NoScript Not Available for Latest Firefox - <AUTHOR> https://noscript.net/ <comment><USER3> It's probably better to go straight to the blog post about the migration:

[https://hackademix.net/2017/11/14/double- noscript/](https://hackademix.net/2017/11/14/double-noscript/)

Basically, the work to adapt NoScript and correspondingly expand the WebExtensions API has been going on for years, the original plan was to have a smooth transition when Firefox 57 came out, but there were some delays in the final days leading up to the release. Not recommended to stay on Firefox 56 because it won't get security patches; move to 52 ESR instead.

<comment><USER4> Moving to Firefox 52 isn't really an option for me because it's a pig compared to 55/56 (it consumes almost 5GBs of RAM compared to 1GB for 56).

<comment><USER5> I think you can switch to an unbranded build of 57, and enable legacy addons. [https://wiki.mozilla.org/Add- ons/Extension_Signing#Latest_Bu...](https://wiki.mozilla.org/Add- ons/Extension_Signing#Latest_Builds) You could also install the Developer Edition or a Nightly build. They're slightly less stable (usually pretty good for me) but they have the same option. [https://www.mozilla.org/en- US/firefox/channel/desktop/](https://www.mozilla.org/en- US/firefox/channel/desktop/)

<comment><USER6> > enable legacy addons

Does that mean the XPCOM system has just been flagged as disabled, but not been removed yet?

<comment><USER7> Various stuff has been removed. Other things have not been removed yet. You can see [https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/showdependencytree.cgi?id=13475...](https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/showdependencytree.cgi?id=1347507&hide_resolved=1) for a non-exhaustive list of things that can definitely be removed but haven't been yet.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> I upgraded to Firefox 57 only to find all 4 of my extensions missing... I can live without others, but being without NoScript felt like walking on streets naked. So the first thing I did was downgrade to Firefox ESR, then I started looking for alternatives. Turns out that uMatrix fills this role perfectly (for me of course). Not only can I block/allow JS, CSS and similar resources, but I can do it based on domain / 3rd party domain matrix... Nice, I always hated that when I allow `gstatic.com` in NoScript for some domain it is allowed globally (for all domains). I will test uMatrix for a few more days just to see if I feel comfortable without NoScript, then I'll upgrade back to FF 57. It looks like this might have a silver lining after all. :)

(for the record: I hate it that they broke compatibility with older extensions, and I hate that they changed UI, but if that gives FF greater market share, then I'm all for it)

<comment><USER9> Killing the old extension API is a painful, but important, step.

From a security standpoint, WebExtensions are a lot better, since they are sandboxed and require explicit permissions to be granted for many things.

From a developer standpoint, they are easier to deal with, being JavaScript, and since Chrome and Edge support similar APIs, developers will no longer need multiple codebases to support their extensions on multiple browsers.

They also work better with a highly concurrent browser. They use asynchronous APIs that don't directly call into browser APIs. FFs old extensions were known for leaking memory, which is a lot less of an issue with WebExtensions.

Compatibility is another huge thing. With old Firefox extensions, compatibility was just an extension author saying, "Yep, the APIs still work the way I'm using them." They often broke in subtle ways and you could get them partially working by overriding the versions supported in the extension manifest. Not so great imo. WebExtension APIs are more or less like JavaScript APIs and compatibility is mostly going to be limited by support for capabilities. Like, I'm sure Firefox does not support the USB API that Chrome does.

There's so much to be gained from getting rid of the old extension system for concurrency, extension compatibility, and the health of the ecosystem and individual browser installations. Many will be angry and stick to ESRs and others will be mildly upset but I think in the long run this will have been one of the better Mozilla decisions that make Quantum a success.

<comment><USER10> > From a security standpoint, WebExtensions are a lot better, since they are > sandboxed

In a sandbox even I, as the owner of the computer, can't let them out of. That's not cool.

> From a developer standpoint, they are easier to deal with, being JavaScript, > and since Chrome and Edge support similar APIs, developers will no longer > need multiple codebases to support their extensions on multiple browsers.

In the sense that it's no longer possible to do the things one could do with a Firefox codebase.

I own my computer, and my browser; Mozilla have taken away the ability for me to extend my computing environment (without reïmplementing it all myself).

<comment><USER9> >In a sandbox even I, as the owner of the computer, can't let them out of. That's not cool.

Good software doesn't easily let you shoot yourself in the foot. It turns out if you allow it, people will do it. There exists software that does let you shoot yourself in the foot, but Firefox is designed for the mass market, not a specific niche. It's the only serious competitor to Chrome.

NPAPI is also gone. Not behind a flag, the code to support it is gone. It was broken, and so was the old extension API. It's about time for the majority of users to move on.

>In the sense that it's no longer possible to do the things one could do with a Firefox codebase.

This doesn't make any sense. You can do the same things you could do with the Firefox codebase before: download it, modify it, redistribute it. The runtime is what you're thinking of, and you were never guaranteed any abilities with regards to the runtime; you just got used to them, then they changed. This happened a few times with Firefox before, so it's not really clear how this update is much different.

>I own my computer, and my browser; Mozilla have taken away the ability for me to extend my computing environment (without reïmplementing it all myself).

Firefox is not your "computing environment." You're free to remove Firefox from your computing environment, or use an ESR release of Firefox and still get security updates with your old extensions, or use a fork of Firefox, of which there are a few to choose from.

Even so, it's depressing that every time a breaking change happens, even one like this that's 2 years in the making, the same responses happen: weird arguments about entitlement and a lot of looking toward the past.

Why not look toward the future? If you relied on an extension and now it's not possible with WebExtensions, it would help a lot of people out if bugs were filed and features were requested to bridge the gap. It's clear that there's overwhelming reasons to continue down the WebExtensions path, and whether people like it or not it's definitely going to be the only option in the browser you use in a few short years. So it's in our best interests to push for WebExtensions to meet the needs of extensions rather than make pointless arguments for decisions that were made a long time ago and have no chance of being reverted.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> The correct title should be "NoScript Not YET Available for Latest Firefox"

<comment><USER12> Yeah, when I saw the title and that the link was to the noscript site, I thought there must be some bad blood or something between Mozilla and noscript. Instead it's just a polite "hey everyone, working hard!". Which is great, but not really what the title indicates.

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> uMatrix is a replacement extension from the creator, and compatible with, uBlock. uMatrix migrated to Quantum leveraging the existing Chrome codebase already about a month ago: [https://github.com/gorhill/uMatrix](https://github.com/gorhill/uMatrix)

Some learning curve is required compared to NoScript since uMatrix allows even finer grained control (not just scripts, but images, cookies, iframes and XHR as well), but I personally migrated about a year ago successfully. Very happy with uMatrix so far with the latest Firefox.

<comment><USER14> To add some important points:

> uMatrix is a replacement extension from the creator, and compatible with, > uBlock.

To avoid any confusion, I think the parent means, 'from the creator _of_ ... uBlock'. uMatrix is not by the creator of NoScript.

Also, blocking just JavaScript is quicker and easier in uMatrix (at least easier than the current NoScript; I don't know about the upcoming version). The UI is far more efficient, and you configure it by origin/remote pairs (e.g., on foo.example.com allow googleapis.com; on other example.com hosts, block it; on example.org allow it everywhere).

But NoScript does far more than block JavaScript; it's a sophisticated firewall, in some ways. Look through the options menus and lookup the features, such as ABE; it's impressive. uMatrix doesn't replace much of that functionality.

<comment><USER13> Thank you, dropped an _of_ there indeed.

For me personally, #1 reason for using NoScript was controlling which domains can execute JS. uMatrix delivers that superbly, and more.

Sadly, ever since NoScript started pushing malware[1] to users with every update, I lost all confidence with the author for securing my browsing experience.

[1]: [https://liltinkerer.surge.sh/noscript.html](https://liltinkerer.surge.sh/noscript.html)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> The plugin breakage is the only downside of the new Firefox, the rest is just awesome.

I'm still looking for a new auto form filler that can have multiple profiles and fills in all fields at once with a hotkey. This is useful for filling in bugzilla bug reports where some fields always get the same data.

<comment><USER16> "The only downside" Sure. Aside from the number of other extensions that simply won't work in new Firefox. And the lack of any user control to make the browser not work like or look like Chrome.

<comment><USER17> And the fact that today was the first time I have seen Firefox crash after 3+ years of heavy everyday usage. Luckily I didn't "upgrade" Firefox on my main machine. I'm staying away from 57 until they get it together.

</comment></comment></comment><comment> old-gregg I've always used YesScript, it has a much simpler UI -> basically a single button which remembers if JS is on/off for a given site. It's always been puzzling to me why YesScript is less popular... And yes, it's available for the latest FF as YesScript2 [1]

[1] [https://addons.mozilla.org/en- US/firefox/addon/yesscript2/](https://addons.mozilla.org/en- US/firefox/addon/yesscript2/)

<comment><USER18> "YesScript" is significantly less secure and powerful.

Most importantly, with NoScript I can block tracking and ad-related javascript while still running the page's first-party javascript.

With yesscript, I don't get that granularity.

Perhaps that's why it's less popular. I also believe that it came out later and thus hasn't had the time to gather such a following as noscript has (though who would use a worse version of noscript instead?)

<comment><USER19> Hi, I'm the developer of YesScript2 and I've just released a new version with 3 state blocking that makes it even better alternative I believe because you have 3 options: 1) no blocking (grey icon) 2) half blocking (allowing internal scripts and blocking external, blue icon, so you can allow now first-party Javascript as you mentioned) and full blocking (blocking internal and external scripts too, red icon).

