I will miss the old Y Combinator - <AUTHOR> http://scobleizer.com/2011/01/29/i-will-miss-the-old-y-combinator/ <comment><USER2> There's always the "before they were famous" angle (important as more YC companies come in at later stages of maturity than "two guys with a gleam in their eye"). I think AirBnB, for example, cornered the market on Obama-themed balanced breakfasts prior to being in YC.

If that doesn't satisfy, particular journalists looking for scrappy upstarts can still find them - the Internet is a big place. I mean, Andrew Warner manages to find a new story _every day_ , with fairly little overlap with other sources of news I follow.

</comment><comment><USER3> You know what else makes great stories? Successful companies.

I think it's disingenuous to lament a change in funding models that appears to be a huge net gain for founders.

Considering many YC startups have been raising additional funding for a while now, I don't see much changing.

<comment><USER4> What do you know about Scoble that makes this 'disingenious'? I read nothing but an honest sentiment. Not everything has a deeper meaning or needs to be part of a grand consistent whole of thoughts, you know.

<comment><USER3> Maybe that's not the right word choice. But it's a journalist saying "I don't like this story because it changes the narrative/ starving founder myth we're trying to create" doesn't feel right.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> _No longer will we hear stories like we heard from Airbnb's founders of surviving off of cereal or "ramen."_

'ramen profitable' and it's derivatives should be taken as a cutesy fluffy marketing term and nothing more (like most startups were never actually started in a garage).

No one should be living literally off Ramen noodles and cereal. It's incredibly bad for your health and a total lack of investment in your body and your brain.

I'm not saying YC's small funding encourages this, but nevertheless we should not be encouraging the promotion of this concept.

<comment><USER6> Hey that sort of diet got me through university and freed up funds for that other important calorie source : beer.

You can actually live on that type of diet for a little while when you're young and eager. There are far worse things for you to do.

<comment><USER7> I ate ramen a lot for one semester for so in undergraduate. My mind and body felt horrible in short order; I never got any sort of nutrition, and I basically haven't had any since. That was like 6 years ago.

If you need to buy cheap food for a while, ramen is not the answer. Finding ingredients at the grocery store and cooking them up yourself is the answer. I suspect that if you _really_ want ramen, you can make it cheaper yourself. And more healthily ( _).

(_) Except for the salt levels.

<comment><USER8> Agreed. If you want to have a well performing body, put performance fuel into it. In other words, good food.

Good food is, unfortunately, highly debatable. Organic or non-organic - I'd still have to suggest that starting with any fruits and vegetables, for example, would be a huge step up in the diet!

As a med student, I have to agree - cooking yourself ends up teaching people more about the food they eat than almost any prepared/prepacked food.

And yes, ramen is also possible to make from a bag of flour, salt, baking soda, and water. No palm fat, no other stuff. Just takes a bit of skill in putting together the soup...

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Is this guy fucking serious?

 _No longer will we hear stories like we heard from Airbnb's founders of surviving off of cereal or "ramen."

That bums me out, because struggle and sacrifice makes for great stories._

I'm sorry that you're _bummed out_ at less human suffering. These are people with friends and families and hopes and dreams and feelings, and you're treating them like characters in a movie. These are people working their asses off to make the world a little bit better and hopefully make money doing it. Mr. Consumer here is upset that their lives are a little better? And his only reason is that _the stories he hears aren't as nice_? This is disgusting. Fuck you, get some perspective.

<comment><USER10> Speaking of perspective, I wouldn't call living off of cereal or ramen human suffering. These are people who could probably do one hour of consulting and, with the money they make, buy more food than someone in the third world sees in a month. It's human suffering much in the same way that choosing to flagellate yourself with a cat o' nine tails is.

<comment><USER9> Eating a healthy diet is unquestionably better than eating a cereal-and-ramen diet. Being able to afford a better diet _does_ lessen human suffering, even if that person isn't a starving child in Sudan. Being bummed out that someone's life is better, simply because it doesn't make for a good story, is shitty.

If Mr. Scoble wants a story of struggle and sacrifice, he can kindly live it himself.

<comment><USER10> I understand the point you're making. I was addressing your use of "human suffering". Staying at the Hilton is unquestionably better than staying at a Motel 6, but calling a night at the Motel 6 "human suffering" would be ridiculous and such use cheapens the term.

<comment><USER9> I understand what you're saying. The human condition is relative. But I've lived where I had no spending power, no paycheck for another week, and only a pack of ramen in the house. I might not have been dying, but I was certainly suffering. It's just awful to wish that on anyone, especially when he would never in a million years wish it on himself. He's putting himself above the people who keep him in work. It's disrespectful to say the least.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> As one of those single founders you hear about struggling to make things work from within their apartment or the local coffee shops: that story is overrated. It's all about the business, and the $150k investment which was offered today is an exceptionally good deal.

</comment><comment><USER12> Meta: I want to ask something right now that will sound very flip but I mean it with no malice and with full earnestness. Seriously – I'm asking because I want an answer. Cool? Cool.

How has Mr. Scoble convinced so many people to listen to him?

In over six years of following the Valley and tech in general with interest, I have heard Mr. Scoble's name so many times – but never associated with anything of substance. I've never read of any dramatic achievements, nor have I been pointed to any essays of any deep insight or poignancy. While he frequently comes up in conversation he does not seem to... do anything. Like a Paris Hilton.

From what I can tell, he worked for Microsoft, then wrote a book in which he appeared on the cover naked (Hiltonesque!)... and then convinced a bunch of people to follow him on Twitter and other social media flavors of the moment. Then Rackspace bought him an enormous tripod.

I hasten to reiterate that I have no specific ill-will toward Mr. Scoble, but I am... mystified and hope for some insight. Is this a case of wildly successful self-promotion? Is the success of the self-promotion, itself, the measure of success from which he derives attention and note? Do people latch onto him in the hopes of learning similar powers of promotion?

<comment><USER13> Here's the right visual:

<http://atdetroit.net/forum/messages/5843/178783.jpg>

Scoble is the ultra-fan. I wouldn't really call him a rabid self-promoter (though those are certainly around) -- he just oozes an almost naive excitement about the technology world and seems to try to be in all corners of it at once. I think that sort of excitement, almost like the tech world is one big family of sorts, is, in its own way, contagious.

<comment><USER14> I think this picture says everything you need to know about Scoble.

[http://cache.gawker.com/assets/resources/2007/07/scoble- ipho...](http://cache.gawker.com/assets/resources/2007/07/scoble-iphone.jpg)

If the tech world is a big family, Scoble is the youngest kid whose incessant bids for attention have the older ones rolling their eyes.

<comment><USER15> My reaction to that photo is that he is a down-to-earth guy who wears his passion on his sleeve.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> I loved those Dickens stories too! Children working in factories! Fishermen dying for lack of a doctor! Ha Ha!

</comment><comment><USER17> I'm seeing the word 'loan' in there along with 'investment' - the two aren't really compatible terms. Who's on the hook for the loan? From the TC page:

"If you're not an investor, here's what it means. Yuri and SV Angel just offered to loan each company $150,000. That loan will convert if/when the company raises a proper angel or venture capital round at the same valuation that's set in that round. Most convertible debt has a valuation ceiling and also gets a discount on conversion. This debt doesn't.

It's the most entrepreneur friendly investment that I can think of, short of just handing people money as a gift."

So, they're not just handing money over ('investing') - it's a loan, which would seem to require payback. If the company flops (some do) who is on the hook? YC itself? The original founders?

