The long, slow, rotten march of progress - <AUTHOR> https://theoutline.com/post/1611/the-long-slow-rotten-march-of-progress?utm_source=TW <comment><USER3> The passage about Capitalism not knowing what to do with its capital anymore rings true. We've allowed society to bifurcate into 1. a great many people without, who know exactly what they'd do with an extra $100, and 2. a tiny number of ultra-rich who literally can't figure out what to do with all their money and have run out of possessions to gold-plate and diamond-encrust. What does the end-game look like? When interest rates are perpetually zero and you simply can't squeeze another single dollar out of the masses?

<comment><USER4> >What does the end-game look like? When interest rates are perpetually zero and you simply can't squeeze another single dollar out of the masses?

Pet peeve: Low interest rates somehow hurting the huddled masses. Low interest rates benefit those with loans and hurts those with capital. Poor people are massively more likely to benefit from low interest rates than to be hurt by it.

<comment><USER5> Poor is a state of having low capital. Low interest rates make it hard for poor people to save their way out of being poor. Making it harder to accumulate capital keeps the poor being poor. That's why it's so expensive to buy stocks and housing at the moment. There's less ways for poor people to become less poor.

<comment><USER6> There are lots of options to buy stocks without big fees, in small dollar amounts.

Lack of good investment options really has little to do with poverty. Complex causes, complex remedies.

<comment><USER5> But those stocks pay low dividends due to low rates. They are expensive stocks. High capital people can access the near zero rates to invest, the poor only have access to credit cards. At high interest rates it is expensive for both the rich and poor to invest. In low rate environment low capital people are at a disadvantage.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> I'm a dropped-out philosophy major with a humanities family and cultural background, and wearing what occasionally feels like the impostor's mantle of a software engineer.

This leads to a lot of amusing, sometimes infuriating cultural conflicts. I frequently have this type of conversation with colleagues in my profession, and it's frustrating to see all the technocratic utopianism and narrowly conceived TEDdie-ism that often obtains on the other side.

Lately, I've resorted to making the point about mindfulness and purpose through the compact vehicle of jest, since business interactions seldom organically accommodate discussion of serious ideas and issues. In our hipster age of sham social capital, deniable low-calorie intellectual commitments, and instant disavowal of anything that begets complications down the road, oblique jokes seem to work better than direct critiques.

Something like:

\- Client: "Our server has had five-nines uptime this past year!"

\- Me: "But was it running good stuff?"

\- Client: "What?"

\- Me: "What's better, a highly available server sitting idle or running crap, or a less reliable server running good stuff? Quality over quantity, right?"

\- Client: "Uhhh..."

\- Me: "Think about it. Is the measure of a server really in how long it's been running? The essence of a server is that it serves, yeah? Availability is a secondary—if important—quality."

\- Client: "... okay ...?"

\- Me: "So, it's not enough to just be up. The host has to run good stuff. Has the server been running good stuff?"

\- Client: "Erm... it runs our middleware? Are you asking if it's good code?"

\- Me: "No, I'm asking if it's a good thing to run, although I suppose for a thing to be good to run, it has to be written well enough. Bad code doesn't run well."

\- Client: "WTF?"

\- Me: "Is your middleware good stuff?"

\- Client: "What does that even mean?"

\- Me: "Doesn't it bother you that you don't know?"

\- Client: "... I guess I never really thought about it like that."

It's what I encourage everyone to do. Bring a little ancient Greece to the cloud data centre.

<comment><USER8> Sounds tedious.

<comment><USER9> Arguably the definition of philosophy. It's tedious, pedantic, semantically focused and rigorous. All which makes it insufferable, yet ultimately important.

<comment><USER7> Well, there's a reason I dropped out, after all. ;-)

But the article offers a good exposition of what happens when you have a world with _too little_ philosophy. And that's the relatively harmless side of it. Everyone from Kafka to Hannah Arendt to Erich Fromm has sketched out the malignant side of capitalist education -- a society of people with skills but no Knowledge, a globe of narrow technical specialists with, to borrow a favoured turn of phrase from Dmitry Orlov, "nary a forehead in the crowd disfigured by a sentient impulse".

This is a great article. I nominate it for article of the year.

<comment><USER10> Approximate chance a Sam Kriss article isn't the article of the year on Hacker News: 0 (at least when displayed as an integer). But I wonder if this one would win in a fight with the one about Neil deGrasse Tyson...

(I like a lot of HN articles, but the average Sam Kriss article is a lot better. Like I'm a dog drooling over my kibble... and then one day I get a sniff of my master's well-cooked person-food.)

<comment><USER7> I didn't know the author was a thing. This is my first collision[1] with his writing, as far as I know, although I don't always pay attention to bylines as much as I should.

[1] Badoom tss.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> > Code What? To Do What? And Why?

Seriously? Our infrastructure is crumbling, billions of people still don't have enough food or clean water. Diseases, even curable ones, are killing people every day and you have to ask "To Do What?"??

Give me a break. Stop gazing at your navel for 10 seconds and go out and interact with the world. I guarantee you'll find a problem that needs fixing.

<comment><USER12> _Our infrastructure is crumbling, billions of people still don 't have enough food or clean water._

And what % of tech startups are tackling these problems?

<comment><USER13> And what % of capital is available to entrepreneurs tackling those problems?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> Enjoyable, if verbose, read. Reminds me a bit of American Gods. There are a handful of startups that are offering genuine attempts at innovation and progress and, of course, a lot of garbage. It feels relatively slow moving until you realize how much you work differently, eat differently, drive differently than just a few years before. Like being slowly boiled alive in a bathtub.

<comment><USER15> Would you mind to clarify what you mean by "X definitely"? I think you are on to something, but cannot fully grasp wha you mean.

<comment><USER16> You may have misread: the post said "differently" and not "definitely".

<comment><USER14> To be fair it did and I corrected it - slight dyslexia

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> It's not trivial to get money into the cryptocurrency system as it is even with trusted companies like Coinbase. For it to come closer to ubiquity, it's going to need to be trusted companies to help money enter the market and for it to be used as universally as VISA or Mastercard. Those payment points (Best Buys, Amazon, etc.) and hard currency exchange points (CoinBase, Gemini, etc.) are always going to be subject to regulation by local governments, as they should be.

Trusted points and regulation/taxes doesn't remove the benefits (distributed nature, smart contracts, and visibility) of a cryptocurrency like Ethereum. They are going to grow based on big corporate support and adoption. In fact, it's already happening: [http://www.cnbc.com/2017/05/23/bigger-than-bitcoin- enterpris...](http://www.cnbc.com/2017/05/23/bigger-than-bitcoin-enterprise- ethereum-alliance-grows-in-size.html)

<comment><USER13> It is actually surprisingly difficult. I have been trying to open a Coinbase account for like two weeks. First week I was stuck in a limbo state where my attempts at adding my visa were stuck (because of a bug on their end - <USER2> them long enough to fix, must be interesting being VP of Operations at Coinbase). Now, I have finally added it, but it is in a "pending state" and the verification process is taking too long than it is worth.

How do people do it (buying BTC, or ETH)?

<comment><USER17> I have the same problem but imagine the alternatives. One reason it's so bad the last 2 weeks is the volume. The US exchanges have been hammered. Week to verify my bank on Coinbase, a week to verify my ID on Gemini.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> Normally I don't like Sam Kriss' writing, and here it's because of the civil war comparison that just feels ham-fisted — that said, one can appreciate how "learn to code" is not the universal solution (especially when it's just thrown out as a conversation-stopper).

<comment><USER19> In general learning to code is up there with learning to read and write and math as it can be applied to almost any area or industry and be used to do simple scripting to advanced systems development. You dont have to become a developer but understanding how to "talk with technology" is imo one of the most important general skills one can learn.

<comment><USER20> But that's not the subtext of how it's being used when journalist/political people/noncoders use it. They specifically are saying a vast majority of people should just learn to program, do it full time, and it will solve all our economic woes. Computer skills are useful, no doubt. But they are not a universal panacea for everyone in the workforce. That inspires a new word for these blurts people mak: Friedmanism, in honor of Tom Friedman of the NYT.

<comment><USER19> I think you are wrong. Think coding as in talking with technology, think technology as a kind of species. Sure my dad wont be able to program a new plumber but he will be better able to take advantage of many of the benefits technology offers.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> "Uber for dogs" has been around for a few years.

        https://wagwalking.com/

So it's not just real, it's actually bordering on passé.

Now, does that make the essay sillier or does it make it scarier?</comment>


Ask HN: Is Amazon down? - <AUTHOR> Many product pages are returning a 503 Service Unavailable Error
Edit:  I'm in southern California
Seems affected pretty broadly (no affiliation):
http://downdetector.com/status/amazon <comment><USER2> But the 503 errors have pictures of dogs, so it can't be that bad.

</comment><comment><USER3> Yes, I have the same experience. Accessing from Fremont, Ca.

</comment><comment><USER4> Yes seeing same behavior from Albany, NY.

</comment><comment><USER5> It's up here in Vancouver BC.

</comment><comment><USER6> Same from Sunnyvale, CA.

</comment><comment><USER7> Yep, I'm in Kansas

</comment><comment><USER8> Down in South Florida.

</comment><comment><USER9> Yes, Denver, CO.

