High Salaries Haunt Some Job Hunters - <AUTHOR> http://www.wsj.com/articles/high-salaries-haunt-some-job-hunters-1454634475 <comment><USER3> "Time and again, he says, employers seem to lose interest after he answers a question that they ask early on: 'What was your last salary?'"

I never answer that question.

Almost always it's been recruiters asking that (and only some recruiters, the less reputable ones).

This is a seller's market for IT talent. You don't have to give in to bullying tactics to get a good job. I've had to walk away exactly once when a recruiter wouldn't accept that I wasn't going to tell him my previous salary and refused to work with me on that basis. The other recruiters who've asked accepted my refusal to reveal that information. They're generally more interested in getting paid for recruiting you than in finding out what you used to be paid.

I also never reveal the salary I'm looking for and insist on doing my own salary negotiations with the employer. I let the employer make an offer they think is reasonable and go from there.

You do have to be willing to walk away in the handful of times when this leads to an impasse. Fortunately, the way the IT job market is right now, there are plenty of other fish in the pond, and not showing your hand prematurely puts you in a much stronger negotiating position.

<comment><USER4> As someone who's regularly on the other side of the hiring (i.e. negotiating with candidates), I often prefer to have some insight into a candidate's rough salary requirements early in the process -- especially if it's someone that might demand more than I could offer. The hiring process is a huge time commitment for both me and the candidate -- I don't want all that time to be wasted if we could identify early on that it's not going to be a good fit.

I wouldn't necessarily walk away from a candidate who wouldn't share approximate salary requirements early on in the process but it would probably be an added red flag if it was someone where I already had this concern.

<comment><USER3> So just tell the candidate what the salary range for the position is. If that number's a dealbreaker for them, they'll let you know. Why does it always have to be the candidate who shows their cards first?

Personally, for me there are no salary-based dealbreakers. There's always room for negotiation, after both sides determine there's a good fit.

<comment><USER5> Consider that recruiters also have to justify their own existence. From a business perspective, their position is a sunk cost. If they can't signal to their employer that their work is gaining the business something above and beyond just doing their day-to-day job then there's no chance of advancement.

They also dislike candidates that show proficiency in business for a few reasons.

First, the candidate is more likely to move on for a better opportunity.

Second, people with a business background like to 'shake things up' and head in new directions looking to maximize the potential of a company. Considering that HR's other primary responsibility is protecting the business from legal action, it's in their best interest to choose candidates who will stay on the straight and narrow and not shake things up.

Third, business types ignore the 'gatekeepers' and take action on their own. They may make a groundbreaking decision that takes the business in a new and more profitable direction. Unfortunately for HR, it's hard to ride on the back of an accomplishment that they weren't aware of to begin with. Worse yet, that same type of personality may have the potential to climb up the chain to a level where they're the boss of the HR person one day.

They aggressively select for 'code monkeys' because code monkeys do what their told, don't have enough soft skills to be a threat, suck at negotiation, and are too busy nerding out to look for something better.

<comment><USER6> How does HR "ride on the back of an accomplishment?" For example, if a sales team hits their sales goals how is it that HR would get credit for this? Are you grouping "management" under the umbrella of HR?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> I expect there is more than one factor at work here.

I've known folks who "grew up" in a single company; joined out of college, worked there 15+ years, got annual raises, then got laid off and then couldn't find work at their previous salary. And the expectation of an annual raise kept forcing up their salary but I don't think the company was actually evaluating whether or not the person was getting more valuable over time.

I once had an interesting conversation with a recruiter who wanted me to pony up my current compensation. I asked, "Why is that relevant? You are the one with the job, and you are willing to pay some amount for someone to do that job, isn't it up to me to decide if I would be willing to do that job at the price offered?" There are jobs I would do for free, and jobs that you almost couldn't pay me enough to take, and that has nothing at all to do with what I'm currently being paid.

And if someone insists, I really do think they are looking to have something on paper that they can point to which will give them a safe "out" for hiring someone else while minimizing lawsuits. So much safer than "we are looking for someone who has more time to spend in this position", or "we were really hoping for a masculine point of view", or "we don't think you could relate culturally to our customers." All of which would violate the equal opportunity guidelines.

<comment><USER8> Both sides are interested in getting a price and, ultimately, it's the person in the weaker position who ends up revealing theirs. Imagine the roof of your house was getting old and started to leak, so you figure it's time to replace it. Upon contacting a roofing company and inquiring what it would cost, they say "You're the one who wants a new roof and are willing to pay for that being done, so you should be offering a price. How much is having a dry roof over your family's head and preserving your home's value by avoiding water damage worth to you? What's the current value of your home? Perhaps we can work on a percentage basis since we're protecting your investment for the next 20 years." Of course, you wouldn't accept such an "enterprise sales" tactic because they're in the weaker position (fairly close to being a commodity) and you have dozens of qualified choices so you'll insist they reveal their hand.

A job situation is no different. If it's a role requiring only "commodity" experience which dozens of qualified candidates are available for and wanting, they're going to pick the best combination of price and performance that they can find. If you have special talents that only you are uniquely suited for, you're the one who will be asking them about their offer.

<comment><USER7> True, in the article the people are looking for jobs as opposed to being cold called / emailed by a recruiter. As an employer one of the things I liked about hired.com was that you could put out there the salary you were willing to pay for the position and that got that out of the way right away.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> The moral of the story: never, never, NEVER answer questions about your salary to a recruiter. It firmly pigeonholes your next salary to your current one, instead of the value you bring to a company.

Patrick MacKenzie's article on salary negotiations is excellent (I would maybe even say "required") reading on the subject.

<comment><USER10> Recruiter here. I think: "The moral of the story: never, never, NEVER answer questions about your salary to a recruiter." is pretty simplistic and naive. You simply have to figure out how to get what you want. If you want 180 and currently make 140 and a recruiter asks what you make, just say something like "my expectation for my next role is around 180". You say that and you both probably get what you want and save a lot of back and forth.

<comment><USER11> Not a recruiter but I've gotten all but my current job through recruiters.

I think the quoted moral still applies - you obviously _have_ to disclose what you want to earn if you expect to actually earn that. However, what I made at my last job had zero bearing on my expected salary at my current job. If a recruiter is just trying to find out what I want, they can ask. However, I think more often than not they're getting paid on the spread and if they can place me in a job with a cap of $180 for $150, they'll do so and pocket whatever their percentage of the spread is.[0]

[0] I know this isn't how all recruiters are paid, but many are.

<comment><USER10> While I'm mostly an internal recruiting manager, I've signed a lot of these deals and have a lot of recruiter friends and know their general contract structure. I do not know of anyone and have never seen a recruiter compensation package where they were paid on spread. That just seems like an incentive to hire someone other than the best person for the job. Seems really strange to me.

<comment><USER11> As recently as 2010 Aerotek paid their recruiters exclusively on a percentage of spread.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> "Say, 'I'm open to a salary commensurate with the job," recommended Blake Nations, a former recruiter who was laid off and then founded Over50JobBoard.com. "And if they keep going, ask: 'What do you expect to pay someone with my experience and education for this position?'"

This. If you're asked early on just flip the question back to them.

Companies don't publish salaries for jobs because they're afraid of turning people off from applying to the job in the first place. They know applicants are more likely to take a lower offer after they've invested time into the process and maybe have a little rapport with the interviewers. You can use the exact same strategy as a job seeker. Companies can be more likely to accept a higher ask after they've put resources into interviewing you and gotten to know you a bit.

That said, an honest chat about expectations early on - where the hirer says roughly how much they're looking to pay and asks if it's something you'd be interested in - can be a really nice way to save everyone's time.

<comment><USER13> That advice doesn't apply at all when you are going through a recruiter who is or plays dumb: "I just need you to fill in this form so we can proceed. [I don't care if if makes you mistrust me and management, and you come in on Day 1 suspicious and with low morale]" Big companies, at least, have a relatively streamlined process to tilt the negotiations in their favor as much as they can systemically.

<comment><USER3> I fill out those forms but leave that field empty. If they have a problem with that, I'll find another recruiter. There's no shortage of them around.

As for big companies, I've never had any of them even notice that I didn't fill in that field. So that's never been an issue.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> > _After more than 20 years as an electronics engineer, Pete Edwards reached > the low six-figure pay level._

Where is it that late-career engineers are barely pulling in six figures? Don't get me wrong, it's a lot of money (3x mean personal income in the US, and ~1.75x mean HHI, give or take), but I'd expect most senior folks in any engineering field to be in the mid 100k range if not pushing 185ish.

> _Time and again, he says, employers seem to lose interest after he answers a > question that they ask early on: "What was your last salary?"_

Your last salary has absolutely no bearing on what you are worth or what the market rate is for the position for which you're applying. You have absolutely nothing to gain by sharing a previous salary.

> _A survey by AARP last year found that of job seekers between 45 and 70 > years old who found work after a spell of unemployment, nearly half earned > less than before._

I don't think this is that surprising, is it? If I make $100k and lose my job, often with little notice, I will take $80k. If I make $100k and leave of my own volition, it's unlikely I'll entertain anything below $110 or $115.

<comment><USER14> At 45 you become untouchable. Too old to be young, too young to be old. How many 50 year olds do you see in SV companies?

I knew a guy who was about 50, brilliant, brilliant engineer working for one of the big IT players. Well respected and trusted advisor to many customers. He got vaporized in some big restructuring that hit his division.

Because of non-compete and what he did, he was basically out of work for almost a year, and was stuck in career purgatory for a few years doing random contract work.

<comment><USER15> I don't understand - I thought non-competes were unenforceable in CA?

