First physical evidence of why you're an owl or a lark - <AUTHOR> http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn24292-first-physical-evidence-of-why-youre-an-owl-or-a-lark.html <comment><USER2> I used to think of myself as an owl. I'd hate getting up in the mornings and my most productive hours were somewhere between 11pm and 3am.

I actively started changing my habits a few years ago, meaning I changed my diet to high-fibre+high-protein+high-(good)fat+low-carbs, stopped drinking alcohol cold turkey, get up earlier (~5am) before work to work out and go to sleep earlier (~10pm). This has worked wonders for me, I'm always energised and never drowsy during the day, sleep like a rock and needless to say am much healthier overall.

People think of me as a morning person now, which is probably right although it's weird after having lived like an owl for years. I believe for most people this boils down to habit and changing those is hard. An owl-ish life might not be bad for everybody but from my experience it's very taxing on health and social life and the mental state.

In my case having a regular job and kids certainly gave incentive (aka left not many options) to transform into a lark, but most people can probably do it - if they _really_ want to.

<comment><USER3> It's good to hear that some people find a way out.

I'm not sure it's 'owlishness' or if it's delayed onset sleep disorder, but my body seems to just want more hours in the day. More to be awake for (20 ish) and more to be asleep (10 would be good). If I was left to control my own schedule and didn't have to consider everyone else on the planet I'd probably get up six hours later every day...

I've tried making myself go to bed, and sometimes to sleep with chemical help, It doesn't seem to work for more than a few days. I don't seem to have a reset button I can find.

Getting up at 5am regularly isn't really a choice I can see making, however motivated, because 5am would come and my only thought would be how quickly I could go back to sleep, shortly followed by seething, loathing hatred for whatever had woken me. Similarly going to bed at 10 results in me laying there for several hours awake.

I envy people who regularly get tired in the evening rather than waking up and wanting to do stuff when the rest of the world shuts down.

<comment><USER2> > I envy people who regularly get tired in the evening rather than waking up > and wanting to do stuff when the rest of the world shuts down.

Here's some more from my personal experience (not saying it would work for any of you, and it appears you've already tried a few times):

fwiw, I rarely am tired in the evenings, I just decide that it's reasonable to go to bed now. Similar about food, I do it more to keep my machine working, not because I'm hungry. Sometimes I pull a late-nighter because I'm sucked into something, but getting up the next morning is harder (the "blerch" [1] is louder) so that sucks.

Every time my alarm goes off in the mornings (fun fact: the alarm sound is "Gonna Fly Now" from Rocky :-) there's a few minutes where my inner "blerch" tries to convince me to stay in bed. Every time. I force myself to walk the stairs and down a glass of tomato juice, and in almost an instant, am up and running.

I don't think that it being really easy is the point here. And part of me always wants to stay up long and nerd around. For me, taking control, getting over that hump is never easy and takes a good bit of discipline, for the lack of a better word. I did find that getting up in the mornings and stopping to code/paint/play games a bit earlier before getting tired gets easier with time.

[1] where I got that "blerch" word from: [http://theoatmeal.com/comics/running](http://theoatmeal.com/comics/running)

<comment><USER3> Lol. I can't think of anything that would have me up and running like that. It often takes several hours after I get up before I properly feel alert and awake.

The only thing that I have found really works is about an hour of exercise, preferably cycling. That was a lot easier when I lived in a warm country.

Also I guess I'm not convinced why I should have discipline... it just seems to work for other people!

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> All the data I have is anecdotal but here it is: I'm an owl. I do _not_ experience worse sleep compared to normal people, and in my experience my sleep pattern seems to work better than most larks. The things the article attributes to owls are not problems I'm suffering from, but on the contrary some of my lark or normal friends do have them, including unusual tiredness during the day. I usually don't consume tobacco or alcohol (only on certain social occasions).

I'm also fortunate in that I have some brain MRIs of mine and in my opinion there is _no_ marked reduction in white matter anywhere. I _do not_ have the feeling that I'm suffering from permanent jet lag, though I must admit that I seldomly experience jet lag at all (which I guess could mean I have it all the time without noticing it somehow).

And here comes the most poignant bit of the article:

      "It's interesting that there are individual differences, but we need
      to understand what is causing them and find ways of creating environments
      in which those differences can be attenuated," says Dirk-Jan Djik

which sounds horrible and ignorant. I don't want my differences to be attenuated. People are different, and for the most part that's a good thing. Being an owl is only a problem if it inhibits human function. Otherwise, I refuse to be labelled sick simply because I have a different innate sleep pattern. Being an owl works for me.

<comment><USER5> You've missed the point. This is not about those that live healthy lives as nightowls, but those that do not. Can we attenuate the differences among the owls to figure out why some are unhealthy and others are not. Furthermore, can we figure out the attributes that larks have, that on the whole seem to make them healthier than owls. Then, maybe we can adjust the lifestyles of the unhealthy larks to have them lead a healthier life.

<comment><USER4> _> This is not about those that live healthy lives as nightowls, but those that do not. Can we attenuate the differences among the owls to figure out why some are unhealthy and others are not._

That's not what the article is suggesting, and attenuating differences to figure out the differences makes absolutely no sense, not even semantically. The attenuation of differences in this context means that the intent is to standardize the populace, nothing more, nothing less.

 _> Furthermore, can we figure out the attributes that larks have, that on the whole seem to make them healthier than owls._

And I'm pretty sure I said I don't believe certain points the article claims at face value. I don't think you can call this incredulity "missing the point". This assertion that larks are healthier than owls, which seems to be at the bottom of all this, should at least have more empirical data behind it (preferably gathered by people with less bias).

 _> Then, maybe we can adjust the lifestyles of the unhealthy larks to have them lead a healthier life._

Now you're just contradicting your own comment. Did you maybe mean to say "owls" there?

<comment><USER6> > The attenuation of differences in this context means that the intent is to > standardize the populace, nothing more, nothing less.

> "Rosenberg suggests that people's work schedules should change to fit in > with their natural sleep patterns"

I realize there's some of what you're talking about going on here (e.g. the very next phrase mentioning that there's an 'easier way'), but I think there's far less intent than you're implying.

<comment><USER7> Right, I mean, we can talk about large, ominous themes or we can talk about daily practicality. My boss wants me to come in around 9AM, more or less, but my body and mind want me to be awake from midnight to 4AM. That's sort of a problem. If a doctor can help, then I want that help.

 _The attenuation of differences in this context means that the intent is to standardize the populace, nothing more, nothing less._

It sounds to me like you came to this article with the feeling that owls are mistreated relative to larks and you're layering that previous sentiment over the article so that it says things to you that it doesn't literally say.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> I'm still not sure what the benefits of waking up and being _functional_ early are, besides a societal one.

Ignoring my possible work relations, what difference does it make if I respond to emails at 3pm, have breakfast at 5, work until 10, eat again, work until 2am, relax until the sun comes up, and sleep to do it again.

Again, society doesn't work this way and many times there are adjustments to account for this (early meetings, spending time with friends and family, etc.), but is early intrinsically better?

<comment><USER9> One word: sunlight.

<comment><USER10> Here in Canada, during the winter, I wake up at 6AM. I'm a bit of a early riser I guess. It's dark out.

I end my work day around 4PM. The sun is already down, and it's dark.

Being an early riser don't really help me get sunlight.

That's my work schedule. I'm naturally a night owl. I prefer to work all night, but I can't.

However, I'm also one of the few who doesn't care that we don't see the sun for month during winter. So being a night owl really helps me from getting "SAD".

FYI, during winter: Sunrise: 7:34 AM Sunset: 4:22 PM

<comment><USER11> Swedish here. I just hate the way things are set up, so that in the winter you practically don't get any sunlight at all. You go to work in the dark, work inside (not necessarily by a window) and then you go home in the dark. I would much rather shift the day so that the sun is up when I'm not at work. No wonder people get depressed.

<comment><USER10> Yes! But even with a free schedule, I have no idea how I could split it to work.

Working all early morning and all late noon? Meh.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> The reported study doesn't deliver what the headline promises, because the study design doesn't show the direction of causation. A cross-sectional study with one date of observation of adult behavior, like this one, cannot show whether brain differences cause the sleep pattern differences, or whether the sleep pattern differences cause the brain differences. The human brain is reshaped and rewired by experience--that's what the brain is for, adapting to the environment--so it's not clear what causes what here. See the online article "Warning Signs in Experimental Design and Interpretation" by LISP hacker and Google director of research Peter Norvig[1] for more information on missing details to look for in preliminary reports on research studies.

[1] [http://norvig.com/experiment-design.html](http://norvig.com/experiment- design.html)

<comment><USER13> Exactly. They found a correlation, that's all. And a sample size of n = 50 is not huge.

