Why apple did this, why single port? - <AUTHOR>

Is it really future of laptops. I am scared that this big people are driving unnecessarily our choice. <comment><USER2> As all our stuff is held in the cloud - which I dislike very much - less and less stuff we want to connect to our machine. A few years back it was so annoying when they started to get rid of optical drives, but now nobody misses it. Soon we wont give a rats ass about USB as well. Especially on laptops, because on a desktop you will still need it for a few peripherals. But on a laptop where everything is built in...

My opinion is, that magsafe was awesome. I hate having everything in the cloud.

And yes, these guys will do whatever they want. Because 98% of their customer base don't give a damn and even if they do, they will still buy it, because of brand loyalty and other reasons.

<comment><USER3> > Soon we wont give a rats ass about USB as well.

The only times I see most people with MacBook Airs have an issue is when they swap files on thumbdrives or need to download photos. The average (non-techie) user still isn't tech-savvy enough for Dropbox, AirDrop, etc. to swap files.

Then if they have a DSLR, they still need an SD card reader. (Surprising how often they don't even know what that is.) Even if they have an iPhone full of photos, getting them to their MacBook Air is beyond most users. Apple really should just blow out the amount of included space for iCloud photos and make sync easier.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> By limiting the number of ports they were able to make it even thinner than the Macbook Air. While it can be disturbing not to have multiple port, you will be able to charge and connect an HDMI BUT... you will need an (expensive) adaptator from Apple or a (hopefully cheap) from another manufacturer.

Source: [http://apple.stackexchange.com/questions/176001/how-does- usb...](http://apple.stackexchange.com/questions/176001/how-does-usb-c-on-the- new-macbook-air-retina-also-called-the-macbook-connect-t)

</comment><comment><USER5> Because most folks don't use more than a port at a time. Stroll through a university campus and you'll notice that most folks with a Macbook pro/air aren't using even 1 port (the charger) as the battery life has gotten good enough such that you can charge in your dorm and then be good for mixed use throughout the day.

I remember how much pushback there was about getting rid of the CD drive too, but the truth was they weren't being used that much anymore anyway.

</comment><comment><USER6> It's simple range differentiation. The MacBook/Air can't be allowed to become so complete that there's lessening reason to spend more on a Pro.

\- They giveth Retina

\- They taketh ports

</comment><comment><USER7> I really hope Apple isn't going to make this a trend across their line, and that others don't follow suit. That said, given that they made it a "new" line, I think it may have a place. e.g. for some moderate to high percentage of people that use a laptop they rarely or never plug anything into it. And those same people are usually the ones on the go a lot, so this might really have a good fit for those people (e.g. weight savings and super thin).

For developers it is IMO a horrible fit; however, for traveling sales force it might be a decent fit, especially with so many Projectors being WiFi and more businesses now have Airplay available (this one shocked me but it is nice).

I am far from a Apple fan boy, in fact it took me a forever to purchase a Macbook pro, but I will say it has been one of the nicest pieces of hardware I have owned. That said, I also still own and love my Toshiba laptop too as it is a power house and was easy to upgrade and expand.

<comment><USER8> _> I really hope Apple isn't going to make this a trend across their line_

This model is a shot across the bow from Apple, but this model also isn't intended for programmers and IT professionals. It's meant for grandparents and a "lay about the house as needed" computer for (currently, rich) people. Apple differentiates things with a Pro line on purpose.

The original MacBook Air had a serious lack of ports and that didn't really trend across their line. It did not come with an Ethernet port, which instilled some major, major outrage. But since then, some of those bowshots have gained a foothold in the industry.

I have a MacBook Pro, and now it doesn't have a built-in Ethernet jack. But it's not a big deal at this point. Even as a network engineer, I only pull out my TBolt Ethernet adapter a couple times a week. The end effect is that I have less cables to deal with on a daily basis and I'm more mobile. I can plop down anywhere at work, open the laptop, get on wireless, and get chucked onto my special VLAN. This is way better than before.

<comment><USER7> Yep, I can see your points. My MacBook Pro is slightly older so I still have a ethernet port, but I can't remember the last time I plugged it in so its basically a waste of space. So it makes sense they are really looking at what's used etc.

Where I get nervous is things like USB, if you blow out one port you are ok if you have 2-3, but if you only have 1 its a bad day. Not that this is some regular or common occurrence, and typically I use a hub when connecting custom hardware, but it would suck if something failed and it blew out my only port on a machine. Hence my reason for hoping they keep the Pro series a little more flexible.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Product Pipelines are tricky.

I feel on the one hand, they could have retained both ports and the retina screen.

On the same token, you want to increase the legacy of a market driven product line. Correct me if I'm wrong here but you want to "intentionally" flaw the product to provide room for improvement on the next generation.

I'm sure the Product Dev. team has an idea on their pipeline as to what the 5th generation should look like and what their prospective specs are for the 6th generation product after the 5th is finally locked down for confirmation.

</comment><comment><USER10> The only positive I can think of is if there is an easy to plug in hub with thunderbolt/hdmi out along with a few usb-c ports that would allow me to use one plug when setting up with my external monitor and timemachine drive. Then I'd be ok with one plug.

It would be nice to have one on each side and avoid having to purchase/use a hub. And be able to plug in on either side to charge.

</comment><comment><USER11> Using USB-C wasn't the problem. The real problem is - they put only one port there. You cannot charge while you are connected to an HDMI projector / external HDD or a pen-drive.

But the latest Google Chromebook "Pixel" has two USB-C ports on either sides of the device.

<comment><USER12> "You cannot charge while you are connected to..."

I hear this repeated a lot but I don't believe it is true. You could either:

1) Connect to a monitor or other USB-C peripheral that supports sending power down USB-C, or

2) Use an adaptor that exposes HDMI or USB3, and also provides a USB-C passthrough like:

[http://store.apple.com/us/product/MJ1K2AM/A/usb-c-digital- av...](http://store.apple.com/us/product/MJ1K2AM/A/usb-c-digital-av-multiport- adapter)

I realise that it is inconvenient, but I think its misleading to repeat the same inaccuracy over and over.

<comment><USER13> I posted this elsewhere ([https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9186834](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9186834)), but I can see this scenario happening very easily:

But if I have external storage plugged in (I'm copying a large file), and I need to charge the laptop, then I need to disconnect the drive in order to charge the laptop?

There are countless examples where daisy-chaining these devices becomes very inconvenient.

<comment><USER14> Plugging in before starting large file copies probably doesn't quite get you to "very inconvenient".

I don't really get the vision behind 1 port, but I don't get the angst either (not buying things is pretty easy).

<comment><USER13> Needing to restart a process that takes an hour, just to plug in my device... Yes, I consider that very inconvenient.

<comment><USER14> Why would you ever start the copy without plugging in first? One answer is that a plug isn't handy, but it starts to become a rare scenario when you want to copy a huge file, don't have ample battery and plugging in first isn't convenient.

(I continue to suggest not buying computers with 1 port as a great solution to the problem)

<comment><USER13> Is checking your battery status before you start doing something, a usual occurrence in your usage? It isn't for me, and I'm sure it's something I would adapt to do, but in the mean time, it's an inconvenience.

For instance, I often work outside and keep my charger at my desk inside. Sometimes I'll start something, check in on it in 10-15 minutes, see its going to take a while to complete, then go plug the machine in, inside, if it's going to take a while.

Sure, it's not something that can't be overcome (I'm not suggesting it is), but the need to check my battery (and to _remember to check my battery_ ) before doing something is an unnecessary inconvenience.

It's almost like I'm saying how wonderful the magsafe connector is for when I trip over the cable, and your response is "well, you don't need that—just don't trip over the cable". Sure, I don't need it, but it's just better with it.

<comment><USER14> Look at my first comment. I objected to you calling something that is less convenient than you would like "very inconvenient". We don't have to agree about the "very", it probably isn't worth any more attention from either of us.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> How the fuck am I supposed to use this as a development machine? I use an external monitor, I charge my iPhone, etc. What the fuck.

<comment><USER16> That's what the MacBook Pro is for. Pros.

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> The less trend makes almost exact models looks different and their cost will vary a lot

</comment><comment><USER18> Off topic, a recent viral video parodying apple's design choices - [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KHZ8ek-6ccc](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KHZ8ek-6ccc)</comment>


Early humans may have bred with other species – twice - <AUTHOR> http://www.newscientist.com/blogs/shortsharpscience/2010/04/early-humans-may-have-bred-wit.html

<comment><USER2> Both of these events happened outside of Africa. Are they saying that the descendants of these interbreedings propagated back into Africa afterward? Or are they saying not everyone has this in their DNA?

<comment><USER3> From: [http://www.nature.com/news/2010/100420/full/news.2010.194.ht...](http://www.nature.com/news/2010/100420/full/news.2010.194.html)

 _...the interbreeding happened about 60,000 years ago in the eastern Mediterranean and, more recently, about 45,000 years ago in eastern Asia. Those two events happened after the first H. sapiens had migrated out of Africa, says Long. His group didn't find evidence of interbreeding in the genomes of the modern African people included in the study._

I find this very surprising. We know that there was a genetic bottle neck when we left Africa. This is why today people from two different African ethnic groups can be MORE different then any two people from ANYWHERE in the rest of the world. An Inuit and an South American Indian are genetically more similar then a Touareg and a Lemba.

How could a separate species like the Neanderthals, who spent 200 _thousand_ years in isolation in ice age Europe, contribute so little genetic diversity?

<comment><USER4> _How could a separate species like the Neanderthals, who spent 200 thousand years in isolation in ice age Europe, contribute so little genetic diversity?_

A single successful interbreeding incident would contribute some odd genes to the local gene pool, but wouldn't contribute much genetic diversity once it spread out through the local gene pool. Remember that the data suggests exactly 2 individuals dropped into human populations that were locally in the tens of thousands, and globally in the multiple hundreds of thousands. It would contribute some odd genes to the pool of genetic diversity, but wouldn't move the bar very much.

