Customer Service Agents Can See What You're Typing in Real Time - <AUTHOR> https://gizmodo.com/be-warned-customer-service-agents-can-see-what-youre-t-1830688119 <comment><USER2> Another thing people don't realize is that if your browser/extension prefills/autofills certain fields (say, name, email, address, etc), those things can be easily sent to the website even if you don't press the submit button.

[https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2017/jan/10/browser-a...](https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2017/jan/10/browser- autofill-used-to-steal-personal-details-in-new-phising-attack-chrome-safari)

<comment><USER3> Had this happen about 2 weeks ago when I was booking a hotel. This was _not_ a chat window, like the article, but a hotel booking form. I had a few tabs open and filled in the booking information but found something a little more convenient. So, I did not submit the form and closed the tab. About 2-3 minutes later my phone started to ring. It was a customer service agent from that incomplete booking website asking if I needed a better deal!? This was extremely creepy! I guess they are grabbing the form data via xhr requests or something (pre-submit). Not only that they do this, but the speed at which they can action it, makes me think we're in a whole new ball game.

<comment><USER4> This is old news. It's fairly easy to implement and most often done with simple google sheets.

<comment><USER5> Think you can give a short example code?

<comment><USER6> document.getElementById('myInput').addEventListener('change', event => fetch('[https://myapi/textBoxData'](https://myapi/textBoxData'), {method: 'POST', body: event.target.value})

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> I wish that it was more prevalent for people to just assume and know that any website, regardless of whether or not it has a chat function, has the ability to record what you're saying (read: typing). Everyone out there should act like everything they type into their web browser has the potential to be seen by, at the very least, the website they're typing it on and, at worst, by everyone online.

If you really need the kind of security or peace of mind that this situation is not suitable for, type everything into a text editor and paste it into the website when you're ready to send it. Otherwise, you can't ever have any expectation of privacy on the web.

<comment><USER8> If the site is using SSL, there is a reasonable expectation that only the server will see that data, not the entire world.

<comment><USER9> TLS has very little to do with it. Some intermediary parties may be able to read the plaintext, but that's different from putting it on pastebin for everyone to see. I've never heard of ISPs or transit providers publishing privacy-sensitive data or otherwise snooping on it. (Assuming non-business / non-VPN / non-proxy connections. Just an ordinary internet connection.)

The author probably meant if the site gets/is hacked, or if they are later bought by another company, or if a new employee joins and you can see chat history... etc.

<comment><USER10> Many high-profile commercial carriers will do deep packet inspection of the traffic from their end users, so that they can do insertion of their own ads into whatever content you may be surfing. Including on your webmail pages.

And their ad networks might well be infected with malware. But because of deep packet inspection and editing, you can't tell that the malvertising in question actually came from AT&T or Spectrum instead of Gmail.

<comment><USER11> How are they able to do ad insertion into a https page?

I'm sure Google would not be happy with content injection into gmail.

<comment><USER12> Yeah,that doesn't make any sense, unless they're doing an MITM attack just to insert ads?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> I'm confused why this is news or surprising? At least for the audience here.

I remember plugins for various IM clients would do the same thing in a chat window some decades ago. And I remember my days as a sysop in the good old single line dial up BBS days. You could watch users browse and type all the way back in the mid-80's and I'm sure this has existed about as long as multi- user computers have.

If you're typing into an application which is any part of a networked or multi-user system, assume someone can see what you do while you're doing it (and can log same for later review).

...maybe I'm just old and don't understand the kids these days... or maybe it's a slow news day...

<comment><USER14> The older IM clients (AIM, MSN, Yahoo, et al.) could tell you if someone was typing or entered unsent text, but it never previewed what had been typed. At least that wasn't a default option back then.

<comment><USER15> ICQ had a character-by-character mode they experimented with for a while. It was kinda fun. BBSs too.

<comment><USER12> Character by character IS fun. I've always wondered why newer messaging platforms haven't implemented it yet.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> At work, the assumption is that every non-corp web site has a key logger built in. A corp extension monitors (key logs) all input on non-corp sites, checking if any credentials are accidentally typed. If they are, you're notified immediately on the last key press and have to change your credentials within 7 days of the incident. I think this is a reasonable idea for security, and helps prevent some phishing schemes.

<comment><USER17> > At work, the assumption is that every non-corp web site has a key logger > built in. A corp extension monitors (key logs) all input on non-corp sites

Sounds like that assumption is well-founded!

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> This shouldn't be a surprise to anyone who allows their browser to run all the Javascript that companies want it to (of course, assuming they have a decent understanding of the web to begin with, which is a huge limiting factor). Reading what you type in real time isn't even as invasive as most companies go, when they commonly track your cursor movements, the size of your window, what extensions you have, make attempts at getting browser history, and so on. And that's with just JS enabled, not counting access to devices like microphones and webcams. If you care about this you should be using an addon to (at the very least) limit js execution.

<comment><USER19> Even with JS disabled you can still get a lot of these via CSS. Sadly none of these technologies were designed with privacy in mind.

<comment><USER20> CSS can send HTTP requests without JavaScript? How does that work?

<comment><USER19> Yes, it can. Consider [https://www.smashingmagazine.com/2014/10/css-only- solution-f...](https://www.smashingmagazine.com/2014/10/css-only-solution-for- ui-tracking/) for example.

<comment><USER20> Thanks!

That page does say this:

 _The problem with this kind of CSS UI tracking is that we get only the first occurrence of the event. For example, take the :active pseudo class example. The request for the background image is fired only once. If we need to capture every click then, we have to change the URL, which is not possible without JavaScript._

It's also not clear to me how you could capture any keystrokes with this technique. Still, I did find it interesting.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> In 2005 during the birth of "ajax" I got paid ($100 or something: it was great when I was a youngster!) to write an article warning of the _spooky dangers of xmlhttprequest_ \- keylogging everything you type. [http://www.devx.com/webdev/Article/28861](http://www.devx.com/webdev/Article/28861)

There was a demo (dead now - I'll fix it) that was a text adventure, that keylogged. And it was interesting to see typos and changes of wording. It _did_ provide some insight that wasn't always apparent in the final submitted text commands.

Even though in 2005 it was known you could do this (long before ajax), still today I'm a little taken-aback about being keylogged on a random website: despite having written a bloody article about it 15 years ago!

</comment><comment><USER22> It's like rehearsing in front of a mirror, then finding out it's a one-way mirror and there were other people behind the mirror watching you the entire time.

</comment><comment><USER23> I always suspected this. Particularly when you're typing something long- winded, and the agent's response is a bit too quick for having to read it all.

Although, this will certainly depend on the Chat software used. Back when we used Olark at our company, there was no preview available, although we could "co-browse" and redirect the user's webpage, which was helpful in some cases.

<comment><USER24> We (Olark) specifically decided not to implement the "read-ahead" or "sneak- peak" feature because we thought it was creepy and broke customer expectations.

When you are typing a message to customer service as a customer you should have a chance to compose your thoughts, and should have an expectation of privacy in whatever you are writing before hitting enter.

<comment><USER23> I like that a lot. It is creepy, imho.

There's been more than a few times where I was up late, on a chat support, and quite upset about something or other... and decided to re-write my message before hitting the "Send" button. Composing your thoughts is valuable...

<comment><USER25> I'm actually ok with this. It's a good way of getting more reliable subtext about a persons emotion. You'd gather that from someone stumbling their way through a real time voice conversation on the phone or in person - as well as the nuances in vocal tones and body language - but all that is lost in a text only interface. So this at least gives you an idea. eg are they ranting then delete it for a more composed message? That might signal that the person is really pissed off but actually open to working with the agent for a mutual resolution.

The point another poster made about secrets is a valid one but I'd argue that the kind of secrets you're likely to be pasting are the same ones the support operator would have access to anyway (payment details, address, order details, etc). But if you're really worried, other HN posters said it best when they commented about typing in a desktop text editor _then_ paste your text into the chat window.

<comment><USER26> It's ok if both parties know what's going on. If visitors are left with the expectation that a message becomes visible on the other end when they send it then it is not ok at all.

<comment><USER25> People give off all kinds of messages they don't realise; from facial expressions and other forms of body language to the tone and volume of their speech. We are forever communicating far more information then we ever intend to and people who deal with customers are trained how to read those tells so they can better handle customers temperament as well as their spoken requirements.

You lose so much with typed text which makes good customer services a lot harder. Thus as long as any pre-posted text isn't stored anywhere (I fully expect posted chat logs would) then I don't see an issue with support operators using real time text as a glimpse into the customers mood.

[edit]

To the people who voted me down: I get that you disagree with me but I have been on courses regarding just this (which is weird because I couldn't be in a less customer facing job....) so what I'm talking about here isn't just some random junk I've invented off the cuff. It's what I was taught how customer services (the good ones anyway) work.