</comment></comment><comment> guard-of-terra "For example, research published last month suggests that night owls who cut their exposure to artificial light and boosted their exposure to sunlight found their body clocks shifted towards earlier waking and sleeping"

Where I live there is not much sunlight except for a few months in a year. So I get up at 10:40, hopefully get to work at noon, go to sleep at 2AM. And don't feel so well.

<comment><USER14> Any chance of moving elsewhere?

<comment> guard-of-terra I've not yet figured out where I want to live. I also fear losing connections with my few friends/social circle and relatives.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> This is a horrible title; neither the study referenced nor the body of the article itself makes the claim of a physical cause for being a morning or night person.

The study just says that there were white matter "differences in the frontal and temporal lobes, cingulate gyrus and corpus callosum" of the night owl participants compared to the rest of the study participants.

The first author suggests this might be a result of night owls suffering from "permanent jet lag" — i.e. that the cause goes exactly the opposite way the title suggests. Of course, the study doesn't say that, it's just an educated guess.

<comment><USER16> I have heard a permanent jet lag explanation by a longer than 24h daily biological clock cycle. So a person has 8 hours sleep and can go on for 18 hours before she is tired.

<comment><USER17> This is my life, every single day. In order to maintain a semi-regular sleep pattern, conking out for a full-night's rest is not optional because the following night I -will not- sleep. Case in point - I have to be up in five hours for work. I went to sleep two and a half hours ago and I'm still awake.

Oftentimes, it feels like the worst kind of torture. I am living in two worlds and in one, I am barely better than an observer of my subconscious mind acting out routine. My ex-roommate had this to say after he'd lived with me a year:

"Tif, you wax and you wane..."

This was a years ago. I think about it once a month or so - he was of course referring to my self as alert and present as well as, alternately, a vapid automaton driven by the eerily invisible clockwork of the subconscious.

Now if you'll excuse me, I have to get my coffee of the stove...

<comment><USER16> A lesser evil might be to wake up every time an hour or two earlier than what would have been natural. This way you would be tired in the following evening. Almost guaranteed.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> I used to be an owl for years. A regular 9-5 schedule seemed out of reach. This May I changed my environment by filtering out blue light after 8PM. I use the following:

1\. Inexpensive Uvex amber googles from Amazon: [http://www.amazon.com/Uvex-S0360X-Ultra-spec-SCT-Orange- Anti...](http://www.amazon.com/Uvex-S0360X-Ultra-spec-SCT-Orange-Anti- Fog/dp/B003OBZ64M/ref=sr_1_2?s=hi&ie=UTF8&qid=1379337848&sr=1-2&keywords=uvex+amber+glasses) Wear them at least an hour or two before bedtime.

2\. I replaced most of the white compact fluorescent lights with amber compact fluorescent lights [https://www.lowbluelights.com/index.asp](https://www.lowbluelights.com/index.asp)

3\. And I use a sunrise simulator alarm clock. [http://www.amazon.com/Philips- HF3520-Wake-Up-Colored-Simulat...](http://www.amazon.com/Philips-HF3520-Wake- Up-Colored- Simulation/dp/B0093162RM/ref=sr_1_cc_2?s=aps&ie=UTF8&qid=1380118779&sr=1-2-catcorr&keywords=philips+dawn+simulator)

No will power needed beyond the habit to wear the googles and change the lighting. Usually in bed by 10PM.

Result: no insomnia. Have been able to consistently maintain an early schedule. This would have been inconceivable earlier. I have become the person you've never met.

<comment><USER19> You seriously need to get F.lux. Totally free, works on multiple OS's, and shifts your color/brightness on your monitor throughout the day to more naturally mimic natural light. This means it starts blue and bright in the AM, and gets darker and more orange in the evenings. It can be pretty noticeable if you are away and come back to your screen, but if you are on it for extended periods you never even notice the shift.

[http://justgetflux.com/](http://justgetflux.com/)

<comment><USER18> Forgot to mention it--I use it, but it isn't enough. For Android there is Twilight. The amber glasses are < $8 and are essential, in my experience.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> I only read through the article once, and fast, but it does seem to imply that night owl equals not enough sleep. That, and the amount of participants in the test seemed a bit too low for a true statistical overview.

I'm a night owl, always have been, even after I had kids. Go to bed at 1am-2am and wake up 7:30-8:30 depending on schedule. Weekends all bets are off. Works well for me, but that's the thing: I don't think we're all that similar. Different patterns for different people.

</comment><comment><USER21> I've never really been owl or lark, but I do tend to have a long adjustment process, and get off schedule fairly easily, I guess because I mainly spend my time indoors and in artificial light, with no real consistent externally- imposed schedule.

</comment><comment><USER16> Leanpub.com/nightowls somebody has taken time to summarize the experiences of nightowls from IT

</comment><comment><USER22> I'm definitely a lark, but I've yet to determine my unladen flight speed vs. my flight speed when carrying a coconut. It seems most of those tests have been performed on swallows.</comment>


Show HN: A career test for people who want to have a social impact - <AUTHOR> https://80000hours.org/career-guide/career-recommender/ <comment><USER2> I can support the idea here ("people wanting to have social impact"), but the quiz is probably the worst way to direct people toward that possible.

Just show ~10 ways to have social impact, and what skills/traits/etc. are important to each.

The profiles _are_ good. Lead with those. Give some examples.

You're not going to get people to accurately self assess their skills or risk tolerance. You might get people to see "oh, I want to get involved in party politics", and see what factors are important to success there.

(Also both UK centric and 20-year-old centric.)

<comment><AUTHOR> That's really interesting. Originally we just had a list, and I had this concern with the test. However, as the list of paths we've reviewed gets longer, it seems useful to provide a quick way of filtering it.

<comment><USER2> Maybe break it down by decision point. You decide early on about whether you prefer individual vs. group work; you decide later on whether you prioritize personal wealth (those are just strawmen). It's the idea of answering a bunch of things all at once which seems broken to me; if you make it more a "this is how your life has progressed to this point", it's more natural and interesting.

What I'd really like (being neither British nor 20something, and also not looking for advice on careers) would be links to bios/interviews with exemplars of each type of person.

<comment><AUTHOR> You can alter each of your questions responses individually to see what effect it's having on the results.

We found these questions were the most useful filters when doing one-on-one advice with people, but I can see they'll probably have to change as our age range expands.

We do quite a few interviews within the profiles. Is that what you have in mind?

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> The cutesy answer subscripts are really lame. I really did not want to complete the survey after the first question.

<comment><USER4> I agree. I also thought they could have done with more clearly explaining 'social impact'. Not really sure what that means.

<comment><AUTHOR> That's a good point. We do that elsewhere in the career guide, but I might add it to the intro text.

[https://80000hours.org/articles/the-meaning-of-making-a- diff...](https://80000hours.org/articles/the-meaning-of-making-a-difference/)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> If you're bad at math, poor at writing or analyzing arguments, and have the competitive instinct of a Care Bear, you're a 10/10 for a think tank researcher. I find it a little dubious to call this a career test.

<comment><AUTHOR> Fair. Bear in mind: (i) it's aimed at talented graduates (ii) it's finds which of our top recommended careers you should most strongly consider, rather than which career you'd be best at.

<comment><USER5> Why is it targeted as such. Agism is a social issue, found predominantly in several of the industries suggested.

edit: I just took a quick glance at your 'Meet the team' page, and it's almost exclusively very young white males (save 3). I'm now not sure what you mean by social change. It can't be equality in gender, nor race, nor age. What are you striving for, and why aren't you practicing it?

<comment><AUTHOR> We're focused on social impact, which means enabling other people to live more flourishing lives. [https://80000hours.org/articles/the-meaning-of-making-a- diff...](https://80000hours.org/articles/the-meaning-of-making-a-difference/)

<comment><USER5> No, you're not, you're actually the cause of the problem. If you were actually doing what you claim, then more than one person on your staff be anything other than white. You are the problem. And if you figure out how you managed to start a company around social impact, and yet only hired young white males that targets young white males, then maybe you just might figure out how not be the problem. The only correct answer, is "Holy shit, I'm an idiot, how do I fix this". I waited a few days so focus was off this article.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> I'm a programmer who left startups to go be a teacher at a public elementary school. It told me to be in politics or a tech startup founder. I'm just not sure how those can match both the reward of lighting up little faces with fresh knowledge and the impact of directly working to improve what is (to me) the center of my community.

So yeah can I suggest 'school teacher' as a result? Is it just totally outside of the realm of possibility here? Maybe I just didn't see it. (I did check the box that said I'm okay with a small influence!)

<comment><USER7> We're talking SF-centric startup culture here. It's not enough to actually change the world for the better. You need to make millions of dollars and be 'changing the world' by disrupting some kind of market segment nobody actually cares about, and be some kind of Randian uberwhatever, otherwise you're a piece of shit

<comment><USER8> > 80,000 Hours is part of the Centre for Effective Altruism, a registered > charity in England and Wales, Registered Charity Number 1149828 Centre for > Effective Altruism, Oxford Uehiro Centre for Practical Ethics, Littlegate > House, St Ebbes Street, Oxford OX1 1PT, UK.