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> While I can understand that the switch to the new system was necessary, I hope they improve the new extension functionality a bit further.

One negative thing that I noticed that extensions don't seem to be able to interact with the tabs before those have largely (or completely?) loaded - <USER2> instance I can't use mouse gestures in a tab that's currently loading or interact with the vimperator replacement (Vim Vixen). Is that inherent to the new system with the extension system having lower priority than the page rendering or is it just those specific extensions I use?

Another thing that would be nice to fix is extensions (at least those that I have tested) seemingly not working in Firefox-internal pages like about:addons.

</comment><comment><USER21> uBlock Origin and uMatrix can both do the same thing and are compatible.

This is just my opinion but both have better and more intuitive interfaces as well.

<comment><USER14> They do some of the same things, but there's a lot they don't do.

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15730800](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15730800)

</comment></comment><comment><USER22> And no MAFF nor MHTML support in Quantum... as MAFF is/was great, now I have to keep yet another browser just to read my old files.

</comment><comment><USER23> Anyone know if xmarks is going to end up working with it? It works in Chrome and has for a long time, so it should be pretty straightforward to port, though xmarks doesn't get a lot of development at all (not even sure it needs it).

If not is there an alternative sync bookmarks between chrome and firefox solution anyone can recommend?

</comment><comment><USER24> I just use uMatrix.

</comment><comment><USER25> BTW, is anyone here knowledgeable enough about NoScript's development to know whether their "until the end of this week" prediction is solid or if it is more vague like ValveTime?

</comment><comment><USER26> And it's available now: [https://noscript.net/getit](https://noscript.net/getit)

</comment><comment><USER27> Yeah, I leapt right in, and had to revert to Firefox ESR when I realized that RequestPolicy Continued doesn't yet work.

(BTW - thanks to @fghtr for letting me know about it this extension.)

</comment><comment><USER28> I use UBlock Origin to achieve pretty much the same behaviour as NoScript. Haven't found a reason to use NoScript since I started doing that.

<comment><USER29> I've used NoScript for quite a while, and was sad to let it go when I switched to Quantum in Beta a while back.

I tried using uMatrix, which is from the same folks that made uBlock Origin, and I have to say I'm supperr happy with it. It applies the same heuristics that I usually apply manually (namely, allow 1st-party scripts automatically, allow 3rd-party manually as required).

I'm going to install NoScript when the WebExt version comes out, mainly for the excellent XSS/Canvas/misc. support. It remains to be seen which I'll use for blocking scripts, but I'm glad to have options.

</comment></comment><comment><USER30> Seamonkey is thankfully not affected by this. Running the latest Seamonkey with NoScript still working

</comment><comment><USER31> The utility of the long tail of Firefox plugins was what gave it its value. I've been using a hybrid of Pale Moon and Firefox since the last round of losing plugins and now don't see a reason to keep Firefox at all.

<comment><USER32> I'd value a resource with a simple explanation of the changes that prevent a compatibility layer from enabling all the old plugins?

<comment><USER33> In one sentence, the move to more aggressive multithreading and sandboxing. The old extension model conflicts with the boundaries that had to be established for both these things.

<comment><USER34> They used to provide shims to ease making old addons compatible with multiprocessing, although with serious performance implications.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER35> > NoScript's unique whitelist based pre-emptive script blocking approach

Is that unique apart from what Chrome has built in by default? (obviously you still need to opt-in).

</comment><comment><USER36> Brave Browser has "Shield" mechanism where you can block ads/trackers and JS. It's built-in feature, you can set it up to be enabled by default or per- domain.

<comment><USER33> Switching browsers just because some extension does not work for a few days after an upgrade seems like blowing it waaaay out of proportion.

<comment><USER37> People stuck with Firefox because of the old, potent, extension framework.

Now they have no reason to stick with Firefox because the extension framework is just another Chrome clone, so why not switch to an actual Chrome clone?

<comment><USER33> Because I trust Mozilla more than both Google and $random_developer.

<comment><USER36> Brave Browser is a product from Brendan Eich, ex-CEO of Mozilla and creator of JS.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER38> The title of this post is incorrect.

Seems like it _is_ available, just in the old extension format.

From the noscript site:

> Please be patient: if you feel naked while you're waiting for the "brand > new" NoScript, you can still use the "regular" NoScript 5.x (and all the > other extensions of yours) on Firefox 52 ESR, which will receive security > updates until June 2018. See you soon!

Edit: my statement is incorrect, the noscript page refers to the ESR version of firefox.

> authors suggest to use ESR, which is Extended Support Release, not the > latest firefox.

<comment><USER39> It is not, authors suggest to use ESR, which is Extended Support Release, not the latest firefox.

<comment><USER38> I see, my bad.</comment></comment></comment>


Google Sued by Job Candidate for Age Discrimination - <AUTHOR> http://blogs.wsj.com/digits/2015/04/23/google-sued-by-job-candidate-for-age-discrimination/ <comment><USER2> This case has nothing really to do with the claim of the named plaintiff. If being brushed off after a brief interview, etc. and similar skimpy items were the criteria for filing a claim for age discrimination, the courts could be loaded with such claims. There is basically zero evidence from the interaction noted in the article to make for a sustainable claim of this type.

No, this is all about class action procedures.

1\. As in most such cases, the named plaintiff is there only to satisfy the technical requirement that a representative be named to represent the class.

2\. The underlying claim, then, in the absence of any direct proof of discrimination in any given case, is based on an "effects" theory: Google stats show that it has an average workforce whose age is considerably lower than what other stats show is the average age of computer programmers; this "proves" that latent discrimination is happening; ergo, the class is entitled to massive damages because Google's hiring practices single out older people and treat them unfairly by rejecting them as job applicants on unlawful grounds.

3\. Google recently settled an age discrimination case in which there appears to have been real evidence that they treated an older worker unfairly. This case now seeks to take the evidence in that one instance, combine it with stats evidencing a young workforce at Google, and hope this is enough to justify the class action claim.

4\. This is as flimsy a basis on which to sue as one might imagine but its point is to try to pry open Google's confidential employment files to hope to find real evidence somewhere in the mix. In other words, it is a fishing expedition.

No particular sympathy here for Google. I am sure it does treat older workers unfairly at some level. The tech industry does this across the board. But that does not make this lawsuit something attractive. It is a stick-up suit, pure and simple, from all surface indicators. Given how flimsy it actually is, I predict it will go nowhere in the long term. There may yet be a potent case lurking against Google over its policies. This just is not it.

</comment><comment><USER3> There's not a lot of detail about the actual case. But to me based on what's there, it sounds like a recruiter reached out and told him "you would be a great candidate to come work at Google", which is kind of what recruiters always say.

Then he got sent to someone else (someone technical?) for a phone screen, and they decided he wasn't a great fit. It's possible his experience just wasn't really what they were looking for, and that wasn't evident from his resume.

I'm not trying to defend Google. As a 40+ year old programmer, I'm concerned about age discrimination, too. The article just doesn't make a very compelling case to me, I guess.

<comment><USER4> > Then he got sent to someone else (someone technical?) for a phone screen, > and they decided he wasn't a great fit.

That's certainly understandable, but another article[1] goes into some of the details of that interview that do make it seem a bit odd:

 _The interviewer was 10 minutes late to the call, "barely fluent in English," and "used a speaker phone that did not function well." Heath politely asked him, repeatedly, to use the phone's headset but the request was declined._

 _One part of the interview involved writing a short program to find the answer to a problem posed by the interviewer. Heath accomplished the task and offered to share it via Google Docs or email, but, instead, the interviewer required Heath "to read the program coding over the phone."_

I'm not suggesting that's grounds for an age discrimination lawsuit, but it's easy to see how it could seem the interviewer wasn't that interested in giving the candidate a fair shot.

[1] [http://www.computerworld.com/article/2914233/it- careers/medi...](http://www.computerworld.com/article/2914233/it- careers/median-age-at-google-is-29-says-age-discrimination-lawsuit.html)

<comment><USER5> > the interviewer required Heath "to read the program coding over the phone."

Yeah, if that actually happened, Google should fire the interviewer. How incredibly absurd.

<comment><USER6> I have interviewed twice at Google now and it seems pretty par for the course. They didn't tell me the interview date and time until the day before, and despite having to rearrange my schedule on short notice, they couldn't have the courtesy of being on time.

After showing up to the call half hour late, we got started. My interviewer was quite verbally irate when I asked clarifying questions and had some connection problems. Then he asked me to explain my code over the phone, brace-by-brace, colon by colon. I asked to share a document it was declined, I asked if we could talk about the algorithm and pseudo-code, but he wanted the C++. Afterwards he told me it wouldn't compile because it was missing some semicolons.

A few months later I tried again, thinking it was a fluke. Second interview started much the same as the first. I just hung up, not worth my time.

<comment><USER7> > I have interviewed twice at Google now and it seems pretty par for the > course.

I had a phone screen with Google earlier this year and it had great audio quality and used a shared Google Doc. It is really sad to hear that you and others are having such a different experience.

I wonder if the quality of people's interviews are affected by the location and position they're interviewing for. I was interviewing for a smaller location instead of the main campus.

<comment><USER8> I second this. I just finished interviewing on-site at Google. The phone screen was fine -- I was given a link to a Google Doc ahead of time. Audio quality was fine and the interviewer was personable. I actually found the on- site interviewers to be significantly nicer than other places I've interviewed at. I mentioned this to one of them and he said that all interviwers are required to go through special training. This was on the main Mountain View campus.