<comment><USER18> It's a convertible note, so it is a loan. I'm 100% positive that there are no personal guarantees and it is essentially entirely unsecured. Convertible notes are very common early investment tools when it is very hard to place an accurate valuation on the company. It significantly reduces the amount of paperwork involved and it allows the person providing the note a guaranteed seat at the A round table. Like most loans, it typically carries interest which accrues as part of the principal and adds to the conversion.

</comment></comment><comment><USER19> My takeaway from previous ycombinator groups is that anyone onto anything half decent by the end has had no trouble getting a financing round.

Personally if it was me I don't think it would really change the way I went about things, would still work out of a house and go it cheap, just might be able to get an early hire in to push things along even faster without having to worry about how much equity I was sacrificing to do it at such an early stage.

</comment><comment><USER20> As a founder during the "old YCombinator", back when we had to move to Boston (YC s08), I can tell Scoble with absolute certainty that while the fear of running out of money was always on our minds, it wasn't the motivating force for us working our asses off. It was something greater than that: An innate entrepreneurial desire to build a company doing something meaningful. Indeed, even after the economy crashed right after we graduated and money ran out, we doubled down with our own personal savings to continue fighting.

Yuri's funding isn't gong to change a thing for YC founders, except arm them with more ammo to build something great

</comment><comment><USER21> I was in YCS09 (CarWoo!). The 150k would not of changed anything we did when it came to being frugal.

We would of still lived in our office (not in an apartment that was our office, but in our office that was our apartment).

We would of still rented a total crap hole in not the greatest part of town. It might of helped WePay not have a neighbor who got macheted because we all wouldn't of had to live in the slums. It might of helped us not live next to other tenets that were growing weed and getting raided by the cops. The day we moved out the cops raided them. We had armed police officers in our hallway. These 'stories', while hilarious are not conducive to a good working environment.

I'm older then most entrepreneurs YC funds. Tommy is also older then most. A bit more money up front would of been very helpful and wouldn't of changed our drive or decision making one bit, except to make us not worry about raising money until later. And that would of been a good thing. Raising money stole a fifth to a quarter of our time during YC.

We always knew we would need more money. Right out of YC we raised another 200k. It was very stressful because if that didn't work out we were up the proverbial creek. Having that 150k up front would of helped ease a lot of sleepless nights...listening to our neighbors scream and yell as they tried to hang a sodium light, but I digress.

</comment><comment><USER22> I know that the hardships of other people usually make the best stories. Hiker gets his arm caught under a rock and has to cut it off with a pen knife 3 days later to escape, makes for a gripping story. Moral is, sometimes being the person in the adventure isn't all its cracked up to be.

When my cofounder and I applied for YC this past round, we had a lot of hopes in getting accepted (we didn't, unfortunately, but got the interview). Even though I knew all of the benefits of getting into YC in terms of the experience and the contacts, I still had a certain amount of trepidation in terms of finances. I was ready and willing (still am!) to dive into YC and not look back, but I was also looking at giving up a job that pays well (I make more money than _anyone_ else in my large extended family), the health benefits, 401k, stock options, and 2 weeks of vacation each year. I live in San Francisco, and it isn't cheap. That $17k, split between 2 people, doesn't go far. I'm a single guy with limited expenses, and it still would have been tight.

Having met Paul Graham and the YC crew a couple of times, interviewing with them, and meeting many other people at various YC-funded companies, I feel confident in saying that I highly doubt the spirit of YC is going to change. There is a certain character to all of the people I've met that's hard to define but is definitely there. That isn't going to disappear simply because an investor is trying something new.

I suspect that there are driven people like me who are in slightly different situations (family, etc) where they don't feel like they can take the risk if they get accepted. This stops them from even feeling like applying.

Now knowing that there's another guaranteed round of money to be accessed after a few months is going to let people on the edge make the decision to apply. Some will get accepted. It will let people feel like they can work as hard as possible on a dream and know they have a better chance of being ok longer. $150k + $17k at a startup of 2-3 people is enough to not only fund the company, but to also let the founders who need it to take a survivable income for the first year while they're getting off the ground. Its an extra safety blanket that lets those founders who need it to take the plunge and to fight a while longer to succeed.

For the people that get accepted into YC where $17k was enough, those people now have some extra guaranteed resources to help their businesses grow. That's the money that lets a 2 person team hire a 3rd after 6 months to let them keep growing while one of the founders concentrates on angel or VC funding, instead of hitting a wall because there's too much to do and not enough humans to go around to do it.

I'll grant Robert that YC may change a little, but it'll only be for the better.

<comment> brown9-2 Great post, but I feel the need to point out that two weeks of vacation is not that much of a perk and is actually quite low.

</comment></comment><comment><USER23> Those who can't ship, blog.

<comment><USER24> Those who can't blog, comment.

<comment><USER23> Turnabout is fair play, but roughly how many words do you think this story and silly meta-analysis deserve?

I could throw-up a few paragraphs on my wordpress, but I'd rather work on some code. What do you think?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> So go and re-create it, we'll see how well you do.

Backseat drivers don't get to vote.

</comment><comment><USER26> This deal won't change that. YC knows scrappy companies win, and especially well capitalised _scrappy_ companies.

</comment><comment><USER27> A great advantage startups have over established companies is they _get excited over small wins_. And beginnings are small.

The Innovator's Dilemma even suggests established companies spin-out small startups to work on emerging technologies/markets, for this reason.

</comment><comment><USER28> Just getting accepted in YCombinator means you're part of an elite group. Even among these select startups there are those whose original idea doesn't work.

How many fail because they ran out of money trying to execute a pivot? All this added capital is going to do is increase the success rate. I respect you Scoble but you're wrong.

</comment><comment><USER29> "struggle and sacrifice makes for great stories", but not necessarily great companies. Tech journalists' ability to phone in the same story they've written 100 times before shouldn't even register on the radar of things to consider.

</comment><comment><USER30> I somehow suspect Scoble has never been poor. There's nothing glamorous about it.

</comment><comment><USER31> Living more comfortably while doing a startup is a great thing though. Better food = better brainpower. It may not sound as good on paper but the end result will be the same if not better.

</comment><comment><USER32> Why are people assuming the 150k is from this batch _onward_?</comment>


A Programmer's Introduction to Mathematics - <AUTHOR> https://pimbook.org/ <comment><USER2> [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18579076](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18579076)

</comment><comment><USER3> This looks on the surface like exactly the book I need but a quick look at the amazon reviews shows some flaws, no answers to the exercises seems a bit annoying. I'd also really like an eBook that is formatted rather than a PDF because I read on a phone.

Saying that, I really would like to be better at math so might end up trying anyway.

<comment><USER4> "This is the ebook edition, a full-color pdf containing the complete contents of the book (the physical book is black and white). Due to the heavy use of mathematical typesetting, there is no plan for a ebook-reader-specific format (mobi, epub). This ebook is a simple pdf download."

[https://gumroad.com/l/pim-book](https://gumroad.com/l/pim-book)

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> Anybody give this a quick skim and can offer any insight?

<comment><USER6> Personally I found it quite useful, although I was already familiar with several topics, it was interesting to read the author's perspective. Answers to exercises would be great, but even without them I found the content satisfying and useful enough.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> Look interesting!</comment>


Ask HN - Browers Open in New Tab retain back history - <AUTHOR>

I would love it if when you do "open in new tab or window" in a browser, it takes the 'back' history with it also.
Is this a valid idea amongst us HN readers?  If so, who can I tell to get it into the main browsers?
I am not browser fussy, and could easily be using ie/chrome/ff without any thought, so I want this in all browsers. <comment><USER2> i believe safari does this.</comment>


What Do CDC's Surveys Say About the Frequency of Defensive Gun Uses? - <AUTHOR> https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=3124326 <comment><USER2> I would like to know the contexts behind these defensive gun usages before I come to a conclusion. It could be that a significant portion are "empty" uses (e.g. brandishing a gun when scared by a weird noise at night when nobody was there), not actually defensive / used in a situation where the gun greatly escalated the situation (e.g. someone cuts you off in traffic and you "defend" your space), etc. - even though these wouldn't technically count according to the wording of the survey, we are still relying on respondents' interpretations of the questions. The author mentions that if anything the rate was underreported, but knowing gun users personally, I find it just as likely that they were willing to overstate their gun use or the utility of their gun as a type of bragadocious machoism.

