Ask HN: How do software consultants deal with maintenance? - <AUTHOR> I want to try to get into Software Consultancy. I've read many of @patio11's pieces on Consultancy which have been incredibly informative and helpful but one question remains on my mind: how do I deal with maintenance on past projects?<p>Most potential clients I've talked to want me to create a somewhat simple website for them in 2-3 weeks but what happens if they find a bug or they need to scale it up months down the road? How do I prevent myself from being monopolized by maintenance requests from past clients 2-3 years down the road? Should I charge for maintenance? <comment><USER2> You write an acceptance procedure into your MSAs. Pro-tip from Thomas: write the MSA such that the client gets two weeks of business days from delivery to object in writing to the deliverables or "the deliverables shall be deemed accepted." You don't owe clients anything after the acceptance period.

Should it fit with your desires and your clients' needs, you can sell maintenance on a retainer arrangement, which is use-it-or-lose-it access to you at a defined price which is a modest discount to your prevailing rates. If clients do not have an active retainer agreement with you, maintenance projects are entirely new projects, with a new SoW, at your current rate, subject to your current availability.

How this looks in practice: if I'm selling projects at $20k per week, the initial SoW offers 2 weeks at $20k plus two days a month of availability at $7k per month, with those days covering bug fixes, incident response, and such minor tweaks or adjustments as the client may require. In the event the client doesn't purchase maintenance, and the app goes down, then I'll try to slot them in for another 2 weeks at $20k each, but I can't make any promises.

You know the Chris Rock monologue about steak? When you go to a restaraunt with money in your hand and ask for steak, you get steak. Then you go home... and the restaraunt does not owe you more steak. Past clients are wonderful people who you may choose to do business with again, but you are not a free source of steak for them.

</comment><comment><USER3> This is bound to be a controversial opinion, but I fall down strongly on the side of time and materials billing, as opposed to fixed budget (FB). I don't hold this opinion as a way to cover my own ass, but I actually think it's the best deal for my clients as well.

1\. Fixed budget projects are also fixed scope (unless you're a masochist), but in literally 100% of projects I've worked on, we refined the idea as we developed it. In a FB project, now you get to do the change request dance. In a T&M project, you can adjust priorities fluidly.

2\. FB projects are a weak guarantee in practice. Once your consultant's billable rate drops to $0, what do you think happens? You are the lowest possible priority. Either your changes/fixes never happen, or they're made hastily. If you're working with a larger firm, your project is now in the hands of the most junior employees.

3\. FB projects are an excuse for poor communication. Clients will take the simple dollar value as an excuse to check out until the money runs out, then be disappointed when the end result isn't exactly what they had in mind. You need to show your work as you build it, gather feedback as you go, and adjust priorities.

4\. T&M puts both parties on the same team, working together to build the best product. FB is too adversarial. The client tries to get as much possible stuff, because their cost is fixed. You are constantly pushing back, defending a hopefully well-defined concept of "the scope." Guess which kind of relationship gets more accomplished?

I could go on. But TL;DR, you should charge for maintenance _and_ it should be the same way you charge for the rest of it: by the hour/day/week.

<comment><USER4> This is very interesting and I'm convinced. But the problem the companies I worked for in the past faced is that sometimes the client has a tight budget and have to share it with other projects too. So they need to have a precise view of the cost of the project not only short-term (initial development) but also long-term (maintenance).

The solution would be finding the clients willing to go down the road of non- FB projects, but hey, sometimes the market is what it is.

<comment><USER3> My approach to tight budgets is simple. There are just two rules: 1\. Get to something that works ASAP 2\. Always work on the most important thing

Once you have something that works, you can run out of money and still have created value. I don't tend to call this a MVP, but the idea is the same.

Working on the most important thing is hard, because it requires that you and the client/stakeholders communicate often and well.

If you can get this right, you shouldn't need to worry about the budget other than wholesale feasibility. (You still need to evaluate whether you can do the project at all.) Once you have something working, you just keep improving it until the cost outweighs the benefit of more work, then you're done.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> This can actually be one of the most lucrative and stable sources of revenue for a small software consultancy. At the "end" of a successful project, I usually pitch a retainer agreement to the client. There are lots of variations on the terms, but I've generally done something like "for (~12-24) months, you buy (~8-24) of my hours guaranteed per month at a discount rate of (~10-15%) off my standard rate. Invoiced at the beginning of each month, use it or lose it (throw in a month of rollover if they push back)."

It's a win-win: the average client doesn't use anywhere near their entire allotment, but in general they're happy to pay for the "insurance" that you'll be available if you need them. You're never on the hook for more than you can reasonably provide: if something bad happens and they need more than their allotment, then you can renegotiate that as a new contract. And most of all, predictable monthly revenue does wonders for your cash flow.

</comment><comment><USER6> > I want to try to get into Software Consultancy.

> Most potential clients I've talked to want me to create a somewhat simple > website for them in 2-3 weeks…

In my understanding, software consultancy is when you work with your client and their engineering team, but don't actually build the product. You may help hire the team and you may indeed write actual code, but it's the team that's supposed to do the actual engineering and future support.

Deep understanding of client's needs (a pre-requisite), steering them away from wasting resources on building the wrong or unmaintainable product, and helping them organize their processes efficiently are important parts of consultant's job. With that in mind, building the whole thing from the ground up at the same time just doesn't seem to be the best use of your consulting skills. The following maintenance—even less so.

Normally consulting activities seem to be billed by the time (hourly or daily). In my experience, if you do build the thing yourself, it can be difficult to ensure client's understanding that you're really acting as both a consultant and the engineering team, and structuring your pay adequately becomes somewhat harder.

If you build the thing, you should probably make it your responsibility to ensure that deliverables include all the information necessary for future maintenance. Then the client is free to use it with their engineering team or a freelancer, and even if later you're willing to be hired back for maintenance yourself, you'll appreciate the documentation you've left.

<comment><USER7> People tend to use the terms "consulting", "freelancing" and "contracting" almost interchangeably, though.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> You most certainly should charge for maintenance. Depending on the size of the project, you can also charge a monthly retainer to be available for maintenance should the need occur.

</comment><comment><USER9> I would also try to build in as many self-service features that you can so that you are not bugged with routine maintenance requests such as adding master data. Otherwise, all maintenance requests should be done for a fee. Customers also value you even higher if you proactively do maintenance such as security fixes that maybe beyond their capabilities.

</comment><comment><USER10> I always run a per incident charge for defects (outside a 6 month approval window) and requote for features. Per incident charge is relatively high to dissuade people from filing lots of trivial things and actually QA it in the approval window.

I have run projects where there are no defects reported however so YMMV.

</comment><comment><USER11> You have them sign off on the 'finished' product. Then charge for maintenance. Or if you're looking for residual income, you could charge monthly... that is to say that it's not without risks or requiring you to push back.

</comment><comment><USER12> Charge for everything.

</comment><comment><USER13> Of course you should charge for maintenance. But this is "Contract Development", not Consulting, fwiw.

</comment><comment><USER14> Time is money. Nothing more needs to be said. Also usually the actual cost that you should estimate is 3x your best estimate. If you think you can do it for $1k estimate $3k. It will more than likely end up costing 3k.

<comment><USER15> I know you mean it just as an example, but I would have used $10k and $30k instead; you cannot do much of anything for $1k or $3k so if you use that as a fixed price you will most likely end up losing money.

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> Maintenance is something for which you should definitely charge. How exactly you should charge for it depends on how much you value recurring revenue streams and how willing the client is to commit to recurring expenses.

I have never done web-related consulting, but in my industry (VoIP), customers almost always expect ongoing support of the platform/system built for them, which is analogous to a full-on deliverable like a web site (as opposed to a small patch or tweak). The general thinking is that if customers want to be able to count on your responding to them in a timely manner for down-the-road support, they need to pay for that privilege; merely being willing to pay hourly on an as-needed basis is not enough.

So, in our area of consulting, this is usually done on a flat-rate monthly retainer basis which entitles them to X hours per month of support at a discounted hourly equivalent rate (additional hours are billed at an overage rate which may or may not be higher), and it's use-it-or-lose-it; in other words, it's an insurance policy that you'll be there when they need you. The scope of such support is also confined to configuration tweaks and minor modifications; fully fledged additional product development is usually not included and is billed ad hoc at normal development rates. In some cases, if the retainer amount is sufficiently high, you can probably justify all-you- can-eat maintenance without limiting the hours, which can make customers feel better about not being billed through the nose for fixes for bugs/errors/omissions/defects, but as with any "unlimited" plan, it's also a great way to screw yourself with demanding customers that take full advantage of the buffet model. Still, it's how we do support for our product in our particular industry, because it allows us to charge a lot more per month.

