Ask HN: Who uses PHPStorm? - <AUTHOR> I generally like Jetbrains tooling, and wondered if anyone's used their PHP IDE and what your thoughts are compared to other IDE's and using just an editor / command line flow. <comment><USER2> I used to use it when I was exclusively coding php/html/css. Now have switched to intellij. It covers most of the things PHPStorm/WebStorm provides ... plus other languages.

Also started using gogland for go projects.

To compare with other IDEs, I think the best way is to choose one (any one ide), and become fluent in it.

Whatever other IDE you compare against, will always look mediocre because "this IDE didn't have a shortcut for that action". I have seen people using idea like a general/not so intelligent IDE, where they just edit text there and not use any other feature !

<comment><USER3> Similar boat here. I usually avoid java like a rabbid dog with a gun, but IDEA Ultimate is worth the jvm weight. Nothing else seems to come close in terms of language support and features, especially once you factor in the things supported via plugins.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Been using it almost daily for overa year now and love it. Was previously on Netbeans which feels ancient in comparison (though I didn't mind at the time). Was well worth the small amount I paid/pay.

</comment><comment><USER5> I use it daily, both at work and home. I would consider it the best tool for PHP development - powerful IDE, extendable with a plethora of plugins (composer, gulp, npm things; laravel thing resolving).

I don't really use the Database tool, I'm not even sure if it exists anymore in the IDE since they released DataGrip.

Debugger tool is great but for non-objective reasons I liked Visual Studio's more (not for PHP).

In overall, it does everything that it should AND more. You can usually drop other software and just use PHPStorm for most of your development needs. Similar things can be said about other IntelliJ products.

</comment><comment><USER6> I use it daily and I think it is among the best IDE I have ever used because of the exceptional code complete and debugging features. It pays a lot to learn the keyboard shortcuts and setup live templates because those will save you a lot of time.

</comment><comment><USER7> IntelliJ product feature of live template is something I love. Make a skeleton template for most repeated code then using few letters one can get many lines of code while coding.

Overall their editors are ahead of most I feel.

</comment><comment><USER8> I use, I like it. I rarely use the debugger feature, the main thing I dig is autocompletion and quick access to related source files.

It is what you would expect from Jetbrains on PHP.

</comment><comment><USER9> I'm using it at work and at home. I like it cause it works, has a lot of plugins and gives me the ability to develop extreme fast (symfony) projects.

</comment><comment><USER10> Tried it for a while, though the search window was too slow to load on my workstation.

</comment><comment><USER11> i use it occasionally. not using debugger neither the database tool as they don't fit well into my workflow. it has a great wordpress support, what is something i really like about it. could be a bit sluggish on less powerful machines though

<comment><USER3> What do you use to debug then?

<comment><USER11> xdebug

</comment></comment></comment><comment> Kepler-295c It's (occasionally) slow because it's java but really feature complete and stable.</comment>


White House told federal health agency to classify coronavirus deliberations - <AUTHOR> https://www.reuters.com/article/us-health-coronavirus-secrecy-exclusive-idUSKBN20Y2LM <comment><USER2> I don't understand the motivation. Lying and pretending is just going to make the situation worse and push the reckoning to a later date. Given that it is an election year it seems to me that punting this out is a really stupid idea for the incumbent administration.

Maybe they are just hoping that if they lie and withhold information long enough it will just disappear over summer? Seems like a really silly gamble with a huge potential downside and nearly nonexistent upside.

<comment><USER3> If you sufficiently limit testing then the numbers will always be within your control.

Without a treatment or vaccine there is no point in testing. It will just cause panic. The US isn't like other countries where people go to the doctor when they get sick. If people think they just have the flu they will just stay home and die instead of putting a strain on resources.

A morbid reality, but the best solution for the system we have. Transparency and testing won't be good for anyone. What works everywhere else doesn't always work in the US.