<comment><USER16> Wasn't clear in the CA and the non-compete parts of that comment were connected.

However, in any case, the reality is that for small companies, for all but the most senior and/or desired employees (and even then), a potential non-compete issue just isn't worth dealing with. Doesn't matter whether it would ultimately lose in court, you're just not prepared to go there. That's the real issue with non-competes.

I've worked for a small firm and a candidate with even the most peripheral non-compete was just a non-starter.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> I have been thinking about this phenomenon for awhile and how to hedge against it. My feeling is that employees are getting more and more exposed to broader economic trends, and not just the low-wage workers.

It's one thing to be at the low end of the totem pole, where anonymity and insecurity force you to hedge against the possibility of suddenly losing your job. But once you clear all that and find a bit of professional success, you're still not necessarily secure.

So you have to extend this hedging behavior further out. Keep building your skills, expand into other fields so that you are more employable. Complacency will put you into this position eventually, it's just a matter of time.

Don't leave a secure position to take one with more earning potential but less security. Constantly keep building bridges at your current job and don't give them a reason to fire you.

Above all, try not to hate your job. You may find 5 years down the road that it was the best thing you had going for you. As nasty as the work world can get, it's better than not working.

<comment><USER18> That's rather depressing to hear. I think it is a question of how you rate yourself (objectively). If you're good, you can go on to found the biggest hedge fund of all time (Bridgewater). If not, then yea, I think yours is the way to go.

<comment><USER17> Eh, I wouldn't look at it that way. Avoiding complacency and building bridges is just as important for those with healthy egos as it is for those with weak ones.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> In my view the entire problem is that developers in general have been brainwashed into beliving that they are better off dealing with recruiters when in fact the best thing they could do for themselves would be to do their homework, that is, research companies that are hiring, figure out who to contact, and write a personalized introduction email.

If you do that then you have two things in your favor already..

1\. you are cheaper to hire because there are no recruitment feeds associated with you.

2\. you showed some initiative to zero them out, and you demonstrated that you have creative writing skills which are an important trait in software development

<comment><USER20> These are the bread and butter tactics of What Color Is Your Parachute. Still a relevant book, even in the tech industry IMO.

</comment></comment><comment><USER21> Finding engineers is soooo hard! There are no good engineers!

<comment><USER22> Translation: "There are no good engineers who will work for the price I'm willing to pay, either in terms of initial dollars or time to retrain."

As the realtors I worked with used to say about houses, "there's no problem that price won't fix", and that works for labor as well as real estate.

</comment></comment><comment><USER23> This is a surprise, said no one ever.

Sometimes companies will pay for experience but often they'll hire someone younger who screws up more because they cost less.

<comment> y-c-o-m-b They might think it costs less, but I argue that's misleading. You need to factor in the mistakes, the longer training, slower adaptation, inefficiency, and a client's growing dissatisfaction with the product because of it all.

<comment><USER23> I don't think it's misleading. Companies know mistakes cost money and experience doesn't always associate with better productivity.

<comment><USER24> Most companies don't have a inkling of how to actually measure productivity.

<comment><USER22> To be fair, neither do most employees. It's a hard problem.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment> y-c-o-m-b Companies that hire like this will typically be the first to layoff employees when shareholders are not happy. They often struggle to meet customer expectations over time. This is particularly true if they have never ending layers of management going up the chain. That's why startup culture is so appealing to many.

<comment><USER25> If you buy at Walmart prices, expect Walmart quality.

</comment></comment><comment><USER26> I recently found myself in a stale role, and hence I've been job searching lately, so I have recent experience. From my anecdotal experience, the local job market is hot for my skill set, so I'm looking for a 10% raise. I've gotten 3 offers from 3 companies. Two would not come up to my required salary so I walked. The third came up, but it was a W2 at a contracting shop, and wasn't too appealing for a couple of reasons. So I passed on that as well. I still get pinged multiple times per week, sometimes for the same job at the same company I've already turned down, which I find a bit amusing.

Now I'm continueing the search, but openly talk about what I'm looking for salary wise, I've wasted quiet a lot of my own time this past month.

</comment><comment><USER27> Moving from engineer in financial industry to engineer in "regular" industry (same city) I just accepted and told potential employers I expected a pay cut. Sooo much money in finance, everyone is "over" paid.

<comment><USER28> I'm in finance and looking to get out. Why did you move?

<comment><USER27> Nothing to do with industry. I was in a more or less dead end devops role. I wanted more of a pure programming role.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER29> The tendency to talk about salary upfront is a good one for both sides - <USER2> avoids wasting everyone's time when the expectations simply don't align.

It does need to be mutual though. I expect employers to include some salary guidance in a job ad. And if they claim to offer market rates, I expect them to live up to that.

<comment><USER30> > It does need to be mutual though.

No it doesn't. The hiring company needs to be upfront, but the candidate doesn't. The company has a budget range set for the position whereas the candidate is asking the question 'Am I willing to do this job for the money they are offering me.'

<comment><USER29> Disagree. Most of the time the company could in fact pay 2x what they thought was the top of their range for an exceptional candidate. It's a rare candidate who's in a position to take an exceptional job for 1/2 what they thought was the bottom of their range.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER31> I did something sort of crazy when the last recruiter asked me about my salary. I lied.

The number I told him I was being paid at the time was actually the number it would take for me to leave my job. He came back with an offer that was slightly higher than that and I accepted.

Perhaps that's not the best idea?

</comment><comment><USER32> Sigh, paywall

<comment><USER33> Click the web link below the title, then click the story in the google results. Pay wall goes down.

<comment><USER34> Actually it doesn't. WSJ seems to have closed the google loophole.

<comment><USER33> That's weird, worked for me.

<comment><USER35> Your WSJ cookies don't reflect enough prior access or were cleared.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER36> I am only ever in the market for co-founder jobs, and not really looking at the moment, because I really like my current co-founder job. Besides good domain knowledge, and preferably an existing customer base, the non-technical co-founder will need to find enough money for the startup to survive until the inflection point. Otherwise, they are 12 in a dozen. If a potential non- technical co-founder wants to save money by not paying enough, it is quite easy to cut the discussion short and to move on to another candidate -- entire websites full of them. There is really no shortage there. Lather, rinse, repeat. Salary history? Sounds like a ridiculous concept. I don't even remember my previous salaries.

</comment><comment><USER37> Wow, madness. So before we were told not to ask the question in interviews; but suddenly it's ok to be asked the question in interviews.

For me it's definitely negotiable. If you can't afford me then after negotiation then any gulf can be made up with a guaranteed longer contract or shorter hours; it's as simple as that.

Disqualifying off the bat is stupid, especially as some places pay extra because they need someone urgently for a short period.

</comment><comment><USER38> Interesting discussion here about whether candidates and companies should reveal their range up front. Personally I would not quit freelancing except for something really exceptional, so I lean toward talking numbers immediately. That saves my time, but I feel like it's actually pretty unreasonable. In the freelancing world, we suffer from a "market for lemons" situation where the bad freelancers hurt everyone's rates. To charge a premium rate you need prospects to trust you a priori, which probably means referrals. I suppose candidates for full-time jobs suffer the same thing: asking for an "unrealistic" salary at the beginning of the process, when you are an unknown, just gets you thrown out. I suppose the way around this is to have an insider who will vouch for you. Any other advice on being able to ask for a high salary and not be dismissed?

<comment><USER39> I think it's more about company margins/culture than it is about them not dismissing you.

Some companies are willing to pay top dollar, others are more interested in getting someone in their range, so name your price and move on if they blink.

</comment></comment><comment><USER40> "I'm unemployable now as a result of getting to the top of the tree"

This shows a lack of understanding of the market and poor self-awareness for someone who claims to be at the top of the tree.

The average company is looking to employ someone who will do the same job cheaper.

In order to earn more, it's necessary to identify employers who are willing to pay a premium for convenience or for an unusually skilled or experienced worker, and be aware of those before getting laid off.

This man seems particularly aggrieved that he lost a role to a "young woman with five years experience". A white man should not and does not automatically trump a woman - if he costs more (which he doesn't actually know for sure) then that's his problem.

</comment><comment><USER41> This is why for every thing I learn in IT/computer, I angle for a skill that I can use in freelance or 1-person company. Not interested in some proprietary skill that requires expensive hardware to stay current. Such as Cisco or storage stuff.

</comment><comment><USER42> The article doesn't really address it directly but they seem to be mainly talking about people who are looking for jobs who are currently _unemployed_. They are in a position of weakness when it comes to looking for a job and especially when negotiating salary. I think this has way more to do with that than any alleged trend of talking about salary up front. It's been the norm for decades to ask framing questions about salary early on.

</comment><comment><USER43> I find recruiters hurt this more than help it too. If you tell them your last salary, they'll just try to get enough % more to make it worth the transition.

<comment><USER44> Why not tell them an imaginary salary then?

<comment><USER45> >Why not tell them an imaginary salary then?

Indeed.

After all, some companies suddenly become "flexible" once they find a candidate who really blows them away. Their alleged "top range" becomes malleable. So their range can be imaginary as well. In the information war that both sides are waging, similar tactics can be used.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER46> IMO the whole situation could easily be avoided if employers provided salary ranges up front. I heard that's what they do in Japan, and several recruiter pings I have received from there did contain the ranges. Alas they were too low to justify the aggravation of moving to another country, but from what I can tell, they were very respectable by Tokyo standards.

</comment><comment><USER47> As someone who keeps getting more and more money, I find other limit as well. Your only job is to be in-demand and don't tell recruiters everything. Let them tell you, how much they can get you (and this is often bull, so think and research).

