile, which completely disables your work account, apps, and notifications.

[https://support.google.com/work/android/answer/7029561?hl=en](https://support.google.com/work/android/answer/7029561?hl=en)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> > I see a workplace that has become shockingly inhumane.

A thousand times this. Very few of the lessons my parents taught me apply in the corporate world. Be honest and straight with people, assume good intent, take responsibility, etc.

All that behavior will do is paint you as naive. Sure there's room for honesty and responsibility, but only when used appropriately (strategically). Strikes me as acutely inhumane every time my career is rewarded for suppressing those behaviors.

I am not even allowed to tell a candidate (another human being that probably NEEDS a paycheck) why I didn't hire them and what they can do to improve their viability.

Just because the company has discarded this person it also means I must discard them as well? It kills me every time, but I NEED my paycheck more than I prefer to help my fellow human.

<comment><USER23> Not really the company's fault here. Policies like this exist because candidates have and will sue the shit out of you for any flimsy accusation of discrimination they can cobble together.

Companies didn't create these policies arbitrarily and unprovoked. They became necessary because of some people who took advantage of the legal system to get settlements. It's in the company's best interest to protect itself from frivolous lawsuits, so it's better to be safe than sorry.

Which isn't to say that there aren't people who actually are discriminated against, but in this example it's not a company "discarding" someone as much as it is covering its bases.

<comment><USER24> This fear is overblown in my opinion. If people really want to sue then they will sue based on the fact that companies hire H1Bs into the position that they applied for. Then the company would have to prove not that the H1B was the better candidate but that the American was not qualified. Who decides on that qualification? Well a judge/jury based on the job description. If your resume matches those qualifications and it's truthful then you may have a case. I think that is a bigger risk than giving feedback. Giving objective feedback may actually help you since you communicated the specific lack of qualifications. However, I do think that you can implicitly derive the feedback based on the interview questions anyway.

<comment><USER25> I worked for a company who was sued because a candidate told us he was the second coming of Christ. We didn't really address it, and ended up not hiring him. He used The fact that he mentioned it as grounds for religious discrimination.

He didn't win, but we still had lawyer costs and what not. It is not an overblown fear at all.

<comment><USER26> If he sued with representation this illustrates another point. His lawyer took on a stupid frivolous case, probably because he also needed the money.

I think the real problem is that people today are on an economic treadmill. That need to survive economically is what make people willing to put up with all the other things.

<comment><USER27> This is exactly it. The thirst for the dollar makes us more willing to swallow bullshit with a (feigned) smile. But what can we do about it? That's the worst part. To dismantle the machine requires the coordination of a significant number of cogs.

<comment><USER28> First, stop the thirst within. I am going to try an experiment and live in nature on land that I buy. Why do we need so much junk?

<comment><USER29> You don't have to be so extreme as to live off the land. If people would just love below their means and save, they wouldn't be in an absolute crisis the moment they lose their job.

<comment><USER30> How many of us are really in a position we can do that?

<comment><USER31> Given that we have material wealth 5-50 times higher than most people who have ever lived, virtually all of us.

Given that we are on a status treadmill with legally created artificial scarcity -- well, I still don't think it should be that hard, but apparently it is.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER32> I wonder if part of this is due to the ever-increasing push towards creating metrics for every aspect of human behavior.

It's not uncommon when applying for a job that you take a "personality test" that measures not just technical knowledge, but also scores you on traditionally "soft" traits like assertiveness vs. agreeableness, with the hiring manager getting a readout of where you fall relative to the "ideal" range of that metric for the job you're applying for.

We recently had an open position, and I know for a fact that we turned down multiple perfectly qualified people with successful track records in this exact role because they didn't pass a personality test they received after the interview process - the reasoning for giving them the test after was that this personality test is particularly expensive. The "solution" was not to ditch the expensive personality test, but to bite the bullet and give all the rest of the candidates the test beforehand. But my eyes were opened.

I'm very worried that applying metrics to people, not performance, is creating a homogeneous culture that goes along to get along, resulting in silent acceptance of the situation described in the article.