It's true the CDC was obviously quite biased, but the study could have still been flawed

<comment><USER3> Here's the exact wording of the question:

> "During the last 12 months, have you confronted another person with a > firearm, even if you did not fire it, to protect yourself, your property, or > someone else?"

I don't think we should seriously modify those answers with anecdotes of "bragadocious machoism". The article says, "in sum, the surveys used an excellent, carefully worded DGU question, in contrast to the wordings used in so many other surveys".

<comment><USER2> I know, I read the article. I'm saying that we're relying on respondents' interpretations of "confront another person" and "defend." Given that a small absolute percentage of people replied in the affirmative, I think it's reasonable to assume that some portion of those may have been confused by the question or over interpreted it.

I'm not disagreeing with the author, I just would want to see more data. The reason this doesn't 100% pass my sanity check is that the study's figures suggest that ~2m people use gun's defensively every year, which is a very high figure given that there are ~680k violent crimes every year per the study. So I would want to know the distribution of the cases when guns are used defensively, to understand this discrepancy

<comment><USER3> I get what you're saying, and that it's hard to come up with simple, straightforward questions that address all the likely misunderstandings. But, in this case, I was observing that in response to your comment,

> even though these wouldn't technically count according to the wording of the > survey, we are still relying on respondents' interpretations of the > questions

it seemed that in this case, the question was worded rather well. Particularly since your response was based in personal anecdote.

<comment><USER2> Perhaps I'm not communicating myself very well. To be blunt, the question could be worded as well as possible, that doesn't preclude the subject material from introducing a bias anyway. And given that the subject is relatively controversial and not 100% well-defined (we have no way of determining whether the use was "justified" or even actually defensive), that _could_ indeed introduce a significant bias.

<comment><USER3> Well, I see what you mean, but it sounds like _no_ servey could be acceptable by that criteria.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> I find it funny how statisticians obsess over the precise wording of their questions, and then perform elaborate logical deductions from their results, but somehow don't consider that the only people bothering to answer their surveys are bored people who love talking about themselves...

</comment><comment><USER5> Why was the CDC asking about firearms?

<comment><USER6> The "main goal" of the CDC "is to protect public health and safety through the control and prevention of disease, injury, and disability in the US and internationally" [1]. Guns cause injury and disability.

The CDC's work around guns has been an area of "partisan dispute" [2].

[1] [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Centers_for_Disease_Control_an...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Centers_for_Disease_Control_and_Prevention#References)

[2] [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Centers_for_Disease_Control_an...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Centers_for_Disease_Control_and_Prevention#Gun_violence)

<comment><USER7> Guns don't cause injury and disability more than they prevent it. Sorry, but that's the truth.

We have 340,000,000 people, more guns than that. And 10,000 homicides where the vast majority are drug and gang related.

We have a problem, but it's not with guns.

Edit: more truth, more downvotes. I'm curious as to why there is such effort against an enumerated right - when putting even 1/10th the effort into fighting heart disease which kills 700,000 a year would have such a greater impact?

<comment><USER8> Guy says it's an area of partisan dispute, and you write a post that proves it.

Yes, it's partisan. Your facts may be right, but the argument is one sided.

<comment><USER7> It's not partisan to me, i could care less how fellow gun owners vote.

One side has emotional plees, logical fallacies, or stubborn ignorance of the topic - I won't appologoze for not being on that side.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> I wonder what the author means when he says the CDC did not report their results? In the final paragraph he says, "Regardless of how the decision was made, it was a disservice to the American people, who paid for the survey and the information it yielded, but who were not allowed to see it and judge its worth for themselves." Indeed, it's wrong for government agencies to suppress publicly funded data sets, especially when suppression is due to political affiliations. But then how did the author obtain the data?

<comment><USER10> The FOIA would be the obvious path to this data. You can get all sorts of government data that way. Often the biggest trouble is knowing that the information exists. If you don't know it exists, you can't ask for it.

<comment><USER9> I was able to find this page through Google search: [https://chronicdata.cdc.gov/Behavioral-Risk- Factors/Behavior...](https://chronicdata.cdc.gov/Behavioral-Risk- Factors/Behavioral-Risk-Factor-Surveillance-System-BRFSS-H/iuq5-y9ct/data)

and I found the survey question by searching with the filter Question > contains > "firearm."

At this point I'm tempted to say that the author's complaints with respect to data suppression are exaggerated.

<comment><USER11> Kleck's complaint is that when the data was _originally collected_ two decades ago, CDC researchers could have calculated an estimated number of DGUs from the raw data and reported _summary statistics_ relating to it, but didn't do so. They _did_ do public estimates for other categories, just not this one. Kleck thinks they didn't release any _analysis_ of this data because they didn't like the conclusion. (Which seems plausible but would be a hard thing to prove)

Kleck wrote this report once he realized the _raw unanalyzed response data_ (which is what you found) had at some point become available at the CDC site so he could do his own analysis.

>I was able to find this page through Google search

You didn't need to - Kleck's data source is the very first item in the "References" section of OP. It was:

> _Centers for Disease Control (CDC). 2018. Behavioral Risk Factor > Surveillance System website > at[https://www.cdc.gov/brfss/annual_data/annual_data.htm](https://www.cdc.gov/brfss/annual_data/annual_data.htm). > Accessed 2-14-18._

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> CDC can't study gun violence because they are out to ban guns.

Quote from the CDC head Mark Rosenberg from 1994: "We need to revolutionize the way we look at guns, like we did with cigarettes. Now it [sic] is dirty, deadly and banned."

This isn't an okay attitude for a government employee to have because the bill of rights guarantees all Americans the right to bear arms.

<comment><USER13> > CDC can't study gun violence because they are out to ban guns.

Seems to me if that was the concern, removing the CDC head with the problem and then not appointing/confirming one with the same problem would be the solution.

I mean, that's like saying we should permanently ban the DoJ from enforcing civil rights law because of Jeff Sessions's views.

<comment><USER12> Sure let's weaponize all government agencies in our fight against our political rivals.

Are we really here already? I thought we'd have another decade at least. Next step political violence.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> I saw the other day that the percentage of Americans who say they've defended themselves with a gun is lower than the percentage of Americans who say they've been abducted by aliens.

</comment><comment><USER15> why has this been flagged?

</comment><comment><USER3> Why was this flagged?

<comment><USER16> I guess some people around here are ... trigger happy.</comment></comment>


Ask HN: Why and how did Comcast figure out I'm moving? - <AUTHOR> I'm moving out of my rented apartment soon. Today I got a letter from my current ISP, Comcast, titled "Moving?" with details on how to set up Xfinity at my next place.
It is of course possible to deduce that the current resident of an apartment will be leaving if that apartment is listed for rent on various websites, but my name isn't on those listings. My current landlord and realtor of course know my name and that I'm leaving. My next landlord and realtor know this too, since my address is on the new lease. So one of them could have told Comcast. Or I suppose Comcast could deduce their customers' behavior by scraping rental sites. Does anyone know exactly how they are doing this?
Also, why would they want to do this?
I can't shake the suspicion that the primary reason for sending such a letter is not to remind me that they exist and are an ISP option at my new residence, but rather to let me know that they figured out on their own that I will be moving.
I have lived in the USA for a number of years, and have moved many times. In the last three placed I've rented, I've been able to plug my Comcast router straight in and connect to the internet immediately, without contacting them first.  The first time this happened I was perplexed, and when I called to notify them of my change in address, the rep said that the renters before me must've forgot to cancel their account with them. This didn't seem like the truth, so I tried it again when we moved for a second time, and then again when we moved a third time. The last move was to a different state. Each time, the router connected immediately, and each time the Comcast rep told me that this was because the previous tenants had forgotten to cancel or update their account. <comment><USER2> > but my name isn't on those listings.