<comment><USER26> You don't sneakily access other people's draft thoughts without very explicitly asking for permission. The eavesdroppers are not reciprocating and sharing their typing either. They're not only creating an asymmetry: they're actively hiding it!

<comment><USER25> It's not the sort of environment you want asymmetry. You want the customer services to be infallible - and by "you" I don't just mean company execs but also us customers who want to feel like we've been treated appropriately.

Anyone who's ever done a stint on 1st line tech support will understand just how much of a thankless job it is. If this helps them to serve me better then I welcome it.

I think the real complaint being made is that you didn't realise they were using these visual clues. But that's why I keep coming back to how other forms of customer services are trained to read vocal tones and body language. Would you also feel cheated if you learned your favourite high street store's customer services team had training on reading body language while you hadn't so they have an advantage in gauging your temperament but they didn't let on they had that training?

Don't get me wrong, I do see and understand your point. I'm very privacy minded so this is the kind of thing I'd normally get annoyed by as well. But at least this time the anti-privacy tools are genuinely being used to improve customer experience rather than just to monetise them (yes I know good customer experience can lead to repeat custom - but more often than privacy is sold to the detriment of customer experience)

<comment><USER26> Thanks for the explanation and perspective. I still don't see how this justifies the deception.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER27> Great. Can they also read what I wrote and submitted before I reached #1 in the queue? So they don't waste my time asking for my name, how am I, what I want, etc. I already outlined it all in the message!

</comment><comment><USER28> On a recent customer service call, I bid the agent goodbye but did not hang up (deliberately - I wanted to see if they would terminate the call). The rep held the call open for a good 2-3 minutes even though there was nothing from my end except some typing. I'm fairly sure I heard some small sounds from their end so they didn't just switch to another line.

I'm not usually paranoid - but moments like this remind me to hit the Mute button whenever I'm not directly conversing with an agent. You just never know what they'll pick up.

<comment><USER29> > I'm fairly sure I heard some small sounds from their end so they didn't just > switch to another line.

Ever heard a concept of comfort noise [0]? Maybe some call center software can add something analogous when necessary. Like noises you'd expect in a call center.

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

</comment></comment><comment><USER30> > during those calls where you are reassured of "being recorded for quality > assurance purposes," your conversation while on hold is recorded.

I worked at a call center for a month or two one summer and when you'd put someone on hold you'd still hear them. I was only talking to network mechanics (ISP internal call center), but I am sure that the customer call center worked in the same way. I, after this experience, always assume someone can hear me.

Update: "I, after this experience, always assume someone can hear me." when I am on the phone with customer services, not in general. Although in today's technological world it would not be that much of a stretch.

</comment><comment><USER31> Has anyone had any chat-based experience that anything more than a complete waste of time recently? (Amazon being the usual, consistent exception.)

I contact support when something is broken. There is a critical bug, or there is something down, or there is a physical defect. Every single time, it's just me getting jerked around, often times for an hour or more.

Just in the last week: an hour with Google Support with them insisting that I factory reset my phone for a hardware failure (hours of work to re-setup), or my ISP insisting that the "limits are set in the lines" and that a technician would have to come out to inspect their own modem so that they can determine why I'm being throttled to 10% of my paid speed, rather than 90% which is what I'm apparently entitled to. I hate that I have to get pushy/mean and insist that, Google, either send me a replacement or start processing a refund. I have no idea what to do with my ISP, they seem incompetent at every layer that I have any way to contact and they have a non-compete negotiated with their competition so I have no other options; their technician based had nothing to suggest and agreed with my conclusions.

I have also never had a chat experience where I didn't feel like I had to very carefully word my sentences to make myself understood, or where I wasn't waiting an exorbinant amount of time for the other side to read/reply. I can't fathom how peek-ahead would help any of these custom service experiences.

</comment><comment><USER32> This is nothing new. When i worked for a shady video game repair company in the early 2000's, the (male) boss would play 3 (female) customer service roles and know exactly what they were typing even back in the early days before facebook.

<comment><USER33> I think customer support people who have foreign names get their names changed to more local sounding names while doing support because it makes customers feel better.

<comment><USER32> This employer was in the US talking to people in the US. He found that men are more likely to spend money/easier to work with when the customer service rep has a female name.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER34> Before rolling out this exact feature in our own chat product we resisted doing so because of the concerns being echoed here. However, it was becoming obvious from the demands from our users that this was make-or-break feature in a modern chat system.

After rolling it out and enjoying this for ourselves as we handle our own customer support using our own software, it's become a "why didn't we do this earlier?" type of thing.

Overall, there's already a ton of asymmetry of information when a customer contacts a support team (e.g. our product pulls in order history, subscription details, stripe transactions, etc) that streaming a text preview is really just a drop in the bucket, and it's actually a win-win for both sides since it leads to faster answers.

Also keep in mind that any questions you ask may be used to feed machine- learning systems, like chatbots, which is true for our product as well. Just something to be aware of, that I think is a fair tradeoff for better customer experiences long-term.

Disclaimer: I'm the founder of [https://reamaze.com](https://reamaze.com)

<comment><USER35> > "why didn't we do this earlier?"

Because it's invasive.

The user consents to sending you information when they hit Send(explicit). They can remove any incorrect or unrelated information from the text box before they do so.

Especially if they paste in to the text box and inadvertently paste the wrong thing(be that sensitive info or similar).

<comment><USER36> I use a chat service that has this feature on by default (for real-time chat customer support, not for general messaging), and never in the history of its usage has a person complained about it. For every 10,000 people that may not have an issue with it, 1 may have an issue about it, and with these numbers it's really up to that 1 person to guard their privacy better (disable JS, never step outside their house, etc) than to inconvenience 9,999 other people from the benefits.

The experience is all in the context, and since this is only general behavior for customer service chats (where you're expected to send everything you type and the other end is simply trying to help resolve an issue), it's not really a realistic issue in terms of privacy. I agree that if facebook messenger started doing this and showed the other person what you are typing, this would be _unexpected_ and potentially _unwanted_ behavior, but the likelihood of unwanted behavior in a customer support context is extremely rare.

<comment><USER37> > I use a chat service that has this feature on by default (for real-time chat > customer support, not for general messaging), and never in the history of > its usage has a person complained about it.

How would most people know to complain about something they don't know is happening?

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER38> I use this to send messages to the agent that won't be recorded in the transcript because I delete it after typing it. Not sure if it has gotten me better results from the agents but it's fun to do.

<comment><USER12> Because I'm a fast typist, I sometimes swear at people and then delete what I have typed as a cathartic exercise if they're being annoying. I've done it since I was a teenager. It's like second nature, probably because I do it in my head too.

It's unsettling to know that a customer service agent would see that and think I'm being impolite.

</comment></comment><comment><USER39> Perhaps it's time for more granular Javascript blocking. Since forever it's been 'Enable Javascript yes / no'. This makes no real world sense to me anymore (if it ever did). Could there be an end-user friendly way to tell a browser to block Javascript that transmits your 'pre-submit' activity on a web site without breaking the site?

<comment><USER40> No (imo). It'll be impossible to tell that apart from legitimate usage. JS can access the input fields, garble them, and send to the server. How would you tell that apart from say, a ticker request to update real-time prices?

<comment> munk-a I agree, with current technology it seems pretty impossible to differentiate. But I do think there is hope in the field of whitelisting, things that people commonly use JS for should be slowly added to the list of native features, as long as this process has oversight we could start having more responsive sites with less JS requirements.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER41> As I post this, every comment is "Derp if you're surprised, I mean this is how every site is. GOSH." However, you sure don't see this in the e.g. Munchery shutdown story. "90% (or whatever) of all startups fail, big whoop. Everybody with a decent understanding of business knows this."

<comment><USER42> It's not even true. This behaviour is not obvious at all. No consumer messaging application allows you to see what the other person is typing before they have sent it.

<comment><USER36> This is quite different from a consumer messaging application. It's a website's customer support chat.

<comment><USER42> But the people using it would be consumers, and they would be familiar with the way consumer messaging applications work. So it would not be obvious to most people that the person on the other end can see what they're writing.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER43> I sometimes assume this is true and use it to my advantage by typing up a scathing rebuke venting frustration, only to delete and type a respectful query. I don't know for sure, but sometimes I get goodies in the form of gift cards and such and I don't know if this is an effort to placate me or not.

<comment><USER44> You could also paste in an ebook and then delete it a few seconds later...

</comment></comment><comment><USER45> For privacy minded people, is there an extension that detects textarea's and input boxes and overlays them with new ones and once you hit send that's when it inserts them into the real html inputs preventing this sneak peak?

Or perhaps simply the xhr requests could be blocked.

</comment><comment><USER46> I wonder if they can see if I've gone off to some other tab to wait while they take their time getting me an answer.

