Three-day no-meeting schedule for engineers - <AUTHOR> https://medium.com/@Pinterest_Engineering/three-day-no-meeting-schedule-for-engineers-fca9f857a567 <comment><USER2> I got to work for a few years with pivotal labs in the Bay Area. They had a policy called "just don't have f&$@ing meetings." At first I thought this was a bit crazy. How could we work without meetings? Then I realized that product owners, actual 10 minute stand ups, and a 30 minute weekly planning meeting was all we really needed to make amazing products. I've keep that philosophy ever since and it has worked very well in big and small organizations.

<comment><USER3> Pivotal is clearly a style that works well for some people. But couldn't you categorise the constant pairing as a form of ongoin meeting? It doesn't seem like the place to go if you want to be left alone...

<comment><USER2> I absolutely agree with you that it is not the sort of place you want to go if you'd like to be left alone. No doubt there. However, I would say that constantly pairing really is nothing like an ongoing meeting either. A really good paired programming environment, if you like that sort of thing and work well in that sort of environment, is very effective for writing and deploying fantastic products and features. I find meetings are very not effective for writing and deploying fantastic products and features.

I'd really rather not say there is a "Pivotal" style as much as an Extreme Programming paradigm. Extreme Programming says that an environment is better when you work normal hours. It states that an environment is better when there are fewer meetings. It states that an environment is better when you try paired programming, test driven development, continuous processes, simple design, good communication, etc etc etc. I think all of these things are very good. I also believe a few of these principles don't work well for specific individuals. There are principles that effect the business (fewer meetings, sustainable pace, continuous practices). So far I have always seen those principles as good. There are also principles that effect the individuals (paired programming, test driven development, close proximity for communication). I have seen those not work well for some individuals and should be adjusted to your individual employees.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> It sounds like the meetings are compressed into the other two days of the week, which also sounds quite miserable.

I'd love to see an app that analyzes the internal meetings that happen inside a company and flags the repeat offenders. I've always found that a small percentage of people hold the most meetings. It also can be a bit awkward to reject their meeting invites constantly.

Leaders should remind people about the time-cost of meetings (here's a calculator to help: [https://hbr.org/2016/01/estimate-the-cost-of-a-meeting- with-...](https://hbr.org/2016/01/estimate-the-cost-of-a-meeting-with-this- calculator)). There are meetings that can be beneficial for alignment, but then there are the reoccurring ones where people just want to know what you're working on.

Anyways, I'm working on a tool to help cut down on the "what's going on" meetings: [https://www.fridayfeedback.com](https://www.fridayfeedback.com)

<comment><USER5> Hi, I'm a project manager. I'm the guy who is likely scheduling most of those meetings. Nice to meet you!

I think, by and large, we understand the cost of meetings, and don't casually organize them without going through the alternatives. It's not rocket science. My thought process is generally:

0\. Before anything, come up with a written agenda and goals for the communication. Don't move past this step until done.

1\. Does this communication even need to happen? Maybe there is an internal document already I can point people to.

2\. If not, Can this be done async over E-mail?

3\. If not, can it be done over chat?

4\. If not, can it be done in a series of 1:1s between me and each attendee?

5\. If not, then a meeting has to happen. What's the true minimal list of required attendees? Who is optional? I am loathe to waste the time of a productive individual contributor if I don't have to. If I can invite his/her manager instead, I will. Sorry, that's the Faustian bargain you make when becoming a manager!

6\. What's the shortest possible productive duration?

7\. Is there a time slot that is miraculously free for everyone, respecting time zones and working hours for people?

8\. If not, is there a time slot that works for most people?

If, again by some great miracle, there are multiple time slots that work, I favor ones that are adjacent to other meetings in their calendars, so as to not break up a productive no-meeting block.

<comment><USER6> Good job there with your checklist. Unfortunately, for every one of you who does the above checklist before pulling the "schedule meeting" trigger, there are 500 other project managers who's first reaction to everything is: "schedule a meeting".

<comment><USER7> Then there is the "I can get what I need in a 2hr meeting at the cost of 16hrs of other peoples time" ones.

I hate those ones.

If your programmers are taking laptops to meetings to write code while you are holding the meeting, you should consider a career in yak-farming not project management.

Also we need to schedule a meeting to find out why we are behind on our deliverables because of last weeks meeting taking most of the day putting everyone behind.

That one made me giggle.

Or as one of my friends at that place had as a wallpaper "The beatings will continue until morale improves".

<comment><USER5> There are lots of terrible meeting formats. There's the "everyone talk about what they are not doing because they're meeting to talk about it" aka Daily Standup. There's the Bug Beatings, where 50 people gather to go through 200 open bugs, each one where 1 (different) person talks and the remaining 49 work on their laptops. There's my least favorite: I call it "Executive Storytime" where multiple people put together a status update for a big-shot, and instead of big-shot reading it himself, we project it and read it to him. This is ok when the format is meant to be interactive but if it's just a readout—yukk. Then there's the Agendaless Sync, where the same people get together weekly because they always get together weekly and just talk about whatever. Ugggghh.

<comment><USER7> These days I'm the only programmer at a none-tech company and it's glorious, I answer directly to the MD.

I set my own schedules, timelines, I prioritise bugs and maintenance and I handle buying anything we need as well having complete freedom in the technologies I choose to solve problems (currently moving to TypeScript for front end stuff for example) - his attitude is to hire good people across the business and then get out the way as much as possible.

The boss sets overall goals and we agree together on what is achievable in a given time period.

Honestly my job has made me remember what it was I loved about programming (solving real world problems that have a measurable impact).

Even the fact I inherited the worst codebase I've ever seen doesn't get me down because my boss knows how bad it is (it's why he got rid of the outsourced company and hired a programmer in house) and I get to work on a bunch of cool problems (production scheduling in a varied environment, global logistics (we import from China and India), some C# stuff (production control), Android (inventory control, scanners)).

I actually get to 5pm and _want_ to keep working but the boss bollocks me if I stay late (even though he does most days).

I'd have to be offered a spectacular pay rise to even consider working for a 'tech' company again.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Meeting # 1: How many images can we fit on the page?

Meeting # 2: No seriously, how many more images can we fit on the page?

Same meeting every week at pininterest

<comment><USER9> Hahaha, meetings on my team at Pinterest are a little more substantial than that, but maybe it varies team to team?

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> Maybe I'm off base here, but to me, meetings are not nearly as big a disruption to my IC work as random interruptions from teammates. Meetings are usually planned and able to be worked around and scheduled for. There is typically an agenda, and if there isn't, it's very simple to ask for one. If it's not valuable, don't go, or leave. If you must go, you can often get the meeting rescheduled - people in engineering organizations are surprisingly accommodating of the maker's schedule.

A random interruption by an engineer when you're trying to focus is much more disruptive because it's unplanned and often pulls you right out of the zone. Often times, especially for more senior engineers, an enormous amount of patience has to be practiced as you listen to someone ramble on as the context in your head flutters away, while they go in circles explaining the problem to themselves.

This is all part of the job though. People don't have all the answers and the questions are often poorly defined. My skills wouldn't be nearly as valuable if the problems were so cut and dry that I could just program a solution straight through without interrupting anyone for clarity. I don't quite get the hang wringing over being interrupted. It happens, and it happens especially more as you get more senior. Some of the best solutions to problems I've come up with have not been technical, but have come about by talking to people and realizing that maybe the technical solution we were pursuing wasn't the best one, and we could save a lot of time and money by solving the problem a different way.

<comment><USER11> I usually find adhoc interruptions are due to someone being blocked and spending 5 minutes with them can really turn their next few hours around. It's good for the team as a whole. Meetings on the other hand are minimum 30 minutes and usually involve half a dozen people. The bang for buck on interruptions is way higher than meetings.

At my current job I have about 10-15 meetings every week, and I'm an IC. It drives me crazy. I feel like I have to fight tooth and nail to get time to work on the project I'm assigned to.

<comment><USER12> > I usually find adhoc interruptions are due to someone being blocked and > spending 5 minutes with them can really turn their next few hours around.

I've found polling to be a good way to handle this while avoiding the problems of being interrupted yet still being reasonably responsive to coworkers needing help.

I take a short break every 20-30 minutes to avoid health problems from sitting too long [1]. Those breaks are a perfect time to check email and chat for requests for help.

My notifications are set so that when I get an email or chat I get a banner for a few seconds in a corner. If one comes in while I'm in the zone, I can assess it without losing flow because I know I've got a break coming up soon, and so I only have to decide if the incoming message is so important it can't wait for the break.