An English charity recommending people joing the English civil service is pretty far away from SF Startup culture.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> IMHO if you wanna have impact, you write. You write theatrical plays, social and political philosophy, satire, comics, songs, whatever.

Anything that will connect someone in 200 years from today, with your mind and soul, can make a difference.

At least, this is how I feel when I read poems, watch a play, read a book or listen to a song.

ps. A prominent example is Tolstoy. The impact his writings had on Gandhi is outstanding IMHO.

</comment><comment><USER10> Think tank researcher and economics professor? These are good careers for people who want to change things? Citation needed.

<comment><USER7> This bothered me. There's enough of these people. Society needs disruptive change in order to save the planet, feed the hungry, end homelessness, end the slave trade, etc.

I was looking for something along these lines.

<comment><AUTHOR> You could use a think tank or econ phd position to research policies with potential for disruptive change. We also recommend startups highly. What paths do you think we should look into more?

<comment><USER7> edit: I get what the organisation is trying to do now. Just doing the survey put me off a bit though, even once I read through other parts of the site. IMO there's a lot of hand waving and not enough hard info - particularly keeping in mind the target audience is students - on exactly what sort of social impact each role has. To me it looked like the site was just saying hey... you can become a researcher at a think tank... then doesn't solve the main problem for students, as they still have no idea how that contributes to society in a meaningful way as they aren't presented with any concrete examples.

I do think that more career paths should be featured. The main one that comes to mind is education. I'll note that think tanks have been harping on about it for years with little progress. The attitude towards it in the US is bizarre; people from overseas are shocked when they find out how little money teachers are paid and even more so how teachers are looked down upon as a result. Hence the average quality of teachers is lower compared to other countries and the impacts on society are subtle and widespread. Having police in schools seems completely insane to outsiders.

Becoming a teacher would make a small difference. Convincing talented graduates to enter the field and transform it would make a larger difference. I strongly recommend including some professions that may not be sexy or lucrative, but have the potential to make a difference.

<comment><AUTHOR> Ok, thanks for taking the time to read through.

I agree another big part of the equation is what causes to focus on. We have separate content on that but it needs a lot of work:

[https://80000hours.org/articles/cause- selection/](https://80000hours.org/articles/cause-selection/)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> A lot of these suggestions seem really...douchey (for lack of a more precise term). I guess theoretically you can have a great social impact being a hedge fund quant or a startup founder, but the more traditional goal of those careers (and the people who undertake them) is making yourself filthy stinking rich.

I know the 80,000 hours people have this idea of earn-to-give, but do they have any stats on how many people actually follow through with that? It's very easy to imagine a bright, young college grad heading for Wall Street planning to donate 75% of his income, but once he gets there he finds he quite likes the taste of caviar and all his friends and coworkers have a couple BMWs, anyway...

<comment><AUTHOR> It's true that it depends a lot on what you do within the career.

On stats behind earning to give, of the people we know, 0% have quit, meaning carrying on in a high-earning career but stopped donating at least 10%. Most are still earning to give, and the others have left high-earning careers though to make an impact through research, nonprofits etc instead. I think this is due to the strength of the community - if you were earning to give alone it would be much harder. Also, we only have 3 years of data, so it's too early to get a good measurement.

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> While that was fun, you get what you aspire to be. The bias is tied to your appraisal of your skills and potential and a few arbitrary pieces of info. That being said, the top 3 choices i got would be my top 3 fav careers in descrnding order.

<comment><AUTHOR> Ha! I agree it's an issue that people might not assess their skills and preferences correctly, but that seems hard to avoid in a short test. Later we could add more objective measures of skills etc.

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> I think it's great to encourage these kinds of work.

I'm old and wish I had made my impact in more meaningful areas.

Lots of people here have changed the world. I can't be the only one looking back wanting to have done it for a better cause.

</comment><comment><USER14> I appreciate the sentiment, that if you look at just gross impact, then a quant/hedge fund/think tank career might actually be more helpful than something more traditionally 'impactful'. But I can't help but feel that in it's quest to say something novel about social impact, it misses the soul of what it means to change the world for the better.

</comment><comment><USER15> I uh... had 10/10 on all my first 5 results. After that I just closed the page, since it was obviously irrelevant.

I like these tests, if just for fun, but they need to have an actual result :P

<comment><AUTHOR> That means they're all tied.

What responses did you put in?

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> If you look at a graph of world GDP, you'll see that it grows steadily and exponentially. The full set of causes is this is not known, but it can be shown not to be merely due to the gradual accumulation of capital. A large part must be due to technological growth.

So if you want to measure social impact I would also include the positive externalities of various jobs including working in technology. Even though I will probably be ridiculed as a typical silicon valley cultist, I think that anything that advances technology, including software, has a big positive economic externality.

<comment><AUTHOR> That's why startup and software jobs reasonable scores for direct impact. [https://80000hours.org/career-guide/top- careers/profiles/sof...](https://80000hours.org/career-guide/top- careers/profiles/software-engineering/) [https://80000hours.org/career- guide/top-careers/profiles/tec...](https://80000hours.org/career-guide/top- careers/profiles/tech-entrepreneurship/)

<comment><USER16> You're right I should have looked at the website before posting.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> I got a think tank researcher answer. How do I get this job, I'm actually really serious.

<comment><AUTHOR> There's some more detail in the profile: [https://80000hours.org/career- guide/top-careers/profiles/thi...](https://80000hours.org/career-guide/top- careers/profiles/think-tank-research/)</comment></comment>


Female gamer dev harrassment - <AUTHOR> http://www.businessinsider.com/brianna-wu-harassed-twitter-2014-10

<comment><USER2> In cases like this Twitter and the authorities need to move fast and make an example of the culprit. Threats to a person and/or their children/family are absolutely unacceptable.</comment>


Ask HN: What are the opportunities in this crisis? - <AUTHOR> It has been said that opportunities abound in every crisis and some of the most valuable startups were started during an economic downturn (e.g.; Stripe)<p>What do you think some of the opportunities are around the current economic crisis caused by COVID-19? <comment><USER2> There could be a big market in custom face masks; not just printed fabrics for disposables but more comfortable and durable fashion accessory masks that take disposable filters.

lobbying for the Internet access to become a public utility is going to be big. "Last mile" is hard, so big telcos have stopped trying to do it. They dont want anyone _else_ doing it either so i don't know if it has a chance; probably not, without something like strict censorship and tracking to make the "police state" fans jump on the bandwagon too.

"Back to the land / Self sufficiency / tiny houses" are in for a brief spike of interest for the remainder of the year and possibly beyond; but that has limits. Intrinsically rural and when people discover it involves dirt, work, and failures they get discouraged. Lots of people who have tolerated cohabitation wont anymore, however, so all sorts of housing will probably bounce high.

</comment><comment><USER3> For one thing: restaurants and similar businesses have sound fundamentals once the crisis is over. They need something to help with cash flow in the next few months.

I've known restaurants that have sold discounted meals in advance of a big investment (expansion, recovery from fire, ...) to move cash forward in time.

On one hand this is a marketing method (e.g. "gift card";) another way of thinking of it is an alternative form of finance (e.g. a bond.)

Patrons of a restaurant have more reason to invest in it: not only do they get discounted meals later, but they get to keep a business they like going, so they can give better terms than a bank or public market.

Helping businesses like that survive by instituting such programs is certainly something you could do if you have nothing else to do and want to work at a breakneck pace immediately. It scales: you could do it for just a few local businesses that you care about, but it's also a very large market.</comment>


Nodio. Your digital guardian - <AUTHOR> https://nodio.net <comment><AUTHOR> Nodio - a blockchain-powered router that serves as a platform for decentralized applications. Its purpose is to transform obscure technologies into simple solutions for everyday use. Nodio is much more than a regular router. It's using blockchain for running DApps (Decentralized Applications) and guarantees the highest level of privacy for every solution based on a device. With Nodio a peer-to-peer Internet with messengers, social media, and browsers immune to external threats and hacks, free from censorship and fear of being exposed can become a reality.</comment>


Show HN: Cache Picasso - <AUTHOR> http://www.humanarity.com/cachepicasso?HelloHN!_Click_%22Faster%22=to_start_generating

<comment><USER2> This is failing with a JS error on line 60:

Uncaught SyntaxError: Unexpected token =>

<comment><AUTHOR> if you want generate some humans, use it with latest chrome on desktop.

</comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> latest V8 desktop or android only.</comment>


Heroku (YC W08) makes PaaS flexible with Add-ons - <AUTHOR> http://blog.heroku.com/archives/2009/10/29/add_ons_launch/

<comment><USER2> Great work on the add-ons! It's great to see how quickly you moved this out of Beta.

</comment><comment><USER3> Websolr is made by a friend of mine, and looks quite useful.

