A psychoanalytic reading of social media and the death drive - <AUTHOR> https://www.bookforum.com/print/2703/a-psychoanalytic-reading-of-social-media-and-the-death-drive-24171 <comment><USER2> > "online celebrity is only ever 240 characters away from online infamy"

Horace, about 2'000 years ago, suggests a (long to modern eyes) embargo[1]:

> "You will have it in your power to blot out what you have not made public: a > word once sent abroad can never return."

cautions against seeking internet points from astroturfers[2]:

> "As those who mourn at funerals for pay, do and say more than those that are > afflicted from their hearts; so the sham admirer is more moved than he that > praises with sincerity."

and even agrees with TFA's psychoanalytic reading[3]:

> "And whomsoever [a mad poet] seizes, he fastens on and assassinates with > recitation: a leech that will not quit the skin, till satiated with blood."

[1] [http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus%3Atext%...](http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus%3Atext%3A1999.02.0065%3Acard%3D347)

[2] [http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus%3Atext%...](http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus%3Atext%3A1999.02.0065%3Acard%3D419)

[3] [http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus%3Atext%...](http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus%3Atext%3A1999.02.0065%3Acard%3D453) Amusingly, footnote 3 in the perseus text is a rosetta stone for the scholar's leisurely manner of saying "like and subscribe": "I must beg to recommend to the reader's notice my translation of Aristotle's _Poetics_ , with a collection of notes, as the two treatises contribute to each other's illustration in the fullest extent."

Bonus tube: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UKftOH54iNU](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UKftOH54iNU)

<comment><USER3> From [3]

>I shall wonder if with his wealth he can distinguish a true friend from a false one

The state of social media?!

A thousand "followers" but none that can be called on in times of need.

<comment><USER4> >A thousand "followers" but none that can be called on in times of need.

in the attention economy the followers aren't friends, they are consumers.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> "That we want to waste our time. That, however much we might complain, we find satisfaction in endless, circular argument."

"But political and economic and immunological crises pile on one another in succession, over the background roar of ecological collapse. Time is not infinite. None of us can afford to spend what is left of it dallying with the stupid and bland."

But in the past we had plenty of crises and yet we used to spend our downtime shooting the shit, going around in circles, with stupid and bland people just like ourselves (there's not many geniuses in any particular locality, and they usually aren't the ones shooting the shit, just as they don't now). At least it was face to face, I suppose. And at least you could go home and leave them behind to watch tv!

Edit: I will admit that there was more time to think and daydream (and be bored) then. Probably because you didn't have a tv in your pocket and, even if you did, there was often really nothing to watch.

<comment><USER6> > _But in the past we had plenty of crises and yet we used to spend our > downtime shooting the shit, going around in circles, with stupid and bland > people just like ourselve_

Past people were much more involved in societal change and day to day history than we are.

<comment><USER7> You can't make a broad statement like that. In most places, for most times, people have been pretty passive. The mass of people being involved is the exception, not the rule, and even then, it normally was not a majority, but a local minority that acted at the right time that changed things.

<comment><USER8> I think both statements can be true. It's just when there are only two hundred people around, each voice has more influence then even an enthusiastic politician nowadays.

So just by living like we do today with having opinions and voicing them you've already influenced your society back then. If you do the same today, nothing would've changed.

<comment><USER7> But that's comparing apples to oranges. You're defining society "nowadays" as being hundreds of millions of people, and society "back then" as having only two hundred people. That's like complaining that people are more involved in their family and their workplace than they are with people across the country. It's absurd.

I also can't think of a time period or large geographic area that's had writing being common and most people were constrained to a society of 200 people, unless they were purposefully insular.

<comment><USER8> while you're once again correct that i'm comparing oranges to apples, my point nonetheless stands. the world population before the industrialization was in the lower hundreds of thousands.

the usual town did house significantly less then a thousand people. compared to a usual town of today with >40k inhabitants.

<comment><USER9> World population by early 19th century was already 1 billion, what are you talking about?

<comment><USER8> yes, it was.

the first industrialization started in the middle 18th century though, so not sure what your point is.

<comment><USER6> Probably that already in the "middle 18th century" it was close to a billion people (and in any case, many more than low thousands: hundreds of millions).

Heck, ancient Athens alone (a single Greek city) had a population in the "low thousands" in 500 B.C.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> _And correct: the telos of the clickbait economy is fascist kitsch_

I'm not sure how to parse this. What does it mean for something to have kitsch as its ultimate aim, or for an economy to have an aim?

I think I understand what the author is getting at, which is that exciting the lizard brain in humans is easy to do by creating artificial fears and enemies, and that it takes very little effort to construct this "art". But "telos" specifically doesn't mean "a means", it means "purposeful aim". And I don't think kitsch is the aim. If anything, the aim of the clickbait economy seems to simply be to displace all other economies, which is a rather trite statement in itself.

On the other hand, maybe the author was simply looking for a high-brow synonym for "product" and missed the mark? It's like saying "the telos of the pottery industry is kitchenware". No it isn't: the telos of the industry is to safely store long-term goods.

<comment><USER11> Kitsch and fascism have been linked for quite some time. Fro Dwight MacDonald's "A Theory of Mass Culture" (1953):

 _When to this ease of consumption is added kitsch 's ease of production because of its standardized nature, its prolific growth is easy to understand. It threatens High Culture by its sheer pervasiveness, its brutal, overwhelming quantity. The upper classes, who begin by using it to make money from the crude tastes of the masses and to dominate them politically, end by finding their own culture attacked and even threatened with destruction by the instrument they have thoughtlessly employed. (The same irony may be observed in modern politics, where most swords seem to have two edges; thus Nazism began as a tool of the big bourgeoisie and the army Junkers but ended by using them as its tools.)_

[https://is.muni.cz/el/1421/jaro2008/ESB032/um/5136660/MacDon...](https://is.muni.cz/el/1421/jaro2008/ESB032/um/5136660/MacDonald_- _A_Theory_of_Mass_Culture.pdf)

(The link is stronger than evident in this passage though most of the connections are more verbose than merits quoting here.)

<comment><USER2> > "... whereas High Culture could formerly ignore the mob and seek to please > only the cognoscenti, it must now compete with Mass Culture or be merged > into it."

Horace's _Art of Poetry_ implies that in his time (as in Molière's or Shakespeare's? What about Goethe?) dramatic writers had to consider a wide audience, including but not limited to: the moralisers (those who are senior in years), the elite (those with a horse, or a name, or a pile of money), and the mob (those who buy snacks at the show).

[http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus%3Atext%...](http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus%3Atext%3A1999.02.0065%3Acard%3D1)

Edit: to what degree is meming, insofar as it is "a spontaneous, autochthonous expression of the people, shaped by themselves, pretty much without the benefit of High Culture, to suit their own needs," a new Folk Art?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> ejected myself from a twitter addiction just a few months ago and this resonated.

i think people read the "zombie" comparison as metaphor; IME, it's pretty literally accurate.

the realization that snapped me out of it cold turkey was that my twitter "self" —- cultivated outside of my body, for an environment of pure text —- had accumulated far more status, meaning, friendship, etc than my physical self possibly could; and why wouldn't it? the internet has no friction in comparison.

so that weird external GPT-3-esque "self" quite literally reached primacy within me, with a huge margin over the original one unlucky enough to be constrained by physical reality & trained via physical human interaction: and as a result i was genuinely zombie-like for a while.

perpetually a disoriented visitor to physical reality, to the people actually around me — only at home in text. and it was probably clear to anyone who knew me in person well.

maybe annoyingly mystical for HN's taste, but when this clicked for me, it felt like discovering i'd been possessed by a demon.

<comment><USER13> yeah, my facebook self also has lots of friends and active social life, I barely have any.

before I kill him, I wonder whether there are some useful lessons I could learn from him.

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> With a name like Max Read there is only one calling!

</comment><comment><USER15> See also Tristan Harris, and the new Netflix film "The Social Dilemma"

</comment><comment><USER16> I thought it was already established that Freud's teachings were among the dumbest shit in human history.

If he was Nigerian instead of Central European people would have probably burned him alive for insanity.

</comment><comment><USER17> Psychoanalytic is as discredited as theory can get. It might as well as deriving particle theory from of Aristotle four base elements.

Plus the article is riddled with sentences like "telos of the clickbait economy is fascist kitsch."

It's just empty claptrap, that could have been written in half as many words, if the writer wasn't trying to be as pretentious.

<comment><USER18> While I did not find this article particularly deep, psychoanalysis has hardly been discredited. The core of the theory has been infused into almost every psychological modality practiced today aside from CBT, and studies have shown its general efficacy as a practice to be on par with others and in some cases superior. For the past 20 or so years, the field of neuropsychoanalysis under Mark Solms et al. has done a lot of good work understanding memory, dreaming, and higher cognitive processes stemming from Freud's ideas. Nobel Laureat Eric Kandel wrote in the 90's that psychoanalysis still constitutes the most intellectually satisfying model of the mind; Kandel has gone on to promote studying psychoanalytic ideas with modern neuroscientific techniques. Although several authors have been critical of psychoanalysis, having been criticized by some does not make an idea instantly discredited. There remains no clear way to verify a model of higher cognitive processes in the same fashion as a physics formula.

<comment><USER17> > Hardly been discredited.

In 2015, psychoanalyst Bradley Peterson, who is also a child psychiatrist and director of the Institute for the Developing Mind at Children's Hospital Los Angeles, said: "I think most people would agree that psychoanalysis as a form of treatment is on its last legs."