[1] [http://ergo.human.cornell.edu/cuesitstand.html](http://ergo.human.cornell.edu/cuesitstand.html)

<comment><USER13> > My notifications are set so that when I get an email or chat I get a banner > for a few seconds in a corner. If one comes in while I'm in the zone, I can > assess it without losing flow because I know I've got a break coming up > soon, and so I only have to decide if the incoming message is so important > it can't wait for the break.

I get those notifications on my phone, so I just keep my phone face up next to my computer, so I can easily glance at the notifications, but I'm less tempted to respond.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> There's only one day per week when I get absolutely nothing done: the day I have to leave home and spend half an hour commuting to work. The sense of dislocation caused by this journey is palpable. I lose context and my thoughts become scattered. I feel overwhelmed and can't help but watch my worries come to the fore.

By contrast, working from the comfort of my home is pure bliss. I have my standing desk and large monitor. I have natural sunlight filtering in through the window. I see some trees and hear the sounds of my quiet residential street. The rhythmic cadence of my mechanical keyboard soothes me and quietes my nerves. I'm focused and ready to take on a challenge of any size or complexity.

Meetings while WFH are not a major distraction. The other participants are cleanly separated from my world. I have a high-quality headset and microphone, which takes away the stress of being misunderstood. I can easily show my screen, or say nothing at all while tuning out a meeting that isn't helping me get my job done.

I for one am waiting with bated breath for the world to catch up with the idea that some types of work are best done from home. Offices are the true black holes into which human productivity disappears.

<comment><USER5> As nice as WFH is, I'm cautious about advocating it. We should be careful what we wish for. I'd be worried about management logic deciding that if my job can truly be done from home, it can be done from India.

<comment><USER15> And honestly, why shouldn't it? I work with an organization that has people all over the world – including India – and aside from time zone awkwardness it works pretty well. Advocating against remote work as a means to achieve job security seems incredibly backwards to me.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> I highly highly recommend everyone read Deep Work by Cal Newport - [http://calnewport.com/books/deep-work/](http://calnewport.com/books/deep- work/)

The key concept Cal talks about that's relevant for this discussion is "attention residue". When you switch from low-stimuli, high-value work that requires deep focus to high-stimuli, shallower work (like meetings), it can take up to 30 minutes to really switch back to focus mode again.

Relevant excerpt on attention residue - [https://hackernoon.com/excerpted- from-deep-work-by-cal-newpo...](https://hackernoon.com/excerpted-from-deep- work-by-cal-newport-9c0633d7b8c5)

</comment><comment><USER17> During my career, other individual engineers interrupting me while I'm working has had a far greater impact on my time than scheduled meetings. What I've been dreaming of is an app for interrupting someone that delays requests and batches them up. No walking up to someone at any time and saying "just a quick question", plan and expect to wait a few minutes.

<comment><USER18> In a sprint review recently I brought up the issue of, "Hi Phil." This is where someone IMs you with just "Hi Phil" and then you have to sit there and look at the "X is typing", "X is not typing" for 5 minutes.

I don't mind people asking a question, but just put it all on one line, "Hi Phil. This is the question..." That way I can sometimes just fire back a quick answer and it's not as distracting.

It makes sense too - you wouldn't walk up to someone, tap them on the shoulder and then make them wait before asking a question.

<comment><USER19> I'm with you on this one, but I've recently decided that "Hi Phil" boils down to some fundamental personality split rather than a misunderstanding; I don't think either side will soon change. I believe "Hi Phil" people are really just trying to be polite and minimize interruptions (or at least their magnitude), waiting for permission to really bother you, so to speak.

Whether that's true or not, I respond if I'm ready, or I ignore it and go on with my work if I'm in the middle of something, just like I would with a full question. The only difference is I'm not thinking about the question with my spare cycles in the mean time.

If someone is trying to inform me of something urgent with "Hi Drew" I think it's reasonable to say that's their own fault.

<comment><USER20> No, the real reason for the "Hi Phil" and then a pause is much worse. You might sometime in the future have to contact Phil about some detail on the plan to fire "Joe". By sending "Hi Phil" and a pause you give Phil enough time to respond "I'm busy" before you give away to Joe that he is going to be out the door in a couple days after legal finishes the paperwork. Because "Hi Phil" and then a 5 minute pause is standard when this situation happens Joe doesn't think anything of it and so Phil can secretly transfer that least important bit of knowledge without giving anything away.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> The biggest problem for corporate meetings and perhaps why there are so many of them, why they're so frequent, and why they're so long:

* Meeting initiator fails to really consider if everyone on the invite list needs to be there.

* Meeting initiator fails to consider if a meeting will have all the necessary people in attendance in order to have the meeting (and furthermore, what if a required attendee can't make it? Can you still have the meeting? If so, they probably didn't need to be there in the first place)

* Meeting initiator does not have much of an agenda or firm outcome in mind when organizing the meeting (other than some topic or 2... i.e. "Discuss new feature X")

* Meeting initiator and/or attendees don't take any notes at all and then don't distribute the notes to people who may want to be informed but simply did not need to be in attendance.

There are other issues with why there are so many meetings, too, such as the structure of the organization and/or project being worked on, whether the culture of the company hinges on having "buy-in" from many different stakeholders, or a consistent "ask for permission" kind of culture. Also, a culture where people don't interact well between groups (marketing and engineering, product management and QA, and so on) or have poor relationships between these groups. Meetings serve as a more formal proxy in order to get people informed or consensus on things between disparate groups in the organization. These are additional factors that seem to play into the need for more meetings.

</comment><comment><USER22> At my workplace we have a daily DMZ (De-Meetinged Zone) from 11 to 3. Since engineers tend to roll in btwn 10 and 11 and most product ppl work normal hours and leave by 6, you end up with a lot of meetings btwn 3 and 6. But at least they aren't methodically fracturing your entire day anymore.

Care is needed when scheduling. Standard parallelization stuff. If all your sub teams want to have sub team meetings (retro, planning, blah blah), try to parallelize those meetings so there's more time on the clock for cross team meetings. If you don't do this, manager schedule ppl will start violating the DMZ.

To manage Slack interruptions disable whatever your personality is distracted by. For me I turn off all notifs that aren't direct messages to me or @mentions. I hide chat rooms with no unread messages. And most importantly I don't keep Slack on top 24/7 on some second monitor. When ppl need me the client grabs my attention and I answer. The rest of the chatter can be read at my leisure. We use emojis in our engineering channels to make it easy to scan for action items like code reviews and we use threads for replying to ppl so the channel is like the top level view of a message board.

This is functioning fairly well with ~30 engineers at the org but i think we will need to more consciously manage the 3-6 window if we doubled in size again. Fred Brooks stuff, the 3 hour window is fixed but as teams grow so does the communication overhead.

</comment><comment><USER23> What killed me was that people wouldn't schedule back-to-back meetings because of stragglers to the second one, cutting into it. This meant that there would be an hour meeting, then an hour gap, then another hour meeting. Never enough time to get back into "the zone" in the code.

<comment><USER24> The last company I was at set the meeting times to end 5 minutes before the end of the hour (or half hour) to prevent this issue.

It helped but wasn't completely effective since we were split over 3 floors of a building (floor 4, 20 and 21), so it could take over 5 minutes to get from room to room.

</comment></comment><comment><USER25> I would rather see a stripe through my schedule, say 1pm-3pm everyday, that could be used for meetings.

I actually enjoy the break sometime and the sidebars on the way to and after the meeting are sometimes great ways to get micromeetings done.

Having the rest blocked gives me a two solid blocks of three hours to do stuff.

</comment><comment><USER26> My previous company was awful about scheduling meetings. They had a strong propensity to throw big timewasters right in the middle of the most focused part of my day, like sprint planning and all-hands meetings.

Probably part of the reason I'm gone now, but it is incredibly annoying to be in a groove and forcibly interrupted in the middle of it for an managerial ego-stroking session. (Also, you're paying me a decent chunk of change to sit there bored out of my skull).

</comment><comment><USER27> Alternatively, I schedule 9-2 for every day as programming time. A company- wide policy though would be great, and having entire days blocked on or off for programming sounds like it would work much better than my method across timezones. However, having a couple of hours at the end of each day is super useful to keep collaboration with non engineers humming too.

<comment><USER28> The vast majority of individual contributor developers do not have the freedom to simply block off two thirds of their time at work from meetings. Company cultures differ widely - I've worked places where each of the following were true:

\- Meeting organizers actively used the scheduling assistant to determine the best time and room for a meeting

\- Meeting organizers picked whatever time and/or location was most convenient for them and whoever made it made it

\- Meeting organizers picked whatever time and/or location was most convenient then threw a fit if you declined due to another commitment

If you're a junior dev and your lead schedules a meeting for 11am you'd be hard pressed to tell them to pound sand because that's your programming time. Seniors have more leeway but I'm sure seniors at Facebook or Microsoft still probably aren't declining meetings with their boss because it's programming time.