<comment><USER47> Websites have access to that inforation (document.visibilityState). So I wouldn't be surpirsed.

</comment></comment><comment><USER48> I can finally think of a practical reason to tell people to install Vim Anywhere! [https://github.com/cknadler/vim- anywhere](https://github.com/cknadler/vim-anywhere)

I don't actually use that plugin but I have gotten the Vim keystrokes so ingrained in my brain that I've gotten in the habit of having a terminal open whenever I need to type into web forms...Now I finally have an excuse to not feel silly doing it.

<comment><USER12> How does this avoid the problem in the first place?

<comment><USER48> Because you write the message in Vim and it adds to the paste buffer, so you paste it in. Since the agents on the other end are only seeing what's in the text box they don't see the preview.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER49> Another thing to add to my list of things that creep me out right after typing notifications I can't opt out of and Facebook supposedly storing unsent posts.

Maybe a simple blocker for this could be the next must-have extension/browser functionality. Something that doesn't send your input events until you press shift+enter.

</comment><comment><USER50> What an amazing opportunity for trolling support staff :)

<comment><USER51> It is. But... you're actually going to want _help_ from them, so trolling them might not be in your best interest.

A related maxim: "Never be rude to an airline gate agent."

<comment><USER52> A related related maxim: "Someone who is nice to you but rude to the waiter is not a nice person."

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER53> This has been the case since at least 2003... The agents also see you page history, search terms, can cobrowse with you to show you things. Anything to make them quicker and more effective is implemented.

</comment><comment><USER54> I've stood behind a support guy and watched it, it can be hilarious when you see someone type out a horrible rant, then delete it and send thanks.

</comment><comment><USER55> It's very rare for a live chat employee to handle only one request. Look at how popular chat apps present multiple requests within the same UI and imagine dealing with these without live streamed text:

HappyFox: [https://zapier.cachefly.net/storage/photos/3fe2e4f896499b131...](https://zapier.cachefly.net/storage/photos/3fe2e4f896499b1314b7515403571b90.png)

Olark: [https://zapier.cachefly.net/storage/photos/d53ec47e6affe26a5...](https://zapier.cachefly.net/storage/photos/d53ec47e6affe26a5cde85f83cd0bc91.png)

LiveChat: [https://zapier.cachefly.net/storage/photos/26c01334ea7335635...](https://zapier.cachefly.net/storage/photos/26c01334ea73356357fee132a49ca469.png)

Denying support techs the extra 10-30 seconds that live streaming your typed words buys them for privacy reasons seems strange to me.

Your typed words are no more an indication of your deepest private thoughts than a phone support session full of ums and errs and "oh, actually I meant…".

<comment><USER33> I think its perfectly fine for them to see it live but users should be aware of it. The current behavior that everyone knows is the other end doesn't see what you type until you send it.

<comment><USER55> I think this would only slow chat sessions down.

If you make me feel self-conscious about what I'm typing, I'm going to consider each word rather than type then correct/revise and send.

<comment><USER56> On the contrary, it won't change anything for me, because I always form the whole sentence in my mind before writing into a chat or text box (like this comment).

So, it seems there are different types of writers. That's a small moment of enlightenment for me. :)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER57> I didn't know this for sure, but assumed that agents can see me typing for the sake of better response time.

I usually type my questions in a text editor first and then paste it into a service agent chat when I am sure that it is exactly what I want them to see.

</comment><comment> m-p-3 Looks like I'll be typing in a text app from now on and copy-paste my replies as I go.

<comment><USER58> Why? Isn't this a _good_ feature? It means the person can be prepared for your question or comment ahead of time.

</comment></comment><comment><USER59> Reminds me of a similar debate my friends had when Google Wave first came out.

<comment><USER60> But Google Wave was up front about it, and both parties can see what each other is typing.

<comment><USER61> Not only that, but "talk" on Unix had that for 20+years before that.

<comment><USER62> Unix/Linux talk/ntalk is my favorite method of textual communications. Too bad I can only use it with a few of my friends, and only occasionally at that. We can communicate far more quickly if both can see the other's questions/answers even before they are fully typed out.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER63> Makes sense. I didn't really think about it before, so I imagine that a few of them were surprised at my language.

I have tendency to type if I pissed off then either delete it or amend it before sending/posting.

</comment><comment> August-Garcia Depends on what live chat software they're using. Zendesk (one of the most commonly used live chat tools) doesn't show what users are typing in real time.

</comment><comment><USER64> Is there a browser extension that lets you forbid websites to intercept your keyboard and mouse keystrokes without disabling JavaScript completely?

<comment><USER12> Wouldn't pausing and resuming JavaScript have the same effect?

<comment><USER64> Many websites don't work or work quirky without JavaScript. I used to have JavaScript blocked by default and enabled on demand (using NoScript) but this felt fairly annoying. At the same time I'd estimate the number of websites that I want to capture my keystrokes or mouse right clicks as one in a thousand or near that (some games I play for some minutes a couple of times a year perhaps).

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER65> When doing support over chat it is nice to see ahead of time what they are saying to allow for a faster response.

<comment><USER9> Would be cool if one could be informed about it, though.

Imagine if on the phone, you would have to hold down a button to talk. At the end of the recording, you're given the change to edit any mumblings, rephrase things, or start all over. If it later turned out that the other end can hear every word, that is probably surprising to the vast majority of people.

</comment></comment><comment><USER66> I don't have any problem with this. It highlights a lack of user education, if they expect their typed input to a website to be private.

It reminds me of the "talk" (and ytalk, ntalk) programs, where all parties can see in real-time what the others are typing. It's a cool technology that, unfortunately, is not used on the web.

<comment><USER26> > It highlights a lack of user education

Education in what? That they shouldn't trust companies because they eavesdrop on them? Please don't blame deceitful practices on the victims.

> if they expect their typed input to a website to be private.

Most chat apps work that way. Others only see what you typed once you send it. Just because the now obscure `talk` worked differently is no excuse.

The deception starts where the agents' responses are not relayed as they type! I don't see how you could explain this asymmetry in innocent terms. It clearly benefits the shop without them being open about it.

<comment><USER66> > Education in what?

Education in how the web works. That typing something into a text field, or moving the mouse, or any interactions with a website can be read on the other side. Many users expect this behaviour when they use, for example, Google search or Google Translate. If users expect their text to be private in one context, but shared in another, then there is clearly a lack of understanding of how the web works.

> Please don't blame deceitful practices on the victims.

I didn't blame anyone for anything. It's not a priori deceitful. Presumably some of the motivation is to enable faster responses to client queries.

<comment><USER26> Just because something's technically feasible does not mean we should expect it's being done by a shop we're doing business with!

Apparently we don't have the same standards as to what constitutes deceit. To me it's enough when the chat is asymmetric in that the agent's typing is not visible until they send it but the visitor's is relayed immediately to the agent. If visitors could watch the agents type they would understand that their typing is visible on the other end.

> Presumably some of the motivation is to enable faster responses to client > queries.

Sure. Then why not offer the same privilege to the client? If it's so beneficial?

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER67> ICQ did that. It changes the experience significatively

</comment><comment><USER68> This is not a problem

<comment><USER9> That's not a very insightful comment.

</comment></comment><comment><USER69> Facebook can see too.

</comment><comment><USER70> I wonder if this runs afoul of the GDPR in some way?</comment>


Benjamin Button Reviews the New MacBook Pro - <AUTHOR> https://blog.pinboard.in/2016/10/benjamin_button_reviews_the_new_macbook_pro/ <comment><USER3> Some people seem to think that the MacBook is only for developers and Apple is obliged to listen to only their feedback. News flash: world doesn't revolve around hacker news.

Let's be honest for a moment. Apple has never in the history been the one to wait for market to adapt to some new technology. They have been the one who immediately puts it on their products and gets rid of the old standards. Everybody has known this for years so this really shouldn't surprise anyone.

Generally speaking whether you like it or not, no one really cares if the ESC button is on the touchbar instead of being traditional physical button. Even fewer people care if there are ridiculous 32GB models available when most devs dont even need 16GB. Not to mention average consumers.

If Apple would give you guys 32GB option then people would cry why they can't get 64GB option. If the new MacBook wouldn't have touchbar then people would complain why Apple isn't innovating anymore etc.

What Apple is doing with their new MacBook is what Apple has been doing with their products for decades. If you don't like it feel free to switch to other laptops and run Win10 or Linux. But we all know you won't. You'll buy this MacBook sooner or later, then in 2018 when Apple releases new models you'll be here complaining about something again and you'll still buy that one as well.