I don't know how much commitment of this sort can be extracted from clients in the web industry, since I don't know what sort of revenue can be directly attributed to the web site or how critical it is to any given business that has approached you.

You can always just charge them on an hourly basis for any maintenance needed, which will sit better with customers that are resistant to recurring commitments of any sort. However, in that case, you should definitely not discount the rate; after all, they're not guaranteeing you any revenue, yet they're expecting you to drop whatever you're working on (which could, at some future moment, be quite large/lucrative/urgent) and help them. So, discounting is usually used to make the recurring approach more attractive.

From a business perspective, I highly encourage the recurring revenue approach. It has much to recommend it for reasons of cash flow.

</comment><comment><USER17> How I handle every project as someone who bills himself as a consultant, which often includes developing custom software from scratch (solo or with a team):

1\. Invest serious time into drafting a scope of initial features that fit a client's budget. Figure out as much as I possibly can to avoid pitfalls later.

2\. Document results of #1 into a formal Statement of Work and contract for the work.

3\. The SoW, depending on size and scope, may include a negotiated support window that begins at project launch. This is _strictly technical bug-fixes only_ , and is not a window within which the client can request additional features, enhancements, tweaks, etc. It only covers bug fixes for original SoW scope where issues may arise within a specific time period (30, 60, or 90 days). [0]

4\. Any changes to the original SoW that occur after acceptance and before completion are Change Orders. This is written into and agreed upon in the signed SoW. Want to modify how something works halfway through the project? Change Order. Just realized Feature X really needs to be part of the project? Change Order.[1]

5\. Any changes, features, enhancements, modifications, deletions, etc.-- _any work at all_ \--after the SoW is complete is _always_ new billable work. In this case, whether or not I require formalizing the work into a new SoW really depends on the size and scope of the request, as well as the working relationship and trust level with my clients. If there is a large changeset requested, I go for a new SoW; if it is a relatively small thing I can measure in days, I typically work that out via emails that document the scope of the change, the forecasted days it will take & day-rate charged, and only begin the work when I have a documented response from them that says to do it.[2]

6\. No matter what, if the client & I agree SoW is completed, the project is launched, and I've received final payment, _I owe them nothing further_. If I cannot schedule them in, they have to wait or find another solution. If they do not want to pay, they have to find another solution. _I have the power to say no to any request, and I have no obligation to work for free_.

\---

0: This may be controversial to some, but I value the quality, stability, and correctness of everything I create. This offers clients peace of mind that I will be on the hook for any mistakes made, and I have incentive to ensure I do not fuck up. I would be offended if someone delivered buggy software to me and then wanted to charge me to correct their mistakes within a reasonable period of time. If I've made mistakes, they will be discovered within the support window, and I will happily fix them.

1: Honestly, I've really had some ups and downs here while learning just where to draw the line. The longer I work as a consultant, the more militant I get with requiring & enforcing the Change Order rule (which is always in my SoWs). _Every_ time I have not enforced the CO rule when a client has requested modifying/changing something from the SoW, I have regretted it. _Every time_. I have basically had to learn to remind myself that _I am not their employee, and they have to pay for my time_ , no matter how small I think something may be. My own nature and desire to help them constantly works against me when I think I should just go ahead and throw something in--because it sounds easy, because it seems small, because I think it would be helpful, because I feel guilty/weird about requiring a CO during the course of a SoW, whatever.

2: Even as I type this, I recognize this is an area where I expose myself to risk, and probably should just be militant in documenting everything in a new SoW/CO that the client actually has to sign and return to me.</comment>


Book discovery service: No Names. No Jackets - <AUTHOR> http://www.nonamesnojackets.com/launch-announcement/

<comment><USER2> UI note: when something looks like a button, it needs to be a button. The genre "buttons" are only active right around their text, which means that "SF" has a much smaller active area than "History", even though they present the same visual appearance.

<comment><USER3> Yep, noticed the same. I guess most readers here on HN will go for the SF genre first :-)

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> I'd like it even more streamlined. Send five anonymized snippets to my inbox every Friday and let me click one button to order one of them to my door. Anyone know a service like this?

<comment><USER5> Zinc is an api that could be pretty useful for this. It let's you write code to ship stuff. Pretty slick - [https://zinc.io/](https://zinc.io/)

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> It seems like this is going to be heavily biased away from traditionally published books if the authors/publishers have to upload the chapter. I'd actually prefer they were using Amazon to pull in mainstream books.

<comment><USER7> I agree; four of the five random picks I made took me to this author's website: [http://www.theleftroom.co.uk/?page_id=2079](http://www.theleftroom.co.uk/?page_id=2079).

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> As a side note, I love the footnote:

"3NJ uses cookies to function. For some insane reason EU law requires me to tell you this. By continuing I assume your permission to do so. Complete info on what they're used for is here. This banner will only appear once."

<comment><USER9> I don't think there's a need for this: "For some insane reason " it doesn't sound very professional.

<comment><USER10> I'm not sure I agree, it really does depend on your target audience, I saw it and it gave me a chuckle (as someone who remembers the flap about cookies a few years ago).

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> I spend about 1 hour a week at the bookstore, usually taking random books and reading the first page(s).

I also try to discover new books on Amazon from time to time by going over their selections and recommendations but I end up reading the same circle of authors.

I think your idea is brilliant by matching my IRL process. I wish you a lot of success.

EDIT: about the website itself it's nicely done, minimalist and easy. I'd change the "Choose a genre" button to a dropdown. Also I'd have the top navigation (the exploration/submit buttons) merged with the right one with the menu following the scroll. This would be a a good incentive to navigate around (easier and faster too).

<comment><USER12> Usually I sample mid-stream, as it were; about 60% in to the book I'll read a couple of pages.

<comment><USER13> What is it you're looking for, exactly? Good grammar? Cheers to the OP for thinking outside the box, but I don't think this service helps me, nor would your technique. I yearn for good writing, but what I consider good writing can't be determined from reading one chapter, and certainly not a couple pages in the middle of a book. What matters to me is how the chapters (and the people/places/events in them) fit together. The storycraft, if you will. Good editing, internal consistency, etc. Once can only determine these things by reading the whole book, or at least most of it. And since I don't have the time to devote to reading bad books in the hope they'll be good, I greatly rely on reviews, including those from Amazon.

<comment><USER14> To me it's style, mostly. I used to just buy books, then got home, started reading and discovered I really couldn't stand the style of writing or the tone. I try to sample a little bit now.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> Very creative, I will give this a try. However, I do think editors/publishers provide value in that they at separate the wheat from the chaff.

<comment><USER16> I was thinking about this.

I don't know if there's such a thing as "freelance editors" or "freelance typesetters" \- but there's a need for these kind of services for self- published authors.

Some of the books I've read were okay, but could have been good with an editor and with nicer spell / grammar checking.

I don't know how that business could work?

Authors sometimes collaborate. Perhaps something like a author's co-op? They could pull in designers / artists for the covers and do cross-promotion too.

<comment><USER17> There are indeed freelance editors -- both at the copyedit level and at a higher level.

Self-pubbed authors often hire freelance artists for cover design.

And there are freelance book designers for both dead-tree and e-books. There are also services that provide "canned" book design service -- i.e. you pick from a template.

To me it seems that the hardest part of the whole equation for an indy author is promotion. There are so many books published daily that it's really hard to get readers for your work.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> It would be great if this works, but there is a lot of noise in the book world. Even with good filtering I find myself putting down a lot of drivel. This said, if it opens up the variety of what we're reading, it can't hurt. Sometimes I wonder if Amazon and friends unduly cut down on the variety of what I see. The browsing ability of bookstores has been lost.

</comment><comment><USER19>
        Security risk blocked for your protection

        Reason:
        This Websense category is filtered: Potentially Damaging
        Content. Sites in this category may pose a security
        threat to network resources or private information, and
        are blocked by your organization.

<comment><USER20> I always love when someone posts the false-positives of their companies shitty firewall. It's not the website owners responsibility to be firewall friendly.

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> I like this. It presents a snippet from a book, you can choose to read a longer snippet and then choose to get the book name and details.