</comment><comment><USER10> yes (Wash, DC) cute dog pictures though

</comment><comment><USER11> Nope</comment>


Ask HN: Should I care about "smart" seed money? - <AUTHOR> My startup is about to close its seed round ($700K) with a brand-new fund. This fund has typically invested in areas outside of startup funding and they're willing to take on the entire round. How concerned should I be that it isn't necessarily "smart" money? <comment><USER2> If the startup has all the expertise necessary to execute, then it's less of a concern. However, it's still a bit of missed opportunity to bring onboard someone who can actually help. What are the objectives of the fund?</comment>


Add events to Google Calendar from Gmail - <AUTHOR> http://gmailblog.blogspot.com/2013/05/add-events-to-google-calendar-from-gmail.html

<comment><USER2> I was wondering when they'd include this</comment>


The problem with foldable phones - <AUTHOR> http://www.nathancunn.com/2018-11-09-foldable-phones/ <comment><USER2> _" Ok, so let's try instead to build the device from a tablet perspective. I'm going to make one basic assumption: the tablet screen is primarily for watching TV/film. I'm sure people will find other uses, but in terms of mass appeal, surely that must be its purpose?"_

Is it just me or are square-ish resolutions pretty common and popular on tablets? Just look at any iPad, the screen ratio is ~1.3 or 1.4 to 1.

I think the common sense answer here (which is ridiculous since we don't even know what Samsung's real intention is), is a phone that's close to 2:1 and a tablet that's close to 1:1. No big deal.

To speculate more: phones have widened to near 2:1 resolution not primarily because of watching modern TV and film, but because that's the easiest way to expand the screen while ensuring the phone is easy to hold. It also works well with vertical scrolling activity.

<comment><AUTHOR> As I mentioned a 1:1 screen (if you want to watch your content in an assumed 18:9 native content) will at most take up half of the tablet screen. Meaning your content will be shown at exactly the same size as the phone screen, just rotated. Under the assumption that the tablet screen is just for media consumption this gives no benefit.

<comment><USER3> > Under the assumption that the tablet screen is just for media consumption

Why are you making this assumption?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> "Far be it from me to assume that I know what Samsung's plans are with regards this technology and I'm certainly not rubbishing the innovation, I just wanted to clarify the basic maths that says these foldable phones just can't be bezel-free and in the form factor we expect from modern phones/tablets."

But you did though. We barely have a prototype to look at (short of the demo on stage) let alone put a technology like that in the hands of Google or Apple engineers.

There was no need for a smart phone, until there was. There was no need for a tablet, until there was. Smart watch, smart speaker, and so on.

Version 1 is always crap and most (all) know that? Give it a couple iterations, a little trial and error and you'll probably get your aspect ratio or tiny bezels.

<comment><AUTHOR> "Give it a couple iterations, a little trial and error and you'll probably get your aspect ratio or tiny bezels."

Did you read the rest of the post? I'm saying that mathetmatically those two things are completely irreconcilable.

I'm not saying the phone will be bad, just that it is impossible for the both the phone and tablet to conform to the form factor of a typical phone/tablet that is out now.

<comment><USER4> Yes - I read the article.

Phones and tablets come in hundreds of different screen sizes. Ever see this map?

[https://crossbrowsertesting.com/blog/mobile- devices/android-...](https://crossbrowsertesting.com/blog/mobile- devices/android-fragmentation-web-app-quality/)

There isn't a "typical" shape / size for a phone / tablet.

You can say an iPhone screen size when duplicated into 2 side by side does not equal an iPad screen size, landscape or portrait and I'd completely agree with you. But to say a new class of device won't have it's screen sizes and needs to conform to screen sizes of the past... that just doesn't make sense. No one conforms to screen sizes; past, present, or future.

<comment><AUTHOR> I know there isn't a typical size, but the trend has been towards taller phones. The desire to keep to the aspect ratio isn't about conforming to old phones but conforming to the aspect ratio that films/TV shows are in.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> The ISO paper sizes are a practical example of how you halve the area while preserving the aspect ratio.

<comment><USER6> Is aspect ratio all that important?

I think articles like this one show a lack of imagination. When I think about folded stuff in my life, I immediately think of a newspaper or a road map. I'd love a display that I can fold an arbitrary number of times to get the size that makes sense for what I'm looking at and where I am.

<comment><AUTHOR> I'm not saying "aspect ratios don't work, therefore the whole thing's a bust", just that we should expect that one or other of the devices will be quite a bit different from what we normally see.

<comment><USER6> There already are multi-screen devices. I could see a foldable screen being put on a Lenovo Yoga Book and not changing it all that much.

<comment><AUTHOR> The Lenovo Yoga Book is quite different in the sense that the multi-screens are never really viewed as a single form. One screen is more of an input device, while the other is what we would usually see as a screen. I'm not saying that the foldable phone can't do this, just that it's very different from a "phone that folds out to have a bigger screen for watching media" device that I've seen people expect these foldable phones to be.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> This is stupid. I don't think foldable phones are likely for a long time - foldable screen technology is just _way_ off (sure you can have demos but try folding and unfolding it 10,000 times and see how it holds up). We much get foldable phones with multiple displays but there's no real technical challenge there and still nobody has done it because it's not really what people want.

But aspect ratio is just not even remotely close to being a problem.

<comment><AUTHOR> Not saying it's a problem for development. I've just seen people ask why the screens have odd aspect ratios.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> Phones weren't made taller to accommodate media consumption. For mass-media consumption 16:9 is still the best size. Certainly there are movies at 2:1 or even wider but they are the exception rather than the rule. They were made taller so that they could have a bigger screen without being too big to hand hold.

</comment><comment><USER9> You could make a similar argument about the notch, because now the screen isn't even properly rectangular - but that didn't stop it taking off and even being added cosmetically to phones that don't require it.

Let's not forget that smartwatches are popular despite being square.

All sorts of things could be tried. The 16:9 screen that folds to 8:9 could be like the Motorola Razr? Or you could fold it on the _other_ axis to produce something like the Nokia communicator?

Hell, why not have _two_ folds? Popup book mechanics?

<comment><AUTHOR> Maybe my wording wasn't great, I didn't want to say the folding itself is a problem, the problem is that the aspect ratios of the two are dependent on each other, making unusual solutions like you mentioned necessary. Not that that's a bad thing, but it is something that will require some creativity that we don't need to consider normally.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> Honestly, I kinda like the square phone mock-up. It would be a little weird to use as a phone, but perhaps there's a compromise to be made for the pocketability of it all?

</comment><comment><USER11> huh?? You have an 18:9 phone, you "unfold" it and you get 18:18.

Why would both the phone and tablet mode need to be 18:9, I don't get it?

<comment><AUTHOR> I've seen people comment on these articles asking why the aspect ratios were so weird, and why not 18:9 for both? Perhaps, they were just joking, who knows?

Regardless, an 18:18 screen can only show 18:9 content at the same size as an 18:9 screen can.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> Anytime I've read about foldable screens, I've been hoping for something closer to the Microsoft Courier rather than a phone that folds out.

Phones are fine the way they are, but I think there's still a lot of innovation waiting in the tablet space.

</comment><comment><USER12> Any chance it could have multiple hinges?

A 16:9 (~1.78) phone, unfolded twice like a letter, would produce a 27:16 (~1.69) tablet. That seems pretty reasonable on both ends.

</comment><comment><USER13> Obligatory image: [https://vine.co/v/Ox2O9YbFTrX](https://vine.co/v/Ox2O9YbFTrX)</comment>


U.S. Senator blasts Microsoft's H-1B push as it lays off 18,000 workers - <AUTHOR> http://www.computerworld.com/s/article/9249837/U.S._Senator_blasts_Microsoft_s_H_1B_push_as_it_lays_off_18_000_workers <comment><USER2> Raising the H1B cap has everything to do with creating downward pressure on wages. There are plenty of tech workers, but not enough cheap ones. Lots of companies also want experts in specific technologies instead of getting a good generalist who can learn quickly.

If you are in tech in the US and don't mind making less money for what you do keep supporting legislation for more H1B's. Just don't complain when you become a commodity, are required to dress "business casual" and cannot work remotely. The reason it is good to work in tech is because companies have incentives to make it a good place for you to work.

If your skills are something that is easy to find those benefits will go away. Most companies are not going to give you these benefits out of the goodness of their heart in today's environment. If they did then the average Wal-Mart worker would be making a lot more and have much better benefits.

<comment><USER3> There are good reasons to believe that raising the number of H-1Bs create a downward pressure on wages. Yet, as cynicalkane mentions here, there are good reasons to believe that letting more smart people work on tech is beneficial for almost everyone involved.

The solution, IMO, is to try remove causes of wage depreciation due to H-1Bs. Right now, tying the petition (and GC) to the employer is the primary cause for this. Opposing this, instead of a blanket disapproval of H-1B program as a whole, looks to be a more tactically sounder approach. The employers who are asking for H-1Bs as a form of cheap labour will oppose this, showing their true colors. But those employers who are genuinely seeking smart employees should have no problems with it.

<comment><USER4> Adding a bunch of smart, hardworking, educated, ambition people to society is always going to be a net-win, even if it puts a little downward pressure on wages.

However, I don't equate H-1Bs with permanent immigration. There are limitations on duration of stay, what happens with your spouse/family, switching employers, etc etc. That really doesn't lend itself to people moving their whole family to the US and buying into becoming permanent residents. If all we get out of the H-1B program is downward pressure and wages and people that will come for 5 years, make a bunch of money, go home and not come back, then I am against the H-1B program.

Note that I 100% put the blame for this situation on the US immigration policy and not the people that are H-1B holders. I am sure most of them would love to get a green card or even become a US citizen, but for some reason we've gone from 'Give me your tired poor huddled masses' to 'Oh you have a masters degree in an engineering degree and want to move here to start a business? Too bad!'.