<comment><USER29> I would submit that a) given the hot job market, ICs have more freedom to improve work practices than they think, and b) changes like this get much easier if they are done collectively.

As we see in this case, it started with one team. A junior dev can't unilaterally change the schedule, but they can certainly point out the problem, see if others are feeling the pain of too many meetings, and propose an experiment to improve productivity. And then if a whole teams says, "Manager, we are eager to be more productive, so we are trying X," it's going to be pretty hard for a manager to say, "No, productivity isn't important here."

<comment><USER28> But it would also be easy for the manager to say "No, meetings are the tax you pay for being part of the organization."

I am moving teams at the end of the month and I look forward to suggesting this to my new manager, perhaps just a day or two to start and review the VCS after a few weeks to see how much more gets done on those day(s). I just think it would be very easy for a manager, especially a non-technical one, to disregard this entirely.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER30> My company has a designated no-meeting-day for engineers and it's been good for the reasons in the article - I'd love to see it expand. It's also nice to have a designated day that everyone gets errands done. Need an oil change and they're only open during business hours? Great - everyone gets it done at the same time when they're not trying to contact each other - no need to coordinate.

The other thing has been as a last-resort day for meetings that really need to happen soon, but half the people you need to get in the room are just in meetings all the time except that one special day, so you make a special one- time exception when you really need to. I suspect that this is just a band-aid though - those people can't be as productive as they think they are if they can't control their schedule more.

<comment><USER5> This is great if the whole company agrees on the no meeting day. If every team has a different day, and I have to hold a cross-team meeting, then at least one person will have to violate their no-meeting day.

I try my best to respect people's preferences but if by some miracle I've found a time slot that is actually free for the other 6 participants but happens on your "no meeting day" I'm going to regrettably have to schedule it then.

</comment></comment><comment><USER31> Please please _please_ let that mean "no meetings and no slack". Otherwise what's the point?

<comment><USER14> Try this neat trick: disable push notifications for email, Slack, HipChat and any other communications except emergency channels such as PagerDuty. This will do wonders for your productivity. I've faced some blowback from people who expected me to respond immediately in real time, but I've assuaged their concerns by explaining my focus model and the need to eliminate distractions. In my experience, my correspondents actually enjoy receiving a thoughtful reply composed in my own time rather than a snap reaction fired off just to get the sender off my lawn.

<comment><USER32> Another neat trick I've picked up on from other people use is to use DND mode on Slack when you're focusing. That way if it's actually critical to get a hold of you in real time (but not so critical that it warrants a page) there's an option to do that.

People are surprisingly respectful of it, and unlike just going dark it signals to people that you're available if need be but focused on something.

<comment><USER33> I just got the new touchbar MacBook — making DND a primary shortcut was an easy way of making this completely frictionless.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER34> We do this, with Mondays and Fridays being commit/celebrate days respectively (work still gets done on those days but the meetings that set/review the sprint goals are held on them), and the three middle days of the week being "focus" days. It's worked well for us so far.

</comment><comment><USER35> I've worked on some pretty complex stuff in my time and I can only think of maybe one time where it was necessary to have a 'meeting' (which was more like an impromptu 'let's get 3 people to whiteboard this instead of 2'). I find the concept baffling and assume it's for the benefit of people who don't do anything to feel good about themselves. (Especially the "daily stand up" concept.) Anything complicated enough to require input from multiple parties is usually better discussed asynchronously via email. But I also don't find interruptions to be particularly distracting so maybe I just don't get it.

</comment><comment><USER36> If you are in control of your own calendar, don't wait for your org to do something like this: just block off your own productive time and decline all meetings during it.

</comment><comment><USER37> I have about 20 hours worth of meetings per week. I've been arranging my meetings into as few days a week as possible, and it helps a lot, but eventually there always ends up being overflow into other days. I've also gotten complaints that I'm not flexible. Lastly, I've found these days to be utterly exhausting where by the end of the day I'm non-functional. It is much better than constant interruptions, though.

</comment><comment><USER38> We broke the time up into mornings and afternoons. Most mornings and afternoons were "no meetings" time. If there was a meeting scheduled in a morning or afternoon, then that became the prioritized time to schedule any other meetings that came up. Worked great.

Most people aren't willing to skip meetings, or walk out of meetings when they realize the meeting is unproductive. Both are productive behaviors.

</comment><comment><USER39> When trying to minimize meetings across my team, I have found Google Calendar to be the enemy. Anyone in the company (or even externally) can just put an event on your calendar, the default is 1 hour, and _expect_ people to attend the meeting because "it's on the calendar". There is no way to enforce some kind of policy (no-meeting hours/days, max time, max attendees). Any tips for restricting GC?

<comment><USER40> make your own events on the calendar during the time you don't want to be in meetings

<comment><USER41> Yep, schedule "work blocks" in the calendar - it's usually a good way to combat frivolous meetings, and if something's important, then they'll probably schedule it over anything in any case.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER42> The idea of mental multi-tasking as a productivity killer makes me wonder if people with ADHD would function better in a team lead role (eg: they have to go to All The Meetings) rather than a role where locking down and focusing for 12 hours at a time is needed. I have enough ADHD that I _appreciate_ the interruption of flow that meetings allow me... or am I just weird?

</comment><comment><USER43> I may try this myself. I work on my own. But, I find stuff like appointments, phone calls, errands, occasional tutoring, etc really slows down work. Even the gym, which I do MWF.

So, Tuesday-Thursday might me an ideal set of days to schedule nothing. It still leaves two days to schedule external things. I tried a one day system before but it was too rigid.

</comment><comment><USER44> We work quite closely with the team in Europe so usually all meetings are in the morning and afternoons are always free. Its a great way to work. The suggested having days on and days off I've learned leaves the problem that its often impossible to code 10 hrs straight. Having blocks each day is my preference.

</comment><comment><USER45> Besides the actual topic of the post, there is one gem that, IMHO, every manager should realize:

> As engineering managers, it's our job to provide the space and support > needed to help our engineers deliver great software.

The best managers I encountered were not telling the team what to do, but enabling them to do what needs to be done.

</comment><comment><USER46> Lately it feels like all I do are meetings. I never feel like I'm doing any work.

</comment><comment><USER47> The only meetings engineers should have are 1) regular status/planning meetings and other agile related meetings. It's a good idea to block these in a single time block. 2) one on ones with managers. These are short meetings and can be planned well in advance or be very adhoc. 3) whiteboard meetings for problem solving. Everything else tends to be a waste of time. 4) very infrequent all hands type meetings.

Since leaving the corporate world, I've been doing startups and freelance work. I tend to not use a calendar for meetings because they are so rare these days. Likewise, I've all but eliminated email from my life. It's just not a thing anymore to read and write lengthy emails. We use slack to replace both meetings and email.

</comment><comment><USER48> I love the sentiment, but I feel like this imposes significant costs on non- engineers, and ultimately on the whole team.

Product managers, UX, and others need significant input from the engineering team to make good decisions (i.e. not design un-buildable things). And the idea that they can go for 3 business days a time without that input seems... unrealistic and/or counterproductive.

But of course meetings should be limited as much as possible... include just the relevant engineer(s)... and trying to cluster meetings instead of spreading them throughout the whole day...

<comment> amiga-workbench Meetings are usually a poor way to gather information. I really wish people would send me a well thought out email with clear questions before they fall back on bringing everything to a grinding halt so they can talk in person.

</comment></comment><comment><USER49> Sounds wonderful! I look forward to those days where I am not interrupted by a useless meeting or conference call. Unfortunately, they are rare.

</comment><comment><USER50> How do you run stand-ups with no meetings whatsoever? Is the hope that you get asynchronous communication through slack?

<comment><USER51> When I was in a team that did stand-ups, I convinced them to do it in Slack vs. via phone (in-person was not possible because the team was distributed). We set up a daily channel reminder in Slackbot that contains the traditional standup questions.

</comment></comment><comment><USER50> how do you manage stand-ups with this schedule? Just try to check-in/co- ordinate informally via Slack?

<comment><USER52> Do you find standups actually useful? Or are you doing them because agile companies do standups?

I've never found any utility in standups at all, and the days we missed the standups were no different to the days we have the standups.

<comment><USER53> i used to find standups to be useless hurdles put on the track by my manager. now i find them more useful, or less useless, because after 10 minutes have passed i just start coding again.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER54> it's a bit absurd if you ask me. Have meeting when you need to. avoid useless meetings.