For those who think that species barriers are some sort of absolute barrier to what is hypothesized here, it is worth considering the case of donkeys, horses and mules. Donkeys and horses are estimated to have diverged a couple of million years ago, but routinely can breed. The result are mules, of which over time we've bred tens of millions.. Mules are almost invariably infertile. However according to <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mule#Fertility> there have been more than 60 documented cases of female mules successfully bred by stallions. The foals would be mostly horse, and the result of that is an animal that is 3/4 horse which therefore is likely to be able to breed with other horses.

It is not unreasonably by comparison that there could be a constant level of interbreeding between us and Neanderthals, with many infertile offspring, and by chance on 2 occasions fertile offspring who have descendants today. (The overall number of crossbreeds would be lower than the number of mules, but their odds of fertility would be much higher than for mules.)

<comment><USER5> This would also suggest a reasonable chance that some hybrids bred back into the Neanderthal populations instead of ours.

<comment><USER4> Odds are high that those hybrids are now evolutionarily irrelevant.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> More details here: [http://www.nature.com/news/2010/100420/full/news.2010.194.ht...](http://www.nature.com/news/2010/100420/full/news.2010.194.html)

 _The ancient mitochondrial DNA came from a piece of finger bone, which the groups haven't identified by species. It could be Neanderthal, a new Homo species or some other archaic form — like H. erectus, who spread to Oceania by 1.8 million years ago._

 _. But the age of the bone has been questioned by researchers, who say the cave's sediments may have been reworked, making the bone's layer older._

Could the bone turn out to be much older?

</comment><comment><USER6> >If humans bred only with other humans, all these markers would create a neat phylogenetic tree, showing that human genetic diversity can be traced to a single population that existed in Africa in the last 100,000 years.

I'm not a statistician, but from what I've studied of genetics, that seems like an unwarranted leap. Phylogenetic trees, at the end of the day, are guesswork (though they probably reflect reality pretty closely.) If you have a neat phylogenetic tree, you've probably been massaging your data.

</comment><comment><USER7> Other events were already known, like the "Lapedo child" in Portugal: <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lapedo_child>

<comment><USER3> I find the current state of that wikipedia page questionable.

 _Refutes_ is a very strong term. Humans and Neanderthals look very similar and children have different proportions AND the differences between individuals are great thus the inference you can make from just ONE sample does not warrant terms like "refutes".</comment></comment>


Show HN: My Property Tracker, with automated data entry - <AUTHOR> https://mypropertytracker.com/

<comment><AUTHOR> Hi everyone - OP here.

We've just launched our startup - www.mypropertytracker.com

This is actually a pivot of our original startup (by the same name). The initial version had some early traction, but we struggled to get the product/market fit correct. From talking to lots of customers - it became apparent that whilst we were a "nice to have" program, we were not actually saving anyone any time with their property paperwork.

So we've slightly pivoted and re-launched with "automated data entry". Following on the many blogs of advice from people like pg - we are doing something that doesnt scale. Instead, we now accept people emailing documents to us, and we do the data entry on their behalf. We also have iPhone and Android apps that people can use to take a photo of their documents and send directly to us.

The goal is to be as simple and quick as possible, making our customers lives easier.

Early feedback has been extremely positive - but it is still to early to see how traction will go long term.

I'd appreciate any constructive feedback.

<comment><USER2> Looks really good. The landing page is well designed, and informative.

I feel like I'm nitpicking, but it's not immediately obvious to me whether it's web-based or an app. The iPhone made me think it was an iOS app, and the screengrabs on the desktop don't have any kind of browser chrome.

<comment><AUTHOR> I can now see how that can be confusing.

It is a web based product. But we also have an additional (optional) iPhone/Android app to do the automated uploads with.

I might update the images in the near future to include browsers on the screenshots to help highlight further.

Thanks for the idea.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> As i see quite a few comments regarding the pricing i just wanted to mention that i don't think you are selling yourself too cheap(granted i am not sure of the amount of work behind the automated plan but i assume that is automated). Why i say this is because i think your business is geared more towards the newb/smaller property investor like the post guy, my wife's hairdresser husband and his mom who might end up making a monthly cash flow of ~ $100-$200 /month/door. To these guys an extra $5 or $9 matter.

Also i would recommend you get in touch with the guys at biggerpockets.com(not affiliated but a user) or mention your business there. Pretty big number of investors there(big and small).

Good luck.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for the tip about biggerpockets.com - we'll definitely check it out.

And you are right about our target market - although there is room for everyone. We are still finding out feet, so we are always open to the idea of adjusting pricing - but we need some data and early user feedback first to help determine where we head from here...

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Looking at your pricing structure and FAQ, it looks like a better approach would be to discriminate based on number of properties, raise your monthly rate and just make it unlimited paperwork... 1-2 properties a month at $19/mo, 3-5 at $39, 6-20 at $99 and then a "slumlord" option. (or something like that... obviously it's your business and you know your own costs)

Mostly, it seems unnecessarily fiddly to have entries in your FAQ about an average number of pieces of paper and special rates on processing paperwork backlogs.

</comment><comment><USER5> If this is successful, you'll collect a lot of private data, including business secrets of investors.

Do you plan to monetize on that? (For example, by performing data mining and selling statistics. Or, by contacting the investors and making interesting offers to them.)

If not, can you guarantee that you won't monetize on that dataset in the future? Is it even possible to guarantee such a statement?

<comment><AUTHOR> I think this applies to any business. Especially large companies like Xero and Stripe come to mind. They have huge data (more than we will ever have).

We have a privacy policy [1] that covers what we can/wont do with your data. We are an Australian based company, and we have fairly tight restrictions on privacy. We have to comply with National Privacy Principles (NPPs) and the Privacy Act 1988 (Cth) in Australia.

[1][https://mypropertytracker.com/privacy](https://mypropertytracker.com/privacy)

<comment><USER6> So am I understanding correctly that "market research" means selling data mining insights to advertisers? Do you expect this to be a significant portion of revenue?

(I don't have a problem with this- I'm just curious.)

<comment><AUTHOR> We honestly have no intention of selling any data. I might talk to our lawyer to clarify this point. We want people to trust us with their data.

Even if we could/did sell the data, it would be such a small portion of revenue. Hence why I don't believe it is worth trading our ethics for...

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> What's the difference of using this service versus sending all my paperwork to a bookkeeper who uses Quickbooks, or a property management software like Buildium or Appfolio?

<comment><AUTHOR> There are a few differences.

Firstly - "sending all my paperwork to a bookkeeper who uses Quickbooks". In many ways we provide a service that is similar to this. However our website is focused on property investors - so you dont require any additional programs (like Quickbooks). We have many features that are specific to property investors, like tracking valuations, insurance, loan contract information. i.e. it is not "just" an accounting solution - it is an entire single platform to manage your property investments.

In regards to Buildium or Appfolio - they are generally aimed more at large property investors, or property management groups. Whilst there is overlap in what we do - we feel we provider a easier and simplier experience. We've invested a lot of time into the UX of the entire process to have it as simple, quick and easy as possible.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> This looks like a terrific service. I'm going to go with some other commentators and say that the prices are 1) drastically too low 2) low enough to not be taken seriously. The founder of [http://riskpulse.com](http://riskpulse.com) told the story that in early days, one or more of his clients _begged_ him to charge more.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks. It is important to remember the price is "per property per month". So someone with more than a couple of properties actually can end up paying quite a bit. So it is a trade off.

In saying that - like I mentioned - we've just launched - and we are still finding out feet.

We'll take all the comments here, and combine it with the data we gather, and definitely review it all :)

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> I can't really comment on the domain, but I did notice that you've called out Excel multiple times. I'm not sure if there are any concerns there but I would at least suggest capitalizing it where you use it. Might be even better to just use "spreadsheets" instead.

<comment><AUTHOR> Good points - thanks - will do.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> I know absolutely nothing about the domain or the problem being solved. My initial reaction to the pricing was that it seems a bit cheap - $5 if they do the manual work and only $4 extra for you to do it? Either it is a very simple and quick process or you are selling yourselves a bit cheap?

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks. Pricing is always a tough subject. Patio11 would tell us to charge more - but this is a B2C model - so our client base will be price sensitive to some degree.

The pricing is "per property". So some current customers have 10-20 properties, and in those circumstances the price can add up to be relatively higher.

It is an area we will be paying very close attention to. Part of the problem is we have some "assumptions/theories" on aspects relating to this - but we are trying to gather "data" to make informed decisions.

So this pricing seemed like a good sweet spot to start with, and we can take it from there...

<comment><USER11> Charge more! Your customers are businesses! A customer with 5 investment properties is in most cases _literally a millionaire._

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks Patio11 - I already had you in my head telling me to charge more when we set the price :)

We'll review it along with some other data we are collecting...

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> With Sydney's cup of coffee price of 4 dollars your pricing IS a bit low :)

</comment><comment><USER13> Not at all surprised that some Sydneysiders appear to be behind this investment property portfolio management app, haha.

Nice work, I really do expect you guys to get a lot of attention. Have you guys hit up Whirlpool forums?

<comment><AUTHOR> hahaha - thanks Tim. Everyone in Sydney is certainly talking about property at the moment - hey? :)

We are currently doing some initial pushes through some other property investor groups.

I've not yet hit Whirlpool - but it's on my list :)

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> Very nice explainer video. Can you share who did it for you and whether or not they were pretty costly? I'm going to need one done soon and The average quote is very obscene (>$30k).

<comment><AUTHOR> Drop me an email: laurence (at) mypropertytracker (dot) com

I'll happily discuss it in more detail with you. It was significantly cheaper than what you've listed.

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> Congrats! How do you do the data entry? How do you plan on scaling the data entry? Do you have real estate experience?