[https://www.nytimes.com/2015/06/28/magazine/tell-it-about- yo...](https://www.nytimes.com/2015/06/28/magazine/tell-it-about-your- mother.html)

Not really singing its praises.

> Nobel Laureat Eric Kandel wrote in the 90's

Sure and Nobel Laureate Richard Feynman said:

> If you look at all of the complicated ideas that they have developed in an > infinitesimal amount of time, if you compare to any other of the sciences > how long it takes to get one idea after the other, if you consider all the > structures and inventions and complicated things, the ids and the egos, the > tensions and the forces, and the pushes and the pulls, I tell you they can't > all be there. It's too much for one brain or a few brains to have cooked up > in such a short time.

<comment><USER18> The difference between Kandel and Feynman is that Kandel is a neuroscientist who understands psychoanalysis and Feynman clearly hadn't really read Freud's work, only expressing skepticism on the basis of his vague intuitions about how long it should take to come up with a theory.

<comment><USER17> Kandel got Nobel for medicine, namely memory physiological basis of neuron storage, not for proving psychoanalysis correct. His thoughts on it are as relevant as Feynman.

A counterexample - Tesla was also a genius Engineer but he also believed in Aliens, and doves with laser eyes, being infused by Cosmic energy.

<comment><USER18> Kandel's obvious expertise on the functioning of the brain puts him in precisely the right position to give an assessment of how realistic Freud's models in describing what happens in the brain. More specifically, his expertise on the neurology of memory is directly connected to a lot of what Freud hypothesized about how memory functions. In fact, in his 99 paper on psychoanalysis and neuroscience [https://ajp.psychiatryonline.org/doi/full/10.1176/ajp.156.4....](https://ajp.psychiatryonline.org/doi/full/10.1176/ajp.156.4.505) Kandel cites specific neuroscientific mechanisms that connect with mechanisms in the paychoanalytic model. This is very much his area of expertise and far more relevant than Feynman shooting from the hip about something he does not really know much about. Kandel is an expert in neuroscience and from the literature very well versed in psychoanalytic work, and makes actual arguments salient to both disciplines to justify his opinions, as can be seen in the above article.

In general, a lot of work has been done in this area, particularly by Solms [https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=vD4p8rQAAAAJ&hl=en...](https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=vD4p8rQAAAAJ&hl=en&oi=sra)

Apropos of Tesla, this is far more than the paranoid spiritual fantasies of a genius struggling with mental illness.

<comment><USER17> Ok, but did Kandel proved Freud right? Did he found proof for ego, id, super- ego, Thanatos/Eros in brain morphology? Me skimming it shows little to no evidence of so, hence his contributing to prove Freud right is no more different than what Feynman did.

I did found this gem though:

> Thus, unlike various forms of cognitive therapy and other psychotherapies, > for which compelling objective evidence now exists—both as therapies in > their own right and as key adjuncts to pharmacotherapy—there is as yet no > compelling evidence, outside subjective impressions, that psychoanalysis > works better than nonanalytically oriented therapy or placebo.

So wait. Even he admits Psychoanalysis is less useful than what we have currently. Way to bury the lede.

From what I see, this is more a rally to revive psychoanalysis on solid biological grounds, than confirmation of psycho analysis as such.

<comment><USER18> The question is not whether Kandel proved anything, but merely whether psychoanalysis has been discredited. I am not making the case here that it is proven, verified, or completely substantiated in any particular way (here at least). That people are still taking its ideas seriously in mainstream research fields is enough to show that it is not discredited. The whole point of the aforementioned article is argue that psychoanalysis has credibility as a theory.

Kandel points out several connections between ideas from Freud's model and potential neuroscientific correlates. The subsequent works of Solms have further pursued these connections as a rigorous scientific project. How can you compare all of this to Feynman arguing against psychoanalysis on the basis of personally doubting someone could come up with it?

These are not marginal outsiders doing basement research. A theory being discredited means that there is a consensus in research against it. There is plenty of active research in reputable institutions both in psychoanalysis and neuroscience as I linked to explicitly, as well as in therapy research (which could be surfaced pretty easily). Many may have contested psychoanalysis, but tis is not what a discredited theory looks like.

<comment><USER17> > The question is not whether Kandel proved anything, but merely whether > psychoanalysis has been discredited. I am not making the case here that it > is proven, verified, or completely substantiated in any particular way

Well, if it's not proven and verified, if it's not more useful than another theory, what is the point of it?

As the wise man once said "All models are wrong, but some are useful". Why stick with theory if its useless?

\</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment>-

Let me demonstrate - Geocentric system is correct. From POV fixed to Earth it's correct to say Earth is center of rotation. So they nailed the particulars. Sun and the rest of the stars/galaxies rotates relative to Earth.

However, here is the kicker. The more you want to study movement of a certain galaxy, the more cycles and epi-cycles do you need to construct. The calculations become more and more difficult. In other words - model is useless. Model with high effort to predictive power is useless.

\</comment><comment>-

Is Freud right on some particulars? Yes. I do believe there is strong evidence of a subconscious and conscious process, and subconscious process being the foundation for consciousness.

But ID/EGO/SUPER-EGO? No. That probably doesn't exist. Same for his Eros/Thanatos. Same for his obsession with child sexuality (this was experimentally disproven). It's just a relic of his flawed theory and worldview. Why are people trying to resurrect it? No idea.

Instead of building a theory based on evolution, biology, psychology, people are chasing what some Victorian philosopher said as if it were a gospel.

<comment><USER18> At the moment, there is no canonically useful model of the mind that is established in the consensus of those who study it. You are writing this as though psychoanalysis has been replaced by some better theory that explains more of the phenomena that it addresses, but no such theory exists. One of its main contenders, evolutionary psychology, does not actually provide a model for the mind, just the conditions under which it developed. Other models have offered piecemeal models of isolated effects such as cognitive dissonance, many of which are subsumed by psychoanalytic models anyways. The point of Kandel referring to it as the "most satisfying model of the mind" (at least in 1999) is because it addresses a territory of phenomena that still does not have a clear alternative. There is no analogous "geocentric system" against which psychoanalysis looks Ptolemaic. From the above reference to work, clearly psychoanalytic models are not useless, and hence researchers continue to find reasons to stick to it.

I think you are conflating Freud's model of the mind with a couple of particulars. The id/ego/superego is not particularly central to Freud's work until it makes an appearance as the "second topography" in the 1920's. The most important part of his model involving unconscious processes are almost taken for granted by psychology today after trying to soft shoe around the idea for half a century via reductive behaviorist models that fail to substantially account for anything complex like language, culture, thought and memory.

Even if we address the second topography, why is it that it "probably doesn't exist?". Is it because Feynman doubted it? It would certainly be dogmatic to suppose that this suffices to justify this claim. Solms et al. have done a lot of work showing correlates between the model of the ego and the id and functional neuroscience, so there is work to show that they very well may exist. You cannot just assert that these things don't exist because you or Feynman don't personally buy into them. None of these researchers are taking Freud as gospel, as you seem to be taking the words of Feynman. Denying that psychoanalysis is useful means engaging in those actually working on its ideas, or even engaging in Freud's ideas substantially, and making clear arguments for why this should be treated as useless.

<comment><USER17> > At the moment, there is no canonically useful model of the mind that is > established in the consensus of those who study it.

I'd personally go with either one that shown promise, i.e. can be used to cure people and can make testable predictions. I know it's hard, this is psychology. I think a lot of theories that shown promise are computational theories of mind.

> I think you are conflating Freud's model of the mind with a couple of > particulars.

I've never read a book about Freud's model without id/ego/superego or Oedipus/Elektra complex, etc.

Like, ok. He hit the mark with conscious/unconscious. What else?

> why is it that it "probably doesn't exist?" Is it because Feynman doubted > it?

Because I'm neither a psychologist nor a fortune teller. I'm not aware of any modern theory really propagating id/superego/ego as some form of structure of the mind (I could be wrong here), nor am I able to say that in future we won't discover exactly three precise parts of the mind.

So no. It's not about Feynman. It's about how Freud came with his theory of the mind and the "evidence" for it.

First. He didn't look at data and then synthesized a solution. He basically said, yeah, this looks like it, lets make conscious and subconscious. Oh, and different desires. And different parts of mind. And make them three.

Second. Psychoanalysis is essentially science based on hearsay i.e. therapist reporting their view on the patient. Yeah, no way that could be biased or distorted. I'm pretty sure I cured cancer in that one guy. He had symptoms of common cold, but I definitely cured him of cancer. Yup.

That's not how you do science. Like I know psychology is hard to do, because it's not like you can debug a person (in clear conscience).

\</comment></comment></comment><comment>

But Feynman is onto something. Frank Wilczek defined a beautiful theory as one you get more than you put in, or as he put it exuberance of productivity.

In lieu of that, for having all these parts and urges and egos and complexes, what does psychoanalysis do that other disciplines can't?

<comment><USER18> Whether one assesses one or another proposed model as having promise is a matter of debate and not a means to credit or discredit anything. It does not seem as though there is any case here for the assertion that 'psychoanalysis has been discredited', as that issue is no longer being debated.