<comment><USER29> That sounds nice, but doesn't work in practice. When it only takes one person to call a meeting, the larger your company gets, the more likely it is that somebody will think a meeting is useful. This is made worse by the way larger companies tend to rely more on power structures, so it's considered bad for a low-status person to say no to a high-status person.

</comment></comment><comment><USER55> Why just engineers.

What about the designers?

Does anyone really love meetings?

<comment><USER53> people who can't contribute anything individually

</comment></comment><comment><USER56> So I have to wait three days to discuss something of substance with an engineer? Sure, I didn't need to get anything done this week.

</comment><comment><USER57> Reminded me Paul Graham's Maker's Schedule: [http://paulgraham.com/makersschedule.html](http://paulgraham.com/makersschedule.html)

<comment><USER58> Did you read the article? That is referenced, and quoted, several times, starting in paragraph 3.</comment></comment>


An Open Letter to Simple Habit: Can You Really Rip-Off Other Startups Mindfully? - <AUTHOR> http://observer.com/2017/10/open-letter-to-simple-habit-can-you-really-rip-off-other-startups-mindfully <comment><USER2> I really don't sympathize with Whil. People will copy your idea purposely or accidentally. There are many examples of multiple companies doing the same thing. You have to deal with it.

<comment><USER3> Also there is nothing worth protecting here. Another app for first world problems. Snore.</comment></comment>


Ask HN: What's the best resource for a programmer to learn SQL? - <AUTHOR> Would be nice to have a resource where a programmer (as opposed to, say, a product manager) can learn SQL. Say, someone who has an intuition for server-client architecture, data structures used for efficient indexing, data partitioning, transactions, and basic computer science skills.
Doesn't matter if it's focused specifically on Postgres or MySQL or something else.
Thanks! <comment><USER2> These are both pretty great:

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

[https://selectstarsql.com](https://selectstarsql.com)</comment>


Views of the Solar System - <AUTHOR> http://www.damianpeach.com/best.htm <comment><USER2> There are many amateur astronomy images, sometimes even better then professional. For example checkout this corona pictures, author started as an amateur, not sure about his current status:

[http://www.zam.fme.vutbr.cz/~druck/eclipse/Ecl2001z/0-info.h...](http://www.zam.fme.vutbr.cz/~druck/eclipse/Ecl2001z/0-info.htm)

[http://www.zam.fme.vutbr.cz/~druck/eclipse/](http://www.zam.fme.vutbr.cz/~druck/eclipse/)

</comment><comment><USER3> Damian is using cutting edge equipment and processing software, so it's no wonder he's got such great results. Many times it's more about the equipment than the observer; give an observer the necessary tools and they shall do wonders with enough motivation, experience and willingness to learn. Nevertheless, his images are great, and I've looked over them many times in the past.

<comment><USER4> Shri Kulkarni said something along the lines of "Given a sufficiently large telescope even an arbitrarily idiotic astronomer can make a discovery."

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> Where by "views" is meant hundreds to thousands of raw images selected with bad ones removed, then aligned and combined via software to enhance features :) Don't expect to see anything close to that level of detail in the eyepiece.

Super nice images though, way beyond what the pros were doing with the biggest scopes only a few decades ago.

<comment><USER6> For those who want more information, this technique is called "lucky imaging"[0].

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

<comment><USER7> Woah. This certainly deserves an HN post of its own.

<comment><USER6> Per your request: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10258272](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10258272)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> From an amateur astronomer's perspective these are absolutely amazing images.

I think anyone who already did astronomical observations using a "conventional" telescope can probably attest how difficult it is to even get a very basic image of a planet let alone an extra-solar object in the night sky. The images shown in the article probably make extensive use of long exposure times and computer-aided merging of photo series taken over a long observation time. This technique usually requires a telescope with an equatorial mount and a motor that allows you to "follow" an object in the sky while taking pictures of it, which by itself is already quite challenging to build (except of course if you can simply afford to buy one). Also, vibrations, trigger timing and many other factors need to be taken into account in order to get a reasonable image quality. Hence those are some really great photos!

<comment><USER9> > The images shown in the article probably make extensive use of long exposure > times and computer-aided merging of photo series taken over a long > observation time.

More and more amateur astronomy images rely on stacking images digitally from several relatively short exposures. Not having to deal with long exposures makes this quite a bit more approachable as a hobby.

> This technique usually requires a telescope with an equatorial mount and a > motor that allows you to "follow" an object in the sky while taking pictures > of it, which by itself is already quite challenging to build

When we're dealing with stacking images digitally, an azimuthal mounting can work. A computerized "goto" alt-azimuth telescope mount suitable for amateur astro/planet photography is well within the budget of a hobbyist (a few hundred bucks is enough for an entry level mount).

This is also how the giant telescopes operate, they all are alt-azimuth mounted these days. The last equatorial giant telescope built was the Mt. Wilson observatory built in the 1930s or so.

The issue with alt-azimuth mounts is that the image gets "rotated" as the mount tracks the object in the sky. This can be corrected digitally by rotating the image and aligning it to background stars. Equatorial mounts don't have this issue and they can be used with long exposures on photographic plates.

Despite all this new fancy digital technology, astrophotography is still a very challenging task and a fun hobby!

<comment><USER8> Thanks for updating me on this! Has been a while since I've done any astronomical observations myself. Back in the day I used a Dobson telescope which made it a bit challenging to follow objects as you said, but which was much cheaper than a telescope with a professional mount.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Related: Thierry Legault [http://www.astrophoto.fr/](http://www.astrophoto.fr/)

</comment><comment><USER11> Oh boy what I wouldn't give for seeing conditions that nice here in the Southeast US. Gorgeous shots. Amazing what someone can do with a 14' CAT these days.</comment>


Secure Your Domain – Where Is Safe to Register a Domain Name? (2012) - <AUTHOR> https://gun.io/blog/secure-your-domain-where-is-safe-to-register-a-domain-name/

<comment><USER2> For those looking for a good domain name registrar, I'd like to recommend [https://gandi.net](https://gandi.net). They have virtually every TLD, an excellent management UI and a very friendly customer service. I wish they didn't use those stupid nick handles though... but hey.

I discovered them back when they did an anti-SOPA promotion. They were, along with Namecheap, really good with that (though the latter has much less TLDs and I personally prefer having everything in one place).

<comment><USER3> Gandi now has offices in the USA and is obligated to spy on you and take your domains without notice or appeal and all the other USA PATRIOT garbage.

<comment><USER2> > spy on you

What are they gonna do that the NSA can't do themselves? They're just a registrar.

> take your domains without notice or appeal

I'd like to see them try. No really, I would - they're very vocally against the bullshit the USA is pulling, and if they try to double cross even one of their customers, their other customers will hear about it. As it stands, it hasn't been done.

</comment></comment></comment><comment> mike-cardwell I am not concerned about a government stealing my domain. I am more concerned about a hacker stealing it by social engineering their way into my account with my registrar and transferring it away or modifying the nameservers.

With my perfect registrar, I'd be able to log into my account and check a box which says "Notify and delay all changes by 24 hours". So that even if somebody does get access to my account, if they try to transfer the domain away, an email/sms will immediately be sent to me to warn of the event, and the transfer wont begin until 24 hours later, giving me time to prevent it. Also, actions such as changing the account email address or phone number or the domains nameservers, or unchecking that "Notify" box, would also be subject to a 24 hour delay, and a notification. Also, I'd get a notification whenever a login occurred in my account from a new previously unseen IP address. Also, it would have 2FA, but that goes without saying.

<comment><USER4> There are services that do something like this. Mark Monitor springs to mind as one of the major ones, with a lot of complimentary services too: [https://www.markmonitor.com/services/domain- management.php](https://www.markmonitor.com/services/domain-management.php)

I doubt they are cheap. I'm sure others HNers could weigh in with alternatives.

<comment><USER5> Wasn't Facebook's domain, or at least their whois record, hacked via Mark Monitor in February? At least that was the initial report; I'm not sure what happened and it's hard to find a credible source about it. Here's the best I found in a short search:

[http://thenextweb.com/facebook/2014/02/06/uh-oh-syrian- elect...](http://thenextweb.com/facebook/2014/02/06/uh-oh-syrian-electronic- army-meddling-facebooks-domain/)

Of course if it was hacked it wasn't necessarily Mark Monitor's fault; it could be Facebook's (though good security would anticipate that some customers will have poor security).

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> I had mil.af for a year (.af is part of CoCCA). When I tried to renew, the payment was refused and the domain was dropped. The NIC didn't reply to my emails.

While I expected something like that to happen eventually, it might raise a flag about registering domains with any CoCCA members, if you're considering security.

(Apart from anything else, I did wonder whether its similarity to af.mil would cause issues down the line anyway.)