<comment><AUTHOR> All the founders have significant property investment experience. This was actually a "pain point" that we had ourselves. Despite looking for solutions - there were none that did what we needed, to the level of quality we wanted. So that is what lead to the idea.

We currently do the data entry with generally manual processes. However we are already adding steps that greatly reduce the time required.

As the business grows we have options on how to automate more and more of the data entry - but we need to validate the idea first and confirm we have product/market fit prior to investing in further technology.

Plus - as pg says - doing things that dont scale is a great place to start.

By doing it manually we've already uncovered interesting data trends, and processes that we never expected. So we plan on doing it manually for a bit longer to ensure we learn as much as possible before we continue to build our automation tools.</comment></comment>


Ask HN: Should large networks/companies be democratic? - <AUTHOR> As companies and/or networks become as large as countries should they allow users to vote? <comment><USER2> Interesting idea for non-profits, but for-profit companies work fundamentally different from nations so irrelevant in that case.

"user" is a voluntary concept, unlike nationality. So if you don't like a company you simply stop using products from the company, that's how you "vote".

<comment><AUTHOR> Large infrastructure is usually hard to stop using though. Should I stop using eletricity? or cars? or facebook? I could live like a hermit but that's not exactly realistic. There's some talk of twitter becoming benefits corporation. Not sure that goes far enough, why not allow users to vote or decide delegates to vote.

<comment><AUTHOR> FYI, on a benefit corporation in case anyone hasn't heard of them. Save a google search.

In the United States, a benefit corporation is a type of for-profit corporate entity, authorized by 30 U.S. states and the District of Columbia that includes positive impact on society, workers, the community and the environment in addition to profit as its legally defined goals.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> a lot of time companies use user surveys to guide what to do anyway.</comment>


Beyond Googling yourself: Greplin (YC W10) - <AUTHOR> http://www.inc.com/tech-blog/beyond-googling-yourself--greplin.html

<comment><USER2> I just can't trust a service like this with the data they want to search. Google and Facebook are already weak points for privacy; giving one company access to _both_ is a complete nightmare for me. I could do it in theory, but not without an extremely compelling use case.

<comment><USER3> This article confuses some things but try it. I didn't get it at first either but it's a great idea and crazy easy to use. If you have tons of stuff spread out over multiple social networking sites, there's no easier way to search through your own online history. And our histories are just going to get bigger and bigger.

I can see the privacy concerns but you can select which platforms you want (or don't want) Greplin to have access to, so that's not such a big deal to me. For sites people use professionally, for organizing projects etc this is a great tool.

<comment><USER2> I looked at the list of platforms, and I did not want Greplin to have access to any of them. For example, GMail already has search, Facebook has confidential personal stuff, and Dropbox has confidential work stuff.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> This'll make law enforcement and corporate investigations a lot easier. Issue a subpoena on one company rather than many. It'll make social engineering easier, too.

As much as I'd avoid this like the plague, I can see the value in it from a commercial point of view - all that information that can be used for advertising is in one place.

$5M? To a 19 year old? (And yes, he now has a team, but still ....) And people are saying that we're not in a bubble?

</comment><comment><USER5> I assume PG uses this service himself, with his Gmail, Google Docs, and Dropbox. Right? No?

</comment><comment><USER6> Greplin is not really like googling yourself. That analogy threw me off. It's a search engine for personal data.

</comment><comment><USER7> If the article gets a significant detail like Gross's relationship to YC wrong, I wonder what else it's missing about the use cases or drawbacks of Greplin. As I Google Greplin, the submitted article here looks a lot like plagiarism of a Aug 31, 2010 article by Michael Arrington on TechCrunch.

[http://techcrunch.com/2010/08/31/greplin-ycombinator- persona...](http://techcrunch.com/2010/08/31/greplin-ycombinator-personal- search/)

(After edit:) Considering who submitted the link here, is the problem with both articles that they are built on reading press releases rather than on doing actual journalism? I'm confused now.

</comment><comment><USER8> I was planning on experimenting with a similar thing for a university assignment. Though my main focus was going to be indexing links that are posted. Ie, on twitter if someone links to an article on continuous integration with teamcity, but just says 'great CI server' in their tweet, my search engine would still return resutls for 'teamcity' or 'continuous integration' as its indexing the actual links as well.

Perhaps Greplin could consider adding similar functionality?

</comment><comment><USER9> Am I misunderstanding the nature of Y Combinator or did the article really miss the mark about Gross? He worked for Y Combinator?

<comment><USER10> You've got it right, the article got it wrong.

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> The idea is so bad and don't have that appeal, srsly.

But getting 5mi from investors made it really look awesome... or we are in a bubble.

</comment><comment><USER12> I'm trying to imagine in what kind of situation I'll need "google" myself, but it's ok. Interesting.</comment>


First ever trials on the effects of microdosing LSD set to begin - <AUTHOR> https://www.theguardian.com/science/2018/sep/01/first-ever-trials-on-the-effects-of-microdosing-lsd-set-to-begin <comment><USER2> I am just reading an incredible book on the subject:

"How to Change Your Mind: What the New Science of Psychedelics Teaches Us About Consciousness, Dying, Addiction, Depression, and Transcendence"

Highly recommend it.

[https://www.amazon.com/Change-Your-Mind-Consciousness- Transc...](https://www.amazon.com/Change-Your-Mind-Consciousness- Transcendence/dp/1594204225)

<comment><USER3> Also read this. Important to remember- LSD and other psychedelics were researched legally and showed great promise in the US the 50s (and have been used all over the world for thousands of years). Only a politically driven moral panic forced their criminalization.

<comment><USER4> That's not entirely true. Irresponsible use pushed by people like Leary made the panic pretty justified. I am so happy their clinical use is coming back in style, but let's not forget that these are very dangerous tools in the wrong hands.

<comment><USER5> Recreational use doesn't equate to irresponsible use, though, just like drinking alcohol doesn't necessarily mean that folks are being irresponsible with it. Keeping it illegal somewhat increases its hazards.

This is the sort of thing few abuse and it can be taken Recreationally with some safety. That would only increase with proper research, controlled dosages, formulas, and public education. Would it be right for everyone? Of course not. Neither is alcohol, aspirin, or tylenol (paracet). A different class for medicinal use, much like it seems we are developing with marijuana.

I'll add that a kitchen knife is a very dangerous tool in the wrong hands. So is tylenol and so on. We can lessen this to a point, however.

<comment><USER4> I will ask you kindly not to put words in my mouth. The fact is, due to Learys extremely irresponsible actions it made clinical research of psychedelics taboo. Saying the moral panic was unjustified is just blatantly ignoring a large part of the history of LSD in popular memory.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Conversation on LSD - [https://youtube.com/watch?v=rjylxvQqm0U](https://youtube.com/watch?v=rjylxvQqm0U)

This 62-minute video was recorded at a private party in Los Angeles hosted by Oscar Janiger, where thirty pioneers of psychedelic research gathered for an "LSD Reunion". Folks in attendence included Myron Stolaroff, Sidney Cohen, Al Hubbard, Timothy Leary, Oscar Janiger, Humphry Osmond, John Lilly, Laura Huxley, Willis Harmon, Nick Bercel, and others.</comment>


What are some warning signs to look for when dealing with VC firms? - <AUTHOR> http://www.quora.com/What-are-some-warning-signs-to-look-for-when-dealing-with-VC-firms-and-Individual-Investors/answer/Shervin-Talieh?srid=upo

<comment><USER2> Most of the points in the highest-rated answer are just about basic behavior that cannot only be seen in VC meetings, but really any type of business meeting or relationship. Stalling tactics, false representation, polite blow- offs - it helps to recognize those in order to prevent wasting time, but I wouldn't call them warning signs because they are mainly patterns that occur when dealing with people who have no intention of getting involved with you in the first place. Those are not the most dangerous.

I'd consider true warning signs more crucial when it comes to reading people's intentions if they _do_ want to get into a business relationship that may later turn out to be disadvantageous or otherwise a bad match.

The major warning sign in this context would be obvious personality mismatches. If you sense that your VC (or partner/consultant/angel/customer/whatever) cannot be trusted. People that are quick to spout negative opinions about your colleagues or the guys who sat at their table before you came along, be suspicious. Beware people who tend to exaggerate or have a thing where they tell you outrageous and unverifiable stories. Take into account that a VC doesn't just give you money, they should be valuable resources where important feedback and referral to connections come from. Beware of young MBA-types who don't know anything about your industry. Take into consideration that you have to "live" with these people and that they can ruin you if they turn out to be malicious, incompetent or insane.

<comment><USER3> >> Beware people who tend to exaggerate or have a thing where they tell you outrageous and unverifiable stories.

10x this. Some investors with whom I had developed some strong relationships in the past were very secretive and never would give names or verifiable details as to deals they had done in the past; they were very cloak and dagger, which I suppose was partly why they were so interesting. They were insanely intelligent, so I had immense respect for them and considered one guy in particular a mentor. As I worked with him, turned out he had a lot of issues, verified by other people who mutually knew him. Those issues enabled me to see a side of him that caused me to lose all respect.

I felt a lot like a character in a Robert Ludlum novel, who described the way the CIA treated him. I can't write the exact quote, but it was something like, "Obfuscation, generalization, and manipulation. They give you enough details to help lead you to conclusions, but never anything concrete. Then when you finally come to the wrong conclusions and take incorrect actions, they say it's your fault because they never told you that in the first place and you're hung out to dry."

Truly good investors are happy to talk verifiable details as to what they've done. They have nothing to hide and are proud of their integrity, track record, mistakes, failures, and successes.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> What is typically going on when a firm is "just fishing"? Passing information to a portfolio company in the same niche? Looking for market sizing or other research data? Checking out the type of companies/people the competition is passing on or interested in? Trying to make the senior partners think that they're busy? Any/all of the above?

