The US South's manufacturing renaissance comes with a heavy price - <AUTHOR> https://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2017-03-23/inside-alabama-s-auto-jobs-boom-cheap-wages-little-training-crushed-limbs <comment><USER2> > The team had a quota of 420 dashboard frames per shift but seldom made more > than 350

For me, one of the most thought-provoking expressions of the perspective of the factory worker came from the Studs Terkel book, _Working_ , where he interviewed a factory worker and UAW local president named Gary Bryner in the early 1970s or late 1960s. Bryner:

 _" In that little book of quotes I have: 'The workingman has but one thing to sell, his labor. Once he loses control of that, he loses everything.'" ...

"They use time, stopwatches. They say ... We know it takes so many seconds to shoot a screw. We know the gun turns so fast, the screw's so long, the hole's so deep. Our argument has always been: That's mechanical; that's not human."

"The workers said, We perspire, we sweat, we have hangovers, we have upset stomachs, we have feelings and emotions, and we're not about to be placed in a category of a machine. When you talk about that watch, you talk about it for a minute. We talk about a lifetime. We're gonna do what's normal and we're gonna tell you what's normal. We'll negotiate from there. ..."

"If the guys didn't stand up and fight, they'd become robots too. They're interested in being able to smoke a cigarette, bullshit a little bit with the guy next to 'em, open a book, look at something, just daydream if nothing else. You can't do that if you become a machine. / Thirty-five, thirty-six seconds to do your job - that includes the walking, the picking up of the parts, the assembly. Go to the next job, with never a letup, never a second to stand and think. The guys at our plant fought like hell to keep that right."_

...

I'm not sure how much factory work is still like that, but imagine if that was your job today ... or for 8 hours per day, for the rest of your life.

<comment><USER3> I work at a manufacturing company in the Midwest and, to me, the confusing part is where the modern push to treat workers like machines is coming from. In school, we were taught how Taylor was the "father" of scientific management, but that his ideas had mostly been superseded by those of Deming, who was a huge contributor to the post-war manufacturing miracle in Japan. And yet, the management at my current company---and from what I gather, many others---is decidedly Taylorist. It's like a race to the bottom where the prize is... something? I'm honestly not sure.

<comment><USER4> It's short term quarterly thinking. Get my review and bonuses and get out. If any manager thinks the company will be around, he doesn't really care. He's not in it to build a company or a legacy or pride, he's there to get his money and get out.

Driving your workers as fast as possible maximizes your bonus. Who cares what happens in ten years?

<comment><USER5> Yeah if you read the article what you see is companies saving $7000 to avoid installing safety devices that ended up causing injuries that costed them multi-million dollar payouts in lawsuits.

The thing is, the incentives to the executives making these decisions is skewed. If they avoid investing in safety equipment, they make their bonuses, which can add up as long as nothing too bad happens. Yet if there is a serious injury costing the company millions, the worst thing that can happen is they lose their jobs. For senior executives, the bonuses can be larger than their base salaries, so the upside is larger than the downside.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> >Elsea was 20 and not easily deterred. "She thought she was rich when she brought home that first paycheck," Ogle says. Elsea and her boyfriend got engaged. She worked 12-hour shifts, seven days a week, hoping to move from temporary status at Ajin to full time, which would bring a raise from $8.75 an hour to $10.50. College can wait, she told her mom and stepdad.

And I wasn't contemplating having a family unless I was making at least $150k/year...just goes to show how out of touch one can get in your own network.

<comment><USER7> Can anyone comment why so many positions are temporary and contract nowadays?

How did such a shift happen whereby full-time permanent jobs became a luxury?

<comment><USER8> I can think of a few things:

\- global competition, in that factory workers are competing against the pay/living-standards of those in poorer nations

\- no unions

\- a preparedness of employees to work for a pittance, towards unobtainable quotas, in unsafe conditions, for dangerously long periods of time.

I'm not sure work gets any more full-time than 12 hours a day, 7 days a week. "Full-time permanent" sounds like semantics and a loophole for companies to exploit.

<comment><USER9> You probably need to add the continually evolving automation and mechanization tech to the list.

<comment><USER8> indeed

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Manufacturing is dangerous everywhere. In Europe it is safest the US is also quite safe. China is much worse, and India is a catastrophe. By doing metal work in the US and not in China or India, you are saving lives. Fewer Americans will die then Chinese or Indians would have. The woman who died, according to the article, "and entered the screened-off area around the robot to clear the fault herself." She actually went into an area that was marked as unsafe. Of course, there is a simple fix for this, which is implemented in many good factories, you can have a gate which you have to open to get into that area, and by opening the gate you flip a dead switch which must be manually turned and pressed again in order to restart the robot. Either that, or there are mats which either turn the machine off or mats which you must be standing on for the machine to stay on.

I am, however, wary of safty regulations that, for example, make it so that there has to be a shield with a saftey switch on stamping machines. Here is a video of how they work [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S_WITEHwjqI](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S_WITEHwjqI) you can imagine how an unsheilded one is dangerous, but to open the polycarbonate casing for each part and close it again before stamping is far slower.

I think that instead, there should be tabular fines for companies. If an employee loses their finger in a press, then they get fined $200,000 no mater what tech was used. That leaves it up to the company to figure out a good way to prevent injuries.

<comment><USER11> > I think that instead, there should be tabular fines for companies. If an > employee loses their finger in a press, then they get fined $200,000 no > mater what tech was used. That leaves it up to the company to figure out a > good way to prevent injuries.

In red states, that's known as oppressive regulation where useless bureaucrats are telling business owners how to do their job.

<comment><USER10> Using a fine is oppressive regulation or having standards is?

<comment><USER12> Both. If you are incredibly libertarian you view all business as contracts between consenting adults that the government should only be involved in if one side welshes on the deal

<comment><USER13> Gov shouldn't even be involved then except insofar as it is necessary to establish the rule of law. Lawyers and courts can resolve those deal disagreements. If a buyer owes the seller money that's the seller's problem. (in this worldview)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> I was not expecting that. Something out of a science fiction movie.

" _She died the next day. Her mom still hasn't heard a word from Ajin's owners or senior executives. They sent a single artificial flower to her funeral._ "

<comment><USER15> It sounds like a cultural thing.

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> Rust Belt checking in here. My hometown's in a northern union stronghold where waves of plant closings starting in the 1980's completely wrecked the local and regional economy. Which still hasn't recovered -- and seems to be getting worse, after being rocked by the financial crisis a few years ago and the currently ongoing drug overdose epidemic.

Laws or union restrictions can stop firms from getting away with extremely low pay, treating their employees like crap and shitting all over the environment. But only if those firms don't have the option of relocating to other places that don't have similar restrictions.

I fully recognize Donald Trump has many very obvious shortcomings as a person and as a politician. But if his election finally results in _shutting down the global free trade policies that have utterly wrecked my community,_ then all the negative things I'm sure he'll do likely won't outweigh that single positive achievement.

<comment><USER17> Rust Belt checking in here, too. If you're letting the future of your community ride on hopes of traditional manufacturing jobs coming back, you're never going to get out of the hole you're in. Getting rid of free trade isn't going to stop China from roflstomping our manufacturing economy, and whatever they don't crush, robots will. The future doesn't lie that way, and hoping a pathological liar was lying to everyone _but_ you is a recipe for disaster.

<comment><USER18> Even those not in the rust belt have a good reason to want those jobs to stay here: current account and exchange rates.

The more jobs move abroad, the more money flows out of our economy, bolstering the purchasing power of those other economies, helping them invest in ways roflstomp our economy in more ways than just manufacturing.

Rising exchange rates will only hurt those US businesses that rely on exports when the cost of manufacturing the same goods is higher in the US versus elsewhere in the world. That said, fully automated businesses should have approximately the same cost anywhere in the world.

The better our current account, the more our money buys both here in the US and from the rest of the world.

<comment><USER4> > Even those not in the rust belt have a good reason to want those jobs to > stay here: current account and exchange rates.

Yes, everyone wants those jobs, or, _jobs_ , to stay. But almost no one working today has a job that looks anything like a job of 100 years ago, and I doubt anyone would want those jobs.

Almost every job worked today is going to disappear, or change beyond recognition that it's still the same job.

Those lost manufacturing jobs are just among the first of the current set of jobs to disappear. Yes, it's painful and tragic; not because those specific jobs were lost, but because we have mis-managed the idleness of the people whose jobs vanished.

The fix is not to cling to jobs that the free market says should not exist, and that consumers also say should not exist by buying the cheapest available products, often products not previously available. Some of those consumers are the very ones that have lost their old jobs.

The only way for _those_ manufacturing jobs to stay or come back is to never buy anything that didn't exist 50 years ago, and to stay out of Walmart and Amazon and everywhere else that sells anything at all from outside America.

Who starts?

We've lost the recognition that the reason we band together into communities and governments is to support each other. We've come to act as if "I've got my support, sorry you lost yours" is the proper way to treat each other.

We need to stop being so punitive and miserly, automatically blaming people for their condition. How anyone got anywhere doesn't much matter. How we move each other to the next better thing is what we should be focusing on.

I despair that we can get anywhere near that as long as quarterly, my bonus, my election thinking allows the few to stay a few steps ahead of everyone else. We treat each other as social petri dishes, and we're quite willing to throw the experiment materials out if it doesn't fit our data, our view of how we think the world is and how it ought to be.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> My son's were recently offered a job setting up these robots and turned it down for non-safety reasons. Like it or not, robots will take 80% or more of the jobs that are returning to the USA from overseas.