My impression is that bad interviews are the exception and get disproportionate attention. Glassdoor interview ratings for Google are 54% positive, 26% neutral, 18% negative. [http://www.glassdoor.com/Interview/Google-Interview- Question...](http://www.glassdoor.com/Interview/Google-Interview- Questions-E9079.htm)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> We had recently interviewed a female candidate for a Lead engineering role at our company. What impressed us about her resume was that she was mentioned as co-inventor in at least 11 patents while working for IBM, various SW "Architecture" projects yada yada. During the interview she could not explain the basics of database queries processing before we could even asked her how to write a simple statement that prints out the dupes.

The thing is we (as I address to most of the HM community which I am assuming is tech/IT related) work in a very lucrative yet highly dangerous field. If you don not keep up with ongoing technologies and have failed to update your skills even in a time frame of 6-12 months, buddy youre outta market.

Companies like IBM, HP/Compaq, Dell, Oil firms, Networking companies have this culture (btw i have had experienced it first handed) where they promote their engineers to lead roles so early on and have them do all of the Project Management tasks and in the midst of everything, years pass by and they are left with obsolete technical skills and 20 years of work experience. I wish things were not like this.

<comment><USER10> I agree with this comment and there's a lot of truth to this observation, except for one tiny nitpick: "buddy, you're out of market."

That depends on many factors, though...primarily the employer and what kind of work is done. For instance, Google has a huge C++ codebase that needs to be maintained. I guess it could be argued that even in C++, one needs to keep up with the C++11/C++14 curve, but I doubt that curve is as extreme or difficult to keep current on as, say, new developments in JavaScript.

<comment><USER11> C++ is _drastically_ different today from 10-15 years ago. Sure, so is Javascript, but C++ as a language and as an ecosystem encompasses vastly more concepts and operations than Javascript, and the language itself seems to add complexity at a much greater rate.

<comment><USER12> There are new features in both, sure, but "drastically different" seems to imply that someone proficient in the C++ or Javascript of 10-15 years ago would take more than 2 weeks to get up to speed. I think that's unlikely.

"Oh, the compiler does that automatically now!" is not such a steep learning curve.

<comment><USER11> I know old-school C++ with templates. I think it would take me more than two weeks to get up to my current level of Ruby proficiency due to all the changes in the STL, Boost, auto pointers, lambdas, etc.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> Age discrimination is definitely an issue in this industry. I encourage all the <40's to consider their position towards their elder peers in light of just how quickly 10 - 15 years can fly by when you spend a majority of it in front of a screen ..

<comment><USER14> Could you please recommend a line of actual real private-sector salaried work where time doesn't fly? Or is it that recent generations are entitled to some better fate than previous ones?

<comment><USER15> _> >Or is it that recent generations are entitled to some better fate than previous ones?_

We should all be striving to make our children's lives & the world they'll inherit better than our own.

<comment><USER13> "We should all work hard while we still can and make sure our parents are taken care of.."

It goes around and around. When you're older you'll know. Only the young understand.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> For software engineers at least, I think the Google interview process would naturally select younger people. You need to have a pretty good grip on algorithms / ability to do programming competition like problems and in my experience at least you're not frequently practicing a lot of the required knowledge in real world software dev roles. You get rusty. By comparison, this is fresh in the minds of people just out of university. Also, I think younger people are more open to doing the required prep. I've heard many an older developers complain that they think their time is better spent learning / doing other things (which have more immediate real-world benefit).

I also don't think Google should consider changing an interview process that is working for them on the grounds that it may be indirectly penalizing older people.

note: I'm an older software dev about to go through the Google interview process.

<comment><USER17> Didn't Google admit recently that there was not a strong correlation between how well a developer did on their interview questions and how well they performed within the company?

<comment><USER18> Considering how many google products have failed in the past and are how divided users are on the existing ones I would question whether google's culture is worth anything at all.

Seems to me that many of the big tech companies are losing the reality plot like coked up Hollywood starlets. I think we might see a paradigm shift in tech again soon including how recruitment is carried out.

<comment><USER19> > I would question whether google's culture is worth anything at all.

Uh, how about $385.46Bn?

<comment><USER20> You think Google's products and assets are worth zero?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> Dunno about Google, but in the past couple of companies where I worked age was a strong source of bias no doubt.

<comment><USER22> For my (admittedly relatively short) experience in office jobs it was also a self fulfilling prophecy: because tech companies avoided to hire people past 30-35, those either started their own companies or remained at their current jobs even where they didn't want to be there anymore, which gave those established companies a negative view of older devs. Rinse and repeat, add the sad european (?) classic "experienced people have to be manager and mostly stay away from code, senior developer doesn't exist" and you get a poor state of affairs.

<comment><USER23> And this is why major software companies are actually American. Most European software companies are terrible places, where "coding" people are considered as the lowest class. I don't want to generalize, there are incredible startups and small companies out there, but hey, no European Google or Facebook.

And strangely enough, "managers" who used to be good in their 20's and who have been only producing powerpoint-esque bullshit for the last 15 years are not very valuable assets, despite being overpaid, resulting in poor quality products.

<comment><USER24> Having been monitoring the software development market in Europe for quite some time (being European and always wondering what it would be like to come home and continue my development career) it astounds me why anyone would pursue development there given the advertised salaries for developers. With the high cost of living and the ridiculously low (comparatively speaking) salaries, it's a wonder any software developer would even take an interview - especially given that software developers can make 3-4 times more in other markets with comparatively lower costs of living.

The only market that appears to differ from this (based on advertised salaries) is the banking/finance sector. But despite the fact that they're not doing anything that the rest of the technology sector are doing (from a technology perspective), their incestuous hiring practices make it all but impossible to get in unless you know the right person or already specifically have banking/finance experience. So you could have 25 years of extremely relevant experience from other fields spread across various startups, small businesses and huge multibillion dollar corporations, have in depth experience writing platforms and APIs for leading corporations with highly scalable web facing platforms with all the latest technologies, have spent 5 years at some point in your past cobbling together antiquated technologies such as Access databases and Excel spreadsheets, just as many of these companies still are, but unless you've specifically got experience in the financial sector, they're not interested... despite their common claim that it's really hard to find good developers.

It's not hard to find good developers if you take your blinkers off and ask yourself what is it you're doing that's so special that you can't hire someone with all the right personality traits and technological experience but because of some arbitrary bias that they don't specifically have experience in your sector, they're unsuitable.

So that's my two biggest gripes about hiring practices - one specifically pertaining to hiring software developers in Europe, but the other equally applies in North America too.

Agism isn't nearly as evident as cronyism and incest.

<comment><USER25> In Denmark, the usual reason people work here despite higher salaries elsewhere is that many people just strongly prefer to live in Denmark (or if not in Denmark, at least in the Nordic region), for a mixture of cultural and quality-of-life reasons. The specific reasons vary based on the person, but some include: this is where your family/friends already are, prefer the urban layout of the cities (transit, biking, safety, etc.), prefer the working conditions (hours, vacation policies), prefer the social support, especially for families (subsidized childcare, parental-leave policies, no university tuition), etc. That and reasons like people wanting to raise their kids as Danes, which is harder to do if they grow up elsewhere. It's very common for people to work abroad for a bit in their 20s, though, as a kind of seeing-the- world thing that combines work and tourism, and then return later.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> I am 68 and working as much as I want to. I had no trouble finding a job and am actually in demand. I guarantee this is not because I am a genius.

I have hired many people over the years, many worked out well. I have also rejected many candidates over the years. I am sure many of them would have worked out too, but I will never know. Believe me, when you need to hire someone you want to find the right person quickly. And often you know in the first few minutes if the candidate is a fit or not. Then to be polite and fair you spend the next 30-45 minutes even with the candidate you are certain you do not want. Think about the first 2 minutes, because that is where you lost it. Not in the code you wrote or the phone connection.

<comment><USER27> Interviews are like politics. The people who are good at it usually aren't the people you want.

<comment><USER28> This is a poor way to interpret the reality. Interviews have relatively weak validity, but the relationship is still positive. Of course that assumes a structured interview from competent interviewers, which is more the exception than the norm.

What interviews may lack in utility for predicting good performance they can potentially make-up for in determining cultural/supervisor-candidate fit. But this also requires the interviewer to 1) accurately represent the culture and 2) to not implicitly discriminate with things that might _correlate_ with fit, which many things (age, religion, gender) might do. No simple ask there.

I think the primary value of interviews it that it makes the process seem more fair. Everyone had a chance to put their thumbprint on the experience, including the interviewee. In the absence of other selection measures (e.g., work samples) I understand its use, but if you have better tools then you should use those. For me, an interview's primary outcome question should really only be "Is this person completely unqualified or terribly unprofessional?" If the answer is "no", rely on the other indicators to make a decision.

<comment><USER27> I wouldn't want someone to get the impression I completely write off interviews as a way to assess the potential in someone. It's been around forever, and I don't see it going away anytime soon.

Also I don't think my comment implies that outgoing / social people are bad at what they do.

I wouldn't think too hard about the correlation I'm trying to make. Really my point is that the skillset you need in order to "pass" an interview is far different skillset in many cases than what the actual job requires.

Same with politics. The irony is the skillset necessary to "win" an election is far from what is necessary to do a good job once you're elected.

EDIT: Also, I would clarify that the context of the original thread is about hiring a software engineer at Google. The interview(s) necessary for hiring for that position I imagine could not possibly be conducted in the proposed "2 minutes at the beginning of the interview" I was originally replying to.

I have no doubt that there are plenty of positions that an interview can be conducted in 2 minutes, but software engineer at Google I doubt is one of them.

<comment><USER27> I'm replying to my own comment here just because it's a different point.

