Fast JavaScriptCore Desktop ClojureScript REPL - <AUTHOR> http://blog.fikesfarm.com/posts/2015-07-16-fast-javascriptcore-desktop-clojurescript-repl.html

<comment><USER2> some background: the ClojureScript compiler has recently been bootstrapped, effectively giving us two different versions of the compiler, "ClojureScript JS" which only relies on a JS runtime, and the original "ClojureScript JVM" which will continue to be the default choice, partly because the benefits afforded by the Google Closure compiler (written in Java) are huge and irreplaceable.

The "ClojureScript JS" compiler cannot replace the original compiler fully, but is already finding some great use-cases, such as this new insanely fast Planck REPL, targeting new platforms like iOS (see Replete, Ambly, React Native), an in-browser try-it-out REPL for our upcoming website, the ability to try out new libraries from a webpage, and possibly adding ClojureScript support to CodePen.

Lot of great stuff coming.

<comment><USER3> Surely ClojureScript JS could just shell out to the Google Closure compiler, when available?

<comment><USER4> Yes it very well could. It really is the same compiler - and the compiler generates Closure Compiler compatible JavaScript.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Author here. Willing to answer questions.

<comment><AUTHOR> Cool. Can you explain exactly what the phrases "ClojureScript apps that bootstrap themselves" or "bootstrapped ClojureScript runtime" mean?

<comment><USER5> Bootstrapped ClojureScript refers to the idea that ClojureScript can compile itself. Evidently Lisp was the first and ClojureScript was probably the most recent to accomplish this: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Self- hosting](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Self-hosting)

But then there is also the concept that a ClojureScript app which is going to make use of a REPL needs to do some additional work to bootstrap the ClojureScript runtime. Normally when you ship a ClojureScript app you would employ Google Closure to concatenate everything into a single file which is loaded and evaluated. But if you want to work with individual files (one per Clojure namespace, which is important when you are working with a REPL), you need to avoid that and you need to set up things to use Google Closure's dependency management system (CLOSURE_IMPORT_SCRIPT, etc.). I have a blog post which attempts to explain the different meaning of "bootstrap" in this context: [http://blog.fikesfarm.com/posts/2015-03-05-ambly-app- bootstr...](http://blog.fikesfarm.com/posts/2015-03-05-ambly-app- bootstrapping.html)

<comment><AUTHOR> My God, it's turtles, I mean ClojureScript, all the way down!

This is really cool stuff. You've turned iOS into a classical lisp machine.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> My understanding is that one of the reasons for developing ClojureScript [beside the unification of browser and server data structures and code models in a way that goes beyond the limitations of raw JavaScript] is to get the JVM and its overhead out of the way for uses like shell scripts in exchange for the scaling and robustness that the JVM can provide.

There's an impedance mismatch between shell scripts and an environmental dependency on the JVM. Likewise there are some use cases for the JVM that aren't conducive to JavaScript's idioms and code models.

</comment><comment><USER7> "I'm amazed at how quick Clojure is to launch." Said no one ever..

<comment><USER8> That is the very last of my concerns with Clojure, as I usually just launch the JVM once and then start developing while everything is running.

I'll take a slower launch any day if it means less code to write, more rubust programs, more code reuse and everything else Clojure brings to the table :)

<comment><USER9> Slow launch means you tend to write monolithic applications. You can't write cli tools with Clojure. You can't compose Clojure applications. You have to write a big bulky JVM app. Which definitely has its place, but ClojureScript is expanding Clojure's reach.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> way to go Mike!!! :)

\--Marc</comment>


How game theory will solve the problems of the Euro Bloc and stop Iranian nukes - <AUTHOR> http://www.faz.net/aktuell/feuilleton/debatten/game-theory-how-game-theory-will-solve-the-problems-of-the-euro-bloc-and-stop-iranian-nukes-12130407-p2.html <comment><AUTHOR> I share the Rubinstein's reservations about the usefulness of Game Theory.

To give some context, he is one the 100 most cited economists in the world, coauthor of the most popular graduate Game Theory textbook and probably has a reasonable chance of winning a Nobel over the next couple of decades for his work on areas such as bargaining theory.</comment>


Ask HN: Do you think it's acceptable to post Black Lives Matter posters at work? - <AUTHOR> As the title says: Do you think it's acceptable to post 'Black Lives Matter' posters in the offices of a relatively large technology company?
My place of employment has had a lot of internal debate about the BLM movement. Recently this has come to a head, with the most vocal proponents of BLM printing, distributing, and hanging of large posters that say "Black Lives Matter."
I'm just curious on HN's opinion-- do you think this is okay? I typically avoid talking about politics at work because I never feel anything good can come of it. Further, I'd be very surprised if someone would plaster their walls with Trump or Sanders posters and not be confronted. <comment><USER2> Is anyone at the office of the opinion that black lives don't matter?

If people understand the concept of Black Lives Matter -- that black Americans have been marginalized, and their deaths treated as footnotes rather than headlines -- then no one should be offended.

This is tantamount to having a pro-civil rights poster in an office in the early 60s. Yes, it's a political issue, but it shouldn't be controversial to anyone who values the lives of others as much as they value their own.

This is my favorite explanation of BLM (and why "all lives matter" is totally beside the point): [http://chainsawsuit.com/wp- content/uploads/2014/12/20141204-...](http://chainsawsuit.com/wp- content/uploads/2014/12/20141204-patreon.png)

</comment><comment><USER3> I think it is ok so long as the argument over BLM doesn't veer into intolerance towards dissenting views. Otherwise it is up to the company to set policies about the personal use of office equipment and where materials with a political message can be displayed.

</comment><comment><USER4> It's appropriate because the people who object have been successfully intimidated.