<comment><USER5> > Adding a bunch of smart, hardworking, educated, ambition people to society > is always going to be a net-win

It is a net win for the country but not for the individuals who make up the country. You are probably able to compete with outsourcing now, but do you think this will last forever, or for your descendants?

Having h-1bs, as they are implemented now, comes with more problems than benefits.

It is extremely likely that companies such as Google still would have been created without h-1bs. See China for example. They are doing fine with Tencent, Baidu and the other host of late coming clones.

The economic dominance of the US is mostly caused by not being demolished in WW2 and many natural resources as it was only populated for a few centuries. It is not really because the US has the smartest and most hardworking people (not saying they don't help though).

<comment><USER4> Outsourcing and immigration are two different things. H-1Bs encourage the equivalent of outsourcing, except with the people being physically located in the US. Immigration just increases the number of people.

If you are worried about competing with more citizens, then you should also be arguing to make our schools worse and make college more expensive.

I personally think what is best for society as a whole is best for me. The more economic growth there is, the more opportunity there is for me to get a raise/promotion, or find a company that really needs a person with my set of skills.

<comment><USER5> It is essentially the same thing in terms of competition for labor.

In one case you are sending the work to the workers, in the other, you are bringing the workers to the work.

Competition within the country is fair. Companies exploiting the ability to outsource/h1-b their work is not fair. Workers that were grown and educated here cannot go back in time and move to a different country with cheaper living costs and education.

If society is being replaced by people that aren't you, society can benefit while leaving you in the dust. It is not a win-win situation. It is easy to feel that you or your descendants will never be marginalized when you are making 100k+ in silicon valley.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> I've been thinking about this subject for a few years now. Like many HN'ers, I work deep inside the tech industry. I'm also fortunate enough to have watched the operations of dozens of different companies.

I think the real problem here is that the tech industry does not know how to manage their workers. I'm not talking about managing projects, or how to coach or train. I mean the whole thing. The technology sector of the economy has no idea of exactly how many workers, in what configuration, it needs for accomplishing any job.

Weird situation, I know. But where that leaves us is a lot of "open" job positions that are little more than unfulfilled wishes. Sure would be nice to have another 40 guys on the helpdesk. Would that be as nice as 10 more developers? Who knows? Or -- we've got that big government project coming up, so we'll need at least 500 IT workers. Why do we need it? Who knows? It's a big project. It should have a lot of people on it, right?

The implications of this is that there's a huge downward pressure on wages. People want a certain number of tech workers, but there's no market pressure to hire them or even to lay them off if they've hired too many. They just want a certain number. So what they really want is really cheap, disposable workers that they can easily swap in and out as the political winds inside a company changes. The U.S. labor market isn't really geared for that.

<comment><USER7> >I think the real problem here is that the tech industry does not know how to manage their workers

It's not just the tech industry, almost all companies struggle to measure productivity, especially as a comparative measure. People like salesmen do have defined metrics like sales, but it's harder to do that for people in HR and Accounting, for example.

<comment><USER8> That's usually because sales, engineering, etc are "profit" centers, while HR/Accounting/Reception are "cost" centers. One group produces while the other consumes. So, it's really comparing apples to oranges.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Along those lines, the census agency says most STEM graduates do not work in STEM fields: [http://www.usatoday.com/story/money/business/2014/07/10/cens...](http://www.usatoday.com/story/money/business/2014/07/10/census- stem-graduates/12492079/)

<comment><USER10> Anyone who is smart enough to calculate the differential of equations is smart enough to see there's little money in those jobs.

You see this in practice. STEM graduates do 3 things, in my experience. Work in management, work in IT, and work in academia. I wouldn't count on any of having up-to-date science knowledge except the academic ones.

<comment><USER11> Plenty of them with serious math chops, such as MIT EECS graduates, become quants in Wall Street and the like, at least for a while.

<comment><USER12> _> Plenty of them_

Wall Street does draw some students from the math/physics/EECS departments of the very top ranked schools, but this represents a _tiny_ percentage of students graduating nationwide with STEM degrees.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> "U.S. Senator accuses Microsoft of not treating workers as the generic cogs they are"

"'When I go down to the market to get some workers, I always check the label', says the Senator, 'it's our patriotic duty to acquire locally produced workers'"

<comment><USER14> The locally-produced workers also must be fresh.

Organic might be nice for a few more decades, but let's not discriminate against our upcoming robot overlords too much.

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> As someone working in the US on a H1B I am against raising the cap. Instead I think this visa should be replaced with one that can not be used by consulting companies and offers a short clear path to a green card.

The main problem is that the majority of people on this visa are being used as tools to drive down US wages. These are the people working for consulting shops in the middle of no where making below market wages while being forced to do mind numbing work.

It is very hard for someone in a situation like this to switch jobs. Their is also no incentive for their employers to sponsor them for a green card until they absolutely have to. It's not uncommon to find people spending close to a decade being one step away from being deported.

I want immigration reform not the perpetuation of a half baked visa that favors big companies and allows immigrants to be easily exploited. In summary I think talented people should be encouraged to work in the US but on an equal footing to everyone else. Raising the H1B cap is not immigration reform.

</comment><comment><USER16> Why hire local talent when you can get a foreigner who will work for cheaper? (Not to mention the foriegner will also work under the shadow of having to go back to their country if they get fired..)

While there might be a good argument for this, I've never seen proof that it was not being abused.

<comment><USER2> very very true.

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> 1) If it was the same in OTHER PROFESSIONS then I'd be ok - but it's not. Professionals licensed to practice in their country cannot immigrate and practice here - they end up resorting to things like becoming cab drivers etc (not that there's anything wrong with being a cab driver - but if you went to university for a solid profession then it's not a good result). Allow accountants, doctors, lawyers accredited in their countries to come and be able to become licensed here and push down their wages for the rest of us, then we can talk. This keeps supply in their field down and their wages up.

2) These visas do not incentivize corporations to RETRAIN their employees. Yes the specific technology changes but the ability to understand how to interact, program, maintain, etc do not (in relation).

3) Is AGEISM a management or a worker problem? Sure, it's up to the worker to keep up to date, but I've seen plenty of examples where ageism is more a problem of the industry. Somebody who is 40+, has a CompSci degree, worked in the industry for 15-20 years, gained wisdom is somehow worthless because they don't know the exact specific technology.

These visas are a bandaid to a problem that tech corporations themselves created. They don't retrain their valuable workers with outdated skills and instead look to foreign countries for a quick-fix out of their mess.

Keep up the high wages and you'll continue to see an increase in CompSci enrollment. Then pay to retrain your (good) employees for the latest technology and you'll keep them. Corporations have options, they're just more motivated at the H1-B candy then something that benefits everyone.

</comment><comment><USER18> A large pool of H1B quota is being misused for sure. Instead of those mediocre or low tech workers, if more highly skilled workers are let in, I guess it would be better and we can manage with current allotted quotas.

<comment><USER19> I've long wondered why they don't allocate the slots (however many are politically palatable) via some kind of bidding system, e.g. highest-salary- filled-first, instead of the current first-come-first-served system. There is a "prevailing wage" requirement, intended to ensure that H1B is used to bring in workers where there's a shortage, not merely to undercut wages. But that's hard to police. And there is a more market-oriented way of allocating the slots to where genuine shortages exist: look at revealed preferences in the form of how much companies are willing to pay for a worker. If a company is willing to offer $150k to an H1B worker, I'm willing to believe there is actually a shortage of that person's skills. If they're only willing to offer $60k, I'm less convinced this offer is filling a skill that suffers from a major national shortage.

<comment><USER20> I really like this idea. It is a shame that H1B workers get 60k for a job that I'd take at 85k and the company's justification is that it costs them 25k to process the visa or what not. That cost should not be computed into someone's compensation!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> As someone going through the US immigration process at the moment, the real issue as far as immigration reform goes should not be raising the H-1B cap, but rather fixing the insane greencard backlog. At the moment its pretty common for people to have to spend over a decade waiting in a legal limbo with an uncertain future.

In addition to this, requiring companies to sponsor greencards for all H1-B workers would go a long way toward stopping those who are simply looking for cheap captive labour and would leave the pool open to those companies who are legitimately looking for skilled workers in good faith.

</comment><comment><USER22> I wonder if any H-1B workers would have been among those laid off by Microsoft.

<comment><USER23> According to the minimicrosoft[1] blog comments, yes they have.

UK perspective: absolutely no chance of visas for people outwith EU if you are in a redundancy situation locally. Endof. I'm surprised this could even be happening.

Disclaimer: I live in a 50:50 city, in a predominantly Muslim neighbourhood where the 'recent immigrants' are Polish.

[1] [http://minimsft.blogspot.co.uk/2014/07/18000-microsoft- jobs-...](http://minimsft.blogspot.co.uk/2014/07/18000-microsoft-jobs-gone- eventually.html)

<comment><USER24> Not sure what you mean here. I think that Finish ex nokia workers could work in the UK/EU if they have a job offer Finland is a member of the EEA area.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> Just wait till the guy's seat gets replaced by an app written by one of those H1B holders he'd like to ban from the country at the ripe age of 23.

</comment><comment><USER26> Aren't 12,000 of the 18,000 mostly overseas jobs at Nokia Devices in Finland? And 6000 doesn't seem that high based on the churn at most big tech companies between people leaving, layoffs and firings.