</comment><comment><USER4> I don't see an add-on for long-polling. I kid, I kid.</comment>


Lufthansa jet and drone nearly collide near LAX - <AUTHOR> http://www.latimes.com/local/lanow/la-me-ln-drone-near-miss-lax-20160318-story.html <comment><USER2> Yesterday, we had this article on YC [1], from some economist at the anti- regulation Mercatus Institute, claiming that a drone strike was very, very unlikely. That guy assumed that drones are distributed randomly across airspace. In practice, they tend to be near where people live, which means cities and airports. I posted the FAA's list of drone sightings near LAX yesterday. Today, this.

The pilot of the aircraft, a Lufthansa A380-800, reported seeing the drone _above_ him. The reported near miss distance of 200 feet is very close for an aircraft with a 260 foot wingspan and a tail tip 60 feet above the pilot.

WTF is someone doing flying a drone at 5000 feet over downtown LA in the LAX approach path? That drone operator needs to be found and arrested.

[1] [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11290674](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11290674)

<comment><USER3> Keep in mind that there are definitions for these terms.

"near miss" means coming up on 200 meters distance between two objects if > 400 meters up, otherwise it means whatever the tower decides it means (and presumably for them it means being in controlled airspace at all, e.g. having a drone above the airport building itself)

<comment><USER4> No. Any distance of up to 1,000 meters is "near miss" for uncontrolled (by tower) object around the passenger plane. There is no "but I was far enough" bs. Person than do not flight A LOT or do not pilot PASSENGER planes will never understand of the risks, stress and increasing field for error. Pilot, when preparing for landing is suppose to be 99% concentrated on whats below him.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> for those of you who don't know the geography of los angeles, LAX is basically surrounded on 3 sides by dense urban buildup, and then the ocean. the flight path for landing goes over the entire city including downtown, and the runways are sandwiched by freeways and major boulevards on all sides. the approach at night is quite dramatic visually, if you're lucky enough to snag a window seat. i very much enjoy trying to identify everything as i fly over.

it truly is "the motherboard". people who have never flown in before are shocked to see it. it's something else. the only thing that compares in the US is probably chicago, but it's not the same scale, and LA also has geography which adds to the visual drama. tokyo is similar but not quite the same kind of approach. i don't recall any airport in europe even approaching the visual appeal of the LAX approach. i've never flown into mexico city, from looking at maps it's probably close, but physically it's nowhere near as large as the LA metro (including IE, OC, etc.). LA is huge. yuuuuuge.

it is bounded by office highrises, datacenters, hotels, and housing. in my opinion it's likely the most dangerous airport in the US in terms of potential damage from a non-terrorist crash. i can't think of any airports in the US that are quite the same. it's currently the global #5 volume airport but the insane amount of traffic from asia will probably make it #1 within a few years. there is a major expansion and renovation project happening right now.

</comment><comment><USER6> A few more of this and realistic or not and the FAA will ban any drones in a significant radius of any aerodome effectively ending most drone activity.

The Canadians already did. [https://www.reddit.com/r/vancouver/comments/3h2e8t/for_all_o...](https://www.reddit.com/r/vancouver/comments/3h2e8t/for_all_of_the_responsible_droneuav_pilots_out/) you want to fly a drone here in Vancouver, you better get a permit. The fines start at $1000 and they are finding people.

</comment><comment><USER7> This might be a naive question, but what _would_ happen if a hobby drone collided with a jet? As long as it doesn't hit the engines, wouldn't the damage be negligible?

<comment><USER8> I would imagine hitting the engine is probably the safest thing that could happen. The engines are made of titanium alloys and designed to not fail catastrophically. The rest of the aircraft is made of soft materials by comparison.

<comment><USER9> And even in the event of an engine failure, they could still probably land safely.

<comment><USER10> "probably" sounds _really_ good for a commercial airliner. For some idiot to fly a drone around an airport.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> > at an elevation of 5,000 feet

That is not a hobby drone. I could never get mine to that height.

<comment><USER2> There are videos of a Phantom 2 drone, which is under $500 used ($1300 new) reaching almost 11,000 feet.[1]

[1] [http://www.ibtimes.co.uk/11000ft-dji-drone-flight-record- att...](http://www.ibtimes.co.uk/11000ft-dji-drone-flight-record-attempt- slammed-idiotic-dangerous-by-uav-hobbyists-1548057)

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> I think drones are cool and would love to get one.

However, I think there are too many entitled asses that pretty much think they can do whatever they want. You wouldn't believe th number of drones they now have flying at cars and coffee events. I'm also fairly certain that none of these drone operators have insurance so imagine the scenario of drone operator (likely without a whole lot of experience) + many expensive cars (but that's not the point). Not gonna end well.

Sooner or later, a drone strike will happen if left unchecked.

</comment><comment><USER13> Is there anything preventing manufacturers from limiting the height drones can fly?

I'm not particularly pro-regulation, but this seems like a scenario where it seems quite necessary.

<comment><USER14> If I recall correctly, GPS receivers for non-military use are specifically designed not to operate over 60,000 feet altitude or 1,000 knots velocity. So it's not un-precedented.

<comment><USER15> And like GPS receivers, anyone who DIYs can get around those restrictions themselves: [http://www.aholme.co.uk/GPS/Main.htm](http://www.aholme.co.uk/GPS/Main.htm)</comment></comment></comment>


Ask HN: Extracting text from cross-platforms - <AUTHOR>

Is there a way to automatically extract text from any application in focus?
For example, can I extract text from a website when my browser is in focus. Then, when I switch my focus to Microsoft Word it would extract text from there automatically.
Help please!
:) <comment><AUTHOR> No one?</comment>


Ask HN: Review my new single service website - <AUTHOR>

http://www.simplecountrycodes.com/
The idea is to offer a completely painless way to find the country codes you need when dialing internationally.
What I'm looking for is ideas to make the process potentially simpler, easier to use, or more useful. Any feedback would be greatly appreciated! <comment><USER2> You should make the cursor snap to the first text box upon loading of the page

Can you make it not autocomplete text _in_ the text field? Eg, type UK and it fills in UKraine ... nicer if it only auto completes when I click a result / select with arrows and press enter/tab.

Make the error page (select 1 country and click submit) much nicer, ideally inline javascript.

I'd make the results auto generate _above_ the text fields, this way I can easily enter another two countries to calculate simply by pressing tab a few times.

It's also too hard to _return_ back to the home page (assuming you don't do the above suggestion) -- how about a little image at the end of the sentence which when clicked takes you back to the homepage?

thats all I can think of right now - cool app!

<comment><USER3> Personally, I hate it when my cursor snaps to the first open text box. Maybe I'm the only one annoyed by it, but I'd suggest against it.

<comment><USER4> I tend to like it. So you'd better do an A/B-test before committing either way.

<comment><USER5> I agree, it's much preferable than to tabbing to it (since most sites don't use tabindexes).

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> One important point is missing: If I want to phone to Germany, I have to omit the first zero of the area code. Phoning to Italy I mustn't omit it.

Make the result inline javascript. One page load less.

Additionally, wouldn't it make sense to add some "dial this number now with Skype" or some related service?

Good service.

<comment><USER7> Ideally there'd be a third box where I can enter the number I'm trying to call and the service would tell me exactly what to dial.

<comment><AUTHOR> Love the idea. That's Phase III :)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> You could also think about using geolocation to pre-populate the first box. They have a free database and API that would work for this application: <http://www.maxmind.com/app/support>

<comment><USER9> And use cookies so that the value in the first box is the same as it was last time.

While you're at it, why not expand the site so it contains more information about countries, e.g. include internet country codes. Include currencies for the from and to countries and currency conversions.

<comment><AUTHOR> Like the idea of keeping the previous values, though I'll try to see if I can do this without cookies.

In regards to the second idea, I'm trying to keep the site as simple as possible, and adding anything else will only hurt (imho).

<comment><USER4> I agree. Of course you can add a link to another single service site of you (or Wikipedia etc), that include that information.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Clickable link: <http://www.simplecountrycodes.com/>

</comment><comment><USER11> On this Mac laptop, screen at full brightness in daylight, I can hardly see the grey text.

Although it says 'country' I can see a lot of people typing in cities. Any way to resolve those as well?

Also: trim whitespace. I typed in UK, hit space to remove Ukraine as a match, and it said no matches for "UK ".

<comment><AUTHOR> Good point. Will think about this one.

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> Perhaps include current time in the from-country and to-country? Perhaps, also let the user set when they plan to call, e.g., 5pm to-country time, and it gives the from-country time...and vice versa.

<comment><AUTHOR> I really like the idea of showing the country times. I've been looking into ways to do this, but it isn't trivial. I will definitely keep keep thinking about this. I personally would find it really useful.

<comment><USER12> Is it getting-the-data which isn't trivial? You can write a crawler for wikipedia. Each country has their time zones in their entry (nicely formatted which makes it easy for parser to find), with daylight saving information too. Many countries, are, of course spanned across a few time zones, but that shouldn't matter.