<comment><USER5> Yes. All of the above. It's sick.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> You start to think they are on your side....

Remember VCs are like the guy who wants to play pool for money in a bar - right after he loses the first couple of games.

Except of course for the pool hustlers basic honesty....

</comment><comment><USER7> Classic Indian VC Behaviour:

"If you get a call from a VC analyst, saying "we just learned about you through...and think you fit well with our firm...would like to schedule an investor presentation..." This will go nowhere. The analyst is boning up on info, and they will suck your brain dry. They have no intentions of investing."

</comment><comment><USER8> The most prominent thing about this article (the top answer actually) is "I'm a hustler baby" Not actually assuming a gangster persona is a huge step forwards in terms of dealing with VCs.

Dave McClure being the exception, of course (on both sides of the deal).

<comment><USER5> My homage to Biggie not withstanding, vc's are people, just like hackers, entrepreneurs, marketing folks, etc. Just trying to keep this shit real.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> Haha as expected - like the joke about politicians lying that goes "when their lips are moving".</comment>


Generating and Visualizing Alpha with Vectorspace AI Datasets and Canvas - <AUTHOR> https://www.elastic.co/blog/generating-and-visualizing-alpha-with-vectorspace-ai-datasets-and-canvas <comment><USER2> Love the hidden relation between news data and stocks. Can't wait what's the next step. Could you find correlation between Libra and the related news eg. testimony given by David Marcus and the response by Senate?

</comment><comment><USER3> This project is a first of its kind. It has a patented AI algo so it can't be duplicated. One in a million project that is run by a top notch CEO, Kasian Franks.

</comment><comment><USER4> What a fantastic write-up by Elastic, Vectorspace has some disruptive tech in their hands.

</comment><comment><USER5> Really interesting read.</comment>


Why Ruby on Rails Applications Should Consider Adding Go to Their Stack - <AUTHOR> https://sphereinc.com/why-ruby-on-rails-applications-should-consider-adding-go-to-their-stack/ <comment><USER2> I don't find this piece compelling. Go does offer performance benefits. However, most web applications do not reach a state of maturity that justifies a rewrite. The acknowledged initial development time advantage Ruby offers is compounded into successive development cycles. SOA is not necessarily a good architecture objective, and API structure arguably benefits more from Rails' defaults than Go's constrained syntax. Finally, more Rails developers interested in improved concurrency programming would adopt Phoenix than would adopt Go.

</comment><comment><USER3> "We have no clue what we are talking about. We just want to look smart for clients who have no clue what we are talking about either, and hopefully get some business."

</comment><comment><USER4> > Rails won't provide any boilerplate solutions in order to solve computer- > science related problems.

Not sure what "computer-science" means in this instance.

</comment><comment><USER5> Sorry, but this article makes no worthwhile argument for why RoR devs should consider Go, it's just circle jerk.

> The main approach to resolve performance and stability issues in an > established system, as well as team scalability problems, is to split the > monolithic kernels into a set of microservices.

For one, this goes against the idea of having a monolith and all the benefits that has. SOA trades one set of problems for another, and requires an organizational and cognitive shift in approach.

> Go excels when projects get into phase when everything should be calm and > steady.

So does Ruby? And also when it's not.

> you may want to think about adding Go into the stack to take care of the > most complex code while the remaining Ruby/RoR stack provides an older but > solid website engine

"older but solid". THat's a disingenuous attempt at calling rails obsolete or legacy - neither of which, in any way, it is.

> Go is fresh

Oh I see where we're going with this now.

> it's also important to think about what's going to happen with the project > in the next couple of years. Every technology that exists on the market has > its own lifespan and a couple of target problem domains where it'd be the > best solution to use.

Yes, you should be thinking of the long term - of the project you're building. Go might very well be a good choice for your problem domain, but for most startups they simply do not need it. Keeping everything in the same stack/language makes it more portable between devs and easier to reason about. When you start rolling up your sleeves and creating custom stuff like Go SOA; you lose that and the complexity of the service amplifies. It also means you now have to hire rails + Go devs.

Go is a lower level language. You have to write a lot to do the basics that, in ruby/rails, are just a method call away. This is not a free trade off or anywhere close to 1:1 on the productivity that this article claims. Yes, there are benefits to Go and for certain types of work it does well. But for literally 95% of the workloads out there, a set of background workers executing jobs does perfectly well up to some very large scales.

on a personal note, what draws me to ruby/rails does not appear in Go. It's a different language, different "culture" (or lack of), and different mindset on work and what should & should not be. It's more.... google.

Anyway, Go is the right choice in some situations. But for most, just stick with ruby on rails until you really start hitting growing pains. Shopify does 80K Requests PER SECOND on a rails stack.</comment>


Multi-column style for Readability - <AUTHOR> http://anoved.net/tag/readability/ <comment><USER2> I like the improvements in terms of getting rid of the full justification (which is proven to be harder to read) and shrinking images, but.. multiple columns? Scrolling sideways isn't typically a pleasurable experience and you can still have a thinner column with vertical scrolling with Readability. I wonder if it'd be possible to have multiple columns but with a "paging" mechanism rather than horizontal scrolling?

I'm going to try this out on the iPad, though, as it'd be nicer to get more on the screen in landscape orientation (the one I use 95% of the time).

It's cool that JavaScript makes this sort of personalized customization so easy and kudos for the effort in making something that's pretty slick. Even if I don't like the layout, we need more people doing things like this :-)

<comment><USER3> Thanks! When I first set out to make it, I thought JavaScript would be involved - but turns out a new stylesheet was sufficient. There's JS on the page to replicate the bookmarklet maker, of course, but swapping the stylesheet URL in an existing Readability bookmarklet amounts to the same thing.

It is interesting to see the initial reaction (aversion) here and elsewhere to horizontal scrolling. I guess I concur that it is annoying in most contexts, but hadn't noticed it here. Maybe it's a difference between browsing/skimming behavior and prolonged reading?

<comment><USER2> _There's JS on the page to replicate the bookmarklet maker, of course, but swapping the stylesheet URL in an existing Readability bookmarklet amounts to the same thing._

That's interesting. I'd actually like to tweak the stylesheet too. Seems easy enough now you say it, but a post about doing that might fly well. (I'd quite like to hack Safari Reader to get rid of that full justification too, but I need to Google on how to crack into that..)

 _I guess I concur that it is annoying in most contexts, but hadn't noticed it here. Maybe it's a difference between browsing/skimming behavior and prolonged reading?_

It doesn't seem to be so detested on devices like the iPad and iPhone. Page turning is a form of horizontal scrolling, after all. I haven't yet tried your system on the iPad but I think it might cut it for me.

I suspect the aversion to horizontal scrolling on the desktop is based on history and, then, habit. As you may remember, scrollwheels used to _only_ go up/down so horizontal scrolling was cumbersome. You could also scroll by vertical page by pressing space or PgDn in most apps. Similar shortcuts for horizontal scrolling are/were rare and inconsistent. Vertical scrolling was so easy that, by comparison, horizontal scrolling was annoying and difficult.

<comment><USER3> I'd like to learn more about Safari Reader, too - especially the paginated- article collation feature, which is a real advantage over Readability.

Anyway, as for tweaking the stylesheets - here are some links to compare.

Here is the original Readability stylesheet: [http://lab.arc90.com/experiments/readability/css/readability...](http://lab.arc90.com/experiments/readability/css/readability.css)

And here is my version (featuring an inexpert mix of px, em, and % units that surely could be improved): <http://anoved.net/css/mcreadability.css>

To try your own modifications, edit a Readability bookmarklet and set _readability_css.href to the URL for your stylesheet.

<comment><USER3> FYI, minor change to the stylesheet (pre {overflow:auto;}) to improve readability of preformatted text: [http://anoved.net/2010/06/mcreadability- and-preformatted-tex...](http://anoved.net/2010/06/mcreadability-and- preformatted-text/)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> I guess its a matter of preference, but I dont know anyone who likes scrolling sideways on a computer. Maybe it would work on the iPad, but not on a computer monitor

<comment><USER3> In my experience, having used this for a few weeks now, not much scrolling is involved. That's part of the point - more of the text is visible at once, without too many distractions, be they visual or interactive.

Scrolling is a matter of tapping the right arrow key once or twice when you get to the end of a column or the page. Plus, with today's laptop trackpads, scrolling sideways is just as easy scrolling vertically - but, true, it's not conventional.

I feel like quoting "Green Eggs and Ham" - try it, and you'll see! Or not. It's certainly not intended for "typical web content" of videos and bite-size blog posts (and neither is normal Readability). I use it for longer articles and short fiction.

That said, I certainly accept the feedback that many people seem put off by the horizontal scrolling concept. Just thought I'd share!

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> This doesn't play very well with typical web content.</comment>


Federal Cops Without Badges, Coming Soon to a City Near You? - <AUTHOR> https://www.cato.org/blog/federales-without-badges-coming-city-near-you <comment><USER2> That's pretty much just feels like lawless invasion of cities for political purposes, with very light justification. It can't continue, but it is! Today expanding.</comment>


Borges' 'The Garden of Forking Paths'. A Hypertext Novel? - <AUTHOR> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Garden_of_Forking_Paths

<comment><AUTHOR> If you're interested in reading it, you may as well just go for the whole collection of his amazing non-fictions:

[http://www.amazon.com/Collected-Fictions-Jorge-Luis- Borges/d...](http://www.amazon.com/Collected-Fictions-Jorge-Luis- Borges/dp/0140286802/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1294505173&sr=8-1)

<comment><USER2> Borges hacked fiction. Highly recommended.</comment></comment>


Gnome Developers Re-Implement Middle-Click Paste - <AUTHOR> http://news.softpedia.com/news/GNOME-Developers-Re-Implement-Middle-Click-Paste-380352.shtml

<comment><USER2> A friend of mine complained on Google+ and attracted the attention of a GNOME developer who said that (a) it would be put back, and (b) one of the reasons it was scheduled for removal was that the Wayland graphics server doesn't have the notion of separate "selection" and "clipboard" shared-data.