</comment><comment><USER48> TL;DR people who are unemployed aren't willing to take less than 100,000 a year and feel like the system is screwing them?

Off topic, but I've said I won't answer it because of commercial in confidence reasons before.</comment>


Speaking of Facebook Type-ahead Ordering - <AUTHOR> http://blog.knoopgroup.com/speaking-of-facebook-type-ahead-ordering

<comment><USER2> So, G+ has no qualms about sharing data that even Facebook doesn't want to share. The data itself isn't very damaging, or sensitive. However, its definitely a very useful data for publishers. This is particularly interesting as G+ loves to brag about its enhanced privacy.

<comment><AUTHOR> As evident by most reactions to the news yesterday, I'd say that most people absolutely do not want this information shared with -anyone-.

However, I doubt G+ has the social graph built up yet to form such an insightful list yet.</comment></comment>


Samsung solar-powered laptop – One hour use per two hours charging? - <AUTHOR> http://liliputing.com/2011/06/first-look-at-samsungs-solar-powered-nc215s-netbook.html

<comment><USER2> Many buyers of solar chargers (esp. moi) are surprised to encounter the reality: we don't stay in a sunny place long enough to obtain a meaningful charge. We move, shadows are cast, clouds pass, valuables are stashed & secured. We don't sit still (save for our ill-lit cubicle caves), we worry about theft, weather happens.

One hour use per two hours charging is fair given the technology. Short of extreme scenarios, are you seriously going to leave your laptop out in the open, most likely unattended, for 2+ hours? or all day?

<comment><USER3> _out in the open, most likely unattended, for 2+ hours?_

Balcony comes to mind. But yes, I'd be worried about rain showers.

I think the optimal form-factor for a portable solar charger would be a water- proof, inflatable umbrella (with a stand).

Such an umbrella charger could double as sun-shade while you're working and as rain-protection when you leave the laptop out on a table.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Full, noontime sunlight with the panel optimally aimed delivers less than 50 watts to an area the size of that solar panel. Multiply by solar panel efficiency and you are under 8 watts of charging power.

</comment><comment><USER5> Hmm. I bet it has conventional "electric power plug" mode charging too. When using this netbook outdoors while sunny you'll get some very long battery life indeed. :)

</comment><comment><USER6> Forget Africa... I do both creative writing and hiking, and like to combine the two. This would be great for that.

<comment><USER7> Or you could bring a paper notebook and pen.

<comment><USER6> I do, but I like to type sometimes. I type much faster than I write, much closer to the speed of thought.

Whether I like to type or write is a total mood preference thing.</comment></comment></comment>


Physicists Observe the Higgs Boson's Elusive Decay - <AUTHOR> https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/physicists-observe-the-higgs-bosons-elusive-decay/ <comment><USER2> (did they switch it on wait 5 sec then back on ) ADVANCE FIX KEY</comment>


Ask HN: I only have HackerNews cred of (15), does it matter? - <AUTHOR>

I've submitted a few links and comments on HackerNews but like more users, I don't ever make it to the front page. Actually, most of my stuff usually gets 2, maybe 3, total ^ on HN.
So, here's my question. Does it really matter?
Is my (15) cred number with HackerNews just a vanity metric or does HackerNews actually improve my experience or sharing ability as I get a higher cred number?
Thoughts? <comment><USER2> You asked the same question at 10 karma and got a detailed response from anigbrowl:

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5948259](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5948259)

</comment><comment><USER3> At 500 you get the downvote. Your karma impacts how your comment is ranked on the page IIRC.

Besides that it's a vanity metric.

I'd actually prefer to know how many people read my comment more than I would how many people felt like giving me imaginary points over it.

</comment><comment><USER4> Myself I do not check for the user karma when up voting the link or comment. I do it if I like the content.

</comment><comment><USER5> If it's any consolation, it's up to 16 now...

</comment><comment><USER6> So there... you have your answer. At least you have more than my meager 7.

</comment><comment><USER7> Haha sucker, I have 33!</comment>


Do You Have A Right to Remain Silent? Thoughts on Salinas v. Texas - <AUTHOR> http://www.volokh.com/2013/06/17/do-you-have-a-right-to-remain-silent-thoughts-on-the-sleeper-criminal-procedure-case-of-the-term-salinas-v-texas/

<comment><AUTHOR> This is fairly legal-nerdish, but submitted because it relates pretty directly to some issues in the tech community over when you can (under U.S. law) refuse to give up passwords, and similar issues.

It's also worth a read if you're simply an American interested in these issues, because it recaps the current 5th-amendment law quite clearly.

<comment><USER2> The tech community honestly needs more legal literacy, so I for one encourage this kind of posting. The general level of literacy I've seen is about average for the American public, but we often believe it's much, much higher than that because Internet Principles.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> This court has taken a very interesting stance. This ruling, plus some earlier rulings regarding the 4th amendment has made it clear, that one has to understand, intimately, the nuances of ones' rights and act accordingly, in order for those rights to apply. Otherwise, they have agreed to waive those rights.

<comment><USER4> The same thing already applies in the courtroom (ignoring the hyperbolic word choice of "intimately" and "nuances"). When you take the stand in court, you have to explicitly invoke your fifth amendment right. Nobody is required to tell you your rights.

The article explains how Miranda rights were already special. The requirement for the police to explain your rights was to mitigate the fact that custodial interrogation is inherently coercive (am I free to go? no.) and there is no judge present to interpret the law.

<comment><USER5> In the courtroom you have legal counsel, and if your lawyer doesn't help you to the best of their abilities they can be disbarred.

<comment><USER4> You won't necessarily have legal counsel if you're a witness.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> So we are now in a situation where if I am not under arrest, the things I don't say may be used against me, unless I explicitly assert that I am not waiving my rights as soon as possible.

<comment><USER7> To be clear: This was always true (legally), and this decision doesn't change this.

As long as it was not a custodial interrogation, and you had not been formally charged, your words could be used against you (ignoring other procedural evidence rules for a second) without Miranda or other warnings.

The only thing his decision changes is a long-standing open issue of when silence can be offered as proof of guilt.

<comment><USER8> >> The things I _don 't_ say may be used against me

>This was always true

(emphasis mine)

On the other hand, the fact that there was a SCOTUS case about it means that while it may always have been true, it wasn't clear to everyone that it was true.

<comment><USER6> That was my emphasis as well. There are all sorts of internal internal- psychological/perceived-sociological reasons someone may go silent when in the presence of seemingly friendly authority (if one comes from an authoritarian household or religious background) that suddenly appears to turn on you.

The layman who hasn't had a brush with adversarial police investigation techniques and doesn't have an explanation for a (seemingly) factual assertion by the police may simply not know how to respond, knows he needs to tread carefully lest something get pinned on him, but is unaware that silence is not considered careful _at this moment_ (since, if he remembers, he is talking to the police without being cautioned or under custody).

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> "At trial, the government argued that Salinas had committed the murder based in part on his response to the question about the shotgun shells. The prosecutor argued to the jury that an innocent person would have said, "What are you talking about? I didn't do that. I wasn't there." But Salinas didn't do that; he remained silent. And that suggested guilt. Notably, Miranda's footnote 37 didn't apply because Salinas was not in "custody" for Miranda purposes. He was at the stationhouse voluntarily, not by force, so Miranda didn't apply. The question before the Court was whether the government was allowed to argue about the significance of the defendant's pre-arrest silence to the jury."

The gist of the case, for those not keen on reading the lengthy introduction.

<comment><USER10> Which is stupid. I would think to myself I am being accused of a crime, I better remain silent lest they try to pin this on me.

I have tried being polite, but it's quickly getting to the point where the righteous indignation is such that you want to resort to cursing the judge for his moronic legal fiction to justify this.

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> When will motherfucking Scalia and Thomas just god damned _die_ already?

<comment><USER12> Not the most sophisticated approach to constitutional law, but they are 77 and 64 respectively. Please consult your local actuarial table.

<comment><USER13> Thomas and Scalia are on the right side of civil liberties and constitutional issues about a third of the time, anyway. What we really want is to replace someone who's almost always wrong, someone who sides with power and hierarchy and insider influence over the individual whenever he gets the chance. Alito is 63.

<comment><USER14> It's pretty ridiculous that they would both overturn Griffin if given the chance. I kind of "understand" their viewpoint but its just wrong and completely erodes the spirit of the fifth amendment. I can't think of a better way to say it though.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> I think there's a secondary issue that should be at play in this case (I haven't read the opinion, so they might have addressed this). Independent of the 5th amendment, prosecutors are generally not allowed to introduce prejudicial evidence, or evidence that would exploit the irrationality of humans more that provide actual evidence. It feels like this type of body language analysis would qualify. Perhaps if there was someone with training in body language, and he could cite research generally accepted by the scientific community, that his method of analysis produces reliable results, then this may be admissible.

Of course, they should also maintain a recording of the interview so the defense can use it, and to mitigate the potential for human failures. The cost of this seems negligible, so the only reason I can see them not doing this is if they don't want the full account of what happened precisely to be shown.

<comment><USER16> I have to disagree, the body language as described in the Nth hand reports I've read sounds like a useful "tell", especially in the context of the questioning.

But as you imply, let the jury decide by watching the video.

<comment><USER15> >But as you imply, let the jury decide by watching the video.

That is not at all what I intended to imply. If the defendant choices to do so, let him present to video to the jury. If the prosecution wants to show the video (or use the gesture at all), they should be prepared to demonstrate that it is not prejudicial evidence, and probably get an expert to testify and explain what the gestures do and do not suggest.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> The debate mental-chess that the lay-person needs to understand is, quite honestly, terrifying. So now, if a police officer asks you an incriminating question off the cuff, and you say "I would like a lawyer" or "I invoke the 5th" or even say nothing, without a legal background you may find yourself in a situation where what was said / wasn't said can be used against you?