The solution we should be thinking about is how to make it so that you don't have to turn off a robot for it to know a human is in range. Problem solved.

<comment><USER20> This is exactly what the manufactures are working on. Google: Collaborative Robotics

</comment></comment><comment><USER21> How does this compare to 50 years ago, at the "peak" of US manufacturing? Obviously, there weren't robots back then to crush people, but there was still heavy equipment, corrosive and carcinogenic chemicals, etc.

<comment><USER22> Calling these machines "robots" is new, but the risks aren't. Workers 50 years ago would probably recognize most of these machines, and their hazards, given different names: mill, press, lathe...

<comment><USER23> And there are cartoons from about 100 years ago about the same hazards: [https://www.google.com/search?q=bull+of+the+woods+machinist&...](https://www.google.com/search?q=bull+of+the+woods+machinist&espv=2&tbm=isch&tbo=u&source=univ&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjZ9dySmPDSAhWj24MKHYLWCwgQsAQIKw&biw=1084&bih=547#imgrc=OtCgppDxiVeC0M):

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> Remember, one of Trump's promises is to reduce governmental regulations on businesses, and presumably that includes in the factory safety area. Plus you can expect the Republican-dominated congress to help him out here.

<comment><USER25> Voted on this week: [https://ohsonline.com/articles/2017/02/27/congress- moving-bi...](https://ohsonline.com/articles/2017/02/27/congress-moving-bill- to-repeal-2016-recordkeeping-rule.aspx?m=2)

[https://www.govtrack.us/congress/bills/115/hjres83/summary](https://www.govtrack.us/congress/bills/115/hjres83/summary)

</comment></comment><comment><USER26> It'll get worse with all these regulations being gutted or ignored over the next 4 years.

</comment><comment><USER27> What's Bloomberg's agenda here?

An article exactly like this one, graphically describing bloody car accidents from last week, could make the case that driving comes with a heavy price.

Or an article detailing the aftermath of failed surgeries paid for by the ACA: "universal health care comes with a heavy price".

Terrifying anecdotes are provocative, but unenlightening.

<comment><USER28> The hidden agenda is promoting more laws and regulations. It's like the lawyer who insists to you that "The more court cases we file, the more justice there is in the world."

Lots of unsexy but well-paying jobs exist in regulation compliance in the USA. In fact it's a huge industry that has its share of tech startups with below average risks of coming up empty.

Sure beats being treated like a robot.

<comment><USER29> is there a laws and regulations lobby?

<comment><USER28> Why lobby when such pieces designed to prick the public's moral indignation work so much better?

The cognoscenti recognize that lobbying is but one of multiple levers they could pull.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER30> The US consumer doesn't give a shit about worker's safety, even if those workers are American. The only people fighting for workers' safety are unions and no one likes unions.

<comment><USER31> This, I think, is the core issue. While unions have their faults, they have also fought for workers' rights and for reasonable conditions, promotions, etc. In our drive to demonize unions and fetishize business we've forgotten that there is a powerful "drive to the bottom", and it doesn't care about who (or how many) people are in its path.

<comment><USER32> The problem with unions is that over time they devolve into yet-another- powerstructure whose main goal seems to be self preservation rather than to protect those workers rights leading to all kinds of abuses and nonsense regulations that in fact harm those workers.

<comment><USER33> You can say this about many/most human-led organisations, right?

I've wondered when we might see someone pitch to YC a technical solution to what unions do, without the cruft that can come from human influence (losing sight of purpose, developing corruption, etc). Is there even a way to do it?

<comment><USER32> > You can say this about many/most human-led organisations, right?

Yes, that's true.

> I've wondered when we might see someone pitch to YC a technical solution to > what unions do, without the cruft that can come from human influence (losing > sight of purpose, developing corruption, etc). Is there even a way to do it?

These are social problems, not technical problems. Solving social problems requires the cooperation of all the parties involved. Democracy is one nice example of a technical solution to a social problem, money another. Both rely heavily on everybody playing by the rules.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Why reddit sucks: The broken economics of karma - <AUTHOR> http://jeffdechambeau.com/redditing-to-the-mean.html <comment><USER2> The challenges of karmic currencies (sorry couldn't resist) are well known.

I totally agree that they tend to create a 'hive mind' type unity when there is a scalar value. That an be good in the sense that the community converges around a common set of shared beliefs and values, folks who don't share those beliefs and values get signaled to leave, and typically it seems they do. The 'center mass' of that community moves but only slowly over time.

In one of pg's posts about the challenges of karma and Hackernews, I suggested that an interesting experiment might be to try making it a vector rather than a scalar. The idea is conceptually simple, you have 'more approve' and 'less approve' (upvote and downvote) but the person whose comment you are posting on defines the vector. It would work like this:

Alice upvotes Bob generates vector [1, Bob] Alice downvotes Chuck generates vector [-1, Chuck] Bob upvotes Alice generates [1, Alice] Chuck dowvotes Bob [-1, Bob]

So between Alice and Bob there are both positive upvotes. This creates a [Alice, Bob] nexus, there are negative votes away from Chuck by both Bob and Alice which creates a [Chuck, Chuck] nexus which is directionally 'opposite' the [Alice, Bob] nexus.

Now if you work this over the community. Alice and Bob will have higher karma in the [Alice, Bob] community and lower in the [Chuck, Chuck] community. So when you show karma 'points' for Alice they represent Alice's conformance to that community and show Chuck as negative in their community. But when Chuck looks at his karma he is positive in the [Chuck, Chuck] nexus and Alice and Bob are negative.

The question (and I don't know the answer of course)is whether or not you can create a discussion site which evolves several simultaneous communities by karma score within the same set of conversations. The ultimate test would be that the comments you see are always interesting and insightful to you but they may be differently rated than someone else seeing the same conversation.

Anyway, one of those 'if I had a spare weekend I'd try this...' kinds of thoughts. The idea is public domain, I've got not personal claim on it, I'm not even sure its implementable!

<comment><USER3> There is actually a lot of research in this specific area out there, so don't worry about needing to give the idea away :)

Some systems I have noodled around with apply a similar set of vectors using an advogato-like trust metric, but one where each viewer is their own source of (advocato was a hierarchical system where trust flowed from a few sources, given available resources today you can evaluate the flow network from each viewer's individual perspective.) It is not too hard to extend such a system to embody ideas like "expertise" where topics and keywords are passive nodes in the graph so that Alice can upvote Bob for postings related to coding but downvote him on postings about politics.

The research and mechanics are fun to play with and think about, but when you start to analyze the system in terms of the sort of community it would probably create you end up with a collection of smaller, partially overlapping echo chambers. The real problem, IMHO, is that you need to get a little bit more signal on the inputs. Up/down is just not enough. I think a system like this can determine if you using up/down as agree/disagree or as interesting/stupid, but if you mix those signals things appear to rapidly head towards some unpleasant local minima. If there was a nice way to get users to use a four or eight point voting box (permute agree/disagree, interesting/not- interesting, and optionally add a null signal for each pair) then you could really do some fun stuff for creating a neat alternative to all of the various social news sites out there...

<comment><USER2> Interesting, the term 'advocato' doesn't yield much in the terms of research along these routes, do you have a paper reference? (Lori Avocato does have a few papers that pop up on scholar.google.com though, I bet she got kidded a lot in grade school)

So perhaps the ideal karmic feedback device for this system is a compass rose with a center button. This would be

                    <agree>
                       |
      <not this> - <perfect> - <more this>
                       |
                   <disagree>

The idea being that you could choose 'perfect' (which would exclude all other choices) or you could choose one of agree/disagree _and_ one of not this/more this.

The idea of course is that there is an inferred 'commonality' point and by dropping these comments and stories you can have people give an indication of where they sit relative to those inferred points.

And while it certainly might lead to a bunch of 'echo chambers' my experience in such systems is that it pulls people out of those echo chambers into bigger clumps than that.

<comment><USER3> Damn autocorrect; you catch one letter and miss the correction on the other one -- two paras in I still had not noticed that my response appeared to be discussing avocados.. "advogato" is the system I was referencing, and if you want to dig into similar work check out papers by Cai-Nicolas Ziegler, some of Pattie Maes old work, and Hugo Liu's work from before he joined Hunch.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> I don't see that. Racism (oh the racism), misogyny, homophobia (etc.) are everywhere on Reddit. It's full of shit. The content sucks.

My pet theory is that a lack of moderation is responsible for that. Ask Science has excellent moderators and is doing well. Many other subreddits (especially the big ones) pick a very laissez faire approach and consequently manage to sound more like Stormfront in the end.

All the horrible people who are thrown out everywhere else can just continue hanging out at Reddit.

</comment><comment><USER5> This article makes a valid point about the hive mind, I'm just not sure that it's reddit-specific. If there were no karma on reddit, would we see markedly different behavior?

Further, there's an assumption here that everyone has an opinion on everything, which isn't the case. I think a related, and potentially more insidious problem is that the first well-crafted opinion in a thread tends to inform the opinion of followers-on, accumulating karma all the while and becoming the default position of the group.

<comment><USER6> > If there were no karma on reddit, would we see markedly different behavior?

I remember wild disagreements on usenet that would never happen on reddit because one side would quickly be voted down below the visibility level.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> Ironic that this post showed up at HN which is similar to reddit.