</comment><comment><USER21> All the random entries I got were either SF or crime... I think the source list of books may have some bias torwards those genres

</comment><comment><USER22> Seeing as the random from the fantasy genre always gives me item 220, I feel as though it is not very random.

<comment><USER23> I think that #220 is currently the only story in the database tagged as "fantasy". Some of the genres (such as 'alt history' and 'western') have _no_ tagged stories. I presume that this is due to the service having just launched --I'm sure that with enough exposure to self-published authors, this service will have a sizable chunk of content to work with by the end of the day.

</comment></comment><comment><USER24> I just posted the first chapter of my graphic novel. I'm interested to see how they react to this.</comment>


The Lawyer, the Addict - <AUTHOR> https://www.nytimes.com/2017/07/15/business/lawyers-addiction-mental-health.html?ribbon-ad-idx=5&rref=business&module=Ribbon&version=origin&region=Header&action=click&contentCollection=Business%20Day&pgtype=article <comment><USER2> The pressure to maintain a lifestyle that you perceive to make you whole is an interesting one. My career started in the film industry and the long days, emotional personalities and industry norm resulted in abusing blow, while I don't think it ever got totally out of control in my life, I did go through a year of using it every day, and some days all day. Of course, it's a cycle. You use it to live that life, you make money living that life, you spend money using things to live the life, you have to live that life harder. I switched back into tech in my mid 20s, and eventually ended up relatively senior in a quickly growing startup. After about a year I started to use adderall more and more and more to keep up and feel more focused and more like the engineering minded folks around me. I'm thankful that eventually my boss (our ceo) pulled me aside and told me he felt that I was using adderall and booze in an unhealthy way and he wanted me to stop. However, the next thing he said to me is actually what made me stop. He said we really love you the way you are without drugs, we really love John as he is. Whoah, that was like a slap in the face. I'm really grateful for that as I'm sure I could have ended up down some pretty crazy rabbit hole. I suspect more bosses could do with being like this.

<comment><USER3> >The pressure to maintain a lifestyle that you perceive to make you whole is an interesting one.

Disagree on "pressure to maintain a lifestyle"...I'd make it more general and say just straight pressure. When people are under extreme pressure for long periods of time they look for an "out".

<comment><USER2> Thanks for explaining my own feelings to me?

<comment><USER3> I wasn't commenting on you or your feelings, the part I quoted was written by yourself and addressed to an unknown 2nd person:

>The pressure to maintain a lifestyle that you perceive to make you whole is an interesting one.

Since you're probably not addressing the dead lawyer or his wife or the new york times writer I took this to be a general comment open to the floor & voiced an opinion on it. Anyway...moving swiftly along.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Outside of the drug abuse, the lifestyle can be found in a good percentage of homes all over Palo Alto. Working 60+ hours/week for years on end(check), angry and threatening one minute, remorseful and generous the next (check), sustaining himself largely on fast food, snacks, coffee, ibuprofen and antacids (check), the last call he ever made was for work (likely), displayed no photos of his children or me in his office [because...] he didn't want the partners to see him as "distracted by my family." (yep).

While this doesn't exist in every household it exists in a lot of them. Going for walks at dusk you can hear the household arguments spawned by this lifestyle. Not every house, every night. But they are common enough. Sometimes you just want to reach out and say "I understand" to the person in the house that's very obviously blowing up due to stress.

What is less common is drug abuse. I don't know how people find the time for a drug addiction, alcohol addiction, or any other kind of addiction that isn't "overworking themselves" because that is very much a primary addiction.

Silicon Valley is the 1950s Hollywood for techies. They come from all over the world to work with the best of the best, for a shot at something incredible. And much like Hollywood for actors, it ends up chewing up and eating more people than anybody outside the bubble realizes.

There's a lot to be said for the area. All kinds of positives. But it's also a very destructive area at a very personal level. There is a lot of personal sacrifice happening at the altars of "educational opportunity", "changing the world", "better lifestyle for my family", and whatever other benefits people have talked themselves into believing that more money can provide for their families.

My advice, and I should take it myself, is to recognize when you are breaking down and take a break. The world will get by for 2 more weeks without that one all-so-important feature that you're working on right now.

<comment><USER3> >I don't know how people find the time for a drug addiction,

It's not a case of "finding time". It's a case of escape aka I need this to cope. With that mindset there is definitely time.

One of the reasons why I stay away from drugs...that's a rabbit hole I don't want to go down.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> "One of the first things I learned is that there is little research on lawyers and drug abuse."

Or really any other profession. I work in politics, in DC, and drug abuse is rampant. Absolutely horrible. I've found people snorting pills in the bathroom, steps away from the offices of members of congress. Adderall, cocaine, Xanax, and a myriad of painkillers is the norm. Having to shake a colleague awake and pour coffee into him because he was so jazzed on adderall all of the previous day, that he had to drink himself into a drunken stupor just to fall asleep. Now it's 8am and he needed to be at a committee hearing in two hours. It's under reported and invisible.

I think highly stressful jobs bring out a "solutions" mentality. Drugs help. With sleep, with productivity, with being on the ball....until they don't....

<comment><USER6> Yes, I understand the anecdote here is a lawyer, but it certainly needs to be studied for all professions and modern lifestyle affects - lawyer, banker, programmer or blue collar or service jobs with infrequent customer interaction

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> _Of all the heartbreaking details of his story, the one that continues to haunt me is this: The history on his cellphone shows the last call he ever made was for work. Peter, vomiting, unable to sit up, slipping in and out of consciousness, had managed, somehow, to dial into a conference call._

<comment><USER8> i just linked this quote to several people too. the next quote that really hit home was this one:

"Over all, the results showed that about 21 percent of lawyers qualify as problem drinkers, while 28 percent struggle with mild or more serious depression and 19 percent struggle with anxiety."

Because the percentages seem comparable in tech for engineers.

<comment><USER9> Do you have source for three tech claim? People around me don't seem to be that depressed nor alcoholic, but I don't work in SV.

<comment><USER10> Depression is really not something you can necessarily glean from being around people, especially in an office environment. I imagine the same is largely true for alcoholism as well.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> I completely understand this guy's mindset.

I am a 23 year old programmer who just graduated college. My goal is to work at a place that makes me happy. I think the first step is by working on personal projects to post on my Github and put on my resume. But when I get home after a depressing 8 hour day of staring at code that makes no sense and accomplishing nothing, I'm burnt out and tired and depressed and more coding is the last thing I want to do. So I'm trying to get a prescription for Adderall, because last time I took Adderall I was extremely focused and interested in programming, and I got tons of work done on personal projects that were a huge part of getting me the (albeit shitty) job I have now.

I have only one friend, and he usually hangs out with his girlfriend, so I have basically no social life. When I want some down time, I instantly get depressed because I have nothing to do and no one to do anything with. So I smoke weed. I'm instantly happy, and video games and movies are instantly interesting and enjoyable again.

I don't see how I can escape from these things. I truly feel like drugs are the only thing keeping me going right now.

<comment><USER12> Don't do the drugs. Tech companies are marathons not sprints. It is not about one week, it is about years of innovation. You need to be healthy, creative and on top of your game. In our industry it is about being smart, not lots of hours of work. Being mentally healthy will pay off in the long run.

<comment><USER11> > You need to be healthy, creative and on top of your game

If I don't take drugs I can't be on top of my game because I have no energy or focus or motivation to program without them.

> In our industry it is about being smart, not lots of hours of work

You don't get hired because someone thought you were "smart". You get hired because you're experienced in stack X or because you worked at prestigious company Y or graduated with a great GPA from prestigious university Z. X won't happen for me without drugs. I can't focus without them. Y won't happen without X. Z I can't afford and even if I could I would need drugs to get me through it. I feel like I have no choice.

<comment><USER13> I hope you will believe me when I say that you will probably be able to get what you want out of an Adderall scrip a few times... But I suspect you won't get much more out of it than some code, and it will not get the move out of your current situation you want. I don't know from personal experience; I know adderral works, but if you want to be hired by a good team, it's often not just code that's being hired for, it's the person who's joining the team that is what we really want.

If you are feeling like shit after work and you want to move up and out you should consider that when most of us interview a person, we can't recommend hiring someone who is trapped. It sucks, but it has horrible effects on how a person interviews.