<comment><USER4> No point in testing? How can you make any decisions for public safety without numbers? Numerous options like pushing jobs and schools to go virtual, cancelling sports events, conferences, etc. Even to the point of blocking roads and air travel. It's 10x worse if everyone gets sick at the same time, so slowing the spread is quite valuable... even if the same number of people get sick.

Not to mention various treatments are being tested. Gilead has a promising drug, and it looks like an old malaria drug might be just what is needed. Lots of promising results in petri dishes, none from a good double blind study... yet. A delay of a month or two might well halve the death rate, even ignoring things like over burdened hospitals.

<comment><USER3> Think for a second. You can't close schools in the US. There is no safety net for people to not go to work. No job, no healthcare at all.

Panic only makes it worse. The sad reality is the best option we have at the moment is for people to pretend like nothing is wrong. Everyone gets to keep their job, income and health insurance for as long as possible. If you get sick, stay home. If you get really sick weigh the cost of going to the doctor against death.

In much of the US many people will opt to just die at home instead of seek medical care. As a result, the system actually won't get overloaded. If people panic and start showing up at the ER it will though.

<comment><USER5> > You can't close schools in the US.

I don't know what you mean by this - we've had "snow days" for a very long time.

<comment><USER6> I'm sure they mean long term...

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> The "simplest" explanation would be that they were discussing the outbreak in China and using secret intelligence gathered by classified sources or processes to do so.

Even so, it would still be stupid to let those limited discussions be where policy was made.

</comment><comment><USER8> > HHS has SCIFs because theoretically it would play a major role in biowarfare > or chemical attacks.

Maybe public health isn't the only thing being discussed in these meetings?

</comment><comment><USER9> Possible duplicate of [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22547607](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22547607) . I can't tell which one was posted first.

</comment><comment><USER10> [Dupe] [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22547607](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22547607)

</comment><comment><USER11> dupe: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22547607](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22547607)

</comment><comment><USER12> This administration is the most crooked set of losers ever. From day 1, they've only divided and destroyed effective governance and shredded effective people from the government.

What are they going to do now? Let people die just to keep the economic illusion running or let people live with actual infection numbers and crash the stock market?

<comment><USER13> > What are they going to do now? Let people die just to keep the economic > illusion running or let people live with actual infection numbers and crash > the stock market?

Most likely, yes. They will prevent the public from seeing the extent of the problem until after thousands of people die they will use their media resources to blame someone else.</comment></comment>


Russia used social media to keep EU voters at home, report finds - <AUTHOR> https://www.theverge.com/2019/6/14/18678984/russia-social-media-eu-influence-parliament-elections-voters-disinformation <comment><USER2> The report itself has far more detail and isn't very long: [https://eeas.europa.eu/sites/eeas/files/joint_report_on_disi...](https://eeas.europa.eu/sites/eeas/files/joint_report_on_disinformation.pdf)

Like most Russian hacking reports you have to take it on faith that the people telling you about it have it right.</comment>


Trump Hits China With Stiff Trade Measures - <AUTHOR> https://www.nytimes.com/2018/03/22/us/politics/trump-will-hit-china-with-trade-measures-as-white-house-exempts-allies-from-tariffs.html <comment><USER2> There are reports and indications that the Chinese leadership is 'okay', possibly even inviting of this move and may respond only lightly to save face.

\- Xi knows the Chinese economy must rebalance for domestic reasons and that excess capacity must be shed. The US move provides Xi political cover and fallguy as the inevitable unfolds.

\- Chinese investors are eager to invest more in US assets and companies. Through the trade negotiations to come the US is likely to open its doors to greater Chinese investment as Chinese doors open to less or unrestricted investment from the US. This may take the form of sole US-owned investment, an end to technology transfers, or both.