I posit, interviews are unlikely candidates to truly separate the wheat from the chaff in these 2 distinct but probably not uncommon scenarios.

      1)  ambitious person with limited skills
      2)  highly skilled person with limited ambition

With the first you wonder if their ambition will be enough to get them over many technical hurdles in the course of the job. When bringing someone like this onto your team you almost need to take personal stake in their success for fear that by hiring them you're potentially taking them away from another opportunity where their immediate qualifications may be a better fit.

With the second person I imagine it's a different kind of challenge to try to uncover this kind of personality trait during an interview process.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER29> A little off-topic, but a fact that I find amazing is that around the time of the first moon landing the average age of the mission controllers was 26.

[http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/tothemoon/kranz.html](http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/tothemoon/kranz.html)

<comment><USER30> NASA specifically wanted people right out of college to do operations so that they would not have to unlearn bad habits and since everyone would have to learn new skills for the moon landing to be successful.

[http://history.nasa.gov/monograph14.pdf](http://history.nasa.gov/monograph14.pdf) (see p. 17)

</comment></comment><comment><USER31> In reference to the table with national age averages, I would love to see those numbers redrawn from the perspective of development staff only. I'm curious about this because I think in recent years there is a corresponding jump in the number of computer science graduates. There may just be more programmers in those lower age brackets and as an organization that skews heavily toward developers your age grouping may just be lower.

That said, google's recruiting process is horrible and robotic. Feel for the guy.

</comment><comment><USER32> I can't help but wonder where this might leave someone such as myself, who is over 40, but relatively new to professional software development. I've programmed for years as a hobby, but was educated in a different field and have only recently decided to pursue programming work for a living. Not only am I _old_ , but I also have little experience compared to others my age.

<comment><USER33> As long as you get the right hiring manager it shouldn't matter. I agree that it is a valid concern of yours, and rightfully so in this hiring climate. But fair hiring managers do exist, and they build some of the best teams around.

I work at Twilio, and we put a lot of effort into providing a hiring experience that removes as many biases as possible. The end result is a solid, diverse workforce that understands that we all come from different walks of life and have different employment expectations. Other companies, such as Stripe, also seem to have similar initiatives in their hiring practices.

It's a concern, but some of us are actively fighting it.

</comment></comment><comment><USER34> I can't speak for El Goog. What would you do:

[http://www.bobheath.com/](http://www.bobheath.com/)

[http://www.aspnet.net/](http://www.aspnet.net/)

[http://www.visit-new-york-city.com/](http://www.visit-new-york-city.com/)

<comment><USER35> I'm assuming they weren't interviewing him for his design skills.

<comment><USER36> He claims to have developed a widely-used CMS built on Java.

But his sites use Joomla, which is strange when he's supposedly offering and selling a better CMS of his own.

I'm surprised he got an interview.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER37> So that movie "The Internship" with Owen Wilson was just fiction and Google doesn't really hire out-of-work 40 somethings who don't know anything about tech for their sales experience?

<comment><USER38> Oh man, that movie was just horrible. And at least you have a sense of humor about how horrible it was, but I've face-palmed so many times when people ask me, as a Google employee, if that's how it really is to work there.

<comment><USER39> On the other hand, I do have a couple of friends working in Google in the London office that, not only love that movie, but have incorporated some of the things in it in their teams :)

I must say I haven't seen it myself, so I can't judger.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER40> The article looks interesting, not so much for the merits of the case but for the data on the median age per employer.

There's going to be a bias in there related to at what point the company was growing the fastest.

The question is if there is a another bias - that of actual discrimination.

<comment><USER41> Unfortunately I'm not sure how valid those stats are. I'm not familiar with the website that conducted the survey, but there may be a substantial self- selection bias based on who chose to respond in the first place.

</comment></comment><comment><USER42> This honestly just sounds like a recruiter trying to get their numbers of hires up by getting more people to interview. I too was told I'd be a great fit at Google but in my interview my lack of intense algorithm study showed up and my non-ivy league college didn't win me any points. Poor guy because it sounds like they really got his hopes up.

</comment><comment><USER43> I've seen a lot of complaints about the interview process at Google. One core issue to me seems to be that they outsource a lot of their recruiting. Another may be the metrics. Hiring the equivalent of gym membership salespeople to do recruiting has issues.

On the other side, I've only had very positive interactions with Google recruiting. When you have a company growing so fast in both relative and absolute numbers, you're likely to run into some issues.

In the broader sense, technical people have to stay relevant. I was recently helping a Phd data scientist try to get a new job. When I suggested that he learn Python to augment his SQL, he said he was too old to learn new tricks. After hearing that I new he wouldn't be of use in my firm, or many others.

The flip side is that the people who do stay relevant and have all the experience are enormously valuable. Someone who is programming in Python or Ruby on Rails that also had to learn Assembler and C will have enormous insights into performance and what's going on in the guts of the machine. Those types of folks can solve problems other don't even know how to frame. It's hard to find 21 year olds with such breadth.

</comment><comment><USER44> Previously [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9429576](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9429576)

</comment><comment><USER45> This is why the time has come for blind auditions like GapJumpers offers - helps to avoid all bias when deciding who to interview. Bias for age, women returning from career breaks, education pedigree etc - all avoided if you focus on how a candidate completes a job challenge first. [https://www.gapjumpers.me](https://www.gapjumpers.me)

<comment><USER46> Or you could all choose the German solution...

1\. A photo on your cv. Or it goes in the bin.

2\. Birth date.

3\. Marital status and children.

4\. Every educational achievement documented officially since highschool.

5\. Every working position with an official written reference, in deeply codified form, written mandatorily by your boss, who probably inspired you to want a new job in teh first place. The last company I left had a secret ten factor 5 level numeric rating system, which was then translated into the codified text by the personel department.

<comment><USER40> _1\. A photo on your cv. Or it goes in the bin._

I've never understood why this isn't outright illegal. There's literally no reason for it but to discriminate.

<comment><USER47> Actually there is a practical reason in some hiring processes: you get many applicants, you look at their papers, then you interview them. Being able to map the face to the correct paper helps, particularly afterwards when you are contemplating the results.

At some point earlier in my career I sometimes did a hundred interviews in a week to hire a dozen people. To decide between different people, it was useful to have the pictures attached in application letters.

Of course, in addition it can be used to discriminate.

<comment><USER48> and what is the practical purpose of marital status and whether you have children?

Those are also obvious things that allow discrimination, but I can't think of a reason why they would be of interest to my employeer.

EDIT: sorry this sounds a bit adversarial, but it was meant as a genuine question.

<comment><USER49> Some companies collect that data so they can check they're not discriminating. Ideally it's on a seperate sheet or different part of the website; the information is psuedo-anonymised and goes direct to HR and never goes to someone doing hiring.

<comment><USER50> In the US this is typically collected after they hire you (where it can then go into said statistics).

<comment><USER49> How do they check their processes pre-hiring? Like selection for interview?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER51> Maybe the older guys are contracting so wouldn't show up those stats...

</comment><comment><USER52> The fellow in question seems to have a fairly robust resume, at least according to LinkedIn: [https://www.linkedin.com/in/robertpheath](https://www.linkedin.com/in/robertpheath)

<comment><USER53> If you read into the job summaries, it seems like he's been doing the same things for a long time without progressing to roles of greater responsibility. On a side note, hes also starting an Oracle certification class.

</comment></comment><comment><USER54> California badly needs to be taken down a notch with all the age discrimination and wage fixing that's been going on there.

NYC shows that it's possible to do vastly better on those. Or at least not to brazenly laugh in the face of those laws.

<comment><USER55> I was at Google's NYC offices last week, and I immediately felt like I was on a college campus. The vast majority of people there look very young.

I'm not sure whether the underlying cause is age discrimination, but clearly it's not a NYC/California issue so much as a company or industry issue.

<comment><USER54> From my experience, I'm absolutely sure that large NYC companies are far more cautious about it. Both cities are full of young people, but CA doesn't even try.

E.g. the YC application always has directly asked for age. Try that in NYC.

<comment><USER56> Looking just now the YC application doesn't explicitly ask for age, but it does ask for > Please enter the url of a 1 minute unlisted (not private) YouTube video introducing the founders

It would be pretty easy to discriminate on age/race/sex with that.

<comment><USER54> You're looking at the wrong page. They've moved the personal questions to a separate "Founder Profile" form, which each founder gets a special email link to access and fill out.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER57> In my first group at Google the ages were 26, 29, 32 (me at the time), 35, 55, 60, 70.

</comment><comment><USER58> The stats table in the article is imho not a good basis for discussion. The sample is too small and there is a huge self selection bias for younger people to sign up to such surveys.

</comment><comment><USER59> Unfortunately, the nature of the technical interview allows for easy disqualification of an individual. Miss a semi colon, something we all have done, you're disqualified. Coupled with the preconceived notions of the interviewer, even the most skilled individual can be disqualified with ease. Doesn't bode well in a industry that seems rampant with issues regarding age and gender .

</comment><comment><USER60> Not that this contradicts the claim, but Rob Pike (59) and Ken Thompson (72) from Unix both work at Google.

<comment><USER61> They are really special cases though, aren't they? I don't think it affects the larger discussion that Google employs a couple of extremely well-known and proven guys in their older age.

<comment><USER10> You're right; Pike and Thompson are huge outliers. If there is going to be a case made that age discrimination doesn't exist at companies where there have been class-action lawsuits, it's not particularly compelling to point to a pair of outliers as proof.

<comment><USER47> Well, nailer definitely did not provide these outliers as proof. More an interesting anecdote.