There is probably a way out though. I highly recommend that if you want to find some motivation for coding and for interviewing, you should use the job you have to pay for trying out some group physical activities that are not gender specific (e.g. pickup basketball is almost all male, but usually rock climbing is not) and learn to relax and enjoy your companions, and your activity. This will give you the head space to think about what you need for your personal project. It should provide positive feedback about you that is unrelated to your self-imate in tech. It should let you exercise your social skills, and give you the energy you need to do your project (albeit with less time, but with more focus and a clearer head) and interview comfortably.

And hopefully it'll give you a peer group that has little to do with tech who can know you on normal human level and give you important feedback to let you know you're valuable for who you are.

And here's the key: it's sustainable. Engineering, tech, etc. is a career that you may continue in for the next 40+ years. If you don't wind up working for facebook or google in your 20s, you may well end up working for their successors in your 30s when you're ready. Or you may work for someone else, which would be great too, as long as you're happy and doing what you enjoy with people you like.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> "Peter battled his own brand of melancholy...he wasn't someone who ever really felt happy. He had moments of being "not unhappy,""

This hit a bit too close to home. not quite as severe for me yet, as right now in those moments i hide it behind a facade of dry humor and try to be an optimist.

I'm 25 and work in tech out here in SV, and have no current impulse for illegal drug use and only a light drinker. But, I admit there is a non-zero chance I could one day become Peter.

Fuck. Me. - i need to take better care of myself.

</comment><comment><USER15> I recently had to cope with a colleague that has chosen this route, this level of addiction is traumatic to see. Things had gone a long way from recreational and I had to have words with the enemy - HR - as a thing I felt compelled to do.

I have friends that take things recreationally for them to not go down the hell hole my former workmate chose, however, from reading the article I can see that they might be immune, they have shifted to sociable alcoholism and could shift over to the full on disease of addiction much like the subject of this article. Maybe mid life crisis could be the mechanism and not some childhood trauma thing. The opioid crisis has been an expensive mistake, there is too much blurring of prescription and street drugs in all these stories.

</comment><comment><USER3> When pushed into a corner and/or under huge pressure people make decisions that solve the short-term issue...but at a cost.

</comment><comment><USER16> I have direct and very recent experience with the patent group at the firm mentioned in the article (WSGR) because my company is suing their client, but I think the following needs to be stated about all law firms.

True, law is an incredibly stressful profession. True, it selects for competitive people. True, the hours can be crushing. But few other professions reward individuals for lying so much.

Patent lawyers and most other lawyers lie day in, day out. Often their job cannot be done without lying. They lie to clients (overbilling), colleagues (opposing counsel), judges at every level, and as the article points out, their families. Often the lies are in print. It's essentially a prerequisite to rationalize these lies as "argumentation" or viewpoint, but often they're just lies. For most people who are not complete sociopaths, lying takes a toll. It's not at all surprising to see that it can add up in frightening ways.

<comment><USER17> Lawyering done with a high degree of skill and latitude involves none of these things. I recognize the critique, at least from a distance, as a dysfunction caused by practicing in a high-stakes environment without the ability to persuade clients to take reasonable and just positions. Once upon a time bar association had fee schedules to ensure that one would not find any particular representation so lucrative as to apply pressure of this kind. I also will say that law schools do not necessarily encourage budding lawyers to cabin their argumentation, which unfortunately promotes a 'say anything' approach by younger lawyers like you describe. It's effective only in the short term.

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> So this explains why it's called the _bar exam_ ;-)</comment>


The neurology of self-awareness - <AUTHOR> https://www.edge.org/conversation/the-neurology-of-self-awareness <comment><USER2> A very interesting and thought-provoking essay. This part in particular stuck out:

> Otherwise monkeys would have self awareness and they don't

This suggests the existence of other research that has both defined the concept of self-awareness robustly and made it testable enough that we can state as fact that monkeys don't have it. Does anybody know what this might be alluding to?

<comment><USER3> It is a common arrogance, even among "scientists", to assume that no other animal has self awareness or even emotions.

<comment><USER4> Can you point to any evidence even in the fringe sciences that would attempt to prove that monkeys have self awareness?

<comment><USER5> I always thought the mirror test / mark test was a pretty well established test for self awareness, and several animals pass it. It's not particularly fringe.

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

<comment><USER6> Actually, this is called into question in the fine article:

> (Incidentally, Gallup's mirror test — removing a paint splotch from your > face while looking at a mirror — is not an adequate test of self awareness, > even though it is touted as such. We have seen patients who vehemently claim > that their reflection in the mirror is "someone else" yet they pass the > Gallup test!)

<comment><USER5> The point is that awareness testing is not a fringe part of animal behavioral studies. This would be a potential area of research for mainstream animal behavior study (paired mirror tests).

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> > But hopefully we have paved the way for future models and empirical studies > on the nature of self, a problem that philosophers have made essentially no > headway in solving.

This final statement not only seems snide but also dumb to the difference between science and philosophy. (I'm not an expert on that difference but I can see that there is one. I can see that there is a clear difference in spite of the fact that each steps on the others' toes, that each side attempts to take credit for the others' insights at times, or makes snide comments at each other like this statement here.)

<comment><AUTHOR> I think philosophers often free-ride on the discoveries of cognitive scientists without adding anything to the discussion. That doesn't mean that philosophy can't have its place, it's there to ask questions but very often those questions are meaningless without the way to gain answers.

<comment><USER8> Well...Philosophy ("love of wisdom") originally encompassed all of science. In a sense, once a discipline was able to be conducted more empirically, it split off. So at any particular stage, Philosophy will be trying to answer those questions we can't answer empirically.

So I find the "free-ride" a little harsh. What happens over time is that more and more questions that used to be purely "philosophical" have more and more empirical answers.

I think it might be useful for Philosophy to be less its own specialty and more an umbrella for the whole enterprise of "love of wisdom".

<comment><USER9> >What happens over time is that more and more questions that used to be purely "philosophical" have more and more empirical answers.

I sometimes think this might be a bit of a positivist myth. Most of the domains where we've gained a great deal of empirical knowledge are domains which people always investigated empirically, albeit less systematically and with fewer available resources (e.g. astronomy). On the other hand, most of the big philosophical puzzles that Aristotle engaged with remain largely untouched by developments in science. E.g. Is it possible to make true statements about the future? How is change possible?

<comment><USER8> >I sometimes think this might be a bit of a positivist myth.

How so? For example: [http://www.astronomynotes.com/history/s3.htm](http://www.astronomynotes.com/history/s3.htm)

Looks like an astronomy problem to me. Aristotle is also considered one of the early astronomers.

>On the other hand, most of the big philosophical puzzles that Aristotle engaged with remain largely untouched by developments in science

 _Exactly_ my point. Of the problems they worked on (and they worked on _everything_ they could think of), the ones that we have solved we now consider science, the ones that are still unresolved we consider philosophy.

Sort of like the definition of AI: if we solve it, it's no longer considered AI.

<comment><USER9> >Looks like an astronomy problem to me. Aristotle is also considered one of the early astronomers.

I'm not sure what you're getting at here. My point was that Plato and Aristotle (and other early astronomers) realized that astronomy had to be based on observation. No-one (except perhaps a few cranks that no-one remembers) has ever tried to do "armchair astronomy".

>the ones that we have solved we now consider science, the ones that are still unresolved we consider philosophy.

I think the distinction is really just the distinction between empirical science and metaphysics, which is a distinction that Aristotle would also have made, though perhaps in slightly different terms. For this reason, I think the image of armchair philosophy gradually yielding ground to science is wrong. Broadly speaking, philosophers have always worked on philosophical problems using philosophical methods, and scientists have always worked on scientific problems using empirical methods. There hasn't been any great shift from one to the other. What has occurred of course is a shift in prestige: society currently values empirical science much more than it values philosophy.

<comment><USER8> You are equating "philosophy" with what philosophy looks like today ("armchair astronomy").

The point is that this wasn't the case, philosophy was the umbrella that included _everything_.

Heck, just look at the title "Doctor of Philosophy", which is the name for doctorates in both the sciences and the humanities. _Not_ just for doctorates in today's specific sub-discipline of philosophy.

<comment><USER9> Well sure, but I take it that the change in the way the word 'philosophy' is used is not the interesting development. That's not what people usually mean when they talk about philosophical problems becoming scientific problems.

<comment><USER8> The two are the same thing.