<comment><USER33> "Market forces are also intensified by intensifying assessment, a development especially visible on the labour market. Even within a contract period, an employee will be subject to continuous assessment. The use of specialised software in call centres has provided some extreme examples: the time employees spend at the toilet is measured in seconds: this information is used to pressure the employee to spend less time away from the terminal. Firms with contracts are also increasingly subject to continuous assessment procedures, made possible by information technology. For instance, courier services use tracking software and GPS technology, to allow customers to locate their packages in transit. This is a typical example of the new hyper-provision of business information, in neoliberal economies."

From "Neoliberalism: origins, theory, definition"

[http://web.inter.nl.net/users/Paul.Treanor/neoliberalism.htm...](http://web.inter.nl.net/users/Paul.Treanor/neoliberalism.html)

</comment></comment><comment><USER34> How can workers change corporate culture from within to demand work-life balance? I asked an executive VP this at a one of the worlds largest company's here in Seattle and she said "If the young talent we need coming out of school across the board demanded shorter days and more vacation we would have to comply. But they don't instead they are awed by an extra $10k on a hiring bonus they might or might not get after two years and they'll work 60 hour weeks because that's what they think 'normal' is because their peers are doing it."

So how from the ground up can we make corporate culture in America more focused on the social health of their employees?

<comment><USER35> Unionize. That's how we got things like the 40 hour work week.

<comment><USER36> Yes I was very surprised there is no mention of unions in the article. The writer has supposed to have thought deeply about this issue, but doesn't come to the (to me) obvious conclusion?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER37> Dealing w/ RSI has been an eye opener for me. What makes it worse: working on a laptop, working on the plane, having to do long hours in poor ergonomic conditions. What do I have to do to be good at my job? Basically, that. What happens if it gets worse and I can no longer use a computer for at least eight hours a day? That is my livelihood

<comment><USER12> It WILL become a problem.

The biggest issue with RSI and other repetive-use injuries (which happens in many professions and even athletics, especially with bad form) is that it happens slowly, then suddenly. It's so slow that it's discomfort. And you ignore that discomfort, especially as your concentration is on a computer monitor with important stuff to worry about being displayed on it. Also, sometimes inflammation happens later (later that night, later that week, etc.).

Start now to reduce your RSI (and RSI isn't your only problem, more on that below):

Get an external keyboard either that has an ergonomic design is is comfortable for you, and a mouse too. A Mac keyboard will be nightmare, don't use it. A Mac 'Magic Mouse' or trackpad will cause damage. It's not made for serious long-term work (there might be a lawsuit one day).

Pro tip: this may sound crazy, but get two mice, one left, one right. Change often. Learn to use the lefty even if you're right-handed, or vice-versa. You'll be surprised at how quickly you get used to it (and you'll laugh when someone tries to show you something on your workstation).

Get a desk that moves up and down. Spend some time standing, some time sitting. Again, change often.

Next, other than RSI is your neck and back. As your rhomboids get stretched and weak from forward rotation of the shoulders, the rear neck muscles get stretched and weak, the serratus goes unused, the chest and front-neck muscles get short and tight... You arch your head forward which causes your head (which already weighs about 8 pounds) to exert a lot more than 8 pounds of force on those muscle groups. And you also look at your phone all day, which you hold down below you. Well you're in for a world of nightmares and headaches that'll make the RSI a distraction by comparison.

Start early to avoid these things, before it becomes too late.

Sincerely,

A guy with some greying and screwed up wrists/hands and neck.

<comment><USER38> I used to get blinding pain in my right shoulder and neck and thought I might have to change careers because it kept getting worse and worse. Tried all kinds of stretching and stuff, some helped, but nothing took the pain completely away.

I was in so much pain one day I couldn't use the mouse with my right hand, and began using it with my left hand. The pain gradually went away and I've never had problems since. I think I had a bad habit of some kind when mousing with my right hand I never developed when using my left. Now almost exclusively mouse left handed.

That said, physical exercise, especially hiking and yoga, have helped my neck, back, arm, leg stiffness & pain, etc. considerably. It's as necessary as brushing teeth for me to feel physically ok to be able to keep working in an office.