CoCCA members: [http://www.nic.net.sb/index.php/about/members.html](http://www.nic.net.sb/index.php/about/members.html)

</comment><comment><USER7> tl;dr version -> If you are concerned with the U.S. government seizing your domain get a TLD from Switzerland(.ch)

<comment><USER8> Or from any other stable, human rights respecting country that isn't a Five Eyes member. Doesn't save you from DNS blocking (and many other things), though.

See [https://www.pirateparty.ch/wikileaks_ch_blocked](https://www.pirateparty.ch/wikileaks_ch_blocked) (EveryDNS stated it isn't taking a position on the content hosted on the wikileaks.ch website)

In addition, I'd like to say that I don't think there is a problem with .com, .net, or .org

It's way more important which registrar you have.

<comment><USER9> Indeed. But it is also important to understand that just because it's the Internet, doesn't mean speech is absolutely free and that there are not consequences.

As far as user-generated content, perhaps this is a nod to policing that content much more unless you have the resources to handle legal challenges that will almost inevitably come up.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> I am very concerned about the .onion and .namecoin suggestions I have seen recently. The primary advantage of the internet is that it is universally accessible, but now people are promoting fragmentation in favor of security.

</comment><comment><USER11> To take control of your domain away from a central third party, use .bit with Namecoin. It's not mainstream yet, but fixes many of these issues.

</comment><comment><USER12> What do you guys think about OVH? I believe they stood by Wikileaks in the past. But their servers are listed in the top 10 spamming hosts.

<comment><AUTHOR> I hate with a passion their admin interface. It sucks so much, they had to add a GPS on it to gives directions on where to click to do something. No kidding.

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> united arab emirates? seriously? the guys who had facebook censored if not hijacked? come on, be serious. that makes this article untrustable, sorry.</comment>


Show HN: How to add jitter to a plot using Python's matplotlib and seaborn - <AUTHOR> http://dataviztalk.blogspot.com/2016/02/how-to-add-jitter-to-plot-using-pythons.html <comment><USER2> This looks like a blog post. "Show HN" is intended for original work that can be "tried out".

Guidelines: [https://news.ycombinator.com/showhn.html](https://news.ycombinator.com/showhn.html)</comment>


Purism's 15" Librem Linux laptop with a 4K screen passes pre-production tests - <AUTHOR> https://puri.sm/posts/4k-at-last-purism-librem-15-rev2-4k/ <comment><USER2> That looks like successor to the Asus laptop (n56) I am using now.

TBH It's been a pain many areas. It runs hot, the touchpad is overly sensitive. Other things that were a pain are now fixed (like Nvidia/Intel optimus support), also put in a better Wifi Card helped.

Apart from that, the predecessor is not particularly durable - though the new one seems to have an all metal case, so might not have a problem with easily broken hinges like this one does.</comment>


Leave Facebook - <AUTHOR> https://om.co/2020/06/02/leave-facebook/ <comment><USER3> I think Facebook is merely the conduit of human behavior that happens when lack of regulation / social norms or the incentives of profit create a new space much faster than we're used to before. So leaving Facebook and going to some other platform will not fundamentally solve the problem.

As long as:

1) people want to socialize freely (as well as privately) with each other in an online rapid medium,

2) the online forum is incentivized to make money, and

3) that same forum / business doesn't want the burden of regulating people's speech and behavior

then some Facebook analogue will take its place no matter where people go.

Right now it seems we can only choose to have 2 out of the 3.

<comment><USER4> I disagree. There were millions of people socializing on many different platforms for years before anything like Facebook was created.

<comment><USER5> I also disagree. The "curation" algorithms and other systems clearly have a serious influence. Facebook is not responsible for human nature, but they are responsible for intentionally guiding it for profit and ignoring the consequences. It's not as if Facebook is merely tabula rasa; they meddle.

There have been many examples of executives and engineers who have spoken to this effect:

[https://www.businessinsider.com/facebook-engineer-resigns- tr...](https://www.businessinsider.com/facebook-engineer-resigns-trump- shooting-post-2020-6)

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d6e1riShmak](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d6e1riShmak) (Chamath Palihapitiya)

<comment><USER6> FB is the network of people on your green list, and FB's most pronounced "algorithmic" influence is deciding priority on a feed of your green-listed friends, but ultimately one has to ask -- can you handle your own relations? Are your friends' ideas just way too infectious for your free will to handle?

<comment><USER7> > Are your friends' ideas just way too infectious for your free will to > handle?

Good point, but I'll add: if the ideas they are spreading weren't infectious, they wouldn't be spreading them in the first place.

I've been on FB lately because my local government has decided that it will use FB to give background info and outlooks wrt Covid-19. From what I saw in the local groups, the "ideas" people spread are not original content, ever. They don't have those ideas, they just read them and say "yeah, share", so the ideas that make it to your feed have proven themselves many times to be infectious. There's a reason we call it "going viral".

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> A baby step you can take if you want to leave Facebook is to disable (I forget if that's the exact term, it might be deactivate) your account. This removes your access to the site, and hides your profile - while leaving the Messenger half of your account untouched: messages, contacts, etc.

I've done it before for mental health reasons, and found it really refreshing.

<comment><USER9> For me the first step was to remove the mobile Facebook app. I used to scroll mindlessly while traveling and commuting, and once I didn't have the app on my phone, my time on FB dropped by like 80%. I also found it refreshing and I felt less stressed about missing something there.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> As the article says, leave Instagram too!

It's surprising how many of my friends say they don't use Facebook for political reasons but don't see Instagram as the same company.

<comment><USER11> Don't forget WhatsApp. Many people I talk to don't realize it's also part of the FB ecosystem.

<comment><USER12> Leaving WhatsApp is not as easy, in many countries you need it to do things like buying to local producers or communicating with a client. The network effect is more unavoidable than in other FB products.

<comment><USER13> It's also worth mentioning that the whatsapp team still is filled with dedicated anti-surveillance types, leftovers from the original company (note that the founder publicly came out against facebook after the sale). I don't know how much longer that'll be the case, now that they're all vesting, but they're in there.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> People want to leave but stay for the network.

How can we leave and take the network with us?'

Edit:

I actually didn't have "friends" in mind. Small businesses, formal and informal groups of interest, event discovery, the use cases are far beyond what I'm aware of.

Also, organizing and protests...

<comment><USER15> I say forget "the network". If your so-called friends don't have your email address, they aren't your friends.

<comment><USER16> Especially in the case of Instagram, it's a _de facto_ RSS reader for a lot of really good content, if you curate it right.

I'm happy to say that the network I have built through Instagram has taken my photography to new levels and facilitated social interactions I'd never have had otherwise.

It is very fair to want to take the good (network/community) and leave the bad (walled-garden and tracking).

<comment><USER15> You're assuming a similar, or even the same, network can't be found outside of <site-x>.

I suspect this is a subset of what I call "The Fallacy of The Best", the idea that things can objectively be quantified as "the best" and that there is significant value that cannot be realized without "the best".

In reality, the products and services you choose have relatively little impact on the quality of experience you have, both because there is little substantial difference between most things on the main, and because the effort you put into things is far more important.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> I left Facebook Nov 10th, 2016 after being on it for about 3 years.

That was easy because it was clear where it was headed. Getting friends to quit took some time, but about 40% of my friends are off completely, and another 20% mostly read instead of post (so they claim).

Now if I lived in certain parts of the world like Myanamar [1] where the Facebook -IS- the internet, I'd be hosed. This is some serious Dole / DelMonte level stuff Zuck is doing.

[1] [https://seasia.yale.edu/myanmar-facebook-internet-and- intern...](https://seasia.yale.edu/myanmar-facebook-internet-and-internet- facebook)

[2] [https://www.smh.com.au/world/asia/facebook-is-the- internet-f...](https://www.smh.com.au/world/asia/facebook-is-the-internet-for- many-people-in-south-east-asia-20180322-p4z5nu.html)

[3] [https://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/aug/01/facebook- free-...](https://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/aug/01/facebook-free-basics- internet-africa-mark-zuckerberg)

[4] [https://www.smh.com.au/world/asia/facebook-is-the- internet-f...](https://www.smh.com.au/world/asia/facebook-is-the-internet-for- many-people-in-south-east-asia-20180322-p4z5nu.html)

</comment><comment><USER18> After not having logged in to my FB account for over 3-4 years, I finally logged in today and deleted it.

I didn't feel like I needed to download anything, since I had not been sharing anything anyway.. Now onto deleting other FB properties. I'll need to figure out how to motivate some friends to move off of WhatsApp and onto Signal. But once I'm able to do that, or just decide that the price of staying on WhatsApp is not worth it, I'll be fully rid of FB. Was never on Instagram or anything else..