</comment><comment><USER5> I think the fact that someone would question this, so there is a need for the poster at all is awkward enough. Putting up a poster to protest for something so obvious seems strange imo.</comment>


The Instagram Architecture Facebook Bought for a Cool Billion Dollars - <AUTHOR> http://highscalability.com/blog/2012/4/9/the-instagram-architecture-facebook-bought-for-a-cool-billio.html <comment><USER2> Positing that Facebook purchased Instagram for its architecture strikes me as odd. They (FB) have solved all of the problems that Instragram faces and more for a userbase roughly twenty times as large, and while the infrastructure is interesting for those at companies aspiring to Instagram's success, for your average systems engineer at Facebook or Google I would think it seems pedestrian in comparison

<comment> jack-r-abbit I read that title as kind of tongue in cheek. I'm pretty sure Facebook could have built the exact same functionality for less money and in less time as it took to initiate and finalize the acquisition. Winning their users over may have been harder to do. I guess they just figured it would be easier to just buy the users. _shrug_

<comment><USER3> Agreed. Also a pretty topical rebuttal to the other flood of articles claiming they were bought purely for the users - widely reported as being valued at $37 each, a number arrived at by assuming there's absolutely nothing else of value in the transaction.

Given the "prices" Google are rumored to be paying to acquire great engineering staff, a team of three engineers who've got a proven track record of building and supporting 100million users on their own - surely they'd be worth some not-down-in-the-noise-floor percentage of even the seemingly insane valuation here?

And a founding team who've "created" $1billion in value in ~550 days? Even if you only credit them with last weeks $500mil rumors - surely that founding team would be worth several tens of million dollars even if you didn't get the company they founded?

<comment><USER4> They also had ~50 million in the bank after a funding round that was so recent they could not have spent much of the money. Which means FB got a 5% discount on that billion dollar price tag and helps to make all those estimates just that much more reasonable.

<comment><USER5> Didn't Sequoia make a big YouTube investment suspiciously immediately before acquisition?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> 3 web ops engineers for 30+ (before android release) million users & 100+ EC2 instances = WOW!

<comment><USER7> I love the instagram app and concept and execution, but I wonder why they even need 100+ EC2 instances (my guess is that almost all of them just serve photos). It appears instagram has little web traffic and it's not so heavily loaded with users 24/7 like facebook is.

<http://siteanalytics.compete.com/instagram.com/>

<comment><USER6> What you are seeing there is only the visitor traffic metrics for the landing page and the URLs shared out. You aren't seeing the back-end API centric traffic from the app to the core servers.

<comment><USER7> Twitter is in a similar situation, and according to compete data (inaccurate i know but vaguely indicative), twitter has more than 100 times more traffic, and they had ~70 servers in 2009 (<http://www.quora.com/How-many-servers-does- Twitter-have>). Just curious here.

<comment><USER6> I completely agree with your take on it; but pls note the entirely different problem Instagram solved vs. Twitter. If you build a real-time streaming application for pure text based objects, your stack will look very different. But collecting, storing, replicating and serving images as your primary social object != same thing.

Hence, even when Twitter 'added' photos, they went with Photobucket so as to not change the nature of their stack. It had taken them 3 years to really get ahead of their adoption curve for 'just' text.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> So you're saying this is the most valuable Django application ever? :)

<comment><USER9> This is a real feather in the Django community's cap. Eat that Rails

<comment><USER10> How long do I have to be on HN to get a downvote button? This isn't about Django vs. Rails or any other framework, it's about the stack that Instagram is built on, nothing more. There are no comparative metrics.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> How much does it cost to run it?

</comment><comment><USER12> Facebook didn't buy them for anything like a billion dollars, $1000 plus the rest in shares is more like it.

Instagram's gamble on Instagram has become a gamble on Facebook (who are risking nothing of value).

</comment><comment><USER13> I'm intrigued they went with XFS for the filesystem. Is there any more info on the thinking behind that decision?

<comment><USER14> They pointed out the thinking behind it. If you check out Eric Hammond's blog at Alestic, it expands on what was mentioned here:

<http://alestic.com/2009/09/ec2-consistent-snapshot>

<comment><USER13> Excellent, thanks for that. Looks mostly like a legacy decision which wouldn't necessarily hold today.

<comment><USER15> Except for the part where you want integrity; AFAIK only xfs guarantees truly atomic snapshotting thanks to xfs_freeze.

Furthermore, it's also (by an extremely large margin) your best choice if you need a filesystem bigger than 16 TB.

<comment><USER13> Allegedly other filesystems have had a similar freeze added since then.

<comment><USER15> Actually it was added to the vfs layer IIRC, around 2.6.30.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> Is this 3 backend engineers? Was there another team that maintained the app and django app?

</comment><comment><USER7> A not so interesting infrastructure that FB will probably overhaul. I think the author does not realize that facebook runs on custom server hardware, php/Hiphop, a bunch of open source stuff they contribute to like cassandra, memcached, varnish etc. The size of facebook and its platform is simply staggering. I 'm pretty sure their engineers are going to be hard to be impressed by these.

<comment><USER17> This architecture went far enough to get them acquired for a lot of money, so while it may not be a miracle of ingenuity, it's worth studying as an example of something that worked.

<comment><USER18> It does raise the question of whether you even need any real ingenuity on the back end for this sort of startup...

<comment><USER13> Thinking that you need ingenuity is often the root of problems.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> That's a long list of open source projects. I wonder did Instagram contribute to any of them, or help out in any way?

<comment><USER20> I am going to guess "no". For three people to scale a site to that size, I imagine it was a daily battle just to keep the thing flying. Not to mention, if they ran into a problem that could potentially be solved with some deep magic done on a forked OSS project... or another ten extra large instances, given their valuation I can imagine which direction they would lean.

</comment></comment><comment><USER21> three engineers and a cloud? sure beats three yards and a cloud of dust...</comment>


Grigori Perelman documentary (with English subtitles) - <AUTHOR> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ng1W2KUHI2s <comment><AUTHOR> It seems to me the makers of this documentary pride themselves in not trying to explain what the conjecture is and how Perelman proved it at all.