<comment><USER12> For me it's weightlifting, specifically strength training (not bodybuilding) which includes mobility exercises and certain types of exercises that strengthen the muscles that are underworked when sitting for long periods. On example is the serratus anterior. Having a serratus that doesn't work properly leads to numerous shoulder-related problems and back pain. It's all sort of connected.

Stretching is only half the battle. One must stretch the correct muscles (the ones that are too tight, like the pecs and scalenes) and strengthen the ones that are loose and weak (like the rhomboids, serratus and others).

If pursuing weightlifting, which I highly highly recommend, I recommend a real trainer (not most half-baked ones you see in gyms), and spending a lot of time specifically nerding out on exercise physiology, even physical therapy. There are some very good YouTube channels - one of my favorite is Calisthenics Movement.

One simply cannot work in an office or at a computer workstation and expect not to have the body pains of a coal miner by the time you hit your 40's without balancing out muscular strength and joint mobility that you lose by doing this.

Much of strength training, a lot of people are surprised to know, involve neurological connections created simply using muscles in movement patterns that are new. It's very similar to the way you learn proprioception (standing on a skateboard, surfboard, or a subway car without holding onto anything). In the same way, muscles get stronger simply because more fibers are recruited, due to repetitive motions. In the early stages, this is much and perhaps most of the 'gains' in strength.

It's getting late and I've fallen into a rabbit hole. In short, do weight training or SOME sort of mobility work (yoga, pilates, whatever) if you work at a computer for a living. These random HN messages can save you thousands of dollars of future medical bills / PT bills and incalculable discomfort.

<comment><USER39> Very interesting comment, just wanted to thank you for it.

I've been meaning to get into calisthenics and have had to push it due to other responsibilities.

One of the problems is that we are all very good at finding excuses. Exercising, hover, even if it's a bit here and there during the day must not take a big chunk of your time. When I managed to stick to my schedule in the past I actually started to enjoy the "grind" the challenge of lasting longer, improving form and so on.

I'll go back at it, thanks!

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER40> Honest question. How much of this is cultural or psychological? Can people be trained not to take so much shit from bosses or automatically make the company's problems their problems?

I ask because at my current job, a lot of work is explicitly motivated by the threat of getting yelled at or publicly shamed in some way. I often wonder if these stressful interactions could just be handled politely but in a way that doesn't automatically turn into work that gets handled invisibly or passed down the chain to some other poor sap.

<comment><USER41> "Not take shit from your boss" = "get fired by boss for 'insubordination' "

<comment> tj-teej I disagree, from most of my experience, toxic managers take advantage of the people they feel they CAN take advantage of.

Don't get me wrong, I'm sure there's spiteful managers like you're hinting at, but from my experience at two major tech companies, a healthy two-way respect is earned by pushing back on management when they're out of line, as I think they know a lot of the time that they're being out of line but they can get away with it.

<comment><USER40> That's what I'm getting at. In my own experience, unhandled grudges against people end up being a major source of stress. Some people (my past self included) don't know how to stand up for themselves at a company. It's a combination of knowing what lines people can't cross with you, and what sorts of authority different people at work can have over you, because when someone crosses a line, how you correct them will differ according to their relation to you. For example, if a manager is rude to you, you can often excuse yourself but can't completely drop the issue, whereas, if a fellow collaborator is rude, sometimes you can just stop dealing with them altogether. Sometimes just looking perturbed without saying anything is enough to make people change how they deal with you. A lot of developers I see don't pay any attention to these things and nurse grudges against people for entire years.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER42> As I type this comment, there are 46 other comments, not one of them using the word "union". That's the only feasible method I can see to enact large scale change. CEOs and other executives aren't going to change out of the kindness of their hearts, as evidenced by the fact that they could start at any point and still choose not to.

<comment><USER43> I think that people must move past the belief in "heroism" as a job function and understand that many companies (not all) are parasitic creatures which finagle to charge economic rents, not saviours of Western democracy that provide value added as is commonly assumed.