To those who are on the fence, just try not to login for a few days, then a few weeks and you will realize you are not missing anything at all.

Of all the social networks, I believe LinkedIn would be the most difficult, if not outright impossible for me to get out of. But FB was a very easy choice.

</comment><comment><USER19> What is keeping many people on Facebook is FOMO. Every person who quits and leaves, especially publicly, reduces the chance that those remaining will miss something important and the perception that it is an important source of news and information. Let it become a ghost town of bots.

</comment><comment><USER20> Zuckerberg hires police officers cited for using excessive force to work as his personal bodyguards.

Yes, that's right. While he's busy pretending to feel bad about the situation with bad cops, he recruits and pays them to protect his family.

Facebook and Zuckerberg are well beyond complicit.

<comment><USER21> He is complicit for wanting that he be not lynched by a mob?

If anything the virulent comments on this thread are enough reason for him to hire as many bodyguards as he may need.

Some people here have no sense of perspective.

<comment><USER22> It is possible to hire bodyguards who aren't ex-cops with stained records.

(I don't know the truth about the situation, but if the facts are correct, that is morally troubling.)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> We should see Facebook as a drug store which its top kingpin, Mr Zuckerberg sell its social network 'drugs' to billions of his users, which when abused over and over again, the results are always never positive and messes with your dopamine levels. Because of the social connections, followers and inertia, it is harder for friends and family to leave.

Apart from its flagship product, social network 'drugs' it owns includes Instagram, Messenger and WhatsApp. The fine-print is if you mix that with trolls, disinformation and bots it equals never-ending reactionary anger. Very unhealthy for you.

</comment><comment> Munky-Necan Is there a significant amount of Facebook employees that are actually planning on leaving?

From my experience money talks. Many people will use the logic of "if not me it will be someone else" for their cognitive dissonance to work at morally degenerate organizations. I'd be interested if there was a survey of current employees who would be willing to leave if another entity paid an analogous salary.

<comment><USER24> >Is there a significant amount of Facebook employees that are actually planning on leaving?

Of course not. The proof is in the puddin'. There is, and never has been, a mass exodus of technical talent from these companies. And during this period there has been near constant hand wringing and crocodile tears about the evil things these companies do.

<comment><USER25> Especially now with the US economy in the toilet and unemployment numbers at astronomical levels. No mass exodus is going to happen unless people can easily move into another job.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> Why? Why not Google, Apple, Amazon?

<comment><USER27> Personally, I find social media to be very problematic. I strongly dislike facebook, twitter, etc. for how they are affecting the way so many people think. It's not because of their business models, it's because I think their product is fundamentally bad for people.

That line of reasoning doesn't lead to any opinion of google, apple, amazon (except youtube, which has some of the problems of social media).

<comment><USER28> An alternative to mainstream media, at least?

<comment><USER29> As if Facebook media were any better...

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER30> I've never been a FB user and only have a throwaway account to login quickly into certain services (I use it pretty much like Apple Sign In works).

Calling a platform evil may be a bit out there, however, in the case of FB, the word toxic is the best way to describe it. HN users, I assume, can handle the toxic FB feed. But I've heard numerous times from people (usually older generation) claiming that a certain (fake)news article was real.. because it was on FB. People who can't distinguish between real or fake news, real or misleading ads, are becoming victims of fraud, misinformation and all sorts of bad stuff.

Is FB to blame for all of that? Maybe not. But serving the world brings about a certain responsibility that they clearly don't seem to take serious enough.

Leaving FB so your friends and family members will leave may be the least you can do to help.

</comment><comment><USER31> The network effect is hard. I have family in India that would be next to impossible to get in touch with if Im not using whatsapp. Everything over there happens on it.

There are good things too, my friend found a kidney donor on there, a random person which saved their life !!

It needs to happen, its a tough jump

<comment><USER32> Yeah, I mean, who needs kidneys anyways #deleteFB

</comment></comment><comment><USER33> I shared this post, and I'm deleting my facebook account tomorrow. Most of the people I care about already have my phone number any way.

I will miss the concert notifications for bands I follow, but I guess I'll just have to put slightly more effort into following them :)

</comment><comment><USER34> Facebook and most other social media make money by capturing peoples' attention for very long periods of time. One way to push back, in a weaker form, is to set a maximum amount of time per month that you will be on Facebook. I set a 20 minute a month limit on myself. I get to occasionally look at my feed and also use the platform to announce my new book releases. I also use a single container for Facebook (and others for single use on specific web properties).

I suspect that Facebook makes very little money off of me. On the other hand, I have relatives who love Facebook, and as long as they don't try to use it as a way to contact me I am fine with whatever they want for themselves.

</comment><comment><USER35> I don't think deleting a Facebook account really matters in this day and age.

The FB Ads SDK has infiltrated every nook and corner of your life. From websites to your phone to TV's to iot. I am scared by the prospects of that level of intrusion than anything else. They don't need your account.

Visiting my account off FB activity was just there tip of the iceberg. They can connect everything about you without your involvement...

A mere FB account doesn't do much. Sure in the short term we can have lengthy blog posts about "deleteFB" and so on but really it's mostly for sentiment not really concrete.

<comment><USER36> I agree, but this is not what is being discussed in the article. It is about the manipulation provided by the platform, which you can indeed massively reduce your exposure to by not using it.

(One could argue that targeted ads that would still follow you are another way of manipulation, but it's way lesser than willingly consuming The Feed)

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> Does anyone have recommendations for a tool similar to Facebook Events that I can use for planning the assloads of parties and camping trips I plan? That's genuinely the only thing between me and deleting my FB.

<comment><USER37> [https://www.eventbrite.com/](https://www.eventbrite.com/) ?

</comment></comment><comment><USER38> I deleted my Facebook almost 8 years ago and never looked back. Was hard at first but great for my mental health. I encourage you to try disabling it for a while and keeping up with your network with alternatives

</comment><comment><USER39> Related reading, regarding my own process of Auditing Facebook.

[https://londondailypost.com/zeaun-zarrieff-writes-to- faceboo...](https://londondailypost.com/zeaun-zarrieff-writes-to-facebook-ceo- mark-zuckerberg-to-enquire-on-the-subject-of-data-transparency/)

[https://businessnewsledger.com/zeaun-zarrieff-from- amerihub-...](https://businessnewsledger.com/zeaun-zarrieff-from-amerihub- technologies-sounds-the-alarm-on-facebook-privacy-and-censorship/)

</comment><comment><USER40> Going to repost this here too: How many of FB users would need to have adblockers and commit to never clicking on an ad in facebook to cause a big enough dip in revenue in Q2 (ends this month)? Especially given already depressed levels of online advertising spend. I don't mean this in a "lets take down FB" way but more of a "how can we force Zuckerberg to have more discussion/thought on this and brush it away?".

I would love to see some type of fact check warning be implemented for FB but not necessarily censorship.

</comment><comment><USER41> Why isn't there a social network that actually cares about society? I swear if one existed it would be gaining a million users a day right now. I'm dying to abandon Facebook, but --I hate to say-- it's the best way for me to stay in touch with international friends and family at the moment. Can't someone please create a simple facebook-style app that's not driven by profit? Please please please.

<comment><USER42> Mastodon? [https://rmpr.github.io/Migrating-from-Twitter-to- Mastodon/](https://rmpr.github.io/Migrating-from-Twitter-to-Mastodon/)

<comment><USER41> I signed up for Mastodon. However it seems to be more of a Twitter clone than Facebook. I'm looking for a Facebook alternative.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER43> I am not on FB and I tried to get out of WhatsApp too. I deleted WhatsApp and implored all my friends to move to Signal. But out of the 100 or so people I reached, only 2 moved to Signal. My extended family is in India and WhatsApp is very entrenched there. The other issue is that people in India do not realize that the attention issue these apps create is a long term problem - <USER2> least not yet.

<comment><USER44> Yes this is a huge problem. After several years of shunning Facebook I installed WhatsApp last year because it's the only way to stay in contact with much of my family these days.

</comment></comment><comment><USER45> I deactivated my Facebook, Messenger, WhatsApp, and Instagram accounts yesterday, and let me tell you, it's worth doing it just for the feeling of deleting these apps from your phone. So far I do not miss any of them at all. In a week or two I'll log back in and delete them forever. For now I'm trying to campaign some of my friends to get on Signal.

</comment><comment><USER46> I remember the leave Facebook campaign after they released their mobile app and showed a pop-up on the mobile site offering the mobile app.

I did in fact leave over that. It was a simpler time.