This is nice, since they could only have failed and leaves more room for Perelman as a person.</comment>


Ask HN: How do you talk about what you're working on without being a douche? - <AUTHOR> <comment><USER2> Try to find an angle that the listener might find interesting, rather than trying to puff it up to make it sound as cool as possible.

For instance: I was working with the development team for Time.com to fix a major security vulnerability. It basically took 3 days of staying up all night debugging and going back and forth with their team, and we finally found it - some dumbass included a javascript library that has a well known bug hidden in a minified mess.

Why is this bad? Namedropping (time.com), puffing it up to sound bigger than it is (debugging something for three days is perfectly normal, if you're staying up all night then it's down to your own poor time management), name calling and blaming others (the dumbass), jargon (javascript library, minified), assuming knowledge that there's no reason for them to have (well- known).

Instead: I got to work with one of our really big clients to figure out a security vulnerability that was really stumping everyone. We spent a couple of days debugging it, so that's probably why I've had my head in a cloud lately because I've just been thinking about it non-stop. In the end, we found a bug hidden in a really big block of third party code that's written in a way that makes it very tough for humans to read it, but luckily it's a known bug that some other company had documented, and someone found a blog post about it that let us connect up the dots. All six of us working on it were really relieved when we figured it out!

Why better - gives credit to others, explains why it was difficult, doesn't use any technical language, leaves openings for more questions (why is the code hard for humans to read? who was the big client?), doesn't try to exaggerate the severity of it.

<comment><AUTHOR> Noted. This is the kind of answer I was looking for, I'm not too far off the mark. I could do better though.

I'm trying to mold myself from the wisdom of this community little by little. I just want to build something of value, that makes life more fulfilling for the people who use my platform. I try not to talk about it unless the conversation drifts towards 'what are you working on?'. At that point, I mention what it is in bare bones terms and that's it.

Also I've learned that people react differently based on their feelings about themselves. Talking to people who are happy with themselves, they like to hear more and we go back and forth. Other times, people change the subject to sports or weather.

<comment><USER2> Right, so it sounds like the people who are happy with themselves have lots of emotional capacity for being interested in your thing, but other people can't do it so they change to an easier subject. The key is to make it about _them_. Is your project something they can use in their life? Don't tell them they can use it - ask about the pain points you're trying to solve with your thing, and see if they have those pain points. Make it about _them_. If it's uber for dogs, the conversation is about their dog. If it's about Jucero for meat, it's about their eating habits. Then you mention that you're working on something that you hope will make x easier for people like them, and leave room for them to ask questions, rather than jumping in with a sales pitch.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks! This is a good framework for me to use going forward. I want to keep everything casual while collecting valuable feedback/pushback. I learn a lot in casual social settings, the best ideas are useful to people in everyday situations. That's my belief at least.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> Talking about what you're working on and being a douche are entirely orthogonal.

I feel like you have this whole interaction framework in mind (a certain social context). If you were to explain that you might get more useful answers.

On the other hand perhaps enough people can guess the situation you're in such that you get useful answers.

<comment><AUTHOR> It's around my cousins who are engineers or trying to be engineers. They always try to 'compete' with me even though I don't with them, I'm just doing what I love doing.

I just asked here to learn from the community for future reference.

<comment><USER3> Some people are consistently more focused on status signalling than actual communication.

They're difficult to be around. I've never figured why, maybe it's insecurity? But I honestly can't say.

In general the people I know like that aren't just that way about projects or work though, they're like that about _everything_...

I have to admit that I just spend no more time with them than I have to, although cousins is a trickier situation.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> I never find it douchey when someone talks about what they're working on -- unless they're trying to sell it to me.

<comment><AUTHOR> I find it depends who I'm around. When I'm around people are geeks like me, who want to make things better/simpler, we just have fun talking. No one is seriously competitive, it's playful at most, it's just science nerds talking about their projects.

Today I was around a group of people who play this game called 'dick swinging', where they try to prove to the others how much better they are than the others while the others act like they don't notice while they think of a way 'get the high score'.

I'm not good at games like that. I just like to talk about science, tech, music, economics, food, etc.

<comment><USER5> That sound like a not very fun game, and I'd try and find other people to hang out with.

Honestly, this is one of the things I didn't realize when I was younger. There are lots of people in the world, the majority of them I probably wouldn't like to hang out with (at least in a social group). It takes time and effort to find people who you like and want to be friends with.

<comment><AUTHOR> In this case, it's family so I really can't. I get the feeling that they feel intimidated by me by the fact that I am a dropout with better career prospects than them who have degrees and can't get an interview. Life is full of irony.

<comment><USER5> That sounds like a tough situation.

Even with family, I don't think I could engage with a game like that. I guess in your situation I'd try and be friendly and kind to them but also try and find friendship/support outside your family.

Just because they're family doesn't mean you have to fully engage with everything they do.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Avoid saying the words "changing the world" or any other bullshit buzzword that deceptively gives your work a nobler, tone than it deserves. Trust me, if you are changing the world, people will figure it out from what you are doing; you don't need to mention that specifically.

</comment><comment><USER7> Be happy disengaging from the game with non-competitive responses like "yeah probably no one will use it, but mostly I just want to have fun" or "Yeah it sounds like a waste, but I get my paycheck".

<comment><USER8> Might be mistaken for a humble-brag though.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> Unless they are vaguely techy, i generally just say "with computers", or perhaps "safeguarding data for disaster recovery, for a company in Movies/Advertising"

</comment><comment><USER10> I ask what they're working on first, and then listen.

</comment><comment><USER11> Pitch it like a startup would pitch a 2-slide deck to an investor. Then wait for the questions. Let them run the talk.

</comment><comment><USER12> I simply describe what I'm doing factually.</comment>


Mozilla's Firefox OS Chromecast equivalent - <AUTHOR> http://gigaom.com/2014/06/20/this-firefox-os-powered-streaming-stick-is-mozillas-answer-to-chromecast-exclusive-video/

<comment><USER2> ugly and 2x the size. I am all for Mozilla getting into new tech lately, but they really need to hire a decent design team.