This can't be what was originally intended by those amendments.

<comment><USER18> Am I under arrest?

      No? Walk away.
      Yes? Please read me my rights.

Problem solved. Don't answer half the questions, immediately ask why you are being detained, and if you are under arrest.

<comment><USER19> The critical problem here is the police response to an attempt to walk away. This may lead to an arrest that is aggravated by a charge of resistance. One might be able to fight that away in the courts, but the state of policing over the last few years leaves me feeling quite uncomfortable with the prospect of walking away unscathed.

<comment><USER16> This could be nitpicking an abbreviated binary choice. The usual advice is to ask if you are free to leave. If the answer is no, then you know you're being detained and can act accordingly.

<comment><USER19> Indeed, asking if you are free to leave is the better question. Not so much an abbreviated binary choice, but more a response to the suggestion as given.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> How in the world "Would the shells from his shotgun match the shells found at the murder scene?" is "the government is not actually forcing him to be a witness against himself"?

And why police even allowed to ask questions like this when person is not even a suspect?

</comment><comment><USER21> So you have the right to remain silent...as long as you're abreast of the latest SCOTUS ruling and understand them. In rather words you may need to be a lawyer and no niceties with the cops: am I under arrest? No, adios then.

If they want to arrest you, they'll arrest you anyway.</comment>


After Misjudging Market, Bike Maker Vanhawks (YC W16) Has Been Resurrected - <AUTHOR> https://techvibes.com/2016/10/18/vanhawks-has-been-resurrected-with-new-plan <comment><USER2> "a $1,500 USD bike that can be connected to smartphones via bluetooth and track rider statistics, such as route and speed, in real-time."

So it's a bike with built in GPS? That connects to my phone, which also has GPS? What the heck. What am I missing that makes this product not such an obviously dumb idea? What can this do that I can't accomplish with a mobile app, or with a smart watch strapped to the handlebars?

<comment><USER3> Hey, David from Vanhawks here. One of the nice things about the Valour is that we will continue to develop the platform while you ride the bike - it will get better the longer you own it as we release new features. And, if you worried about whether we'll be around long enough to make that happen, I feel confident in saying yes.

Check out our latest news on our new structure here: [http://blog.vanhawks.com/2017/04/26/in-case-you-missed- it/](http://blog.vanhawks.com/2017/04/26/in-case-you-missed-it/)

<comment><USER4> Apps on cell phones can also be updated over time. I've got a GPS already in the cell phone that will measure speed etc, and as I replace the cell phone that hardware will get better over time and support more features from an app.

Bikes, on the other hand, don't tend to be treated as a disposable / frequently upgraded thing. You're asking customers to buy in to a fixed set of hardware for a dozen years. That means you've got to provide some really significant value to the equation, and offer something that is just not even remotely possible with an ordinary cell phone.

So far as I can figure the only thing you offer in that regards is blind-spot detection sensors, and that seems like something I could realistically expect to see from bicycle electronics companies within a reasonably short time frame, for way less than $500.

I'm still not sure what exactly your significant value-add is. I'm not trying to shit on you or your product. The bike looks great. I just think you need to think very carefully about how you are marketing it, and what exactly you're offering to persuade someone to pony up an additional $500 or so over a normal bike.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Misjudged is an understatement. There is no appetite for these over-priced "Connected" bikes. They are essentially taking a $1000 Chinese carbon bike and selling it for $1500 with the extra cost attributed to an integrated, non- upgradeable computer and some sensors, all of which can already be found in any given customer's existing smartphone, which can easily be mounted onto whatever bike the customer wants. I don't get why anyone would take a bicycle, something that has a useful lifespan of potentially decades and integrate it with technology that will become obsolete in less than a couple of years. Just because you can put a computer and sensors in something doesn't mean you should or that anyone will pay for it.

<comment><USER6> The same is true for juicero, internet connected refrigerators, and almost everything else connected to the internet. Plenty of people will pay more for things because they are internet connected

<comment><USER7> I dont think you want Juicero to be your example of a successful IoT startup.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> I think the bike market is already in the process of being disrupted by online sales. Many shops are struggling or have already closed. There are several successful online-only brands in the mountain bike world such as Commencal, YT, and Canyon. One difference I see between those companies and Vanhawks is that they clearly offer the best value in their market segment (in terms of price). The Vanhawks bike is not directly comparable to other bikes out there, so it's hard to know if it's a good deal or not. I also wonder how many commuters will want to spend $2k on a bike. The mountain bike brands I mentioned are all aimed at enthusiasts and are able to leverage professional sponsorships and mountain bike specific media outlets to validate their product in the eyes of potential customers.

<comment><USER9> I spent $1400 on mine a few years back. A nice touring bike that is also good for commuting. And on top of that, I've added a dynamo hub, lights, reflective paint, switched out the fenders (twice), and other customizations. But then, I put more miles on the bike than I do on our car, so it's totally worth it for me.

On the other hand, I'd never buy this Vanhawk unless I could be certain, for instance, that the electronics would withstand New England winters (I can tell you that ordinary cycle computers do not!). I gave up replacing them because what they tell you is not needed for commuting. I know the route, I know how long it takes, I do it every day. Also, there doesn't seem to be bosses for racks or water bottle holders, which I consider pretty essential.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> Purchasing a bike is a very tactile experience. How does it feel when you're on it? Anyone whose ever was a bike aficionado should know that. The only people I know who bought one and had it shipped (e.g., Davidson, Serotta, Rodriguez) still went to see one first.

How do you know enough about bikes to build one out of carbon fiber but don't get that?

<comment><USER11> You could say the same thing about shoes (Zappos) or mattresses (Casper). I think you're conflating your preferences with those of the entire market.

<comment><USER12> When I buy shoes on Zappos, I am trusting an existing brand that I've worn before (I wear the Nike Pegasus running shoes; the 33 model is basically the same as the 31s that I have on my shelf) and I'm happy to buy them from Zappos instead of a retailer.

I'd buy bike components online at Nashbar or Performance because I know what I'm getting from Fuji or Shimano. And Nashbar has slowly inserted themselves into that trusted space as well. But Vanhawks? I don't trust that yet.

<comment><USER10> If I'm being completely honest I think this depends a bit on disposable income. The guy I knew who bought a Davidson way, way back, knew a guy who let him borrow one. He had a family and coughing up that much money took some thinking.

The confirmed bachelor with many bikes, on the other hand, would try to do his homework but ended up with several he didn't like. He'd just resell them and try again. But biking was his thing. I think his bikes were worth more than his furniture.

<comment><USER12> If your bikes are not worth more than your furniture, you either have too few bikes or your furniture is too expensive.

<comment><USER10> I think if you sat down and added up the cost of all of your furniture, you'd be shocked at the total.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> I doubt they ran into trouble because of their planned sales model. Fundamentally this is not a product I would expect to be commercially successful. All these weird trends like Kickstarters for "Connected bikes" and Bluetooth "smart locks" are not actually very useful to cyclists. Real improvements to cycling will come from investments in infrastructure, not by throwing technology at bicycles themselves.

<comment><USER3> David from Vanhawks here - couldn't agree more. That's why our vision isn't just to 'throw technology at bicycles.' What the Valour does allow is for rich data collection so that we can help shape more useful changes in the future.

<comment><USER14> Anytime someone from a company comes on here using buzzword nonsense, you know it's not going to end well. You're talking to the wrong group of people with that middle manager marketing speak.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> > "gearing up for 2017."

It's too late for that. 2017 bookings were completed last fall.

<comment><USER16> The article is dated Oct 18th.

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> I think they are still misjudging the market. Im a cyclist - ride about 3k miles per year. I know very little about this bike, however why do I need a connected bike? I have a computer that I can attach to any bike I like. Hell, a smart phone on a mount can be swapped between bikes. Plus, frames break. I would rather have a modular bike that I can swap the pieces I want between.

Maybe its just bad copy, but I already have a connected bike - everyone I ride with does. The only features i see that I might not have are blindspot detection (which i can get with a cheap mirror on my helmet if i wanted it), and a carbon fiber belt instead of a chain, which means none of my existing components which I've paid thousands of dollars for will work. The fixie is a little more compelling, but the price point is a little steep.

<comment><USER3> David from Vanhawks here - why do you need a connected bike? Maybe you don't. But, I sure like riding one. We are aiming to make commuting safer and more comfortable for riders. A big part of that approach is to remove distractions to the greatest extent that we can. Unlike strapping a device on to the handle bars, you can simply open the app, lock your phone and put it away. The ride recording starts and stops automatically and, your turn by turn directions are given through easy to follow light signals from the handle bar. Basically, we want you to keep your eyes on the road and not on your device.

The Valour also records a much more rich set of data that we will be using to inform cycling directions in the future. Most apps or devices record speed, time, distance, etc. We're recording much more.

I get what you are saying though - I have a Garmin that I use with multiple road bikes on country roads during the weekend. There, it is much easier to glance down to see how many watts I'm producing or switch screens to check my vertical metres per hour. However, when I'm riding across town to the office, I have a very different set of concerns.

<comment><USER18> Seems what you describe could be done through a BLE accessory that straps to the handlebar or at most an aftermarket handlebar with LEDs/sensors integrated, which talks to a phone app.

I'm part of the "athlete" market segment who is happy spending $2k on a "dumb" road bike and I also commuted on that dumb bike every day through the city.