</comment><comment><USER13> Why leave? There's tons of options that "serve the cause" better imo, all while getting paid to boot:

You could become a "stuck cog," deliberately working shittily to slow down development. You could cause a disaster hid behind plausible deniability - fuck up a deploy, accidentally forward an email, that kind of thing. You just gotta try to avoid committing a crime.

Or you could bombard senior management with emails demanding they take action until they just fire you.

You could spend all day improving your vimgolf skills.

</comment><comment><USER47> I left Facebook many years ago - perhaps 2007 or 2008?

One of the best things I did for my mental health. Highly recommended.

</comment><comment><USER48> Deleted mine just now after 7 years of virtually zero activity. No regrets.

Also I bought this book for my dad - Facebook is extremely toxic for Boomer- era people, just absolutely overrun with propaganda, low-value memes. The complete opposite of critical thinking.

We haven't had a chance to discuss the book's arguments or merits, but I told him I was really concerned for his mental health and his increasing paranoia, and I thought a lot of it stemmed from social media.

[https://www.amazon.com/dp/B079DTVVG8/ref=dp-kindle- redirect?...](https://www.amazon.com/dp/B079DTVVG8/ref=dp-kindle- redirect?_encoding=UTF8&btkr=1)

Anyway, if anyone has any other advice for convincing others to leave social media, I'd love to hear it.

</comment><comment><USER49> Now if this were an important Facebook employee writing this, and many Facebook employees were considering getting together to leave and start something better, I would totally love that.

</comment><comment><USER50> Please Please Please offer some GOOD alternatives to Facebook. Now is the time to come together and replace Facebook with a free decentralised alternative.

If you want to switch away from other surveillance capitalist software like Facebook, Twitter, Instagram or WhatsApp here's a list [0]

[0] [https://switching.software/](https://switching.software/)

<comment><USER51> Decentralization is usually pitched as a solution to "censorship". In this case, the complaint seems to be the reverse, that there was insufficient intervention against misinformation. So I'm not sure how decentralization applies here.

<comment><USER52> I think that's a really good point to bring up. Decentralization solves some problems but it doesn't automatically make everything better.

An interesting example relevant to this case would be Mastodon: it's an alternative to Twitter where many instances federate together, and instances are allowed to do their own moderation. Many instances have much more protective rules than Twitter and have smaller communities that their moderators are better able to integrate with.

<comment><USER53> To add on to Mastodon, Pleroma is another federated, decentralised platform with slightly different features as far as I'm aware.

There's a whole ecosystem of decentralised alternatives out there, which you can check out at [https://fediverse.party/](https://fediverse.party/)

It's definitely not easy to get people to jump ship, but I've seen an influx of new users to the Mastodon instance I'm part of.

<comment><USER42> Many of the people joining the instance I'm part of had troubles getting started (follow people, What's going on, ...) I ended up writing a blog post [https://rmpr.github.io/Migrating-from-Twitter-to- Mastodon/](https://rmpr.github.io/Migrating-from-Twitter-to-Mastodon/)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment> donkey-hotei On one level, Trump's statements about mail-in voting are just flatly untrue, pure propaganda, and completely irresponsible. But isn't it weird as well how much people are willing to let these massive tech companies essentially become fact-checkers for the content posted on it? I that that's also frightening to think about.

<comment><USER54> Shouldn't the guy have been banned from the service for violating the terms of service a long time ago? If you or me had said similar things we would have been deplatformed a while back. I think this is just a half assed way of making amends for allowing so much prominent lies on the network.

Plus it's their network, they likely have TOS allowing them to do anything on it. Probaly except altering the posts (... but they replace links with their shortener i think).

</comment></comment><comment><USER55> The hyperbole of this is almost incomprehensible. The absurdity of this latest "controversy" \- Zuck not wrapping some form of token and meaningless censorship around a single Trump tweet - is proof that this isn't about Trump. Hell, all this did was give Trump more exposure. No, it's clear that this is about breaking Zuck for political purposes, and taking control of Facebook for a single "side." Not one person _genuinely_ cares about this dumb Trump tweet, this is just trying to tip over Zuck once and for all and get him to be full- on Dorsey.

I left Facebook five years ago but it certainly wasn't about Zuck or Facebook. I hate to break it to you guys but at the end of the day, Facebook is just people. Get upset all you want but you're really just getting upset at other people for whatever reason. Facebook isn't the problem, human nature is.

<comment><USER56> > Facebook isn't the problem, human nature is.

This is almost exactly the line of thinking that the story The Weapon by Fredric Brown warns against.

[http://www.digital-eel.com/blog/library/The_Weapon.pdf](http://www.digital- eel.com/blog/library/The_Weapon.pdf)

</comment></comment><comment><USER57> Absolutely not. Facebook is the last major social network where people are able to speak their minds. And since I can select who I want to listen to, I like it. As it so happens, everyone who I follow on Facebook speaks their minds by posting pictures of their babies. This is perfectly fine by me.

I am sceptical that the paternalists will let me be when they're done dealing with Trump et al.

<comment><USER58> > Absolutely not. Facebook is the last bastion of people being able to speak > their minds. And since I can select who I want to listen to, I like it. As > it so happens, everyone who I follow on Facebook speaks their minds by > posting pictures of their babies. This is perfectly fine by me. I am > sceptical that the paternalists will let me be when they're done dealing > with Trump et al.

How is it the last bastion of anything? It is a place where people seem to be able to speak their mind. It's not the last place. The Internet is vast, and the major social networks aren't the only things in existence on it.

<comment><USER57> That's true. Allow me to edit it to "last major social network". I have access to places where I can speak my mind. I think society is stronger for allowing everyone places like that, and Facebook's discoverability is a lot higher than many other places. Maybe Reddit is also as good but it's much smaller.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER59> FB will just attract more right-wingers as they play the "hands off" role, both as users and employees. Every person who leaves because of this will be replaced by someone who considers FB to be the "fair and balanced" tech company.

<comment><USER28> Yep

</comment></comment><comment><USER60> There have been plenty of good reasons to leave Facebook, for many years. If you only now want to dump FB because they didn't muzzle Trump, you are probably part of the problem.

</comment><comment><USER61> Hmm you control your network on both FB and TW. People forget that is is then ck trailing this network. Why do you need someone else controlling your network? If you don't like someone you simply unfollow him. Doing twitter style fact checking or blocking content is censorship is this should be the reason to stop using platform not opposite allowing everyone for a free speech.</comment>


All Basecamp policies are now in GitHub - <AUTHOR> https://m.signalvnoise.com/all-basecamp-policies-are-now-on-github-and-licensed-under-creative-commons-4f45d91eb5af <comment><AUTHOR> Making your policies public will it help</comment>


Modern divorce: Wiretapped teddy bears, $120,000 in fines - <AUTHOR> http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/news/2011/03/-modern-divorce-wiretapped-teddy-bears-120000-in-fines.ars

<comment><USER2> There's a big difference between genuine concern for your child's safety and wanting to score points in a custody case. This sounds like the young woman knew very good and well(especially after reviewing the recordings) that her ex wasn't abusing their daughter, but continued the survailence simply to show him in the worst possible light. Frankly, it seems her hatred of him is causing her daughter to be caught in the crossfire and unless she significantly changes her behavior, she needs to lose custody. She's a little girl. Not a pawn to be manipulated so you look good.

<comment><USER3> A very wise person once said that nothing brings out the worst in people like divorce and probate.

<comment><USER4> Joke from a lawyer I know:

Family court == good people at their worst.

Criminal court == bad people at their best.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Merits of the case aside, that woman hired a pretty shitty divorce lawyer. The lawyer handed over incriminating material to the judge without any clue that the recording was indeed illegal.

<comment><USER6> [http://static.arstechnica.com/2011/03/08/teddy_bear_ruling.p...](http://static.arstechnica.com/2011/03/08/teddy_bear_ruling.pdf)

The tapes ultimately came to light because of discovery requests for relevant evidence. I couldn't quickly find any relevant information about discovery rules in Nebraska courts, but I'd be surprised if failing to reveal the recordings was legal here.

<comment><USER7> In a civil trial, sure, but when the evidence unveiled in discovery could result in criminal charges, I'd think the 5th Amendment would come into play. In any case, it'd get complicated quickly.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> I wonder about one thing possibly related to "wiretapping"...

Consider a person, who has really bad memory and frequently forget things. He may consider putting some sort of device on himself, which would record everything happening around. Then, if something was forgotten, this person may use his records as a sort of "external memory". Would such kind of "memory aid" be legal?

Edit: Also, if so — wouldn't (in a story linked) child's statement that she knew that the bear was a recording device legalize the situation? (Considering the bear wasn't left somewhere to record, but always remained with kid)

</comment><comment><USER9> There are a lot of bad laws out there. This is not the first really dumb case involving children out of Nebraska, back in 2008 the do-gooders there passed a child drop off law that said you could abandon your child at a firestation without problem, thinking it would save babies from dumpsters, but instead they had people from as far away as Florida driving to Nebraska to drop their teenagers off.