<comment><USER3> If I had to guess, that device looks like one of the many "Android TV sticks" that are sold on Ebay and the like. I didn't see one that looked exactly like it, but it's the right cheap plastic and dimensions.

If I had to guess, I'd say an engineer bought this and decided to port FirefoxOS to it -- not something that went through any sort of design team.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> "killer"</comment>


Corey Haines advises caution on the use of the term "pragmatic" - <AUTHOR> http://blog.coreyhaines.com/2009/10/on-term-pragmatic.html <comment><USER2> From October 3, 2009.</comment>


Sorry, Kids. We Ate It All. - <AUTHOR> http://www.nytimes.com/2013/10/16/opinion/friedman-sorry-kids-we-ate-it-all.html

<comment><USER2> There is no evidence that "cutting corporate taxes to zero" will cause companies to hire more people.

(2012) New Study: No Evidence That High-End Tax Cuts Help the Economy: [http://www.offthechartsblog.org/new-study-no-evidence- that-h...](http://www.offthechartsblog.org/new-study-no-evidence-that-high- end-tax-cuts-help-the-economy/)

(2012) Nick Hanauer's (banned) TED talk: "Rich people don't create jobs" [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CKCvf8E7V1g](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CKCvf8E7V1g)

</comment><comment><USER3> I still think we will muddle through it. Things that aren't sustainable don't continue. People will start charging more to lend to the US. Systems will feel stress. Health care will be rationed because there is no other way. Everyone will work longer because there is no other option. We may need to inflate some if our wealth away to lighten the debt load.

The wake up will be someone else's system collapsing first (Japan? France?) which will cause global economic stress. After the flight to US dollars, our borrowers will force us to get our act in gear.

<comment><USER4> My bet's on Japan.

<comment><USER3> I love Japan as a country so I hope you are wrong. The demographics suggest you are right. The powerful interest groups that Friedman mentioned also exist there too.

Two differences with Japan: First, their debt is domestically held so they can avoid bond vigilantes. Second, as a country and culture they have been able to come together and solve great problems when they get consensus. (They just haven't had that consensus in decades)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Nice how they just stuck in _cutting corporate taxes to zero_. Sadly job creators are mostly small companies withy tiny tax burdens highly profitable companies tend to grow little because there extracting profit vs increasing the number of jobs in search of future growth.

<comment><USER6> Do you have any evidence to support this? The data that I can find point to a more subtle conclusion that does not fit this oft-repeated statement (myth?).

"We find that the relationship between firm size and employment growth is sensitive to these issues. However, our main finding is that once we control for firm age there is no systematic relationship between firm size and growth."

[http://econweb.umd.edu/~haltiwan/size_age_paper_R&R_Aug_16_2...](http://econweb.umd.edu/~haltiwan/size_age_paper_R&R_Aug_16_2011.pdf)

EDIT:

I should say that it's not that small businesses don't create jobs, it's just a particular type of small business (young ones) that create most of them.

Additional discussion - [http://www.richmondfed.org/publications/research/econ_focus/...](http://www.richmondfed.org/publications/research/econ_focus/2013/q2/pdf/interview.pdf)

<comment><USER5> Your missing the point it's not a question of size it's a question of profitability.

There is a popular idea that reducing taxes on profits would spurn significant job growth. However doing so in no way changes the math on how many job's maximize profits. Further, profitable company's that higher people temporarily reduce there profitability which directly reduces their tax burden and has the same effect cheaply and automatically. Also, profitable company's can borrow money to assist growth so if you look at things from an accounting perspective removing all taxes on profits has a tiny impact on how fast a company can grow.

Note, there are ways to change the tax structure to actually promote job growth in the short term. Such as a reduction in payroll taxes for company's that employ more people now than they did at any time in the last 5 years. However, none of them change the long term math on what the ideal number of employees for a stable company is.

<comment><USER6> The implication (point?) of the research is that older companies (regardless of size) create fewer jobs relative to younger companies.

I would disagree with the statement that reducing taxes on profits has absolutely no impact on overall job growth. Furthermore, a reasonable conclusion would be that reducing taxes on young (and almost by definition, small) companies independent of profitability would have a greater beneficial impact on job growth than reducing taxes on highly profitable and older firms (large or small).

Based on the research, maybe the best course of action for job growth would be to reduce all taxes (profitability and payroll) for young companies regardless of size and profitability rather than an indiscriminate scheme that reduces payroll taxes based on time constraints (such as 5 years of expanding employees) for all firms large and small.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> _Whenever Druckenmiller (a friend) is challenged by seniors, who also come to his talks, that he is trying to start an intergenerational war, he has a standard reply: "No, that war already happened, and the kids lost. We're just trying to recover some scraps for them."_

Are there still any scraps? I thought you ate it all!?

<comment><USER8> But unfortunately SS only worked when more people were joining the workforce than were leaving. Also, the life expectancy was not as great. SS is an inter- generational transfer of wealth, decided by our parent's parents but paid for by the children of each generation.

<comment><USER9> Unlike in the past when the elderly lived and were supported by their kids....

<comment><USER10> I don't know. I see that currently due to the recession. My siblings and I have been supporting our parents in some form or fashion for years (and they aren't even close to retirement).

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> I keep wondering: if we applied 50% of the effort we applied to stopping SOPA, what would the world look like?

<comment><USER12> Assuming "we" is the young, tech-focused, urban demographic of hn: At least from my anecdotal experience, that demographic did apply an awful lot of effort in 2008 to get the President they wanted, a supermajority in the Senate they wanted, and a House majority they wanted. Did anyone think that a Washington that looked like that would have any incentive at all to modernize (sorry, "privatize"!) Social Security?</comment></comment>


Maybe Americans don't need fast home Internet service, FCC suggests - <AUTHOR> https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2017/08/maybe-americans-dont-need-fast-home-internet-service-fcc-suggests/ <comment><USER2> Well I'll say that for about 2 years I had the minimal Comcast broadband account (due to low income) at 35/5 mb/sec. It had little trouble supporting my streaming and Internet needs which included an iPhone (with WiFi calling), Netflix 1080p, a few 4K free videos and some modest Bitorrent activity.