And it's kinda funny that Satya would've himself been on a work visa when he worked at Sun or at Microsoft, perhaps the senator is implying that poor Ballmer shouldn't have been laid off and replaced with a foreign worker? :)

Looks like a flamebait headline and article by the same guy at ComputerWorld who seems to be on a crusade against H1B, as part of a personal crusade or for page views (these articles seems to invariably make it to the Slashdot front page).

[https://www.google.com/search?client=opera&q=computerworld+h...](https://www.google.com/search?client=opera&q=computerworld+h1b&sourceid=opera&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8#q=site%3Acomputerworld.com+h1b+Patrick+Thibodeau+&safe=off)</comment>


Newbie - <AUTHOR>

Greets.  I just learned of this community.
I have a product which is designed to adress an environmental concern:  electrical energy waste.
According to Edison Power Research Institute, 25% of all electricity in the USA used in residential serviuce is wasted by people simply forgetting to turn off unused and unneeded lights.
BY addressing this issue, i can save the average consumer about 20-25% on their monthly electricity bill, reduce the loads on overloaded local electrical grids, reduce pollutution at generating plants by reducing load, and put numerous people to wqork all over the USA installing and maintaining the system s I have designed.
They are primarily targeted for new construction, though retrofitting is entirely possible at a slightly higher cost.
The system can also provide security and environmental control, at virtually no additional cost.
The system can be installed and used by any residential power customer, and does not require any interaction by the userr at all, though for environmental control and security, some interaction would, of course, be required.
I estimate the total cost to install such a system in a newly constructed average three bedroom home at approximatley $1200.
I actually designed this system decades ago, but micro-controller and sensor costs have only recently made it feasible to build and sell.
Unfortunately, I lack the financial resources to fully prototype and constructy a demonstration system.  Looking for angels or investors.
I can be reached at firstname.lastname@example.com
Thank you for your time and consideration in this matter. <comment><USER2> Do you have a webpage? Pictures? Any technical details?

 _I actually designed this system decades ago_

Really?

<comment><USER3> <http://www.tjkeller.net/> but it doesn't mention anything about this system. Most of the energy savings described can be accomplished using off the shelf home automation products like motion sensor, dimmer, and timer switches for lights, and timer-controlled thermostats.

<comment><AUTHOR> Of course it doesn't say anything about the system. I am not going to give away enough information to allow any decent electronics/embedded systems engineer to recreate it from my description.

Ifg you or anyone else is interested enough, and serious enough, to sign an NDA< I will be glad to reveal the ideas behind the design.

Tom

<comment><USER4> Do you have a patent? If not, get one - I don't see anybody investing in an idea whose IP is unprotected.

<comment><AUTHOR> Apologies. I flew off the handle with that response.

If I can;'t raise the money for a reasonable demonstration unit, however am I going to raise the money to pay for a patent?

I would presume that one of the first expenditures that any angel or investor would insist on is a patent, and i h ave no problem with that.

I have begun studying other patents, to try to get some idea of what shoudl go into a proper patent filing.

Tom

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> So it's a motion sensor, then?

<comment><AUTHOR> No, not a "motion sensor" in the traditional sense, at any rate.

After all, people sitting and reading or watching television or listening to music might not be moving enough to adequately indicate room occupancy. It is a room occupancy sensor, but without some NDAs, I am not saying any more than that.

Tom

Thanks for your response.</comment></comment>


S0md3v/Photon: Incredibly fast crawler - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/s0md3v/Photon <comment><USER2> Its an interesting project, I know that there are a ton of crawler projects but I think that focusing on the data extraction & triage is where this project differs from the rest.

Kudos to the author for the great work, I'll certainly do my part to contribute.</comment>


Show HN: Timebox, politely timebox unix programs - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/acg/timebox <comment><USER2> Nice program, It would be great to put a comparative with the `timeout` utility from the coreutils</comment>


Ask HN: Feedback on my Idea - <AUTHOR>

I am thinking of developing an web app for requesting open source library ports. Basically, people can post existing libraries in a language and request for an port to any language, others can vote it or provide any existing libraries already available. Also, people can assign themselves to work on a project and others can also work along with them.<p>What do you think of it? any existing solutions already out there? <comment><USER2> The only problem you could solve is recruiting new contributors who want to port open source projects, as pressuring the current developers is highly counterproductive, doing the porting without help doesn't need any social networking, and collaboration on the software development itself is going to use different, established tools (most likely those of the existing project: forums, mailing lists, public source repositories).

This niche of making people port open source projects to different platforms is better served by more general software developer recruitment approaches (why focus on porting?): for paid work (I want a port of this library but I don't want to do it myself) there are existing employees who might be just assigned to do it, general-purpose job/contracting boards and targeted announcements and advertisement to experts of the involved platforms.

For the delusionally small niche of volunteer work (If you don't know what to do, maybe you'll decide to port these great libraries to neglected platforms) interested parties are perfectly able to research what would constitute a good porting campaign for them in terms of effort, utility, learning opportunity, etc.</comment>


At 215 Million Active Users, Twitter Has a Growth Problem - <AUTHOR> http://allthingsd.com/20131003/at-215-million-active-users-twitter-has-a-growth-problem/?mod=atdtweet <comment><USER2> If you can effectively monetize those 215 million users, then the sky's the limit. The user base doesn't need to grow as much as the profitability needs to grow. Comparing Twitter numbers with Facebook numbers isn't very helpful. They're different products. Larger numbers of users doesn't necessary mean more profit. A metric not mentioned in this article is engagement. "Active" users isn't very helpful when discussing the potential profitability on a per user basis. The engagement as well as the signal-to-noise makes a big difference. For example, what's the rate of return on a Facebook ad versus a Twitter ad? What are the CTRs? What are CPMs? What's the operating expense? What's the profit growth rate? There are dozens of things that go into an equation before one can say Twitter has a "growth" problem. Profits don't follow linearly with an increase of users.</comment>


Steve Jobs receiving Cancer Treatment in Hospital - <AUTHOR> http://thenextweb.com/apple/2011/02/17/steve-jobs-may-have-just-six-weeks-to-live-receiving-treatment/

<comment><USER2> Related:

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2228842>

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2230042>

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2230361>

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2230497>

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2230702>

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2231730>

</comment><comment><USER3> Source of the 'six weeks' estimate:

'The National Enquirer, who broke the news today, talked to critical-care physician Dr. Samuel Jacobson, who said, "Judging from the photos, he is close to terminal. I would say he has six weeks."'

</comment><comment><USER4> > _"That said, given the reliability of The National Enquirer, waiting for > further news before jumping to conclusions is advised."_

 _The National Enquirer_ broke the story about U.S. presidential candidate John Edwards' extra marital affair while his wife was undergoing chemo: [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_National_Enquirer#John_Edwa...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_National_Enquirer#John_Edwards_story)

</comment><comment><USER5> lets NOT vote this one up guys or @joshbert can you please change the title on here?

We changed our title given the quality of the source claiming 6 weeks. [This is Zee from The Next Web btw]

</comment><comment><USER6> The source is the National Enquirer? Flagged.

<comment><USER5> agree with you 100% (this is Zee from TNW btw)

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> I wonder if the hospital is charging his doctors 30% of their fee in order to allow the doctors to treat him in their hospital.

</comment><comment><USER8> We need more of his time. Here's hoping the news is wrong...as most likely it is.</comment>


A world without work - <AUTHOR> http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2015/07/world-without-work/395294/?single_page=true <comment><USER2> I really enjoyed reading this article.

I've been thinking quite a bit about work recently. I'm just about to turn 29, and by all accounts I'm fairly successful: I graduated college with a worthless liberal arts degree just as the Great Recession was beginning. After an unsuccessful attempt at copywriting for a couple years, I managed to learn programming. A few years after that and I'm the leader of the engineering team at 12-person startup that looks to be pretty successful.

And yet I'm as unhappy now as I've ever been. And it sucks. Why can't I just be happy with what I have? I've got a steady job, I've got a pretty good income. Why do I feel so awful about my own life?

I've suspected for some time now that work itself is the problem. I'm trading in the best years of my life, my focus, my attention, my time, _my life_ for money. That's the nature of this transaction. I'm trading in this short life I get for cash. I feel like a prostitute.

Honestly I'm sitting here with tears in my eyes thinking about it.

And apparently I'm not alone in how I feel about work. From the article: "A 2014 Gallup report of worker satisfaction found that as many as 70 percent of Americans don't feel engaged by their current job."

I think the truth is that work is an ocean of human misery, unfulfilled dreams and wasted lives. I think a vast majority of us waste our youth, our time, our energy in fields that we don't give a shit about, when in a better society we'd be able to work on the things we do care about.

<comment><USER3> This.

Basic income would pay for basic needs, and let people devote "free time" to more personally-satisfacting-activities: open-source programming, studiyng new interesting fields, etc...

The mere fact that in today's professional career there is little oportunity for a 40-50years to work on a completely-new-unexperienced-field is an clear example. There is a point in time after which a job converts from ilusion-and- motivation into delusion-and-economic-compromise. And that's blocking people from growing and fully apply their capabilities to reach higher achivements

<comment><USER4> Basic income will probably result in even more antagonism towards immigrants. As Milton Friedman said, "It's just obvious you can't have free immigration and a welfare state".

I feel immigration to the US is too restrictive as it is, let alone what it would become if it meant giving everyone a paycheck. You basically have these options:

1\. Restrict immigration (perhaps you are OK with this, I am not. I feel immigration is one of the fundamental things that helped this country succeed, and that we should be moving to make it MORE open, not less).