<comment><USER4> Apple have locked developers in to the Apple ecosystem if they want to write apps for Apple devices. You can't build an app for iOS or OSX on a Windows or a Linux machine. If there's a large exodus of developers away from Apple devices then there'll be a resulting drop in the number of apps available in their app stores. That would ultimately damage Apple's appeal to other users.

You're absolutely right that Macbooks aren't specifically for developers, but releasing a laptop that developers generally don't feel is appealing to them could be _really_ damaging to Apple's ecosystem.

<comment><USER5> > You can't build an app for iOS or OSX on a Windows or a Linux machine. If > there's a large exodus of developers away from Apple devices then there'll > be a resulting drop in the number of apps available in their app stores.

I wonder. I've been running OSX in a KVM guest and it's been surprisingly trouble free and smooth via ARD (remote desktop).

<comment><USER6> It's been about two years since I asked the question, but Apple refused to license the use of OSX under a VM when the enterprise I worked for needed to setup a number of systems for offshore developers to work with.

<comment><USER5> This is still the case as far as I know. This is not a viable option for a business entity. Probably not even for an individual depending on what you do with it and how ok you are with breaking the EULA.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> USB C is the best thing that's come out of the USB Implementers' Forum in a long time. I can't wait till all of my equipment does everything - <USER2> delivery, video display, arbitrary high speed data exchange- through identical ports.

I'll be traveling for 6 weeks soon, and if my camera and kindle used USB C, I'd be very happy.

<comment><USER8> I think the idea is that charging itself could have been kept magsafe. The aesthetic elegance of a universal port is trumped by the guarantee that my machine is safe. I trip over power cords far more than I'd proud to admit, and I'm sure most people are the same way too.

And yet, I also cannot wait until everything is USB-C. It makes me hope that after that we can also tackle wall plugs and make them universal!

<comment><USER9> They could have integrated that in their USB C charging cable but for some reason they didn't.

[https://griffintechnology.com/us/breaksafe-magnetic-usb-c- po...](https://griffintechnology.com/us/breaksafe-magnetic-usb-c-power-cable)

<comment><USER10> That thing looks ugly as sin... Apple should have integrated it with their charger; you're right.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> But what's a good alternative? I really don't like the new MBP but it looks like I'm going to have to suck it up and buy it anyway because it's time for an upgrade.

I wish there was a slim Linux compatible laptop out there with decent battery life, display and trackpad.

<comment><USER12> I know a couple of people who use the Lenovo X1 Carbon as a linux dev machine, though I don't know personally how easy it is to get up and running.

<comment><USER13> I use one (2015 model), it's ok. The 2560x1440 screen works well (using 1.5 scaling) with unity, a bit less so with cinnamon, as it Cinnamon only supports integer scaling. Chrome has a scaling flag that is independent, that's a bit extra work. I regularly connect an external 4k screen over DP, works fine and runs at 60Hz. The touchpad is ok, but wish it was larger and dealt with palms better. Over time I adapted and now am careful to not touch it while typing (or maybe some update fixed it). I use an older Ubuntu version and there are a two bugs - it doesn't always lock when closing the lid and the touchpad is sometimes disabled on wakeup. Switching to a terminal (ctrl-alt-1) and back reenables it.

Overall, I'm happy - great keyboard, decent HiDPI screen and all in a very light machine. 16GB RAM and longer battery life would be nice, but I'm happy with the weight tradeoff.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> But the new model surprisingly hasn't had any increase in memory, sticking to a somewhat frustrating limit of 16GB, something that won't come as welcome news to VM users, or graphics and video designers.

<comment><USER14> Yes. This is the real jaw-dropping showstopper for me.

My current MacBook works well enough. There's no overwhelming, compelling reason to get a new one.

And yet, it's three years old, so I figured that maybe if Apple comes out with a 32GB version, I'll get it in the coming months.

They didn't, and so I'll be holding onto my machine for a while longer.

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> With the latest NVIDIA and Intel chipsets and with built-to-order options of up to 128GB on board memory, it's firmly positioned in the hi-end laptop market segment.

</comment><comment><USER16> Would be interesting to know, a few months from now, the percentage of those complaining that actually switched to Linux/Windows and bought a non-Apple laptop.

Apple has always done this. Always. In the end people adapt and things progress.

</comment><comment><USER17> Button forgot to mention: "It's likely that these changes were not possible had it not been for the unceremonious departure of Jonathan Ive - who had obviously lost his keen design touch years earlier."

<comment><USER18> More like new hire Jony Ive, who is still prone to beginner's mistakes but starting to show signs of future talent.

</comment></comment><comment><USER19> This is hilarious. I didn't know my current MBP is that good.

</comment><comment><USER20> Anyone else considering Hackintosh? Some water cooled beast running OSX really appeals TBH.

<comment><USER21> 2 years ago, while I still had just a Macbook Air, I built a gaming PC, but choose all the hardware from the tonymacx86 guide so I could use it also for iOS development.

Last year I bought a Broadwell rMBP and relegated the Gaming PC to just gaming.

Imho, too much work to mantain it updated and properly working. If I was still in high school, I could live with all the cons, but as a working freelancer, I won't.

<comment><USER22> As a counter point, my wife and I have both been using hackintoshes for the past four years and I do very little, if any at all, work to maintain them. Setting up a machine from scratch is made easier now with Clover. Even moving to each new version of OSX has been just as easy as my MBP which I use when travelling. That's not to say it's without it's cons, iMessage/Handoff/Facetime don't work, but that doesn't bother me as I don't really use them and when I do it's on my iPhone or iPad.

<comment><USER23> I've also had few issues all in all. The key is to get compatible hardware and you'll mostly be fine.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> About the escape key, is it not possible to place a digital version of it in the touch bar?... not defending apple I'm also not happy with this MBP but I think at least that can be worked around.

<comment><USER25> If it's about switching modes on vim, can't you just use Ctrl-[?

<comment><USER26> That combination is a massive pain to hit on many non-US keyboards.

<comment><USER27> I remapped my keys like this:

        CAPS-LOCK ⬅ CONTROL ⬅ ESCAPE ⬅ CAPS-LOCK

Escape is just too far away for my vim-flow. This has been much better. It's mostly positive outside of vim too. The only real gotcha is using another machine.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER28> Nice reference to Scott Fitzgerald. :)

</comment><comment><USER29> I still like Apple products.

Will I buy a new Apple product--probally not, but will buy used.

I look at the shiny, miniminslistic Apple Stores. I look at their products, and I just get this picture in my mind.

The picture is Steve Jobs throwing phones/computers/watches right against his glass office windows. (He know the windows are shatterproof). His blood pressure is off the charts. He knows he needs to calm down, and make a bunch of changes at his company.

He is so upset with the hardware; he isn't even yelling about the software bugs, or the weird direction the company is going in. I picture him yelling, "We are not a democracy here--you listen to me. We are not Google. We are not a company with too many chiefs. I'm the chief! We do it this way! Oh, yea--we do listen to some of our customers. We are not in the 90's. People have changed. Let's not irritate our better customers?"

I picture employees tip-toeing around that office--until they produce a produce a product that is up to Apple standards. They know they need to produce the perfect product. A device, even Job's, won't find fault in. They know Apple bugs are just expected to be fixed quickly. They know Apple only produces the best devices. And then, and only then can Apple put a huge price on the package.

</comment><comment><USER30> I suppose Apple should listen to the recommendations in this blog</comment>


No Code Admin Solution - <AUTHOR> http://dolohq.com <comment><AUTHOR> We built a no code solution to empower your non-techinal teammates to access your database in a safe way. reach out to me if you want access - email@example.com :)</comment>


Import Delicious To Google Bookmarks - <AUTHOR> http://blog.darkhax.com/2010/12/16/import-delicious-to-google-bookmarks <comment><USER2> This is much faster and doesn't ask for any auth info: <https://gist.github.com/744312>

<comment><AUTHOR> That's definitely cool. Are there any docs for that "upload" API?

It's good to see people find solutions to the problem Yahoo! is causing.

<comment><AUTHOR> Ahh I see according to <http://lnkr.mobi/bm/google_bookmarks_api/> that is about all the docs on that API there are, and it doesn't support annotations/notes. Mine doesn't either, but it's a one line change to make it do so.</comment></comment></comment>


Oslo is turning garbage into energy and is running out of garbage - <AUTHOR> http://www.nytimes.com/2013/04/30/world/europe/oslo-copes-with-shortage-of-garbage-it-turns-into-energy.html

<comment><USER3> > Yet though Oslo considered the Italian garbage, it preferred to stick with > what it said was the cleaner and safer English waste. "It's a sensitive > question," Mr. Mikkelsen said.

This is literally the most intriguing thing in my life right now. What a tease. Does anyone have insight into why Italian garbage is less safe?

<comment><USER4> Oh, you haven't seen Gomorrah? You're in for a treat!

<http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0929425/>

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gomorrah_(film)>

<comment><USER3> Will. Do. Grazie.