I imagine there's a lot of resistance at the idea of including decades-old X11 quirks into the fresh, modern UI era, and I can totally understand that. The best argument I've heard for supporting something like it is to consider it an interruptible drag-and-drop operation. That is to say, in every scenario where you can select something then drag and drop it into another place, or another application, you should be able to select that thing then middle-click on the destination for exactly the same effect. The best argument for having this behaviour (at least as an option) is that it's more accessible than traditional drag-and-drop for users with certain mobility impairments, and fully-able users can use it to do things they can't normally do with drag-and- drop, like shuffle through windows to find the intended target. It also piggybacks on a lot of infrastructure (format negotiation, etc.) that needs to exist for drag-and-drop anyway, and lastly it makes old-school users happy. :)

<comment><USER3> I don't consider middle-click paste a quirk but rather a very useful feature I find myself missing all the time when I'm on Windows.

The bug in my humble opinion is having separate "selection" and "clipboard" buffers, but I just use a small util in the background to always keep both synchronized.

By the way, do people really use drag-n-drop on a daily basis? The few times I need to use that (mostly on windows) it's a really painful and awkward operation. You have to select what you want, click, then find the target (possibly minimized or hidden or something) and then drop at the right position while maintaining the mouse button pressed all the while. That's pretty terrible user experience as far as I'm concerned, but maybe I'm just doing it wrong/not used to it.

<comment><USER4> > The bug in my humble opinion is having separate "selection" and "clipboard" > buffers, but I just use a small util in the background to always keep both > synchronized.

i actually appreciate this, because somteimes I really do want to copy something, do some other things, and then paste. Can't have the selection buffer overwriting the clipboard buffer.

> By the way, do people really use drag-n-drop on a daily basis? ... while > maintaining the mouse button pressed all the while.

Agreed, especially in the age of the trackpad, on which drag and drop is far more difficult.

<comment><USER5> Your mileage may vary. I've never been a drag and drop sort of fellow, but I did start using three-finger swiping to move tabs around in my browser when that feature was introduced.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> There's something delightfully quaint about a world in which middle-click paste warrants a news article. :)

Caveats: \- I'm amongst the folks rejoicing. :) \- Yes, Apple products and Win8 sometimes attract similar attention to detail. \- I recognise the technical context, too (see thristian's comment).

Still quaint. :P

</comment><comment><USER4> middle-click paste is so plainly useful that I often find myself completely baffled that other windowing environments haven't copied it.

<comment><USER7> Especially having two buffers is a productivity booster, if I would count how many times per day I take some data from a source window/view with ctrl+C and another one with selecting it, then pasting one of them with ctrtl+v and the other one at the correct position with middleclick it would be quite alot. Like I just did with this text. Then I have klipboard which keeps both of the buffers in a history, so awesome Im baffled how my collegues at windows can even do their job.

Especially useful in terminals where ctrl+shift+c/v is awkward to press compared to a middleclick.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> "The controversial desktop environment" .. things were not always thus. (gnome user since 0.9).

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> Hoooooray! Victory, at least for now...

</comment><comment><USER9> Good work, Long life to Ubuntu-Gnome, my favorite desktop since Ubuntu introduced Unity.

</comment><comment><USER10> Thank goodness! Middle click paste drives me crazy. ... Although i dont use gnome</comment>


So you think you know C?  - <AUTHOR>

Solve this multiple choice puzzle and explain your answer

  int i = 5;
  i = ++i + ++i;
  return i;

  a) 12
  b) 13
  c) 14
  d) Undefined
 <comment><USER2> The answer is D, D a thousand times D.

Firstly, from Wikipedia

A sequence point defines any point in a computer program's execution at which it is guaranteed that all side effects of previous evaluations will have been performed, and no side effects from subsequent evaluations have yet been performed.

\-----

Secondly from Annex C of the C99 Standard: Sequence Points

1\. The following are sequence points described in 220.127.116.11

\- The call to a function, after the arguments have been evaluated (220.127.116.11).

\- The end of the first operand of the following operators: logical AND && (6.5.13); logical OR || (6.5.14); conditional ? (6.5.17).

\- The end of a full declarator: declarators (6.7.5);

\- The end of a full expression: an initializer (6.7.8); the expression in an expression statement (6.8.3); the controlling expression for a while or do statement (6.8.5); each of the expressions fro a for statement (188.8.131.52); the expression in a return statement (184.108.40.206).

\- Immediately before a library function returns (7.1.4).

\- After the actions associated with each formatted input/output function conversion specified (7.19.6, 7.24.2).

\- Immediately before and immediately after each call to a comparison function and also between any call to a comparison function and any movement of the object passed as arguments to the call (7.20.5).

\-----

Now onto this statement

i = ++i + ++i;

lacking in sequence points between the double assignments is undefined and has been undefined for the life of the language. It is as undefined as all of it's ugly brethren and should be left to die.

Why does this question keep popping up?

<comment><USER3> > The answer is D, D a thousand times D.

Do you mean option D or D, the Language?

<comment><USER2> Option D, the language, while interesting, doesn't really have any bearing on the question.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> I get that the answer is "undefined". But I decided to figure out why at least on my compiler I get "14".

        $ cat t.c ; gcc ./t.c

        #include<stdio.h>
        int main() {
            printf("%d\n", a());
        }

        int a() {
            int i = 5;
            i = ++i + ++i;
            return i;
        }
        $ ./a.out
        14 # ??

        $ gcc t.c -c -o t.bin
        $ gdb t.bin
        ...
        (gdb) disassemble a
        Dump of assembler code for function a:
        0x0000000000000030 :	push   %rbp
        0x0000000000000031 :	mov    %rsp,%rbp
        0x0000000000000034 :	movl   $0x5,-0xc(%rbp)
        0x000000000000003b :	mov    -0xc(%rbp),%eax
        0x000000000000003e :	add    $0x1,%eax            # add 1 and store it in i => 6
        0x0000000000000041 :	mov    %eax,-0xc(%rbp)
        0x0000000000000044 :	mov    -0xc(%rbp),%eax
        0x0000000000000047 :	add    $0x1,%eax            # add 1 and store it in i => 7
        0x000000000000004a :	mov    %eax,-0xc(%rbp)
        0x000000000000004d :	mov    -0xc(%rbp),%eax
        0x0000000000000050 :	mov    -0xc(%rbp),%ecx      # move current value of i (7) into %ecx and %eax (both registers are now 7)
        0x0000000000000053 :	add    %ecx,%eax            # add them together => 14
        0x0000000000000055 :	mov    %eax,-0xc(%rbp)

...

</comment><comment><USER5> Which version of C? The answers vary. For 1st ed. K&R, you're going to get implementation-specific behaviour, which might very well vary whether or not optimization is enabled.

<comment><USER6> "Implementation-specific behavior [..] which might very well vary"

In other words, the very definition of _undefined_ behavior; You cannot reason about how the program will behave. This topic has already been covered fairly well on SO: [http://stackoverflow.com/questions/949433/could-anyone- expla...](http://stackoverflow.com/questions/949433/could-anyone-explain- these-undefined-behaviors-i-i-i-i-i-etc)

<comment><USER7> Not quite. C and C++ standards discriminate between undefined- and implementation-defined behavior. In the latter case, implementaitons can differ, but each must choose (and document) some well-defined way to handle a case. A trivial example is "sizeof(int)". The standard does not say much about what it produces (IIRC, it must be an int at least as large as sizeof(char)), so it can return 1, 2, 4, or even 17 (well, maybe not in C11. Newer standards tend to put more restrictions on behavior)

A nontrivial example is the value of "-64 >> 3". More info at [http://stackoverflow.com/questions/2397984/undefined- unspeci...](http://stackoverflow.com/questions/2397984/undefined-unspecified- and-implementation-defined-behavior)

I think the post you reply to refers to the fact that early K&R C predates any standard that introduced the term 'undefined behavior'. At that time, the standard was just 'whatever that tool Kernighan and Ritchie wrote does'.

<comment><USER5> Even at that point, there was the PDP-11 compiler and the compiler for the Perkins-Elmer implementation, not to mention the (straight) C compiler (/usr/bin/cc) vs the Portable C Compiler, both of which were available on V7.

The maxim then (and now) being: Don't Write Silly Code.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> The weirdest thing happens when you compile it with gcc and then try it with clang. <http://pastebin.com/DwFgsiLV>

</comment><comment><USER9> b). ++i increments i before the equality operation and is evaluated inline.

PS why, are you having hiring difficulties or something?

<comment><AUTHOR> Not having any difficulties, just ran into this problem and thought it would be fun to share with HN.

By the way your answer is wrong.

<comment><USER10> How come? b) seems correct in my book.

<comment><USER2> B may seem like it is the "correct" answer, in so much as you are getting that out of your test programs. But because this code is undefined the functionality is compiler dependent and cannot be counted on. It is liable to change at a moment's notice and shouldn't make it into production code.