From my perspective, what you are saying makes sense. Except that both of these platforms give less currency to the personalities/users and more currency to the content. Making users the king over the content is exactly what the typical Social-Networking model requires and I am for one glad that in this day and age of Facebook and G+, the sanity still prevails somewhere (though it has its cons as well).

</comment><comment><USER8> There is a cost to voting on Reddit, it's the time/attention cost of moving your mouse over and clicking a tiny button. Sometimes you even have to log in! For people browsing a web site, time & attention is a significant currency.

It's true that karma is a flawed as an economic system or a measure of contribution. But, who cares if the numbers are theoretically unsound? The end goal is to generate usage, something which Reddit has been extremely successful at.

</comment><comment><USER9> you are using it wrong. subscribe to stuff that interests you. don't subscribe to subreddits you aren't. problem solved

</comment><comment><USER10> uh yeah reddit is a pos full of mediocre tools, I don't need some butthurt to write a blog post about it but thanks I guess.

<comment><AUTHOR> You got my number bro.</comment></comment>


The 64-Bit Temple Operating System - <AUTHOR> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EViG0Q4lTeA

<comment><USER2> For those who don't know, this was created by HN member losetheOS aka SparrowOS. You won't see his comments unless you shave ShowDead enabled in your profile, as many people find his comments confusing.

Terry is schizophrenic and this sometimes make communications tricky, but I'm in awe of how he's developed a complete operating environment from scratch and which is quite different from anything else I'm aware of. Also, I really appreciated the insight this video gave into his motivations for the OS and how he uses it. Thanks for uploading the video Terry, and to morganwilde for posting it on HN.

<comment><USER3> It's more art than OS, and the art world is all the more interesting from having people with wildly divergent viewpoints.

My only disappointment is there isn't a proper Wikipedia page for this project.

The comments from the dead are rather...enlightening.

<comment><USER2> There's a lot of interesting detail in the Metafilter thread about an earlier version: [http://www.metafilter.com/119424/An-Operating-System-for- Son...](http://www.metafilter.com/119424/An-Operating-System-for-Songs-from- God)

<comment><USER3> That's a quick summary. I've been casually following the developments of this project for a while now ever since it showed up on the radar of OSDev and from there Something Awful which has a talent for curating the uniquely surreal.

It's an achievement on the scale of Henry Darger's collection ([http://www.folkartmuseum.org/darger](http://www.folkartmuseum.org/darger)) and perhaps stands alone as an example of "outsider art" in the world of operating system design.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> From the MetaFilter Thread comes Terry's description of his work:

 _I wnated to make a souped-up, modern 64-bit, C64 so teenagers could do what I did in high school. I had the book Mapping the C64 and I had hours of fun poking and proding around with all the internals of the operationg system for cheap thrills. I wanted to let people control the hardware directly. I wanted something simple, to get your head around. LoseThos is two orders of magnitude simpler than Linux. LoseThos is 135,000 lines of code including my compiler. It is 100% self contained and complete. When I got Linux, I was disappointed because I thought "open source" meant I would have fun messing with the code. Linux tries to support so many architectures and has a main frame operating system, that it's too complex. LoseThos is way way way simpler. Plus it has many innovative ideas. It is not ASCII source code, for example._

</comment><comment><USER2> I wonder if there was any special reason for choosing x64, other than that it's the most powerful architecture that is easily accessible. Will TempleOS (or some future version) ever be implemented for ARM or other platforms like the Mill? ([http://millcomputing.com/docs/](http://millcomputing.com/docs/))

Edit: there is a lot of explanation at [http://www.templeos.org/Wb/Accts/TS/Wb2/TempleOS.html](http://www.templeos.org/Wb/Accts/TS/Wb2/TempleOS.html) \- I guess I should have asked 'are you _only_ interested in x64, or other architectures too?'

<comment><USER5> You'll do better if you look at it as an art project, or more accurately, the product of a gifted but mentally ill mind. It's not the next Linux.

<comment><USER2> I know that. I just wonder if Terry is interested in building on other architectures besides x64 - though I do think its a great teaching/hacking tool in the tradition of the 80s home computers he references as inspiration.</comment></comment></comment>


Ask HN: How are you intentional about diversity hiring? - <AUTHOR> Hi HN,<p>We're getting ready to start our hiring process for our first engineer in the next week or so and I want to be super intentional about our diversity efforts. Does anyone know of any good job posting boards? I'm already aware of hiretechladies.com, employdiversity.com, and jobs.chicktech.org. Thanks! <comment><USER2> To be very intentional you could share the target racial distribution you aim for in the work place. Hard percentages. Ideally the racial distribution should match the distribution of potential applicants in the market for your job.

If you take merit into account, it could cause an imbalance. For example you may end up with too many Hispanics or women due to their high merit.</comment>


Challenge HN: Build a Search Engine - <AUTHOR>

Before HN went down there were 2 articles that made it to the front page in as many days with comments overwhelmingly favoring more/better search engine competition.
Today another post popped up on the front page of HN...this time a link to a new search engine.  Predictably, the comments are overwhelmingly negative, not constructive criticism, but mostly thoughtless (e.g. this will not work; not another social network; this has been done before and bought/closed by Google).  To be fair there was a sprinkling of positive and thoughtful critique in the comments.
So...I challenge you to do better.  Who am I to judge or challenge?  Well I will say this much, I am an attorney and otherwise what HN would refer to as "non-technical", but even I launched my own search engine (cir. 2010).  I might not have changed search or even gained traction - I did get tens of thousands of search queries from day 1 and a record of 225,000+ on day 4 - but at least I got the experience of completing something.
If a non-hacker can do it, what is stopping you?  If it helps for motivation think of this as an unofficial, unorganized HN Hackathon and build your search engine or at least do not just sit around demanding a new search engine or worse yet tearing down others work (again not talking about constructive criticism). <comment><USER2> I like to think I'm one of the regularly positive responders on HN, and I am assuming you're referring to Jelly.co as the 'new search engine'.

But... it isn't a search engine at all, it's a photo based Q&A site where responders are limited to within your social network.

I have no problem with a photo based Q&A site, and about 6 months ago thought about building one myself (but thankfully I'm too focused on another project).

Seeing as you've called Jelly a 'search engine', and have launched a 'search engine' yourself, what was yours called? I looked at your previous posts and saw your OmmaGeo links, but that isn't a search engine.

I'm fine with you challenging others based on their lack of respect for the hard-work people put into their products and businesses, but please don't spew off statistics that sound somewhat outrageous.

At the same time, I've built a 'search engine' too ([http://techcrunch.com/hearwhere](http://techcrunch.com/hearwhere)), and it was my second website (the first was a pandora type music service). Building any old search-engine isn't that challenging, but building a GREAT search service is.

Also, no need to single yourself out as non-technical, lots of non-technical people out there who are helping us technical people find our way to building great products.

</comment><comment><USER3> What happened to yours?

<comment><AUTHOR> I stopped hosting it after a year.

<comment><USER3> Do you mind sharing about how it was built (the backend)?

<comment><AUTHOR> The idea was to build a visually appealing search engine for mobile devices. Essentially, the text based search results were converted to display the domain favicon with the ability for domain owners to register and manage their _results image_ for subpages.

Screen shots:

[1][https://www.dropbox.com/s/xxc3n93dixve2h3/tbook.jpg](https://www.dropbox.com/s/xxc3n93dixve2h3/tbook.jpg) [2][https://www.dropbox.com/s/fdcucartroj8vbq/tbookobama.jpg?m=](https://www.dropbox.com/s/fdcucartroj8vbq/tbookobama.jpg?m=)

Originally built using Google's API, then redone with Bing's API, this was due to Google's daily query limits being exceeded.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Kitchen Hacking: Perfect Steak, Sous-Vide Style - <AUTHOR> http://grandst.tumblr.com/post/43492419935/kitchen-hacking-perfect-steak-sous-vide-style

<comment><USER2> Lousy buy-now link doesn't let you see the item</comment>


5$ Free Bitcoin for JP Morgan Employees Who Disagree with Jamie Dimon - <AUTHOR> http://promo.bitaccess.co/jpmorgan <comment><USER2> I am very skeptical of any site that does not have SSL in 2017, especially a Bitcoin related site.</comment>


Desktops are outgrowing me, and I'm worried - <AUTHOR> http://www.granig.io/2012/11/outgrowing-desktops/ <comment><USER2> One of my fears as I hit 35 is just a general fear that suddenly I'll blink and I won't be able to use the essential interfaces that you need to get stuff done as effectively as most of the people around you.

As the OP describes - we all remember our grandparents struggling to use computers with any degree of effectiveness at all. Is that just because they grew up in a time where tech just wasn't evolving that fast? And so weren't used to having to constantly update their stack? Or is it just that their brains no longer could cope.

Even if it is the former - might the rate of change in 20 years time itself dwarf the rate of change that we grew up with such that we'll end up like our grandparents anyway.

This fear sometimes leads me to do stupid things. I bought a nexus 7 tablet - before I knew what the hell I really needed it for. I still don't know where it fits in my life - except for more pleasant web browsing in bed. I've enabled just about every google location, search history this n that - just to see what on earth all this shit does for me. And as far as I can see - I still don't use it as anything other than a web browser.

Is this THAT object that defines my bewildered obsolescence? Are people using these things in ways I can't even imagine that gives them an edge over others in their everyday lives?

I assume I'm not going to be able to tell until some ten year old looks over my shoulder and tells me I'm doing it wrong.