<comment><USER4> Prego. It's available on iTunes: <https://itunes.apple.com/us/movie/gomorrah/id373145855>

Also on Netflix: [http://movies.netflix.com/WiMovie/Gomorrah/70100401?locale=e...](http://movies.netflix.com/WiMovie/Gomorrah/70100401?locale=en- US)

Highly recommended viewing. Officially, it's fiction, but Italian friends have told me that it's an accurate portrayal of what goes on in Italy.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Oslo is powering their city by putting black ash into the air, which absorbs heat from sunlight, slightly increasing the amount of energy in all of our environmental systems. The place is powered by externalities, just like China. This solution is no better than coal-generated electricity, and this feel-good article is no more useful than clean-coal articles.

<comment><USER6> Hmm. I was under the impression that burning garbage is different in that you are burning carbon that is already in play in the carbon cycle system - <USER2> burning coal, which without human intervention would never be introduced into the environment at such a rapid pace. I could be wrong! I was disappointed by the lack of an explanation, or even links to background on the science of this process. Just a puff/fluff piece IMHO.

<comment><USER7> It would really depend on what is being burnt. If it is primarily food waste, paper products, natural fibers, wood, etc.. then yeah; all of that carbon was already "in the system". If they are burning lots of garbage made from petrochemicals then that garbage is basically just another fossil fuel.

As I understand it, the real issue with "clean coal" is not the soot but rather the CO2. Depending on what this garbage actually is, the CO2 problem isn't really a problem in this case.

<comment><USER8> > in the system

That doesn't make it better. We have too much carbon in the atmosphere. We should be growing corn for the sole purpose of pouring it into oil wells and coal shafts.

<comment><USER9> Which would largely turn back into CO2 once the bacteria do their thing.

<comment><USER8> Erm, I believe it would turn back into oil and coal, etc.

<comment><USER9> We're not entirely clear on how that works, and our best estimates are that it takes on the order of hundreds of thousands of years and requires quite a bit of pressure. The proposal above would basically be a deep landfill, and generally what will come from landfills in our lifetime is methane, CO2, dirty water, and a lot of garbage sitting around.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> This scenario plays out in the board game "Power Grid." It's a game about running power plants and one of the 4 resources is garbage. It's a great late game fuel, but it can get scarce. <http://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/2651/power-grid>

<comment><USER11> Very good game if you like Catan-style games.

<comment><USER10> Agreed. I've heard good things for a while, but I was very impressed when I played it last week for the first time.

Also (this is why I was tempted to post about it on HN), it's very heavy on number crunching and has a nice CS feel to it. Placing your cities is, I think, an instance of minimum spanning trees. Thought MST has a lot of applications, interestingly the first algorithm for finding them was invented in 1926 for "efficient electrical coverage of Moravia." <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bor%C5%AFvka%27s_algorithm>

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> I'm still not convinced this is a viable solution for waste management (not that there's a simple alternative), given the environmental implications. Yes, air pollution is pretty regulated and has been reduced significantly since the 80's[1], but the residues resulting from the filtering process are still heavily toxic and it's not clean by any means[2].

[1] [http://www.seas.columbia.edu/earth/wtert/sofos/Waste_Inciner...](http://www.seas.columbia.edu/earth/wtert/sofos/Waste_Incineration_A_Potential_Danger.pdf)

[2] Section 10: <http://www.ecomed.org.uk/content/IncineratorReport_v3.pdf>

</comment><comment><USER13> Can you please come to India and help us. We need this very badly.

<comment><USER14> That was it came to my mind when I read the article!: "Why not expand to India?"

<comment><USER15> Being a tropical country, India does not need much of indoor heating. Fine option for heating water.

<comment><USER16> India needs electricity though, and this can be used to generate electricity.

<comment><USER17> Doesn't seem to be that efficient though. Random stuff doesn't burn as hot as coal or oil.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> I always thought burning garbage is really bad for the environment. Aren't there dangerous chemicals that are released if the garbage is not incinerated?

<comment><USER19> At least in the US, a modern incinerator produces cleaner exhaust gases than a power plant does. This is because the air quality restrictions are quite tight, and building an incinerator from the ground up with those restrictions in mind results in exhaust flues with filters to catalyze by products into non-aerosols.

That said, providing heat is the best use for this since even low grade heat (100 - 150 degrees C) is usable for heating buildings and water for washing etc. But you can't pull a lot of electricity out of it with steam turbines.

<comment><USER20> This would work very well for the central heating systems (mostly coal or gas based) of northern China. We also have plenty of garbage to burn. But I wouldn't trust the government to implement it with the correct environmental safeguards.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> What about using thermo depolymerization?

Basically, using heat and pressure, turn literally anything that is carbon- based into water, natural gas and oil.

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thermal_depolymerization>

<http://robertrapier.files.wordpress.com/2007/04/tdp12.png>

[http://www.stvnbrgs.com/wp- content/uploads/2013/01/2013-01-2...](http://www.stvnbrgs.com/wp- content/uploads/2013/01/2013-01-22b.jpg)

</comment><comment><USER22> Slightly related fun fact: Oslo also uses recovered heat from sewage to heat homes.

<http://www.enn.com/top_stories/article/4032>

</comment><comment><USER23> History-less american barbarians! :)

Sweden started this craze: actually Norway exported their garbage there:

[http://www.npr.org/blogs/thetwo- way/2012/10/28/163823839/swe...](http://www.npr.org/blogs/thetwo- way/2012/10/28/163823839/sweden-wants-your-trash)

Or see here: <https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4702319>

<comment><USER24> The word you're looking for is ahistorical.

</comment></comment><comment><USER25> Lest we of the US be inclined to scoff, most of what we burn is garbage - coal, oil, gas, dead wood, all remnants of dead life. The world has abundant natural energies, but for a century we've feasted on the easiest. Now the bill is due.

</comment><comment><USER26> I suggest expansion into Mumbai... plagued by trash, lacking reliable energy.

<comment><USER8> Unlike a developed country like Norway, doing this in Mumbai almost makes sense. Get them quickly up to a level where they can hop over a bunch of our generational mistakes and go straight to solar.

But in a developed country with abundant hydroelectric resources, this is shameful. Unless they recover all the waste products, including all the gases and ash, and bury them in old mines.

<comment><USER20> The heat is not useful for generating electricity, it could be used to heat buildings, but I bet that is hardly a concern in Mumbai.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER27> Could existing landfills be mined to supply this need?

<comment><USER28> There was a recent episode of Bang Goes the Theory [1] about how the UK has started to turn landfills into "bioreactors" [2], by covering them with earth (essentially turning them into parks). Underneath the top-soil layer, the landfill is covered with a layer that traps the methane and sends it into a methane-capturing system.

[1] <http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b01s1mzl>

</comment></comment><comment><USER29> I guess we can ship our to be recycled electronic parts to them instead of Chinese landfills then.

</comment><comment><USER30> Apparently Oslo needs to come help me clean my apartment.</comment>


Google pays $11M to job-seekers who alleged age discrimination - <AUTHOR> https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2019/jul/22/google-pays-11m-to-jobseekers-who-alleged-age-discrimination <comment><USER2> Tangentially related: I just turned 65, and am continuing to immensely enjoy programming. Current job involves embedded digital signal processing in medical devices.

My family came up with a new name for my category of programmers: the gerihacktric demographic.. :-)

I have interviewed with Alphabet twice, no offers. One time apparently it was a close call..

It would be fun to be the all-time record holder for oldest new hire!

<comment><USER3> It's great, that you got to interview stage. What I mostly found that most discrimination happens before someone gets to the interview phase, which makes sense, as it makes interviewing cheaper.

Most old people don't learn as many new things as younger ones, which makes it harder for older people who do to get the chance to prove themselves.

<comment><USER4> >Most old people don't learn as many new things as younger ones

... are you sure about that? I'd avoid sweeping generalizations, it does not help your argument.

<comment><USER3> As I'm getting older all my organs are working less, and my brain is slower as well (though I'm able to think just as deeply as before).

At the same time I'm much more concious about spending my thinking energy, and because of my experience I'm making much more money than when I was younger _despite_ my slower thinking.

Discrimination involves hate, and I definately not hate old people, just accept the facts of life (and I'm also hoping for a cure for aging).

<comment><USER5> > Discrimination involves hate

Not always, no. That would give an unworkably narrow definition.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Recently the Danish company KMD was caught utilising a no hiring of anyone above the age of 36 policy. A practice they've apparently used for a decade. That's illegal and they'll likely be punished, but the interesting part is that they are doing terrible.

They have the largest amount of scandals, the largest amount of settlements for not meeting what they promised and the largest financial drop of any major Danish IT company.