But your address is, and you also say this:

> Today I got a letter from my current ISP, Comcast

Which means Comcast has your current address. It is not hard to look up, in their own database, a name when given an address from a rental listing website.

> Also, why would they want to do this?

Their marketing department likely saw it as a "customer retention" activity. By offering to make the transfer of your Comcast account to your new location easy and effortless (they hope) their belief would be that they might retain you as a customer.

It is unlikely they were even aware of the nefarious seeming aspects of the practice.

<comment><AUTHOR> > Which means Comcast has your current address. It is not hard to look up, in > their own database, a name when given an address from a rental listing > website.

Yes, this is exactly what I imagined, which is why I wrote, "I suppose Comcast could deduce their customers' behavior by scraping rental sites," but perhaps it wasn't totally clear.

> Their marketing department likely saw it as a "customer retention" activity. > By offering to make the transfer of your Comcast account to your new > location easy and effortless (they hope) their belief would be that they > might retain you as a customer.

This makes sense.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> Did you start the process of permanently forwarding your mail at the USPS yet? Even if you haven't pulled the trigger on it yet, did you start? This happened to me when I started (but never actually moved).

I figured they were tied into the marketing feed that gets updates when people register for "all in" forwarding.

</comment><comment><USER4> Comcast handles terabytes of telemetry data daily from customer-premises equipment[0]. They could have internal machine learning models for customer retention / churn reduction from the data you're generating, whether bandwidth usage, sites visited, etc. Some model(s) may have inferred that you had a higher likelihood to move and or churn. You can train such models from historical data of people who have moved in the past, and if there's a chance that people who move tend not to care about their subscription anymore, cancel it, or renew it after a long period, there is lost revenue to be minimized. A provider will then engage you, either through email or via a customer support representative if the revenue per customer is high.

This does work and organizations pay close attention to it. If you have a retail bank that makes around $1,000 per customer with 6% churn rate and 10 million customers, this adds up to quite a chunk of change.

It could also be a coincidence due to the current trend of people moving around, and sending emails like this to remove one cognitive process from someone who already has many things to sort out.

[1]: [https://www.nctatechnicalpapers.com/Paper/2019/2019-what- can...](https://www.nctatechnicalpapers.com/Paper/2019/2019-what-can-your-cpe- tell-you-/download)

</comment><comment><USER5> It's just customer retention.

They are mysterious about why your router works in other locations to discourage you into looking into how cable modems work. It's pretty easy to steal cable. Google "rooted cable modem"

<comment><AUTHOR> Huh, I had no idea about this. Thanks.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> What was your lease period? If you get a note every 12 months, that would explain it.

Most people are auto paid to the end of a billing cycle, idk that comcast gives credit. So moving in before the end of their cycle it should work.

You say you move with your comcast router- if its a rented device, why shouldnt they be able to recognize the MAC address and connect?

<comment><AUTHOR> I'm breaking the lease and moving out mid-cycle, and I bought the router independently (not rented from Comcast).

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> " I can't shake the suspicion that the primary reason for sending such a letter is not to remind me that they exist and are an ISP option at my new residence, but rather to let me know that they figured out on their own that I will be moving. "

Really? Really? Like, seriously?

You may want to look into a lawsuit based on them being a low-key bully....

<comment><AUTHOR> I'm assuming you mean to imply that I'm being overdramatic by suspecting something nefarious is going on when it isn't. That might be true, yes, thanks for your input.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> I get those mails as well from Comcast, though I'm not moving and haven't moved in the last 4 years. I think they just send them out at random.

<comment><AUTHOR> Could be a coincidence for sure. I've never received one previously though.</comment></comment>


Ask HN: What's the Next Buzzword? - <AUTHOR> This is just out of curiosity, but what do you believe the buzzwords of the future are? Assuming all variations of the almighty "AI" are buzzwords are the past? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_buzzwords <comment><USER2> "neutral"

There's going to be a wave of unpalatable changes imposed on society due to financial stresses, automation and an aging baby boomer populace. I expect the term "neutral" to gain prominence in an attempt to marginalize people's perceptions of how disruptive these changes actually will be on an individual level.

</comment><comment><USER3> quantum

<comment><AUTHOR> Oh that's a good call.</comment></comment>


Google eBooks - <AUTHOR> http://books.google.com/ebooks

<comment><USER2> Hey Google --- why is Kindle not supported while Nook and IPAD are supported ?

</comment><comment><USER3> Thanks; some of the free ones look pretty interesting.</comment>


On Being Narrow - <AUTHOR> http://blog.computationalcomplexity.org/2009/10/on-being-narrow.html

<comment><USER2> In March I was shopping around for a new job. It was common to be asked why I was changing jobs (especially in this economy...). A big part of my answer was that I wanted to try something new. I wanted to make sure that my resume didn't pigeonhole me as a Python web developer. Even though I had been in that field for my first 4 years out of college, I had worked in very different domains previously and I wanted to keep my options open in the future. I enjoy Python web development, but to avoid being too narrow I decided that my next job would be with a different language in a different domain.

Most people understood that desire. A recruiter at one company where I interviewed disagreed with the strategy, though. She said it's ok to play around in a few different domains when you're young, but at some point you need to pick one and stick with it. That way you can be seen as expert in that domain and you can be considered eligible for higher level roles with more decision-making responsibility.

I suppose I can see her point, but I sincerely hope she's wrong. I want my horizons to always be broad.

<comment><USER3> Regarding the second recruiter, I wouldn't put too much stock in a recruiters opinion. Do whatever you want to do in life and don't worry too much about hitting the "ceiling." If you are on this forum then you probably are above average when it comes to programming and a smart boss would be able to see that programming language experience is secondary to problem solving and personal skills.

<comment><USER4> Interesting. Why do you think that everyone on this forum is above average when it comes to programming?

<comment><USER3> I definitely did not say everyone. Probably better and everyone on the forum are two different subsets of the same population. That being said, if someone is on this forum they are more likely to be better at programming than average in my opinion.

Just giving a shit about what you do is a leg up on a lot of the people out in the world.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> There's a real gem in there:

> You'd be surprised how much the tools, models and techniques of one field > can apply in another.

That goes for anybody, not only for people in academia. I don't know how many times I've profited from being able to apply an idea from a totally unrelated field to software problems.

I remember reading the 'simulated annealing' paper long ago and thinking, "wait a minute, if this is possible, what else is possible ?", and I haven't stopped doing that. It's paid off numerous times.

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> Some of the comments make me remind of an Isaiah Berlin's best known essay in which he distinguishes between two archetypes: the hedgehog and the fox.

"The fox knows many things; the hedgehog knows but one."

To paraphrase him in his 1953 essay— The Hedgehog and the Fox:

"There is a line among the fragments of the Greek poet Archilochus which says: 'The fox knows many things, but the hedgehog knows one big thing'…[T]aken figuratively, the words can be made to yield a sense in which they mark one of the deepest differences which divide writers and thinkers, and, it may be, human beings in general. For there exists a great chasm between those, on one side, who relate everything to a single central vision, one system less or more coherent or articulate, in terms of which they understand, think and feel — a single, universal, organizing principle in terms of which alone all that they are and say has significance — and, on the other side, those who pursue many ends, often unrelated and even contradictory, connected, if at all, only in some de facto way, for some psychological or physiological cause, related by no moral or aesthetic principle…The first kind of intellectual and artistic personality belongs to the hedgehogs, the second to the foxes."