I got the opportunity to apply for my current job yesterday. I expect an offer letter and threats to sign within two days or lose the job I have next week. My future company is a lowest bidder and was selected from around thirty applicants.

</comment></comment><comment><USER44> > You know what might change this? I gave a talk on this to Stanford alumni > and afterward a lawyer came up to me and said there are going to be > lawsuits.

This won't happen as long as the worst offenders can push individual arbitration agreements. The Supreme Court heard arguments about them recently, and a decision on whether they are legal is expected soon.

On the other hand, electronic health records should make it easy to show with statistics if a workplace causes chronic disease, relative its peers. We just need to add employer information to the standard information that hospitals collect. Certainly a group of university hospitals would be interested in seeing this data, and could organize an initiative to collect it.

Edit: Actually, a way to link massive amounts of healthcare data to patients' employers might already be available. Medical records often store insurance information, which can be used to figure out a patient's employer if they are the subscriber.

</comment><comment><USER45> Don't worry, wage slavery is just a phase we're going though because right now we can't see out of the capitalist bubble we're in.

It doesn't have to be like this, and we will find our way out one day, be it through UBI, AI or other post-capitalist mechanism. Might take a few hundred years though, mind you. Once Trump has been flushed through at least.

<comment><USER46> As I was reading this I was thinking "uh oh, here comes the techno-utopian nonsense", but then I got to the "few hundred years" part. Yup, sounds about right. Cheers to dialectics.

</comment></comment><comment><USER47> If you are flooded with stress, I recommend Finnish sauna a few times a week with continuous adjustment to cold immersion after a few minutes you leave the hot area (try to stay in cold longer every next time until you hit 2 minutes). Try to repeat it 4-5x a session in like 90 minutes. After I started doing it, it usually clears my head completely and makes my evenings absolutely stress- free and happy, and I can tackle the most difficult tasks next day.

</comment><comment><USER48> The part which really makes me angry is that this guy probably also employs graduate students who make minimum wage, have terrible health care, and no job security. But he doesn't feel like that's important enough to mention.

<comment><USER49> My wage at some random school is roughly 2k/month for 20 hours work, ignoring free tuition.

<comment><USER50> And mine was $10/hr, for computer science. _Peanuts_. My last year there they dropped that to $0/hr, and then complained that they couldn't find enough TAs.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER51> I think the familial boundaries defined within most societies promotes us-vs- them mindsets and a more inclusive, integrated framework is needed for peaceful coevolution within within sectors of life.

> Dying for a Paycheck, published by HarperBusiness and released on March 20, > maps a range of ills in the modern workplace — from the disappearance of > good health insurance to the psychological effects of long hours and work- > family conflict — and how these are killing people.

Thought experiment: How can the world be different if we changed the understood definition of family from "home life" or "family of current origin" to "family of choice"? What then happens if the majority chooses humanity as its family, followed by collectively choosing to meet the needs of all in the family?

</comment><comment><USER52> It makes it sound as if work was more healthy in the past. Was it? When? I know hunter gatherer times were supposed to be paradise, but anything since then? Farming sounds rather arduous. Or what about mining, or working in factories where safety measures have not yet been invented?

<comment><USER53> The present population of workers the article is referring to with "work culture" are _white collar_ workers. Comparing like to like, these wouldn't be people working in factories or mining. The equivalent jobs in previous eras would be those of priests, monks, and scribes; of surveyors, navigators, and architects; of military officers; and of nobles tinkering around in the sciences.

Compare the working conditions of _those_ jobs to those of current white- collar work.

<comment><USER54> I wouldn't be surprised if priests or monks had quite long work hours; imagine the RSI one might get from copying out whole books by hand.

You could reframe as underemployment a lot of the extent to which jobs in the past were less stressful (if they actually were). Trading stress for fantastic material wealth is a highly popular option afforded by technology.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER55> I'm a CTO at a YC grad Care Revolutions. There's a lot of comments on what kind of work environment is bad. What do y'all suggest a startup with limited resources do to be an incredible place to work for while also being a highly productive environment? I'm especially interested in suggestions as it relates to your health both physically and mentally!