The root page for your crawler could be: <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_population>, for instance.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> One thing I'm finding that I didn't plan for is that I'm getting a lot of visitors from outside the US. Any advice on internationalizing the site?

<comment><USER5> You don't seem to have a lot of content actually on the site. My suggestion would be to build a phrase table for country names, and set a cookie after the user has entered their home country for use later on.

<comment><AUTHOR> Agreed.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> Allow a user to specify a country's name by its common abbreviation. For example, UAE for United Arab Emirates.

<comment><AUTHOR> Any ideas where I could find all of the common abbreviations?

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> Hi there lennysan. Nice idea.

My (minor) comment is:

Work on the keystrokes when the type ahead box appears.

For instance GR selects

Greece ... Great Britain.

In this mode the UP arrow should select Great Britain. Currently it is not bound.

Just my usability 2p.

<comment><AUTHOR> Awesome tip, will investigate.

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> Your (barely visible) footer _"We hope all of the data here is accurate, but if you find that it is not please send comments/suggestions/bugs to @countrycodes."_

what's the email ID again?

I'm sure you would've already seen it, but incase if not, try getting in as many features (OR NOT) from <http://www.timeanddate.com/worldclock/dialing.html>

It already supports abbreviations like USA and UK, but not UAE. Also auto- completion should come in only if I press the arrow or down keys. If I enter UK, it should not automatically assume UKraine.

</comment><comment><USER14> Another comment.

Looking at Great Britain -> Australia, you say ::

... 00 + 61 + area code + phone number

There are only 7 such area codes. These correspond to an Australian State. Probably it would be worth listing some _example_ phone numbers in each State, with a label to each State. Often I have a local person give the phone number in an email, presuming I'm in the same State.

\----

e.g

Victoria :: 00 + 61 + 3 + 9651 8911 (Vic Parliament)

New South Wales :: 00 + 61 + 2 + 9230 2111 (NSW parliament)

<comment><AUTHOR> Trying my best to stay away from all that manutia for now, at least until I can justify the amount of work necessary to do that. But agreed, could be really useuful.

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> You can take it one step further and add the area codes to your database.

So I can choose to call munich from US, and it'll autofill the area code and the country code.

<comment><AUTHOR> I'm doing my best to avoid that (for now) :)

But I agree, could be really useful.

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> Couldn't you just call directory assistance? Usually free the first few usages and most people aren't calling different countries enough that they won't remember the codes for the most recently called ones.

</comment><comment><USER18> Bad gray and make the info text disappear when one clicks in the field.

<comment><AUTHOR> Not sure what you mean, but I presume the gray auto-replaced text isn't great?

</comment></comment><comment><USER19> Like it, bookmarked it. You could try and make it simpler (be careful....) but it does exactly what it's supposed to really well. I like the combobox usage as opposed to a dropdown.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks! Any ideas how to make it simpler?

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> Is it possible to try and default to the country the person is actually in? That is, look at their IP address?

</comment><comment><USER20> Very nice. How about if the result appeared inline below the "Lookup" button instead of on a new page?

</comment><comment><USER21> Are single service websites the same as single serving websites?

<comment><AUTHOR> Never differentiated the two myself

</comment></comment><comment><USER22> Simple enough!</comment>


Which libraries are we missing in Elixir world which are rocking in RoR world? - <AUTHOR> Looking forward to making some open source contributions in the Elixir world and knowing what we are missing would surely help. <comment><USER2> In my opinion, focusing on web frameworks (emulating ror,for example) as the the major reason to write libraries with elixir is self defeating. Elixir should have the larger goal of being useful for developing in up and coming fields as ai/ml etc.. Otherwise it will be stuck as another web dev language which I think is quite saturated at this point. At least 15 to 20 years of such web framework dev languages and their libraries are already in existence so why keep adding to it?</comment>


China due to introduce face scans for mobile users - <AUTHOR> https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-china-50587098 <comment><USER2> Dystopia is now.

The following is inevitable in this thread so let me put it up front:

Before people say that Apple has Face ID, so Chinese face scanning is justified; the former is encrypted on device, largely by a company that promotes privacy, the latter is an order from the government, not a democratically elected government but from a fascist authoritarian regime that is heading straight towards the blood stained path of Nazi Germany (with a modern twist), whose leader cannot be critized and has elected himself for life.

I'd like HN community to discourage whataboutism that distracts from the original argument. I see it here _every_ single time when there is a thread about China and it is frustrating, counter-productive and most importantly - it is distracting away from a worrying and terrifying consequences of Chinese surveillance program. It masks truth.

<comment><USER3> I born and raised in China, and I now have been living in USA for more than two years, I'm not trying to make you an enemy, but sadly none of above are true, you say that because you read news for those media, whose reporters and writers have no knowledge about history and laws. This report is from BBC, the same for those media like ABC, CNBC, NYT etc., I have been watching their reports too much since I moved here, in the end I uninstalled all their apps on my phone, and here we go, I'm a science researcher, spot BBC here again. I feel sad that they are being arrogant, irrational, and political when any reports that are related to China. I don't see any critical thinking in your comment above either, the longer I live here, and more news I read from them, the image of advanced and democratic western world in my mind, that was built in China, has been falling apart, which makes me love my country even more. I'm a man of justice and peace, each country has its own issue, there are so many foreigners in China too, please don't criticize and define something you don't know.

<comment><USER2> Yea I agree that most Chinese people in China have no problems in their day to day life. The problem is the principles of the CCP, the well-known methods of controlling population, the fascist aspects of the ruling almost 1.4 billion people.

Chinese people are just normal folks, middle class of China are busy with their lives as they are being lifted from poverty.

The problem is China's government which does not allow criticism. No free press. Americans are taught to be respectful of all cultures - America is built upon immigration. So, please let me assure you that it's not about the people, it's about the political aspects of China.

\- Do you think it's okay to go around and suppress free speech in other countries?

\- Do you think it's okay to have 2 million people in concentration camps?

Instead of listing every thing, please read Drew Devaults blog here: [https://drewdevault.com/2019/11/20/China.html](https://drewdevault.com/2019/11/20/China.html)

China's CCP is using nationalism (which you're obviously affected by) to tap into human psyche, gain unprecedented power and suppress democracy around the world.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> I feel that better types of verification are dangerous. Sure it's convenient, to scan your face or fingerprint, but it's also a way of verifying that you were with your device at that place and that time.</comment>


Uber – London Tube Strikes or How to take advantage of a protest - <AUTHOR> http://blog.uber.com/tubestrike <comment><USER2> I can see it now: Londoners huddled outside of the barred-up tube entrances in the rain, moaning privately to themselves about the lack of transportation, until one clever sod whips out his smartphone and announces, "Uber will give us 50% off if we split!"

Dozens of commuters will scramble to share a cab with him as they excitedly scroll through the options for different drivers. "This one's only got four stars!" says one Uber virgin, shocked that anybody would consider less than five.

"Don't worry," says one of our Uber-savvy commuters, "they regularly prune the list of people who're getting poor reviews. I read it in an article on Hacker News."

"You read it on _what_ news?" says another.

As the commuters split evenly into fairly sensible groups based on their desired destinations, the cars begin to arrive and they all pile in, leaving the pavement empty but for a busker and a Big Issue salesman.

As the final satisfying slam of an UberX car vibrates throughout the street, our new, friendly passengers get to know each other.

"This is rather nice, isn't it?"

"Pfft, who needs the underground?" says one, as they sit in gridlocked traffic on City Road, merely two hours from their destination, one-and-a-half miles away.

<comment><USER3> "Wait, what's surge pricing?" says one Uber virgin to the Uber-savvy commuter that packed them into the car.

"Oh, it means Uber can charge you whatever they want during peak times."

"But you said we were getting 50% off?"

"Oh but we _are_! 50% off the surge price."

"So if they put the surge price to 2x then we'd be paying the exact same amount we would anyway, and this promotion would be for nothing?"

"Well, yes. But I'm sure Uber would never do that. Uber is my best free-market friend!"

<comment><USER4> Of course they'd do that. But at the same time, realize that (a) all fixed- price transportation options will suffer from a shortage of some sort under the strike, be it bus or taxi or space-on-the-roads-in-general, (b) a lot of the higher prices go to pay the drivers, so that more drivers make an effort to work longer and harder to make extra money, (c) Uber's probably taking a loss on each discounted ride, and just hope to make it up with new customers and publicity.

This is, in fact, the free market at its best, and it's not the market's fault or Uber's fault if it's ugly out there. You always have the option not to use it and hail a taxi regularly. Good luck. You'll need it.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> I don't really understand why people would use Uber in London when services like Hailo exist. A black cab is going to get you around London much faster than a car that can't use bus lanes, there are many more cabs available than Uber cars, and I would guess (without knowing) that a cab is going to be cheaper.

So, apart from Uber maybe having some nicer cars available, what's the deal?