The fox is the generalist, who moves from domain to domain with ease and agility,examining large surface areas, covering wide spaces; the hedgehog is the specialist, who slowly and meticulously delves deeply into the nature of a single domain, uncovering secrets that lie beneath."

So who would you want to be? A Hedgehog, who have a single big idea or explanation, or a Fox, which looks for a lot of intersecting causes?

<comment><AUTHOR> Jim Collins says: "The fox is complex; the hedgehog simple. And the hedgehog wins."

<comment><USER6> Actually, extending the analogy, evolution shows that generalists tend to be much more successful. It's the reason panda's are endangered and crows dominate most cities.

<comment><USER7> Humans are the ultimate generalist

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> There's a quote I've lifted from an old comic that I like to repeat to myself every now and then: "specialization breeds weakness"

The same can be said about learning a broad range of skills and not excelling in any of them. But for me I've been able to apply more useful ideas from other fields to my core competency than the opposite.</comment>


Henry Finn Built $2M/Year Video Production Company - <AUTHOR> https://www.starterstory.com/start-video-production-company <comment><USER2> Excerpt:

"So I had this hypothesis that if instead of making a simple portfolio site, if we actually made a blog and just shared dope art we love with the world, it might give people a reason to come back.

See, as artsy friends, we used to email each other all the coolest artists we found surfing the internet and would "ooh" and "aah" together. We were honestly quite snobby! We thought we had extremely good taste, lol. So I proposed instead of keeping it internal, we would share what we find in one place, a blog.

The rules were simple, we could share any kind of visual art in any medium, as long as there were no politics, the only rule was that the art had to be "dope."

And so Empty Kingdom was born. (website now defunct)

I still remember to this day, the night of our "launch."

We were sitting around with some beers asking each other how many visitors would it be nice to have by the end of the year. We thought a few thousand would be incredible.

We had no intention of "marketing" it, we would just create it and see what happened.

And within 11 months we got 1.8 million unique visitors that crashed our site multiple times (broke college students that didn't have a penny for hosting). At our peak, I think we were reaching 5 million visitors a year.

The crazy part was this was with _zero marketing_. It was pure organic reach before organic reach was a term. We literally didn't even bother announcing it to our friends and family. The internet found us, loved us, and shared with us. Our number one source of traffic was Stumbleupon."</comment>


Grantoo lets college students earn tuition by playing games - <AUTHOR> http://venturebeat.com/2012/04/04/grantoo-lets-college-students-earn-tuition-by-playing-games-exclusive/

<comment><USER2> as a college student, I say the games really suck...</comment>


Bail reform could give justice to poor, minorities - <AUTHOR> https://www.newsobserver.com/news/local/counties/orange-county/article215771080.html <comment><USER2> This is not a new problem. Alexis de Tocqueville wrote in "Democracy in America" in 1835:

"It is evident that such a legislation is hostile to the poor and favorable only to the rich. The poor man has not always security to produce, even in a civil case; and if he is obliged to wait for justice in prison, he is speedily reduced to distress. A wealthy person, on the contrary, always escapes imprisonment in civil cases; nay, more, if he has committed a crime, he may readily elude punishment by breaking his bail. Thus all the penalties of the law are, for him, reduced to fines. Nothing can be more aristocratic than this system of legislation. Yet in America it is the poor who make the law, and they usually reserve the greatest advantages of society to themselves. The explanation of the phenomenon is to be found in England; the laws of which I speak are English, and the Americans have retained them, although repugnant to the general tenor of their legislation and the mass of their ideas."

<comment><USER3> > It is evident that such a legislation is hostile to the poor and favorable > only to the rich

I feel hopeless that this will ever change. In a extremely liberal city like San Francisco, where nearly every citizen follows progressive politics, NIMBYs have passed laws the enrich wealthy renters and make it hard for the poor to afford to live in the city.

If San Francisco cannot get this right, no one can.

<comment><USER4> I agree somewhat with your conclusion but I question your premise.

From an outsider perspective San Francisco strikes me as a culture that is, and has been for decades, a creation of the affluent class.

Hippies and tech founders alike have all talked a good game about an equal society, but both groups are primarily seeded from the children of the rich and well educated and have worked to preserve the status quo.

New York City, for all its superficial associations with finance and Wall Street culture, has always seemed to be a much more genuinely diverse and empathetic place in actual day to day policy and practice.

<comment><USER5> as a Oakland resident with family in NYC I couldn't agree with this more.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> speaking from experience (I have been incarcerated in the past) the bail system is a complete joke.

If you get the public defender, you'll likely see about a 6 minute pretrial to set your bail if you get one. its factory-like in its efficiency, and you're lined up with 20 other inmates that were just loaded off a bus from the local jail. The judge is half-asleep, likely overworked, or just too jaded to care anymore. assuming you havent killed anyone, you'll get around a 50k bail. mine was just shy of $34,000 USD.

If you dont have the cash for bail, you can attempt to secure a bail bond at 10% of the face amount. youll do this through family members sometimes, but youll use the jail phone. Using the jail phone is about nine dollars per phone call as its managed by a private phone company. your access to this phone is often once per week, because jails are massively overcrowded and youre scheduled a 5 minute phone call.

After sleeping on a yoga mat in a group cell for about 2 weeks, you'll finally make bail. This often comes with a processing fee from the county or city. depending on your city, you'll also be issued a bill or invoice for your stay in jail. If you were assaulted or sent to medical, your bill will include any treatment. some jails can use this to _refuse_ your bail paperwork...so no matter what you got for a bail bond, its now useless. and behavior? Anything at all can be used to refuse bail processing.

Once I'd made restitution and been released from prison, the bond fee had been paid, and I was a free man. Or so you'd think. Most bail bond agencies have their own team of bounty hunters and they dont maintain accurate paperwork for many orders. Due to a misfiling, I was labeled as a skip-jump. Before even checking with the state for a warrant, their 'team' had tackled me in a taco bell parking lot at 8 am on my way to work. I spent nearly an hour in the back of a police cruiser until I was released. I was not given the option to press charges.

<comment><USER7> Wow. If you don't mind asking, what were you in prison for?

<comment><USER8> Allow me to point out that innocent people can end up in prison pending trial.

<comment><USER9> It's also a common tactic for police to do mass arrests on a Friday if some large event is happening on the weekend too. That's how they clean the streets of anything that will embarass the mayor in front of foreign press such as homeless with unpaid fines, activists they know will disrupt, ect. You have to wait all weekend in jail to see a judge on Monday or Tuesday that will almost always just release you. Anybody whos been through the system the first thing you notice is how at least half the people you meet shouldn't be there.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> I think most people with more than a passing acquittance with the bail systems in most states could agree with the title, but what I have not seen are any proposed solutions that address the underlying problems certain characteristics of our bail systems are meant to address.

For example, without the threat of forfeiture how do you ensure people actually show up to court?

Without bail bondsmen how do you fund the extra police/marshals/sheriffs to find and arrest those who do not show up for court?

Without the ability to set bond amounts based upon offense characteristics and individual financial circumstances and criminal history, how do you prevent especially violent offenders with a likelihood of committing more violent acts while on pretrial release from committing new violent offenses? Keep in mind there are some jurisdictions where you are constitutionally entitled to bail of some amount.

There is much (justified) lamenting on the evils of the use of the bail bond industry, but after bail reform in the Federal system which effective ended the use of the industry for the Federal criminal system -- do people really think the Federal system is better? If so why?