Instead, it seems that the question you are addressing now is whether psychoanalysis is a promising model. That is a different issue and bears upon a discussion of the theory itself. If you have never read a book about Freud's model without id/ego/superego, you don't appear to be familiar with Freud's work to begin with. Look at everything Freud wrote before 1920, and there is little mention of these things (the ego shows up some because the term in German was just "Ich" and is used anywhere a notion of "self" is referenced, but the "id" and "superego" certainly make no appearance until later). "Interpretation of Dreams", the "Introductory Lectures", the 19th century works on "Neurosis", and the metapsychological works primarily address unconscious processes, memory, repression, and other mechanisms of defense, with reference to hysteria, obsessional neurosis, paranoia, and psychosis. The id/ego/superego organization was introduced later in "The Ego and the Id" and other works around that time.

I would suggest if you are skeptical about Freud, and want to actually evaluate his ideas, and not cartoons of them, you should at least read "The Unconscious" or "Interpretation of Dreams", particularly the third part of the latter text. If you read Freud, you will see that he most certainly looks at data and syntheses solutions. Freud very clearly and methodically deduces most of his ideas from accounts of neuroses, dreams, and other mental phenomena. In the "Interpretation of Dreams" for instance, Freud discusses previous research on dreams, observes many interesting qualities of recorded dreams as well as discourse in therapy, "and then synthesized" a model of cognitive mechanisms that would account for the phenomena, among them condensation, displacement, and regression. He then goes on to further synthesize a plausible model of how these processes work in general, how memory and consciousness plays a role in them, and how these models are consistent with cognition in general. Modern research on dreams actually substantiates this fairly well thus far, taking the position that dreams are forms of memory consolidation and the consequence of "regression".

You really have to read some of this stuff and not just parrot what you have heard others say about Freud. The "Elektra Complex" is not even Freud's idea; it was an idea of Jung's that Freud was critical of.

</comment></comment><comment><USER19> I was hoping, from the name, that Book Forum would have a web forum.

</comment><comment><USER20> I liked this :)

</comment><comment><USER21> If the subject matter interests you, just head straight for Bataille. If reading is too hard, you can also watch Žižek.

The navel-gazing children of the handset writing about social media in the 21st century are not to be trusted, in my estimation.</comment>


Ask HN: Tools and resources for making a calm company or calm workplace? - <AUTHOR> Hi!
I've been a workaholic these past few years and struggled with health and mental issues because of it. I used to work long hours and sometimes even work for 80+ hours a week. I sometimes even experience guilt when I'm out doing other things when I could have used the time to work instead.
Since last year, I've been slowly fixing my work habit (being a workaholic) and now try to only work less than or equal to 40 hours per week.
Books like "Rework" and "It Doesn't Have To Be Crazy At Work" and following Jason Fried and DHH on Twitter really helped changed my perspective about work.
I'm planning to curate a list of tools and resources for making a calm company or a calm workplace. So my question is, what are the tools and resources that you know that would help in making a calm company or a calm workplace?
Currently, this is what's on my list:
- "Rework" book: https://basecamp.com/books/rework
- "It Doesn't Have To Be Crazy At Work" book:
https://basecamp.com/books/calm
- "Remote" book: https://basecamp.com/books/remote
- "Getting Real" book: https://basecamp.com/books/getting-real
- Work Can Wait feature of Basecamp: https://basecamp.com/features/work-can-wait
- Shape Up: https://basecamp.com/shapeup <comment><USER2> Walls between employees, traditionally called offices.

<comment><AUTHOR> Sorry, what do you mean? Is it a title of a book or something?

<comment><USER3> I believe he's making a critic on open-office trend.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> Thanks to all the responses so far!

I forgot to mention on the post that I also went through relationship issues because of workaholism. Previously, I'm proud that I'm a workaholic and wear it as a badge of honor. I'm glad that my perspective about workaholism has changed now.

I know that a lot of people are having issues too because of workaholism so I wanted to curate a list of tools and resources for making a calm company or calm workplace and hopefully it will help people achieve a better work-life balance and will help companies improve the work environment of their employees. Hopefully, it will also help spread awareness and prevent people from having to learn the negative effects of workaholism the hard way like others and I did.

<comment><USER4> Cognitive behavioral therapy is a really great way to get out of bad habits like working long hours. A calm workspace is awesome but won't fix psychological issues.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> [https://hurryslowly.co/](https://hurryslowly.co/) it's a podcasts, think there are definitely some interviews with people that might give you new resources.

<comment><AUTHOR> Since you mentioned a podcast, I remembered "The Rework Podcast" \- [https://rework.fm/](https://rework.fm/)

I'm learning a lot from its episodes.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> Peopleware: Productive Projects and Teams

[https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/67825.Peopleware](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/67825.Peopleware)

Happy and healthy teams result in productive teams, who would have thought :)

Some of my best work was done during 40 hours weeks or less. Whenever I break that rule the end result suffers because I lose creativity and focus.

It's ok to do the occasional extra time when you're really engrossed in what you're doing, but overwork has long-term negative effects.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks! I'll check that out.

Couldn't agree more on the things you said.

When I started only working for 40 hours or less per week, the quality of my work improved. I guess it's because I learned how to use my time better since I know that I will only work for 40 hours or less. And most importantly, I'm happier and healthier now and I get to spend more time with family and friends :)

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> My life feels nicer with plants around. I would love having plants at my workplace. The second best thing is views of greenery outside. The last resort is pictures, posters, desktop wallpapers of green places.

[https://www.forbes.com/sites/nomanazish/2018/02/10/think- you...](https://www.forbes.com/sites/nomanazish/2018/02/10/think-you-dont- need-houseplants-science-says-different/)

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks! Interesting.

Do you work in a company's office? Or do you work remotely?

I'm also curious on how many plants do you have in your workplace?

<comment><USER7> At my previous office we had a huge window view to a really green area. It was great. We didn't have any real plants inside, though. That might be a maintenance thing, i.e. we'd have to figure out who would take care of them and it might be out of the scope of the janitorial staff.

At home I'll randomly but little $5 plants for me and my wife. They add a little more life to house.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> This resource (while mainly targeted at improving insane Chinese work schedules) is about work-life balance:

[https://github.com/996icu/996.ICU/blob/master/README.md](https://github.com/996icu/996.ICU/blob/master/README.md)

<comment><AUTHOR> Thank you! I'll check it out later.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Get yourself a good pair of noise cancelling headphones. Inspiration: [https://thewirecutter.com/reviews/best-noise-cancelling- head...](https://thewirecutter.com/reviews/best-noise-cancelling-headphones/)

</comment><comment><USER9> [https://twist.com/](https://twist.com/)

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks! This looks like a really great tool. Would most likely be a great fit for us since we're a distributed team and our working hours are different from each other. I'll give it a try soon.

<comment><USER9> It's pretty good and a breath of fresh air from using Slack.

<comment><AUTHOR> Glad to know that you're having a great experience in using it. Curious on how large is your company or team? And its setup (e.g, distributed)?

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> You need to say "no!" and get managers to say "no!" as well. Setting limits and boundaries etc...</comment>


Hong Kong businessman buys US$15m black diamond iPhone 5 - <AUTHOR> http://asia.cnet.com/hong-kong-businessman-buys-us15m-black-diamond-iphone-5-62221136.htm

<comment><USER2> Yeah, but what will it be worth when the iPhone 6 comes out?</comment>


Show HN: XKCDBot – A Slackbot for XKCD Web Comics - <AUTHOR> https://xkcdbot.com/ <comment><USER2> Hey guys,

I'm Chris and I made this bot. I wanted a quick and easy way to reference XKCDs in our company's Slack team, and after finding most existing solutions are self hosted I decided to make it into an app that you can easily integrate. All it does is register a slash command.

It first attempts to match your comic by its title. If that doesn't find a match it will do a Bing web search and take the first (and hopefully the most relevant!) result.

Let me know what you think.

Chris

<comment><AUTHOR> Hey Chris, we use this bot at my work after seeing it on twitter. Thanks for making this!</comment></comment>


Tim Berners-Lee: Steve Jobs and the actually usable computer - <AUTHOR> http://www.w3.org/QA/2011/10/steve_jobs.html

<comment><USER2> _We almost met once. There was a get-together of NeXT developers in France, and we set up demos at tables around the room. Robert Cailliau and I set up the WorldWideWeb.app on one table. Steve arrived, and started making his way around the tables chatting with each project. He didn't get to us before he had to leave._

What if he had made it around the room and seen the WWW demo? Would it/could it have been another moment like at Xerox' Palo Alto laboratory, when he saw an early GUI demo?</comment>


FrogPad 2, one handed keyboard rises from the depths of Vaporware and stickers - <AUTHOR> http://www.frogpad2.com/

<comment><USER2> One of the videos they link to ([http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=xl5qn...](http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=xl5qnJ3hjBs)) highlights a lot of different concerns. Among the obvious were the shortcut keys (e.g., Ctrl-Z) and the reviewers losing the ability to switch their screen to full screen. I'm not seeing these problems address on the frogpad page.

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> Note, the stickers refer to the previous $60 or so product which provided some overlays on the magic trackpad.

They apparently launched the new product site (not the product itself) on Jan 1, 2014.</comment>


How to write an iOS app purely in C - <AUTHOR> http://stackoverflow.com/questions/10289890/how-to-write-ios-app-purely-in-c/ <comment><USER2> Author of the answer in question here.. Feel free to ask me any questions you'd like about this!

I also did the same thing in ARMv7 assembly, if you're interested in that:

[https://github.com/richardjrossiii/iOSAppInAssembly](https://github.com/richardjrossiii/iOSAppInAssembly)

<comment><USER3> Well done.. I'm curious about whether this would be possible in Android. I'm not talking about OpenGL and using the ndk but creating Android activities. Would it be much much more difficult?