This could be happening for a range of reasons. With hiring practices like that, their management is probably questionable, but hiring young certainly doesn't seem to have helped them much.

<comment><USER7> > but hiring young certainly doesn't seem to have helped them much.

A proper team has a mix of old and young, because they bring different skills to the table. Young people tend to be more energetic and enthusiastic, while older people have already learned that you don't store customer passwords unencrypted and check that backups are being done.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> Why are these numbers so small? Even more so to the fine for data protection violations. The point of these sort of things are to make companies think twice. While 11m is a lot of cash it is nothing compared to Google's total income, and would not even been half a years salary for those they refused to hire. Seems like they got let off easy on this one.

<comment><USER9> Considering that it is a claim from a _prospective_ employee about the interview process, the settlement of 35k per person seems relatively generous.

<comment><USER10> "Generous" is hard for me to have an opinion about. $11M is less than a rounding error for Google.

"Fair" isn't as hard. It's not fair, if (as I suspect) Google is guilty of age discrimination. There should be greater consequences than just trying to pay people what they might've lost financially from the discrimination.

Or, to put it another way: Google deserves to be punished if this was actually happening.

<comment><USER11> If you see it from the other side, it is more than 50,000 for each of the 200 people, even if the lawyers will likely get 1/3 of that, it remains 35,000 US$ or so.

For what?

Having been NOT hired (but making it to the interview).

Presumably, even if a bit "old" according to Google standards, these people are anyway "top notch" in programming and almost surely soon found an appropriate job at some other company.

So, the compensation is seemingly very hypothetical, covering what? 2-3 months of wages for someone hypothetically getting 140,000-200,000 US$ per year.

Or is it because the applicant could have been hired at 160,000 US$ per year but only makes - poor little thing - 125,000 US$ from the company that hired him/her, and so first year is covered?

<comment><USER8> Engineers at google can make way over 200k in salary and even more in total compensation. Given these guys were over 40, and many of them likely seasoned it is likely they would have made way more than the numbers you are suggesting.

<comment><USER11> I don't doubt that, it was just an attempt to put the numbers in pespective, if you believe that it is only 1 month or 15 days of wage it is ok as well, but what was the actual inconvenience to them?

Let's bring it to the extreme, 35,000 US$ for the hassle of making four (fruitless) interviews?

<comment><USER12> It's very demoralizing to be realize nobody wants to hire you because you're over a certain age. So this is not about the inconvenience of wasting time with the interview but more generally about age discrimination.

<comment><USER11> I perfectly understand the issue, I work (I might say worked) in a field where - for completely different reasons - the work opportunities are scarce to non existant for senior people, but the question was more about how the sum was quantified.

Being the target of discrimination (be it age, sex, race, religion, whatever) is a terrible experience, but it is not easy to determine the amount of a monetary compensation.

As the parent noted, the $11 M are a rounding error to google, still the amount each person received should not be excessive because google is so big.

I mean, let's say that in an alternate world the amount would be calculated on the gross profits of google and the total amount had been US$ 110 Millions instead (still peanuts).

Would have it been "fair" that each refused applicant got 350,000 US$? (a couple years wage)

Or 3,500,000 each (more like 20 years) would have been adequate?

<comment><USER12> I don't have an opinion about the compensation, some could argue that it is or it isn't excessive. My understanding is that the wealthier the company the less likely they are to change their bad practices when fined a small amount compared to their size.

<comment><USER12> Here's an interesting story, somehow related to the size of the fine vs. the wealth of the person given the fine, though this is in Finland and about a speeding ticket.

[https://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2015/03/finland...](https://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2015/03/finland- home-of-the-103000-speeding-ticket/387484/)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> _Although it has settled the case, Google denies the allegations that it was unfairly dismissive of older applicants._

Why is Google still making denials and statements after settling the action?

<comment><USER14> Because last time Google denied doing something like this it turned out there was a paper trail all the way to the CEO.

(The top email basically said: why are you emailing me this. This is illegal. Don't create a paper trail!!)

<comment><USER15> Google has a history of age discrimination and losing in court, going back to the founders of the company.

See Reid v Google where Brian Reid, a key developer of the tech we use, was told his ideas "were too old to matter" and that he was an "old fuddy duddy."

Google fought it and lost.

[https://www.law.com/therecorder/almID/1202464321723/?slretur...](https://www.law.com/therecorder/almID/1202464321723/?slreturn=20190622134543)

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brian_Reid_(computer_scientist...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brian_Reid_\(computer_scientist\))

<comment><USER16> Reid v. Google was settled out of court in 2012 for an undisclosed amount.

<comment><USER15> yes and no. they lost on appeal to the state supreme court on whether evidence about age bias could be used in the lawsuit.

then they settled.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> I'm 37, I'm starting to get worried about my age being a problem. But to hell with blaming employers who don't want me, it's their call. I think that maybe the actual problem is that by 40 they expect that I should be leading teams not just stuck at senior dev. Personally I want out of tech as I see supply and demand acting on wages (I'm in UK). Pretty soon, as far as I can estimate, it will go the way manufacturing went in the west: gone or heavily unionised blue collar like Germany which I don't want to be.

</comment><comment><USER18> Anecdotal: was recently trying to apply to one of Google's engineering positions in Zürich (I already tried to do that 7 years ago, did not pass the interview, now I think I am better equipped) Got a referral from one of my Googler friends.

In 2 days, I've got a very dismissive letter from Google, which amounted to "we decided that your profile and experience is no match for this position — and by the way, don't bother applying to other similar positions at other Google offices. Case closed".

My CV only got better since my last interview at Google, and while I didn't pass it with flying colors, it wasn't completely bad, too. I wonder if my current age played the part. Meanwhile, at Google jobs site, there were many positions marked as "fresh alumni of 2019 only" — perhaps that's their perfect target.

<comment><USER19> Or, you know, they just have entry level positions and don't want to pay for a senior dev.

</comment></comment><comment><USER20> Last month we launched our website/job board to fight ageism in tech

we had a huge response launching here on HN and I believe it's a hidden problem we need to tackle.

[https://noageismintech.com](https://noageismintech.com)

</comment><comment><USER21> Very fun link inside the article [https://www.businessinsider.com/jk- scheinberg-apple-engineer...](https://www.businessinsider.com/jk-scheinberg- apple-engineer-rejected-job-apple-store-genius-bar-2016-9)

"JK Scheinberg, the engineer who spent 21 years working at Apple and is best known for persuading Steve Jobs to move the Mac from PowerPC to Intel in 2005, was rejected from a job at an Apple store a few years later. "

I wonder if Woz himself would pass the muster :)

</comment><comment><USER22> What's the reasoning behind not hiring older developers? Besides the lack of flexibility in personality and old guy sentiments, they are usually solid developers and have a lot of knowledge. I've learned so many things by osmosis by just being around them. Is it solely that they can grind young developers into the ground at a low salary? Nearly every young developer in my short time as a developers thinks they are Mr. Robot, whereas the older guys give a much better sense of what programming is really all about in the context of reality.

</comment><comment><USER23> I'd love to hire some talented individuals with this level of experience. Any recommendations on where I can post positions that don't attract the typical west coast brogrammer set?

<comment><USER24> > don't attract the typical west coast brogrammer set

Isn't this just discrimination against a different demographic?

<comment><USER16> Maybe, but you know it is totally legal to discriminate against people under 40 in the US, right? Not saying it's ethical or otherwise a good idea, but it won't get the DoL on your case.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> $38,500 per person assuming 30% fee going to lawyers. Seems kind of low.

</comment><comment><USER26> Will anything happen if you lie about your age on an application? I don't see how your age, race, or sex should be taken into consideration unless you are doing a job that requires strenous physical labor.

<comment><USER27> Even if you avoid providing your DOB, you almost always have to put the year you graduated college, and that makes it pretty easy to ballpark age.

<comment><USER28> I leave my graduation date off -- it's never been a problem.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER29> Interesting, their current interview practices is age discrimination - i.e. they are tailored for fresh grads. I wonder if every non-fresh-grad candidate is eligible for such compensation :)

</comment><comment><USER30> Technically they didn't admit guilt, but from a PR point of view they did.

So from that respect, they probably opened themselves up for further scrutiny from future applicants whether they engaged in ageism or not.

I suspect they feared during the discovery process things would be found in the internal communications that do show some kind of -ism or other things that would just look bad for them, so throwing $11m at the problem to go away quickly seemed better.

</comment><comment><USER31> I've interacted with several Googlers over the hears who said point-blank that Google won't hire people over 40.

<comment> nappy-doo That's funny, I was just rehired at Google. I'm over 40. 4/6 of my coworkers are over 40. I sat on hiring committee for 4 years before I left a couple of years ago (FB is a terrible place to work, BTW), and we _NEVER_ discussed the age of a candidate. Looking around my office (a major US office), and I'd estimate > 50% are over 40.