<comment><USER3> _As the OP describes - we all remember our grandparents struggling to use computers with any degree of effectiveness at all. Is that just because they grew up in a time where tech just wasn't evolving that fast? And so weren't used to having to constantly update their stack? Or is it just that their brains no longer could cope._

I've turned 40 and I already see where my demise will be. It won't be in what _I_ consider tech (gadgets, languages, frameworks, HW, etc...), but rather how to use social networks. I already am like my grandparents when it comes to Twitter (does this message go to everyone or not?). And with Facebook I'm always unclear about who can see what (private, friends, Facebook users, everyone?). And I have virtually no understanding why instagram and pinterest are "must have" apps.

I've seen where I'll be like my granddad and it will be in social networks.

<comment><USER4> > And with Facebook I'm always unclear about who can see what (private, > friends, Facebook users, everyone?)

it seems cruel to say this is your fault - Facebook's UI for determining this is terrible and basically only .05% of Facebooks users have an idea of where their messages go (probably).

<comment><USER5> Perhaps part of the age gap is that you actually care to think about where the messages go while a younger audience just assumes it is handled the way it should be, or cares little about controlling it.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Cached version: [http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:http://...](http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:http://www.granig.io/2012/11/outgrowing- desktops/&hl=en&tbo=d&strip=1)

</comment><comment><USER7> Some evolutionary paths are also dead ends. Only time will tell with Unity.

I find it slows me down, but it's just yet another attempt at "simple," by hiding the desktop. Turns out consumers like simple and the desktop is too free-form for most people (What are icons? Heck, what's a "double click"? I just want the Internet -- this does the Internet, right?), just like the terminal was too free-form for people before that, just like that's limiting compared to soldering transistors. The desktop is still there (you can remove Unity), as is the terminal (you can remove all desktops). The desktop PC/grampa box isn't going anywhere, even after the laptop, and the laptop is still useful after the tablet/smartphone. The only thing you have to worry about is not being able to choose what works best for you. Otherwise, just hang onto your towel, and remember: "don't panic."

</comment><comment><USER8> Ageing users are not the problem, UI racing to the bottom is.

As noted in another reply, computers are becoming entertainment appliances for most/many people - so the UI is trending to their skill and interest level. Remember the flashing 12:00 on your VCR? That's the level of UI we're heading for.

This race to the bottom leaves the rest of us, thems of us that actually use and understand these things, behind.

For unrelated reasons, I installed Cinnamon on Ubuntu 12.10 yesterday and I don't hate my computer anymore. I don't "love Ubuntu" again, because Ubuntu is now just the substrate on which Cinnamon runs. If reinstalling the OS weren't such a pain, I would, but for now I can live with Unityless freedom.

</comment><comment><USER9> It sounds to me like you really just want someone else to pick a window manager, some tool bars, text editor, keyboard shortcuts, programming language, package manager, IM notification icon, etc, and then never change those choices. That isn't going to happen. Here's the good part, you're already on Linux, you have a bunch of good choices for all those things and the only other thing you need to know is that your weird hangup on a desktop being 'future proof' makes absolutely no sense whatsoever. What is your concern? That you won't be able to sit down in front of someone else's Mac OS 10.n Big Cat alpha and figure out how to open a window without seeking help? If you've been using anything but that for any amount of time you'll probably be a little lost, even if you've been using the current stable Mac OS. Apple, MS and now Ubuntu have all made drastic changes in the DE between releases and that's their choice, it is what it is, someone else picking shit for you, take it or leave it. I suggest going minimalist for a while and figuring out exactly what YOU want. Arch Linux is a good starting point if you're interested. When you find out what you actually need and don't have to work around other peoples choices, you will love your desktop again and it will be a deeper love, a love only known by a parent for it's chi... uhh... Just quit letting people with their own agendas pick what you work with for such a large chunk of your life.

</comment><comment><USER10> Is it just me or does it seem like the author doesn't know you can change to any number of desktop environments that will give them all they want while still being Ubuntu.

/Openbox/Slackware. This whole Linux thing is about choice.

<comment><AUTHOR> It's not about Ubuntu in particular. Ubuntu just used to combine the concepts and tools in user-friendly way without the need to "tinker".

Where do you turn to for a modern Desktop if everything is going the same (=OSX) direction? The whole point is that staying with Gnome 2.x will put you into an entrenched situation, whereas everyone else is moving on, but in a way which just doesn't fit your way of working, and without perspective that it'll ever fit?

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> My progression was similar, and my thoughts similar, except for this one divergence: Right around the same time that Unity the window manager came out, I needed to start working with Unity 3d the game development platform, which is only available for Windows not Linux. So I installed Windows 7, and now I don't have any more quarrels with Unity and Ubuntu 12. Problem solved! I still use a Mac and a Linux box via combinations of ssh and Synergy. I don't like Unity (the window manager) either, but I'm honestly mystified why so many people fall on their swords over this instead of just getting back to work, or using a different distro.

I installed Lubuntu on an old machine to use on my TV, and it's just like old times on the Window manager, except it uses up to date packages. Why all the trail of tears? The author is willing to install Cynagenmod 10 on his phone, but he's not willing to just install a different flavor of Linux on his desktop? That's just silly. I conclude the author doesn't know about Lubuntu or many other seriously good alternatives to make the pain go away.

</comment><comment><USER12> I really believe Ubuntu needs a flat, modern UI going forward, because Unity is very heavy on resources even for x86 chips, and is completely in conflict with Canonical's aggressive support of ARM chips. Ubuntu would run so much better on ARM chips if it didn't have Unity, and considering Canonical wants to put Ubuntu even on tablets and phones eventually, I'd say this makes it a big deal, and should be their #1 priority right now.

They also need to do it before 14.04 LTS and before the rumored SDK for Ubuntu is ready, if they actually plan to create design resources for "Ubuntu apps". They need to decide right now what Ubuntu needs to look like in the future, and how efficient it should be, unless they want to rebuild everything 1-2 years later.

The new UI also needs to be inspired by Windows 7 not Mac OS X. The developers working at Canonical might be Mac OS X fans, and using Macs but that should be _completely irrelevant_. They need to follow their target market, and that is Windows users not Mac users. Ubuntu will never get much market share by being installed on Macs and replacing Mac OS. But it could get some potential significant market share from the fallout of Windows 8 and the Windows ecosystem. The market share of Windows is like 20x greater than that of Mac OS. They have a lot more opportunity for growth there.

Someone like me who is coming from Windows would much rather use something like Linux Mint or Zorin OS than Ubuntu. I tried Ubuntu and it took me a while to _moderately_ get used to it, although I still found it frustrating by the time I gave up on it and tried Mint, which I found very "intuitive" to use, coming from Windows. That's what Ubuntu needs to go back to. One of the reasons I gave up on Ubuntu was also about feeling it's not faster than Windows 7, which again, is a major problem with Unity right now.

</comment><comment><USER13> \- <http://linuxmint.com/>

\- <http://mate-desktop.org/>

</comment><comment><USER14> I've been using computers since the days of the VIC 20 and Apple II. A lot has changed since then, generally for the better. I'm significantly older than you and I'm here to tell you one thing: you'd better get with it. I don't see any point in crying about a desktop metaphor that's dying. Let's face it - there's a lot of people now whose primary computer is a smartphone or tablet. The name of the game today is to create a user interface manager that works well with those devices AND the desktop. We're not there yet, but that's the direction we're headed, and more importantly, it's the direction we should be headed.

One final thing, I'm using an iPad to read and respond to this post. On this iPad I have an outstanding code editor and development environments for Lisp, Scheme, Python, J, F# and JavaScript. This is the way of the future.

</comment><comment><USER15> Personally I like the Mac OS X interface, and my only complaint about it is that I would like to see more applications making better use of large screens, especially if this "full screen app" is going to become the next style wave to sweep interfaces.

For example making Chrome full screen stretches one tab across the entire width of my iMac screen, which is a stupid waste of space on most websites, and looks horrible on some websites which try to fluidly expand to the entire width of this huge screen. A better user of the horizontal space in Chrome would be to show multiple tabs side by side or even history, with the most recent page in a pane the far right, and the page that you came from in a pane to the left of that, the page before that in another pane to the left, etc.

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> A reachable version of the post is here: <http://www.sipwise.com/news/doutgrowing-desktops/>

</comment><comment><USER16> Just because something is touted as 'better' doesn't mean it is, remember Microsoft Bob? If these UIs really are more useful you will see people being more productive with them, and you can mimic their usage. Otherwise don't burn brain cycles trying to 'get' the latest interface.

</comment><comment><USER17> I think part of it is the new style of desktop/shell itself just hasn't yet had enough time to mature.

<comment><USER18> I think a huge part of it is that unity is burning trash and the people behind it either don't have any idea what they're doing, or are suffering from the sunk cost fallacy.

Unfortunately after the amazon adware fiasco, I'm starting to lean on the former.

</comment></comment><comment><USER19> The funny thing about all the Gnome 3 complaints is that I felt exactly the same way about Gnome 2. I had the perfect Gnome 1 desktop configured and then Gnome 2 came along and removed every configuration option. That was about the same time Miguel began integrating Mono into everything and I realised that whether he was aware of it or not everything he did was to assist Microsoft in damaging Linux. There was a new Unix out in the form of OS X so I jumped ship to that and haven't looked back. (Until now, since I'm finding the Apple ecosystem too restrictive and looking at something more Free.)