\- Xi's power consolidation was widely reported as the product of ambition. The alternative explanation, and the one I favor, is the inevitable rebalancing of China's economy will necessarily cause some social and political instability - at all levels of the Chinese body politic. Whereas social and political pressure has forced policy retreats the past decade in China, Xi's new power suggests he'll enjoy the authority and longevity necessary to complete China's adjustment. Suggests only, a lot can go wrong.

\- China has much to do in supporting provincial governments, SOE, and other systemically important institutions. I don't think China has sufficient reserves in-place for a trade war, even if it were so inclined.

<comment><USER3> Hate to say it, but if this is the case its also the best possible outcome for Trump and a boon for his re-election.

"I took on China and negotiated a new deal. Sure, it was painful at first, but it brought them to the table, and now we're much better off. American factories are open again."

I have a sneaking suspicion Trump doesn't care if he wins re-election or not and could give a crap if tariffs lead to recession. It plays into his narrative and image well, and that's all he really cares about. If he were smart, he would play a card that Dan Carlin over at hardcore history hypothesized: The 1-term president. Basically, it can be summed up as: "I'm going to shake this system so far to the core, I may only be a 1-term president, but I don't care! It must be done." I think he much prefers the billionaire lifestyle to a presidential one anyways. He hates living in the "shabby" white house.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Many educated people are very critical of this, but as far as I know most countries that have developed successful industries had a period of protectionism during which they prevented foreign competitors from bringing in competing products in order to give their industries time to develop. This was coupled with strong export requirements to ensure that the products these industries produced were globally competitive and high quality. The most recent examples I can think of are the successful Asian countries (Japan, China, Taiwan, and South Korea). Many times these countries directly defied World Bank recommendations that encouraged a more laissez-faire, free-market approach.

Obviously the people critical of these policies are fairly well educated and should know what they're talking about, but I wonder how much is born out of academic ideas that don't hold up in practice or a projection of their disagreement with Trump's personality and other political actions.

Edit: I'm not saying this is the right approach, but I don't see many people arguing for these trade reforms, and I think it's unlikely that there are no decent arguments for them.

<comment><USER5> India tried this approach for multiple years and was a catastrophic failure. Indians had to survive on subpar cars such as Ambassador and Maruti, expensive TVs and fridge with subpar quality, and a dwindling economy. The way many Asian economies have succeeded is not by protectionism, but by identifying their niche capability and focusing on them. For example, automobile in Japan, semi-conductor in Taiwan, appliances in Korea. The equivalent approach in the US would be to concede low end manufacturing to China and focus on improving high end manufacturing and future industries that can sustain higher labor costs. Not trade tariffs.

<comment><USER6> India actually _didn't_ try this approach. Nearly all our industries were corrupt government owned 'public sector' industries. The idea using this approach is to develop innovative, private industry in a regulatory-friendly environment while providing proper trade protection and financing.

Automobile Industry In Japan was heavily protected [http://www.americanautocouncil.org/sites/aapc2016/files/Japa...](http://www.americanautocouncil.org/sites/aapc2016/files/Japans%2BProtected%2BAuto%2BMarket.pdf)

[https://www.huffingtonpost.com/ian-fletcher/japan-the- forgot...](https://www.huffingtonpost.com/ian-fletcher/japan-the-forgotten- prote_b_850269.html)

South Korean industry was heavily protected from 1960-90 and now is well- protected through unique Korean mandatory standards (nice WTO loophole).

<comment><USER7> I'm not sure about the other Asian countries mentioned, but in India we kind of messed up when public sector companies were competing with privately owned companies in the same sphere. The government always bailed out the public companies whenever they messed up, but the private companies themselves have managed to set up organized anti-competitive cartels wherever possible.

But that said, tariffs alone can't explain how some economies succeed or fail. There are a lot of other variables which tend to be ignored in such simplistic thesis about macroeconomic outcomes, as there always are.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> ...and from now on I will start calling it the "Echoes of Smoot-Hawley" Tariff.