<comment><USER10> I know he didn't—I can read. I was speaking hypothetically, which is clear from my comment.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER62> I doubt this case will hold water. There doesn't seem to be conclusive evidence that points to the age bias. That being said, the lawyers must be seeing something that I'm not. They wouldn't file a suit otherwise.

<comment><USER63> They might just simply see dollar signs.

<comment> saiya-jin I presume same dollar signs as some (anecdotal) lady who sued McDonald and won millions by burning her mouth with fresh coffee because it was... wait for it... hot.

On a more serious note, most jobs have all kinds of biases. Army doesn't take older recruits, nor 50% of all recruits are not women/gay/whatever group is right now poplar to fight for. Or commodity traders - one of my ex-gf succeeded in this field, but the amount of macho sh*t she had to go through and still pops up almost daily is unbelievable. Also, some members of her current trading team, which are more on introvert side (yes, there are some traders like that) were asking their boss on private meetings how to handle a WOMAN as their colleague. Some are 50-something, and never worked with woman directly.

She just ain't crybaby like these pathetic people and actually works hard to prove herself in such an environment.

<comment><USER64>
        I presume same dollar signs as some (anecdotal) lady who sued McDonald and won millions by burning her mouth with fresh coffee because it was... wait for it... hot.

Please, please stop saying this. It wasn't just _hot_.

[http://www.fresnobee.com/2013/10/23/3568411/clovis- woman-74-...](http://www.fresnobee.com/2013/10/23/3568411/clovis- woman-74-sues-mcdonalds.html)

<comment><USER65> No, but it was being brewed at the recommended temperature (and still is today, but now the cup is covered in lawyer-safe warnings).

Mickey D's sells at least 500M cups of coffee every day, and this was back in 2006[1]. Given that some high-nineties percentage of those people didn't manage to scald themselves, courts be damned (they're arbitrators of law, not correctness), Liebeck was an idiot. Anyone who puts hot and crushable containers of liquid between their legs isn't acting responsibly.

[1][http://www.franchise-hit.com/franchisors-news- wire/McDonalds...](http://www.franchise-hit.com/franchisors-news- wire/McDonalds®-Premium-Roast-Coffee-Serves-500-Million-cups-of- coffee-1524.htm)

<comment><USER66> I don't think you understand what _third-degree burns_ mean see: (third-degree burns on six percent of her skin and lesser burns over sixteen percent) Also she won less than 1Million and much of that went to pay for her attorney they also settled for _confidential amount before an appeal was decided_. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liebeck_v._McDonald's_Restauran...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liebeck_v._McDonald's_Restaurants)

PS: _Other documents obtained from McDonald 's showed that from 1982 to 1992 the company had received more than 700 reports of people burned by McDonald's coffee to varying degrees of severity, and had settled claims arising from scalding injuries for more than $500,000.[_

<comment><USER65> Severity of the injury does not change my evaluation of the matter seeing as how it was _entirely self inflicted_.

700 people over 10 years (rough estimate of 1.8 _trillion_ cups if we use the 500M number above) burning themselves isn't even statistically significant.

It sucks, hard, that this lady had to spend the last few years of her life in that kind of pain (skin grafts are no joke), but the idea that it's McD's fault is nuts.

<comment><USER66> _Applying the principles of comparative negligence, the jury found that McDonald 's was 80% responsible for the incident and Liebeck was 20% at fault._

The principle at work is by selling something vastly more dangerous they were responsible for the extra damage due to increased temperature. In other words at a normal serving temperature she would have suffered but not nearly that much.

PS: The same thing applies in cases like a defective airbag. Yes, the manufacture is not responsible for causing the accident, but they are responsible for increase in damage due to a defect. Or more broadly MD was not responsible for that specific accident, but they know in general terms there would be accidents and they would be making those accidents worse.

<comment><USER65> I get the legal principle, really, I do, but that doesn't mean it's necessarily correct or that I agree with it.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER67> "Sanctuary" "Sanctuary" "Sanctuary"

</comment><comment><USER68> Don't be evil (unless their old!)

<comment><USER69> their -> they're

</comment></comment><comment><USER70> I hate the trend of new sites putting the stock information for each company mentioned in the article.

How did this became a thing ? Do ppl need that data to be shoved in the face like that ?

<comment><USER71> Is it a trend? Note that this is the Wall Street Journal. I think they are targeting a readership that is particularly interested in stock information.

<comment><USER70> I am not sure, I have been seeing it pop up on every article being posted on HN and reddit.

<comment><USER72> There have been a lot more Bloomberg articles submitted to HN lately.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Python implementation details - <AUTHOR> http://jacobian.org/writing/python-implementation-details/

<comment><USER2> The title is misleading; the link provides some source-code compatibility tips for alternate Python VMs such as Jython, PyPy.</comment>


A Web Browser Entirely Written in JavaScript - <AUTHOR> http://breach.cc/

<comment><USER2> Just a note, it's not "entirely" written in Javascript as it uses Chromium/Webkit as the renderer.

Pretty much everything else is in Javascript however so could be interesting.</comment>


Sentiment Classification using Machine Learning Techniques - <AUTHOR> http://pranjalv.com/sentiment/

<comment><USER2> I have created an app on emotion analysis of tweets, check this -<http://twemoapp.appspot.com/> , continuously improving it.

<comment><USER3> This is great, do you plan on open sourcing the code? I would be very interested in understanding how you implmented things.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> This looks really interesting. It's a shame they haven't put a license on the code.

<comment><AUTHOR> Hi, It's been licensed under GPLv2.

<comment><USER3> Many thanks!</comment></comment></comment>


Peter Thiel on The Future of Legal Technology - <AUTHOR> http://blakemasters.tumblr.com/post/37411481044/peter-thiel-on-the-future-of-legal-technology-notes <comment><USER3> The legal industry is perfectly suited to be utterly destroyed by startups. It's pure information work, it can be done from offshore, it is generally disliked by the public, and as a whole is pretty much entirely technologically inept.

Certification regimes present a barrier to full automation, but with so many young and unemployed lawyers, you could easily get around that as well. Just do most of the stuff on the computer and let Mr. cheap-young-JD sign off on the last mile work on his phone. Each contract he goes through knocks another $100 off his student loan bill. Use the law schools' oversupply to break the legal industry and bring cheap legal services to all.

The main threat will be regulation. Putting lawyers out of work will mean they will try to rewrite the law to ban you. Depending on how you structure it, you might want to ally with a few firms in each vertical to rain fire upon their competitors. As long as you divide and conquer, and some lawyers are profiting from the new regime, it will make it much more difficult for the ABA to achieve consensus on the imminent threat your startup undoubtedly poses to the health of the republic.

EDIT: Even more interesting...as a dotcom you may also be able to market your services in a way that normal lawyers cannot.

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Legal_advertising#In_the_United...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Legal_advertising#In_the_United_States)

<comment><USER4> So I'm a lawyer and you should take my opinion with a grain of salt, but I think you've misread the market.

There has been an oversupply of legal gradutes for decades now. Today, half of law graduates don't get a job, and 90% can't get a job at a big firm. Yet, big firms are still paying $160k+bonus to people fresh out of school, because that's what they have to pay to get kids out of the top 15-20 schools or the tippy-top kids from the lower-ranked schools. Why do they continue to do this when lowering their standards for pedigree could cut their costs massively?

You can say that it's because law firms are stupid and invested in the status quo, but corporate clients surely aren't. Why do firms persist in putting so much stock in hiring Harvard/Yale/etc graduates, and why do clients keep hiring such firms? If there was really an opening in the market you could drive a truck through, what has stopped anyone from taking advantage of it thus far?

<comment><USER3>
      Why do they continue to do this when lowering their
      standards for pedigree could cut their costs massively?

      If there was really an opening in the market you could
      drive a truck through, what has stopped anyone from taking
      advantage of it thus far?

The key reason is that in this scenario, all the intelligence is being implemented in the computer, with a few Stanford JDs at the company making sure the code is up to snuff at a high level.

Then your less-skilled JDs can review the documents mass produced by software, in a sort of legal assembly line. They may not be able to follow chains of complex reasoning, but that's ok: engineers + Stanford JDs already made sure the legal templates and algorithms worked on representative data.

In other words, we are making use here of the old joke - "What do you call the guy who got the lowest GPA in medical school? Doctor."

Similarly, the less-skilled JDs who can't get jobs today do have one very important asset: they passed the boolean threshold and are licensed to practice law. Hollow out everything else, replace it by software, and use this army as scalable last-mile reviewers with the thinking done by code. Their value-add is that they absorb the last mile liability, as they are doing final review before release to client.

This is no different than the way that Intuit replaces the CPA in many situations. Kind of a TaskRabbit for law. By giving jobs to (a) young tech- savvy jobless students and (b) a few top attorneys from the very best law firms to write the contracts, you can do a pincer attack and massively reduce legal costs.

<comment><USER4> For the kind of simple contracts that could be handled by software, people already use form contracts. And remember, you don't need a lawyer at all to draft contracts.

As for more complicated contracts, wake me up when software can negotiate risk allocations for you.

<comment><USER5> Lawyers are not nearly as necessary for negotiating contracts as they want people to believe.

Lawyers, by reflex, attempt to insert themselves in the middle of processes, and naturally tend to create conflict. (This is according to my experience, and the experience of many others.) If a lawyer can do this, the negotiation will naturally take longer, generating billable hours.

Secondly lawyers all know that the person who is in a hurry to get a contract is going to get a worse deal, and so will NEVER be in a hurry to close the deal. But there are times when "winning" this negotiation is simply not worth the delay.