<comment><USER20> Yeah, good thing you escaped from Linux before Microsoft succeeded in destroying it using Mono, killing everyone on board. (???)</comment></comment>


On the Front Lines of South Africa's Baboon Wars - <AUTHOR> https://www.outsideonline.com/2231291/frontlines-south-africas-human-vs-baboon-war <comment><USER2> <As human settlements expand across the earth's surface, conflicts with wildlife are increasing. According to a review in the journal Animal Conservation, this represents "one of the most widespread and intractable issues facing [conservationists] today.">

They talk of it is a new thing but it has always been this way. Everywhere man moves to, he tends to wipe everything out, establish monocultures of food and nobody generally heard about it.

The only difference now is that we hear about it more...

and there is precious little "wildlife" left in the world, so maybe we are just beginning to care a little.</comment>


JavaScript in Ableton Live - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/jsnelgro/midi-thru-js-fn <comment><AUTHOR> A max for live device for evaluating a function and mapping the output to parameters in Ableton Live. I also wrote this accompanying blog post to give some usage examples: [https://medium.com/@jsnelgro/writing-javascript-in- ableton-l...](https://medium.com/@jsnelgro/writing-javascript-in-ableton- live-5af601b45196)</comment>


Jacob Appelbaum Accused of Rape - <AUTHOR> https://email@example.com/behind-every-serial-abuser-there-are-many-enablers-491bf2303f82 <comment><USER2> Hmmm...I see an allegation of rape, which is a serious criminal allegation. This is not for a 'community' or conference organizers to adjudicate, we have the criminal justice system for this: the police, the courts etc.

Conversely, a false accusation is also a serious crime. This is simply not a matter to be resolved in public by defamation. Leave it to the courts.

<comment><USER3> Chelsea addressed this in her post if you had read it.

"I have worked with legal counsel throughout this entire process. I have strongly considered the idea of seeking criminal charges in Germany against Jacob, but initiating lengthy legal proceedings in another country which I am neither a citizen nor a resident is a significant barrier for me. That said, I would gladly discuss this with any interested German authority and would be willing to testify in any court of law about this crime without hesitation."

<comment><USER2> That's not addressing it. At all.

Rape is serious crime. It is therefore an 'Offizialdelikt', which means that it must be prosecuted if the Staatsanwaltschaft knows about it, and once they know about it, it becomes their case.

Not pursuing this through the criminal justice system because you can't be bothered, but instead resorting to public defamation instead is at best fishy, because in the context of an Offizialdelikt, the distinction she draws doesn't make sense.

<comment><USER4> To clarify (if necessary), its the distinction between criminal vs civil case. Rape is prosecuted by the state on the initiate of the state. The victim do not "initiating lengthy legal proceedings", they only report the crime to the police and the dedicated prosecutor for sexual violence crime is responsible to take it from there.

A victim of such crimes have a right to be heard, right to get support, and the right to receive compensation from the accused if they are found guilty. The victim is not required to testify and the accused can still be found guilty.

In some cases it happen that the victim rescinds their version and the prosecutor still continue to go forward with the case. That can't happen in civil cases but it can in criminal.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> "I thought Jacob was a friend and engaged in consensual sexual relations with him during those three days. It took me five months to process and understand that Jacob had violated my trust and my body. It is common for victims of rape to take months, if not years, to come to terms with this, particularly if the abuser is one in a position of trust to them."

What the actual fuck? This is insanity. I don't care for a throwaway account, I'm happy to put my name to this comment.

<comment><USER6> The real insanity is that the majority of comments are clinging to this out of context sentence as discrediting the author especially when it comes well after this earlier statement

> Less than a week later, Jacob raped me in his apartment. Two of Jacob's > friends witnessed the assault, one other participated.

> In June 2016, I published a description of my assault under the pseudonym > "River" on jacobappelbaum.net alongside others' accounts of harassment and > assault.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> > I thought Jacob was a friend and engaged in consensual sexual relations with > him during those three days.

Anything else to the story?

<comment><USER2> Well, no.

Or, maybe yes. She seems to be saying that she is not capable of giving consent, meaning that she is the legal equivalent of a child. Odd, but that is apparently where modern day so-called feminism is going. Seems more like anti- feminism to me, quite frankly. Odd.

<comment><USER6> > She seems to be saying that she is not capable of giving consent, meaning > that she is the legal equivalent of a child.

What in this post could lead anyone to that conclusion?

The author established sexual boundaries

> When I became romantically involved with Jacob, I clearly told him that I > wasn't interested in group sex, or having sex in front of other people. I > told him this more than once, and clearly stated that if we were going to be > intimate, I wanted it to be with him in a private setting.

And had those boundaries violated while intoxicated

<comment><USER4> From a legal perspective, the level of intoxication needed is very high before a person is considered to no longer be able to give new consent. If you are legally drunk, consent for sex is still consent. We (people, citizens, HN community) might find that abhorrent, but it is not rape in the eyes of the legal system.

We could change that and make the ability to give consent go away at the first drink, or at a specific percentage (like drunk driving). The benefits and drawbacks for doing so can be aired under constructive political debate. In this case however, prior established boundaries do not establish if consent can changed once intoxicated but still within the legal range where new consent can be given.

The only avenue for prosecution would be to claim that Jacob intended to make her drunk in order to trick her into sex which she don't consent to. The qualifiers for that is very hard to prove.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Public shaming where criminal charges are not forthcoming typically reinforces the defense of the accused. Was it rape or was it regrettable?

</comment><comment><USER9> This public shaming without any police report is really troubling. A woman can totally derange a mans life with zero evidence. Either you feel you have been violated, and then you go to the police, or you keep it to yourself.

This "trial by twitter" that's going on at the moment is disgusting. A person is supposed to be presumed innocent, and then the alleged victim has his or her day in court. With this, the alleged perpetrator is assumed guilty, and he doesn't get a day in court.

She writes: "I thought Jacob was a friend and engaged in consensual sexual relations with him during those three days. It took me five months to process and understand that Jacob had violated my trust and my body."

I'm sorry, that's not rape. If you give consent, you can't take it back months after the fact. How is a guy supposed to know what will happen months into the future? By this standard, any male can without knowing he has violated a girl suddenly be accused of rape on fucking twitter or medium? WTF?

Hopefully, there's more to her story than that text. What I can read, is that she didn't do a police report, but instead tries to destroy the guys life without any trial, she just decided that he is guilty. From that, it seems like she has put pressure on conferences, his PhD advisors and organizations to destroy him.

She assumes no personal responsibility, it's always the guys fault. She writes that he "pushed his sexual agenda" multiple times. Why the fuck did she not just walk away? That's not victim shaming, since I'm not saying she deserved to be "raped", I'm just saying she put herself in a stupid situation, and taking zero responsibility. Swap the genders of that text, and no-one would bat an eye.

Seriously, at this point, why would any man have anything to do with women, workplace or otherwise? Look at this story, she calls men that are interested in women for "sexual predators"? How is a future husband and wife supposed to meet?

<comment><USER6> The 'consensual sexual relations with him during those three days' is out of context

The author also states:

> Less than a week later, Jacob raped me in his apartment. Two of Jacob's > friends witnessed the assault, one other participated.

> In June 2016, I published a description of my assault under the pseudonym > "River" on jacobappelbaum.net alongside others' accounts of harassment and > assault.

Why ignore some parts of a discussion and only discuss elements that satisfy your predetermined opinion?

You also place the word rape condescendingly in quotes which I interpret as you insisting the definition of the word is important

In that case what is your definition of rape?

In 2012 the doj updated it's, unchanged since 1927, definition of rape: "the penetration, no matter how slight, of the vagina or anus with any body part or object, or oral penetration by a sex organ of another person, without the consent of the victim." [https://www.justice.gov/archives/opa/blog/updated- definition...](https://www.justice.gov/archives/opa/blog/updated-definition- rape)

>I'm just saying she put herself in a stupid situation

Can you elaborate? What was the stupid situation? Are you asserting attendance absolves the attacker?

> How is a future husband and wife supposed to meet?

the Geraldo defense: [https://youtu.be/-neJp7xRIPk](https://youtu.be/-neJp7xRIPk)

An aside.. I apologise for bringing the levity of Colbert's comedy into this conversation but I feel sometimes comedy can be a tool to reach out to the people who enter a discussion with their minds obstinately predetermined

<comment><USER10> Why was my comment flagged?

<comment><USER10> Alright, I've tried writing my comment again. I've seen way more uncivil comments on Hacker News not being flagged, but then again, they were probably leftist, like calling Trump a retarded monkey or something.

The flagging I got was pretty much just a hate-click by someone that disagreed with me.

<comment><USER10> Wow! flagged again! Of course I will never get a reason why. There was no name-calling or anything.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Python bytecode is heavily trusted by CPython - <AUTHOR> https://utcc.utoronto.ca/~cks/space/blog/python/BytecodeIsTrusted <comment><USER2> The Lua VM used to have a bytecode verifier that attempted to validate that given bytecode was safe. So many holes were discovered in it that it was removed completely.

The design of the Lua language and VM is almost unimaginably simpler than Python. If Lua gave up on this goal, I strongly suspect that no language VM will succeed at having safe bytecode unless the bytecode is specifically designed for security (and such a design would probably involve performance compromises to get this level of security).

<comment><USER3> Isn't Google's Native Client exactly an example of a safe bytecode? Moreover, it is a safe subset of an already existing really large byte code language (x86 machine code), which inspires me to believe that it should be possible to identify similar subsets that are statically verifiable for other, especially simpler, byte code languages.