2\. Allow immigration but not offer basic income until you are a citizen. Now you have a classist system. If you were born in the US you are part of the citizen caste, that is guaranteed income from taxes (a nobility if you will), if you were born outside the borders you must work for your income here. Sure, eventually you could be "admitted", but it seems weird that an 18 year old would be allowed to do whatever he wants but someone just entering the country with three kids would be forced to work.

3\. Offer basic income to everyone that comes in, have no restriction, and default immediately.

If you think Americans are xenophobic now, just wait to see their attitudes if basic income ever passes.

<comment><USER5> Good points there.

I feel this is a bit too early for basic income. That change will come to pass naturally when society will be able to continue to exist and function normally even if almost nobody will work. That would require some pretty hefty advancements in AI and robotics.

Basically, I don't see struggle-free basic income without the robots doing all the work for us.

<comment><USER6> Basic Income won't come naturally, look at how difficult a 40 hour week / 8hr day was to bring into existence. Basically, widespread strikes were required. The baseline productivity of the world is already sufficient for basic income, and/or increased leisure vs work weeks - the only thing that advanced automation might to in the future is make the disconnect between historical economic assumptions and modern productivity unavoidable from a political standpoint.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eight- hour_day](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eight-hour_day)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> I've had friends lose jobs in Amazon warehouses over their aggressive research and development of an all-machine packaging line. They do work now that requires the precision of a human hand and eye, but that job may also go the way of the assembly line. His only hope is that custom carpentry's demand by rich celebrities wanting the "premium" afforded by the work of a Human over the static of a machine.

When I look back at people who invested their lives in the future of mankind, and their predictions in something like the year 1960, it's interesting to note just how incorrect they were. Communication boomed over transportation, for example. Knowing that, I try to think of the ways the future will be so impossibly different than my present. A world without work is one of those, and I hope it angers and confuses every currently living generation enough that we wish we would have made it a reality sooner.

<comment><USER8> A world without work was a pretty common vision in the 1960s. And the 1860s

But humanity has a remarkable capacity to invent new outlets to fill our waking hours as we redeploy resources used to make stuff to make _other_ stuff or sell stuff. We didn't have (or foresee!) social media managers or video game designers in the 1960s. And software doesn't just make our production efforts scale, it makes our consumption scale. You can fit far more lifestyle apps on your phone than chairs around your table, and a couple of decades back few people would have foreseen _mobile phone apps_ as a category of product that needed people to make, still less an industry reportedly topping up the paycheques of a million Europeans.

I'm not seeing the developed world's desire for more stuff reach satiation point, and if anything desire to subsidise unemployment is trending in the opposite direction.

<comment><USER9> Hell, modern theory has it that the pyramids were in essence a type of stimulus program to keep folks busy and fed (and no, they were not in fact slaves)!

<comment><USER10> I would love to see a return to investing in and updating some of the physical infrastructure that has degraded over time.

In the USA there are a huge amounts of bridges that need updating/repairing, dams needing repair (or removal), roads needing repair, dilapidated school buildings needing updating (as well as energy efficiency updates), etc. There seems like TONS of work to be done to refresh our aging physical infrastructure.

<comment><USER11> Not just the US. And not just maintenance. _Creating_ good infrastructure is one of the best of all possible investments.

The problem isn't that there's no useful work; it's that the genius of the current economic system - the one where it's every individual for themselves, and there's no such thing as society - is incredibly bad at deciding what needs to be done to make the future better for everyone.

So education at all levels is mediocre, infrastructure is deliberately crippled for profit, there's no systematic planning for the future at all - and people in work are still spending huge amounts of time on essentially pointless activities.

It's an organisational and political problem, not a technological one.

Actually it's more of a psychological problem. Getting humans to learn deferred gratification _as a species_ turns out to be exceptionally hard.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> Some interesting points - I would have the following questions for the author (I didn't see them answered)

How many of the ills observed in non-working adults are due (at least in part) to the culture of "your value is based on the job you hold"?

How many people sit around watching TV because that's what they can afford to do, or because their peers are unavailable at the same times?

How many teens revert to crime because they need money, or don't have other affordable opportunities for entertainment available to them?

1977 is a time very different than today; what differences in attitudes and activities can be attributed to the climate of 1977?

What can we learn from these examples to make the coming change in employment levels work out better now than it did 40 years ago?

<comment><USER13> Hi Falcolas, this is Derek Thompson, the author of the piece.

1\. The quick answer is that we don't know how much of the misery of not working is from the financial shortfall of unemployment, vs the failure to meet a cultural expectation to work, vs some inherent need to feel productive, because it's just very hard to tease out the difference in reliable studies. How, eg, would you test this for prime-age adults at a time when income is tied to work and there is a cultural expectation that everybody work?

That said, my best guess is that about half of the psychological misery of losing a job and being unemployed comes from the non-money stuff, like being bored and failing to meet a cultural expectation to work. (This is distinct from people who choose to stay home with kids, who have chosen to immerse themselves in an essential activity and often feel great pride -- and stress! -- in these jobs, even though they're not compensated with income). As I said in the piece:

"The post-workists argue that Americans work so hard because their culture has conditioned them to feel guilty when they are not being productive, and that this guilt will fade as work ceases to be the norm. This might prove true, but it's an untestable hypothesis. When I asked Hunnicutt what sort of modern community most resembles his ideal of a post-work society, he admitted, "I'm not sure that such a place exists.""

2\. The fact that unemployed men seem to be _less social overall_ suggests to me that their rise in leisure is about more than the daytime unavailability of peers. Because otherwise, wouldn't they just go drinking with buddies every night? This suggests, to me, some shame of being unemployed that leads to self-imposed isolation. In any case, the misery of unemployment suggests that we're just not very good, as a culture (and particularly men), at finding non- screen-based things to do with our time when work goes away.

3\. Crime has fallen by A LOT in the last few decades so I didn't want to go too deep into predicting a rise in crime at a time when violent crime seems to be in structural decline. That said, for young, less educated black men, there are a variety of barriers to their participation in the labor force including racist bosses not wanting to hire them, an abundance of low-paying service sector jobs that seem feminine (they're in health care, government, and education), and the cultural and economic allure of the black market and gangs in some areas. This is a really short summary, but I think the allure of gangs and crime is very complicated.

4\. One of the biggest differences between 1977 and today is certainly the decline in crime. Crime didn't spike during the Great Recession, surprisingly.

5\. I thought that's what the piece was about! :) But seriously, the section labeled Government: The Visible Hand tries to address this question (or at least this question as I understand it) head on.

<comment><USER14> 2\. I know this is anecdotal, but when I was unemployed I often didn't socialize because I simply couldn't afford the luxury. Many social activities are fairly expensive, depending on your area, friends, and preferences.

<comment><USER12> Yeah, this came to mind as well. A night at the pub can easily run even a conservative drinker $20+, doing this every night (even when working) would be hard. And those costs appear in other activites as well - renting a field/equipment to play ball, renting a bowling lane, green fees for golf, tickets for events...

<comment><USER15> hiking, biking/rollerscating, enjoying a picnic, having friends over for card/board games, having a lan party are also valid and cheap/free alternatives :)

<comment><USER14> None of the things that you mentioned, card games excepted, are particularly cheap unless you already have the equipment, and some not even then.

<comment><USER15> I regularly practice each of them and barely spend any money

hiking: I just do light hiking, and all I need is a couple of sandwiches, a backpack and my boots. And plenty of water. Plenty of hills/mountains around helps, that's true

biking/rollerscating: you can get a decent used bike for about $100

picnic: just the food, and you need to eat anyway

board games: unless you need to switch the game every week I'd say you're covered with about $50 per year. We mainly play Settlers of Catan and Chess

lan party: I guess it depends on the games, we don't do this much anymore, but we're pretty old school when we do (CS, Starcraft 1, Worms World Party)

There's probably lots of other activities like that, for example we play soccer/foot tennis on a public field, and all it costs us is the price of the ball

<comment><USER16> I'm unemployed right now and I won't do any of those. Here's why:

Hiking: Buy boots and suitable clothes. Fuel to get to suitable location.

Biking/Rollerskating: Buy equipment. Fuel to get to suitable location.

Picnic: transportation supplies. Fuel to get to suitable location.

Board games: Expensive. Fuel to get to suitable location.

Lan party: Buy games. Fuel to get to suitable location.

All it costs is fuel, utilities, rent, and food. For someone with no income, that is _all_ I can spend money on, and it has to be justifiable. Not "Oh, I play board games every once in a while", because I don't want to have to pass up on a job interview because I stupidly spent my transportation money on board games. Or whatever else.

<comment><USER17> Why doesn't a bike save you a lot of money on fuel? Keeping a car on the road is expensive, you can save on insurance too. Also you can take the bus. I know, it's a pain.

<comment><USER16> I'm not going to sell my car until I have a permanent place to live.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> "The paradox of work is that many people hate their jobs, but they are considerably more miserable doing nothing."

This is true in *today's culture of work. Unemployment, even if a person was laid off due to their employer going bankrupt, is still seen as a personal failing. And unemployment for most people means a race against the clock before savings dwindle (if they are lucky enough to have been able to save for such an emergency). And prolonged unemployment and the uncertainty and drop in status that comes with it can be demoralizing and depressing, especially for people who have little prospect of finding a satisfying or at least decent paying job. The people that sleep and watch TV are likely doing so because they are under psychological stress. Our culture fetishes work to a degree that would make a Marxist blush and unemployment and not working is punished by society on many levels.

But if the culture of work changes over time and not working in the traditional sense no longer means destitution, stigma and loss of status, well, who can say for sure not working at an unsatisfying job will result in misery and lazing around doing nothing.