<comment><USER56> Base your entire company culture around 40 hour work weeks. If you find people are needing to work more than that to get things done in time, it's a planning/work load problem, and you need to hire more people.

<comment><USER57> And recognize that any work people do while stressed and tired is probably adding enough back end technical debt that you'll be double paying for those hours without a long term gain in progress.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER58> I'm sure work is pretty bad for a lot of people, and sure, something should be done with that.

I personally think the biggest thing we could do is to just add a reasonable safety net. I get treated well because my employer knows I have a choice of jobs; if we gave the people on the bottom some minimal safety net so they wouldn't go homeless or starve without working, then employers would have to treat them well enough that working was better than living off the minimal government benefits. And that's a good thing, though it would need to be balanced with how much wealth we have as a society. Certainly, though, we can afford public housing and food for everyone right now, and we should. "Work or starve" is only morally justifiable when society has so little that someone must starve.

But... on the other hand, I do think that in some ways a lot of us (especially a lot of us on hn who are in the top half of computer technicians and software engineers) have it pretty good. For me? I know I had a lot of negative feelings about management when I was younger. I thought they were stupid and evil. I became a lot happier as an employee after I blew a whole lot of time and money trying to run a business myself.

And it was ramen profitable, but god damn did I work hard for that ramen. I'd be most of the way to retirement if I had lived on what I lived on and worked for someone else, investing the difference in index funds. But I think running that business really helped me be a happier employee; I mean, I am not saying I understand the business bullshit... I don't know what to do about all the moral dilemmas at that level, about negotiation, about hiding information, etc... some of it still _does_ seem kind of stupid and evil. But I understand that business bullshit exists, and that _I don 't understand it_ \- I ran the experiment, and the data showed that I really had no idea what management and business development was all about.

Because of my time running the company, I'm much more laid back about letting management manage than I was before I ran my own company, because I tried. I gave it my best shot, and I'm just not very good at it. I'm a pretty good technician, though, and I really appreciate that I'm in a world where that means I get a well-paying and comfortable job where all I have to do is be that good technician, and not be too rude to anyone else. I don't have to worry about not saying this or that or the other (well, with some exceptions. As a general rule, I can tell my boss anything with the door closed... if that's not true, I get another job, because clearly they want someone with a different skillset.)

</comment><comment><USER59> Not going to be fixed. The root cause is that there are a billion people in non-western countries ready to take increasingly sophisticated jobs for pennies on the dollar and are grateful for it.

</comment><comment><USER60> How naive to think we aren't just being farmed like cattle. Of course, there is always a pressure on workers to be money makers. When the means don't matter to investors, neither do workers.

</comment><comment><USER61> If life sucks so much in the Western world, why does everyone come here? And the "new rich" living in Costa Rica and other cheaper countries, why don't they live off the land like everyone idealizes instead of in mansions?

</comment><comment><USER62> Talk to your UPS or FedEx driver about the impact of their job on their body.

<comment><USER63> This is a common sentiment but I don't think it should be the end of the story. So what if people from two hundred years lived significantly worse lives than ourselves? I didn't live then and I'm not a UPS driver. I have all the empathy in the world for people in harm, but the fact that suffering exist should in no way act as a counterweight on levers that tries to improve situations where relief seems possible.

</comment></comment><comment><USER64> There is irony in this coming from a business school professor who sends his students into jobs with terrible hours.

</comment><comment><USER65> If people whose lives are scheduled in minutes have the ability to build muscle tone and stay fit so do you. Think Elon Musk I imagine he doesn't sleep much but he makes the time.

Exercise is about priorities and it's far easier to not do it and create excuses than it is to find the time.

Eating right however in the usa is perverse it's costs more to eat healthy and it's worse if you travel for work.