<comment><USER4> Many holes were discovered in Native Client. Difference is that Google was willing to fix them as they were discovered.

For example, [https://developer.chrome.com/native- client/community/securit...](https://developer.chrome.com/native- client/community/security-contest) lists 20 holes. I think the actual number of explicitly discovered holes in CPython and Lua bytecodes are each less than 20, and that was enough for them to give up.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Well

"I wouldn't be surprised if hand-generating crazy instruction sequences could do things like crash CPython"

To me is the same as

"I wouldn't be surprised if hand-generating crazy instruction sequences could do things like crash an ELF executable"

Or, what happens if you feed bad code to a JVM?

<comment><USER6> > Or, what happens if you feed bad code to a JVM?

Both the JVM and CLR have a verifier.

<comment><USER7> That doesn't make them uncrashable.

<comment><USER6> It makes them resistant to stupid bytecode sequences that aren't supposed to happen.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Let's consider which are the hard parts of verifying that remote code is safe.

Useful verifiers exist. Coq is a state-of-the-art verifier for a large class of propositions. It hasn't been easy to create. Its design is not frozen.

We need to create a specification for safe remote code that is trustworthy. This seems difficult when permitting all the remote code capabilities that we want.

We need to demonstrate constructing specification-compliant code for a nontrivial algorithm with a proof of compliance. This seems costly but feasible.

</comment><comment><USER9> Python sandboxes, like RestrictedPython, operate on AST level. But don't try to sandbox the code, create isolated UNIX processes or containers instead.

</comment><comment><USER10> Can someone inject bytecode into webpy process via url lookup table or python JSON parser?

If so, this bug report would be a lot more serious. I think no-trivial CMS app server is writting in python.

<comment><USER11> > Can someone inject bytecode into webpy process via url lookup table or > python JSON parser?

Obviously not, that would be the biggest security hole ever even without this issue.

> I think no-trivial CMS app server is writting in python.

There are plenty. And are you saying no CMS app should be written in Python because of this issue? Or are you suggesting everyone switch to PHP where it's 100x easier to shoot yourself in the foot (or head)?

<comment><USER12> tkinom is just asking about the potential impact if this were a security problem.

<comment><USER11> He's asking about the potential impact of running untrusted bytecode?

<comment><USER12> Sure, this (hypothetical) exploit would be a lot more damaging if it were widespread.

<comment><USER11> Not really, because simply by running untrusted Python bytecode in any form you are exposing yourself to much worse than this. You're already past the airtight hatch[1], so it's pointless - "It's like saying that somebody's home windows are insecure because a burglar could get into the house by merely unlocking and opening the windows from the inside."

1\. [http://blogs.msdn.com/b/oldnewthing/archive/2006/05/08/59235...](http://blogs.msdn.com/b/oldnewthing/archive/2006/05/08/592350.aspx)</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Functional Programming in Qi - <AUTHOR> http://www.lambdassociates.org/Book/page000.htm

<comment><USER2> Qi is very interesting. However, Mark Traver is now working on Shen which is a successor to Qi II. Here is a post by Mark on Shen. <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1921347>

<comment><USER3> It's "Tarver".

I'm surprised he's initially targeting JavaScript. I would think the JVM would be a more useful initial target.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> "The integer prompt shows that you are in the read-evaluate-pint loop."

How very British. Every development environment should have a read-eval-pint loop... and feature Alan Davies as side-kick.

<comment><USER5> <laugh> Very clever. The Qi reference may not be obvious to the US cousins though...</comment></comment>


Microsoft confirms compact, $299 Xbox Series S - 0-_-0 https://techcrunch.com/2020/09/08/microsoft-confirms-compact-299-xbox-series-s-next-gen-game-console/ <comment><AUTHOR> I admit I'm a bit confused about Microsoft's strategy here. So they're releasing two Xboxes at the same time: series X and series S, with the S positioned as the less powerful version of the X, with the promise that it can play the same game as the X.

The X seems to be a direct competitor to the PS5 [0], hardware-wise.

Wouldn't the release of the S and the X together forces game developers to code for the lowest common denominator (i.e. the S) and makes development more complex for the Xbox? Or is it a strategy to undercut the PS5 (normal edition and digital edition) in price?

[0] [https://www.pushsquare.com/guides/ps5-vs-xbox-series-x-vs- xb...](https://www.pushsquare.com/guides/ps5-vs-xbox-series-x-vs-xbox-series- s-full-tech-specs-comparison)

<comment><USER2> One hypothesis I saw months ago from a techtuber channel was that the cheaper model will support a game streaming subscription business down the line, making the hardware itself mostly a content delivery box. If true, cheap hardware with a cheap subscription will upend the existing console biz models.

That specific idea works to the extent that streaming games over the internet pans out(so far, countless overhyped failures). But a version of the plan where devs are given two SKU targets up-front would in fact be an evolution of how the last generation played out, where a mid-generation refresh happened and turned out not to be a complete waste of time.

Being able to launch with price discrimination reflects on how gaming tech isn't moving all that quickly now. The graphics fidelity is still going up but in a controlled fashion: higher screen resolutions, bigger textures, heavier shaders. The biggest underlying technical change of the coming generation is an emphasis on fast SSDs, and even a $299 SKU can have one of those.

<comment><USER3> I wonder if one will do 4K and the other is 1080p limited. Seems like 4K one might be a too big of a power bump so maybe 2k with upscaling

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Wow, the new Xbox is almost here? I haven't even opened up the XBox One I bought several years ago. Probably too late to sell it for a good price too.

<comment> 0-_-0 Well if it's unopened it might be worth a fortune someday, so hang on to it!

<comment><USER5> Put it next to your Beanie babies, and $20 ATARI 2600

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Consoles have been converging in terms of hardware a bit more each generation (closer to PC's each time).

But this time around both the PS5 and Xbox Series X are:

* AMD CPU * AMD GPU

<comment><USER7> They were AMD CPU/GPU last time around as well</comment></comment>


The Dumbest Interview Question - <AUTHOR> http://lbrandy.com/blog/2008/12/the-dumbest-interview-question/ <comment><USER2> _You see, this stupid question is designed to be rightly answered by someone who has carefully crafted an answer that turn some apparent weakness into a perceived strength._

Wrong. That's precisely the kind of answer it's meant to weed out. The question is supposed to show your ability for reflection on your faults (because everybody has them), and let you explain how you are going about working on them.

If you take it seriously, you can get quite deep and philosophical with that question, demonstrating your ability to express yourself, and discussing the relative merits of someone looking to fill the position.

Granted, the phrasing is very cliche, so it might be better to ask something along the lines "in the near future, how would you like to have improved yourself?".

<comment><USER3> Weeding people out based on whether they give a "correct" answer to this question seems kinda ridiculous.

With the exception of someone admitting to a horrendous fault (anger problem), I don't see how this answer could dictate a hire or no hire.

If your interviewing someone with great credentials, great references, and then they answer this question with "sometimes I work too hard"... your not going to hire him?

What this question does is force the candidate to make a snap decision: Is this particular interviewer hoping I express an honest weakness or is he seeing if a can turn a weakness into a strength?

Guess wrong and your out?

<comment><USER4> I usually restrain myself on HN, but this time I can't..

 _Please, oh please oh please_ keep in mind that "your" is not "you are".

Having to constantly be deciphering (imploded) sentences is exhausting.

"Is he talking about possession?" "Is he comparing things or putting them in chronological order?".. and so on.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> I always respond to this one by saying "my greatest weakness is that I don't know my greatest weakness".

<comment><USER6> The only time I was asked that question, I responded with "That's kind of a weird question, don't you think? I mean, it's not really in my interest to answer it honestly." The interviewer agreed, and we chatted about interviewing technique for a little while. He admitted that he only asked to see what people say, and that mine was probably the best answer he'd heard.

Got an offer the next day.

<comment><USER7> You might have had the offer almost regardless of your answer to that question.

<comment><USER6> I'm pretty sure you're right.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> The problem is that for a lot of people, the answer wouldn't really be about business. If they _really_ dug down to think about what their greatest weakness was, they might find it was an issue of character. And those don't go over well in an interview.

What company or government would hire someone who said their greatest weakness was sex addiction, alcoholism, sexism or a vindictive streak? And yet, men such as Bill Clinton, Winston Churchill, Richard Feynman and Thomas Edison have done great work and great things despite those weaknesses.

</comment><comment><USER9> I once had an interviewer ask me my greatest weakness, stop me before I started to speak, and added "don't even try to give me an strength dressed up as a weakness because I'll keep rejecting your answer until you give me one I like." Upon hearing my response, he asked me what I was doing to combat that weakness. Upon hearing that response, he asked me how progress was and to project how long it would be before it was no longer a weakness. That line of questioning was far more effective and a whole lot more fun.

<comment><USER10> Can you just say "can't say no to pretty girls"? So, you reveal a maybe real weakness, but it is totally outside your work field and yet doesn't affect your hiring.

So, I still think this question is dumb.

<comment><USER9> I'm pretty sure he would rejected that answer...

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> Has anyone actually been asked this? When I first entered the workforce and started interviewing I remember prepping for this question (and its corresponding strengths one) and had nice prepped answers.

To date no one has every asked me this - and when hiring I've never asked it.

<comment><USER12> I've been asked it maybe half of my interviews. If you're going for an interview, be ready for this one. I've had at least one interviewer be very persistent about it.