<comment><USER9> I don't think so. The suggestion is usually that questions which used to be in the realm of philosophical speculation are now being addressed using empirical scientific methods. That would amount to more than just a change in terminology.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> _The neuron fired not only (say) when the monkey reached for a peanut but also when it watched another monkey reach for a peanut!_

 _These were dubbed "mirror neurons" or "monkey-see-monkey-do" neurons. This was an extraordinary observation because it implies that the neuron (or more accurately, the network which it is part of) was not only generating a highly specific command ("reach for the nut") but was capable of adopting another monkey's point of view. It was doing a sort of internal virtual reality simulation of the other monkeys action in order to figure out what he was "up to". It was, in short, a "mind-reading" neuron._

I don't really see how this follows- maybe the neurons are just recognising things that happened, like seeing a peanut being picked up. That doesn't require "adopting another monkey's point of view" or "figuring out what he was up to". It could just be the brain attempting to verify that the action happened, which is going to be seen regardless of who made it happen.

</comment><comment><USER11> How he defines self awareness: "'other awareness' applied to yourself" is a self awareness we entertain as children but definitely not real self awareness or the self awareness we posses after reaching any level of even moderate development.

"Self-awareness is 'other awareness' applied to yourself where 'other awareness' is constructing meaningful models of other peoples minds in order to predict their behavior" ^ This is totally circular. You(others) have some way of guiding your(their) own behavior before being aware of others and using that to construct a model of behavior and self.

This essay is armchair philosophizing completely removed from any real experience. I'd go so far as to call it psychologically harmful to anyone that entertains the essay as true and attempts to apply the ideas presented in it to understand their self.

</comment><comment><USER12> This theory is reversing the cause and effect. Self-awareness is not the primary because it is a consequence of free will, i.e. the capacity to direct the focus or object of your consciousness. Initially the focus of attention is external to the mind for its obvious survival value and the higher animals clearly have some primitive ability to direct their focus. But the step they cannot (or have not made) is to direct that focus onto their own cognitive states (i.e. self-awareness) and discover such things as anger, jealousy, want, love, motivation, etc. From there its a small step to project that certain other animals have similar internal states that explain their behaviors, i.e. mirroring. Hours of observing others animals perceptually would never lead to mirroring nor self-awareness. It is a projection of our observation of the internal states of the only consciousness you can or ever will directly observe, your own.

</comment><comment><USER13> "Mirror" neurons sound more like "concept" or "verb" neurons, rather than a subset of "command" neurons. Firing when its monkey "reaches for a peanut", and when it sees another monkey "reaching for a peanut" sounds like it means the verb "to reach for a peanut".

It also seems unlikely that a single neuron would carry a complete meaning in themselves... like probing a single bit in a data structure, you might be able to tell if it's odd or even, positive or negative, but probably need a constellation of bits/neurons to make sense of it.

But he may be simplifying in this high-level essay, and I haven't read papers in the field.

</comment><comment><USER14> The man is simply saying that the underlying neurological mechanism (i.e. mirror neurons ) used to decode others behaviour and possbily make a prediction about "what they're up to" is used also to decode/simulate our own actions, which is really what we call self awarness. This actually makes quite a lot of sense, and I don't see why some pople detect a circular dependecy here..

At sensory level our own "doing" is not really different then sombody else's "doing" , and that can pe processed by the same mechanism, but reconized as "our own doing" based on additional cues..

</comment><comment><USER15> 2007 article

A very interesting hypothesis nevertheless. There are pathologies in which theory of mind is impaired. For example Baron-Cohen studies that aspect of autism. There might be hypotheses formulated what that means for self- awareness.

</comment><comment><USER16> He insists that 'mirror neurons' give rise to the aspects of self, but who's not to say that they are a reflection/ habituation of processes 'out there', I don't know, something like the (aptly named) 'mirror stage' of childhood? Shouldn't a discussion of correlation vs. causation be important for his argument?

<comment><USER17> [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mirror_stage](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mirror_stage)

<comment><USER16> I'm not saying the mirror stage is the explanation, formative experiences more generally in childhood might be a reason you see 'mirror neuron' networks. A feral child can't learn language after a certain point, and hypothetically I would imagine he would not show a 'mirror neuron' network (or sense of self awareness).

Either way, I think the author needs to address correlation vs. causation before assuming the latter.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> We already know that we are very similar to animals. Our mind and consciousness are last things that distinguishes us. We are strongly attached to this idea. It was hard for people to accept the fact that the Earth is not the center of the universe, and despite the simple explanation of the phenomena that surround us.

Regarding consciousness there is too much philosophical discussion. Wordplays of which little is clear.

The sense of sight has exhausted such emotions. We are able to say that a simple multicellular organism having one photosensitive cell is a primitive ancestor of the eye.

What do you say if we define consciousness as the next sense, but in contrast to other senses directed to the center, that is, to our memory.

</comment><comment><USER19> \-- 'other awareness' applied to yourself --

I find the work and ideas especially the

"attention schema theory"

of sentience, consciousness, self-awareness proposed by Michael Graziano[1] most compelling in that area; they as well propose an evolutionary path towards the development of "consciousness"

And yeah sure, why should/could the mirror-neurons-"apparatus" _not_ be involved?

[1] [https://www.princeton.edu/~graziano/](https://www.princeton.edu/~graziano/) : including some The Atlantic essays.

</comment><comment><USER20> Naive factorial() implementation is self-aware, I'd say. So what?

</comment><comment><USER4> Ramachandrans Reith lectures are also worth a listen

[http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio4/reith2003/](http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio4/reith2003/)

</comment><comment><USER21> I'm going to play the buddhist card on this one and contend that it's the enlistment of "outside" energies like food, air, water, prana...which are coming into an organism and experiencing or "re-experiencing" itself which gives rise to this effect. There are many levels to this effect though and there must be some sweet spots where an experience seems somehow new (as in worthy to be paid attention to) and yet not-altogether old either. Familiar enough to recognize and "alarming" or "surprising" enough to be worthy of giving attention towards.

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> Ramachandrans The Tell-Tale Brain is certainly one of my favorite books, anyone who is interested in neurobiology should read it.

</comment><comment><USER22> This might be an _extremely_ stupid question, but does it make sense to apply the concept of mirror neurons to ANNs?

<comment><USER15> Of course. There is a field in AI that is dedicated to imitation learning.

See e.g. "Mirror neurons and imitation: a computationally guided review" at [http://pacherie.free.fr/COURS/MSC/Oztop-Kawato- Arbib-2006.pd...](http://pacherie.free.fr/COURS/MSC/Oztop-Kawato- Arbib-2006.pdf) for an overview.

The reason why you don't see so much of this type of literature is because the dominance of virtual AI: Google, Siri, etc. Hardware is expensive and learning with hardware is slow. However, the type of AI required is IMHO much more interesting. I think we really understand how our brains work if we have an AI competing at the Olympics.

</comment></comment><comment><USER23> This could neatly explain Stockholm Syndrome, cult joining and other identity deficits.

<comment><USER24> wouldn't monkeys have cults if this was a sufficient explanation for those?

<comment><USER25> Like this?

[http://www.newstatesman.com/culture/nature/2016/03/could- chi...](http://www.newstatesman.com/culture/nature/2016/03/could-chimpanzees- have-religion)

<comment><USER26> I've been looking for this for ages.

Thanks.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> Just another ape pretending he's special.

Sure, monkeys don't have self awareness.

</comment><comment><USER27> Self Awareness is something that is uniquely human. It relies on consciousness.

<comment><USER28> Consciousness is the experience of being.

If there is an experience of what it is like to be a thing, then that thing can be said to be conscious.

Such things may be some subset of or superset containing "things with brains." But the idea that it is uniquely human seems absurd.

</comment></comment><comment><USER29> Woah Woah Woah, there is a fatal flaw and assumption in just the first couple paragraphs - the bootstrapping problem. If we evolved self in order to predict what others feel ... that depends on others having those feeling, but if those feelings in others don't evolve unless others have evolved those feelings, we have a circular fallacy! Who was the first feeler to cause others to evolve, and how did that person evolve then?

<comment><AUTHOR> > If we evolved self in order to predict what others feel ...

This has quite obvious evolutionary advantages. If you can predict how someone feels or what he might think you can outsmart him in competition for food. You could trick him for trade (e.g. food for tools) when he least suspects that it might not be in his favor. Essentially externalizing mirror neuron processes is much more beneficial in the short term, if you can think how the other person might think. In the long run in order to be successful you also need to internalize you mirror neurons - you need to think how to think about yourself and to start thinking what this person might think about you and what kind of self awareness they could have. You can't just trick the other, the deal is to trick them without them noticing otherwise you end up with prisoners dilemma. Probably those processes could also had led to evolution of language and trade.