<comment><USER10> How is this a bad law or dumb? It seems pretty reasonable that people shouldn't be allowed to bug their ex-spouses houses.

<comment><USER9> It's bad because it criminalizes catching this sort of abuse:

[http://abcnews.go.com/GMA/video/nanny-cam-captures-abuse- on-...](http://abcnews.go.com/GMA/video/nanny-cam-captures-abuse-on- tape-10145712)

<comment><USER11> Isn't that different though? In the case you linked, the camera was in the homeowner's house (where as a guest, I would expect little to no privacy), whereas in this case the recording device traveled with the child into several different places (where there's an expectation of privacy).</comment></comment></comment></comment>


AngularJS and ES6 Modules with SystemJS That Lazy Load - <AUTHOR>

Seed project for ES6 modules via SystemJS with ES6 syntax using 6to5 that lazy-load and bundle build with AngularJS.  It does:<p>- ES6 Syntax via 6to5 with source maps - ES6 Modules via SystemJS - Karma / Jasmine unit tests with coverage report - Lazy-loading modules via routes with AngularJS - Easy watch/browser-sync/lint/test/build setup via Gulp - LESS CSS Support with source maps and minification - AngularJS Template Compilation - AngularJS Annotation - Bundle builds via SystemJS Builder - Cache Busting with SystemJS - Demonstrates on-demand theme loading<p>https://github.com/Swimlane/angular-systemjs-seed <comment><USER2> Have you thought about creating a yeoman generator?

<comment><AUTHOR> Not really but kinda just tinkering right now with how things should work.</comment></comment>


Ask HN: Job offer only lists shares that I'd receive, how much are they worth? - <AUTHOR>

I just received a job offer for a senior engineering position at a fairly early (working on series B) startup. For the equity (stock) they only list the number of shares I will receive, the cliff, and vesting schedule.<p>How am I supposed to know the value of the shares? Should I ask them to disclose the total shares float, and what percentage of the total shares my equity is? <comment><USER2> You'll want to know percentage of company, and if they've got a valuation of the company already what that value is. Unlikely if they're "fairly early" that they know their valuation, so ask them for their projected valuation at the key stages. If they're offering equity, that's lovely. But that means that they have to pull back the curtain a little bit so you know what it all means.

</comment><comment><USER3> The value of being payed in shares by an early startup is calculated by dividing the number of shares by itself, and subtracting 1.

</comment><comment><USER4> Ask how many shares have been authorized. Thats determined bybthe board of directors.</comment>


UK's RobotCar demonstrated - <AUTHOR> http://phys.org/news/2013-02-uk-robotcar-video.html <comment><USER2> This is great and nice to see some competition for Google. One thing I do like when I've seen the Google car, is it seems to bomb down the road at top speed. I've not seen how the Oxford car reacts at high speed. Hats off though, nice work guys.

<comment><USER3> Also, the human (non)driver here seems _very_ aware during the whole experiment, whereas they've always seemed totally confient in google's car videos.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> This one uses off the shelf parts and looks completely normal:

[http://www.wired.com/autopia/2013/02/continental- autonomous-...](http://www.wired.com/autopia/2013/02/continental-autonomous- vehicle/)

<comment><USER3> Highway driving and driving everywhere are two very different problems. This car seems to try to solve the former only, so it is not really comparable to google's car or this one.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5>
      "scientists hope to be able to reduce the cost
       to as little as £100 (about 150 USD)"

Don't you just hate it when they regurgitate stuff like that. I'm sure the scientists hope for many things. It is a reporter's job to call them out on that kind of crap.

<comment><USER6> Newman's group has demonstrated cross-country SLAM using a single cheap camera and a laptop. He is very well known in robotics for his elegant, cheap approaches that really work. You should take what Paul says very seriously. In a few years it is very likely that the raw hardware cost will be $150.

The software is very valuable, no doubt. Their business will be either licensing the software, the IP behind it, or renting access to maps that the software needs to work. This last one is Google's model, I am sure. Historically, Newman's stuff does not rely so much on carefully-tweaked maps.

Notice a further lack of crap at <http://www.robots.ox.ac.uk/>

<comment><USER5> I'm not questioning the validity of the research. I'm questioning that one statement (a statement similar to one that appears in so many pop-sci articles).

The £5,000 to £100 estimate is based solely on the hope that the raw component costs will come down (through bulk-buying and the natural trend of micro- electronics to get smaller, more powerful and cheaper). Unless I missed something, this is not because they have some groundbreaking method that will reduce the number (or price) or components — it's just because there is an assumption that they will.

Any IT researcher can make similar claims so they are essentially meaningless. A comparison between the £5000 and the component cost of a rival system would be more valid and would allow those of us who understand the possibilities for future component cost reduction to extrapolate.

However, there is no guarantee that component costs will continue to fall indefinitely. Who knows what wars or shortages may befall us in the future. Prices may even go up.

As this system relies on an Apple iPad does this price calculation assume that in a few years Apple will be selling a model for less than $50? I would be extremely cautious about making such an assumption.

This cost also doesn't take into account the reliability level of the components that would be required to run such a system on a daily basis. You can put together a working prototype system for £5000 but as soon as suppliers are providing components that are mission (and life) critical there is no way that they will that cheap: the insurance each supplier would need would make a huge difference to the price. Add to that the high quality control & testing and the price is unlikely to fall much over the next 10 years.

Common sense also tells us that we'd never be able to buy a system for so little. $150 is around the price of a replacement battery for my car or two cheap tyres. I cannot buy a replacement CD/radio for that much. This is for a car that is 7 years old. Surely over the last 7 years my car parts should have got cheaper?

Newman and his group know all of this — and you know this — but you choose to ignore it as it doesn't make a good quote of a Pop-Sci article. Promising excited less-technical readers a self-driving car for £100 is just too tempting.

As I said, I don't blame Newman (although I do think it detracts from their real achievements), I blame the reporter who should have gently called them on it and clarified what they really meant.

<comment><USER6> The article was pretty normal for its slightly crappy coverage of science/engineering. But the potential for extreme low cost of the mono-SLAM approach is actually the news here. It's almost _all software_.

1) You seem to be missing the important point - the approach they are using uses ordinary cameras and a computer. This really, truly can be very, very cheap to implement, once we have the (very expensive to develop but near-free- to-deploy) software. They are trying to see how much of the driving problem can be solved without using expensive laser rangefinders, etc. Your cellphone has all the hardware needed, but is not yet fast enough to do it in real time. OK, it needs more RAM too.

2) You have the prototype vs. production cost exactly inverted. For example, the iPad is much more expensive than the component cost of a dedicated touch display, which your new car already has installed for the GPS map anyway.

3) Your car's electronic traction control system is mission critical and uses very cheap electronics and near-zero-marginal-cost software. It did not add $5000 to either the build cost or purchase price of your car.

4) When an engineer talks about cost, she is not thinking about retail price.

<comment><USER5> Traction control cost $100 when it was introduced in 1971 which is ~$567 in today's money. A new traction control system costs £500-£800. Clearly those components aren't as cheap as you might think.

When a reporter writes about a cost in a PopSci publication she should be thinking in terms of retail price as her readers will be unless it is explicitly stated.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> > the UK team have concentrated on developing their technology using cheap > components such as sensors to dramatically reduce the cost.

What is this sentence trying to say?

<comment><USER8> That this team has focussed on using cheap off-the-shelf components (such as their choice of sensors) to make the total cost dramatically lower than most similar projects.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> How does an automated car handle a four-way stop sign intersection, out of curiosity?

<comment><USER10> I believe the Google car has pretty good intelligence for this, such that it will begin to creep forward to indicate that it feels its turn has come, in the same way humans do.

That being said, I don't believe that is a type of intersection we have in the UK.

<comment><USER11> And the magic roundabout in Swindon offers a pretty good test bed for any form of vehicular intelligence.

<comment><USER12> Hemel Hempstead also has one: <http://goo.gl/maps/zBZWC>

Had to go round this on my driving test many years ago. The examiner must have had a death wish.

<comment><USER13> That link does not point to the Hemel Hempstead Magic Roundabout.

This does:

[https://maps.google.com/maps?ie=UTF8&ll=51.746299,-0.473...](https://maps.google.com/maps?ie=UTF8&ll=51.746299,-0.473383&spn=0.00171,0.005686&t=h&z=18)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> I was sitting here thinking it didn't work at all until it dawned upon me that it was supposed to drive on the left side of the road.</comment>