There should be an equivalent question for interviewees to ask - how about "what is your company's greatest weakness?" Or "what would be the worst part about working here?"

<comment><USER13> Being on the other end of the table sometimes, no one has asked this question, but they really should. It is actually a much better question than asking the interviewee "What is your greatest weakness?".

I think the sorts of questions an interviewee asks is more revealing than any sort of digging you might do with the standard bullshit interview questions.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> I always answer that I am not very good at direct sales, that's why I became a programmer. It's even the truth.

</comment><comment><USER15> This is a great interview question. The point isn't the actual answer, but the way an interviewee responds. It's a mind game to see how the person will react. Will they deny weakness? Will they confess a horrendous flaw? It reveals a lot of character. Plus it is just plain fun to ask people ridiculous questions with no correct answer.

<comment><USER16> One of my previous coworkers and I were interviewing a guy together, and I believe his was one of the most ridiculous questions ever:

"If you could get rid of one of the United States completely, which would it be and why?"

<comment><USER17> It's ridiculous, but no more so than the brain-twister puzzle type that used to get so much attention.

Actually, it would be fun to conduct an interview consisting of nothing but ridiculous questions like this, while acting as though the interview were completely normal. I don't think I could pull it off with a straight face though.

<comment><USER18> I think it would end up like this Monty Python Silly Job Interview Sketch: <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zP0sqRMzkwo>

Not something I want to see when it's me/my life on the line, really. Take it seriously and talk sense, please.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> My greatest weakness is that I'm old, experienced and been around enough that I'm unwilling to put up with bullshit such as clueless interviewers and usually lack the tact to hide it. It's very liberating once you realize the company needs you more than you need them.

</comment><comment><USER20> The worst question I ever got asked was: "If your friends were here, what one word would they use to describe you?"

I mean, what kind of answer are you supposed to give to that?

<comment><USER12> Ugh.

I'm guessing "CHUG!" is frowned upon.

</comment></comment><comment><USER21> Sorry, don't have many. Why don't you tell me about some of yours?

</comment><comment><USER22> I think it's better to give an answer directly related to your skills in your field. None of us is perfect, and we should all have some particular things we are working on. If you get the job, your actual weaknesses will become apparent soon enough. I could say, for example, that I tend to focus on functionality vs readability in code, but after a few years in commercial software development I see that maintainability of the code is of paramount importance so I am working to better present my code so that others can use it.

</comment><comment><USER23> It's a horrible question.

I never ask it, but I've been part of interview committees where someone else asked it. I finally realized what it's good for.

It tells you how a candidate handles a completely inappropriate question that shouldn't have been asked, and most definitely should not be answered honestly.

Now, whenever it comes up (which is rarely), that's how I take it: as an invitation to show how insincere I can be without letting on.

</comment><comment><USER24> My greatest weakness is that I have to come to you and get interviewed before you five me this job.

[:P - haven't yet faced an interview - merry christmas]

</comment><comment><USER25> I have always wanted to say 'my greatest weakness is Chocolate Cheesecake, can't get enough of it'. Seriously though, things I would consider weaknesses in one context are strengths in others. Integrity is generally a strength, but sometimes it can cost you a sale! I guess, as annoying as this question is, it tests your ability to recognise these things in yourself.

</comment><comment><USER26> An interviewer should assess a candidate for.

1\. Can Do

2\. Will Do

A good interviewer should filter a "Can Do" candidate by seeing his CV and should interview whether the candidate "Will Do".

Otherwise the interviewer is absolutely clueless about the job you are being interviewed.

</comment><comment><USER27> One time I told an interviewer was my biggest weakness is my unwillingness to repair my relationship with my father. I did not get the job, but I got a good laugh. I guess making the interviewer uncomfortable is bad.

</comment><comment><USER28> I am a perfectionist. I always meet deadlines, but that is because I am willing to work many extra hours to satisfy my need to be perfect. It's good for the company, but bad for me.

</comment><comment><USER29> Can you just say, "I have plenty of weaknesses, and I'll be happy to tell you about some, but I don't believe I have any that will prevent me from doing this job."

</comment><comment><USER4> Another nasty interview question is something like: "How well do you work under pressure?"

When you hear that, you could interpret it as: "We want you to work your ass off under unrealistic deadlines caused by our incompetent/greedy salespeople and bad management".</comment>


List of companies with acquisitions worth over $480BN - <AUTHOR> https://acquiredby.co/companies-acquisitions/ <comment><USER2> Very good list. Would love to be able to visit the sites being acquired I think.

<comment><AUTHOR> Good idea, i'll look into it.</comment></comment>


Explorer Shell Merged - <AUTHOR> https://reactos.org/node/920 <comment><AUTHOR> A lot of screenshots

[http://community.reactos.org/index.php/news/enjoy-the-new- re...](http://community.reactos.org/index.php/news/enjoy-the-new-reactos- explorer)

<comment><USER3> Looks more Win2k than XP, and that is a good thing in my book.

<comment><USER4> ReactOS has some theming support, so you can make it look Luna-ish if you want.

<comment><USER3> Deities forbid...

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> I commend their dedication, but I don't quite understand why they do it. Is it fun to develop? What do the developers get from it?

I understand what the Linux kernel developers get (it touches the lives of almost every living human being) or the BSD folks do (it's a exquisitely well built OS) or the Haiku ones (it's a really cool OS), but reimplementing Windows, with all the cruft needed to be binary compatible is an exercise the joys of which completely elude me.

<comment><USER6> For those who work on it, it probably is just for fun.

But Windows is, at its core, not a completely bad OS. I heard many parts of it are actually pretty well-engineered. The Windows NT kernel has pluggable subsystems, one of which is for Windows applications, but there used to be also a POSIX layer. In the kernel, almost everything is an object and can have ACLs (security descriptors). You actually do have something like Linux' /dev and /proc, it's just not exposed to the shell (you can sometimes see hard drive device paths, not legacy drive letters like C:, shine through the cracks, but mostly when there are boot problems).

Even in the shell, there are a few neat ideas. Everything is a (COM) object, and has interfaces. Applications can embed parts of the shell, e.g. explorer windows, and they can also contribute back parts, like custom places and icon types.

Of course there are layers and layers of cruft in Windows, but funnily, the older parts seem to be better engineered (especially taking to account their age, and looking over things like legacy 8.3 module names). Its a bit telling that the new Windows Runtime is actually a new version of native COM underneath, and not .NET CLR (but both are fully brigded).

I think the hardest part to emulate for ReactOS is not the old cruft, but the modern cruft. WPF for example does have a few nice ideas, but its insanely huge and complicated. And a typical windows system has like 4 different, incompatible .NET runtime libraries (.NET, Silverlight, WPF, WinRT). This is one thing I hope MS will get sorted out in the future.

<comment><USER7> Core Windows is, still, Windows NT, which was designed by Dave Cutler, who designed a number of OSes for DEC, which changed its name to Digital before it was bought by Compaq, which then merged with HP, which is its own can of worms.

Cutler designed RSX-11M, VMS, and VAXELN (a real-time OS for the VAX), which are or were all serious OSes. VMS in specific was a serious competitor to Unix; in the form of OpenVMS, running on Alpha and Itanium, it still exists.

So Windows NT is a foundation made by someone who knows OSes and OS design; in many markets (not all, not that I think my parenthetical will stop people from "correcting" me) it's the last OS family _not_ based on a fundamentally Unix- like foundation. Having an Open Source version of that is interesting for historical reasons, if nothing else, and there's something to be said for hybrid vigor if some bright spark figures a way to port a few concepts to the rest of the OS world.

<comment><USER8> For anyone who is interested in the story of the original development of Windows NT, check out the G. Pascal Zachary book, Showstopper.

<comment><USER9> I would agree, not read my copy for a very long time but it's very enjoyable. I think I read it at around the same time as I last read "The Soul of a New Machine" by Tracy Kidder, also a worthwhile read for some of the younger HN'ers who missed out on that era.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Looking at those screenshots made me a bit nostalgic for the old windows 2000 UI. It wasn't exactly showy, but from a UX experience it was great (clean lines, nice spacing, easy to find things, responsive, consistent). Every UI Microsoft has done since then has sort of been a regression, even if not a terrible one. Windows XP looked like a cheap toy, Aero was pretty but their insistence on killing menus and blending UI elements with the title bar was weird, and metro is awkward on a desktop. I know you can still go back to "classic" mode, but it's definitely a second class citizen at this point.

<comment><USER11> Why is it "second class citizen"? I've used it exclusively with Win7 and it works fine (granted it does need 7 Taskbar Tweaker for best results..). I have never ever liked the Aero Peek feature of Win7: it invariably adds extra steps and mouse work to the simple task of switching between apps for no good reason (no, seeing a mini thumbnail of an app I already know is running does not make anything clearer or better).

ReactOS, I will be happy to go there if I ever get the chance from a compatibility standpoint.

<comment><USER10> I guess it's subjective, but in windows 7 the aesthetics are weird. The taskbar looks funny, a lot of the UI dialogs were obviously not designed with that styling in mind, and so on. In windows 8 they killed the theme completely. (Although once you get rid of metro, I actually like the windows 8 theme quite a bit).

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Oh man, this is pretty big. Good as it was at the time, it's nice that ROS finally, _finally_ gets the shell it's always deserved.

I wonder how well it will interact with Windows apps that deal with explorer.exe.

<comment><USER12> Depends on the app - sometimes the apps don't work well under Windows - <USER2> Raymond Chen found.