For those here who don't know, the Smooth-Hawley Tariff Act, signed into law around a year after the Stock Market Crash of 1929, is widely considered to have exacerbated the Great Depression of the 1930's.[a]

If I may quote George Santayana: "Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it."[b]

Hopefully this tariff and China's retaliation will remain an isolated incident, without significant repercussions for global trade. One can hope.

Ignorance is a scarily powerful force in world affairs.

:-(

[a] [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Smoot%E2%80%93Hawley_Tariff_Ac...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Smoot%E2%80%93Hawley_Tariff_Act)

[b] [https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/George_Santayana](https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/George_Santayana)

<comment><USER9> Not sure that's relevant right now, since we're not in a recession?

<comment><USER10> A recession started January 26, 2018. You weren't informed?

<comment><USER11> The word "recession" has many definitions (depends on who you ask), but in the US we tend to defer to the NBER.

>The NBER defines an economic recession as: "a significant decline in economic activity spread across the economy, lasting more than a few months, normally visible in real GDP, real income, employment, industrial production, and wholesale-retail sales."[1]

GDP was up 2.6% last quarter[2], so no, we're not in a recession. A stock market dip does not a recession make.

[1] [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Recession#Definition](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Recession#Definition) [2] [https://www.nytimes.com/2018/01/26/business/economy/gdp- econ...](https://www.nytimes.com/2018/01/26/business/economy/gdp-economy.html)

<comment><USER12> > GDP was up 2.5% last quarter, so no, we're not in a recession

That both starts with a false premise and, more critically, is an invalid argument.

First, the GDP grew at a 2.5% annualized rate last quarter (Q4 2017), it wasn't up 2.5%.

Second, the definition you provide indicates that recession is _normally_ visible in a set of variables, but not that it can be conclusively ruled out when it is not visible in one variable in that set.

Third, and most critically, the condition of the economy _last_ quarter doesn't tell you whether we are in a recession _now_ , only, at best, whether we were last quarter.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> Keep in mind, the US is by far the LEAST protectionist country according to the WTO, with China being the most, and Europe somewhere in the middle.

Europe also has anti-dumping and high tariffs on China, with some steel import tariffs as high as 71.9% in some cases to prevent dumping. Cars being shipped from the U.S. into Europe faced a 10% import duty while European cars into the U.S. face only a 2.5% percent duty.

China makes its immensely difficult for US based companies to enter Chinese markets, and IP enforcement is abysmal. Fixing this access imbalance was the only thing good the TPP had going for it, but the concessions were too much and ultimately it was scrapped.

I sincerely hope this does bring everyone back to the negotiating table eventually for a better deal.

<comment><USER13> The WTO uses bound tariffs, not the actual applied tariffs, as far as I know. The applied tariffs adjusted by real trade shows that US is not the least protectionist country, Japan and Singapore are less protectionist. Anyway, the adjusted tariff is lower than the China tariff. [https://ftalphaville.ft.com/2018/03/08/1520526203000/America...](https://ftalphaville.ft.com/2018/03/08/1520526203000/America- is-not-the-least-protectionist-country-in-the-world/)

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> Could just be coincidence, but this was signed at roughly the same time that China started selling oil futures in yuan. Some see that as a big threat to the primacy of the dollar in international oil trading.

[http://nationalinterest.org/feature/the-end-the- petrodollar-...](http://nationalinterest.org/feature/the-end-the- petrodollar-25002)

</comment><comment><USER15> Nothing I see here is a negative - China does not play fair - this is a shot over the bow... should have been done years ago.

<comment><USER16> Really? So then China put tariff on our stuff. Then we do it again, then they do it again. You see that as a good outcome?

<comment><USER15> I think that China is cheating the system and if you have a better idea on how to fix the situation I'm all ears.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> Also known as a tax on the poor. Tariff taxes just get pushed onto the consumer as the US doesn't have any domestic competing products anywhere close to the price point of Chinese goods. We will continue to buy China, just at 10% more than in the past.