If you want to go the other direction and eliminate money bail, do you really want to police/prosecution to able to indefinitely incarcerate people until trial?

Do you want to seriously jack up the criminal penalties for failure to appear in lieu of money forfeiture? That is going to screw over a lot of people.

Again, there are serious problems, but I haven't heard significantly better solutions.

<comment><USER11> _For example, without the threat of forfeiture how do you ensure people actually show up to court?_

Because my life is fucked worse than it already is if I don't show up. If that's not the case, then that's almost the working definition of "flight risk", and you don't release them for any amount of money.

<comment><USER10> > Because my life is fucked worse than it already is if I don't show up.

This is already the case, but surprisingly people (including those accused of crimes) do not always make choices which are in their long-term self interest.

> If that's not the case, then that's almost the working definition of "flight > risk", and you don't release them for any amount of money.

So how do you determine who is a "flight risk"? Past FTA? Past convictions? Don't own property? No family ties to community? From the wrong part of town? Wrong skin color? These are the types of things that will end up going into detention decisions when you take the posting of security off the table and start trying to decide who is a "flight risk". The reason we have our bail system, including in many places a constitutional right to bail for non- capital offenses, is before that Courts would simply deny bail willy-nilly for certain crimes or people they didn't like.

<comment><USER11> It's not always the case that it's worse if you don't show up. As an extreme example, if you're already facing life, running isn't going to make that worse (they're not going to execute you for skipping bail). On the other extreme, notice we don't have to post bail for a traffic ticket. However, if I don't show, there's now a warrant for my arrest. I was in no danger of going to jail if I showed up for my traffic hearing, but I'm most definitely going to jail (even if only briefly) if I'm pulled over with an outstanding warrant.

But let's go with your thinking. Let's use money, instead of those factors in your second paragraph. But you know what having money for bail might mean? You own property, have family ties to the community, are from the right part of town, and statistically probably have the right skin color. I mean, I see where you're going with this, but in the end I think it's a wash. You've either got money, or you are found pleasing to the judge's eye, and either way it means you're likely white and wealthy.

So I don't know what the solution is. But as others have commented, the UK seems to get away without having to post money for bail (though some have pointed out the exact problems you worry about).

<comment><USER12> > I was in no danger of going to jail if I showed up for my traffic hearing, > but I'm most definitely going to jail (even if only briefly) if I'm pulled > over with an outstanding warrant.

And yet, people skipping court dates for traffic violations is extremely prevalent. In many areas, there are varying degrees of enforcement of failure to appear arrest warrants because of how common they are. (They'll have like amnesty days and stuff like that to encourage people to appear.)

The basic problem is that poor people have very little to lose by not showing up to court.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> Bail isn't needed. Most people show up to court. You can go track down folks who don't if the crime is worth it.

You can pay for those people through taxes.

Currently Cash bail, and pretrial incarceration is used as a punishment and serves no other purpose.

</comment><comment><USER14> It's not broken if your overarching goals are to decrease the political power of the poor and middle classes through increased financial instability and/or incarceration.

</comment><comment><USER15> In addition to reform, there are non-profits assisting people within the current system. The Bronx Freedom Fund [0] and their Dollar Bail Brigade [1] are particularly interesting to me.

[0]: [http://www.thebronxfreedomfund.org/our- work/](http://www.thebronxfreedomfund.org/our-work/) [1]: [http://www.thebronxfreedomfund.org/dollarbailbrigade/](http://www.thebronxfreedomfund.org/dollarbailbrigade/)

</comment><comment><USER16> > Those who can't make bail are 13 percent more likely to be convicted,

Is it possible that people guilty of crimes are more likely to be convicted and guilty people are less likely to make bail?

<comment><USER17> There is a huge incentive to plead guilty when you cannot make bail. After several weeks in jail they most likely let you walk after a guilty plea because you get time served.

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> You can support California SB 10 to help fixing the Bail system.

[https://www.aclunc.org/article/california-money-bail- reform-...](https://www.aclunc.org/article/california-money-bail-reform- act-2017)

</comment><comment><USER19> Mainprise is a startup building a peer-to-peer bail payment platform on NEM Blockchain. The BAIL Token platform will enable family and friends to request low fee bail payments. Instead of throwing money away on bail bondsmen. Families apply for bail on the platform. After verifying their identity, they provide details on the accused such as name, bail amount, arrest charge, jail location, and booking number. The details along with details sourced from public data are fed into an AI-based risk scoring tool to generate a risk score. The tool will use data from millions of cases to help determine if the accused is likely to skip trial or commit another crime if released. Based on the score a fee of 0-3% is paid by the applicant.

Once the accused is released, we monitor the court calendars and notify them of court dates and changes. After attending court and regardless of the verdict, guilty or innocent. The bail payment is refunded by the court and returned to the token holders along with a share of the fee collected.

[http://mainprise.io](http://mainprise.io)

YouTube videos: [http://youtube.com/c/mainpriseio](http://youtube.com/c/mainpriseio)

<comment><USER20> No thanks. Bail + blockchain + AI is still just bail. The point is this is still based on proving you or your family's ability to pay a bail with added "AI" which is notoriously bad for this kind of thing due to historical training data being full of bias.

The book weapons of math destruction goes into the issues with machine learning and the prison system.

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

> Families apply for bail on the platform.

The fact that you focus on a family's ability to pay just highlights one way in which the system is biased against people without family support.

<comment><USER19> Not just family. But anyone can apply for bail. Even the offender can dial a tollfree number to apply. The risk assessment is used to predict the likelihood of FTA (same risk assessment being using in court systems today). This factor is provided to "peers" to help them determine if they want to contribute to bail payments.

<comment><USER20> You are missing the point. It depends on who you know or who you can convince to provide money. This is inherently unfair.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> Check out [https://appolition.us](https://appolition.us) \- They take your purchases and round them up so that your digital loose change goes to help people make bail.

</comment><comment><USER22> Isn't this really a problem of over-criminalization? If our court systems weren't clogged with suspects, wouldn't judges have more time to properly set bail by evaluating each suspected offender on their merits?

We don't want dangerous criminals set loose without proper guarantees, and we don't want the less wealthy pleading guilty because they can't make bail.

So the real solution seems to be to roll back as many non-violent criminal offenses as possible and perhaps simply live with people serving plastic straws that 99.9% won't wind up in the oceans instead of throwing them in jail for 6 months, or at least make them into civil offenses.

</comment><comment><USER23> How does this work in other counties such as the UK?

<comment><USER24> Police can only hold you for up to 96 hours without charging you with a crime. Once you are charged with something and awaiting trial, you have to be tried within 56 days. If you are not tried within those 56 days you have to be released on unconditional bail - so courts tend to stick to those limits. Police can set up bail before the trail, but it cannot involve money - frequently it involves staying at a particular address, reporting to the police station daily, not contacting certain people etc - it depends on the severity of the crime, you cannot be released on bail for acts of violence or armed robbery for example.

[https://www.gov.uk/charged-crime/bail](https://www.gov.uk/charged-crime/bail)

[https://www.inbrief.co.uk/court-proceedings/remand-in- custod...](https://www.inbrief.co.uk/court-proceedings/remand-in-custody- while-awaiting-trial/)

<comment><USER10> > you have to be tried within 56 days

If this was attempted in the United States, and we wanted to maintain the due process protections afforded by our Constitution, we would have to fund our indigent defense programs at levels far, far beyond what anyone has been willing to do.

<comment><USER25> If it isn't worth properly funding the /defense/ for then maybe the matter should just be dropped entirely. Should save quit a bit on paperwork, jail stays, and the prosecution as well.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> The three most critically important systems that we need to thrive as a society: politics, healthcare and law are all in need of critical overhauls.