</comment><comment><USER9> I find it presumptuous that the authors lay depression and so forth at the feet of unemployment and not the obvious: poverty.

If folks could live, unemployed, receiving mincome that supported a reasonable quality of life, is there a reason to believe these various effects would still be a major issue?

<comment><USER19> I am not a sociologist or psychologist, but I do not belive humans can handle significant idle time in a socially productive way. Look at the disaster zones that are most public housing projects.

Humans evolved needing to work to survive. It's in our nature to become restless and sociopathic if we have nothing to do.

<comment><USER20> Public housing projects are almost by definition some of the most impoverished areas. To attribute the problems of slums to boredom seems misguided.

Additionally, I don't think the idea here is to encourage idleness. It's about people not needing to either beg an existing profitable business to take them in or create one ex nihilo in order to survive.

Just the idea that the alternative to jobs is idleness shows a strange conflation of ideas. We define "work" as that which we hope will earn us money — we know an activity is work because of a totally extrinsic factor. There are people in our society who are paid a king's ransom to literally play games, and there are people who do back-breaking labor without anywhere close to fair compensation, and this is all work because they make their living doing it. But if somebody (say, a painter) doesn't have customers or an employer, that's not work, and thus it looks like idleness, no matter how engaged they are in the activity.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> Cultural observations: Lots of people currently believe in the idea of go to school, get degree, get great job, and work hard, get ahead or at least don't get downsized. Today we laugh at people in my grandfather's generation who had weird employment ideas like lifetime employment at one firm, college isn't necessary, and no women allowed (well, we laugh at dinosaurs like that outside silicon valley where its still prevalent, etc).

Cultural analysis and conclusion: Generation AJSKGJ, or whatever the marketing people will call tomorrows kids, are highly likely to laugh at our ideas like the previously mentioned "school/degree/job" or "work hard get reward or at least not punished" axis of evil.

We have other weird cultural hangups that'll likely look weird in the future, its hard for us to understand how nationalistic foreign cultures (nazis, communists, etc) in the early 20th century were all into promoting the nation ahead of their citizens, yet today we see corporations as the only important members of our culture and we're mere resources to be thrown away at their whim, this is likely to look equally weird in the future. Or how about endlessly describing boring old corruption as holy capitalism, thats going to look totally weird to people in the future.

<comment><USER22> > no women allowed (well, we laugh at dinosaurs like that outside silicon > valley where its still prevalent, etc).

The Valley has its own social obstacles to women's employment...

</comment></comment><comment><USER23> This is reminiscent of David Graeber's essay "On the Phenomenon of Bullshit Jobs" [http://strikemag.org/bullshit-jobs/](http://strikemag.org/bullshit- jobs/) and its commentary on the Economist [http://www.economist.com/blogs/freeexchange/2013/08/labour-m...](http://www.economist.com/blogs/freeexchange/2013/08/labour- markets-0/)

</comment><comment><USER24> What if the new capital is creativity? The new model for "work" is OSS? Replace money with creativity in the definitions of capitalism. Material possessions are socially discounted; creating new designs, new originals the new currency to excel.

If so, the first classes we now cut in schools: advanced mathematics, chorus, art, music, etc. are the areas we need to emphasize the most.

<comment><USER25> Read Veale's The Creativity Myth. What you call "creativity" can be automated much like anything else. Emphasizing creativity would work for an extra couple of decades at most, so there's no sense in building, say, brand new educational institutions around it. Check out the N.Y. Times article announcing the creation of the Camp Fire Girls (co-invented by Gulick, a co- inventor of basketball) - there was a panic then about automation and the problem was not solved, it has just been continually deferred as the pace of change increasingly wreaks havoc on our ability to prepare children for adulthood. When the buzzwords of today's companies are "innovation" and "disruption", you may translate them to "unpredictability", "chaos", and "social insecurity". No one even tries to design to rightfully earn a place in a human being's short life cycle - Silicon Valley designers often enough end up making dopamine squirrels for poor toddlers on touch screens. The designers then heed warnings against giving their own children screens, ban TV's in the home, and send the kids to an unplugged school. Fewer are able to escape the swathe of the indefatigueable machine. Have we made some thing more clever than ourselves? Yes and no, but the no shrinks. Perhaps instead some could follow Kant's idea of treating humans solely as ends, never as means, a sort of human-centered chauvinism or "humanism". Or one can conclude that if machines lack human flaws, and out perform homo sapiens at their supposed virtues, they deserve the future. New genders, new sexualities, new body images, these might get some attention economy for a few, but they must be rewarded by a mass of bored, a creativity economy is the fame and long tail economy we already have. The assimilation of new distinctiveness will approach instantaneousness. And computers can be reformatted much more easily because they have no "self" to worry about or reinforce.

<comment><USER25> Edit since edit feature fails: Read Veale's The Creativity Myth. What you call "creativity" can be automated much like anything else. Emphasizing creativity would work for an extra couple of decades at most, so there's no sense in building, say, brand new educational institutions around it. Check out the N.Y. Times article announcing the creation of the Camp Fire Girls (co-invented by Gulick, a co-inventor of basketball) - there was a panic then about automation and the problem was not solved, it has just been continually deferred as the pace of change increasingly wreaks havoc on our ability to prepare children for adulthood. When the buzzwords of today's companies are "innovation" and "disruption", you may translate them to "unpredictability", "chaos", and "social insecurity". No one even tries to design in order to righteously earn a place in a human being's short life cycle - Silicon Valley designers often enough end up making dopamine squirters for poor toddlers on touch screens. The designers may heed warnings against giving their own children screens, ban TV's in the home, and send the kids to an unplugged school, but fewer are able to escape the swathe of the indefatigueable machine, or have any coherent and ever-presebt religion or philosophy. Have we made some thing more clever than ourselves? Yes and no, but the no shrinks, not only as the machine gets stronger, but as it weakens us. Some instead some could follow Kant's idea of treating humans solely as ends, never as means, a sort of human-centered chauvinism or "humanism". Or one can conclude that if machines lack human flaws, and out perform homo sapiens at their supposed virtues, they deserve the future. New genders, new sexualities, new body images, these might get some of the attention economy for a few, but they must be rewarded inequally is a mass of the bored; a creativity economy is the fame / long tail economy we already have. The production and assimilation of new distinctiveness will approach instantaneousness. And computers can be reformatted much more easily because they have no "self" to worry about or reinforce. People just won't learn fast enough.

Camp Fire cite:[http://query.nytimes.com/mem/archive- free/pdf?_r=2&res=9F00E...](http://query.nytimes.com/mem/archive- free/pdf?_r=2&res=9F00E6DE1E3CE633A25754C1A9659C946396D6CF)

<comment><USER26> Creativity can be automated? Yes, you could automate parts of it if you wanted.

However, you're missing a couple of points. Firstly, creativity is enjoyable. Not because of some grand need to push culture forward and/or keep people entertained, just because it's fun to create.

Secondly, you're implying that culture will move in a unified direction, or that we'll all consume the same culture. We won't. There's too much of it to take it all in, and there's no reason to suggest that all tastes will align. Culture will grow chaotically just like it always has, the main difference is that we'll have more time to explore it.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER27> While this is a very interesting and insightful article, it might be useful to add a broader historical/anthropological perspective. I'm not qualified to do that. But it's my understanding that development of agriculture and animal husbandry, and much later industrialization, drove huge increases in human population.

In part, of course, that was driven by the abundance of food and so on. But there was also the need for workers. So as machines displace workers, one might expect human population to gradually decrease, perhaps back to neolithic levels.

The challenge, then, would be to have that occur as humanely as possible.

<comment><USER28> Also increase in comfort and development is correlated with smaller children number, so an hyper modern world may have smaller population "momentum". There's a statistician with a TED talk about that. Maybe that one [http://www.ted.com/talks/hans_rosling_shows_the_best_stats_y...](http://www.ted.com/talks/hans_rosling_shows_the_best_stats_you_ve_ever_seen) I cant recall.

<comment><USER27> Right. I have no children, that I know of. I never much wanted to focus on money, and raising children didn't appeal to me as a hobby or avocation.

<comment><USER28> You may be a niche though. Some people did want kids as part of the family tradition, but not too much so they could play the career game. In a world without work, people wouldn't have that dream so how would they fill the void. Maybe a little bit more children (goes against my previous argument), or art, social bonding, travel.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER29> "Work" connotes a class distinction. Class is part of this.

Subjugation of workers and caste are the origin of the current system.

Who owns the machines? Who owns the land?

Does a human being have a natural right to live? To own his own small plot of land?

Are humans just like common animals, to be yoked or corralled?

Fundamentally the intellectual framework is driven by patronage of the highest caste which cannot help but maintain elitist, regressive, Darwnian, Malthusian worldviews to rationalize the inequality.

The life-giving moneyflow is primitive and its volume arbitrary and should be replaced by something more sophisticated, but there is no actual reason it could not be returned to its previous high rate if we make the right psychological adjustments.

Sustainability doesn't require halting development, it just needs smarter systems, like putting real science into economics or better adoption of common operational data exchange.

<comment><USER30> I'm interested in your view concerning one of the axioms that I infer underlies your political thinking. What do you consider equality, and what do you consider the reasoning behind considering it a desirable goal?

<comment><USER29> A human has a natural right to the minimum necessities of life. Owning a small plot of land to provide for oneself should be one option.

Owning a huge plot of land or controlling access to another person's minimum necessities is unequal.

The alternative is the default, primitive, animal that must fight to survive. Until this supposition that we must prove our right to exist falls from popularity, civilization is a myth.