<comment><USER4> "I'm not talking about OpenGL and using the ndk but creating Android activities"

I'm not really sure what you mean. Any program for Android which is 100% C code is going to be using the NDK in most cases. Including ones creating an activity natively ( [http://developer.android.com/reference/android/app/NativeAct...](http://developer.android.com/reference/android/app/NativeActivity.html) ).

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> There's a category of questions on Stack Overflow like,

> How do I do (complicated task X) without using (class of solutions Y)?

It's like madlibs. I'll fill in the blanks for you:

> How do I write a portable function for searching the filesystem in pure C++?

Here, X is "search the filesystem portably" and Y is "just use Boost, dummy".

> How do I create an iOS application without using Xcode?

> How do I do AES encryption in my network code? (instead of just using a > library to handle TLS)

Programmers develop highly specialized taste as they mature, with preferences like "C is good, Java is bad" or "everything should be done with the command line" or "I never want to leave Visual Studio again". I'm amazed by how many people say, for example, that they absolutely can't use Boost but when pressed, they can't give a good reason why. That's because Boost offends their subjective sensibilities for some ill-understood reason, not because Boost is flawed in any particular way (although Boost certainly has its flaws).

I have a ton of rep on Stack Overflow from answering questions, and so every time I answer a question like this, I remember all of the discussions I have had with people which go like this:

> Me: (complicated task X) is a complicated task. It will take you weeks to do > it by yourself.

> Asker: But shouldn't it be easy?

> Me: (reasons 1, 2, 3 why it's not easy)

> Asker: But I don't care about 2 and 3, and I don't think 1 is a problem.

> Me: (list of ways that things go horribly wrong if you do it yourself) If I > may ask, why can't you use libraries?

> Asker: I can't use libraries because (misconception about how libraries > work).

> Me: Oh, that's not true at all.

The exchange takes place typically over the course of a couple hours, since Stack Overflow is not designed to allow a question to be used as chat.

So sometimes, if I'm feeling like a show-off, I post some ridiculously complicated way of solving the question just as it was asked, then say at the bottom:

> Or you can just do (easy solution Y), which is super easy, but you > apparently can't do that for unspecified reasons.

<comment><USER6> These are people who want to learn how something is actually done, to experience that sense of accomplishment themselves, and not just use a solution someone else has already written; and I don't think that's necessarily a bad thing.

<comment><USER7> >These are people who want to learn how something is actually done

While this is true sometimes, many times it is simply that they don't want to learn a new way to do something. You can tell which side of the fence they lean towards in the way they phrase the question.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> AND there's a perfect example of the grief StackOverflow heaps upon both questioners and answerers. 80% of the comments were "you idiot, just use ObjC" or "ok that worked but you're an idiot for not using ObjC". Exactly one response to the correct answer bothered to read it or expand on it.

Is all of StackOverflow overrun by smartasses? Or is it just the iOS crowd? What excuse can be given for all the unprofessional junk responses? How can they be suppressed? Moderators can be draconian but something is needed.

</comment><comment><USER9> The author of the accepted answer was 15 at the time of writing.

At that age I had a good grasp of Turbo Pascal, but not much that would be of any use professionally.

</comment><comment><USER10> StackOverflow: CURATION BY HUMILIATION.

</comment><comment><USER11> Sometimes I start thinking I'm a really good programmer.

These kinds of things are great for keeping me humble as hell.

</comment><comment><USER12> One day, nobody will remember Objective-C.

Let Apple have its 15 minutes of fame.

<comment><USER13> As someone recently noted in the discussion of Swift, Objective-C is basically older than the CD-ROM. I'd say the language has had several decades of life, not 15 minutes of fame.

(Actually, it appears Objective-C is certainly older than the CD-ROM and is from about the same era as the audio CD.)

<comment><USER12> Looks like Objective C finally surpassed Fortran and Cobol somewhere in 2011. Good luck to you in the future ;-)

[http://www.google.com/trends/explore#q=%22objective%20C%22%2...](http://www.google.com/trends/explore#q=%22objective%20C%22%2C%20fortran%2C%20cobol&cmpt=q)</comment></comment></comment>


So you want to write a fast Python? - <AUTHOR> http://alexgaynor.net/2011/jul/10/so-you-want-write-fast-python/

<comment><USER4> I have some questions:

* Is the Jit in PyPy standalone, i.e. can it be used by other projects independently of Python? Is it documented?

* How does PyPy compare with highly optimised C?

* Assuming that the benchmarks that used to be at the Computer Benchmarks Game for PyPy are somewhat representative of overall performance, why is there still such an enormous difference with optimised C?

* There used to be this thing called restricted python. If one limits oneself to using that only, are benchmarks much better?

* I read somewhere that some projects have merged or combined forces. There used to be this thing called Unladen Swallow. There was also Psyco. Have either of these merged with/been absorbed by PyPy? Are any other such projects still going?

* Cython is another fast project. If it became part of mainline Python, would PyPy become irrelevant?

<comment><USER5> I have some answers!

* Yes, the JIT is part of the RPython translation toolchain (more on this in a few) and can be used in other interpreters, for example we have Scheme, Javascript, Prolog, and Haskell in varying level of completeness (Prolog being the most complete).

* Highly optimized C? Not spectacularly, normal C, not bad, on numerical code we often hover around gcc -O1.

* They weren't representative, most of that code was heavily optimized for CPython, which has very different performance characteristics.

* RPython is the language the PyPy interpreter is written in, it's not really meant for general purpose code, it's designed mostly for VMs, but it does run at basically C-like speed.

* Unladen Swallow was Google's fork of CPython, it's basically dead at this point, retrospective here ([http://qinsb.blogspot.com/2011/03/unladen-swallow-retrospect...](http://qinsb.blogspot.com/2011/03/unladen-swallow-retrospective.html)), Psyco was an extension module for CPython that added a JIT, it's no longer maintained (but still works), it's creator is the lead developer of PyPy.

* Cython isn't Python (this could be a meme or something), it does not implement the entire language and thus isn't directly comparable (although we still often compare, because it is a competitor in the space of "making Python-like stuff faster").

<comment><USER6> Hi Alex, mine might be a minority view/request, but I think RPython is an interesting and useful language in its own right and should be standardized and highlighted. Possibly separated out with a website of its own to emphasize its existence.

When I write Python it is rarely the case that I assign values of different types to the same identifier, or add attributes to a class outside of its definition, or monkey patch a module. In other words most of the time I am _not_ really making use of the dynamic properties of the language. In this scenario Python is a language that saves me "finger typing", and I do not needs its dynamic typing as much. I am more than willing, in these scenarios, to trade some of that unused dynamism for better performance. I think there might be others who are similarly inclined.

The one thing that I miss in RPython is generators. Is there a particular difficulty because of which it was left out ? I assume so, because all the statically typed variants of Python leave it out as well, but I do not have enough background to know what that difficulty might be. The other is Numpy :) but I believe you guys are working on that.

@wbhart A lot of what you ask is answered in some detail in the PyPy blog <http://morepypy.blogspot.com/> I wouldnt call PyPy less well known though.

<comment><USER5> [http://stackoverflow.com/questions/6277174/are-generators- su...](http://stackoverflow.com/questions/6277174/are-generators-supported-in- rpython/6278734#6278734) explains why we don't have generators in RPython

<comment><USER7> You should put that on the pypy site somewhere.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Dear PyPy developers: while I'm happy to download binaries and run them out of my home directory for something I use all the time (like Firefox), for less- frequently used tools I'd much rather set up an Ubuntu PPA to install things system-wide and have them kept up-to-date without my having to think too hard about it.

Unfortunately, the only PyPy PPA I can find on launchpad.net[1] hasn't been updated for a year. Please set up a new PPA, or update the one you have - <USER2> lot of curious Python tinkerers would love to try out PyPy on their pet projects!

[1] <https://launchpad.net/~pypy/+archive/ppa>

<comment><USER9> or get into the debian repos.

<comment><USER8> I discovered that PyPy used to be in Debian, back in the days of PyPy 1.0, but it was removed because it took so long to build and because it wasn't yet generally useful. The latest releases of PyPy seem to be a lot more useful, and hopefully the build-time is being addressed...

<comment><USER10> I tried building pypy on my macbook pro w/4 4gb of ram and 2.4 GHz i5. After over an hour I had to give up and cancel it. It took another fifteen minutes for the system to recover enough to where I could start using it again.

I don't know what it was doing but there was a python process that was using every bit of CPU available and a ton of swap.

This same machine can build ruby 1.9.2 in under 10 minutes. It took less time to download and refresh all of my installed macports (including postgresql 9.0) than it took to attempt to build pypy.

<comment><USER11> Even though the documentation[1] says you need at least 4GB of RAM to build 64-bit PyPy, I've never successfully building PyPy on a 4GB machine. It took about 20 minutes to successfully build on a machine with 8GB RAM, though.

[1]: <http://pypy.org/download.html>

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> Yeah, that's it. Time to start using PyPy as the primary implementation for some toy projects and see how things go.

For folks that want to test their projects against various version of CPython, PyPy, Jython, etc., check out tox: <http://tox.testrun.org/>

<comment><USER13> I tried using it a month or so back and had a great time.

Caveats:

* You have to use a special patched version of virtualenv.

* Numpy is unavailable for Pypy. For various reasons the pypy folks are just going to have to re-implement it.

The lack of numpy turned out to be a deal breaker for me in the end. I look forward to using it again once there version of numpy is ready for consumption.