Sadly, in the West we are hell bent on pursuing unbridled capitalism while more disciplined countries (e.g. Sweden) just shake their heads in disbelief.

</comment><comment><USER27> Yeah, I'm sorry, but as a citizen of the UK, the US system of bail and bail bounty hunters is just nuts.

A child could see that it is incredibly regressive (in the economic sense of the word).

<comment><USER24> Same as the plea bargain system - it's completely obvious that US has loads of completely innocent people pleading guilty just to get out of jail, if the alternative is waiting a year or longer for the trial. It's insane.

<comment><USER28> Which is insane. We acknowledge that someone making a statement when they are kidnapped is under extreme duress. Yet when the state does it, somehow the "confessions" aren't under duress and are legally binding?

Hardly.

Edit: Currently at -1. For those who -1'ed me, I'd like to hear your arguments why state imprisonment prior to a guilty verdict isn't extreme duress, or a violation of "nor be deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law"

<comment><USER29> When you've been kidnapped, you have good reasons to think that the kidnapper might just kill you if you don't go along with what they want. I've heard a lot of abusive police interrogation practices in the US, and none of them go so far to make you worry you'll be taken out back and shot.

You're drawing an equivalence that just isn't there, and I think you know that.

<comment><USER24> I do remember reading articles saying that prosecutors frequently say to detainees who have already spent 3-6 months in jail "look, you can plead guilty to this minor crime, and with the time served you can go home to your family tomorrow. Or you can wait for trial, which can happen maybe in next 12 months, if the judge isn't sick on that day and doesn't reschedule for another 3 months later. So what will it be? Do you want to go home tomorrow, or stay locked up for a year before even going to trial?"

Like, I don't think I'd care how innocent I was - I'd want to get out asap. If your options are presented as "get out now" or "stay locked up for an indefinite amount of time, with no hope for compensation for the time lost even if you win" then it's an easy choice.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER30> meanwhile, in massachusetts where bail can't be used as an economic means to keep people locked up, criminals are being freed and continue to do what they do best. just this month:

officer chesna and vera adams in weymouth, ma -- gunned down with his own service weapon by a savage whose bail was reduced ($5k to $500). this asshole then murdered an elderly woman on her own porch who witnessed the murder.

marine combat veteran kevin quinn -- killed in a head on crash by another low- life who was freed because his bail was reduced (from $35k to $1k).

it's comical that this topic is positioned as "rich vs poor" issue. in reality, criminals who are a serious threat to society, are being let loose and innocent civilians become the collateral damage.

<comment><USER31> But that is the entire point of this discussion. If someone is a rich "low- life" then even a $5k or $35k bail from your example wouldn't have stopped him from being out. If you really care about not freeing "criminals" (that have not been convicted yet right?) then wouldn't you appreciate a system only reliant on danger to society and flight risk, why even bring economics into it?

<comment><USER32> Are there many rich low-lifes? Are many well-off people detained for personally committing violent crimes?

I'd suppose most serious crimes by well-off people are either economical, or done by hired hitmen. OTOH a previously lucky criminal may possess quite enough loot from crimes yet uncovered to pay a large bail.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER28> This is only one part of a system that the rich have their rules, and the rest have "their rules".

It also goes along with the idea: pay for a bigshot attorney, get out of murder charge. Be poor accused, get public defender and a guilty charge.

In Indiana, you can even expunge felonies up to a certain criminal threshold. Do you know what the primary criteria is? You have to _PAY_ for them to expunge.

The USA has always been pay-for-play. Now, its being called out for what it is. This country, the legal system, elections; you name it. The more money you have, the more influence you have, and the "better" the system is for you.

How do we fix this? The simple answer is to elect people who have more liberal mindsets that try to get rid of these poor=disenfranchised laws. That's a long term, and not even guaranteed to work. What do we have short term? I have no clue.

<comment><USER33> Why are you so sure a conservative mindset wouldn't be more helpful?

In practice, it was liberals who enacted heavy sentences on crack usage.

California, an extremely liberal state, voted in a 72% majority referendum for the three strikes policy.

So, I'm just curious why liberals have some sort of lock in the minds of people as being on the "side of the poor".

<comment><USER34> "California, an extremely liberal state, voted in a 72% majority referendum for the three strikes policy."

Incorrect. In 1994, when the three strikes legislation passed, CA was a purple state with a moderate Republican governor.

It is the anti-immigrant rhetoric around Prop 208 in 1996 that undermined the GOP in the state, by driving the majority of the young and non-white into the arms of the Democrats.

<comment><USER33> 1994 - mostly blue.

[https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Political_party_strength_in_...](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Political_party_strength_in_California)</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Ask HN: Is it okay to have a short gap of unemployment on your resume? - <AUTHOR> Here's my specific scenario: I'm moving to a new city with my spouse who just got a university position.  I'm a Rails and Java developer with about 5 years experience.  I have a job now at a large corporation and 1. they won't let me work remotely, and 2. I want out anyways.  I'm pretty sure I have a job lined up in the new city, but haven't been able to apply to and interview as many companies as I'd like to have, and the move date is approaching. Is it ok to have a gap of a few months on your resume?  I'd like to move and be able to take my time choosing a new position. Thanks! <comment><USER2> Serious question: what's the problem with résumé gaps? Is it a big deal in USA? I'd say that in Europe it's not such a big deal. Nobody is going to ask you why you have, for instance, a 4 month gap in your résumé if you have been working 3 or 4 years in a row. Almost everyone would guess that you took that time off, and that's not a bad thing precisely. Perhaps you took that time to learn new skills, to read a ton of books, to travel around the world, to be with your kids,... a lot of activities that do more good than harm. Most of us are going to work until we are 60 or so, so what's the big deal with having a few months every 5 years or so in our résumé? They give you a medal if you finish your career without gaps?

Imagine this scenario: developer A has been working in a time span of 10 years without résumé gaps. Developer B has been working for 9 years and has been taking gaps of 4 months every 3 years. Do you really think there is going to be a big difference between the two developers in terms of skills set? 10, 9, 8 years, it doesn't make a difference at all in terms of accumulated knowledge. But developer B has been doing "something else" during a whole year (3 gaps of 4months each). Maybe he travelled the world and learned a little bit of a couple of languages, and I'd say that's a valuable non-technical skill to have.

As I've said, I see more good than harm in taking a few month off from time to time.

Going back to your question: if it's just for a few months I see no problem at all, and if recruiters ask then just explain what you have post.

<comment> J-dawg I did this in the UK and it felt like a huge deal. I wasn't yet a developer at the time, but I think my experience is still relevant. It seemed to really have an impact on interviews. The interviewer would end up asking a lot of questions about why I left the previous job (it was for quite innocent reasons), rather than the stuff I really wanted to be talking about, which puts the whole thing on a downer from the start. It affected me a lot, which meant I started to become very nervous before interviews, so performed badly, got even more nervous, etc. I pretty much have a phobia of interviews to this day (almost 10 years later) because of it.

I think the answer to the original question depends enormously on what type of person you are. If you're extremely confident in yourself, and in your skills, and you're naturally positive and optimistic then you should be fine.

If you have the sort of personality that tends towards introspection and self- doubt, then think very carefully before doing this. Think about how you'll feel after your 10th rejection, or when your savings are starting to run low. Will you still bounce back?

Finally, I've heard that some recruiters use your current employment status as a filtering criterion. So your CV might not even get looked at. This is insane, but I've heard it enough times to think it might be true.

<comment><USER3> This is my experience too in the UK. 6 months is border-line unemployable – expect at the very least a salary low-ball offer. I don't know many people in our industry in the UK who would take 3 months off and not worry about their career.