</comment></comment><comment><USER32> I was offered to join this lawsuit but I didn't because I didn't feel discriminated or anything.

</comment><comment><USER33> How does this work for the claimants, do they get ~$50,000 each (it says more than 200 people but doesn't quantify it) or do the legal costs swallow up most of that

<comment><USER34> According to Ars they get about $35k:

> Of the $11 million payout in the settlement, $2.75 million will go to > lawyers representing the class, Bloomberg reports. Fillekes will get an > extra $10,000 as the lead plaintiff. The remaining cash works out to around > $35,000 per plaintiff.

[https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2019/07/google- pays-11-m...](https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2019/07/google- pays-11-million-to-settle-227-age-discrimination-claims/)

<comment><USER35> That seems kind of low. I would assume software engineers capable of interviewing at google would be somewhat well off, and take the risk for a bigger payout.

Perhaps the law firm had final say?</comment></comment></comment>


Data Mining Reveals the Surprising Behavior of Users of Dating Websites - <AUTHOR> http://www.technologyreview.com/view/524081/data-mining-reveals-the-surprising-behavior-of-users-of-dating-websites/ <comment><USER2> I didn't see anything surprising.</comment>


Where to submit your startup for some coverage - <AUTHOR> http://blog.traindom.com/places-where-to-submit-your-startup-for-coverage/ <comment><USER2> Interesting that HN is missing, I've seen sites launched (not always voluntarily!) by a single posting to HN, and I've seen how much coverage you can get from here when announcing my 'two week' project reocities.com .

That seems like an oversight.

<comment><USER3> I thought the same. I posted cakesy.com last night and have already received over 10k uniques via HN. Even if it hadn't made it past top 10, it would still be 500+ uniques. Wouldn't compare against 80k hits via TechCrunch but it might end up a better plan if your potential users are hackers.

<comment><USER4> TechCrunch won't deliver 80k uniques. If you got 10k via HN then that's a lot more than TC has been sending these days.

<comment><USER5> [as usual, you are both correct and wrong at the same time - seems to be becoming my motto]

HN will generate similar traffic to a techcrunch post, if you look at the raw numbers. The big difference is that the TechCrunch traffic is from a readship of a million, and those who click are genuinely interested in your service, that they just read about.

HN will also give you a pretty large boost of traffic, but more are just interested in checking you as a startup, not as an end-user.

<comment><USER6> You think end-users read TechCrunch? :/

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> The Next Web - firstname.lastname@example.com

<comment><USER8> I took you up on the offer. ;-)

<comment><USER7> As have about 10 other so far.

As an FYI, we're only writing up 1 tonight (AnyNewBooks?) and will sort thru the rest for posting soon.

I really do appreciate the submissions though. Please, keep them coming. I live for this stuff.

<comment><USER8> Thank you so much for the coverage, Brad.

Link: [http://thenextweb.com/apps/2010/10/05/any-new-books-is-a- kil...](http://thenextweb.com/apps/2010/10/05/any-new-books-is-a-killer-app- for-serious-readers/)

<comment><USER7> Really a killer idea. Love it. We have a few more we'll be covering later, as I said. I'm really impressed with what I've been sent tonight. Nice job, HN folks.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> I got picked up by <http://www.killerstartups.com/> a few months ago. They have a submission page (though I didn't actually use it)

I actually got about 200+ referrals from them, which was nice. In addition to multiple PR offerings.

<comment><USER10> I got a nice bit of traffic from killerstartups as well (800some referrals I think). Before submitting there, one should figure out when their busy days are, when they seem to have slow days, etc.; my startup unfortunately got placed into a second page early on for their daily reviews and it stayed there most of that day.

Also, despite their audience, I didn't receive a lot of feedback initially. That took some more time.

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> Maybe there should be a tag and thread on HN for startups that are launching or looking for alpha/beta users (like the ASK tag).

<comment><USER12> a general product/feedback/product feedback tag would be useful

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> The advice that TC won't cover you unless you're much bigger is bad. They'll cover you however small you are as long as you give them something worth writing about.

</comment><comment><USER14> Does anyone know how long it usually takes to get your startup added to CrunchBase? My submission for Stormpulse has been in pending status since 9/23.

<comment><USER15> Mine took a couple of days at most, it was more than a year ago though.

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> My iPhone app just came out. So far I've just been emailing bloggers and advertising on cheap sites. Also, tweeted about it!

What do you guys suggest to market an iPhone app (more specifically, productivity/utility $1.99)? What has worked for you?

<comment><USER17> I would probably make an website that specifically markets your iPhone app and then send that URL out.

<comment><USER16> I have that, but where would I send it out? Here it is for reference: <http://daytaapp.com/>

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> Nothing even comes close to Lifehacker, assuming your product is a good fit. It should be #1 on every start-up's list.

</comment><comment><USER19> Can anyone that has submitted their site to Killer Startups quantify the number of solicitations they received from vendors? I ask since I almost submitted my site a couple weeks back but was turned off by these lines in the Killer Startups' Terms of Service:

"You herein consent that The Company will disclose to any third party your name, address, e-mail address or telephone number (you may opt out of this by not submitting your startup), except to the extent necessary or appropriate to comply with applicable laws or in legal proceedings where such information is relevant. The Company reserves the right to offer third party services and products to you based on the preferences that you identify in your registration and at any time thereafter; such offers may be made by the Company or by third parties."

<comment><USER9> I didn't submit my info on their site. They actually just picked up my site from somewhere else. Looking at my analytics I realized they were the ones responsible for the sudden spike in traffic.

But now that you mention solicitations, I was contacted by three PR companies in that same traffic spike. It appears to be a hot-bed for PR companies scouring for new clients. I just wonder if the site isn't run by one of these companies.

</comment></comment><comment><USER20> This information is invaluable. This is a great way to attract some traffic / get valuable feedback.

I once posted an early version of one of my sites on the craigslist forum for feedback. The responses were not helpful.

</comment><comment><USER21> MO.com - Entrepreneur Interviews (from starting to successful). Tell me the most interesting thing about you, your company or about tech/startups in general if you want a better chance/get something posted faster. Email may be down, moving servers but firstname.lastname@example.com or use my personal contact form: <http://ohashi.info/contact>

</comment><comment><USER22> This is a great list. I do write web apps and am working on my 1st "startup" so this will be great.

I would like to expand this, how would one who is opening an online store for example get coverage besides the normal press? I mean yes it is a startup but not, we make everything ourselves, so it's not reselling someone else's stuff, but at the same time doesn't fit the startup mold.

</comment><comment><USER23> I'm surprised at the size of the list here. Are all these sites legitimate, each with their own audience?

I'm wondering if there are equivalents for iPhone apps (or mobile apps in general).

Edit: Created a new post focusing on my mobile apps question so as not to hijack this thread: <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1757510>

</comment><comment><USER24> This is a good list to get started. I write for MakeUseOf - generally to submit your app there, use firstname.lastname@example.com or if you want to send a direct message to me, firstname.lastname@example.com.

Your app must at least be in open beta, and must be free or 'freemium'.

</comment><comment><USER25> ReadWriteWeb (tips@readwriteweb) - email us and we will definitely take a look.

</comment><comment><USER26> Why isn't there a commonapp for startup press coverage? Same set of details, no PR fluff, and sent to these sites + one designated person at a publication.

This would just make everyone's life so much easier.

<comment><USER27> <http://www.blogreviewed.com/> (In beta - I believe i saw it on HN previously but can't find anything searching now) is an attempt at this. I think the product needs a lot of work - the tips on pitches and the way they evaluate sites all seem to have been done quickly/formulaically. The idea, as you mention is a good one. If they could improve the execution it would be useful. It's not a common app, but it makes pitching a repeatable process in an automated way (in theory).

I don't know if it was random or not, but it seems like they start with really easy (and in often case worthless) targets and then just work you up to say a VentureBeat. We (GroupTabs) had already been covered there, along with a couple other of their suggested pitch spots - so they definitely are not looking at that, which would be a nice feature.

That said I'm not sure a common app would really work. If you want coverage it's more than pitching the right publications, it's pitching the right people there.

</comment></comment><comment><USER28> Great list, thank you for compiling this for the rest of us

</comment><comment><USER29> "This week in startup" is missing. I like those guys.

</comment><comment><USER30> also try twist - <http://thisweekinstartups.com>

</comment><comment><USER31> AdWords ?

</comment><comment><USER32> Maybe never :( it depends

</comment><comment><USER5> This is generally bad advice. To quote from the PR panel at the Founder Conference a month ago: the last thing a journalist wants to receive in their inbox is a bland e-mail that was obviously blasted to another hundred places.

video at [http://blog.fairsoftware.net/2010/08/24/pr2-0-doesnt-work- fo...](http://blog.fairsoftware.net/2010/08/24/pr2-0-doesnt-work-founder- conference/)

<comment><USER5> Thanks for group-thinking the downvoting... So I guess I need to explain why I said it's bad advice.