<comment><USER5> no longer true, virtualenv 1.6.1 supports pypy nicely!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> This reminds me that most of what PyPy delivers today - 10x speedup, full range of the Python language, was available within CPython in a module called Psyco that you could easily install. Like PyPy for a long time, Psyco was only available on x86.

Psyco's author, Armin Rigo, then got disgusted with Psyco and went on to work on PyPy (possibly for more sanity and better funding).

So, yes, I'd be quite happy to use PyPy, even by default, if it was as easy to install as CPython (or ghc, for that matter, which is a bit larger than CPython but also quite easy to install) and worked out of the box. I definitely was when it came to Psyco.

</comment><comment><USER15> If anything, PyPy's blogs and updates are really interesting to read. (not to mention the awesome work those guys are doing!)

</comment><comment><USER16> What is the Pypy's plan of action for Py3k?

</comment><comment><USER17> You can not write a static compiler for python, because python does not have static typing, and it is a dynamic language. So that part is a tautology.

I suspect the author is trying to say that you can not write a compiler to machine code for python. This is wrong.

Compiling dynamic languages to machine code has been done dozens of times in languages with equivalent or greater dynamic properties (Common Lisp, Scheme, and Smalltalk, for example). I guess an example of proof of concept here is that Python was implemented in Common Lisp as a DSL (macros), and it works on the machine code lisp implementations. ([http://common- lisp.net/project/clpython/manual.html#compilin...](http://common- lisp.net/project/clpython/manual.html#compiling-before-running))

The truth is that no one can be bothered to do it, because there is little to be gained from a faster python implementation. All of the slow code is in little parts that can be rewritten in C (or whatever faster language... so almost any language).

The mentioned Python compiler projects are all 'research,' as far as I can tell. Doing something that is actually known to work and is difficult would be of no use to someone who is interested in tenure.

<comment><USER18> > Compiling dynamic languages to machine code has been done dozens of times in > languages with equivalent or greater dynamic properties ([...] and > Smalltalk, for example)

Do you have sources for a static compiler for Smalltalk? Considering how dynamic that language is I have some trouble imagining such a thing.

Please note that Alex is not talking about JIT compilers here (for good reason: PyPy has a JIT compiler), but about static compilers.

> The truth is that no one can be bothered to do it, because there is little > to be gained from a faster python implementation.

That's a joke right? A significant part of Pypy's effort _is_ a faster Python implementation.

> The mentioned Python compiler projects are all 'research,' as far as I can > tell.

The only "Python compiler projects" mentioned are ShedSkin and Cython (and both actually compile python-like languages, neither pretends to compiling Python), and neither is a research project, both have purely practical goals (although ShedSkin is completely experimental at this point)

<comment><USER17> > Do you have sources for a static compiler for Smalltalk

> Considering how dynamic that language is I have some trouble imagining such > a thing.

Smalltalk always uses a virtual machine, it does not always use a JIT.

I said a static compiler doesn't make sense for a dynamic language (saying you can't do it is tautological, it is like trying to get dry water).

I am talking about dynamic compilation to machine code (Not JIT). From that, you can alter how much code in-lining and optimization happen in nested calls. It is a much used technique and I do not need to prove its validity.

Everyone in here seems blind to the possibility, which puzzles me.

<comment><USER19> JIT _is_ dynamic compilation to machine code. Feel free to explain why your technique is not JIT, though.

<comment><USER17> This is not a JIT.

<http://paste.lisp.org/+2N29>

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> I started messing around with PyPy and love the idea of it. Is there a good Postgres lib for PyPy yet? I've been hooked on Psycopg2 since I got into Python and would love to take advantage of the speed boost from PyPy for my surrounding code.

<comment><USER21> <https://bitbucket.org/alex_gaynor/pypy-postgresql/overview> unfortunately a fork (a well maintained one at least)

<comment><USER22> I was going to ask "why 'unfortunately'?" and then I realized that you mean a fork of pypy, not of psycopg2. Unfortunately indeed...

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> So I really like python and would love to contribute to a project like PyPy, but I don't have much (aka any) experience writing interpreters, compilers, etc. What's the best way to start learning about these things?

</comment><comment><USER24> Does anyone know what the state of PyPy with regards to Python 3 is? I had a quick google around but could only find an april fool's joke from 2008!

</comment><comment><USER25> _Perfect is the enemy of good enough._ The huge goal of CPython (especially 3.x - those who still stuck on 2.x are, well, just stuck on 2.x) is that it is good enough, was designed to be good enough and simple. Need speed? Write extension is C. It is simple and it was designed to be so.

Most of people still didn't get it. CPython 3.x is good enough for its purpose and its goals. It's evolving according to its philosophy (<http://www.python.org/dev/peps/pep-0020/>) and it is really really good (If you understand some general principles like The Middle Way, Being Good Enough, Divide Et Impera and so on).

Making things too complicated is as bad as making them naively oversimplified. ^_^ And porting everything to JVM is just some kind of sport.

Being simple extendable and at the same time close enough to a hardware and using optimizations provided by an OS is much better.

<comment><USER18> What are you talking about? And why are you even mentioning the JVM?

<comment><USER25> Yeah, I was influenced by my previous comment. Original article didn't mention JVM.

But there is a bigger view - if most of the modules are mere wrappers around plain C libraries it is very ineffective approach to try to use some complicated VM while you must do zillions of FFI calls. That is of no use.

So, in my opinion, _for a scripting language_ fast and efficient module calls are more important that any modern JIT stuff, while your modules mostly are mere plain .so

btw, this is yet another point where Java sucks. If you are re-implementing everything in Java, that is probably OK (if you don't care about performance. NIO2 is still just a spec), but if you wish to call any code outside JVM - <USER3> sucks. The approach itself is deeply flawed. Look what mess JDBC is.

It is so obvious, that I really disappointed by the level of discussions on HN.

<comment><USER26> If the scripting language itself is fast, then the game changes completely. _That_ is obvious to the rest of us, and motivates this work.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Lavabit Challenges Contempt Order: An Analysis of Its Arguments - <AUTHOR> http://www.volokh.com/2013/10/11/lavabit-challenges-contempt-order/

<comment><USER2> Argument #1 is really the damning thing for Lavabit. The scope of the subpoena power isn't some new invention of the surveillance state. The quote from U.S. v. Calandra ("the public is entitled to every man's evidence") dates to 1742: [http://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/317/424/case.html...](http://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/317/424/case.html#F2/1). It wasn't a new concept then either. The idea of e-mail accounts the government can't access with an appropriate court order is deeply incompatible with how Anglo-American law conceives of the powers of courts.

There's a comment by "Jessica Darko" on the linked-to blog that I think warrants addressing. There is a big difference between a "search" for the purposes of the 4th amendment and a subpoena of a third party. Say the government is investigating Bob for tax fraud. It's a "search" subject to 4th amendment protections for the government to break into Bob's house and go through his drawers. It's not a "search" for the government to subpoena his accountant for any relevant financial records. It's a "search" for the government to break into the accountant's office to get those records, but the accountant can't hold up the 4th amendment as a shield against turning over those records pursuant to a court order.

<comment><USER3> The problem I see with subpoenaing SSL keys is that they are not, in fact, evidence.

<comment><USER4> I was hoping to see more discussion on this point.

Are there other cases where subpoenas have been issued for tools that enable the gathering of evidence? Has that sort of thing always required a warrant?

Is it moot that a warrant was eventually issued? Or was the warrant only issued punitively because Lavabit didn't comply with the subpoena without regard to the validity of the subpoena in the first place?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> There is no hope for us if nothing we hold to be ours is available to any government agent who demands it. A request for a single person is one thing, it only affects that one person. Once the request affects a huge number of unrelated people just to grab that one person it becomes unreasonable. It's like arresting an entire city to catch a single criminal. At some point you have to draw a line. But I wouldn't want to try that argument in front of a Federal Judge much less the Supremes. I doubt this will work.

<comment><USER2> Isn't it a technical problem with the service, rather than a legal problem, if the host can't give access to one email account without compromising all users?

<comment><USER6> The email encryption was not in play here, from what I understand the end user was the only person with the key to the email "inbox" encryption

What is in play here was the SSL Key that is used to encrypt the browser traffic between LB and the user. No differant than the SSL Cert used when you make an online purchase

It technologically impossible/impractical to have a separate SSL cert for each user, that is just not how the HTTPS protocall was designed

This is not Lavabits doing, that is the work of the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF)

<comment><USER7> If your landlord only had a master key to all apartments they could use that as a reason to refuse to turn it over for access to one apartment?

<comment><USER6> That is a poor analogy.

By turning over the SSL Key the FBI using the Pen Trap Device would capture in real time all data of all users and be decrypting it in real time.

Turning over a Master Key to a building would not give the FBI instant access to all apartments simultaneously, nor would they have the ability to go back in time to look at previous data, nor thousands of other problems with this analogy

People are attempting to conflate physical keys with encryption keys simply because years ago the mathematicians used the word "keys" as analog to explain things to the general public. This does not mean there is, in reality, any analogous relationship between encryption keys and physical keys

<comment><USER8> They could have instant access if they duplicate the key and raid all apartments simultaneously.

Also the legal speak above states I believe that even that the FBI _clould_ technically access other user data, this does not somehow disallow this from happening because is not ideal. It is more a fault of Lava it than anything else.

<comment><USER6> How is it the Fault of Lavabit?

SSL is a standard secure communication protocol of the internet, it is not lavabits design and it is impossible for Lavabit to modify while still keep interoperability.