The same applies to a power meter - if I want to know my watts I'd rather buy a PowerTap hub or crank and put it on the bike I want rather than having to buy a whole bike with it permanently integrated.

I wonder if, instead of building the whole bicycle you couldn't do great things by building awesome aftermarket components (e.g. try to be Anker, not Apple.)

That said, I know it's easy to be a naysayer, and I wish anyone who's working to innovate the cycling industry all the best! (Lots of <3 to Strava, Garmin & Di2)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> I like how the first 2 comments here say that: 1) online sales are destroying in-person bike retail 2) in-person bike retail can never be replaced by online sales.

<comment><AUTHOR> Yeah. I would guess that over time, bike shops will morph into a) repair shops and b) showrooms that might, for example, get $x from each company for each test ride on one of their bikes (or something along those lines). A person who chooses to buy the bike would then get it shipped to the shop and built; eliminating inventory should also eliminate a _lot_ of cost.

As for Vanhawks specifically, I think they have a very cool idea but their bikes are just a little too expensive for me. Which is actually pretty frustrating. I'd like one of their single-speed bikes, but the bike is $1300. Then shipping is $150. Then assembly is ~$50 – $100. Then a rack and fenders are more.

Something like a Priority bike is $900: [https://www.prioritybicycles.com/products/thecontinuum](https://www.prioritybicycles.com/products/thecontinuum) and the company often offers free shipping. Fenders and a variable-speed transmission are included. Total cost is a lot lower.</comment></comment>


Does Mind-Wandering Make You Unhappy? – Greater Good - <AUTHOR> http://greatergood.berkeley.edu/article/item/does_mind_wandering_make_you_unhappy <comment><USER2> Erhmagod: Causality != Causation

How is this not public knowledge in the 21st century?!</comment>


Tech Start-Up Fires Engineers Amid Union Organizing Effort - <AUTHOR> https://www.bna.com/tech-startup-fires-n73014474793/ <comment><USER2> > Organizational Values

> "We win only when our customers win."

> Fast, Deliberate, Accountable, With Integrity

> Resourceful, Empathetic, Inclusive and Creatively Frugal

Creatively frugal. Check. Not sure about the others.

<comment><USER3> > "We win only when our customers win."

Organisational values focusing on the customer is for me a big red flag for how workers will be treated.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Seems like discussions about unions never get more nuanced than: "unions are good" or "unions are bad". I wish such topics could be more about learning from the pros and cons of different systems and figuring out new solutions.

<comment><USER5> So here's what I can't seem to get my head around. I keep reading how we - programmers, developers, software people - are in such high demand while observing a world where the perception, at least, is that we're a dime a dozen. On the one hand, I make good money doing something I genuinely enjoy all day - not retire early money, but not "how am I going to pay the water bill this month" either, and I've only been out of work for a month in the past 25 years. On the other hand, I sit in a wide-open bullpen next to people who are shouting into speaker phones all day and inputting timecards at 15-minute granularity. I have to forecast how I'm going to spend my time weeks in advance, and that forecast had better not include anything as mundane as "reading the Bootstrap documentation" because education is my responsibility, not their problem. I've been rejected from four times more jobs than I've been accepted to. Now, you may say that I'm in this relatively low-status position because I suck - and you may be right - but I have decades of experience and a master's degree in CS. Nobody can say that I don't at least look good on paper. We "technology people" ought to have the upper hand here. We shouldn't need a union - we should just be able to say what we need to produce what we're being asked for (time and quiet) but the prevailing atmosphere is more like "you're lucky you even have a job; shut up and stop complaining".

<comment><USER6> I'm not feeling that atmosphere at all. Here programmers are treated with utmost respect because there's such a high demand for them. That's also the reason why very few are members of a union, even though I live in a country with the strongest unions in the world. Programmers simply dictate their own conditions without the help of unions and the employers have no choice but submit in fear of losing them.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> they're not going to have an actual product in 3-5 months, union or not, if they fire everybody

e: it looks like they're in the salesforce ecosystem, so perhaps they're glomped onto the Benioff philosophy of "No Software". i guess they're ok with the 1.5 nines of uptime and universal agreement that the software is crap that this implies

<comment><USER7> oh my god, they actually put Webvan as an example of a disruptive company on their site (as of 1940 PST Jan 30 2018)

[https://www.lanetix.com/company/#why- lanetix](https://www.lanetix.com/company/#why-lanetix)

<comment><USER8> In all fairness, webvan was addressing something that folks apparently want. IIRC Amazon is actively trying to roll out something very similar to this right now...

Don't confuse "disruptive companies" with "mismanaged companies". The first implies they are on to something, the second implies they don't know how to reach it.

<comment><USER9> In fact, Webvan's Wikipedia article lists their fate as "Bankrupt, resurrected by Amazon.com in 2009" without going into further detail.

<comment><USER10> But that's inaccurate bs that someone edited there. There's no real connection between Webvan and Amazon.

Louis Borders founded Webvan (the guy who founded Border bookstores). They went bankrupt in 2001. Mick Mountz and a few other Webvan employees started Kiva Robotics a few years later... In 2007, Amazon launched AmazonFresh, and then in 2012 Amazon purchased Kiva... and those former Webvan employees started work at Amazon (IDK if they still work there).

And if you click on the ref in wikipedia.. you'll see it's an article from 2013 saying Webvan was alive at Amazon because former webvan employees came to work there when amazon bought kiva.

That's not the way acquisitions work... Webvan is long dead.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> Isn't it 'illegal' to fire as retaliation for unionizing?

<comment><USER12> Not exactly. It's illegal to fire people for engaging in protected concerted activity to improve their working conditions. Unionization is one example of something that could be protected concerted activity, but not all tactics for forming unions would qualify as protected concerted activity, nor is protected concerted activity in any way limited to forming unions. (There are some explicit protections for unionizing, but this is the general principle.)

For example, using your employer's Slack to discuss improving things like healthcare, overtime, wages, etc. would be a textbook example of something that would be protected. You need at least two employees (non-managers) leading the discussion though to qualify as concerted, one person complaining is just a malcontent and doesn't qualify for any protections under the law.

<comment><USER13> Related to this, one of the most interesting things I took home from my short course in Employment Law was the statement from the lawyer teaching the class: "if you're going to complain about something to your boss that he won't like; make sure there are at least two of you complaining. That way you're covered by the laws pertaining to Collective Bargaining and you can have some recourse if you're fired as a result."

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> Want to know why the Rust Belt is the Rust Belt? Because the manufacturing industry discovered this strategy decades ago: If a union's going to come in and make your life inconvenient, send the jobs overseas to a country where that won't happen.

<comment><USER15> You want to know why we have a 40 hour work week and kids don't work in factories? Unions.

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> > "We believe one of the most anti-unions things you can do is to let all > employees go," Parks said. "We're going to fight as hard as we can."

Isn't the strength of a union in that everyone stops working collectively? Firing all of them is basically calling their bluff.

<comment><USER17> Step 2: bigger union.

<comment><USER18> Sadly, while the 21% tax law is great for companies, it can suck for those of us who sling code for a living. This administration is hostile to unions, and the last administration was not overly happy to support them but in name only. America is simply not a terribly friendly place for unions. I wish our tech scene looked more like Norway or Sweden, but good luck with that...

<comment><USER19> Why would you want that? When it comes to working immigrants, the Swedish unions generally have the power to say no [1], which they use – several high- skilled immigrants have been thrown out of Sweden the past two years.

[1] [https://www.affarsvarlden.se/juridik_affarer/facken- stoppar-...](https://www.affarsvarlden.se/juridik_affarer/facken-stoppar- arbetskraftsinvandring-6695338) (Swedish)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> A graph of income share versus union membership:

[https://i.redd.it/nhp7e2rzy8d01.jpg](https://i.redd.it/nhp7e2rzy8d01.jpg)

Think also of the insanely high CEO pay.

<comment><USER21> As much as I see flaws in unions in the US, that graph should be plastered on everyone's eyeballs whenever unions come up. Unions are one of the very few proven ways to address inequality

The others are worse: war and revolution.

<comment><USER22> There's no doubt that unions in America have had their problems. But the solution was always better (more democratic, less corrupt, etc) unions, not less unions or none at all.

<comment><USER23> I'm wondering why an alternative solution hasn't been tried: make unions into corporations, selling the service of efficiently managed labor to other corporations who want it. All of the workers could have shares in the corporation, so they would fairly share its profits. And the union/corporation could then negotiate for itself for things like health care, retirement plans, etc., without having to depend on other corporations to do it.

<comment><USER24> Because all of the problems with unions come from the "closed shop" \-- the right to exclude non-members from working freely for companies. No one has a problem with voluntary associations of workers (e.g. ACM or IEEE); the issue is when a group is allowed to force a business to only hire members of that organization, or to force all employees to pay dues to that organization.

Your "labor contracting corporation" would just be one competitor among many. If it tried to increase the price of labor, it would be bypassed.

Right-to-work solves the problems of unions. It also eliminates most of the power of unions, so it is unpopular with trade unionists.

The only unions I really want to see eliminated, though, are public employee unions (prison guards, especially, but also police, fire, teachers, etc.). Those employees have other means to redress grievances. I'd also like to see AMA and ABA (which are effectively unions, but for people making far higher wages) de-fanged as well.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> If unions are a good idea, and we're all in theory smart, why aren't we unionizing more? Why is it something we allow to be set aside; the organized effort to advocate for our needs?

Are unions anti-startup? are startups anti-union? or is it really just a PG ideology trickling down?

What can we do to bring about unionization efforts to the industry?