First of all, credentials: I have been covered on many of the sites listed including techcrunch, venturebeat, killerstartups, etc... I know first-hand the kind of response each site generates.

Second: I forced journalists from VentureBeat, the San Jose Mercury News and Wired to spend 30 minutes discussing the best approach to get coverage, in public. I linked to that video. If you don't have time to listen to how the press wants you to pitch to them, don't be surprised that nothing is working out for you :-)

Third. The answer is relationship. Build relationships with the various media & influencers. Not by buying them drinks, but by understanding who they are, what they write about, and why. You surely hate spam. They do to. And using such a list of 100 sites to send the same announcement is spam in _their_ book. I thought you should know.</comment></comment>


Real-World Kinect Interaction From Microsoft Research - <AUTHOR> http://techcrunch.com/2011/11/01/more-mind-blowing-real-world-kinect-interaction-from-microsoft-research/

<comment><USER2> The more stuff I read about augmented reality, the more I feel like I am in a world created by William Gibson. Anyone else?

<comment><USER3> When I watch this stuff I'm reminded that calling myself an "engineer" is outrageously inaccurate.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Wow. That's pretty cool stuff. Amazing brand new territory to explore.

</comment><comment><USER5> Typical Microsoft - Just another concept video.

<comment><USER6> This is a technology demo, not a concept video. The difference being that stuff demoed here has been built, and is somewhere between the concept & product stage.

<comment><USER5> Daringly, one might throw fuel on the fire and call it "a proof of concept video?"

<comment><USER7> By definition a proof of concept video is not a concept video because the concept video predates the proof of concept video.

<comment><USER5> Surely, you are not suggesting that a proof of concept video implies the existence of a concept video.

<comment><USER7> I would invite you to reread my comment and think about where I made that logical implication. Because I didn't. What I did say is that if a concept video exists it precedes a proof of concept video.

<comment><USER5> Your comment contains no such conditional clause.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Show HN: A Pseudo-Random Number Generator Predictor in Java - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/yutarochan/PRNGPredict

<comment><USER2> So from the first two 'randomly' generated integers it is possible to derive a value that can be used to as a seed value to 'sync' two PRNGs? that can't be good. :S

<comment><USER3> The docs do say:

> Instances of java.util.Random are not cryptographically secure. Consider > instead using SecureRandom to get a cryptographically secure pseudo-random > number generator for use by security-sensitive applications.

So hopefully this isn't too much of a surprise to anyone writing crypto code in Java.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Dilbert's take on this:

[http://i.imgur.com/lr5ko7L.gif](http://i.imgur.com/lr5ko7L.gif)</comment>


How Apple Could Improve Their Developer Tools - <AUTHOR> http://stanislaw.github.io/2015/11/20/how-apple-could-improve-their-developer-tools.html <comment><USER2> No comments? Was hoping for some discussion since xcode sucks more with every release.</comment>


JavaScript Tips - <AUTHOR> http://aymanh.com/9-javascript-tips-you-may-not-know <comment><USER2> The array.join vs. string concat tip is bogus. Might have been true some years ago, but joining an array is only marginally faster in Firefox and even slower in Chrome than concatenating strings:

<http://www.phoboslab.org/crap/jsarrayconcat.html>

<comment><USER3> Good to know. I've been reflexively doing that for many years now, and wasn't aware that JS implementations had finally optimized around it.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Be very careful to not call console.log in any released code, or you'll have a very interesting time trying to figure out why your app works for exactly you and no-one else.

<comment><USER5> I usually put a safety check at the top of my code, ensuring that console and console.log exist (and, if they don't, defining something appropriate in their place).

<comment><USER6> I just use:

        if ( errror ) {
            try { console.error(msg); }
            catch(e) {};
        }

Of course I do all of my debugging in Firefox with Firebug, and my goal is to ensure that these errors don't happen in production code so other browsers never hit the try/catch block. In rare cases where an error only happens in IE, I can throw an alert into the catch.

<comment><USER7> Its terrible practice to catch an error and do nothing with it.

<comment><USER6> Generally yes, I agree. But in this case all I'm doing with the error is displaying it to the programmer, and it doesn't matter to me if the programmer has to be using Firefox to see it. We were talking about displaying debugging messages and dealing with a missing console, not handling application failures.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> I stumbled upon a few of the mentioned tricks in the article lately, while working on JavaScript projects in my spare time.

Another little _trick_ that I personally like because of its simplicity is the following:

      Array.prototype.clear = function(){this.length=0;}

Clears an Array _the easy way_.

<comment><USER9> You just need to be aware that this might cause unexpected behavior when using for ... in

      Array.prototype.clear = function() {this.length = 0};
      var a = [1,2,3];
      var s = "";
      for(var i in a) s += i +",";
      alert(s);//1,2,3,clear

(not that many people use it this way, but since we're on the topic of little known tricks about js, I think it's worth mentioning)

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> The binary tree example is fine for very small and completely balanced trees, but for anything else you're going to get a lot of undefined entries in the array. There's no need for this; the array elements can be data structures like:

       { 'data': data, 'left': null, 'right': null }

When you insert a new child, you can just push it onto the end of the array, find its parent by comparing the 'data' values, and set the parent's 'left' or 'right' to point to the child's index in the array. Update the child's 'left' or 'right' as needed if the child isn't a leaf.

He mentions that you can build a traditional binary tree out of objects, but he makes it sound a lot more complicated than it actually is. His implementation of a binary tree breaks down at a scale where it's probably simpler and nearly as fast to just use an associative array and linear traversal, and he still requires writing the insertion, removal, and traversal methods.

<comment><USER10> In JavaScript, Arrays are not actually arrays. They're not a contiguous block of memory. They're just Objects (i.e. hash tables) that key on integers.

If you look at the indices it will look like you have a bunch of undefined elements in the array, but no memory has actually been consumed for those indices in the array so nothing is wasted.

<comment><USER6> Excellent point. I forget that javascript doesn't really have arrays, just array syntax. My example is much more appropriate in other languages with true arrays and the ability to store object references in them.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> In most modern browsers Array.join and += are about equal in performance for most use cases. Depending on the length of the strings and/or the number of segments joined - performance varies. Wouldn't worry too much about it.

<comment><USER12> Agreed. I just tested performance and the difference was moot. I'd say += is easier to read so unless you're doing something really heavy duty with strings I wouldn't worry.

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> _Of course, data should be sorted server-side if possible, so this shouldn't be used unless absolutely necessary_

I understand that this is 2006 article. but this is not sound advise today. It is fine for the service (server) to order data, but one should not rely on the fact that the service will do so as many times reordering data is a function of the display (view).

</comment><comment><USER14> The article is from 2006. You may well know the tips.

<comment><USER15> Plus the language hardly changed in the 10 years before that.

<comment><USER16> True in theory but not in practice: jQuery changed a lot of typical JavaScript usage patterns.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> js is getting interesting with projects like nodejs (Heruko support), expressjs, cappuccino and sproutcore... Plus HP/Palm WebOS apps are HTML/CSS/JS, OSX widgets, Chrome extensions, factor in HTML5, js in mongodb and couchdb, and one starts to realize the gains to be made to the dev process by being a js guru for client and server.

</comment><comment><USER18>
        var queue = [];
        queue.add = queue.push;
        queue.remove = queue.shift;

Oh god no! I pray I don't ever have to work with this guy after he learns about prototypes.

Also, he is using "shift" and requires binary trees, but makes no mention whatsoever of the performance characteristics?

</comment><comment><USER19> Yawn. These are hardly JavaScript-specific programming tips, except the Firebug ones. You can easily build a stack or queue on top of arrays in any language, and common subexpression elimination helps in other dynamic languages as well.

</comment><comment><USER15> The comments on this article are like YouTube comments of programming.</comment>


Why OO may not suck, or, Take a ride on the Falsus Omnibus - <AUTHOR> http://www.atalasoft.com/cs/blogs/rickm/archive/2009/02/11/why-oo-is-not-so-bad-but-could-be-better.aspx

<comment><USER2> > Wouldn't having functions be first class citizens be locking them in the > same cage with data structures as well?

An important difference between first-class functions and objects is that first-class functions are still _functions._ Closures are also functions, even though they merge data and code together just like objects do. But objects merge data and functions to form something that's neither data nor a function.

This, I think, is a shame. Data and functions are the most important abstractions in computer science. Objects not so much. If you aren't simulating something, then there's no natural ontology that you want to model with objects. By comparison almost _every_ system needs to process data. The data about an object is not itself an object, and it doesn't help matters to conceive of it as an object.</comment>