The C spec doesn't handle this case. The only correct answer is undefined.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Ask HN: Recruitment websites similar to dev for other occupations? - <AUTHOR> Hey guys,
This has been on my mind for a little while and I haven't had a concrete response IRL so I figured that I would ask it here.
It seems to me that online coding challenges, portfolios (per Github, dribble, behance and such), and hiring agencies (toptal, hired, and such) are becoming (already are?) a standard in the software field.
You get an automated challenge that was designed by the company which asserts your skills. Then, based on your response to the aforementioned challenge the hiring team decides if you move (or not) to the next stage in the hiring process.
All of this to say is that it looks like the company is looking for a software person and they have a way to assess their candidates prior to an in-person interview. This, saves them time in their assessment and hopefully gets the candidate that they were looking for.
Why is this not implemented for other fields/ occupations?
What if I am searching for a new accountant? Or a new manager? Or a new marketer? (Or a new ___ fill in the blank)
Are there similar pathways available for recruitment there? Challenge driven? Portfolio driven? Problem solving driven?
Something like: here is a stack of receipts…. create me a balance sheet or whatever that is timed? Or here are our theoretical sales… what are our projections? Or for an HR position a challenge on how would you recruit me a new engineer? I am trying to illustrate actual problem/solution type applications.
It seems to me that only places for this are traditional job boards (indeed, monster, so on) and linked in, where people bombard companies with resumes and hope it sticks. Or… be creative and make a video… or add colours to stand out and hopefully land an interview.
Are these occupational fields mutating as well? Any software out there right now?
What about taking it one further? Present a situation to a mechanic and ask them for their solution in a timed environment? Or an electrician? Nurse? PSW?
I hope I am making sense. Is this even practical? Automation is inevitable and hiring process should probably be evolving in those fields as well? Appreciate any and all input!
Cheers, Alex <comment><USER2> Some of those things exist but each industry is very different. They have their own "traditions".

In some jobs there are unions or professional certification bodies involved.

Those tend to be for the first one or two jobs. For example a graduate accountant might do some test exercise for a graduate position. After a few years everywhere else they go it's going to be based on their certifications and previous experience.

They get the job, if they're quite bad they get fired. Otherwise they stick around until the next one.

Software is one of the few if not the only industries where you can have 10 years of experience but still get treated with stupid whiteboard questions or tests.

Give an accountant with 10 years of experience a "test" and he'll hit you with a stick.</comment>


A New Challenger to Equifax's Employee Verification Service - <AUTHOR> https://www.nytimes.com/2018/04/11/your-money/equifax-challenger-truework.html <comment><USER2> At my last full-time job, I helped our infra team staged a revolt and some of us threatened to quit when HR announced they had signed up for Equifax's employee verification service about 2 months after Equifax's most recent breach. I'm happy to say that within 3 days HR had stopped using this service.

<comment><USER3> Why does it matter if it's Equifax or some other company? Employers are still handing over the data.

I take issue with much of the language used when discussing the Equifax breach. It wasn't a breach that Equifax _lost_ my data. It was a breach that Equifax _had_ my data.

Regardless, I don't see replacing one scumbag company for a different scumbag company as really fixing anything. Also this article is nothing more than a PR piece for Truework. Shame on the NYT for publishing such drivel and calling it journalism.

<comment><USER4> > _Why does it matter if it 's Equifax or some other company? Employers are > still handing over the data._

Because in a just world, Equifax would be disbanded after that fiasco. They shouldn't be running around, offering more data-vacuuming services. GP and their colleagues did their part to send a market signal that they're not OK with the current state of affairs.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Why can't companies use the SSS or IRS, etc., for this kind of verification? Why have to go through a third party to get information back from the government? Where required, they already need to do an eVerify anyhows, don't they?

<comment><USER6> IRS doesn't have APIs. I've done some work with them, you have to manually upload CSV and download the results hours later. Automating it is against their TOS. For one of the data I get from them, I've the option of getting in printer on paper, DVD or magnetic tape.

<comment><USER7> > Automating it is against their TOS.

Why would anyone want something outlawing automation in their TOS? Is their 'service' maximizing human effort and minimizing throughput?

<comment><USER8> > Why would anyone want something outlawing automation in their TOS? Is their > 'service' maximizing human effort and minimizing throughput?

It could be that they want to make usage painful to keep control of the data. Automated scraping/bulk downloads would be much easier to detect than TOS violations that occur after the data is downloaded.

For instance, I wish my county recorder's office forced people to manually retrieve property public records rather than providing them electronically. The extra cost would make it unfeasible for data brokers and people search websites to slurp up all the data for resale, while still allowing access for legitimate purposes.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> How much does it cost to get an advertisement like this in the NYT?</comment>


72 hours to end the devastating and failed war on drugs. - <AUTHOR> http://www.avaaz.org/en/end_the_war_on_drugs/?rc=fb&pv=39 In 72 hours an eminent group of world leaders will call on the UN to end the devastating and failed war on drugs. Only a massive citizens movement will turn their appeal into urgent action. Sign the urgent petition now! <comment><USER2> I would be cool with this as long as the people that decide to use these newly legalized drugs either don't get any sort of government medical care or have to pay a stiff fee.

I shouldn't have to pay for your mistakes.</comment>


2-of-3 Blind-Key Multi-Signature Security - <AUTHOR> https://blog.gridplus.io/2-of-3-blind-key-multi-signature-security-965e90640b4?reo <comment><USER2> One of the huge problems that crypto-currencies do not think about is inheritance. Most of us wish that when we die, our stuff goes to our children. But if our stuff is locked behind secure cryptography which depends on information locked in our brains, that does not happen.

Unfortunately there is no way to open up ways of passing your crypto-currency to your loved ones without opening up a possible attack during your life. But this is a use case that needs to be addressed.

<comment><USER3> They think about it a great deal, especially ones like Bitcoin with finite money supply that will become less and less accessible over time as people die or lose their keys. Ethereum for example built a money supply algorithm that adds a set amount of currency every year, resulting in an eventual equilibrium where the % of total money supply lost per year = % of total money supply added. This has been on peoples' minds since the early days.

<comment><USER4> Creating more currency is not necessary, all that's needed — if a single currency unit becomes too valuable because it becomes too scarce — is to increase divisibility.

<comment><USER5> Why is increasing divisibility any better than creating more if the end result is the same?

<comment><USER4> Because by increasing divisibility you don't change the distribution of wealth (how much people own relative to each other) whereas, if you create more currency, the recipient of the new coins is enriched on behalf of everyone else.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Packets per Second Limitations in EC2 - <AUTHOR> https://www.bluematador.com/blog/ec2-packets-per-second-guaranteed-throughput-vs-best-effort <comment><USER2> A more plausible explanation is that the xen networking path is simply expensive, the intel VFs are limited by queue count and silicon (i40e isn't a great ASIC), and the Annapurna part is really an ARM64 NPU. NPUs have been abandoned by most silicon vendors and have a tragic history. It's simply hard to make NPUs work right at attractive price/power/performance and at high speed versus fixed function scatter/gather I/O units coupled with general purpose CPUs running software network stacks. The only benefit Annapurna gives EC2 over a software device model is a hard security boundary of effectively another computer inside the computer for Nitro metal as a service. I think this is one reason why EC2 is limited to 25G while 100G has been commodity for a long time.

Here is a demonstration of a software stack that can scale toward hardware limits without relying on a particular vendor [https://www.slideshare.net/SeanChittenden/freebsd-vpc- introd...](https://www.slideshare.net/SeanChittenden/freebsd-vpc- introduction). This approaches 100G line rate for large packets which is what it was optimized for. I don't know PPS at low packet size but do know what would be required to optimize that use case and it could be done pretty quickly.

<comment><USER3> Interesting theories on the EC2/Annapurna situation.

Do GCP, Azure, or any other cloud providers offer 100G networking?

<comment><USER4> Not to the instance, AFAIK. Google Cloud maxes out at ~20Gbps, and I think Azure does ~40Gbps.

<comment><USER5> It's really about flows as well, not necessarily total throughput.

AWS Nitro allows 5G/bit per flow. And then maxes out at 25G/bit. I know GCP does something similar.

Also, pretty sure that is false regarding Azure, they have a small availability of Infiniband, but, that is not on their general compute platform and has a narrow use case/many restrictions. Azure has had the worst networking performance from my experience and only had 10GbE NICs (it's been a while though)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Amazon also limits DNS queries - probably in a well meaning attempt to prevent DNS amplification attacks from originating within AWS. And I mean DNS queries across their network whether or not they hit Amazon's DNS servers. This is _any_ port 53 UDP traffic.

[https://www.sparkpost.com/blog/undocumented-limit-dns- aws/](https://www.sparkpost.com/blog/undocumented-limit-dns-aws/)

<comment><USER7> I wonder if this is related to connection tracking?

<comment><USER8> By default, Amazon uses stateless firewall. It means that by default it's not tracking connections.

<comment><USER9> I think you may be mistaken. Security Groups are stateful: [https://docs.aws.amazon.com/vpc/latest/userguide/VPC_Securit...](https://docs.aws.amazon.com/vpc/latest/userguide/VPC_SecurityGroups.html)

As suggested, it's very likely they hit the connection tracking limitation: [https://docs.aws.amazon.com/AWSEC2/latest/UserGuide/using- ne...](https://docs.aws.amazon.com/AWSEC2/latest/UserGuide/using-network- security.html#security-group-connection-tracking)

I've personally witnessed teams hit this specifically for DNS (usually for internal, where you have explicitly permitted src/dst).

<comment><USER8> Yep I mistaken Security groups with Network Acl. Thanks. It's in the best practices to not track dns for big systems.

From powerdns [https://doc.powerdns.com/recursor/performance.html](https://doc.powerdns.com/recursor/performance.html)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Note that if your traffic hits the ec2 connection tracking security groups, you will also hit per instance limits on the number of tracked connections [1]. As far as I know, they don't come out and say they have a limit on the number of tracked connections, but they do, and it scales by instance type -- better to adjust your rules so the traffic is allowed in a stateless manner.

I don't know, but wouldn't be surprised if connection tracked packets are more limited than packets that aren't tracked.

[1] [https://docs.aws.amazon.com/AWSEC2/latest/UserGuide/using- ne...](https://docs.aws.amazon.com/AWSEC2/latest/UserGuide/using-network- security.html#security-group-connection-tracking)

<comment><USER7> That sure sounds like it's being processed by the standard Linux firewall. In which case, yeah, if you have (my favorite example) a web crawler operating on the general web, you'll hit serious limits.