<comment><USER30> Makes a lot of common sense. The more I read about stuff like this the more ``common-sense" Nature seems. I mean, having this near- or far-future predictive ability gives a species a real advantage among others that don't.</comment></comment></comment>


Brain Needs 1.5 MB of Storage to Master Your Native Language - <AUTHOR> https://www.livescience.com/65108-brain-megabyte-storage-for-language.html <comment><USER2> The claim is poorly phrased in the headline. From the article ([https://royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/10.1098/rsos.181393](https://royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/10.1098/rsos.181393)), you are exposed to around 2000 bits of language-related information each day, which apparently adds up to about 1.5 Mb by the time you turn 18 (an entirely arbitrary cutoff in the world of studying language acquisition).

This has some interesting interplay with the idea that your brain has a lot of the necessary machinery for learning language built-in from birth. We aren't exposed to that much data before we get reasonably good at language ([https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poverty_of_the_stimulus](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poverty_of_the_stimulus)). That helps account for the fact that you are exposed to so little (around a flop-disk's worth, according to the authors) data, but learn so quickly. Most linguists (but not all) subscribe to this idea, known as UG ([https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Universal_grammar](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Universal_grammar)).

What's interesting is that most UG people argue that your brain encodes morphosyntactic stuff via UG, and the authors of this paper state that most of the data they're counting in their 1.5 Mb figure is lexical semantic info.</comment>


Google wins business customers in Japan: report - <AUTHOR> http://www.marketwatch.com/story/google-wins-business-customers-in-japan-report-2009-10-08

<comment><USER2> Toto makes the most awesome toilets.</comment>


RAF pilot sent jet into 4,000ft plummet playing with camera, court martial hears - <AUTHOR> https://www.theregister.co.uk/2017/02/07/raf_voyager_zz333_flt_lt_andrew_townshend_court_martial/ <comment><USER2> Almost dupe, with more details: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13593810](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13593810) (173 points, 14 hours ago, 119 comments)</comment>


Journal's Article on ESP Expected to Prompt Outrage  - <AUTHOR> http://www.nytimes.com/2011/01/06/science/06esp.html?partner=rss&emc=rss

<comment><USER2> I didn't read the article, but I smiled at the title.</comment>


Down To Fax is Chatroulette for fax machines - <AUTHOR> https://www.downtofax.com/

<comment><USER2>
      Q) How will you make money?
      A) Volume.

Funny people.

(The random profiles are hilarious too: <http://www.downtofax.com/random>)

</comment><comment><USER3> You might want to link to the non-HTTPS version, or fix the certificate.

Very cool and funny, though.

</comment><comment><USER4> Chrome wouldn't let me get through to your site through your link because of certificate issues but it works fine over an insecure connection; for the lazy here's the non-HTTPS link: <http://www.downtofax.com/>

Definitely an interesting/hilarious idea (and I love your testimonials section), but I have to ask, has anyone actually given you a fax number yet? I don't think I know a single person that still owns a fax machine

</comment><comment><USER5> Creating fake profiles of customers using picture of dead people is not funny at all. [http://www.downtofax.com/users/8c51050c7abd11e1b11512313d186...](http://www.downtofax.com/users/8c51050c7abd11e1b11512313d186462) <http://www.elizabethstricklandunterzuber.com/> She passed away in 2006.

<comment><USER6> Thanks for the heads up. This account has been deleted. Unfortunately some people aren't taking this as seriously as we hoped. There are over 20mm Americans (mostly in rural areas) who have access to a fax machine but don't have the internet.

We have a feature to flag inappropriate profiles.

<comment><USER7> >Unfortunately some people aren't taking this as seriously as we hoped. There are over 20mm Americans (mostly in rural areas) who have access to a fax machine but don't have the internet.

The problem with your implementation is that you require your users have the Internet to create a profile and to receive a fax. Ideally you would have a phone number (different ones for men seeking women, women seeking men, men seeking men, women seeking women) that someone could send a fax to and receive back a random fax.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Psh, if anyone gets contacted via DTF you should submit the post to <https://www.faxins.com>, so the entire internet can laugh at your technologically impaired suitor!

<comment><USER9> Working link: <http://www.faxins.com/>

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> Oh, what a pity we had our landline phones disconnected earlier this century.

<comment><USER11> You're going to feel so weird saying that in 50 years.

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> Great, great, great idea. So simple, so beautiful, so non-IPO. Wish I would see more of that pure idealism around here.

</comment><comment><USER13> it's like tacocopter for dating!

</comment><comment><USER14> <http://www.downtofax.com> gives me a domain placeholder for some hosting company. <https://www.downtofax.com> gives me a certificate error. Best I can tell the DNS hasn't propogated everywhere yet.

There is a CNAME record for <http://dtf.herokuapp.com> though, and that URL seems to show the correct site for me.

</comment><comment><USER15> It is not even Sunday in Australia yet. I am going to stay off the Internet all weekend now.

<comment><USER16> I was thinking the same thing. At risk of spoiling it for others -- is it april fools yet?

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> Brilliant! I'm rolling out PagerDuty as we speak.

</comment><comment><USER9> What are you using to send the faxes?

<comment><USER18> I'd like to know as well. is there something like twillio for fax or something?

<comment><USER19> There's <http://hellofax.com>, wonderful service.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> I'm definitely investing in this once it IPO's.

(P.S. Try downtofax.com, neither <https://www>. nor <http://www>. work.)

</comment><comment><USER21> Would be even funner if it was "You DTMF?"

</comment><comment><USER22> My favorite profile is the grue.

</comment><comment><USER23> What a frightenly unambitious idea.

<comment><USER24> They now quote you saying that on the front page, btw. Linking to this comment.

<comment><USER25> I love these people so much...

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> Sorry, but no. This is OKCupid, or whatever, for fax machines. Which is weird, you know. Taking the "corporateness" and Extreme Seriousness connotations of fax, and the sexy fun vibe for dating, and mixing them... Sort of funny, if you asked me. I guess I'm not that eager on dating women who use faxes, _in 2012, for dating_. Total turn-off.

Now, first thing I thought was, this could be some app in which the user writes something, or draws something, scans it and it goes to a random's user printer. That's cool like ChatRoulette. It has all its penis-in-your-face potential, and all its ephimerous-beauty potential at the same time. I was dissapointed :(

Oh, and the SSL certificate is wrong. It's associated to a *.herokuapp.com . Please fix it.

<comment><USER27> Let it percolate in your mind for another half a minute. Everything will become obvious.

<comment><USER28> I'm utterly convinced that some people are missing the part of their brain that detects satire.

<comment><USER29> Well, yes. A lot of those people are going to be on HN as well. There are people who take things very literally. (To the point that analogy and metaphor become confusing.)

BTW: I love down to fax.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Manning-Lamo Chat Logs Revealed - <AUTHOR> http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2011/07/manning-lamo-logs/#more-27735

<comment><USER2> > (02:56:04 PM) email@example.com: i mean, showed up – for you – if Julian > were to slip up.

> (02:56:46 PM) bradass87: he knows very little about me

> (02:56:54 PM) bradass87: he takes source protection uber-seriously

> (02:57:01 PM) bradass87: "lie to me" he says

> (02:57:06 PM) firstname.lastname@example.com: Really. Interesting.

> (02:57:34 PM) bradass87: he wont work with you if you reveal too much about > yourself

So it seems that Assange really does take source protection seriously and isn't a co-conspirator as has been suggested. Why did they redact this previously?

<comment><USER3> Because it undermines the narrative they wanted to publicize. Now that the narrative is well established they can release the full logs and it won't even make a dent in broad opinion.

<comment><USER4> What was this narrative you speak of? Got a link or an example to back up your insinuation?

<comment><USER3> The narrative is that Wikileaks acted as a co-conspirator in the theft of classified information.

It is legal in the US to republish illegally obtained information, so long as the publisher was not party to the crime in any way. The quoted snippet undermines claims that Julian Assanage was party to the crime.

Who has made such claims? Lamo. His claims and evidence form the motivation and basis of the Justice Department's investigation. According to Assange's lawyers, a grand jury was convened. If true, it clearly would benefit the prosecution to only enter as evidence the portions of the chat logs that best supported its case. If Wired published the entire logs, this wouldn't be possible.