Now step back and look at it from the point of view of a company. Paying lawyers fees is not good. Creating conflict with someone you want to cooperate with is not good. Making negotiations take longer is not good.

Making this concrete, I was in a recent negotiation for a pay for performance compensation. Because it was pay for performance I could quantify how much delays cost the company versus what I will get paid. Their lawyers' delays cost them several times what I will get paid. On my side I did not let my lawyers negotiate. I told them to identify everything in the drafts that I should object to. Then I negotiated without them. Once there was nothing that made me unhappy, I signed. And what I got was pretty much the deal that we agreed to up front, in person, which I emailed to them months earlier.

Limiting my lawyers' role saved me thousands of dollars. If the company had limited theirs, they would have saved thousands of dollars. And would have had a contract faster.

TD;LR, just because your lawyers want to be involved, and try to convince you that they should be, doesn't mean that they are providing value.

<comment><AUTHOR> Those are valid points, and I've seen it from both sides - as a lawyer and as a businessperson. But one of the things missing from your comment is that _good_ lawyers are protecting their clients from the possibility of things going wrong in the future.

Contracts are often unclear and are often broken. Sometimes things just don't work out. Regardless of how, litigation often ensues. That's when the value of a lawyer becomes apparent. It's easy to complain about lawyers during the negotiation - they often needlessly inject themselves into the process - <USER2> it would be worth considering that a good lawyer is trying to protect you in case things go wrong. Look at the Frank McCourt case for an example of where the lawyering was poor and it had a disastrous impact: [http://www.minnlawyer.com/jdr/2010/09/17/legal- malpractice-c...](http://www.minnlawyer.com/jdr/2010/09/17/legal-malpractice- causes-dodger-blues/)

<comment><USER5> I agree. I think it would be stupid to sign any moderately complex agreement without a lawyer having been through it, and having informed you about what you are signing. (I certainly wouldn't sign that.) I also think it would be stupid to have a moderately complex agreement that was not drafted very clearly. And if things go south, you _definitely_ need competent legal counsel.

My entire point was that lawyers like to inject themselves into the process of negotiation, often feel like they are generating value, but in reality tend to generate billable hours and negative client value at the same time.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> I think Thiel misses a key point: getting the right answer isn't necessarily as important as the appearance of justice. Human beings are fundamentally emotional creatures, especially in situations when they feel they have been wronged or are accused of wronging someone else. The whole process of a trial with a human judge and a human jury doesn't just resolve a dispute, but it serves as an emotional palliative allowing people to get beyond the dispute.

And that is, of course, one of the key functions of the legal system as a system of dispute resolution: allowing society to continue to function by helping people get over disputes.

<comment><AUTHOR> I think this is a very good point, and I totally agree about the importance of emotion and the appearance of justice in our legal system. But I'm not sure it follows that the appearance of justice is at odds with getting things _right_. A better system would get things right _and_ feel like a fair system to the participants.

My personal opinion is that you can get both with a more transparent system. In theory, a transparent system would drive consistency, and consistent outcomes would _hopefully_ converge around correct outcomes.

<comment><USER4> I think the danger is when it comes to automation/rigid rules. People want to feel like their problems are unique and being considered in all their unique complexity. That makes achieving transparency or automation hard, because a system of hard and fast rules is more amenable to transparency than a system of fuzzy fact-specific inquiries.

<comment><USER3> But at what cost? There is a tremendous opportunity for pretty-good, bargain- basement, automated legal services.

<comment><USER4> Is there?

There are two kinds of clients in the legal field: rich ones and poor ones. Rich clients don't seek the cheapest legal services in the way they don't look for the cheapest office space or the cheapest office furniture. No board member wants some guy in India poring through his e-mails to do an investigation or diligence for a transaction. For rich clients, saving money and hiring "pretty good" isn't such a great thing if their opposing party spends more money and hires "pretty great."

Poor clients are different. Poor clients do want the lowest possible price for the given result. But poor clients tend to have problems that are hard to outsource. How is an attorney sitting in India supposed to represent you in your divorce, or help you get out of a traffic ticket?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> This is surprisingly naive for someone like Peter Thiel. The law is not an axiomatic rule based system, and it's far too complex and fuzzy to be automated.

We haven't even automated medical records for godsakes!

<comment><USER7> This is surprisingly naive for someone who wants to build a floating city in order to create libertarian paradise?

What would be 'expectedly naive'?

<comment><USER8> _This is surprisingly naive for someone who wants to build a floating city in order to create libertarian paradise?_

Was it surprisingly naive for the explorers and founders of the New World to want to build new societies based upon their ideas? They packed up everything they owned and risked their very lives to go to somewhere lacking an entrenched society so they could build something new.

The effects of their experiment have been disproportionately dominant in the culture and growth of the world for centuries.

Now we're in a world where all the land is spoken for by government bodies that enforce their monopolies on governance through force. Imagine if government said, "There can be no new startup companies. You'll have to influence the existing companies from within." How would entrepreneurs feel about being unable to start new enterprises?

<comment><USER7> A continent generally provides more opportunities to be self-sufficient than a retro-fitted cruise ship.

EDIT: Also, survival rate on those colonization trips? Not so great. And that was with things like DIRT around that you can PLANT things in.

Basically, the 'floating city' idea is just a rebranding of what current cruise ships already offer: Pay exorbitant prices for everything in order to be on the ocean. Ain't no new society coming out of that.

<comment><USER8> _Also, survival rate on those colonization trips? Not so great. And that was with things like DIRT around that you can PLANT things in._

Early colonists didn't know much about desalination and hydroponics.

 _Ain't no new society coming out of that_

You very well may be correct as far as probability of an outcome, but your cynicism and lack of imagination are so very wrong... and sad.

<comment><USER7> Sigh. Plenty died of starvation and exposure. Read up on history sometime, disease was one of the lower risk factors the first few winters.

A bunch of programmers on a boat who need to get every single essential supply from the mainland is not a society. It's a tax avoidance scheme.

It might even be profitable for a generation, until they start having kids and incur more costs.

And the funniest part? Small groups of people in scarcity/survival situations tend to organize themselves into something that looks _much_ more like collectivism than it does capitalism.

When you criticize my lack of imagination, do you mean 'imagine' in the John Lennon sense?

<comment><USER8> Yeah, it's like we don't even speak a similar language.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Well why not start somewhere, create axiomatic TOS for example and proceed with contracts between companies.

There has to be academic groundwork to build something like that, a mixture of CS and law. Maybe some students at a law faculty could create a project together with a few CS students just to get the stone rolling.

A programming language to describe who is responsible for cleaning the flat.</comment>


The case against share buybacks - <AUTHOR> https://app.newsoveraudio.com/article/3321 <comment><USER2> Share buybacks are purely to boost exec remuneration. At these prices they should be stopped or at least restricted based on company debt, etc.

<comment><AUTHOR> A price-to-book cap (similar to Berkshire's) or a share price limit should be set from the outset alright.</comment></comment>


U.S. newsroom employment has dropped 25% since 2008 - <AUTHOR> https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2019/07/09/u-s-newsroom-employment-has-dropped-a-quarter-since-2008/ <comment><USER2> Probably due to Mergers and Acquisitions. Sad.</comment>


NReduce online demo day: live and public - <AUTHOR> http://www.nreduce.com/d

<comment><USER2> (Disclaimer - I recently became an nReduce mentor, but wasn't involved with mentoring any of the companies in the batch that were in the demo day. Watching the demo day has basically been my first interaction with the organisation since filling in my profile form and replying to a few emails.)

On the format:

* Despite all the niggles below - this was an interesting event and experiment. I'm looking forward to what they do in the future.

* A surprising number of companies didn't have a demo or a live site with anything more than a sign up form. The nReduce folk have since tweeted that they were going to have demo videos but ran out of time, they'll be around next month.

* I didn't like the format very much. You could jump between companies live rather than seeing them in sequence, but didn't get the context for what had happened already so I imagine there were lots of repeat questions... and you missed the context when you came into the conversation late. I'd be interested whether they later release the feeds so folk can see the stuff they missed. A linear presentation would be better IMHO.

* Technical problems with the live feed in a couple of times. Also seemed to be some technical problems with some companies seeing questions from audience.

* Bugs in question voting/promotion system seemed to cause some questions to be skipped (ironically the ones that people had voted up as interesting :-)

* Question ordering based on network-reach of asker/promoters seemed over-complex.

On the presentations:

* Lack of demos kinda sucked.

* Felt like a lot of the people needed more coaching on how to pitch and how to answer questions. Lots of N minute answers that should have been 30s answers. Lots of fuzzy answers that should have been crystal clear.

On the companies (basically copy and pasted from my post-demoday #bluntreview tweets :-)

* .@ApptivGames Intrigued to see if this attracts folk who don't have intrinsic motivation for exercise - like me [pitch = using exercise tracking to get virtual points for games online - <http://www.apptivgames.com/> ]

* Edocr - Problem and solution not clear to me. You have customers so something there - needs clarity [pitch = something to do with documents and social media <http://www.edocr.com/>]

* Rentini - You have a working product! Result :) Don't find the USP terribly convincing though [pitch = holiday home finding via activities <http://www.rentini.com/>]

* .@getsuavely - You sound _really_ creepy. Possibly coz I'm old and think you meet people in bars goshdarnit :-) [pitch = dating via social peer recommendation <http://www.suave.ly/> \- whole "wingman" and "validated single" language was real turn off for me... but I'm an old geezer who hasn't been single for 17 odd years now]

* Cloudable.me - The product pitch made sense. Sounds like something I might use. Want demo, not sign up form. [pitch = collect what your social media folk tweet/like and organise that shit for you <http://cloudable.me> \- unfortunately while I was there the founders don't appear to have been able to see their questions]

* .@Meldium - Clear pitch, pain point & solution. Last two companies I worked at would pay for your product. Win! [pitch == centralised management/admin of saas users/services for your organisation. I have experienced this pain in spades. I would buy this at any company with more than six people in it.]