<comment><USER6> Black cabs generally require cash. Whilst they may advertise they take card, most drivers don't like it due to the lead time on getting the money through.

<comment><USER3> Hailo (and competitors) let you use cards, and the drivers seem pretty happy about it.

<comment><USER6> I'm referring to using Cabs direct. I realise Hailo is via card.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> This does not seem like a well-planned marketing campaign. Uber and its competitors would've done well enough on pure demand alone without having to say anything. But now they've decided to (inadvertently or not) jump into labor politics, which will almost certainly be interpreted as an effort to sap the strike of its power...and this effort will be associated particularly with the affluent who are wealthy enough to use Uber. I'm not saying the labor strike is right or wrong, I'm just saying that there is no way to stay out of the politics with this kind of marketing campaign, no matter its actual intentions. So I hope the contingency for blowback was planned out, and that this was not just the marketing department's way of riffing off of current events.

<comment><USER8> Uber seems to like getting into politics.

I suspect they see the resulting press coverage as free advertising.

<comment><USER9> I hadn't realised they operated in London until this. However I'm now completely put off ever using them by the greedy opportunism here and recognise their name as some kind of creepy übermenschian far-right libertarian cultural import.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Erm.... keep London moving by putting even more cars on the road?

Because that's the problem, not enough affordable cars. That'll definitely work.

<comment><USER4> Keep London moving by providing a discount to _put multiple people in each car_. Far better.

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> SF startups disrupting working class demonstrations, that will go down well, you are fired pete.

<comment><USER12> I don't know if you're a Londoner, but for what it's worth, I think Uber's promotion (poorly conceived and worded as it is) won't be read that way in London. The tube workers are split between a number of unions, the TSSA, ASLEF and the RMT, of which only the RMT is participating in this latest strike (previous strikes this year have been cross-union). Also important to note is that the RMT had been led by Bob Crow for the past 12 years until he died suddenly in March. Under his leadership, the RMT was very aggressive with its strike action in comparison to the other unions, but that policy successfully boosted its tube driver members to an average salary of £52,000/pa ($87,400/pa). And even though he was a hate figure for much of the right-wing press during his lifetime, on his passing there was a consensus of sorts that he had been exceptionally good at his job and was actually well-regarded by his opposite numbers at Transport for London (who run the tube) as tough but a pragmatist.

This latest strike takes place in the shadow of the battle to succeed Bob Crow at the RMT. Tactically, it could undermine the union, as TfL will be able to keep a significant part of the network operational. However, none of the candidates for the leadership of the Union can oppose it for fear of being tarred as a management stooge by their rivals. Of course, that's not to say that both the TfL and even the other unions won't benefit if this strike proceeds and ends up being a damp squib.

All of which is to say, as working class demonstrations go, this one's something of an edge case. I'm pro organised labour but I think this particular strike is going to damage the cause more than it helps -- if the RMT is painted as reckless users of their strike power, the (right-of-centre) government will have an easier time either making it harder to strike (in terms of forcing minimum participation thresholds) or even the nuclear option of making the Tube an essential service, which would put its workers in the same position as the Police, Army and prison officers, who are legally barred from striking.

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> TfL has indicated that due to additional traffic, car journeys may take twice as long as usual (which is long enough) during the strike. I hope you like the people you're sharing with because if you do this during rush hour you will be spending a lot of time sitting next to them.

<comment><USER14> That's a pretty optimistic estimate. I cycle to work every day up the A24/A3 corridor and on the first day of the last strike it was the most ridiculous gridlock I've ever seen. I passed an ambulance that was locked in and no way to move even with vehicles trying to drive up on the pavement to let it through. The second day was better as people realized driving was not a solution, but my advice is to either cycle or stay home.

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> As someone who tried to drive to work during the last strike; you can literally walk faster than the traffic.

</comment><comment><USER16> Overland trains, cycle, or walk.

There's no point driving, or being in any motor vehicle, tomorrow.

</comment><comment><USER17> "We're all in this together, so grab a friend and SPLIT!" Unless you're striking. In that case, Uber will not be with you. Uber will in fact be against you. What about when the strike is over. Well, Uber isn't really with you then either. Please see terms and conditions. We're all in this together "throughout the entire 48-hour strike until 6am on Thursday morning". Then, when unions have been busted and public infrastructure de-funded, you're on your own again.

</comment><comment><USER18> The title needs fixed - it should be "#KEEPLONDONMOVING! 50% OFF ALL RIDES DURING THE TUBE STRIKE WHEN YOU FARE SPLIT"

(unless of course we are now allowing editorialising in HN post titles)

</comment><comment><USER19> Uber, playing the valuable role of transit scabs.

</comment><comment><USER20> Dear Uber, do you know how I will take advantage of the protest? I'll walk home, you can stay in as many traffic jam as you like

cheers

</comment><comment><USER21> I am a huge fan of how easy it is to tell British writers on HN just by how dripping in irony everything is.

<comment><USER22> I'm really enjoying the posts on this article ... startup wankery meets the real life British commuter.

</comment></comment><comment><USER23> But... Uber insists that it needs surge pricing, otherwise drivers won't bother to give lifts. So a 50% off promotion must mean there won't be any drivers turning up to work, right?

<comment><USER19> Presumably Uber is paying the drivers the difference.

<comment><USER24> Presumably Uber will have a 4x surge during the strike.

<comment><USER19> They'd still have to pay the extra to drivers, and it would be larger than at 1x surge... unless their overhead is more than 50%?

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> Whenever I was stuck due to a tube strike there was nothing the bus or Addison Lee couldn't solve. I struggle to see Uber's "disruptive technology" work in London.

</comment><comment><USER26> 50% off the ride if you share the ride with another person, who pays the other 50%?....

</comment><comment><USER27> If you haven't heard yet, Uber has recently raised it's fees on UberX drivers from 5% to 15%. At first, I was completely behind them, but they're turning into a pretty cut throat company.

</comment><comment><USER28> As great as I'm sure this is, I think I will stick to my original plan: working from home.

</comment><comment><USER29> SCABS

</comment><comment><USER30> Scabs.</comment>


TeliaSonera To Charge Extra For VoIP in Spain and Sweden - <AUTHOR> http://www.arcticstartup.com/2012/04/19/teiliasonera-to-charge-extra-for-skype-and-other-voip-calls

<comment><USER3> Given the obscene data rates that mobile operators charge across Europe (specifically when roaming) one can always only hope that there is a WiFi network near.

The degrading / delaying of VoIP traffic (and other rt data traffic) does even happen with some fixed line operators in Europe - though not with Skype - <USER2> then call it P2P traffic and tell stories about file sharing etc. Had that with a provider in South-France ... if you pay us 10-times the rate we stop the fiddling with your traffic...

I guess this move from TeliaSonera again shows that like with other industries self-regulatory approaches do not work at least with industries where you have regional monopolies / oligopolies, high barriers for entry and a mindset of used car salesmen (no offence) across the industry.

We need to regulate this as well as the fixed line market or we're soon back at $200+ p.m. for (usable) fixed lines and similar increases for usable mobile access - they advertise fiber access here in the UK for $40 per month but give you a 5-20GB p.m. data volume (how many minutes is that good for). They call that fair use - but all those rules do of course not apply to the costly extra services they sell themselves.

It's high time to regulate the mobile providers with regards to data / IP services - earlier regulations regarding roaming in Europe have shown that they otherwise do not see any limits in ripping off their customers.

And someone should explain to those in charge of oversight of this industry that Cisco's promotional material (that showed exponential growth in mobile traffic and would turn all mobile provider latest next year unprofitable and is so happily cited in that industry when it comes down to regulations) is just that - promotional material to sell their network equipment and not facts.

<comment><USER4> There was some recent EU regulation for reducing data roaming costs, that should eventually help. With 3G so popular, public WiFi access points have become very rare

I'm currently a TeliaSonera customer in Finland, and have been since mid-90s. But such dirty tricks make me strongly consider switching away.

<comment><USER3> In some parts of Europe you might already using WiFi when doing data traffic via 3G (and charged at 3G rates) - mobile operators have been going into wholesale agreements with WiFi networks since some time or have started to build their own WiFi networks.

You're right public / open WiFi access is now rather rare (to limit anonymous access) - but many restaurants / bars / pubs etc do provide free access (suggested use of a VPN here). And there are by now quite a few WiFi providers that provide WiFi subscription with international access.

A positive exception from extra-charging is BT (in the UK) that provide you unlimited WiFi access across the country and free international with the FON network (and at reduced rates with other European providers). You have to be a BT fixed line subscriber for that free access.

You can see a map of global FON WiFi coverage at <http://maps.fon.com/>

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> I am a swedish Telia customer, and have been one since '08. Their service has always been top notch so I had every intention of signing on for another two years with them.

And just like that, I lost all my confidence in them and will go where else from now on.