[http://blogs.msdn.com/b/oldnewthing/archive/2011/08/03/10192...](http://blogs.msdn.com/b/oldnewthing/archive/2011/08/03/10192225.aspx)

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> As someone who often trains people in places in the world with low levels of IT literacy - where Windows is by far the dominant platform (very little chance of most people affording Mac or being able to pick up Linux). I've always thought ReactOS had a useful ability to bridge the problem of people a) not being able to afford new versions of Windows b) Even when they do, often ending up with counterfeit versions of it.

</comment><comment><USER14> Looks good at first glance, but there's something about the icons that compared to the real Windows ones doesn't seem quite right; I understand there's copyright issues with using the Windows icons exactly, but these icons have a very "Linux-ish" appearance to them, for lack of a better term.

<comment><USER15> They're probably stock Tango items. You've probably seen them before in Linux distributions and OSS software, ergo the association.

<comment><USER4> In fact, they _are_ stock Tango icons.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> I never heard about reactos before. Am I right to assume that this is Windows 98 as Open Source project? Am I right to assume that a lot of people who hate that XP is not maintaned anymore will switch to something like that instead of Linux or BSD? If that's true I have to sit in a corner for a while crying my heart out...

<comment><AUTHOR> Actually this is Windows 2003\XP as Open Source project

</comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> If somebody wants to support ReactOS development, he can do it by use of [https://www.bountysource.com/teams/reactos/issues](https://www.bountysource.com/teams/reactos/issues)

Cast your bounties on bugs that bother you.

</comment><comment><USER11> Congratulations to the ReactOS team, awesome work! :)</comment>


George Dahl: Machine Learning for March Madness - <AUTHOR> http://blog.smellthedata.com/2011/02/thoughts-on-modeling-basketball.html

<comment><AUTHOR> This paper (referenced in the post) is also relevant. The application is to NBA basketball:

"Incorporating Side Information into Probabilistic Matrix Factorization Using Gaussian Processes." Ryan Prescott Adams, George E. Dahl, and Iain Murray. In Proceedings of the 26th Conference on Uncertainty in Artificial Intelligence, 2010.

Paper: <http://www.cs.toronto.edu/~gdahl/papers/dpmfNBA.pdf>

Code: <http://www.cs.toronto.edu/~rpa/code/dpmf-nba.tgz>

</comment><comment><USER2> He has some good points. I like the one about correlations between team scores potentially distorting the strength of offenses and defenses in a naive model.

<comment><USER3> +1</comment></comment>


Uber drivers consider legal action - <AUTHOR> http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-34733862 <comment><USER2> Always with the employee/contractor issue...

It has always been my prediction that there is a legal action lurking in the shadows that will ultimately be the undoing of the ~$50B unicorn, but employee/contractor is not it (these can be resolved moving forward with jurisdiction specific revisions to driver agreements and tweaks to the actual process to ensure compliance on a jurisdictional basis).

However, the legal action to ruin the company? My guess is a class action of drivers who have been arrested/criminally charged while serving as UBER drivers. Moreover, I believe such a case would open up a can of worms including: 1. UBER recruiting/paying bonuses to drivers to leave counties where ride sharing is legal to drive in counties where ride sharing is illegal, subsequently resulting in criminal charges; and 2. UBER's payment of criminal defense counsel for said drivers (which on its face may not seem problematic, but I would be willing to bet not a single lawyer paid by UBER to represent the drivers ever once advised the drivers they may have civil causes of action against UBER).

</comment><comment><USER3> Does anyone else consider 20% (soon 25%) cut excessive?

Personally i think driving for Uber is nearly pointless - the costs of operating a vehicle make this occupation very unattractive. But i think the 20% rent makes it even worse.

Many of legal problems Uber faces could be avoided if they simply charged drivers a fixed subscription fee to be "listed" with the service. 100$/month? 10$/day? I don't know, but i can't shake the feeling that this service is crap work and it has a lot to do with greed.

<comment><USER4> It's not excessive compared to how much most taxi drivers have to pay, every day, to lease their cars...

<comment><USER5> it is if you look at the UK market, in the UK most drivers own their own cars and they hire a radio from the taxi company at a daily rate. They then keep the fares themselves. As with UBER you have to provide your own vehicle, there is no radio so you have to provide your own smartphone too.

And as their pricing indicates they will take a greater cut from new drivers. That will continue to increase if they are successful in putting other taxi firms out of business. i.e once they remove the competition (or minimise the sufficiently) there will be no alternative but for drivers to pay uber a 45% fee for each ride.

<comment><USER4> Uh, no. You don't have to provide your own smartphone.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> The drivers who would rather be employees--which Uber claims are a small minority--might be better off finding a traditional job with a livery service. The whole point of Uber and its ilk, or so I thought, was to "crowd-source" transportation using ride _sharing_. It's not "sharing" if they're employees.

Amazon Flex is going to crowd-source deliveries by engaging tens of thousands of individuals to drop off packages in their neighborhoods. Does that mean Amazon must automatically hire tens of thousands of employees, with all the paperwork and overhead, even if some of them only deliver an occasional package?

This whole approach probably needs to be hashed out in the courts, but my gut feeling is that some people are wanting to have their cake and eat it too--the ease and flexibility of self-employment combined with the benefits of full time employment.

<comment><USER7> This is simply not what Uber does. Uber has never _actually_ been a ride sharing service. A carpooling service is a ride sharing service. A real ride sharing service doesn't have drivers and riders where the riders pay the drivers.

Don't drink the kool-aid, all of Uber's "ride sharing" and "crowd sourcing" and "sharing economy" nonsense is just marketing and legal stunts. They are essentially an online sweatshop a la mechanical turk for driving.

I don't hate Uber, I think that on an ethical level it's probably superior to traditional taxi companies who entrap their drivers by paying for their taxi license (they lobby to make these very expensive) and then paying the drivers poorly until it's time to renw the license.

But Uber is not a magical wonderful silicon valley company that's going to fix all the problems with taxis by disrupting it with some sharing economy. Uber is a company that found a loophole in the law that would allow it to create a global taxi service that isn't legally a taxi service, and this loophole involves drivers giving up a lot of legal protections.

<comment><USER3> Your explanation strikes a nerve and certainly makes me "hate Uber".

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> They existed and fed themselves before Uber existed; they freely chose to join Uber as contractors; now they want to break the contract they have and be employees. How does this seem right?

<comment><USER9> > They existed and fed themselves before Uber existed; they freely chose to > join Uber as contractors; now they want to break the contract they have and > be employees. How does this seem right?

What's wrong with fighting for ones rights and interests ? corporations do that all the time. It's not like people should just submit and shut their mouth. If they feel Uber is cheating them well, they should sue Uber.

<comment><USER10> What caused you to characterize anyone as opposing "fighting for one's interests"?

The issue here is that someone is claiming that it violates their rights but keep doing it. Is there a case of a corporation that thinks a certain deal is bad but keeps making it?

"Doctor, it hurts when I do this ..."

<comment><USER9> > The issue here is that someone is claiming that it violates their rights but > keep doing it.

Keep doing what? drivers have the right to sue , period. And they should do exactly that if it benefits them, they owe no servitude to Uber which wouldn't exist if not for these drivers that do all the actual work.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> For someone wanting to start an on-demand service, what would be the correct way to design their app so that you could meaningfully link requester to providers?

<comment><USER12> I think if you have a bidding model where the requester can select bids from providers then your 100% safe.

However, that being said this is ridiculous! Having employees would completely change what Uber is about. Uber is a platform not a taxi company.

Uber drivers right now can:

* choose their own schedules

* turn down customers they don't want

* just stop working with Uber with no notice

All things that most employees can't do.

<comment><USER2> Doesn't UBER also:

1\. Finance cars for their drivers; 2\. Provide the legal interpretation of federal/state/county/local laws and regulations to its drivers; 3\. Provide the actual tools (except the car) to complete the work; 4\. Provide training for drivers; 5\. Pay bonuses to drive specific hours and/or in specific locations/jurisdictions

All things that most companies can't do with independent contractors?

</comment></comment></comment><comment> rm_-rf_slash We need a third class of employment, the employee-contractor. It is one thing for independent contractors to provide a service for a company without necessarily being employed by the company, like a software consultant, but when a business cannot exist without so-called independent contractors (unless they're hired outright), then they ought to be responsible for some of the cost, such as gasoline or repairs, but at the same time, their contract can be canceled at any time by the employer. That gives the employer flexibility and the employer-contractors stability.

</comment><comment><USER13> I'm not sure about "paid time off". It's not a salaried job in the first place -- you work as little or as much as you want, and take vacation whenever and however much you want. However, give them a time/distance-wise wage increase to get to an equilibrium point where most drivers are generally happy in life with the amount of unpaid time they can feasibly take off.

</comment><comment><USER14> BBC headline is a little misleading. According to the article, legal action has already been taken. Cases have been submitted to the London Central Employment Tribunal.

</comment><comment><USER15> That clearly is the future of employment.

Better get used to it now.

<comment><USER16> That's both a humorous and short sighted statement. Uber isn't a magical "unicorn". It could be gutted by regulation overnight.

<comment><USER15> I made no claim about the "magic unicorn"-ness of Uber.

I simply despise regulation and entitlement.

<comment><USER16> > I simply despise regulation and entitlement.

And I like civilization, which has a foundation partially of regulation and entitlements. Perhaps Somalia is more to you're liking?</comment></comment></comment></comment>