I would take the release of the logs as indication that the justice department has abandoned that portion of the investigation, possibly after being denied by the grand jury.

<comment><USER4> Where in Wired.com's reporting is there any narrative that Assange directed Manning?

Your statement in the logs would somehow save Assange from a U.S. grand jury is laughable. And it's a very thin thread to try to weave a tapestry that Wired is in cahoots with the FBI. You must not read Threat Level very often.

<comment><USER3> There isn't in Wired, but there is in Lamo's statements.

They wouldn't save him, but they would significantly weaken the case. Other than Lamo's word, the only evidence is those logs and several encrypted emails.

I don't think Wired is in "cahoots" with the FBI (It's a justice department investigation also, not FBI). I do think one particular person at Wired (Poulson) is likely acting in a way that supports Lamo. Why Lamo wants all this, I don't know or care to speculate on.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> I find it disturbing Wired released these. There is a TON of extremely personal information about Brad in these logs, and I know I wouldn't want anyone knowing those things about me, even if I was in jail for the rest of my life.

In the end, that twitchy little rat fuck Lamo turned Manning in because he got shot down hitting on him.

<comment><USER6> The originally released logs already contained personal information of the sorts you are most likely refering to (i.e. they already outed manning a being gay and conflicted with DADT). The rest of what the logs tell, for example about the issues with his family and boyfriend, has already been researched by other media outlets and published.

I agree that reading Manning's actual narrative about this this is more shocking that reading a journalist telling you about it, but I don't find the fact that they released the logs disturbing.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> I shan't read wired whether online or print any more. I do not know what the relationship is between Lamo or any wired editor, I understand, at least as far as lamo is concerned, there may be different political leanings or viewpoints.

That is fine, people have different opinions, we are free to debate and disagree, but, to withhold quite important information, about a very politically charged story, and use such secrecy to ones utmost advantage is a disgrace and dishonoroubale for any journalist or man in my opinion.

It would have cut rhetorics straight through back in the days had the passages between Assange and Manning been made public back then. There would have been no room, or option, for some congressmen to say what they did against Assange, nor even suspicion, towards Assange or wikileaks or any involvement of them in inducing the leaking of the information. There would have been a unanimous voice, with little room to doubt, that wikileaks is fully in the clear.

That a magazine decides to withhold vital information from the public and distort the debate with what may be or has been damaging consequences goes far beyond any political leaning or fair game. It is downright deplorable in my opinion and unless our society finds a way to hold such behaviour to account we will soon end the way of bankrupt, morally deranged, corrupt ridden, dis- functioning societies.

</comment><comment><USER8> _(10:23:34 AM) email@example.com: I'm a journalist and a minister. You can pick either, and treat this as a confession or an interview (never to be published) & enjoy a modicum of legal protection._

maybe not...

<comment><USER9> How easy is it to hate this guy?

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> I never thought I'd say it, but I was wrong. I thought Poulsen and Wired were being shady with the redactions, but they were absolutely right. It was just a bunch of chatter about his depression and identity issues that nobody needed to know about. I respect their decision to redact far more, now. Not sure why they're being released now, but I guess it doesn't really matter anymore.

<comment><USER11> It absolutely was not "a bunch of chatter about his depression". It was much more. As small sample from the excellent piece by Glen Greenwald at Salon (1):

MANNING: uhm, trying to keep a low profile for now though, just a warning

LAMO: I'm a journalist and a minister. You can pick either, and treat this as a confession or an interview (never to be published) & enjoy a modicum of legal protection.

It is clear from this passage that Lamo promised legal protection of a journalist-source or priest-penitent relationship. And it shows Poulsen's claim that the withheld chat logs were only insignificant ramblings related to Manning's mental state was simply not true.

(1) <http://www.salon.com/news/opinion/glenn_greenwald/>

<comment><USER4> It doesn't matter one whit whether Lamo offered protection or not, except insofar as what you think of Lamo.

The shield law doesn't require journalists to keep info private -- it simply allows a reporter to quash a subpoena from law enforcement coming knocking for the info.

If indeed Manning had taken Lamo up on the offer, at best, Manning has a civil case against Lamo.

And as for Lamo being a minister, that's a joke. Knowing Lamo he's got a minister certificate he bought for $25 just to say he has it. Furthermore, Manning didn't take him up on the offer and the chats certainly don't look like a minister and a worshipper talking.

While it's clear Lamo is double-crossing Manning and trying to suck info out of him, this bit of the chat logs don't mean anything substantively.

But folks like Greenwald need a nemesis, so any point to beat on Wired.com for reporting the story will work.

Full disclosure: I work for Wired.com and Kevin Poulsen used to be my editor, and still occasionally is. I never saw the logs till they were pubbed and had no hand in the decision.

<comment><USER11> You wrote: "But folks like Greenwald need a nemesis, so any point to beat on Wired.com for reporting the story will work."

Greenwald doesn't need to go far to find a "nemesis" in this case. And he is not "beating" on Wired for reporting the story, but for reporting only those portions that it deemed relevant. The fact is Poulsen, for whatever reason, was not truthful in his claim that the unreleased chat logs were only Manning's personal meanderings or that they would reveal national security secrets. Whether someone at the DOJ put pressure on Wired not to release the full chat logs, we will never know. But to say that the full logs are not relevant to Manning's defense or Assange's role in all of this, is absurd.

<comment><USER4> What came out in the logs isn't relevant to Manning's defense, insofar that the logs are in the hands of the prosecution and so would be given to Manning's lawyer, irregardless.

The same goes for Assange. And nothing in the logs rules out that Assange "ran" Manning nor do they prove it. All they have is Manning saying Assange is good at OPSEC. So Assange may not know WHO Manning is, but still may have directed Manning to get more info or look for this or that. That's the presumed essence of the grand jury proceedings.

Nothing in the logs changes any of that, nor would the publication require the gov attorneys to show exculpatory evidence to a grand jury. A grand jury is a one-sided proceeding intended to convince a group of people that someone likely committed a crime.

Lamo promising "immunity" to Manning on journalistic or religious grounds? Meaningless, except for your opinion of Lamo, which I assume was pretty damn low even before you saw the full logs.

This is all sound and fury, when the real truth is simple as can be. Manning chose the worst person in the world to confide in.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> I don't see anything here that couldn't be a fabrication on LOMO's part as part of an attempt to smear manning. LOMO isn't exactly a stand-up character, and combined with someone inside the military (which wouldn't be hard to find when the government is looking to create a scapegoat) these logs could be easily fabricated.

I also don't think that text logs, which cannot be authenticated in any way, could be admissible in court. But then, military courts aren't usually concerned with justice.

</comment><comment><USER13> (3:25:41 PM) bradass87: god that pacman thing is starting to get annoying

(3:26:14 PM) bradass87: enjoyed it at first, but now everytime i open a new browser window… whoo-whoo-whoo-whoo-whoo

</comment><comment><USER14> In the context that Lamo ratted out Manning after the chats

(03:21:11 PM) bradass87: >sigh<

(03:22:14 PM) firstname.lastname@example.com: i get that

(03:22:45 PM) bradass87: get what… that connection?

(03:23:38 PM) firstname.lastname@example.com: yeah.

(03:24:08 PM) email@example.com: which is why i'm sad for the people i sometimes have to hurt.

(03:24:10 PM) bradass87: we're human… and we're killing ourselves… and no-one seems to see that… and it bothers me

</comment><comment><USER15> questions:

1\. Bias: I am ex military..any security clearance is forever not as access but as enforcement of secrets staying secret. Thus, why would someone already in an illegal act talk to ex military like Lamo? It does not add up.

2\. why did Wired protect Lamo for a year? Obviously to protect a source rather than have it exposed as non-credible.

3\. Who is working for the FBI here? Is it Lamo or Poulsen? It has to be asked given the manipulation by Lamo in the chat log. If the wired Knew the chat log was part of the FBI investigation than that explains its failure to publish. So it is reasonable to ask if Poulsen was involved currently with the FBI.

<comment><USER16> _> Who is working for the FBI here? Is it Lamo or Poulsen?_

I see no reason why it couldn't be both.

<comment><USER5> Here's the deal. First, read this: <http://blogwarleaks.blogspot.com/> Note that this was written back in December, and it absolutely NAILS what's in the logs.