People will just pay yet another tax as everything will become more expensive.

The disconnect between "China is taking our jobs" and "I want a tv for cheap" is astounding. Different sides of the same coin.

<comment><USER18> Foxconn's investment in Wisconsin is a perfect example of this- there's simply no US competitor in a lot of consumer product areas for the same price point. What we're faced with is like having the choice between an American 720p TV and a Chinese 1080p TV for the same price at a retailer: there's no incentive to buy the American version when the foreign one's BOM\shipping\import costs beats that of the US-made one.

<comment><USER17> Also implying that American made electronics are even appealing to the American consumer anymore. That to me is the big question. Everyone talks about buy American, but look at the mass produced American goods and it doesn't scream quality, even if it is at the right price point.

Everyone buys Korean washing machines, Japanese cars, and Chinese electronics. Not simply because of the cost but also because of quality. My Toyota is a far better deal than Ford/Chevy/etc.

<comment><USER19> LG washer/dryer (Korea). Wolf kitchen (German), German cars (soon to be American, Tesla). All Apple everything else (designed in US). TVs are Vizio (American HQ). AG jeans (American) but I have my suites made in Singapore.

I think the reality is more of a mix.

I would never buy an American car (traditional) because they do not appeal to me.

BTW Toyota Civic for example is 75% US domestic parts made in the USA.

[https://www.usatoday.com/story/money/cars/2016/06/29/survey-...](https://www.usatoday.com/story/money/cars/2016/06/29/survey- top-made--usa-cars-toyota-honda/86510052/)

All of this is way more complex.

The reality is that for an American company trying to do business in China the playing field is far from level, and that's the major issue. Remove the IP transfer requirement and the 50% joint venture requirements and make the rules equal then we can see who will win (hint, the American company).

Fair access to thier market is the requirement. No one really believes that good old 1950s factory jobs are going to return to the USA. Heck, they are leaving China now!

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> Walmart is the biggest employer in the US. Won't this affect them and their customers, and by extension their employees, negatively?

</comment><comment><USER21> That's one way of kick starting a recession I guess...

<comment><USER22> Call me crazy, but I'm kinda hoping for a recession. Housing prices seem very tightly correlated with the economy boom. I'd sure like to see a nice correction back down to sane levels, so that some of us who've been saving for a long time, can finally afford to buy something.

Downvote of course if you're a current home owner.

<comment><USER23> It'd be nice if we could just _build more housing_ , rather than hope for a painful recession to drop prices.

<comment><USER24> We did build more housing, far too much, in 2005-07.

<comment><USER23> Not in the right places

[https://www.vox.com/2016/8/8/12390048/san-francisco- housing-...](https://www.vox.com/2016/8/8/12390048/san-francisco-housing- costs-tokyo)

[https://www.strongtowns.org/journal/2015/1/7/americas- suburb...](https://www.strongtowns.org/journal/2015/1/7/americas-suburban- experiment)

<comment><USER24> OK, good point...

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> Since interest rates are positive now, The number of jobs is currently controlled by the fed. The stronger labor demand is, the more they raise interest rates, thereby reducing job creation. So all of these make work programs, like the huge military spending boost, are currently just leading to higher interest rates and prices and shifting workers from one industry to another. Specifically it will shift workers out of export production and construction, because higher interest rates hurt our exports and construction. No job creation, more expensive products and homes. Thanks. Fortunately these tariffs are pretty insignificant: 50 billion worth of stuff is not that much for us, although it might be for certain cities in China and the precedent is bad.

</comment><comment><USER26> Good. The Chinese government subsidizes and protects many industries within their economy. Additionally, workers in the United State have been forced to race to the bottom with China. I, for one, am happy to see some protectionism.

</comment><comment><USER27> Number keeps changing. Was $50 billion on Bloomberg this morning.

<comment><USER28> News usually reports on rumor and calculated leaks before any official announcement.