Except for the slower downloading of Bitorrent and iPhone content there were no issues with streaming - no pixilation or stalling.

Now it's just me so YMMV of course but it's not impossible to scale down one's Internet bandwidth without affecting the quality.

I was recently forced to upgrade to 100/10 mb/s service by Comcast due to changing contracts with my townhouse association and fortunately my financial situation is better so I could afford it but I have to say the basic QoS in my home is not greatly improved.

Of course it's not that beneficial to ISPs to provide lower cost/ low speed service because they have to build out their networks anyways for high speed service so I doubt if suddenly there was some big demand for low speed home broadband there would be any change in pricing.

Of course the motivation of the FCC is well known - give the industry all the advantages and the consumers none which is a shame because there is a good case to be made for lower cost and lower speed Internet AS A CHOICE and not as some corporate cost savings spurred on by the despicable FCC.</comment>


Why Bad Jobs-or No Jobs-Happen to Good Workers - <AUTHOR> http://spectrum.ieee.org/podcast/at-work/tech-careers/why-bad-jobsor-no-jobshappen-to-good-workers <comment><USER3> Have you ever noticed that some developers see the job market as a bleak and desperate place where jobs are scarce and exploitive, while others see this market and can't believe their amazing luck to have stumbled into such a fantastic career?

We all know guys from both those camps, so something must be up.

I think a lot of guys get trapped in this cycle between their own lack of confidence and predatory companies that look for that sort of employee to exploit. I mean, what better employee to have than one who's constantly in fear of losing his job in the next round of layoffs and will happily work long hours for "market average" wages in the quest for job security.

That developer, when he hits the market, will hit it via a layoff. And he'll have four years of his last employee reinforcing his lack of value, so he won't expect much beyond a desperate search for somebody, _anybody_ who will hire him. That's not the sort of dude who will network his way into coffee with your CTO. He'll pray and spray resumes at HR and endure half a year of being rejected by keyword filters. By the time the next exploitive company finds him and offers him another death march at a "market average" salary, he'll be so grateful that he'll never want to leave.

You see that guy here from time to time (though more often at Slashdot and Reddit). I wish there were a way to get through to him to let him know that it's really not like that.

Programming computers for money is the single greatest profession in the 21st century. If you're doing it and you're not happy, know that you can fix it.

<comment><USER4> Everything Jason says and then some. (Well, OK, I'd quibble about luck having anything to do with it. Nobody lucks their way into being a doctor - <USER2> correctly identify it is a good idea based on the scads of available evidence and then work hard on the obvious pathway to becoming one - and we should similarly avoid trivializing ourselves.)

I have a folder in Gmail of comments thanking me for my negotiating advice articles. My running tally is folks are $214k a year wealthier _literally just by asking for it_.

<comment><USER5> > folks are $214k a year wealthier literally just by asking for it.

How do you ask for it? (or how do you get there?)

<comment><USER6> Personal anecdote: I literally just asked while on the phone with the recruiter for negotiating for a six-month contract last year in NYC. At the time, I was getting about $67K.

Recruiter: "Our client is offering $45/hr for the position, what do you think of the offer?"

Myself: "How close to $50/hr can we get?"

Recruiter: "He can do $50/hr."

That was all it took, and that was the discussion about it verbatim. It's hard when you're already in the position and you have to negotiate a higher raise with your boss because you need to prove you're worth it by performance(and whether or not you meet their metrics, etc etc), but in the interview process, that's how it went for me.

<comment><USER7> Can't stress enough that you should ask.

As someone who's been on the hiring side most of my career: I've _never_ given my "best and final offer" to a potential hire right away. Doing so is leaving money on the table, as most hires accept the first offer made to them unless it's totally out of the ballpark.

But that also conversely means that not asking for more than you get offered is leaving money on the table.

If they clamor to accept right way, I'm left wondering if I offered too much.

I've also _never_ terminated discussions with someone, or known about situations where that happened, without providing at least one counter offer. I'm sure it could happen, but as long as you're not being an ass about the way you're doing it, few people will turn around and decide not to hire you just because you try to get more money. If anything I _want_ the people who have the confidence to ask, rather than the one that just quietly accept what's offered.

<comment><USER6> > If they clamor to accept right way, I'm left wondering if I offered too > much.

I doubt that it's ever "too much", but sometimes it can just be a matter of appeasement or desperation. I told the same story above to a friend of mine who had been out of work for at least one or perhaps two years after finishing a degree from a video-game school as he was being offered a position as a web developer. I encouraged him to ask for just a little more than what he had offered, but he sent back an acceptance of the original offer from the employer as he was afraid of rocking the boat, and simply just wanted to get paid as bills began to mount up.

The original offer was for a $50K salary, which isn't terrible for starting out of school. In my eyes, I was slightly disappointed that he didn't even really try to get another $2000 or $3000, but in his position, he didn't want to risk losing the original $50K just for a little more.

<comment><USER7> I can understand that people are worried. But for anyone who reads this who fall in the worried category, I usually ask for at least 20%-30% more. Asking for just a tiny increase has never been something I'd even consider. There are situations I might _settle_ for an increase in that range if the original offer was high enough, but I'd certainly ask for more than that. If asking for an increase that low is rocking the boat, there will be other problems with that employer...

A counter-intuitive trick for those who have trouble getting offers and/or worry about talking up their offers: Look for jobs below your desired salary range.

Most people look for jobs where any stated salary range match what they expect based on past experience - I see that in candidates for jobs I hire for all the times. Most candidates fit squarely within the range.