<comment><USER26> Because we are not actually that smart. We are probably too smart to understand that collective bargaining looks at the survival as a group which protects it's members. Most technologists are young and haven't experienced hardships that would have been resolved readily by a union. These hardships include disparate health care (less likely to impact the youth), vacation time, involuntary separation, retirement etc...

<comment><USER27> I knew a friend: pretty smart guy who was working on his masters, hated his field and decided to go to trucking. He's been in a union for decades. He talked about union vs non-union drivers. A lot of companies will tell you all this crap about how union shops pay less, lay off tons of people, etc. etc.

He told me union trucking agencies do tend to lay a lot of people off after the busy seasons, but their contracts allow them to take other loads during those times, and many of them get hired right back on in a month or two. If you really compared union and non-union shops and factor in benefits and healthcare, you come out way ahead in union shops.

He talked about FexEx and all the videos they put out showing they're a better company to work for and how you can go from truck driver to pilot. He told me UPS is a union shop and they spend less money on that bullshit advertising and more giving their workers benefits, better wages and hours. (FedEx is non- union and UPS is union right? I might have this backwards ..was a long time ago.. anyway...).

I watched him debate with a hard core, franchise owning (he owned like 8 Jimmy John's), libertarian, anti-union guy at brunch once and they had a really good rational argument about unions.

<comment><USER26> I agree. People need to talk to their friends in a union and ask if they regret it. My union friends have great benefits and love it.

<comment><USER28> Depends if your friends are managers I guess.

My father worked his way up into management in a union shop in the 70s and 80s. The union was completely insane and basically declared war on the company. It was hacking computers, stealing mail, working with the cleaners to rummage through wastebaskets looking for corporate info they could blackmail management with. And of course they kept interrupting service to the customers via strikes.

The solution was simple enough in the end. The company replaced the striking workers with machines. But lots of people's lives were harried and disrupted in the intervening years.

<comment><USER29> _The union was completely insane and basically declared war on the company_

This happens when people become full-time employees of the union, rather than doing union stuff while being employees of the company. The only paid staff an honest union needs are maybe some people to do admin. Union bosses always seem to be paid as much as managers or more too, they don't have anything in common with the Workers anymore, if they even ever did

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> Congrats to all the engineers who are about to get a year plus salary without having to do any work.

<comment><USER30> But I thought they were unsuccessful in joining the union.

<comment><USER10> it's illegal to fire someone for joining a union, attempting to join a union, or forming a union.

Alex is probably referring to their settlement offers if they prove their case to the NLRB. But the truth is the penalty will probably be far less... they'll likely just be required to rehire the employee and back pay wages from the date they were fired to the day they're rehired (if they win).

<comment><USER31> I think that was a dry joke about "lazy union workers".

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER32> The attitude towards unionisation on this site is sickening.

I live in a country with a very strong union movement and the only reason I'm able to sit here typing this message is because my parents and grandparents unionised rather than live off of slavery wages. That may mean nothing to Americans where it's every man for themselves, but don't think yourselves so lucky that you got to the position you're in without workers uniting with one another and ensuring they get a fair share against the greed of the few.

It might not have affected many of you with the silver spoon you have in your mouths but the only damn reason that kids still aren't working in sweat shops and you get to go home at 5pm is because of workers organising and having each other's backs when abuses and overreach occur, and a little bit of solidarity for each other is necessary when you see such flagrant abuses like this.

<comment><USER33> > I live in a country with a very strong union movement and the only reason > I'm able to sit here typing this message is because my parents and > grandparents unionised rather than live off of slavery wages. That may mean > nothing to Americans where it's every man for themselves, but don't think > yourselves so lucky that you got to the position you're in without workers > uniting with one another and ensuring they get a fair share against the > greed of the few.

There is another side of this coin too. I just finished reading The Box, a book on the advent of containerization, and it's appalling how unions fiercely fought any sort of mechanization. A job that required only 1-2 longshoremen mandatorily needed many more because unions said so. Days, and sometimes weeks, were wasted on strikes when a consensus couldn't be reached. Jobs that weren't needed anymore were still forced to be kept because any labor-saving innovation was undesirable. In the end, it was more cost-effective to compulsorily retire the longshoremen with a guaranteed income than to fight them.

I don't deny that the unions serve a purpose but the exploitation of their dominance can surely set back innovation by years. I wouldn't want to part of an organization that mandates that I can't touch PHP code because I am a Frontend Engineer.

<comment><USER29> Unions in the UK and US are antagonistic to the point that they will gladly destroy a company or even an entire industry rather than give an inch (union bosses don't care, they are very well looked after, strangely). But unions in France and Germany are far cleverer, they would never kill the goose that laid the golden eggs. That's why Germany is strong in manufacturing AND has superb working conditions... and the UK has a service economy and zero-hours contracts

<comment><USER34> And France has...?

<comment><USER35> High productivity, great worker protections, and high unemployment. Seems to be a mixed bag but the workers who have jobs wouldn't trade it.

<comment><USER36> France is a very interesting country. I would really like to know details about labor conditions there before making the default judgement that I used to when I was younger, that unionization and over-regulation had basically killed the French economy, causing the high levels of unemployment. They seem to have a system of protecting their workers, now if there was a way to also increase innovation/employment so more people could benefit from this system ...

<comment><USER37> At the moment it seems to be a choice in the developed world for high unemployment or high ratio of poor part-time workers , there's not enough work for everybody anyway so I'm not sure which one is the worst.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER38> Not unlike the gothamist.

</comment><comment><USER39> Just wait until Google engineers threaten to unionize. I'll need a few buckets of popcorn when that happens.

</comment><comment><USER40> Just one more company I'll never deal with or buy from.

</comment><comment><USER41> Unions... the thought or intent was good, and initially they helped more than hurt, but eventually things went south as usually happens when power is wielded by a few and backed up by threats.

Unions, rather then help represent workers of a company, eventually hold it hostage with their demands. This hurts the company's ability to flourish, compete and grow.

Let's ask ourselves, why did we need unions during the industrial revolution? and do we still need them today?

1\. The fact that unions were ever thought to have been needed suggests the lack of competition at the time. This is often a side effect of over bearing government regulation. There aren't too many jobs in America today where if you quit, you can't find another doing the same thing (Competition for workers drives wages and benefits up)

2\. Worker's used to work for one company their whole career. They were loyal to a fault. This is no longer the case today.

3\. It was harder to move across the country or world back then. Also Society was less racially diverse (in dispersion) back then. People would not leave their town or side of town because all the immigrants from XYZ country lived there and they would face far more challenge moving to another city than today.

4\. Social pressure and media coverage (social media and other). Most companies would find it hard to survive if their workers were starving because of lack of pay. The same can be said if their factory was grossly unsafe, or if they were being a-holes to their employees in any way. The way we are connected today would expose abhorrent behavior to the world in minutes and people would start to threaten boycotts ETC.

5\. We live in a much different world today. Unions, if they were ever really needed, are not anymore. Yet they exist. Teachers somehow cannot be fired for doing shoddy jobs, yet their wages aren't great (is that a good thing?).

6\. Registered Nurses go to a junior college for 3 years and start at $100/hr here in northern CA. Meanwhile half of the citizens in this country cannot afford health insurance (They are part of what is driving up the price. Is that a good thing?).

7\. Fireman work 3 days a week and are averaging $150k salaries where I live. They still march in protests every few years around here because they aren't able to feed their family whilst living in their frat house making $75 per hour. (I don't want to minimize what fireman do for us. They are heroes who put their life in danger, though they die less often than minors and factory workers who earn far less). The unions have extorted the cities that employ them. (is this a good thing?)

8\. Police unions protect bad cops in many cases. Factory and other manufacturing jobs have gone oversees because of the overbearing demands from unions.

9\. Unions demand dues, yet often push laws through that the workers don't even agree with ethically or politically.

10\. Unions buy and sell politicians with their donations and favors. It's a quid pro quo that has gone on for over 100 years.

What is the upside of unions in the context of 2018? Do we need them? Are they more harm than good?

</comment><comment><USER42> someone needs to post to glassdoor about their experience

</comment><comment><USER43> Unions, like police, serve as a corrective force. Sometimes needed and often not, they are good only contingently.

It is sad that they are often seen only as either hateful or a panacea.

</comment><comment><USER44> Good, because unions have long outlived their usefulness. The time for them is OVER.

Why organize for the privelege of being able to fork over a good chunk of your paycheck for not a damn thing?

HOW DO I KNOW?? I've been a union member. CWA. It was worse than worthless and useless. A net negative in every respect. 20% of my net pay for not a damn thing. Unions are a waste of time/money/oxygen.

<comment><USER45> It's unfortunate that you had a bad experience, but I don't know how you can expect anyone to respect your view when you've made it blindingly obvious that it's based on a single experience you've had. The "unions don't have a place anymore" argument is nothing more than privileged neoliberal propaganda. Shitty apathetic views like yours are how workplace standards slip.

<comment><USER46> Please don't break the HN guideline against name-calling in arguments. "Privileged neoliberal propaganda" is on the line but "shitty apathetic views like yours" is well over it, especially because it's a personal attack too.

You don't have to change your views to comment on HN, but please edit out the bits that don't make for thoughtful conversation.

[https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html](https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html)</comment></comment></comment>


Hot Patch - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/vikasnkumar/hotpatch

<comment><USER2> This program more or less implements a debugger, using ptrace to attach to its target, suspend it, then trampoline through malloc and dlopen (the routines a program would use to load dynamic libraries on its own behalf). This isn't far from what gdb would do if you used "call" to dlopen a library.