<comment><USER11> There is a limit of you have a Security Group attached with a rule that is -not- 0.0.0.0/0\. So for anything that is public / heavy utilized, the recommendation is to open the service up to 0.0.0.0/0.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> The (undocumented) PPS limitation on EC2 instance types before they added SR- IOV NICs is around 150K PPS. If you had your own full machine — usually the top size of a given instance class, but no guarantee — this would be pretty consistent. But it was a shared resource. This made running memcache clusters really painful on EC2, given that they'd easily get limited by packet throughput before CPU or bandwidth. With modern instance types it's much better!

<comment><USER13> ????

Where are you getting these numbers? For what instance types? For what protocols? This is just wrong.

<comment><USER14> GP said it was undocumented (I presume empirical, but would like more details)

Do you have a more accurate dataset? What are your observations?

I'm assuming this affects loads of HN readers and I too am interested in what the facts are.

Side note: you may be getting downvoted because a source, or other details are lacking. I too get downvoted for posts that lack these details.

<comment><USER15> I took him saying "just wrong" as being "im not OK with this", but i could be incorrect.

However, with that said, i have always found that calling your rep and asking about specific un documented limits is the fastest way to get to the bottom of per-instance/account/vpc/whatever limits.

Just as there are limits that can be changed if you agree, in writing, that you will be financially responsible for whatever the impact is (e.g. when you could tell them that you wanted spot price limits adjusted for you to be able to better bid above the scaling factors that were in place(not sure if this is still the case))

Some limits are global and cant be changed/negotiated, but other undocumented limits....

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> I guess technically it is, but I hesitate to call the need for PPS limitations in the DC as "over subscribing".

Connect a single server to a network and it's oversubscribed. That's a bit hyperbolic, but even some beefy networks can be seriously burdened by just a single server spamming UDP packets without some sort of QoS.. Especially if they are bypassing user space and using the kernel to just replicate a bunch of packets onto the wire :)

I'm probably a bit biased from having spent time setting up linux TC on xen hypervisors for this very reason; and I think we even settled at 50k pps for the per vm limit too..

<comment><USER17> They should still publish the limits. If they are reasonable, customers won't mind.

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> The distributions are mixtures. This is my favorite package for modeling those: [https://cran.r-project.org/web/packages/gamlss.mx/index.html](https://cran.r-project.org/web/packages/gamlss.mx/index.html)

</comment><comment><USER19> One thing I was looking for the entire article weather these limitations are imposed by the Instance or the TOR networking gear.

Maybe random reallocation to a rack with newer switches will guarantee better baseline PPS.

<comment><USER12> It has to do with hardware support for virtualized networking. Instances capable of SR-IOV or with the ENA can sustain millions of PPS. It makes a huge difference.

<comment><USER13> Not correct. Instances are rate limited based on their type and protocol. Enhanced networking support increases total potential performance, but there are artificial limitations put in place.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> Does anyone know if this applies to the dpdk ENA driver?

<comment><USER21> What difference would the driver make?

<comment><USER20> I'm assuming the limitation is in the smartnic, and perhaps a different driver is tuned differently.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> Eventually people will realize how AWS overcharges for what they deliver. But of course there's nothing wrong with pricing yourself higher than the lowest cost option...

This is perhaps already being seen in a piecemeal fashion as people compare eg S3 storage prices with other companies' prices.

</comment><comment><USER8> EC2 throttles everything by default and PPS is no exception.

What can you do when your system needs more bandwidth, cpu, ram or any other kind of resources?

You can either scale vertically... which is not bad at beginning of a project, but sooner or later you will hit the ultimate limit.

Or

You can scale horizontally. Which means that you have enough nodes or instances to bypass those limits and make sure your projects grow well over time.

Netflix runs on EC2 and they probably generate billions of PPS from Amazon. For sure it's several millions PPS a d they seem to not hit the limits mentionned in the article.

<comment><USER9> What is it you think netflix runs on AWS? Content distribution is served from their Open Connect CDN, not AWS.. last I understood, most of Netflix cloud workloads were analytical/DWH, and services.. Not generally billions of PPS, and certainly not to single instances.</comment></comment>


A Critique of "Don't Fuck Up The Culture" - <AUTHOR> http://scottberkun.com/2014/critique-dont-fuck-up-culture/ <comment><USER3> I wonder if this is just a strong contrarian streak in me, but I've always been extremely suspicious of "company culture" anywhere I've worked. Almost any real culture is implicit; it's not designed. I think it's because growing up watching a lot of cable news, I've learned to be sensitive to narratives that don't have a lot to do with reality, and frequently "culture" and "values" are used to try to suggest a narrative to employees that also has very little to do with reality. I don't need a culture of "integrity" not to do evil things, I have a conscience. Nor do I need a cultural value of "innovation" to come up with new ideas -- a lot of times the pleasure of doing something well is more than enough.

It makes me also think about how uncomfortable I felt during high school rallies. I mean, I didn't even particularly choose to be in that place, why should I have "pride" to be part of that institution? And why do I need to express that "pride" by yelling in a mob? I always found it somewhat creepy how easily people went along with all of that. I guess it's better than being lonely.

<comment><USER4> Thinking about it from the perspective of an entrepreneur, even though it's just my co-founder and I and a couple outsourced assistants, I did write down a list values that I wanted to exhibit as a leader in my company.

As I see it, it's like writing down your goals. Having them written down isn't the end-all of the matter. But if you write them down, it makes them much more tangible and achievable.

Looked at that way, having aspects of "company culture" doesn't mean much on its own. The test is whether the influential people (CEO, vets, etc...) embodying and practicing those points on a daily basis.

<comment><USER5> When writing values, it's better to write very concrete examples as well.

e.g. If you value "trust", mention that an employee can leave work anytime to attend to their personal matters without showing any proof. The company trusts employees not to abuse this.

Write as many examples as possible. I can visualize examples. I can't visualize "trust" or "integrity" or "innovation".

Examples help everyone make decisions. Platitudes cannot.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> You could say that the modern fashion-forward corporate culture is just the German-Protestant ethic with the family shaved off and some hedonism stapled on to replace it. Instead of the gospel, people read HBR or HBR-aping tech publications. The CEO becomes father, king/presidente/generalissimo, and priest, because it's likely that none of those things will exist in the lives of the employees to the same extent as they did in previous generations.

In California tech, something like half of the employees will not even have much stateside family, being immigrants, while another large portion come from broken families, are un-churched (but perhaps yoga-classed), and are often unmarried also. There is no 'society' there for such employees beyond the company, no rival sources of meaning. Perhaps after 'success' there is room for 'philanthropy.'

It is actually the whole culture because the alternate cultural institutions have become so weak that the corporation just fills the gaps, as the only remaining institution in the life of the individual with any confidence or capacity for initiative. Otherwise, a good article.

It's funny that a guy who has contributed to HBR, which has done so much to obliterate or subvert all competing institutions to the corporation, seems to have a little trepidation about going all the way.

<comment><USER7> I actually find the decline of religio highly interesting in comparison to the growth of stuff about company culture an interesting correlation that I never thought about.

Though I would take philanthropy out of quotes. And I'd be careful about the concept of unchurched (as someone who is unchurched and has no plans on becoming churched)

I do wonder what people will use as anchor institutions now that church going has declined - not everyone can do the corporate only thing

<comment><USER6> >I do wonder what people will use as anchor institutions now that church going has declined - not everyone can do the corporate only thing

Entertainment. Religious behavior is so ingrained and universal that, when people lose it, they immediately start organizing around the nearest banner and making mock wars against the unbelievers.

Nintendo believers (with their computerized altars, mythos, and rituals) may not actually kill the bros of the X-box, but they do get worked up about the differences and frequently engage in mock battles with those of other tribes.

It's too reductive to call all of this behavior either religious or spiritual, but if you look at it from the perspective of an anthropologist from the future or another planet, it makes a lot more sense than to say 'the enlightenment happened and each and every person separated the spiritual and the secular in their brains and we all lived rationally ever after.'

So, generally, if you're in the business of making consumer products, you're in the business of running an effective cult, or at least encouraging an existing strong cult to adopt one of your mythic ways into their own, or making use of one of your totems.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> We specifically talk about how nobody, even myself as the CEO, is "above the law" with regards to our values. We've had several instances where values were invoked as reasons why we shouldn't want to do something that was against what I wanted to do. It was a surprise when it happened, but I deeply appreciated it. It's part of teamwork as sometimes people can lose site of things or by omission or oversight make decisions which aren't the best or aligned with a company's true mission. We talk a lot about this and I really hope that it continues.

<comment><USER9> Corporate culture is fancy word for lowering wages by hyping up a company and thus shifting bargaining power from employees to employer.

I mean, I'm all for that, but let's call things for what they really are.

<comment><USER7> There is a huge issue in this - it used to be that there were much stronger labor movements to create employee cultures that were somewhat separate from employers/management

There can and should be ways to shift cultural control back to employees - <USER2> white collar jobs in general are not so prone to unionization (one of the major ways to do so)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Pardon a silicon valley long-timer for this rant.

With minor exceptions whenever a company goes on and on about its culture, it is time to leave.

Culture has become a by-word for: 1) Rejecting older applicants while hiring "He is not a Cultural fit"

2) Making females uncomfortable in an all-male Bro-culture by cracking "anatomy" jokes

3) Getting people with families to put in insane hours and justifying it by pointing to the younger crowd and its culture

4) Fig leaf to cover up blatant exploitation

Rarely has company culture ever meant anything positive

</comment><comment><USER11> _How To Test The Value of Core Values:

Can an employee say NO to a decision from a superior on the grounds it violates a core value? Try to imagine it. Would a cultural value from your corporate handbook ever be used in making an actual decision about actual work? If the answer is no, then the values are platitudes, or were written so generically that they're easily overlooked or easily manipulated to justify just about anything (depending on your opinion, Google's don't be evil is either a good example or a bad one)._

^^^

Outstanding insight. That litmus test is usually enough to destroy most the of the paper-thin proclamations of culture trotted out by corporations (especially start-ups).