You do not seem understand the underlying problem, as many people are misinformed as to which key the government was requesting., They WERE NOT asking for the key of the private inbox data, they were asking for the GoDaddy Signed SSL key that encrypts the web browser session from the Lavabit User to the Lavabit server, not the user level key for the encrypted mail box stored on LB servers

This is the same protocol that HN uses for this very site, Amazon, Gmail, and thousands of other sites use every day to secure communications between public servers and the users of those servers

<comment><USER8> > SSL is a standard secure communication protocol of the internet, it is not > Lavabits design and it is impossible for Lavabit to modify while still keep > interoperability.

Correct. If Lavabit wanted to be 100% immune from these type of subpoenas, then they would have designed the system to never have been accessible this way. I'm guessing (just like Hushmail) that having a proper end-to-end type encryption, like forcing the users to use some sort of PGP on their end would reduce uptake, thus preventing them from having a viable business model, so they compromised in this way.

Just because SSL is a standard etc is irrelevant. The government is going to use its subpoena power to get to the information they have reasonable suspicion is being sheltered by Lavabit. If the least intrusive method unfortunately exposes everyones data, well that really is what they call "tough luck."

<comment><USER6> Further on the "tough luck" point, that is not how our legal system is suppose to work, the government infact does not get access to any information even if they have a reasonable suspicion it is being "sheltered", there are all kinds of limits that are suppose to exist, and the "tough luck" part is suppose to be the burden of the GOVERNMENT not the people,

<comment><USER9> You should probably cite some sources for your theory of how the legal system is supposed to work.

<comment><USER6> US Constitution, Federalist Papers, 100's of years of case law, the very concept of innocent until proven guilty, all that supports the notation that the burdens are placed upon the GOVERNMENT not the people.

THe laws allowing for Pen Trap's are very clear that the pen trap must not cause undue hardship on the business in question, and there are simliar limits on all of the powers of government

The idea that the government has, or should have, unlimited power to destroy businesses and individuals in the pursuit of "justice" is not only ridiculous but very dangerous

<comment><USER10> Could you perhaps cite one case in the hundreds of years of case law that supports the argument that privacy concerns override the right of the courts to every man's evidence?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> Excellent analysis. It's refreshing to see someone dive into the legal issues instead of spewing personal opinions about what the parties should - or should not - have done. I hope that those who critique the author's post will take the same amount of care in researching the law.

</comment><comment><USER12> If you s/anti-government/anti-government surveillance/ then I think the article would be considerably improved. Was Lavabit explicitly anti- government?

<comment><USER7> I think that's probably a fair point.... Doesn't seem like it changes any of the legal analysis though.

You can't disobey a search warrant because it would be bad for business or because you want to protect the target.

<comment><USER13> I think the primary concern is protecting the other folks who are not the target. Handing over keys allows for the government agency the opportunity to violate other users 4th amendment rights.

<comment><USER7> Sure, I get it, but I don't think you can ignore a subpoena just because you don't trust the government not to abuse it.

<comment><USER14> Well certainly you can, because he did. I think perhaps that's the main point here.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> I believe it is very telling that a pro-privacy company, a company that has integrity and wants to honor the commitments it has made to their customers, is now a "anti-government" company...

I see a lot of comments about how "good" this analysis is, to me it seems very weak, and only "good" if you believe the government should be allowed to violate the 4th amendment, should be allowed to obtain any information from anyone at any time, and should be allowed to get SSL Keys from service providers, without disclosing this to the Certificate Authorities and violation of all security agreements with said CA's.

If you're very much a "pro" government person then I can see how this "analysis" would meet with your approval. To me it looks like pro-government biased drivel

<comment><USER4> My impression, as someone who is not a lawyer, is that much of what gets posted to the volokh conspiracy is "pro-process."

I think it is entirely reasonable to analyze the situation from the perspective of the law, but it seems like underlying their analysis is that the law is more than just a tool, that it is itself not subject to question. I can understand that from a functional perspective. Challenging the law itself, especially long established law (even if it is being applied to new situations) is a very hard task. But too often (at least for my taste) the writers there seem to bleed that over into the law having some sort of unstated moral stature beyond its utilitarian nature.

<comment><USER2> Volokh is not a philosophy site for people to opine about morality. It's a site about law, courts, and lawsuits. These things are all about process. Even when applied to new situations, the job of courts is to implement solutions consisting with existing law and legal norms, not to stray from the law to implement what they see as the more "moral" outcome.

<comment><USER15> > It's a site about law, courts, and lawsuits. These things are all about > process.

Reading Orin Kerr is akin to reading someone critique the actions of the principals in a waterboarding without critiquing the rightness or wrongness of waterboarding itself.

There's a creepy overtone to that kind of commentary.

<comment><USER10> This comment perfectly encapsulates everything that is horrible about legal discussions on HN: they are anti-intellectual, in the sense that they penalize knowledge or understanding insofar as such understanding complicates some poorly-stated valence issue (most often "the government should honor everybody's right to privacy"). It's not that the angry HN commenter has a carefully-considered (or even _specific_ ) complaint about Orin Kerr†. Rather, the angry HN commenter is angry that anyone has taken the time to understand the legal issue at all, instead of simply joining them in baying at the moon.

You should be embarrassed to argue this way. You should want to first understand the issues that are at play, and then figure out how your principles engage with those issues. You obviously shouldn't be trying to dismiss dense sources of information that you clearly didn't already have access to by making allusions to torture. But you do anyways, as do many on HN, adding no value, no original insights, no new information, not even a meaningful criticism of someone else's insight or information --- just, "new information that doesn't fit my worldview: BAD".

I've been here long enough to know that you're getting upvoted for comments like these, hopping from thread to thread shouting down anyone who fails to scoop out their eyeballs, pick up the accursed panflute or vile drum, and dance idiotically around the formless confusion of whatever issue you think you're advocating for. Just know, the same people upvoting you for poisoning threads are also the ones upvoting the incomprehensible douchebags who snark about "getting their side project acquired next time they get a job offer". You're two sides of the same debased coin.

† _You can, once in a blue moon, find a carefully considered criticism of Orin Kerr on HN, but they 've uniformly come from people on HN with law degrees and are thus obviously suspicious._

<comment><USER15> > You should be embarrassed to argue this way.

You should be embarrassed for defending Orin Kerr.

> I've been here long enough to know that you're getting upvoted for comments > like these

I got downvoted. Maybe you want to revisit what you think you think you know and enjoy bloviating about.

<comment><USER10> Unfortunately, I read things before I decide whether to yell at them, and so find myself unable to howl maniacally at Orin Kerr.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> Levinson deserves more support than the paltry $90K ([https://rally.org/lavabit](https://rally.org/lavabit)) he's raised so far for his legal defense war chest. I hope he can continue to fight this as he goes up the court of appeals ladder.

</comment><comment><USER17> The SSL key is only for the transport correct? My assumption is that the data in storage would still be encrypted by the customer's private keys. The USG could then obtain the private keys of the customer by watching the decrypted SSL traffic, and is also why the gag order would be very important to the case.

I think this is a pretty big misunderstanding by the author of the article.

</comment><comment><USER18> Footnote, Prof. Kerr literally wrote the book on Computer Crime Law: [http://www.amazon.com/Computer-Crime-Law-American- Casebook/d...](http://www.amazon.com/Computer-Crime-Law-American- Casebook/dp/0314204547)

Not that you should accept his argument without scrutiny, but he's read a few of the cases here.

</comment><comment><USER19> A lesson of all of this is that encryption without control of the encryption key is, in this brave new world, useless.

</comment><comment><USER20> It was well written. I expect the government will respond with a sad combination of flag waving and fear mongering.

</comment><comment><USER21> Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals docket and documents here:

[http://www.plainsite.org/flashlight/case.html?id=2524335](http://www.plainsite.org/flashlight/case.html?id=2524335)</comment>


Show HN: SESS – Simple Email Sending Service - <AUTHOR> https://sess.email/ <comment><USER2> Amazon's email service is called SES, simple email service. Since these names are quite similar and could cause confusion, you are probably infringing on their trademark.

<comment><USER3> At first glance I thought this post was going to be an SES feature or something. So...

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Looking this up on mobile. I hope you're considering making it more mobile friendly. But then I'm not sure how many would prefer composing newsletters on mobile. Good luck though.

<comment><USER5> Composing on email might be a thing. But for me, I can't even view pricing or terms on my iPhone 8 Plus.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> My only concern with trying this as someone just starting out with email marketing is that I don't know my SBUR rate... in fact I would assume that the first ever email to a new population (even if legitimate) is bound to have a far higher rate given errors in data collection (say collected on paper, leading to bad email addresses and bounces) and keen unsubscribers.

Then I'm successfully banned and have to go to another platform with my slightly cleaner email list!

<comment><USER7> Let me rephrase your query. If you send 2 emails and 1 bounces, then your SBUR would be 50% and so will you be banned?

NO.

We predicted this would happen. The SBUR doesn't kick in for the first few thousand mails. Over time your list gets cleaner (because we keep track of bounces, unsubscribes and dont send them emails from next time on.)

(I'm one of the engineers who developed SESS.)

<comment><USER8> Dirty spammer hack: include 50% of recipients as addresses you control, and that won't ever bounce, complain, or unsubscribe. That pushes SBUR down, likely below threshold.

These are often addresses created manually by 'click farmers' so they don't have obvious patterns which could enable an email service provider to identify them. (I'm still working on figuring out ways to detect this...)