* .@dwelleeinc - Like idea, but pitch lacks clarity. Want a demo not a sign up form. [pitch == crowd sourced finding of apartments... but still not sure _how_ exactly it works dwellee.com]

I didn't have time to go ask the last company, Recollect, any annoying questions :-)

<comment><USER3> Colin here for Suave.ly. Thanks for the questions and feedback - we'll take it into consideration (with a grain of salt since as you say, as a married man for 17 some years, you're not in the market).

We've found most people find it natural since meeting through friends & acquaintances is the top way to meet offline. We are targeting people in their 20s, though.

Cheers!

<comment><USER2> (Just to be clear - you guys didn't come across as creepy in person in the live feed - the "company" did).

I'm not married - but you're right I'm almost certainly not the right market :-)

However - I chucked a link to your site at a couple of friends who are in their late teens (F), early twenties (M), and early thirties (F) who I know don't read my twitter stream. I obvious didn't prime them with my opinion :-)

The responses were "Kinda douchy" (teen F), "Is it a dogging site?" (20s M) and "Looks like something for blokes who want sex" (30's F).

None of them went past your home page.

It's a small sample I know - but it may mean that you're not sending the message that you want to send via your copy and images.

<comment><USER3> Haha, definitely enjoyed the comments from your friends. We'll run through some more A/B testing with copy + images after this feedback, so thank you!

Our conversion rate is decent right now, but it can always get better :)

<comment><USER2> Hey - _please_ listen to reality rather than me if you're converting well :-)

You might have two diverse market segments too I guess..

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> NReduce has been really interesting and done a good job of trying for something different than YCombinator. In many ways it's much more of a complement to traditional startup incubators than a competitor.

Of the startups that I partnered with since June, about 15% have gone on to geographically located accelerators, a few have been acquired/hired for their product, a few have launched and not really gone anywhere and about half never got as far as launching a product.

Personally, I've gotten a huge amount of constructive feedback and a good handful of solid beta testers for my project.

<comment><USER5> I joined in the hopes of getting feedback, but so far the site has just been broken. I can't figure out how to interact with startups, what each video is, uploading is broken, and the founders haven't been very responsive.

I hope things will get fixed, but the experience hasn't been great so far.

<comment><USER6> Hey, I am one of the founders and yes the peer product right now is pretty broken. Our bad on that.

Because we have a demo day / investors / mentors we had to build V1 of all the products first - so that we could get companies to demo day.

As of tomorrow we are starting over on the peer collaboration product / onboarding to make it awesome.

We basically had the first cohort of users go through our system. Now we can get past MVP's on the different products.

That being said I would really appreciate your continued feedback!

And thanks for giving it a shot in the first place!

<comment><USER5> Hey Joe, no problem. I didn't know you had a demo day, I just joined a few days ago. I sent you another email a few hours ago, if you could reply after the demo day so I can figure out why I can't add any startups, I'd appreciate it.

Thanks for your help!

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Off topic: If any nreduce people are reading this: I've signed up on your site but my registration got stuck after the phase where you submit a youtube introduction. I've e-mailed Joe Mellin, who'd emailed us about finishing registration, to no avail. Any assistance would be appreciated. Cheers! :)

edit: Thanks a ton, guys!

<comment><USER8> They've been building the product as they go, in fact they are a team on nReduce themselves. Give them a prod tomorrow after the demo day, they're normally quite responsive.

</comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> Interesting. Founders of 8 companies doing online Q&A simultaneously. Viewers ask questions which get tweeted out with a #nReduceDemoDay hashtag.

You can see all the activity by using your Twitter client to search for #nReduceDemoDay:

<https://twitter.com/#!/search/?q=nReduceDemoDay>

<comment><AUTHOR> I don't like the simultaneous Q&A. I wanted to watch all the teams. It's an 8 ring circus. Of course, I don't like going to conferences that offer multiple tracks, either.

<comment><USER9> @DanielKehoe I think nReduce just needs to figure out how investors can switch quickly between startup windows and get into the right moment of conversation. If there are 8 startups in a bundle, does investor really want to talk/listen to all of them? An ability to skip startups that are not relevant because of their market niche or their stage is actually a great advantage and will help to focus on those that might be more relevant. I think parallel mode is more productive and active. In linear mode some folks may get bored. nReduce needs to play with timing and notification features that will make it rock. E.g. investor submits questions to 3 startups out of 8 and gets notified when startup reached the question in a queue - this will save time and efforts and make the process more interactive

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Hey guys, I like what you're doing. Here is some unsolicited advice: create a startup news magazine like HN.

That's it. Will read it from day one.

HN vs NR.

Endless fights, endless clicks, endless promotion for your startups.

We all win at the end.

</comment><comment><USER11> The only drawback is, there isn't alot of buzz going for it in the media. When it picks up, things will significantly pick up, time will tell.

<comment><USER6> Yeah we have been focusing on providing value for our users. Will be making more of a public presence in the fall.

I like building sleepers :)</comment></comment>


Ask HN: Interesting topics for a "Build a web app in Java" book - <AUTHOR> Hi everyone, I am software developer with experience in Java. By navigating some popular websites/social media, it is common to come across developers launching books for React, Node, Rust, Vue and etc. But I rarely have seen a Java book launch. I am thinking of writing up a practical Java book that helps developers write a full working web application. Some of the topics I am planning to cover are: - REST API - Authentication and authorization - Interaction with the database (PostgreSQL) - Interaction with a Bootstrap front-end - Deploy to cloud services (AWS and Heroku) Would you guys be interested in this? What are some topics you think would be interesting? <comment><USER2> I recently advised a friend who was building a web app in java and after launch he found the site would go down periodically. As the site grew it eventually started going down several times a day. Took weeks for him to find the memory leaks that caused this. Definitely might be good to have a chapter or two toward the end on performance, profiling, scalability, and plugging memory leaks.

<comment><AUTHOR> Makes sense. I have also experienced performance issues in some projects. Thanks for sharing!</comment></comment>


Stairway to Heaven faces another legal battle after judge orders a new trial - <AUTHOR> http://www.abc.net.au/news/2018-09-29/stairway-to-heaven-retrial-ordered-by-judge/10320680 <comment><USER2> I'd known about this case but never listened to the Taurus intro. It appears to be the same descending progression. I can see how this may seem like stolen or copied, but that progression isn't exactly unique. I guarantee that people fiddling around with their instrument are bound to come up with the same progression. Coincidentally, about half the open E progressions in 70s hard rock music are about the same, with small variations. If you listen to one Purple record, and maybe a Rainbow record, you'll hear those same guitar riffs in most records put out in that decade.</comment>


Feedback on a social media campaign - <AUTHOR> http://www.talesfromthe.net/jon/?p=2318

<comment><AUTHOR> And to forestall any knee-jerk flagging: what's new here is a multi-partisan social media campaign around a privacy issue with grassroots groups working together with advocacy organizations. It's especially relevant to web startups because learnings from this are likely to apply to anti-corporate privacy activism as well; many of the organizatons involved (EPIC, BORDC, etc.) also are participating in the FTC complaint against Facebook.

Plus, Bruce Schneier's giving a keynote!</comment>


The Secret Behind Amazon Go: RFID - <AUTHOR> http://www.advancedmobilegroup.com/blog/the-secret-behind-amazon-go-rfid <comment><USER2> IBM has advocated this type of store for years. I've always wondered why it's taken so long to implement.

Shoplifting seems to be very easy. But all you need to do is to put bagging the items until after they are scanned and paid for, that should keep shoplifting to a minimum.

</comment><comment><USER3> I give it a week until someone is selling foil lined bags outside one of these.</comment>


Li-fi protocol allows use of the Internet at the speed of light - <AUTHOR> http://www.alphagalileo.org/ViewItem.aspx?ItemId=143662&CultureCode=en <comment><USER2> Um? I have so many issues with this...

Providing audio via light is a one-way transmission - and also not even close to being new technology. For example, every movie theater or auditorium has the exact same technology in place for the hearing impaired. Special headphones receive the infrared signal and decode it into audio.

Providing Internet connectivity would require a two-way connection. A person's device would have to have a receptor and emitter. This could potentially be the camera and LED flash. Maybe you could go so far as to use the front camera and emit infrared via the screen. But, that means the device has to be in direct line-of-sight of the source. Once the phone or tablet goes into your pocket the connection is lost.

The article sounds like complete bunk.

</comment><comment><USER3> This is either a bad translation or gibberish, I can't determine which.</comment>


Germany: Luxury goods tax on tampons 19%, book tax 9%, book of tampons sells out - <AUTHOR> https://www.theguardian.com/books/2019/jun/21/no-luxury-book-containing-tampons-is-runaway-hit <comment><USER2> 19% is the regular value added tax in Germany. Almost everything is taxed at that rate. Luxury tax is a thing but not in Germany. There is no luxury tax in Germany. There are a very few exceptions for some goods that are taxed at a lower rate. These are by and large basic necessities, public transport and copyrighted works. Books are one example of the last category, but books also have a mandatory fixed book price [1], so their price is not determined by supply and demand.

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

<comment><USER3> I think the point is that feminine hygiene products are also a necessity and should be taxed as such.