<comment><USER6> Yeah, I think this is the way to go - if they experience a major loss in customers, maybe they realize that this is a stupid idea.

<comment><USER7> But you need to be REALLY vocal about your reasons to have any chance of them actually being aware of this.

If you just leave to another provider, TeliaSonera will have zero clue why you did that. Even if a lot of people do it.

<comment><USER5> Agreed. Though the cynic in me wonders if they even care to track such data.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> It has pretty much always been against the terms of service to use VoIP on your mobile data plan. At least for the vast majority of service providers in Sweden, just that it hasn't been enforced (my understanding of it at least). The only thing that changes now is that it is allowed (but with a fee attached to it).

I guess the problem stems from that competition has made mobile data plans too cheap and thus have been subsidized by regular calls. If the customers take advantage of this and use VoIP instead the service providers are in trouble.

Which kind of makes sense. The only reason you'd ever want VoIP on your phone is so that you can skip the middleman (who is the one that pays for the network your call goes through, VoIP or not).

<comment><USER9> No, i use skype on my mobile because Telia (and all other carriers) have bad reception at my apartment.

<comment><USER10> Then presumably you use Skype over your WiFi-connection, not Telias cellular network? That's skipping the middleman, although not the in the sense of the GP.

<comment><USER9> When at Home, yes, but since i am allready running skype at Home it is easier just continuing to use it when I am out and about. So I am also using it on their cell network.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> Given the huge margin on mobile voice minutes, I'm surprised that it's taken this long for one of the operators to try this. Anecdotally, other operators in Europe have silently degraded VoIP traffic in the hope that the better quality GSM traffic will prevail but this is taking things to the next level.

If this does continue, expect Neelie Kroes to start getting involved which will probably see them going back to the silent degradation model.

<comment><USER12> source for the silent degradation model?

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> Time for some EU-wide regulation here! Should not be legal to charge your customers depending on what content they download, with their connection. When you rent a X mbit line you should get that and nothing less.

<comment><USER8> You _never_ get an "x mbit" slot on any network regardless of whether it is wired or not (as a regular customer) - thus you always get less than that.

Also, the main purpose of a mobile network is to be able to make calls. Thus calls must have a priority (something that probably will get (since people are beginning to solely rely on their cellphone for all calls (including emergency calls)), if it isn't already, mandated by law).

And regardless, the service providers must recoup their costs somehow. Since voice by itself isn't high-bandwidth paying only for the bandwidth would make data plans _much_ more expensive, is that preferable?

While the notion of a completely content-agnostic network is neat wireless networks have much tougher constraints on them and can _easily_ be overloaded, in practice you must have priorities and somehow you must pay for those priorities.

<comment><USER13> "Also, the main purpose of a mobile network is to be able to make calls."

That is debatable, and up to your customers :-)

<comment><USER6> Actually its uncommon that I call/text on the mobile network, however, I'm always online and use the services I have there - e.g. iMessage or email.

I think mobile carriers should realize this and start creating subscriptions for it - they can try to make obscure rules for using their network, but in the end people will use it in the way they find it convenient.

<comment><USER8> Although I very seldom make calls (or receive them) and use the data plan extensively I still consider phone calls the main purpose of a mobile network, even though the ratio of calls and data usage are probably less than 1% for calls.

Why? Because when trying to get hold of someone calling/texting them is the, by far, most effective way imaginable. The same goes for being contacted of course.

I can't mail even an tech-savvy person and expect him to automatically receive that in his phone, especially if he is on a vacation. The phone is the last thing you turn off.

There is no equivalent technology as commonly used as a cellphone. Mail and perhaps facebook are probably the most successful ways to contact a person on the internet but it is frustratingly inferior to a phone call or text message when there haven't been an established contact earlier and a quick response time is valued.

That alone makes the primary purpose of the mobile network to server calls and text messages in my eyes.

And that is even without taking into consideration the case of emergencies - and that use case alone is important enough to create laws in order to protect and ensure quality.

So even though the last month I probably had an all time low of call-time (where I think I talked for about 15 minutes in total (outgoing and in going)) I still view my data plan as an accessory and that the main purpose of the mobile network is calls and texts. And I'm having trouble imagining that this will change any time soon, regardless of how often people actually make phone calls.

<comment><USER13> My phone behaviour is the same as yours (<30 min call time/month; lots of data usage). I see your point. My opinion is slightly different: turn off data connection and I'll leave my phone home; turn off voice and I'll happily tote the phone around and use it all day. So for me, voice is the accessory.

What you describe is how to reach other people (as necessitated by them), not your own behaviour.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> I'm curious that a similar movement has not been started over something like whatsapp, in my experience, the vast amount of my friends (in the 20-25 year old region) use Whatsapp almost exclusively, and almost always using a 3g connection. It means they have to pay only for data.

I assume whatsapp would be harder to detect and stop, but its a wonder that mobile vendors are not up in arms.

The day is coming when someone will arrive with a new type of carrier, Data. That is all. calls,sms everything is handled through the web.

<comment><USER10> Whatsapp uses XMPP, so trivial to intercept and block. I think it has to do with challenging BlackBerry and BBMs dominance in that market.

<comment><USER14> I don't understand why Whatsapp don't have an online offering for the computer. I prefer to "text" off my computer if I am working there all day. With a decent input device, I think people who spend any length of time on a computer during the day. I think whatsapp would really benefit from a web offering.

Also as an aside to this, I presume whatsapp does not allow just anyone to connect via XMPP, what would be much better again, would be if my IM account could connect to whatsapp.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> Im curious how they will actually implement this. Block everything not going over port 80 or 443 and also block many other types of services? Deep packet inspection? New voice services and apps turn up all the time.

There is no way they can block "voice data" (their double speak not mine) without also bloking lots of other services, as collateral damage.

<comment><USER3> There are ready to go solutions for that identifying specific applications (VoIP would be one of them) down to the provider of the solution (e.g Facebook, Skype). And yes this is done via DPI plus patterns etc. So it would not really matter (on the long run) if you would e.g. tunnel that on port 80.

Most providers of such solutions by now fully integrate with the Telco's management platforms similar to "plug-ins". Current market estimates for these platforms (policy servers) and DPI are expected to grow to more than $5B over the next years.

In Telco environments these things are generally covered under traffic management and the acronyms PCC or PCRF.

I think TeliaSonera is using OpeNet in some of their countries since quite some time for that at least with 4G.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> I'm not sure how the technology works - is some of the spectrum reserved for voice-calls, such that there is a legitimate traffic shaping reason to want to keep voice traffic in its place?

<comment><USER16> Not in 4G networks. Everything's data in 4G, and voice traffic is just another data stream (with a special use case).

The only reason they're doing this is that they're terrified of becoming a dumb pipe provider.

<comment><USER10> Well, also they're not 4G yet. What's the story on 3G?

<comment><USER17> Might be preemptive then, they're aggressively building out LTE in Sweden (or at least here in Stockholm)</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Ask HN: Why can't I get an internship? - <AUTHOR> To summarize, I go to a fairly prestigious university (top 5 on US News) and thought that would be somewhat helpful in getting my applications a second look, but I know that tech companies want to see quality/quantity of code and I'll admit I probably don't have a lot of experience showing on GitHub, even though I've had two internships already. I'm in the LA area and continually frustrated that I have heard absolutely no responses from anywhere I've applied for the summer. Yes, it's probably a bit too late, but a lot of applications are still up on Indeed, LinkedIn, and Craigslist. The only job offers I've had are with places I've worked with before and I'm looking to expand my portfolio by trying somewhere new. Is the problem that I say I am not a CS major on my resume (I put applied math because while I like computers and code a lot I am planning to go into the sciences). My dream would have been to get a paid research position at a university but I think all those deadlines passed months ago. I've been rather annoyed at this and would appreciate any help. I guess I thought companies were willing to look at half-amateur fast learning applicants, but maybe the talent pool is too great.
github for reference: https://github.com/m3hr
edit: I am a rising sophomore
edit 2: https://www.dropbox.com/s/odcjcf7hsvzaxm7/farnoosh_2015_cv.pdf?dl=0 resume, though I'm a little uncomfortable to post this for privacy reasons <comment><USER2> 1\. Move your Work Experience ahead of your education, it holds more value on the paper than simply where you're at today.

2\. I'll apologize for being so blunt, but the bullet points for your work experience suck. They're dry and could use additional context. Your work experience needs to tell a story of what you were doing so you come off as intriguing. What sounds better, "Designed graphics, maintained WordPress for company website" or "Developed & implemented new version of company website using Twitter Bootstrap."

3\. Your more recent job title: get rid of the "what the job really was" in parenthesis. Call it what it was, and elaborate that you took the lead role when you reach the point of having a conversation.

4\. Clark Strategic Partners Job - Strip the job title down to "Web Developer". You're not freelance if you're specifically defining them as an employer under your work experience, and naming whom it was for is redundant. If it was truly a freelance job, then rework that section with the focus of you working for yourself as a freelance dev and talk about what you did for CSP in the bullet points.