The underlying assumption is the understanding that human is greater than base animal, starting with comprehension of the noosphere and what that entails.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER31> Machines create value, if we socialized that value, we could easily implement a minimum income for everyone and have work be strictly a part time or hobbyist thing. Or "work" will become a strange mix of fighting for social or knowledge capital and other non-monetary value while machines do all the crap work we used to do before. I'd rather be judged at a co-op poetry slam where my social capital gets hurt if I lose than losing my home/car/savings/income if I lose at my job.

Capitalism has a built-in end game: extremely efficient automation. We're walking this path now and have been since steam power. Smart, cheap, and general purpose robots are probably where this all ends.

<comment><USER32> Does capitalism have an ending? Maybe we can envision some kind of ending on earth. But what about when we start colonizing other planets?

What new jobs begin to be created as we step outside earth.

<comment><USER21> Never forget Balkanization or fragmentation. For example 90% of the population has been permanently kicked out of big city coastal real estate and will never, ever, live there or own property there via hyperinflation in real estate prices.

Yet, the sun still rises in the east and 90% of the countries population lives on, under different goals and interests.

Its highly likely crony capitalism as we know it will never end and income wealth inequality will increase until almost no one owns everything, but as long as everyone else is alive, they'll just play a different game. Getting ahead of that trend is likely to be very useful. This gets into weird sci fi alt-future world "whuffie", etc, but when the game gets weird, the results get weird.

You can see echos of this in historical academic studies during economic depressions, here and otherwise. Once the economic system fragments, people figure out other things, in the old days, barter, for example. Or crime. In the future the NYSE and NASDAQ will likely continue to operate, yet be utterly irrelevant to maybe 99.999% of the population, who will consider craigslist, uber, or some new startup that doesn't exist to be the real "the market".

(edited to add, I really screwed up the above paragraph by failing to mention the NYSE will never go away, much like the once universal giants of the past, gold trade still goes on, fur trade, spice trade, virtually everything but the slave trade keeps right on running, just no longer important to much of anyone anymore)

Anyway the point is a good long term place for a startup to be is post- business as usual. As per the famous gawker article, startups trying to replace "mom" for rich coastal yuppies are very popular, but the future is likely owned by a startup that replaces the existing commodity trading system for most people, or replaces retail, or replaces package delivery or ...

<comment><USER33> _" the NYSE will never go away_"

It went away years ago, after a merger with Euronext and a few more mergers. The parent company, ICE, is in Atlanta and owns 23 exchanges. The NYSE trading floor is a stage set now. There are still some people there, but they're using computers. The webcam feed is no longer available.

Here's a picture of the NYSE trading floor from June 2015:[1] It's now a quiet co-working space for traders. One guy on a tablet, a few on desktops, two people talking, one walking, many empty seats. That's the NYSE today.

All the real action happens inside several data centers in New Jersey.

[1] [https://usatmarkets.files.wordpress.com/2015/06/wall_street-...](https://usatmarkets.files.wordpress.com/2015/06/wall_street-6-2-15.jpg?w=1000&h=582)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER34> It seems like the mass amount of money dumped into alternative advertising models is increasingly pushing the 'Attention Economy'[1]. Video games designed by behavioral psychologists to be addicting, compulsive, and time consuming [2].

Advertising IS attention economics, but now it's being said we're reaching peak advertising and that the attention of the masses is saturated.

Amazon recently begin experimenting with paying writers based upon feedback of single pages being viewed long enough. [4]

I could only hope for the money previously allocated to garner everyone's attention for brand recognition may now be channeled into further product development and research, as it's becoming harder to rely solely on brand name identity with easier access to information on alternative products and review websites like anandtech or thewirecutter. Although I have a hunch much of that development will be into building more invasive advertising and attention economy games - [5]

[1] [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Attention_Economy](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Attention_Economy)

[2] [http://www.theguardian.com/technology/2014/may/21/candy- crus...](http://www.theguardian.com/technology/2014/may/21/candy-crush-angry- birds-psychology-compulsive-casual-games-mobile-flappy-birds)

[3] [http://www.nytimes.com/2012/04/08/magazine/angry-birds- farmv...](http://www.nytimes.com/2012/04/08/magazine/angry-birds-farmville- and-other-hyperaddictive-stupid-games.html?_r=0)

[4] [https://kdp.amazon.com/help?topicId=A156OS90J7RDN](https://kdp.amazon.com/help?topicId=A156OS90J7RDN)

[5] [https://vimeo.com/14533403](https://vimeo.com/14533403)

[6] [http://pastebin.com/jJZVxfRm](http://pastebin.com/jJZVxfRm)

</comment><comment><USER35> Nicely written[1] and not as hyperbolic as others but to buy in you have to get past this:

 _The job market defied doomsayers in those earlier times, and according to the most frequently reported jobs numbers, it has so far done the same in our own time. Unemployment is currently just over 5 percent, and 2014 was this century's best year for job growth. One could be forgiven for saying that recent predictions about technological job displacement are merely forming the latest chapter in a long story called The Boys Who Cried Robot—one in which the robot, unlike the wolf, never arrives in the end._

This paragraph does an interesting double switch and it is that switch that is important. It is demonstrably true that throughout history, displaced workers have cried the warning to other that soon, their jobs would be on the block and what would they do then? And through out history that doesn't happen. To understand why that doesn't happen you have to understand the causal relationship between work and spending.

People spend money, how they get that money to spend, whether it is waiting tables at a restaurant or Daddy's trust fund doesn't really matter, it gets spent for "goods and services" (which we'll just call goods). And other people figure out ways to provide desirable goods in order to attract someone to give them money in exchange for that. But no where in that transaction is there a specific "job" there is only money and goods.

Take for example blacksmiths and auto mechanics. In the 1850's there were lots of blacksmiths and perhaps a handful of auto mechanics. In the 1950's there were lots of auto mechanics and a handful of blacksmiths. So what happened? People started driving cars, stopped riding horses, they spent money to get goods and services for cars, stopped spending money to get goods and services related to horses or wagons.

Conceptually, people spent part of their money on transporting themselves and their stuff around. Other people provided goods and services around transportation technology in support of those people. As the technology for transportation evolved, people who provided goods for the previous technology found fewer and fewer customers, people who provided goods for the new technology found more and more customers. Net of everything else, same "number" of employed people, but the way in which they were employed changed.

They important bit is that not spending, that kills jobs for everyone, changing technology just moves around who can find employment and who can't but the number of jobs stays about the same.

The third vector is productivity, which is to say when it took 10 people to do X units of work toward producing a good or service, and now it only takes 1 person, that is a productivity gain. You can pay that one person[2] twice as much as any of the other 10 people and come out ahead. So more productive implementations win over less productive ones. But even with productivity gains, when you're now spending perhaps 20% for the same goods, you now have the 80% you are _not_ spending on those goods available for still other goods and services. So 9 "jobs" get eliminated in one market and 9 more different jobs get created to supply the other stuff the now freed up money can be applied toward.

The key here is eliminating certain jobs does not lead to unemployment in the large, but eliminating spending does. You lose jobs in a recession because people spend less, you gain them back more slowly if technology change has created dislocations (like it did in the Steel Mills.) But if a robot takes away your current job, it doesn't mean there doesn't exist another job you could do.

So economics aside, there are very real social justice issues around retraining and making available resources when conditions cause problems, but the luddite view that there won't be any way to earn a living, or that we won't want to or have to, is not well supported by the evidence.

[1] Not something I often say of stories in the Atlantic

[2] Remember, it is money seeking goods not "jobs"

</comment><comment><USER36> "many people hate their jobs, but they are considerably more miserable doing nothing"

Why assume we can either work or do nothing? Of course doing nothing sucks! What about doing something instead?

Could the problem be that most people have been trained to do what they're told, instead of being creative?

</comment><comment><USER37> Weird how the article keeps reusing the word "paradox". I don't think it means what they want it to mean.

 _The paradox of work is that many people hate their jobs, but they are considerably more miserable doing nothing._ \- if you haven't found out how to live your life without the framework of work, then yes - you will feel miserable. The work routine is pretty useful in that way - it fills up your time and you don't have to define what you want to do yourself. Kind of like the difference between someone serving you bland food, but food you can rely on to feed you to some degree vs. you having to cook for yourself from raw ingredients you chose.

 _Whether or not one has artistic ambitions as Schubert does, it is arguably growing easier to find short-term gigs or spot employment. Paradoxically, technology is the reason._ \- this is still not a paradox. You could insert "ironically" in there and it would be about as good a choice. And their choice of just "technology" sort of reminds me of this short segment [https://youtu.be/VGj5EffwnDg?t=6m3s](https://youtu.be/VGj5EffwnDg?t=6m3s)

</comment><comment><USER38> When I was a kid, I instinctively felt (did not have any kind of intellectual ability at that age) that I was in a trap. I can NOW supply language to my instincts. That instinct gradually grew into a concept - or a non-concept - and at 35 while still not sure what IT was - started saving, saving and more saving. In a country with high interest rates - that helped. I finally quit in 2010 at 50 - exactly 50. I spent the last 5 years doing absolutely no work for money. I never felt that I was missing out on anything at all. And I am sure I will never ever have to ask for help outside my family - unless of course any one of us is struck by an expensive disease. But then what that mostly would mean is physical pain. So we are now getting mentally ready for pain. Preparing to endure unendurable physical pain, which I personally have never experienced before. I do not feel like I am prostituting myself. That takes a lot of misery out of my system. I never ever switch on the TV, but spend a lot of time reading random stuff off the net.