<comment><USER3> Unfortunately, it's not race-free - if the target's already inside malloc, Bad Things will happen. A better strategy would be to invoke clone() to spin up a worker thread, somehow finagle a TLS segment good enough to fool libc and dlopen into working Well Enough, and loading the library via this thread (while the main thread is allowed to continue execution).

<comment><USER4> Instead of malloc, wouldn't it be safer to trigger an int80 straight to the mmap syscall? You only need to overwrite a few instructions, and put them back in place when you're done. Then you have freshly allocated memory pages for your exclusive use, and I'm guessing things get a little simpler.

<comment><USER2> WinAPI makes this especially easy too, since you can bypass the allocator and just grab pages; I believe that's how Detours does it, and I know it's how our code (which is public, somewhere) does it.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> People here seem to not know of the many existing implementations of this concept, including LCITK[1] and libhijack[2].

[1] <https://github.com/planetbeing/lcitk>

[2] <http://0xfeedface.org/category/tags/libhijack>

</comment><comment><USER6> Wow. That'd be fun to mix with labrea: <http://dustin.github.com/2010/12/03/labrea.html>

<comment><AUTHOR> that's pretty cool too!</comment></comment>


Voice Assistant? Yes please, but not in public - <AUTHOR> http://creativestrategies.com/voice-assistant-anyone-yes-please-but-not-in-public/ <comment><USER2> I find voice assistants rather underwhelming. I tend to lob them really specific questions they should be able to answer like.

"call $business_thats_part_of_a_national_chain in $town $state." That's a batting practice pitch right over the plate. The "in $town $state" tells it to use Google maps search. From there it should have no problem finding the business and phone number. Instead it tells me "here's what we found for $business in $town $state." Of course the first result is the business I'm looking for and I can find and call the number somewhere on the page but it's almost easier to just Google it directly.

The only time I'm willing to put up with this is when I'm driving and want to minimize interaction with the phone.

Maybe nobody uses them in public because it's faster, more precise and less obnoxious to type.

Looking up car parts would be nice ( "does $chain_store in $town have $partnum" and "$other_chain_stire in $next_town_over have $partnum") is hilariously easy from a implementation perspective since everything but slapping the voice recognition on top and mapping key words to software commands has been solved for a long time. (e.g. [http://showmetheparts.com/](http://showmetheparts.com/)).

<comment><USER3> When I watched the Google Home video from the I/O event, I cringed very hard. And I am not a skeptic: I generally am a believer in new tech, in natural language tech, etc., but that video looked really goofy and improbable. Do they really think that families are going to change their morning routines to interact via voice with a device? Just the "Hello Google" command is awkward enough, people aren't going to walk down the street while talking nerdy Google commands out loud. I don't see it happening.

And from a foreign language speaker standpoint, I find it even harder to imagine. In Spanish there is not really a consensus about how to pronounce 'Google'. I can't imagine people on the streets speaking Googlish.

On the other hand, everyone googles, for sure, everyone uses search and mobile. I have the feeling that these two interactions -text/type search and mobile- are too hard to improve on. I don't think voice has a chance to become bigger than text.

<comment><USER4> Have you observed anyone interact with Alexa? I have, and it seems like people really love it. So, is there a big difference between Alexa and Google Home that you find dealbreaking, or do you challenge the notion that Alexa has been successful?

<comment><USER3> I haven't. I would like to try it out, maybe I will check the browser emulation they released a couple of weeks ago. I would like to try it both in English and Spanish and compare the experiences.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> I'm surprised they didn't mention that in areas with a lot of background noise, eg public places, voice recognition doesn't work as well. I think that is also a reason why people refrain from using it in public. From personal experience I can say it's very frustrating to repeat the command to your phone multiple times because it's sorry it didn't get that, or calls your ex girlfriend instead of playing some music.

<comment><USER6> My experience is totally opposite. I've found Google voice search very effective, even in a crowded bar. When I listen to some the recordings that were successful[1], I'm frankly amazed at what a good job it does.

1\. [https://history.google.com/history/audio](https://history.google.com/history/audio)

<comment><USER7> That URL is the most amazing thing I have ever seen! Unfortunately, it does not convince me of the power of speech operated interfaces. My history tends to consist of a series of multi-part voice commands with the first or second phrase being repeated multiple times, in progressively more angry tones of voice, until it seems I give up. It looks like the most common thing I do, interestingly, is set timers for myself.

The most hilarious clip I found was one where Google had transcribed the request as "bbbbbbb bbbbbbb bbbbbbb" and on playing it back, I heard the sound of my alarm clock going off with a steady beep, beep, beep...!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> One aspect which drives me nuts about using Siri in public, is her inability to match my own volume. Often I'm in a relatively quiet office, or somewhere else where shouting would be inappropriate. I bring the phone close to my mouth and speak my command softly.

At the loudest volume setting, Siri replies "ALRIGHT, STEPHEN, I'LL REMIND YOU TO WHATEVER WHATEVER".

The _one_ feature that would get me to use Siri more is if she would speak more quietly!

<comment><USER9> I'm about to make your day, twice.

1: You can adjust the Siri app's volume the same way you can any other. Activate Siri, and then use the volume rocker button to adjust it up/down.

2: You can turn off voice responses altogether! In Settings>General>Siri, change "Voice Feedback" to "handsfree only". Now Siri will stay completely silent if you activate it with the home button ("Hey Siri" is hands-free, so you still get voice responses there).

<comment><USER8> As promised, you made my day. Thank you!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> In public I want a reverse voice assistant. Think the movie Her but I don't have to talk back. I want hardware that is in my ear but still lets me hear normally. New text message spoken to me, same for email, calendar, etc. I don't want to even have to look at my phone to get information, and I want it to be invisible. Augmented, I didn't ask for this, well actually I did.

<comment><USER11> The technology to achieve custom molded Bluetooth earbuds like you're describing has been around for a few years, but no one is making them. There are a few startups and old dogs (hearing aid industry) trying to move into the space, but damn are they slow to the punch. I certainly blame Apple for locking down Bluetooth LE and not releasing a product.

<comment><USER12> Can you be more specific on how Apple locked down Bluetooth LE? From my understanding it was accepted into the Bluetooth 4.0 standard in 2010 and has since seen widespread adoption in Bluetooth devices.

<comment><USER11> "Accessories that use only Bluetooth Low Energy (BTLE) (note: BTLE-enabled HomeKit accessories and BTLE-enabled MFi Hearing Aids are part of the MFi Program)"

(MFi = made for iPhone) [https://mfi.apple.com/MFiWeb/getFAQ.action#1-2](https://mfi.apple.com/MFiWeb/getFAQ.action#1-2) [https://developer.apple.com/bluetooth/](https://developer.apple.com/bluetooth/)

Have fun with MIDI quality. The only way BTLE is sending mp3 or higher quality is through the MFi Hearing aid protocol Apple owns and keeps under wraps.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> As soon as I got my Apple Watch, I started using voice assistants way more; both in private and public. "Hey Siri remind me to ___ at (location or date/time). "Hey Siri, set an alarm at ____". "Hey Siri, how many grams in 3 ounces?" "Hey Siri, set a timer for 25 minutes".

Also, a couple of months ago I enabled the "Listen for 'Hey Siri' when plugged in" option on my iPhone and it's been super helpful. My phones typically plugged in right infront of me when I'm working, as well as in the car. I use it frequently to start a phone call "Hey siri call ___" and it works wonderfully. It works WAY better than the hands-free setting in my car.

Car:

      **Press Button**
      Me: Call Home
      **3 second pause**
      Car: Calling Home at Home, is this correct?
      Me: Yes
      Car: Dialing....
      **2 second pause while it initiates the dial**

Siri:

      Hey Siri call home
      **dials**

</comment><comment><USER14> I ponder if some day even our in-home voice assistant should be aware of this. Like, I was thinking if a guest is there, my voice assistant should know. My voice assistant might respond differently in that context. Like providing less detailed information in voice responses.

There's probably even ways a home assistant could also specifically help my guests. It could know where I store things they might need, like cups, plates, and silverware. Or be able to tell them where my bathroom is.

<comment><USER15> You should watch Black Mirror's christmas special

<comment><USER14> I have sadly not seen all of Black Mirror yet. I love everything I've seen of it, and will definitely finish watching it this summer.

<comment><USER15> Finish? hah. Netflix has announced they will make 12 more episodes for season 3.

<comment><USER14> Glad to hear more is coming. It didn't seem to be the case when I first found it. I think I've only watched either three or four episodes so far.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> I actually really like "OK Google", but my reasons for using or not using in particular contexts are not at all what the author here states. Invariably, the about 1 second after I say "OK Google" or hit the mic on the search screen, some knucklehead (or one of my kids) starts talking in the background making my search useless. Background noise is a killjoy. I don't want to be the guy repeating the same thing louder and more clearly over and over in the food court. I have no problem using it "in front of people", I just have no faith that it will work.

<comment><USER17> Invariably, if I talk to Siri when my wife is nearby, she immediately says, "what?" and it frequently confuses Siri.

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> I'm always "OK, Google"ing at my Android Wear watch at work. I've been doing this for a year or so, and at no point has anyone gotten used to it. They all still look at me like I'm a little crazy.

Of course, when the voice recognition completely botches what I asked of it and I get frustrated trying to make it work right, I probably do look crazy.

<comment><USER19> Having had the same experience at my work (but from the other side), they possibly don't think you are crazy but would just like you to shut the fuck up.

<comment><USER20> "Corporate accounts payable, Nina speaking. Just a moment."

<comment><USER21> This is entirely different since the person speaking your example has to speak that out loud as part of their job. Talking out loud to Siri or Google is absolutely not necessary in an office setting. Both are annoying, but only one is avoidable (and thus rude).