Or, send spam to a new address via another service, then only use SESS to send to the ones who had opened or clicked on the other service. This is known as 'waterfalling'. Using this method, bounce rates can approach zero, and complaints/unsubscribes are likely to stay below 1% each - but make no mistake, ISPs can and will often still detect the email as spam.

You will need more complex ways to detect approaches like these, as well as other forms of spam/abuse. I would suggest starting with looking at thresholds for bounces, unsubscribes, and complaints independently - sometimes complaint rates of 0.1% can be a strong indicator of spam.

Related - don't limit your contractually-defined recourse to just SBUR rates. I would recommend including terms that allow you to ban or suspend users for any form of spam or abusive activity, "in the sole judgement of SESS.EMAIL" or similar. (I am not a lawyer and this is not legal advice.)

<comment><USER7> Hey, thanks for the points. Will be sure to factor these in.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> What constitutes a "valid business email", exactly? I entered one, clicked "verify", and was warned to "enter a valid business email." I assure you, I did. What's the trouble?

<comment><USER7> A valid business email is one where you should be able to receive and send mails. If you have a 'catch all' email id, the system does not accept that.

Having said that i must say our algorithm is deliberately a bit aggressive (so as to prevent spam).

Your email could very well be a false positive. Could you write to email@example.com from the business email in question. I'll be happy to look into it and whitelist it.

<comment><USER9> What technical means do you use to detect a catch-all address? I know of no reliable method for that purpose, since receiving server cooperation would be required and could not be trusted.

<comment><USER8> This won't detect a catch-all address, but will almost always detect a catch- all domain: send email to [long random string]@domain. Does it bounce or is it accepted?

<comment><USER9> How does the existence of a catch-all, of any kind, make it not a "valid business domain?"

<comment><USER8> I'm not commenting on whether it's a good heuristic or not. Just a possible approach.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> I don't get what problem is this solving compared to :

AWS SES , SendGrid , JetMail etc... and the hundreds of others provider in this domain.

</comment><comment><USER11> Looks great, but email composition is only half the battle.

The page is silent on what, if anything, is being done to help deliverability. Does the site have any kind of relationship with the big ESPs? How 'clean' are the IPs right now? What, if any, mitigation is in place for the sending IPs inevitable reputation degredation? Or is a EDS being used to actually send the emails?

<comment><USER7> SESS is tightly wired to use SES (AWS). We do a bunch of algorithmic checks to validate email/domain validity plus assessing the risk-factor of uploaded email list. If you have a clean list deliverability is closer to 100%.

Edit: Thanks for the note. I will make a mention of the deliverability on the site.

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> nice, I'm working on something similar with something like this:

       <script src="//email.js.fo">

and then you can design your own forms and add email functionality, basically a backend as a service.

</comment><comment><USER13> I get a: 'e {code: "app/duplicate-app", message: "Firebase: Firebase App named '[DEFAULT]' already exists (app/duplicate-app)."' in console when trying to verify my email.

<comment><USER7> Could you write to firstname.lastname@example.com with a screenshot. Im curious to look into whats happening here. Thanks.

<comment><USER13> done!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> How are you validating business emails? I see you don't allow a lot of those disposable emails. Thats a good thing. Take care of the spammers before they drag you down.

</comment><comment><USER15> Neat app. i kind of like the simplicity. I would suggest there better be a nice reason for not having the login. Having to verify email every time could be a pain.

</comment><comment><USER16> I'd like to use this but i see i have to manage my email list on my own. Probably could do it in Google sheets as suggested but its a small hassle to overcome.

</comment><comment><USER17> I think this is a nightmare, even sending 1000 spam mails multiple times can ruin whole IPv4 prefixes. How do you deal with that?

<comment><USER7> Hi, im one of the engineers that built SESS.

We knew we could become a potential spam magnet. Like ive been mentioning in other comments here, we have an algorithm that does checks at multiple levels before a campaign is sent. If the algorithm deems the list as risky it triggers an automatic payment refund. The algorithm is also self learning. Over time its designed to assess the risk-function of an email list. (I'm from a data science background and SESS is a side project which uses learnings we get from elsewhere).

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> This is going to become a spamming service in 3.. 2..

How will you be dealing with that inevitable problem?

<comment><USER19> From the about page:

>You are not allowed to send unsolicited emails. If your SBUR (Spam + Bounce + Unsubscribe + Reject) rate is >=5% you are automatically banned without any prior intimation.

<comment><USER20> They will need to add machine learning based classification of mails _before_ sending them. Spammers will just create the next account until they get detected again. Their servers will be faster on a blacklist than they can spell Spamhaus.

I recommend ULMFiT [1].

[1]: [http://nlp.fast.ai/classification/2018/05/15/introducting- ul...](http://nlp.fast.ai/classification/2018/05/15/introducting-ulmfit.html)

<comment><USER7> Like i mentioned in an earlier comment, we have a nifty little program that checks both the validity of the business email as well as the domain. Then a sampling of the list is done to weed out troublemakers. We do a little bit more. Unfortunately i can't get into specifics here :)

<comment><USER20> Ok, nice to hear that. It seems that you've put some thoughts in it. Mail is very easy to mess up, so I wish you all good luck!

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Hi, i'm one of the engineers that made SESS.EMAIL as a side project. AMA.

<comment><USER21> Is the website not mobile friendly? It acts really wonky on my side. Firefox Beta on Android.

<comment><USER7> I must agree that we have not given particular thought to making this work on mobile. We made the assumption that people composing newsletters would mostly be working on desktops than on mobiles.

<comment><USER22> That's probably true for actual customers using the service, but when people discover your site, they're more likely to be on mobile. You can have a different landing page for mobile that focuses on the "about" without having the huge composer page.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> I was unable to read the terms of service on mobile.</comment>


Nothing Can Be Fixed Anymore - <AUTHOR> http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2405770,00.asp

<comment><USER2> It's just another hallmark of the era of ever increasing minuturization and not much else.

I'm only against stuff like the macbook air/new mac book pro while they still come at such a price premium.

Shouldn't we be more concerned about what do with these things after they get thrown away?</comment>


Ask HN: "a piece of code you're proud of" - what does it mean? - <AUTHOR>

I'm looking for a job, and sometimes during the application process, companies ask you to copy+paste a piece of code you're really proud of. I can only imagine they want something incredibly mind-blowing, like the Fast Inverse Square-Root [1].
But I don't have such code. I've been programming for years, and there's no singular piece of a couple of lines that stands out. It's mostly boring, readable, well designed code that is maintainable. There's nothing sexy about that.
Sure, I'm proud of some large pieces of code. Thousands of lines that span an MVC architecture and three different platforms, for example. But the interviewer can't possible take the time to read it all and understand why I'm proud of it.
Should I whip up something incredibly complex, using the most esoteric syntax elements possible for optimal premature optimization, a nightmare to maintain, just to appease interviewers in this situation? What do you do HN?
[1]: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fast_inverse_square_root#Overview_of_the_code <comment><USER2> As an interviewer, if I ask for code it's for three reasons. I want to know:

a. ... that you can write code.

b. ... what your code looks like, to see your style.

c. ... how well your taste and judgement aligns with mine in the question of "good code".

I wouldn't want much, I wouldn't want anything world-shattering, I just want to see some code you think is clean and effective.

But that's me.

<comment><AUTHOR> Sounds good, but couldn't the applicant just copy code from the internet which he heard was good code? It doesn't prove he can write code.

This does make sense if you'd ask him to explain it at the interview, but then the applicant can also give context and explain why he thinks it's good code.

<comment><USER2> Anything done on paper/email could be the work of someone else. The first thing we then do in interview is give the person a disk-less, internet-less machine and get them to write FizzBuzz. As they do it we get them to talk about their usual dev environment.

Once they've done that we move on to discussing the code they sent.

All these things are purely to weed out the complete time-wasters. From the remainder, we then try to find someone who can design, code, document and collaborate.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> I didn't know companies actually wanted you to copy-paste: they should consider your proudest code is closed to them, especially if you've worked at other places before.

My understanding was that such questions were more correctly phrased as "Tell us about a project you've worked on that you're proud of" (and I've had something like this a couple of times), in which case you briefly mention some details of a project that "spans an MVC architecture and three different platforms" or something else. If they want some specific code, you tell them you developed it at another company and cannot give any source, but you can describe the overall function of the software. (If it's open source, say you can link them to a repo.)

They probably want you to tell a story about the code and reveal loads of information about yourself, and it may help to do so, but you should only do that when you really know what type of story the hiring person wants to hear. I'd keep it strictly to the purpose of the software, and even something as innocent as "I made an abstraction that replaced 700 lines of Java with 40" can be taken many ways: "He's awesome, we want people who can make abstractions, let's hire him!"; "He coded 700 lines and didn't see the abstraction until then? He must suck."; "He's not afraid to make fairly large changes to teammates' code?[good or bad]"; "He thinks lines of code are awesome metrics?"; "Ew Java."

If they _really_ , _really_ want code, and it has to be a simple function or something, you could throw in a simple Scheme implementation of the map function and go off about map/reduce.

<comment><AUTHOR> I've had several run-ins with literal "paste here some code you're proud of" textareas.

As you said, when they're asking to describe something you're proud of, like how Y-Combinator does it, it's a lot easier and relaxed.

The several ways of interpreting such an innocent lines are revealing, thanks for the heads-up!

<comment><USER4> I always figured it was best to paste a URL to some code repo.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> > It's mostly boring, readable, well designed code that is maintainable. > There's nothing sexy about that.