</comment><comment><USER12> >> "When business and tech people sling the word culture around as if was invented along with silicon transistors they get themselves into trouble."

<swoon> I've been trying to argue this for years. To call a business environment "culture" is to grossly misunderstand the nature and importance of culture and to over-aggrandize the business environment itself.

<comment><USER13> IMHO the business environment is still worthy of anthropological study.

<comment><USER12> Oh certainly, but it's an environment that exists within a culture, albeit one that increasingly abdicates to nebulous "business" rather than people.

<comment><USER14> I'd argue that a business exists within many cultures. I agree with your second assertion. Within those two there is a clue why "business culture" is a baseless idea.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> A very long time ago, I worked for a company that was having growing pains. They tried a few things, one of which was codifying the 'culture' in a list of present-tense statements that management wished to be true. It was originally called "the 40 points" but by the time I left, it was up to 66 points.

I asked my boss ('ask' is a euphemism, as I remember it) what was up with this list (given that the statements were almost entirely false in the moment), and he told me that there are two ways to guide people when an organization hits a certain size: with detailed and explicit rules like the military, or with concepts to guide smart people to make decisions roughly in line with the direction chosen by management.

With experience, I have found that there are more than two options (that was my first 'real' job after working at a gas station as a teenager). The "N points" were deprecated after a few years, and amazingly (to me, anyway), the company still exists.

As many people have said, culture usually comes from the leaders' actions, not from their wishes. Or their lists.

</comment><comment><USER16> The author is right to question the hype around culture as though it were invented in Silicon Valley, but I think he also falls into the trap of equating culture with superficial qualities that change over time. To paraphrase Built to Last: if you look outside the tech world, there are plenty of companies like Wells Fargo, Nordstrom's, and 3M that been around for over 100 years with very clear cultures and brands--far longer than any one CEO's reign. Of course, the culture changed over that time as measured by social attitudes and management practices, but they are successful because the core company culture survived. At 3M it was innovation and meritocracy. At Nordstrom's it was above-and-beyond customer service.

Don't let cynicism over the company culture of free t-shirts and late nights cloud out the goal of building a culture that lasts longer than you will. Just like parenting, it's what you do, not what you (or your posters) say that matters.

<comment><USER17> We agree. I wrote:

"You have to do careful study to filter out which cultural values remained immutable over time, if any at all. Ask the first ten employees to leave a successful company why they left, and many will answer "the company changed."

You have the benefit of retrospection with those companies - In year 1 or year 5 it was (likely) far less clear what the company would look like in 50 or 100 years.

It is also a matter of perspective - as an outsider to any organization the perceptions we have of culture are different than what it's actually like inside. 3M in particular has gone through many cultural changes, including the ones that led to peaks in innovation (see: [http://solutions.3m.com/wps/portal/3M/en_US/3M-Company/Infor...](http://solutions.3m.com/wps/portal/3M/en_US/3M-Company/Information/Resources/History/?PC_Z7_RJH9U52300V200IP896S2Q3223000000_assetId=1319210372704) on McKnight circa 1950s) and low points (see [http://www.businessweek.com/stories/2007-06-10/at-3m-a- strug...](http://www.businessweek.com/stories/2007-06-10/at-3m-a-struggle- between-efficiency-and-creativity) McNerney, circa 2000s).

So we're talking about two sides of the same kinds of coins - yes some elements are stable, but it's hard to sort out what they are, and it depends heavily on whether you are an outsider looking for examples, or an insider actually trying to get something interesting done.

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> "How power is distributed has a primary role in defining culture."

This is the single most important statement in the article. Being conscious of the power structures is critical in understanding an organization and how it functions. Most power structures are not legitimate and we unfortunately placate to them as though they are.

Unfortunately most people spend their day in a totalitarian type organizational structure where they have orders barked to them. Even in the tech world. We need to start asking ourselves if we prefer to live most of our lives in totalitarian organizations getting orders barked at us.

<comment><USER19> What amazes me about this point (which should be obvious) is how hard it is for people to even recognize power dynamics. It's so deeply baked in to our culture (and probably our brains) that it's easy to miss.

For my fellow nerds who have trouble spotting it, de Waal's "Chimpanzee Politics" is a good book showing power in our near relatives. For understanding it in humans, various books on body language were useful to me, as were some theater books, including the status transactions section in Johnstone's "Impro".

More directly related to mempko's point, I'm also really enjoying "Confronting Managerialism", which basically claims that American business culture has relatively little to do with creating effective businesses, and a lot to do with creating a caste system with managers and executives on top.

</comment></comment><comment><USER20> Companies cannot have an unchanging culture. Business and new opportunities always come up that aren't the same as when the company started. People get complacent, executives demand more and more pay/power, competitors find weaknesses, and the response is to either stay the course (get more conservative), or more flail around and try to adapt somehow. Either way you eventually have to do something different which changes your "culture." Companies which refuse to adapt to changing conditions wind up like the dodo.

<comment><USER21> Yes! And a point that often gets missed out in this argument is that the value of the job to new and current staff changes as the organisation grows in headcount and complexity. It's easy to hire great programmers with plenty of experience, who manage themselves and make the right strategic decisions, when you've raised funding for a promising idea and you have enough equity to give them a substantial slice. It's a totally different equation when you have 1,000+ employees each doing small but necessary jobs, and you have practically no points left in your ESOP, especially since aforementioned talent expects a 20-30% raise every year. And good luck if you're a mid-size paper printing business in Ohio who needs someone to do integration projects.

</comment></comment><comment><USER22> Good points, expanding on the original article.

Now what? Take Berkun's definition of culture, and don't fuck up _that_. Culture could be the thing that stops future innovation? Make it part of the culture not to try to stop future innovation.

Culture sure is kinda intangible, but it's still good advice to founders to pay close attention to it. Whatever it is.

</comment><comment><USER23> Leaders should probably check themselves and make sure their actions are a 'culture fit' for the kind of company culture they pay lip service to.

</comment><comment><USER24> I'm sure Peter Thiel changes his "best advice" depending on the situation - therefore making this argument entirely pointless.

</comment><comment><USER25> Isn't some part of their culture "be disruptive"? How does that square with "OMG Don't fuck it up!"

</comment><comment><USER26> It's pretty clear that Chesky was talking about "company culture" as opposed to the broader (and generally longer-termed) anthropological culture (societal culture?). The idea of "company culture" has been around for as long as I've been in the workforce (approaching 30 years) and I think it's perfectly valid that Chesky's readers would (rightly) assume he wasn't talking about societal culture.

<comment><USER27> Methods and concepts of anthropology and ethnography apply to groups of various sizes, not just to large societies. They also apply to subcultures.

Berkun's arguments are that there is an established body of knowledge and methods about culture, and people who care about culture in their companies would benefit from learning about those. This notion does conflict with the common, latent self-perception of founders -- that they are starting and inventing _everything_ anew.

</comment></comment><comment><USER28> Why is the title all caps?

<comment><USER29> Probably copy-pasted the article title, which is all caps.

</comment></comment><comment><USER30> Also, "culture" (in the modern, anthropological sense of the world) is mostly ugly and bad, because people are mostly ugly and bad. Foot-binding was culture. Religious and racial bigotry are culture. Almost every social injustice that ever occurred came out of some _cultural_ prejudice. People on Hacker News are quick to bash religion, but it's pre-baked thinking in general (which is much of what culture is) that is the cause of so much suffering.

When "culture fit" is used to justify not hiring a capable, 43-year-old woman out of the fear that she'll justify the money-making machine that exists when 25-year-old, male, clueless commodity programmers are stapled together into an underpaid, overworked team, the word _culture_ isn't being misused. That's exactly what culture is.

Most companies that have a strong cultural identity have a negative one. It's also not necessary that a company have one. Banks don't trumpet "our culture" but (excluding analyst programs, which are hellish) are decent places to work in spite of the weak cultural identity.

A corporate "culture" eventually realizes that it must defend itself against perceived enemies. And it inevitably ends up being the worst kinds of people-- passive-aggressive, malevolent sorts-- who acquire the position to decide who those enemies are going to be.

Culture also tends toward arrogance, injustice, and hubris as it develops _exceptionalism_ , which is what it will fight hardest to defend. I still have people from Google, _three years_ after I left, going out of their way to fuck up my life because they perceive things I've said as being threats to their culture's exceptionalism. (Never mind that I've been gone for 3 years and have absolutely no power over anything that happens at Google.)

A commercial enterprise like a business will never have a balanced, full- fledged culture. Culture is immersive, not something people participate in for 8 hours per day in order to make money. I would say that, as much as possible, you _don 't want_ a strong culture (or, more dangerously, a strong cultural identity) at your place of work. You want people to get in, do good work, be paid well, and be happy. But once you have people start talking about "culture fit" as if it were a real thing, you've hired too many passive-aggressive assholes, and you need to cool it with the "culture" nonsense.

<comment><USER31> _I still have people from Google, three years after I left, going out of their way to fuck up my life because they perceive things I 've said as being threats to their culture's exceptionalism._

You bash Google at every opportunity, every since you left, AFAIK. You reap what you sow.

The rest of your post was good, but then you had to go off on Google again. Get over it.

<comment><USER32> So if he stops his criticism of Google, he will be left alone? Just like critics of Scientology?</comment></comment></comment>


Russian Video Game Industry is booming and you should know why - <AUTHOR> http://blog.xsolla.com/2014/02/13/russian-video-game-industry-2013-overview/

<comment><AUTHOR> Find out all about the Russian Video Game Industry in our feature post.</comment>