<comment><USER2> That _should_ be the point and it would be something hopefully most people would agree with. In reality the whole debate is about a presumed luxury tax applied to the disadvantage of women.

The most revealing thing about this debate is how no one seems to question the point about the luxury tax. It seems that most people here have no idea that they pay 19% on almost everything even if it is stated on every receipt.</comment></comment></comment>


Practical Guide to Bare Metal C++ - <AUTHOR> https://arobenko.gitbooks.io/bare_metal_cpp/content/ <comment><USER2> Copying what I said previously

> I traditionally haven't been the biggest fan of this book. Most of what they > list is stuff that just looks like using C++ just for the sake of it, with > no real benefit over a C codebase.

> For instance they don't appear to use RAII at all, even in places where it's > an obvious win (InterruptLock).

</comment><comment><USER3> 2017: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14471496](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14471496)

2016: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12138374](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12138374)</comment>


Roswell UFO a Soviet mission to panic U.S. - <AUTHOR> http://dvice.com/archives/2011/05/atomic-area-51.php <comment><USER2> I heard this woman on "Fresh Air". Somebody at the CIA, probably after James J. Angelton had tied the agency in knots, set a rule that people could work in counter-intelligence only so long, since the work eventually affected their judgment. I think that the author may have spent a bit long on her book.</comment>


Why it's taking longer to manufacture chips at 10nm and 7nm - <AUTHOR> http://semiengineering.com/battling-fab-cycle-times/ <comment><USER2> So, the thing that interests me is this -- if the biggest time-waster is waiting for the scanner, why not have multiple scanners in that loop, for enhanced parallel processing?</comment>


Apple's Cloud Product Officially Official And It's Called iCloud - <AUTHOR> http://www.crunchgear.com/2011/05/31/apples-cloud-product-officially-official-and-its-called-icloud/ <comment><USER2> Huh, that's interesting, them spilling the (admittedly not at all surprising) beans before the event. Maybe they couldn't convince enough journalists that it's going to be interesting even without iPhone 5.

</comment><comment><USER3> I wish for claud time machine.</comment>


4 Ways A Company Can Own A Market - From Peter Thiel's CS183 - <AUTHOR> http://www.darkheartfelt.com/blog/2012/5/19/4-ways-a-company-can-own-a-market-from-peter-thiels-cs183.html

<comment><USER2> Your blog is so low-contrast that it's damn-near impossible to read. I don't normally have difficulty with low-contrast websites, but yours is really bad.

<comment><AUTHOR> Fixed her!

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> For the article-skimmers out there, "building a brand" is the one not listed in the numbered list.</comment>


I was denied boarding a plane – all because of a hyphen - <AUTHOR> https://www.theguardian.com/money/2018/apr/27/etihad-passport-ticket-name-hyphen-airline <comment><USER2> Yay for data input assumptions.

Then there are also other systems where entering certain characters can simply cause them to be stripped from the stored data.

Or names with apostrophes being cut off or completely breaking the system.

Sometimes basic things like umlauts are even rendered unprintable.</comment>


With Security at Risk, a Push to Patch the Web  - <AUTHOR> http://www.nytimes.com/2008/07/30/technology/30flaw.html?_r=1&partner=rssnyt&emc=rss&oref=login <comment><USER2> * sigh *

A design flaw in BIND is a bad thing; but there are certainly worse scenarios. A remote code execution bug in BIND, for example, would allow everything this bug allows, and more; while remote code execution bugs in Apache, IIS, OpenSSH, OpenSSL, the BSD or Linux IP stacks, Cisco routers, Juniper routers, etc. would all be worse. (A few years ago I would have put Sendmail on that list, but these days there's more diversity in MTAs.)

This is bad, but it's not the end of the world. Unfortunately, "not the end of the world" doesn't sell newspapers.

</comment><comment><USER3> phew, good thing we only have to patch the "web" and not the rest of the internet.</comment>


AMD Catalyst driver update vulnerability - <AUTHOR> http://ceriksen.com/2013/03/17/amd-catalyst-driver-update-vulnerability/

<comment><USER2> The Graphic Drivers for AMD/ATI were always the main reason why I did buy NVIDIA. As long as I can think back, there have always been problems with those drivers.

I didn't have any of their cards for a decade until I got an old company Dell and hooked it up to the TV. From time to time it forgets that there IS sound coming through the HDMI cable. I googled around. Seems to be a common problem for several versions already. It seemed to have been fixed for some people. Some...

I can't understand how you can allow such things as a big company today.

<comment><USER3> Nvidis just had a major security vulnerability too. Hope your drivers are up to date.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> This is an (unfortunately) fairly common class of vulnerability. Many applications fall victim to this form of attack because they don't think to check signatures on binaries. There is a tool, EvilGrade (<https://code.google.com/p/isr-evilgrade/>), designed to assist in demonstrating these types of attacks.

</comment><comment><USER5> [http://support.amd.com/us/kbarticles/Pages/AMDauto- updatenot...](http://support.amd.com/us/kbarticles/Pages/AMDauto- updatenotification.aspx)

> Due to a minor security vulnerability in the auto-update notification

Palm, meet face.

<comment><USER6> What an idiotic response! Instead of moving to SSL or adding a signature check, they just disable the auto-update and tell you to visit their non-SSL site.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> The whole Catalyst driver update process is really shitty, anyway. Several steps for what should essentially be automatic.

<comment><USER8> Let's try to think through why they might not want to make it completely automatic without several steps. Hmmm. What downside could there possibly be. Let's think. Let's think....

Nope, I can't think of any. Oh wait aren't we're actually responding to a post about a vulnerability in the update mechanism, when you say, "not only is it vulnerable, but it should essentially be automatic!" :)

<comment><USER7> Well, I certainly agree that atleast prompting to update is worthwhile, but there are several steps afterwards -- the equivalent of installing a new application -- every time an update comes out.

<comment><USER8> But that is - MUST be - what you're actually doing: the equivalent of installing a new application. That is the only sane way to do it.

Think of how many errors Windows' aggressive updating causes. And that is from Microsoft. They have ONE JOB! (okay, the OS division has one job).

So if they do all this internal testing and still push things onto your OS that cause problems. What is a third party to do?

The sane thing to do is NOT to treat is as a back door that you can push stuff over, even if the customer asks.

The sane thing to do is to treat it like installing a new application. If the 'new' application has problems, then you stop making it available. You're in control. The customer is in control. It's their pc. It doesn't get broken.

Really, for anything that interacts with the hardware and OS on as low a level as a display driver, there is really no alternative to massive testing beforehand.

Once it's in the wild, you should not expect or have the functionality to simply push firmware or software updates. It should take work and commitment from the customer, the same as installing an application. In the case of firmware, perhaps a bit more.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Always nice to know that the drivers that already render my $200 graphics card completely useless also come neatly packaged with a venerability.

</comment><comment><USER10> Update: I take it the automatic update feature was a Windows only thing?

I've had machines using FGLRX off and on for years and never realized it had this feature. Guess that's a good thing, though, considering it evidently was never well implemented. It also seems like bad idea as you might lose compatibility between whichever specific driver/kernel pair if you aren't careful.

But I take exception to those who claim the Catalyst install process is horrendous. I think AMD's process of

./<installerName> \--buildpkg <distro/version>

followed by:

<package manager install command (for example, dpkg -i)> <generated package name>

and tying in to the DKMS subsystem is much more convenient than Nvidia's approach which directly patches itself into your kernel in a way that would force you to manually reinstall it after every kernel update (unless you were using a distro packaged version, obviously). Maybe they've changed that? (Right now I'm using the distro-packaged driver on my nVidia system.)

While I'm not happy with the current AMD Linux driver mostly because it lacks video decode/render accel as nice as VDPAU, I think most of the other frequent complaints about the driver tend to be a little unfair considering how you can often have obnoxious problems with the nVidia binary as well. With things like HDMI it's been my experience that both drivers tend to have some eccentricities, for example.

</comment><comment><USER11> Also, you cannot disable the automatic update in the Catalyst Control Center. Uncheck the Auto Update box, click Apply - the box is checked again.</comment>


With Advent of Mobile, Liquid Layouts Grow More Important . . .  - <AUTHOR> http://www.getelastic.com/liquid-layouts-revisited/

<comment><USER2> I'm reasonably sure this is not true.

Anecdotally, for starters, I've never seen a site do this for mobile.

Even sites with robust liquid layouts cannot be expected to condense to fit in 480px. At that width even ubiquitous things like a 2-column layout don't work well. Displays that small need a different approach.

<comment><USER3> I agree. For the iPhone at least, I think the approach that works best is to be double-tap friendly.

I would rather have a site that retains its standard look and feel but easily lets me zoom into the content I'm interested in than a site that tries to squeeze it's multi-column layout onto a small screen.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Must one give up grids for liquid layouts? Or is there some way to have both?</comment>


The Origin of Complexity in Software - <AUTHOR> https://medium.com/@joakimtengstrand/the-origin-of-complexity-8ecb39130fc <comment><USER2> I liked this. Reminds me of an essay I can't find at the moment from a Microsoft manager during the 80s working on their large excel development team. They studied how communication costs in large teams go up as the number of team members goes up SQUARED because of the new intercommunication that has to happen. So it makes sense that less coordination is favored by more experienced developers.</comment>


Quadcopter Project - <AUTHOR> http://www.objc.io/issue-8/

<comment><USER2> This TED talk about quadcopters is also worth watching: [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w2itwFJCgFQ](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w2itwFJCgFQ)

</comment><comment><USER3> Great design. That is all.

</comment><comment><USER4> Awesome...!

</comment><comment><USER5> Great Project. Kudos!</comment>