</comment></comment><comment><USER29> Apple may have to move iPhone production to the US.

</comment><comment><USER30> Wonder if this will impact buying cheap Arduinos on Aliexpress.

<comment><USER27> I get the sense that electronics have already doubled in price from a few years ago. There are almost no dirt cheap parts any more.

<comment><USER30> As of two months ago, I could still purchase Arduinos & peripherals on Aliexpress for less than I could buy the raw parts and assemble them myself.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER31> The DOW is already down almost 3%. Tomorrow should be fun.

</comment><comment><USER32> _Edit: HN Mods quickly fixed the article, which makes this comment out of date. I really appreciate how quickly mods fix things on this site._

Article is wrong, Trump is not announcing $60B in tariffs, he's announcing tariffs _on_ $60B of goods. Huge difference.

I've seen multiple outlets make the same mistake. NYtimes got it right here

[https://www.nytimes.com/2018/03/22/us/politics/trump-will- hi...](https://www.nytimes.com/2018/03/22/us/politics/trump-will-hit-china- with-trade-measures-as-white-house-exempts-allies-from-tariffs.html)

<comment><USER33> Does this affect the doom and gloom comments made here? I know nothing of economics, hence the question.

<comment><USER34> We will have to wait for the details. Will they really tax Nike shoes, HP/Dell computers or Apple phones? As for what Lighthizer allegedly cares about - "electric vehicles, high-tech shipping and aerospace technology", I am not aware that this country buys in any significant quantity from China so not sure how they can be targeted with tariffs.

In NYT's exact words: ... Those industries include electric vehicles, high- tech shipping and aerospace technology. Mr. Lighthizer called them "the ones I care about" for tariff purposes.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> Make America protectionist again?

<comment><USER35> Hollowed out middle America probably appreciates it versus everyone else getting the consumer excess from cheap goods from china. Keep the globalism.

It pains me to say I agree with this action.

<comment><USER36> How will this help "hollowed out" America? Is the promise that West Virginia will become the next Shenzhen?

<comment> 52-6F-62 Not explicitly related, but funny enough— it comes on the same day this news came out. It seems like they're already done with the guy, anyway:

 _U.S. miners ' union to endorse two more Democrats in coal country_

[https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-election-coal- endorse...](https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-election-coal-endorsements- exclus/exclusive-u-s-miners-union-to-endorse-two-more-democrats-in-coal- country-idUSKBN1GY1YM)

<comment><USER37> How is this funny? Don't unions typically endorse Democratic candidates? Union workers are not the same thing as union leadership. [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_Mine_Workers#Recent_Ele...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_Mine_Workers#Recent_Elections)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER38> We should of balance the incoming flood of this crap long time ago.</comment>


Star Trek TNG Ambient Engine Noise 24 hours loop - <AUTHOR> http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZPoqNeR3_UA

<comment><USER2> I was wondering how efficient the encoding of that video/auto would be. Thinking, it's just a loop, it can't be that bad.

Turns out I was wrong.

YouTube has these two versions:

      240x400 FLV: 1.38G
      144x176 MP4: 367.06M

__sobs __</comment>


Gotchas, Irritants and Warts in Go Web Development - <AUTHOR> https://www.braintreepayments.com/braintrust/gotchas-irritants-and-warts-in-go-web-development

<comment><USER2> There is nothing in here that should be considered a cautionary tale for someone choosing to go with Golang. If they couldn't fix a race condition then that is too bad. However I do agree that there are too many projects not just in Go but in many other languages where the original authors have sort of abandoned their project or there aren't too many contributors to support for example hypergo which is a client library for Hyperdex.

</comment><comment><USER3> Does anyone else have the problem with nulls? It looks fairly simple, but inserts aren't mentioned here.