If you look for jobs slightly lower, it will often mean you interview against less skilled candidates than yourself. As long as you can convince the hiring manager you're not overqualified and looking to leave as soon as possible, it significantly increases your chances of an offer.

Once you have an offer, if you stand out skills wise, you'll be in a far stronger position to ask for more, even if you're asking for more than their salary range - everyone will have "invested" in you as their preferred choice, and standing out in terms of skills makes it easier to justify to HR to offer even beyond the top end of the range, sometimes beyond what they'd planned on stretching to.

I've seen this work from both sides of the table - psychologically it's hard to give up what is seen as a great deal, even when the other side makes the deal less and less attractive (by bumping up the salary requirements), and in the end people (on both ends) tend to be happier with deals where they've had to negotiate.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> I think the interviewee made a very solid case that there is a hiring gap in the area of experienced specialists. He seemed to think that was the major chunk of the "skill gap" employers complain of.

I have seen that.

On the other hand, he described an army of job-hungry young people striving to get the right education for entry level work... but missing the boat on just the right tech -- again for overly-constrained hiring processes. _That_ does not match my experience: I see students coming out of the educational system -- reputable universities -- with a huge gap in fundamental knowledge.

I fear that universities, colleges, and vocational schools, in their effort to deliver workers with fashionable resumes, are failing to deliver the fundamentals.

Yes, you can teach yourself the fundamentals if you know you need them. But if you've gone through 4-6 years of university under the theory that they are teaching you what you need to know, it may be harder to realize that, in fact, you have learned how to look good, but not how to _be_ good.

<comment><USER9> The problem he described with colleges has been going on for a very long time. I was interested in both engineering and Journalism when I started college.

I vividly remember attending a lecture by a noted career counselor my first week in school. They had just laid off tens of thousands of engineers nationally when the space program wound down. He told us if we got the engineering degree and weren't in the top twenty percent of our class we wouldn't find work.

But if we went the journalism route there would be four jobs for every graduate. I was more passionate about Journalism so that's what I majored in.

So what happened? Four years later I literally couldn't find work in my chosen field. But my buddy with his engineering degree and 2.1 gpa had employers fighting over him. All of this happened in four years time.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> It's interesting that he mentions the software and doesn't really mention recruitment companies.

To the extent that this guy is right, recruiters are getting paid a lot of money and doing a pretty crap job. They are supposed to be the ones saying to employers "The requirements are too specific, The salary is too low." They are supposed to be the ones qualifying borderline applicants with a low percentage out of a deep pile. It's a hard job, but its not like they're charging $100 for it. They charge a lot. enough to justify full days talking to lots of applicants, hundreds if necessary.

It feels like HR "consultants" spend 60% of their budget chasing clients 30% advertising & 10% actually doing the job you want them to do.

Anyway, this guy, or one of the good HR consultants should blow the whistle (I'm exaggerating) on what they actually do. Then, show us how to do it right. Make a video going over job descriptions and point out when/if they're absurd. Show us the CVs that come in. Let us see the pain from the employer side. Why is Joel Spolsky the best resource for this? Where is the industry?

</comment><comment><USER11> Getting hired is as much a skill as programming is. What many people never grasp is that learning to present yourself in your CV and your interviews in such a way that people _want_ to employ you is a skill in and of itself.....which means that the ability to code well does not equal the ability to get a job that requires you to code well.

<comment><USER12> It's absolutely true that getting through the hiring process is a skill. So is miniature golf. The question is why companies are spending weeks on interviews and logic puzzles when they could just send all their candidates down to the mini-golf course and hire candidate with the lowest score. Unless there's evidence that the skill of resume writing is related to the skill of programming, your candidates will be just as qualified and you'll have saved everyone time and stress.

<comment><USER11> Not really. When we interview, we look at more than just technical prowess. We want to find people who fit well with the organisation. In fact, being the best possible coder in the world is just unnecessary in what we do. Our interviews reflect that, and I think it would be naive to assume that other organisations don't also tailor their interview process to find the candidates with the best skill set - that means, four our software dev team, coding well but also communicating and presenting well (we have close relationship with our users, seeing them practically daily), writing documentation, training users, writing code that the rest of the team can understand and debug when they are on vacation or sick, without having to disturb them etc. At the end of the day, it isn't just about who can write the most brilliant piece of code....I'll take an average coder with additional skill set over a brilliant coder who grunts in the corner any day.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> Interesting, but I don't really by his it arguments. All that is required to learn in our industry is a sub $1000 pc (and on a budget, sub 500) or a $1500 mac.

Yet somehow we end up with people who cannot solve fizzbuzz.

That seems like a talent shortage to me.

<comment><USER14> I'm a CIS student and a telecommunications professional, with aspirations of eventually being a professional programmer, so if this is a dumb question, please forgive me.

If there are people who can't solve fizzbuzz that are getting programming jobs, what do they do at work?

I can solve fizzbuzz easily, but I haven't ever built an application that I would consider useful. I've solved puzzles like fizzbuzz and completed lots of programming assignments (mostly involving stuff at the command line) and I feel like I know nothing when it comes to actually building something significant. I feel like it would be impossible for me to get an entry-level programming job right now, but from the sound of it, maybe not.

<comment><USER15> > If there are people who can't solve fizzbuzz that are getting programming > jobs, what do they do at work?

The good news: They cause the programming messes which you'll eventually get hired to clean up, while they're off somewhere else making another mess for you.

> I can solve fizzbuzz easily, but I haven't ever built an application that I > would consider useful.

The bad news: All you're ever do is clean up those frauds' messes. Anyone can build a system with 100k lines of Java code (incl comments). But only people like you can come along after it's up and running and make it work, so that's all you're ever be doing. Unfortunately, the employers will expect you to carry a cellphone around and solve those problems at 3:00am. It's cheaper to pay you 10% extra for wake-up calls than take your time away from other maintenance clean-ups in the daytime.