</comment><comment><USER39> Only read very small part but author talks about Youngtown and says that when the local steel industry went bust suicide and assumingly criminal behavior increased.

To me this is because of loss of income not so much the loss of having to report to work. Does the article talk about why loss of income was not pointed to as the reason for the problems?

</comment><comment><USER40> The best kind of work is flow: immersed in an activity with energized focus and involvement, seeing progress, learning and achieving goals. That just isn't a concept that machines or automation can take away. But, yes, it does seem like virtual reality will step in to offer this if actual reality has no more to offer.

</comment><comment><USER41> I honestly don't think this will be much of a problem because frankly most of the work we do _today_ is not essential for living. We busy ourselves with busy work. Ideas have become the product. And since we are so unhappy when we're not working towards something, we'll simply invent something new.

</comment><comment><USER42> Can the author expound upon his encounters with universal basic income and his decisions on how to include it in the piece? I see that it's mentioned in the piece as something that can assuage the financial loss of work, but not the loss of civic cohesion or meaning in people's lives. However I feel that this idea was not an alternative the author seriously investigated, if you're still commenting can you confirm?

Did you encounter any deep exploration of what even a basic $1000/mo. guaranteed income might mean for people lacking work? What guided your thinking in how to approach this aspect of dealing with a post-work future, did it just feel too different, or another topic entirely?

Thanks for commenting here and thanks for the great piece!

</comment><comment><USER43> I strongly believe in universal basic income and that being forced to work is a form of slavery. I also believe that if you let people do whatever they want, sure you'll have 90% or more just doing nothing all day, but you'll have those 10% doing something great. Also, capitalism is really not that great! Builds societies that nurture exclusion, self-interest and survival of the fittest. In 100 years, when robotics has automated pretty much everything (this is inevitable), we'll look back at these days and laugh about how we used to build societies where people worked most of the day, rather than just _lived_ most of the day.

</comment><comment><USER44> For years we've claimed that we're on the brink of a world without work. However I believe that this claim is fundamentally flawed because it goes against Parkinson's law, which we've seen to be consistently true.

We naturally try to gather more material wealth, and this involves having a system where we give bigger rewards to those who work harder and smarter. No matter how much we eliminate menial tasks, we will always find more ways to spend our energy to reward those willing to do so.

<comment><USER45> Has little to do with work and a lot to do with sociology and economics. If you are paying someone, make them do shit. That's what good managers do. And then when this happens the expectations go way up alongside that... and now everyone is a whiny baby that wants things RIGHT NOW!

</comment></comment><comment><USER46> Here's an interesting counterpoint, arguing from economic evidence that at least in the last decade or two, downward pressure on wages doesn't appear to be primarily the result of automation: [http://prospect.org/article/it%E2%80%99s-not-skills-gap- that...](http://prospect.org/article/it%E2%80%99s-not-skills-gap- that%E2%80%99s-holding-wages-down-its-weak-economy-among-other-things)

</comment><comment><USER47> When I worked I would automate reports using Visual BASIC and Crystal Reports. I would create an MS-Access database at first to prototype the app, and then migrate it to MS-SQL Server later on when it went to production. I even made an ASP 3.0 based web app that could export the report to RTF, PDF, or TXT format for review on a mobile device.

That was 1997, and people who did the reports by hand ended up being fired. I felt sorry that I wrote a series of apps that cost people their jobs. My coworkers struggled with Crystal Reports because all they knew was Visual BASIC and Crystal Reports has a scripting language based on Ada. Something I learned in college as I attempted to learn as many programming languages as possible.

None of the apps I wrote used AI or were using robots, but they got the job done faster and more accurate than a human being would get them done. At most I called it business intelligence because I used accounting and statistics and other things a business would use to make decisions.

But I worked too hard and the stress was too much and developed a mental illness in 2001. Ended up on disability in 2003. Been in a hole and trying to get out of it so I can one day go back to work.

I'm in my 40s now, have a huge gap in my resume, and basically I am unemployable because I am old and mentally ill. Over the Opal CoC debate I got contacted by a woman who seems to be in the same area but she is a former sex slave that was trafficked at a young age and escaped and fought to clear her record so she could work and now she is in her 40s and learned how to program and freelances to earn money to keep a roof over her head. When managers and HR pull resumes, they throw away the ones with gaps in them, they want to hire people in their 20s, they don't want a person with a mental illness or in her case was part of some past human trafficking in the sex slave market. There are some people who are unemployable until the IT market is reformed.

When most of the jobs are gone, I expect there to be some sort of social program like a basic income that is paid for by taxing the companies who use robots and AI and automation instead of people to do work.

There are a class of poor people who cannot afford a used PC and an Internet connection to learn how to program to be able to apply for the jobs. They cannot even afford good clothes for an interview.

I wanted to form my own company that helps out people who are unemployable and see what they can do. Provide on the job training and mentorship to get them up to date with modern technology and programming. I think there is a key need to provide jobs for people who normally wouldn't get hired due to gaps in their resume, their age, a mental illness, exploited in human trafficking and overcame it, etc.

</comment><comment><USER48> it may be way in the future or it may not ... but combination of advance robotic, AI, nano-Tech and BioTech can easily eliminate the need of 99.9% of the workforce. But, the journey and social unrest may be so bumpy that could push the human race backward ... or it may reach to 99.9% point in which there is really nothing for billions of people to do. In that case either a small number of people will rule the world and the rest will be in poverty and misery and pain; or it will be a golden age and all will focus more on science and spirituality - not religion but true spirituality to expand human consciousness ... for sure until then the road will be very bumpy.

</comment><comment><USER49> Obligatory link to Manna by Marshall Brain - [http://marshallbrain.com/manna1.htm](http://marshallbrain.com/manna1.htm) (different chapters explore different possible outcomes)

</comment><comment><USER50> What's the alternative to this world? A world where 99% of us work and 1% don't?</comment>


Ask HN: What would be a good web dev laptop under $1.3K? - <AUTHOR>

Sorry, but I'm a student and can't afford more than that. I'm currently on a 10.4" netbook running Ubuntu 12.04. I (mostly) develop in Python with a touch of C and Java(Android) here and there. I often need to use Photoshop (which is a royal pain with my current setup) but not for anything too heavy. I don't really need it to be too portable.<p>Thanks. ps. I'm currently considering the baseline 13"Macbook Pro. <comment><USER2> In my opinion your best bet is the MacBook Pro (with a SSD). It gives you a ton of the *nix commands + the ability to easily run Windows or Linux natively or via a VM. Plus the hardware quality is top notch.

</comment><comment><USER3> I'd go for a 13" MBA over a 13" MB Pro. Way more portable and you'll be surprised how fast the MBA is with its SSD.

<comment><AUTHOR> I'm thinking about the MBP because of the larger HDD. I'm going to install an extra SSD anyway, and I don't need it to be all that portable (as I've mentioned above.)

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Go for MacBook Pro. Macs are a developers best friend.</comment>


Search site to find out what type of body scanners airports use - <AUTHOR> http://www.thescanningauthority.com/

<comment><USER2> The results are completely unreadable on my copy of firefox. Grey on grey, had to highlight to see it. Neat resource though.</comment>


Show HN Weekend Project: Hacker News Points - <AUTHOR>

I'm looking for feedback on my weekend project: HNPoints.com
HNPoints aims to bring back comment scores to Hacker News through a social opt-in system. Users install the browser extension or bookmarklet provided, and when logged in, are able to see other users' points; it then shares your comment scores with others (but no other personal information). With enough participants, point scores can be inferred for those contributors who choose not to participate.
This project is an experiment based on the support for bringing back comment scores, especially as a preference, in recent discussions, without forcing the decision upon everyone. This project is not meant to provoke holy wars but rather to provide people with the freedom to choose how they use Hacker News. For more info, check out the about page.
The system is in its infancy, so please be prepared for a) bugs and b) lack of comment scores as it gains adoption. It was conceived Saturday afternoon and Sunday evening, and beta tested for Monday and Tuesday with a select group of contributors. It's quite likely that more issues will be uncovered as more people start to use it.
Any feedback is welcome! :)
http://hnpoints.com/ <comment><USER2> I just installed on Rockmelt and it doesn't work all you see is "-"

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for checking it out :)

As an early adopter, it's quite likely that you'll see comments that are missing scores. This occurs when there is insufficient data to even make an approximation for a comment.

I can see the points on your reply, and the number of points on this comment should show up for you. As more users start using HNPoints, more comments should show scores.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> Clickable: <http://hnpoints.com/>

How do I install it on Firefox 184.108.40.206?

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks! :)

I don't have 1.5 to test on, but the Greasemonkey script should work, or you can email me at hnpoints at gmail and I'll try to help you get it working.</comment></comment>


What is the Best Way to Kill Creativity in the Workplace? - <AUTHOR> https://blog.siasto.com/what-is-the-best-way-to-kill-creativity-in-the-workplace

<comment><USER2> The only thing worse than this article was my decision to click on it.

</comment><comment><USER3> This is no secret. Micromanagement, management, a lack of freedom, inability to trust co-workers (can't collaborate with them), inability to speak freely, out of control deadlines, etc..

</comment><comment><USER4> the best way? uh, "fire everybody and close your doors" is straightforward and effective ...</comment>


Canadian Michael Spavor Missing in China - <AUTHOR> http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-china-46548614 <comment><USER2> Not the only one:

[https://www.thesun.co.uk/news/7911948/chinese- photographer-d...](https://www.thesun.co.uk/news/7911948/chinese-photographer- dark-side-communist-state-vanishes/)</comment>