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> Once speaking to a voice assistant is as accurate as talking to a human on the phone, why not. It'll look like/be as anti-social as a normal phone call. Fine on the street, probably not in a crowded train or in the office.

Where it gets annoying currently is repeating OK Google/Alexa/Siri five times, then repeating what you want the damn thing to do another four times, each time a bit louder.

</comment><comment><USER23> Voice assistants are the new bluetooth headsets. They are not socially acceptable most of the time. Personally, I only use Siri in my car as a last resort (I think CarPlay is amazing; I don't use my built-in car software anymore). I think talking to a device is awkward and starting a "conversation" by yelling "Hey Siri" is even worse, it feels embarrassing.

</comment><comment><USER24> This came to my mind: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Throat_microphone](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Throat_microphone)

Obviously for everyday, casual use that would require some design work. Maybe integrate that to jacket or shirt, if the hardware is not too expensive. Bluetooth for communications. Battery is a bit of a problem, having to constantly charge my jacket is not something I would like to do. Maybe there would be some opportunities to build it so that it would not be active all the time.

Or maybe one should actually rethink the whole concept. Maybe it would be better to just capture the vibrations from few places around the throat and then use machine learning to make sense of them instead of trying to use the traditional speech recognition.

<comment><USER24> "A set of electrodes are attached to the skin of the throat and, without opening the mouth or uttering a sound, the words are recognized by a computer." [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Subvocal_recognition](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Subvocal_recognition)

</comment></comment><comment><USER25> I've tried OK Google recently under my motorcycle helmet just to change music. It wasn't up to the task. Somehow The Google Music unchecked the downloaded music only, and OK google played radio racking up a few hundred MB of data before I could change it. It didn't work when all I was saying was next song. I went back to using the bluetooth button I was using before.

<comment><USER26> Could you share a product link for whatever bluetooth button you were using, that sounds like a product I've wished existed for a long time and failed to find in the market. I remember an old wireless/30-pin connector for my iPod that had a weather-proof armband with controls from the company iMonster a long long time ago that I loved, but snapped many a connector off in my leathers!

<comment><USER25> [https://www.amazon.com/Satechi®-Bluetooth-Button-iPhone- Sams...](https://www.amazon.com/Satechi®-Bluetooth-Button-iPhone- Samsung/dp/B00RM75NL0)

This is the one you want. I'm on my second now from losing the first. It comes with a handlebar mount but mine were too thin. I layered up some electrical tape and the holder works even at high speeds.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER27> I was always wondering – isn't it better to make usage of voice assistant similar to simple phone call? Why it should be in speaker mode?

<comment><USER28> If you activate Google's voice recognition from a bluetooth headset, it will respond to you through the headset -- but you often have to interact with the device anyway, to get it to do more than the most simple of things.

<comment><USER29> You also have to be wearing a bluetooth headset, which is as much of a social faux pas as talking to siri in public.

<comment><USER28> I have Bluetooth headphones, which I'm wearing at the moment as I'm listening to music. They're pretty good at the headset thing too.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER30> > The high proportion of usage in the car would suggest it has more to do with > the hands-free law that regulate driving and texting vs. a free choice by > consumers to embrace this technology.

I doubt this conclusion. For one, given how many people I see everyday driving while holding a smartphone to their ear, it does not seem that too many people are concerned with that particular law. Couldn't it be instead that driving is a situation where not _having_ to use your hands is perceived as an actual benefit?

</comment><comment><USER31> I found one good use for Siri so far: as a calculator. Much easier to say "square root of seventeen times five-eights?" than find the calculator app and key that in there.

<comment><USER32> Yup, use it every time I fill up one of our vehicles to check MPG.

"Hey, Siri, what's 174 miles divided by 12 gallons?"

"Some pretty shitty mileage, mikestew. You should consider driving the Leaf more often."

<comment><USER33> It's funny you mention that, the cheekiness is one of the things that bugs me about Siri. Seems like every time I ask about the current temperature (one of my most common uses), Siri has to add some sort of snide comment about how hot or cold it is. It's cute the first hundred times, but then it gets old. I think it's to the point now where it actually makes me use it less because I just don't want to hear it.

<comment><USER32> Your point stands, and the cheekiness gets to me a after a while as well, but let me be clear that I embellished a little, as she really just says "14.5". If Siri were as clever as I described, I might not mind it as much.

<comment><USER33> Right, I know it's not _that_ cheeky, but it reminded me of the real comments.

I agree that it would be better if she were that clever. Part of the problem is that it's just so predictable. Whenever it's above room temperature, she'll say "Hot!" If it's below room temperature, she'll say "Brr." Some variety would really help.

<comment><USER32> Yup, if I can imagine the if/switch statement that was written to get that response, then they shouldn't bother.

        NSSiriResponse *response = [NSSiriResponse new];
        if (currentTemp < roomTemp) {
            // Randomly select a response from the pre-determined list
            response = responses.lookup(kCOLD_TEMP_RESPONSE);
        else {
            response = responses.lookup(kHOT_TEMP_RESPONSE);
        }
        [response speak];

I can't say that we've made giant steps since Eliza. :-)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER34> To be honest, I'm not even interested in them in private.

Interfacing with a computer via voice is painful. Give me a keyboard any day.

</comment><comment><USER35> I don't like using voice assistants in public as much as I don't like talking on the phone in public: it's loud around so I wouldn't hear the voice feedback, I don't like disturbing people around... However I use cortana on my phone all the time in public by typing my sentance instead of saying it out loud. I assume siri and ok Google let you do this as well, otherwise how do people with speaking/hearing disability use these assistants in general?

</comment><comment><USER36> Similarly, I hope that voice interfaces don't become popular in open plan office environments.

</comment><comment><USER37> I use Siri constantly, to remind me to check pages the next day, timers while cooking, setting alarms, for playing basically anything via Apple Music or a quick search. But people are constantly weirded out. "Why are you reminding yourself to hot glue the thing with the stuff when you get home", well, so it comes up to remind me when I get home...

</comment><comment><USER38> Why not a quick instant open keyboard when the user holds down the home button (not sure what the Android equivalent is)? Have it suspend voice recognition if the user is typing so the user doesnt have to manually select an option. Then feed the results into the same NLP as used by the voice stuff, and bobs your uncle.

<comment><USER39> Google Now _kind of_ supports this. To activate the assistant thingy, you hold down the home button and press the mic icon. But in the same screen there are also suggestions based on what's on the screen (for example, if I'm looking at a forum where someone's talking about an album it'll suggest finding it on Spotify), as well as a plain Google search box.

</comment></comment><comment><USER40> Pity we don't have a reasonably accurate subvocal technology ready for public use.

<comment><USER41> Do you mean whispering? I just tried whispering to my phone and it got it perfectly.

<comment><USER33> Subvocalization is your "internal me," the not-sound you make when you talk to yourself.

Apparently this internal voice actually results in some muscle movements, and it's thought that with the right sensors and software it would be possible to recognize it as speech. Nobody has quite gotten it to work yet, though.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER42> I think we should halt development of voice assistants , and focus on how to make a brain implant. It clearly solves a lot of problems.</comment>


Example list of the info a VC would request during due diligence - <AUTHOR> http://ricksegal.typepad.com/pmv/2007/04/kicking_the_tir.html <comment><USER2> The ultimate point of that list (which is really very short) seems to be keep a file folder and at least two copies of everything, one set aside for the lawyers. I mean, if you look at the list, everything on that list is something that you should already have as a mark of good organization.

</comment><comment><USER3> Sweet jesus thats nasty.

I suppose if you go step by step its not that hard. Better to have it all ready and leave them looking for stuff to ask for instead of trying to get it all really fast in a panic.

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> It's hopping around fulfilling requests like this that's not on the radar when I'm underestimating how much work a startup's really going to be.

</comment><comment><USER4> No DNA sample?

</comment><comment><USER5> Thanks.</comment>


Use .forEach - <AUTHOR> http://programming.karlcoelho.com/2014/04/12/use-foreach.html

<comment><USER2> The reasons we don't are pretty good ones. The first, and most important reason, is that native implementations of methods like `.forEach` are extremely slower than their native-for-loop equivalents. For casual side projects, this does not really matter, and some might argue that in newer browsers the efficiency loss is minimal. But when you're developing a particularly JavaScript heavy client-side application, predominantly use .forEach, and your users will notice. The second reason is browser compatibility. `.forEach` is not supported in Internet Explorer 7 or 8. That is an extremely large chunk of potential users.

All that being said, there are definitely ways to gain the same functionality using a utility library like Underscore (or the much-faster-than-underscore Lodash). Instead of `array.forEach` it's simply `_.forEach(array, function(item) { });` - [http://lodash.com/docs#forEach](http://lodash.com/docs#forEach)

</comment><comment> workhere-io This one is even more concise and avoids the scoping issues that forEach have:

for (var i in cars) { console.log(cars[i]) }

Also, if you're using JS on the frontend, forEach isn't supported by all browsers: [http://stackoverflow.com/questions/156696/which-web- browsers...](http://stackoverflow.com/questions/156696/which-web-browsers- natively-support-array-foreach)</comment>


Why progress bars can make you feel better - <AUTHOR> https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20191205-why-progress-bars-can-make-you-feel-better <comment><USER2> There was a great 99 Percent Invisible episode called Wait, Wait, Tell Me! that went delved into this topic too: [https://99percentinvisible.org/episode/wait-wait-tell- me/](https://99percentinvisible.org/episode/wait-wait-tell-me/)</comment>