<comment><USER16> _"(incl comments)"_

Optimist.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> He touched on the "Silicon Valley model" of poaching employees from companies that handled the costly training. In a culture where loyalty to your employer is largely anachronistic, why should most companies -- and not just the top employers -- bear the costs? The risk of attrition to free riders seems high.

I'm not disagreeing with his assessment so much as questioning the value to the typical employer. In aggregate it sounds like the right solution, but individually I'm not so sure.

<comment><USER18> Because you wind up in a position with a large number of underemployed people missing just the right skill and a large number of employers who can't seem to find anyone to hire.

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> We have an issue here with basically two sides that keep blaming each other.

What would it look like if we had a talent shortage instead of a skills gab? How would that effect our expectations?

<comment><USER13> Actually they wouldn't change much, the best solution is still for each individual to see where he is most likely to find employment, with less priority given to areas where breaking in is more difficult and more to do what he is good at.

So why have this debate?</comment></comment>


State of IPv6 Deployment 2018 - <AUTHOR> https://www.internetsociety.org/resources/2018/state-of-ipv6-deployment-2018/ <comment><USER2> Still some fairly major hosting platforms that don't do ipv6 -- amazon lightsail for example</comment>


Should we be afraid of AI? - <AUTHOR> https://aeon.co/essays/true-ai-is-both-logically-possible-and-utterly-implausible <comment><USER2> I'll keep this from the article:

>> We share the infosphere with digital technologies. These are ordinary artefacts that outperform us in ever more tasks, despite being no cleverer than a toaster. Their abilities are humbling and make us reevaluate human exceptionality and our special role in the Universe, which remains unique. We thought we were smart because we could play chess. Now a phone plays better than a Grandmaster. We thought we were free because we could buy whatever we wished. Now our spending patterns are predicted by devices as thick as a plank.

More to the point, we don't need superintelligence to do great damage to ourselves, and possibly even destroy ourselves. A machine that's thick as a brick and in control of vital systems will cause disaster already.

My worry with all that is that the hype that surrounds AI risks keeping us from realising this and trusting dumb technology to do work that requires real intelligence.

Edit: Oh dear. Also, this:

 _What's the difference [between yourself and AlphaGo]? The same as between you and the dishwasher when washing the dishes._

ZOMG did that guy just say AlphaGo is no smarter than your dishwasher? Oh yes he did! And he's totally right.</comment>


California Is Building the Largest Solar Desalination Plant in the U.S. - <AUTHOR> http://www.fastcoexist.com/3051087/california-is-building-the-countrys-largest-solar-desalination-plant <comment><USER2> Why have I never heard of a Direct Public Offering before? Is it less legally onerous than a full-on IPO?

Personally I wouldn't trust my money to a company with unproven technology promising a six percent dividend but hey, good luck to them.

Still, if it's such a good investment why haven't they been able to attract big money instead of selling dribs and drabs to possibly-naive investors?

<comment><USER3> There is an exception from SEC registration for stock offerings that are wholly within the state of the company making the offering (i.e., only advertised and available to residents of that state). State stock registration requirements are usually far simpler than SEC registration requirements.

They likely haven't been able to attract major funding since inland desalinization isn't as sexy as coastal desalinization. Moreover, unlike major utility projects, their revenue growth is hampered by their ability to scale up across hundreds or thousands of installations with no built-in mechanism for cost recovery.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> It claims they don't discharge brine, but doesn't explain where the salt ends up? Nonetheless solar desalination looks like an extremely sensible technology approach in California.

<comment><USER5> They say they turn the salt into useable products. Such as?

<comment><USER6> Salt is quite valuable if it can be refined. Pairing salt production with desalination is common.

<comment><USER7> [http://minerals.usgs.gov/minerals/pubs/commodity/salt/mcs-20...](http://minerals.usgs.gov/minerals/pubs/commodity/salt/mcs-2015-salt.pdf) says solar salt is $50/ton ($0.05/kg). I doubt that's even break-even price after transport for a small scale producer if that's how much the commodity broker will resell it at. It's maybe same or less than the price of sand?

<comment><USER6> Sand is considered quite valuable also...where value is relative of course. India in particular has a big problem with illegal sand dredging.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> I'm hoping somebody will combine methane hydrate harvesting with desalination - both seaside activities that serve large populations, cross-investing, bootstrapping one another. And making clean water and energy truly fungible commodities.

</comment><comment><USER9> the uses of non potable water are immense so the need to purify is simpler can be a good extension of the work this company is doing.</comment>


Feds Never Charged the Real Hacker in the Matthew Keys Case - <AUTHOR> http://www.wired.com/2015/11/matthew-keys-case-feds-know-who-the-real-hacker-sharpie-is/ <comment><USER2> To be fair, if the hack was carried out by a Scottish hacker, from Scotland, then he should be prosecuted in Scotland. The UK's policy with regards to this sort of thing is an absolute shambles, as illustrated by the Gary McKinnon affair[1].

If the FBI simply failed to supply any evidence to support a prosecution, one has to ask why they victimised Keys, while letting the actual perpetrator off scot-free. No pun intended.

1: There waws absolutely no reason why McKinnon couldn't have been prosecuted in the UK but when his solicitor claimed that no crime had been committed in the UK because the computers McKinnon had hacked were outside the UK (which is incorrect - the Computer Misuse Act applies to hacks where _either_ the perpetrator or the target is in the UK), they made the monumentally stupid decision to try to extradite him, with the end result that he was never prosecuted or punished for his criminal activity.

</comment><comment><USER3> By "hacked" does Wired really just mean "used the credentials to access a Tribune server and make a minor alteration to the headline of a Los Angeles Times news story" or did anyone in this case do any actual hacking?

<comment><USER4> Maybe describing this act as "hacking" is over-inclusive. But the fact is, this guy logged into a website that was not his, with credentials he should not have had, and changed a headline without authorization. He clearly knew what he was doing was illegal. I have no sympathy for him.