Second, here's the TL'DR for that link:

Lamo and Poulsen have been journalist/source for years. Poulsen met Lamo right around the time that Lamow as acting as the "homeless hacker" and being all leet by setting up fake Lexis Nexus accounts on the NYT's dime. Remember that?

Poulsen was also a pro-hacker back in the day: he intercepted a phone line at a radio staation so he could be the 100th caller and win a Porsche. Twice.

As such, Poulsen was able to connect with Lamo and use him as a source for years. It's Poulsen who made Lamo famous. And it was that fame that drew Manning to Lamo. Lamo is known, in the undergound 31337 hacker circles, to be gay. Manning, who was questioning his sexuality, saw this as a reason to contact Lamo, expecting some sympathy.

Of course, Lamo had since started working for the government, as any successful hacker can do once he's out of jail. The US likes hiring hackers for their team, and Lamo eventually turned in Manning to win points for himself in this capacity.

Poulsen surely kept Mannings info secret. The leak was entirely Lamo, as anyone who actually knows him can confirm. As I have said a few times in this thread; Lamo is a twitchy, untrustworthy little rat fuck. Despite being gay, he's had restraining orders taken out against him by women. He's that creepy and fucked up.

Not only was Poulsen not involved in outing Manning to the feds, he went all the way and protected Manning's privacy by holding these logs for a year, so far. As we now see, these logs are mostly personal, and there is nothing gained by us all reading them, except confirmation of what those of us in the "scene" already knew.

As the above-linked blog states: there is no conspiracy, there is only gayness. And thanks to Greenwald's incessant whining and conspiracy theory- mongering, we can all now read the very private conversation of a very troubled young man struggling to come to terms with his sexuality while working in an organization that, at the time, held homosexuality as tantamount to treason.

Oh, and we get to see more of Lamo's untrustworthy nature.

Good job, Greenwald. You just made things even worse for Manning: now the idiots who are already against him also know he's trans and has had a very difficult upbringing. Don't we all feel better now about locking him up in solitary?

Lamo hacked, he got hired. Manning hacked, he got publicly humiliated and will never be let out of jail. Justice, eh?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> This was already posted: <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2761514></comment>


Trying to promote my product for the health industry in Australia - <AUTHOR> http://captaindanko.blogspot.com/2015/07/trying-to-promote-my-product-for-health.html <comment><USER2> What a great read!

Marketing is mentioned early on but I feel the route to the interview was very valid, I would be interested to see how a revised version with their feedback taken into account played.</comment>


Explicit Trusted Proxy in HTTP/2.0 - <AUTHOR> http://tools.ietf.org/html/draft-loreto-httpbis-trusted-proxy20-01 <comment><USER2> Wasn't this already discussed on Hacker News, in quite some detail, yesterday? And wasn't the big revelation that this only applied to traffic that was not CA verified and thereby was inherently man-in-the-middle-attackable _anyway_ (as the actually-secure https connections are marked in a way where this feature does not apply), making this a misunderstanding?

<comment><USER3> I thought the whole point of HTTP2.0 was to make traffic encrypted by default, and not let bit vulnerability holes in the protocol like this. Saying "it just makes it as before" doesn't make me feel better.

Why are we moving to HTTP2.0 otherwise? For a 5 percent increase in speed? The big selling point of HTTP2.0 from my perspective _was_ the "always-on encryption".

<comment><USER4> I think the problem is, always on encryption, is always off caching...

<comment><USER5> That's not true, your browser still handles caching just fine. More bandwidth trumps caching anyway, and caching forward proxies will be a thing of the past.

<comment><USER6> Heh, bandwidth can help, but caching helps primarily with latency.

<comment><USER5> The latency benefits of an extra caching layer are minimal, especially since HTTP pipelining and CDNs will continue to exist.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> As discussed yesterday, this is _not_ a new MITM vulnerability. To make this work you need to establish a TLS connection to the proxy which is verified in the usual certificate authority way. Note that the standard says that user agents that discover they're talking to a trusted proxy should obtain user consent to talk to that proxy.

Any situation in which someone can force your machine to trust one of these proxies is a situation when they had administrator access to your machine _anyway_ , and in that situation you're already screwed.

Would it kill HN to actually read one of these specs instead of just whining about it?

<comment><AUTHOR> I don't really care to argue this point so I'll just explain why I find this extremely problematic. What percentage of browser users have any concept of how TLS works? This an exceedingly low number. You're essentially creating a dragnet to capture and decrypt the contents of transfers for a huge number of people who likely have no idea that they're volunteering their (sensitive) information. Browser users are not TLS experts. They will click right through warnings without a second thought. No, this standard doesn't harm the very small minority of people capable of protecting themselves. It only takes advantage of everyone else. This is why, to me, dismissing this off-hand as no big deal is seriously negligent. Yes, I've read the draft. Yes I have the technical experience and qualifications to understand fully what it proposes. And yes, I believe this is an egregious thing to propose.

<comment><USER8> The TrustedProxy standard specifically documents that it not be invoked for HTTPS URIs. TrustedProxy doesn't interact at all with TLS the way it's understood now.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Before people start associating this with actual HTTP/2.0, it is worth emphasizing that this is a separate document. None of this "trusted proxy" MITM nonsense is in the HTTP/2.0 draft: [http://datatracker.ietf.org/doc/draft-ietf-httpbis- http2/?in...](http://datatracker.ietf.org/doc/draft-ietf-httpbis- http2/?include_text=1)

Thankfully, it seems fairly unlikely that the trusted proxy thing is going to get anywhere: It serves the interests of Ericsson and AT&T, but _not_ those of the HTTP/2.0 spec authors (who are from Google and Mozilla) or server and browser vendors that will have to implement HTTP/2.0.

</comment><comment><USER10> Some context: [http://lauren.vortex.com/archive/001076.html](http://lauren.vortex.com/archive/001076.html)

"What they propose for the new HTTP/2.0 protocol is nothing short of officially sanctioned snooping."

<comment><USER8> The post you've linked to is technically inaccurate and highly misleading. Here's Brad Hill's rebuttal: [http://hillbrad.typepad.com/blog/2014/02/trusted-proxies- and...](http://hillbrad.typepad.com/blog/2014/02/trusted-proxies-and-privacy- wolves.html)

<comment><USER10> Thanks for the link, it does clarify matters.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> I particularly like how the Privacy section is completely blank.

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> Section 6 (Security Considerations) is truly shocking. And Section 7 (Privacy Considerations)? Whaddya know? It's _empty_!

</comment><comment><USER12> In some third-world countries you cannot get a telecom licence unless you "implement" this, or your license could be easily revoked or canceled.

In Russia, for example, there are explicit regulations which says that no telecom company can operate unless it provides "monitoring and law-enforcement facilities".

My guess is that _each_ country nowadays has regulations of this sort, so telecom equipment manufactures are forced to "add required functionality". Of course, US has such "secret" regulations.)

So, it is much better to face the reality and to standardize this shit to reduce the pain of telecom "workers".)

</comment><comment><USER13> It is an improvement compared to HTTP/1.1, in that it allows for opportunistic encryption, and it is those connections that can be cached (or if you so prefer, snooped). This will still make it harder for NSA and similar agencies to do mass surveillance without traces. They would either have to insert their own certificate, or get the private key from the ISP. That is far more difficult to do in a covert manner. This alone makes HTTP/2.0 an improvement.

<comment><USER14> NSA will have the ISP keys, that's a given.

<comment><USER13> For American ISPs yes. For ISPs in some allied countries, probably. For all ISPs in every country in the world? Unlikely. And furthermore, that would require a nationwide (or worldwide) scheme where NSA gathered or issued keypairs for every certificate at every ISP. That is much more expensive than just tapping the lines, which is some of the point here, and some data probably would even be off limits. It would also be hard to keep an operation like that hidden, as they could for many years with the current methods.

I have no illusion that NSA can be stopped if they target someone, but it should be possible to make it impractical to just tap plaintext from the internet backbone as they do today. If data generally is encrypted _unless_ they do MITM attack it will be too expensive to just collect everything.

This is of cause not enough in itself, but it is certainly a step in the right direction.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> I understand that HTTP/2.0 needs to address both scalability and security, but the proposed "trusted" proxies smells really bad. Knowing what we know today, in that the current level of security offered by HTTP/1.1 is barely adequate to protect web citizens from real and present threats, shouldn't we be radically rethinking HTTP security.

</comment><comment><USER16> This would be an awesome term project for students studying computer security to find problems in the draft, if there is _any_.</comment>