Quite the contrary: I wouldn't hire someone whose code isn't like that.

</comment><comment><USER6> Asking for a code snippet seems to break the question--I can't imagine anything you paste making much sense without context. My honest answer would be to quickly mention that you're not able to paste the exact code because of confidentiality with the previous employer, and then to begin talking about the code and why you're proud of it.

I ask a question very similar to this when I interview, and I'm looking for applicants truly interested in the work they do and computer science. The occasion to apply an obscure algorithm, refactoring code to improve it dramatically, unusual elegance in a solution...

<comment><USER7> > mention that you're not able to paste the exact code because of > confidentiality with the previous employer

as an interviewer I'd be skeptical if the interviewee not only was secretive about his/her code, but had no pet projects or toy scripts lying about.

I think it's a great question because not only do you get a quick sense for how people code, but the response choice itself gives you some insight in to how people think and what gets them excited about hacking.

<comment><USER8> I have pet projects, but I am not impressed by them. The type of code I write for a one off project for myself is vary different than code I would write as part of a larger project.

EX: I thought the twitter people where idiots so I codded up an outline for a solution that would fix their basic problem. I quickly got to single threaded code that was significantly faster than what they used and reasonable memory efficient so I stopped. However, it's not exactly a hard problem and it's not production worthy so I feel no reason to share it with other people.

<comment><USER9> This is the problem I have. I have a strong sense of professionalism, so when I code professionally, I put in more effort to meet a personal standard that far exceeds what I do for personal projects.

One simple example, if I'm writing a utility to be used by me alone, I probably don't verify input. I don't do very good error handling (if it crashes who cares), etc, but if I were hiring the lack of any of these would be a serious red flag to me in any submitted code sample.

Of course there are larger personal projects were a little more care is taken, but it is a whole other level of polish that I put into professional work. I would be embarrassed to share my personal projects. That's probably actually a good sign because at least I know it should be better.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> I use a similar tactic myself whenever I'm interviewing people - think of it as "FizzBuzz" on steroids. It's an easy way to:

a) see if you're a decent programmer, ie. are there any obvious bugs/SQL injections/limitations, and

b) get you to talk about _why_ you've coded something a particular way, what's good about it, etc, etc. Essentially an ice breaker question.

The other option is for me to try and find something that you've done online (eg. an open source project) and ask questions about that, but some people might think it creepy, so I try and get you to contribute code first.

</comment><comment><USER11> I'd think the combination of unnecessary complexity, esoteric syntax, etc. would do the opposite of appeasing interviewers, which might be a waste of time for you overall.

Perhaps you could put together the most elegant solution (to your taste) of a well-known toy problem, and use that in such situations?

Online judges are eminently suited to this sort of task. They're a-dime-a- dozen these days. Heck, you'll find one in my profile!

<comment><AUTHOR> I've implemented a solution to the maximal clique problem in a very elegant way, and have used that piece of code in the past, because it's optimal and quite small (about 100 lines). I guess that fits your description, so I've been on the right track all along.

Thanks for your suggestion of online judges. I didn't know there was such a market for code-judges, interesting!

<comment><USER2> Given that problem is NP-Hard I'd be interested to see your code.

<comment><AUTHOR> It's an implementation of the Bron-Kerbosch algorithm [1].

[1]: <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bron%E2%80%93Kerbosch_algorithm>

<comment><USER2> That link didn't work for me, this one does:

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bron-Kerbosch_algorithm>

Thanks.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> The code I'm most proudest of is that which solves a problem I thought would be unsolvable, with which I tried using several different methods, to then eventually settle on a final design, probably a compromise between readability and efficiency.

I think you should give them code that tells a story. One with comments which explain why you did A and not B. Write an accompaniment to it _"At first, I tried A. I researched and found out X, but..."_.

Few people can discover something as incredible as FFT, or FISR. Those are _one-offs_. It shows a lot if you worked hard at getting a solution to a problem and that you're proud of it; you didn't just copy-paste, you tried different ways of solving it and ended up with a solution that's, in the words of Goldilocks, _just right_.

Or that's what I'd send them at least.

</comment><comment><USER13> Give them something that will make their eyes burn! <http://www.donhopkins.com/home/code/display.c.txt>

<comment><AUTHOR> The skull and bones really sets the atmosphere.

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> Don't ever do this. Just a few reasons...

1\. You say "during the application process". Have you even met the hiring manager at this point? Worse yet, have you met _anyone_ or are you just stuck in some automated process? Never forget that employment application is a two way street; you're evaluating them as much as they're evaluating you. They haven't earned the right to see your code yet.

2\. This approach should be a red flag to any applicant. They want to see old code to evaluate you when they are 64 betters ways to do that? Something's fishy here - someone has no idea what they're doing.

3\. Do not allow anyone to read your code out of context. You need to be there to explain the background, motivation, approach, and answer any questions. Cutting and pasting preempts yourself. Bring hard copy along only after the process has progressed far enough.

4\. Only bad things can happen. This is like being the first the mention a number - you can't win. If someone wanted to hook up with you but asked for a dirty underwear sample first, would you give one? This is the same thing.

5\. If your code is proprietary, who knows where it could end up? You may also be violating confidentiality agreements. Not worth it.

6\. The employer-employee relationship is a never ending tension. You will always be "negotiating" money and working conditions, whether you realize it or not. Giving in to such an unreasonable request so early in your relationship marks you as a chump. You may never recover the equal footing you need (and deserve) in the ongoing relationship.

7\. If they have a problem, move on. You're probably saving yourself a lot of trouble down the road.

You sound like a competent developer who should have no trouble finding a job without bending over. So don't.

[Aside: Because of this kind of thinking, I never give references before being hired. In essence, I'm telling the prospective employer, "You decide." They then have the right to rescind the offer if they don't like a reference.]

<comment><USER7> I summarily disagree.

1\. A chunk of my code is FOSS, sure they have earned the right to see it.

2\. It's a red flag when an employer doesn't ask–shows me the hiring process may be more centered on solving questions/puzzles on the fly (which I'm very good at, so no bitterness-just that I'd rather work with people who love to and are talented at hacking which is not nec. the same thing).

3\. Find a good coherent chunk, generate one, or put in something out of context but representative of your style as a hook to chat about the larger cooler project.

4\. Not true at all, it could, in fact, land you they job.

5\. You're right in that proprietary code is an issue, but I'd be skeptical of a candidate whose entire codebase was proprietary. Not even a single toy project or piece of home brewed code?

6\. Taking a stand against an employer seeing you in action and getting a sense of your interests before employing you is not in your best interests while negotiating more money typically is. Remember you want to work with people equally competent and engaged as you are. You may be hot stuff, and the employer may get lucky buying your book without having seen a line of your great American novel, but it's easy to make mistakes when hiring and they are hard to correct.

7\. That I do think is true–there are certainly employers out there which ask different questions, so finding the ones that are the best fits for your style and principles saves everyone time.

<comment><USER15> I think everyone of those points is dependant on some underlying assumption that its possible to have some snippet of code that makes it possible to evaluate how good you are as a developer, which at least to me sounds about as crazy as judging develop productivity by lines of code.

<comment><USER10> It won't evaluate how good you are, but it's a very easy way to tell if you're bad. Think Fizzbuzz and you'll be on the right track. I've had people who've submitted code which doesn't run, has obvious buffer overflows and bugs, or is just plain indecipherable.

You'll also have an ice breaker if you want to interview them - just ask them about their code...

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> "The devil is in the details", they say, have you ever coded something that by changing just one line it improved the performance of an entire system?

The interview question is designed to see whether you are the type of person that has lots of initiative, and would always walk the extra mile to improve an existing system, I suppose

<comment><AUTHOR> Sure, but this won't be clear without context or backstory. I could explain why it did that, but I guess the employer wouldn't know if I'd be telling the truth. Wouldn't this diminish the effectiveness of it?

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> I feel a little proud when I can _remove_ code. Does that count?

</comment><comment><USER18> I personally ask for code you did for its own sake or your leisure. If you can write good code for fun, then you're a programmer I'd like to hire. I don't know any other valid metric for code because I can't know why and how you were asked to code this or that.

</comment><comment><USER19> I've never had anyone ask me to actually copy and paste a piece of code that I'm proud of. I _have_ had people ask me to point them towards code samples on github that I'm proud of though.

If they're _good_ employers, they're probably just looking for examples that you take pride in your work and that you can actually write code. Thus, my advice is to be honest. Even if the code isn't "sexy" or even that good. In fact, I've done well several times at this point of the application process simply by saying "This code sucks. But I'm proud of it anyway and here's why."

</comment><comment><USER20> This sounds like pure laziness on their part. If they want to see a small chunk of code you are proud of to evaluate competence and style they should be asking you to solve some puzzle or problem with code. Etsy does this, so does Dropbox. <http://www.dropbox.com/jobs/challenges>

</comment><comment><USER21> I've seen this on some job descriptions/applications. Yes, it was from a company that has problems with clarity of though, originality, and generally everything.

Most likely linking to a web site about a project you participated in of which you are proud would be more thorough.

</comment><comment><USER22> I saw a comment here once which makes lots of sense -- find a programming exercise you find interesting and show it as an example. You a) show interest in developing your skills b) show your style and c) don't have to worry about showing something which doesn't belong to you.

</comment><comment><USER23> If you wrote your own framework then you could grab an area of the code like a database layer, caching system, template system. If you built code on top of an existing framework then that's more difficult, because it's higher level, more abstract and spread out.</comment>