<comment><USER5> The person who logged in and made the changes is not the person being prosecuted.

<comment><USER4> No, it's the person who knowingly gave credentials that did not belong to him to someone else.

If I'm cat sitting for my friend, and she makes a copy of her house keys for me, and when I'm done catsitting, I give those keys to some random guy on the street in a hooded sweatshirt... who is liable if he uses the keys to enter her house? I'm pretty sure she would blame me.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> > Matthew Keys is facing up to 25 years in prison after his conviction last > month on conspiracy charges related to a 2010 hack of the Los Angeles Times > web site.

> A hacker going by the name "Sharpie" then used the credentials to access a > Tribune server and make a minor alteration to the headline of a Los Angeles > Times news story.

That, along with "sending harassing emails" and "locking a co-worker out of their workstation", is why this guy [not the hacker] is getting 25 years.

Meanwhile, the people who caused the largest financial crash in recent history have not gone to jail.

<comment><USER5> Actually the trial doesn't technically involve sending harassing emails. Those weren't officially entered into evidence, so it's literally for the headline change.

<comment><USER6> Well it was part of their damages estimation, even though he wasn't charged with it.

<comment><USER5> Right, which is why that part is in the appeals court right now. (Matthew is one of my employees, so I know way more about this than most people should.)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> 25 years for this seems a bit harsh.

<comment><USER8> That's a statutory maximum, not a guideline or even remotely likely sentence.

<comment><AUTHOR> BUT that is what the Federal Prosecutor will ask for. Aaron Swartz was told that they were pursuing the maximum sentence. It isn't even fair how these things are handled against our own fellow citizens.

<comment><USER9> The prosecutors were seeking around 7 years in the Swartz case at trial, and offering a few months for a plea bargain.

<comment><AUTHOR> This was the original published statement:

If convicted on these charges, SWARTZ faces up to 35 years in prison, to be followed by three years of supervised release, restitution, forfeiture and a fine of up to $1 million.

[https://web.archive.org/web/20120526080523/http://www.justic...](https://web.archive.org/web/20120526080523/http://www.justice.gov/usao/ma/news/2011/July/SwartzAaronPR.html)

Yes they offered him 6 months finally but that is not how it starts. Plus in this country you get caught red handed you get a nice plea bargain and get less time than someone who might be innocent and they went to trial because they don't feel guilty and boom higher sentence for not taking the plea bargain.

90% of cases never go to trial. [http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/criminal- justice/the...](http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/criminal-justice/the- problem-with-pleas/)

My friend who swore he was innocent and went to trial on a he said she said had zero evidence was offered 18 months went to trial and got 12 years. That was more than some murders, man slaughter and rape. If you have a FBI trial your defense will cost millions or you take the plea bargain. Justice system is broken.

<comment><USER10> The DOJ's press release isn't a binding legal document, and there is no calculation under the CFAA sentencing guidelines that gets you anywhere near 35 years. The 35 year number is simply a lie.

<comment><AUTHOR> > The 35 year number is simply a lie

Are you saying the DOJ is lying or that the fact that Aaron Swartz was told he could be facing 35 years in jail?

This is so odd. I feel like people are down voting me to defend the DOJ's handling of Aaron Swartz?

<comment><USER10> The DOJ is lying, and lies routinely about this. A link to Popehat, the blog of a former federal white-collar crimes prosecutor who writes about civil liberties, was provided upthread and explains it in detail.

There is no substance whatsoever to the "35 years" figure.

The reality is that we don't really have to ask what Swartz was thinking, because after his death, his lawyer wrote up his predicament. The trial would have been ruinously expensive, but there was a very good chance that _even if he was found guilty_ , he would serve no custodial sentence.

You can back that up by finding the federal sentencing guidelines, lookup up the CFAA guidelines, and applying them to Swartz, who had no previous criminal record, caused no significant damage in his offense, and sought no profit from his crimes (all factors considered by the guidelines).

It's very hard to shoot down an urban myth as virulent as "Swartz faced 35 years in prison", though. Especially when so many people want it to be true.

<comment><AUTHOR> I agree with you except for one thing.

> It's very hard to shoot down an urban myth as virulent as "Swartz faced 35 > years in prison"

Because that is in fact what the DOJ sent out to the press in this document stating the non-mythical number 35.

Trying to understand why 35 years is a myth the public continues to hold on to: Pragmatically you are saying that could not happen but the empirical evidence of DOJ communication to the public is 35 years.

<comment><USER10> I don't really care who's to blame.

I'm certainly not defending the DOJ. A very thorough and compelling study of mass incarceration published earlier this year suggests that prosecutorial overzealousness probably accounts for more of our prison population than any other factor.

But the "35 year sentence" claim has nothing to do with Swartz's predicament. He had excellent legal representation, both formally (he had a series of well- qualified criminal defense attorneys) and informally (he had a support system compromised of several of the most respected legal scholars in the country). Every one of them would have told him that he could, and should, ignore the "35 year" figure from the DOJ's press release --- the DOJ writes a similar press release for every headline prosecution, and in each case applies the same absurd heuristic of adding up the maximum possible sentence for all counts, ignoring the sentencing guidelines and offense grouping rules.

The 35-year sentence is also mooted by Heymann's own initial negotiation with Swartz, where he threatened Swartz with a 7-year sentence. 7 years was his _ambit claim_ ; it was the worst possible case Heymann could generate, and a fabulously unrealistic one given the CFAA sentencing guidelines.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


India Joins the International Trademark System - <AUTHOR> http://rikacomet.blogspot.in/2013/04/india-joins-madrid-protocol-on.html

<comment><USER2> What does it mean to existing trademarks in India that is also a trademark elsewhere and vice-versa?

<comment><AUTHOR> It means that, unlike before, a entrepreneur can register his TM, in 88+ countries, using one application, instead of registering his TM in each one of them.

This leads to huge cost cuts, time savings, and accessibility.</comment></comment>