</comment><comment><USER66> While I applaud his efforts, Jeffrey Pfeffer probably doesn't really want his book to "be the 'Silent Spring' of workplace health," considering that Rachel Carson had a bad habit of citing suspicious sources, falsifying scientific research, and twisting words to fit her agenda. For example, egg thickness tests done on eagles didn't support the thin-shell claim she wanted to push, so her researchers lowered the calcium levels in the birds' diet until thinner egg shells were achieved. Also, Carson claims in her book that when quails were fed DDT, "few of the eggs hatched." If you actually read the research she's citing (from an article in "Journal of Agriculture and Food Chemistry," by James DeWitt), you find that around 80% of the DDT eggs hatched, compared to 83% in the control group, who weren't fed DDT. Since when are 80% and "few" synonymous? In the tests on pheasants, contained in the same article by James DeWitt, the control group (no DDT) hatched 57.4% of their eggs and the DDT pheasants hatched 80.6 of theirs. After eight weeks, the survival rate amongst the DDT chicks was also higher. I'm not saying we should use DDT as an ice cream topping, and that there's nothing wrong with it, but I'd prefer actual science on the matter rather than inaccurate sensationalism. I'd also prefer to believe Pfeffer's research is impeccable and that he's above the sort of consequentialism that Carson apparently embraced.

I don't have anything against saving the environment nor saving ourselves from toxic work practices. I just don't think we need to stoop to mountebankery to demonstrate the need for awareness and change. Such consequentialism undermines good causes, I think.

</comment><comment><USER67> Companies large and small can suffer from this problem of what appears to be mundane, useless work. It's worth mentioning that instead of striving for 50,000 person companies, we might be better off with much smaller companies, two pizza team companies or smaller.

</comment><comment><USER68> I was "managed out" and nobody cares.

[https://www.ft.com/content/356ea48c-e6cf-11e6-967b-c88452263...](https://www.ft.com/content/356ea48c-e6cf-11e6-967b-c88452263daf)

</comment><comment><USER69> It is not office work's fault that most people don't take care of themselves to counteract sitting on their ass all day.

All you have to do with an office job is actually use your gym membership and not eat take out every day.

<comment> Joe-Z Ooooohh, alright guys, wrap it up, finally someone came up with a solution.

And here I was, thinking it's not so simple as to just tell people what to do and everything will fall into place...

</comment></comment><comment><USER70> I think Amazon is the perfect example that killing employees by spreading/polluting cultural environment.

</comment><comment><USER71> It took me half a minute to just parse the title.

Edit: I mean the title of this post here. The title of the linked article is, of course, very easy to read.

</comment><comment><USER68> People don't need healthcare, they need social food experiences.</comment>


Test Finds College Graduates Lack Skills for White-Collar Jobs - T-A http://www.wsj.com/articles/test-finds-many-students-ill-prepared-to-enter-work-force-1421432744

<comment><AUTHOR> I don't think we know what those test results mean unless we also see the test results of people already in the workforce - and their management!</comment>


SRP – Secure Remote Password Protocol - <AUTHOR> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Secure_Remote_Password_protocol <comment><USER2> This links to a Wikipedia article which says:

"The Secure Remote Password protocol (SRP) is an augmented password- authenticated key agreement (PAKE) protocol, specifically designed to work around existing patents."

...but it doesn't go into any detail about said patents. Could someone here shed some light, please?</comment>


Get To The Point First - <AUTHOR> http://blog.webnet-it.co.jp/2010/03/05/get-to-the-point/

<comment><USER2> Of course, to get to the point first, you need to really understand what the person is asking. And this is the great art: to read between the lines, understand their concerns, and respond to the underlying context.

<comment><USER3> Moreover, if you don't feel like you understand what the other person is asking, don't be afraid of asking a question in return. Ensure that you're clear on what's being asked of you before giving either a rambling answer that covers all the basis, or a focused response to a question that wasn't asked.

<comment><USER4> That's the key, thanks. If you don't understand the original question well enough to give a succinct answer, ask clarifying questions until you can.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> I was a volunteer last summer at place which arranged a number of festivals, and together with a professional sysadmin I helped maintain their booking system, internet cafe, random stuff etc.

The atmosphere was pretty relaxed to start off with, but the sysadmin I worked with suggested that we would take it to the next level: Every morning we would walk around the office and give everyone sitting by a computer a five minute massage. During this time we bonded with them physically, asked them about their day and if there was anything we could help them with. The "results" were amazing. I have never become friends with so many people so quickly, and have never had customers so polite. Like the time when I accidentally erased all emails from the IMAP server, they just smiled and said: Don't worry, they'll just have to mail us again.