Most you can hope for is delaying the start date in a new position. But, again, they likely will ask your notice period and your end date, and be a bit suspicious of a a delayed start date.

<comment><USER4> I have the opposite experience in the UK. I have god knows how many gaps in my resume... for all sorts of reason. Probably part of the reason why I became a contractor ; as it's kinda part of the job. Anyway, interviewers have never raised it. Perhaps it's just that we don't apply to the same type of tech companies.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Few months is no big deal.. If they ask just say you moved because your spouse for a new job and you helped manage the move and the new place so you took a bit of time off.

I've hired a lot of people and I wouldn't even question a few month gap.. Life happens. I would question more then a 6-8 month gap.

</comment><comment><USER6> Yep, absolutely fine. If anyone asks, just tell them the truth, you moved, left one company and are learning the new market and who's there.

My only comment, if you let a few months turn into 5-6+ months, you may want to explain up front versus them seeing a 6 month gap as you may not get in the door for a competitive position. You can do this in your intro email/cover letter, mention that you recently moved to the city, took some time to vacation and get to know the city a little and recently saw their position advertised and felt it might be a good match. Or something along those lines.

</comment><comment><USER7> An asterisk on your CV time line will suffice: * Transferred to New City with my spouse. Took some personal garden leave during the transition.

Should anyone probe further, tell them ... I'm not a job-hopper, I've been very selective on my search looking for a good company match. Things that are important to me are the quality of the people, interesting work problems to solve, and obviously a good compensation package.

</comment><comment><USER8> I have two (5+ month) gaps in my resume; one was so that I could party, the other was so that I could work on a personal project (that would definitely not make money). When people ask what I did during those breaks I tell them 'personal time' and that I wanted to explore a personal project in more detail (respectively). I do not seem to be any less employable.

(USA - North West)

</comment><comment><USER9> I had a friend who was looking for Administrative Assistant roles with a 2 year gap on her resume and it was a problem. The companies could always find a younger person to sit in the chair and do the menial tasks, and somebody with no gaps is more likely to stay put. They also marked her down in interviews for not knowing the latest Excel version (even though she knew Excel and had been using it for years, like anything significant had changed in a year). So jobs like that are kind of shitty to applicants.

But you as a programmer? I cannot imagine it being a problem. You are a high- skill worker who earns enough that you can easily afford to take the time off. Just say you were exploring personal projects in your spare time. That sounds awesome.

<comment><USER10> > They also marked her down in interviews for not knowing the latest Excel > version [...]

I've come to the point where I'm glad that interviewers show their cards this way. If a company does stupid things like this, I really don't want work for them anyway.

I know there are times when you can't be picky and have to be glad to get a job but I don't believe for a moment that the work environment will turn out to be great after they pull stuff like that in the interview.

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> It GREATLY depends on the narrative.

Yes, some companies will have filters for things like "hasn't worked in X months => automatic dismiss pile", but by and large, I've found that it depends how that gap fits in with the rest of your life/work story.

They'll wonder about the following Was that gap after 3 months working somewhere? Was it after 5 years? What caused it? Boredom? Familial reasons? Illness? With a tight narrative (e.g. reasonable explanations and a human story), you'll be fine. The person(s) on the other end are also human beings, and most recognize that life happens. It's okay.

</comment><comment><USER12> Just insert 'sabbatical' or 'self-employed' for the duration. Whichever you can explain as the reason for a break. I tend to go with 'sabbatical' and explain during interviews that I managed work-life balance poorly and that needed sorting out. I might also mention how my relationship is for the better after my break, and that I am now more able to stay consistent, without swings in mood and existential crisis. I might also mention a hobby project I picked up that keeps me busy in my free time, like going back to reading fiction, woodworking, gardening, etc.

This usually creates the air of a real person during interviews. They find me interesting and interested, and as such I stand a better chance of being accepted into their community at the workplace.

</comment><comment><USER13> I wouldn't worry about it too much. Any chance you can obtain a contract position or freelance work during that time so you can just list it as contract position/work.

But I really wouldn't worry about a small gap especially when moving to a new city.

Once you know you're leaving and getting ready to turn in your notice you could ask HR if you could take unpaid leave so your last official day is a few months out, not sure this is possible but if you're worried about your last official day of employment or a gap it might be worth asking.

I think I've only had one company contact my previous companies HR to verify my dates of employment. And one of my former companies HR staff called to let me know about it and see if it was ok to give them information and say they weren't even sure they can legally call up and ask for employee information like that.

Anyway good luck landing a new gig.

</comment><comment><USER14> A related question - is there an official job registry in the USA?

That is would the gap be known about from public record, or is it up to you whether to specify it in your CV or not?

Also, how would you put the "tried a startup, failed" unemployment period into the CV?

</comment><comment><USER15> I had a 13 month gap between my last job and my current job, because I went travelling and then migrated to a new country.

It was absolutely no problem and I actually think it helped me because I spent a decent amount of that travelling time developing skills I didn't have previously (both technical and soft skills).

</comment><comment><USER16> As someone with gaps in my resume for various reasons, I have found a range of responses by potential employers.

I have worked in two different career fields. When I made that switch, getting the professional certifications took me about 3 months, during which time I was not working. Almost nobody asks about the gap, though almost everyone asks about the career switch.

I have a several year period in which I was working only contract employment. There are gaps of up to 5 months between contracts. Most employers ask something about that time, and most are satisfied with the simple explanation that finding a new contract took that much time.

Some employers care more than others. IBM required me to write a letter of explanation for every gap of 3 months or more. Some employers don't even ask.

</comment><comment><USER17> Yes it's fine. You could take advantage of these few months to do something, like volunteering, OOS contributions, mentorship, etc to make it even "more okay". But your scenario is valid explanation enough.

<comment><USER18> Agreed. In the worst case scenario, you could be consulting to a small startup, yourself. Just be sure to improve yourself during that downtime so that you don't come back into the search rusty.

</comment></comment><comment><USER19> This is anecdotal -- but it seems like companies are more or less pretty understanding if your reason is justifiable. I had a string of jobs (fulltime, then laid off, then consulting for 3 separate clients). I interviewed with over 20 companies this year and no one had a problem with the gaps in my resume. They were more interested (concerned?) about why I had worked with so many companies.

</comment><comment><USER20> Having gaps on your resume isn't a big deal. If you're good at what you do you shouldn't have any problems. I have two 6 month gaps on my resume and it wasn't any problem getting my current job as a DevOps engineer. It can be a smart move taking your time to find the right thing. The last thing you want is to end up working somewhere just so you can have a paycheck.

</comment><comment><USER4> Yes it's fine. In this day and age, it's almost suspicious not to have any gaps in one's tech resume. There are just so many sources of discontinuity in a career nowadays.</comment>


Google Outage Caused 5% Internet Traffic Decline - <AUTHOR> http://www.informationweek.com/news/internet/google/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=217500452 <comment><USER2> Information Week needs to go back and read the statement, there wasn't a 5% drop in internet traffic. The claim was that Google makes up 5% of the internet traffic normally and it was slow or down for a minority (17%) of users. If it was down for all those users (it wasn't) and they didn't go anywhere else (they did) the drop would be .85%--a veritable drop in the bucket. Considering all the buzz of the problem net internet traffic probably increased as people kept checking, blogging and bitching about it.

> But if you happen to be Google and your content constitutes up to 5% of all > Internet traffic, people notice.

</comment><comment><USER3> Maybe the RescueTime folks can tell us the impact on office productivity in that period.

</comment><comment><USER4> Google might be the next company that is "too big to fail"

<comment><USER5> s/might/is</comment></comment>