5\. The last job on your resume, the advisor one: Move that to the top if it's still you're still presently in the role. Work Experience always goes what you're currently doing first, followed by what you've done recently.

6\. Simplify your technical skills section. For you, this section should be nothing more than a comma separated list of technology keywords. Don't separate by experience levels - only put the ones on there you're confident enough behind to take a job/internship doing.

7\. Your resume is too long, either trim content or tweak page margins/fonts/etc to get the resume to fit perfectly on a single page. You don't have enough overflow to justify having a second page.

<comment><AUTHOR> I really appreciate this, thanks!

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> University researchers with budget can add another Undergrad Research Assistant or similar at any time for any reason. Pay will be SUBSTANTIALLY under what industry offers right now. Feel free to hit up your favorite profs and ask who needs a productive coder to do scutwork. (It will be scutwork.)

I also recommend you going forward swap how important you think Github and personal networking are. Assume sending in an unsolicited resume doesn't even count as "applying." I know, this is the opposite of what the academy has taught you to expect, but they are a funhouse mirrors version of the wider economy.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for the advice, and I know personal networking is important but I don't really like to straight out ask people if they can hire me (though I did ask two professors I've never met). I am nearly certain most of the companies I've applied to haven't looked at my application, but I just don't get why they would post seemingly expensive ads on Indeed and LinkedIn. It feels disingenuous.

<comment><USER3> _I don 't really like to straight out ask people if they can hire me_

That is a success-limiting preference and I would encourage you to start preferring other things. If it helps, pretend you're just on a recon mission not actually looking for a job but trying to ascertain whether there is a you- sized hole in the project that they're running which you are legitimately interested in. Scientists love talking about their babies to anyone who will listen.

"So what are you working on this summer?"

"We're programming FPGAs to do automatic detection of human language in content going over the wire using bloom filters."

"Oh that sounds interesting. Who are you working with?"

"Dr. Foo, Dr. Bar, and 3 graduate students."

"Who is your Unicode expert?"

"We don't have one."

"Really? That's unfortunate -- you're solving it with low-level byte manipulation so if you don't have an intuition for what a bytestream of UTF-8 in Russian actually looks like that might be a bit difficult. Mind if I have a quick go at the blackboard?"

"Be my guest."

"So let's take the UTF-16 case since it's easier to understand..."

 _5 minutes later_

"Huh, thanks for the explanation. I wish we could have you around every day."

"Do you hire undergraduate research assistants?"

"Yes."

"Then you can!"

[Lightly fictionalized from an actual research assistantship.]

<comment><USER4> _> > That is a success-limiting preference and I would suggest you start preferring other things._

In context this is one of the top ten patio11 advice quotes on this forum.

This also ties into negotiating salary, don't call yourself a programmer, et al.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> I'd keep Education ahead of Work Experience. It's fairly standard for college resumes and since you go to Columbia it's the one thing that works most in your favor when just sending your resume out to random places. Most places spend like 10 seconds looking at your resume so make your "strongest" assets, namely the fact that you go to Columbia and you've had some intern experience, be the first things to leave an impression on them in that brief time.

Your work experience should be more descriptive and your resume should only take up one page. Also, your name doesn't need to take up so much space at the top and your GPA should be on there too, otherwise it looks like you're trying to hide it. Use something like this [https://www.careereducation.columbia.edu/sites/cce/files/Sam...](https://www.careereducation.columbia.edu/sites/cce/files/Sample%20Resume%20-%20Engineering.pdf) as the format style too. I'd also go to CCE when you get back to NY and have them work through your resume with you, I've heard they're decent with that kind of stuff.

In terms of getting an internship, I wouldn't be too disappointed by not getting something as a rising sophomore. The only people from Columbia that get decent internships right after freshman year either know someone at the company or are doing some kind of special program that you had to specifically apply to. Even the summer after sophomore year can be a crapshoot, especially for tech internships. My best advice is to just scroll through LionShare next recruiting cycle and apply to everything you find interesting and reach out to APAM alumni / profs and see if they know anyone who needs some help. The seniors who just finished their internships will come back to campus and be more than happy to brag about how they got their internship and probably be willing to put your resume in front of their boss if you make the effort to talk to them. With a bit of hard work and patience you can skew the odds of getting something in your favor.

Btw, welcome to SEAS.

</comment><comment><USER6> Hello,

It depends what you're looking for. I interned with Schlumberger a couple of years ago[0].

One of the things I have noticed is a two-sided lack of awareness:

\- People on HN (representative of the "tech community") almost forget that software is _everywhere_ , not just at Google, Facebook, or Dropbox.

\- Oilfield service companies don't try really hard to attract top talent. I mean, Schlumberger jokes that it's the "biggest company you've never heard of". I was a teenager fiddling with my Samsung phone, and in the crypto side, there was SLB technology and RSA. Later, I learned that they were behind Java Cards and when I got to college, I used function generators and oscilloscopes that were made by them.

Although from your handle and the name on the (dead) link, and the fact you're in LA, I'd guess you are Iranian so you probably heard of it.

I think it's ironic that a lot of hackers almost think software is only desktop or mobile. Tools that do a frigging MRI, Sonic, Gamma rays and what- not tens of thousands of feet below the surface and spit data that's visualized on the surface in real time. These babies are pretty neat technology I can tell you.

I think that hackers can have a bigger impact in fields that are not "obviously" "softwary". I mean, what's the marginal benefit of a hacker joining Dropbox vs that of joining an industry where the cutting edge is Visual Basic Macros.

One would argue it's not as glamourous as to work at Facebook, another might argue that if you strip it down, the average Facebook user thinks Paulo Coelho is deep, uses LOL and LMFAO in sentences, and shares Game of Thrones memes.

So you might look at where someone with your skills can have a bigger impact. An LED in the night looks so bright, after all.

[0]: [https://careers.slb.com/whoweare/news/jugurtha.aspx](https://careers.slb.com/whoweare/news/jugurtha.aspx)

</comment><comment><USER7> I had the same problem finding an internship. Then I found out that it was likely because I wasn't altering my resume "keywords" enough when I was applying to different positions. Resumes submitted online are usually scanned by applicant tracking systems software in order to weed out applicants. I would recommend using www.jobscan.co to optimize your resume with relevant keywords and make sure you beat the resume black hole!

</comment><comment><USER8> > Why can't I get an internship?

May I suggest an ultimately smarter investment of your time this summer; absorb the lessons of Dale Carnegie.

Warren Buffett on Dale Carnegie> [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k7gXaPY524I](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k7gXaPY524I)

</comment><comment><USER9> I know this won't help in the short term but I would highly encourage you to participate in hackathons or work on side projects and list those on your resume along with what you learned. It gives you character and makes yourself memorable to the reader.

</comment><comment><USER10> Where's your resume?

<comment><AUTHOR> added to OP

<comment><USER10> I appear to have missed it since the link is now broken. If you're looking for more feedback, email me a PDF? (My email is in my profile.)

General progression to a job:

\- resume is broken. no interviews. fix resume => get interviews.

\- bad at interviews. practice at interviews => get offers.

\- orthogonally, build skills actually necessary for job.

\- also orthogonally, meet cool people (also known as "networking") that you mutually like working with. sometimes you refer each other to jobs. depending on the kind of person you are, you might become co-founders.

\- ???

\- have a job</comment></comment></comment>


What's Your Most Controversial Technical Opinion? - <AUTHOR> http://techblog.trunkclub.com/whats-your-most-controversial-technical-opinion/?x=0 <comment><USER2> That autonomous cars represent a far greater and more darkly Orwellian threat to human liberty than anything the NSA could cook up. Probably.

<comment><USER3> The only reason I can see this being construed as controversial is because people haven't been reading the headlines for the past few years.

Why require a kill switch when you can just order the car to drive it's occupants to the closest correction facility?

<comment><USER2> It's not even that - frightening though that is.

Consider what universal adoption of autonomous cars would suggest about the role of the individual versus the collective - what the sociological implications are to that degree of control being imposed on the way people physically move, and the way they make decisions about where they go. The whole premise that people can't be trusted to manage their own autonomy beyond walking distance without being mollycoddled by an AI (and by extension, inevitably, the state) is just creepy.

And i'm saying this as a vile statist pig. It's a little much.

<comment><USER3> You're right, the implications are huge.

Unless these advancements are specifically designed to put full control in the hands of the owner of the vehicle and no outside intervention possible then your fears will most certainly come true.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> The more technology integrates with us the less freedom we have and the stupider we become.

</comment><comment><USER4> That checked exceptions aren't nearly the boondoggle they're made out to be.

</comment><comment><USER5> evidently that MVC is the wrong method for working in the client, also that AngularJS is awful and the php/drupal of our near future.

<comment><USER5> so I'm hoping it turns out I basically have no controversial opinions is what I'm saying.</comment></comment>