I guess my point is that I agree with the OP, but if you have made a strong emotional connection, the words you chose are less important. They will love you anyway.

</comment><comment><USER6> >> Client : "Will this USB drive be compatible with my 4 year old Dell computer?"

I worked years ago, with a company providing IT services. I have learnt after months of dealing with the client, that "Yes" and "No" are the best answers.

If the drive didn't work, you can simply justify it that something went missing on Windows, or the drive didn't install correctly. It's easy for the non-tech savvy users to understand "Yes", "No", "Windows badly installed", rather than to open long discussion where the client comes up to me with all his hardware and start asking if this work and this doesn't.

Telling the client "It should" is not professional; tell them "Yes" and if it doesn't work and you fail to solve the problem, you can simply say that the operating system is badly installed (None can prove it's well installed). However, when you say "it should", the non-tech savvy client will become savvy and will try to use his 3 words knowledge to install the device and will give propositions, ideas... that are generally stupid and useless. This will make him feel that he's as tech-savvy as you.

<comment><USER7> How about "Will the software you're writing be done within a month?" What's the right answer there, when you really don't know?

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> While you're harnessing the power of simple and direct communication, it'll help to not present your bad/good examples as fancily formatted "X" and "O", so as to hopelessly confuse your readers into trying to parse what seems to be an exchange between two fictitious persons named "X" and "O", yet makes no sense at all.

<comment><USER9> This is a Japanese convention (O == correct, X == incorrect). The article is on a Japanese domain, so I assume the original intended audience was people at least somewhat familiar with Japanese culture.

<comment><USER8> Yeah, I figured it out from context, but before I did, I was like O_x.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> This is great advice. One thing that I find that helps a lot is not to be afraid to have a bit of metaconversation. Things like "Are you asking because you're worried about X?", or after you've gotten to the point, asking "Do you want to know more detail?". They can take a lot of the guesswork out of communicating clearly, and don't have to be awkward.

</comment><comment><USER11> I used to worry that if I got to the point first, I wouldn't be able to give enough detail or nuance to do justice to the subject. I had it exactly backwards. By giving a quick, direct answer, I set myself up to follow it with the necessary detail and nuance and I set the other party up to want it.

If I go into detail without giving the big-picture answer, I find the other person ignores the detail as they wait for the big-picture answer, but if I give the big-picture answer and immediately follow it up with detail, they very often become interested in how the detail affects the big picture.

"Will this work?" "blah blah blah blah, so probably" is the wrong approach. "Will this work?" "yes. To do it, we may need to blah, blah, blah" is much more direct, and it gives the listener a reason to care about the details.

</comment><comment><USER12> A few weeks ago, I spoke with someone who contacted me through the co-founder wish list. He would have benefited greatly from this article.

I spent over an hour listening to him over Skype, name dropping and extolling the technical virtues of his business. During the conversation, he left absolutely no pauses for me to speak. I ended up having to interrupt him mid- speech after realizing that he was not looking for a co-founder, but trying to sell his soon to be released platform to developers.

Looking back, I realize that I was the same way a little over a year ago. It is easy to get caught up in the excitement of creating the _next great thing_. But care should be taken to ensure that conversations do not devolve into verbal masturbation over yet-another-victim.

</comment><comment><USER13> That's some good medicine. I need to be reminded of that everyday. I've had my share of embarrassing moments when my mouth provided a Wikipedia article when all I needed to say was yes or no.

</comment><comment><USER14> I think this is a truism. People want you to get to the point as soon as possible. The problem is in knowing what the point _is_. Some people just want the big picture. Others want all the minute details.

I think a more common problem is that when I _do_ get to the point, it's not the point the other person was looking for. So I instead end up with a "why don't you understand what I'm talking about?" feeling. Of course, nowadays, I'm smart enough to know that this usually goes both ways.

</comment><comment><USER15> I've done this.. The article hints at it: you've got to process the vague question rapidly and, uh, with your mouth shut. Deliberately pausing and pondering helps.

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> My server died 5 minutes after submitting this. I migrated servers, everything should be fine now.

</comment><comment><USER16> That's why it's great to place an abstract on top. I've been doing that for every long email or blog post with great results.

And link to sections of the body or external references, if need to.</comment>


Transactional Memory versus Locks - A Comparative Case Study - <AUTHOR> http://lambda-the-ultimate.org/node/3592

<comment><USER2> Transactional memory is a very interesting concept. I didn't knew it could be used without extensive hardware support like what Sun intended to include in their Rock processors.

There is some interesting information here:

[http://software.intel.com/en-us/articles/intel-c-stm- compile...](http://software.intel.com/en-us/articles/intel-c-stm-compiler- prototype-edition-20/)</comment>


Ask HN: Remote encrypted backup recommendation? - <AUTHOR> Hey everyone,
I've been researching my backup requirements lately, and my requirements are:
* Encrypted, trusted (this implies open source) backups.
* Able to backup to a remote server. Google Drive is a plus.
* Not terribly bandwidth intensive.
* Not terribly expensive, as I'm backing up non-critical photos which are already on RAID and local backups anyway.
I'm currently using SpiderOak, but I don't like the fact that it's closed source. I experimented with Duplicity, but it turns out that it requires me to reupload my entire 50 GB collection every month or so, as it's good sense to have full backups every so often.
The problem is that, even though I require encryption, it shouldn't roll all files into a huge ball of mud, as that will need reuploading every once in a while, it's not easy to sync, etc.
Basically, the ideal for me would be something like Duplicity with per-file encryption, or rdiff-backup with encryption. Is there something that would fit the bill, or would I have to build it myself? <comment><USER2> The only encrypted backup solution I've ever recommended is Tarsnap.

<comment><AUTHOR> Yeah, it sounds like that's the one to use. Unfortunately, it's around 10 times more expensive than Google Drive, so hardly worth it for non-critical data...

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> You didn't mention your operating system.

I use EncFS and my preferred syncing service, the [1] tutorial was helpful for me.

[1] - [http://www.howtogeek.com/121737/how-to-encrypt-cloud- storage...](http://www.howtogeek.com/121737/how-to-encrypt-cloud-storage-on- linux-and-windows-with-encfs/)

<comment><AUTHOR> Sorry, Linux. I use EncFS already over Dropbox (as pretty much the only way to use Dropbox), but I don't want to EncFS my entire drive just for backups, it seems like something that should be handled on the tool itself. I'm thinking of writing a thin layer over Duplicity's backends that will EncFS-style encrypt files and store them on the various services.

<comment><USER4> IIRC, EncFS has this option where you can use it backwards. That is you mount a normal file system say /foo to /bar and then /bar contains the EncFS encrypted files. This might be an option.

<comment><AUTHOR> This is pretty much exactly what I needed. You win this QA, thank you!

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Well ... it seems that tarsnap <http://www.tarsnap.com/> is the only one I know of that is for the paranoid.

</comment><comment><USER6> how about - <https://github.com/yradunchev/dbackup>

...and it depends how much data you intent to backup...

<comment><AUTHOR> That looks simple enough to customize, thank you.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> Spider Oak?

Bittorrent Sync?

<comment><AUTHOR> As I said in the description, they're both closed source, which isn't great. BT Sync looks great for syncing, but not backups...</comment></comment>


Show HN: Chrome extension replaces Facebook Newsfeed with your todo list - <AUTHOR> https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/todobook/ihbejplhkeifejcpijadinaicidddbde <comment><USER2> Sometimes people find such intrusive/blocking productivity tools a bit invasive. I find them alright. I personally use Rest.app for OS X which blocks my screen every 30 minutes for me to take a rest and exercise.

I would use this Chrome extension if it had a Wunderlist (I guess the most popular todo app?) integration.</comment>


Songkick is down - <AUTHOR> http://www.songkick.com

<comment><USER2> <http://downforeveryoneorjustme.com/>

Up for me.</comment>