From [https://code.google.com/p/go- wiki/wiki/SQLInterface](https://code.google.com/p/go-wiki/wiki/SQLInterface)

        If a database column is nullable, one of the types supporting null values should
        be passed to Scan.

        For example, if the name column in the names table is nullable:

        var name NullString
        err := db.QueryRow(
            "SELECT name FROM names WHERE id = ?",     id).Scan(&name)
        ...
        if name.Valid {
                // use name.String
        } else {
                // value is NULL
        }</comment>


There's no need for a new Xbox, says Microsoft - <AUTHOR> http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/blog/2010/jan/09/microsoft-no-new-xbox <comment><USER2> "Indeed, I couldn't even get him to speculate about moving the 360 forward to a more modern chip technology. This would reduce the Xbox's manufacturing cost and also produce a console that generated less heat and cost less to run -- benefits that have already accrued to Sony with the launch of the PS3 Slim. It should also be more reliable."

You have to take news about future versions of existing consoles with enormous grains of salt. The last few updates have been announced as quietly as possible, as close to the actual release as possible, because they don't want people to hold off purchasing a console while waiting for the new revision. If they are planning on sticking with the current XBox 360 platform for another 2 years, I'm sure we'll get a new chipset iteration. Why? Because there's no way they'll pass all the savings on to the consumer, so they'll make more money. But don't expect them to announce it years in advance; expect something more like "weeks".

Besides, it's not as if they are still shipping the original design: <http://kotaku.com/305370/xbox-360-falcon-chips-have-landed>

</comment><comment><USER3> There's no need for one... up until the day it is announced. Standard PR playbook.

</comment><comment><USER4> Well, I think the combination of Natal + XBox360 would effectively be the next generation for Xbox

<comment><USER5> Yeah right. Wake me up when they have a shipping product. Until then, it's just vaporware.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> So companies are finally realizing that gameplay trumps graphics?

<comment><USER7> More like they're only 1/10th of the way towards breaking even.</comment></comment>


Nice Downtowns: How Did They Get That Way? People Made Them - <AUTHOR> http://www.theatlantic.com/national/archive/2015/04/on-the-making-of-downtowns-from-fresno-to-seattle-to-shanghai/390873/?single_page=true <comment><USER2> As someone who has lived in the UK, France and Spain - the whole concept of it being normal that "downtown" is grim is really strange. Over here the city centre is typically the nicest (and most expensive) part of the city to live in.

I guess it stems from the relative ages of cities in North America vs Europe. A typical city centre in Europe would have been the entirety of the city at some point and is therefore where the most historic buildings, oldest businesses etc. are located. Whereas in NA, cities are a lot younger and grew much faster meaning that is not so much the case.

<comment><USER3> Well, Boston, NYC, amongst others in the USA have nice downtowns. Not to mention Toronto, Montreal, Quebec City, Ottawa and other cities in Canada.

<comment><USER4> Native New Yorkers absolutely _looooooove_ Time Square...

<comment><USER5> Union Square is the heart of NYC. Almost all lines intersect there, (the L from Brooklyn as well), and it is next to (within 10mins walk) of East Village, West Village, Lower East Side, Chelsea, FlatIron, Kips Bay, etc, which are the most interesting parts of NYC and have both commercial and residential buildings

It used to be a dangerous dump 20 years ago, and now it is awesome.

<comment><USER4> Ehhhh, that area is a bit B&T at night...

<comment><USER6> Really? I lived close by and never got a B&T vibe from Union Square.

<comment><USER7> >> "...the Union Square area."

The Union Squarea?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> I feel a little sad when I read this "this used to be a crack house and now it's a lovely restaurant" narrative. There is a glee with the notion of cleaning something up. That's an admirable thing of course. But I wonder about the people who were living in that "crack house". Where are they now? What municipal policies led to them being there in the first place?

Was the problem really cleaned up, or was it just flushed away?

<comment><USER9> This is where they went: [http://www.salon.com/2013/12/17/more_proof_that_americas_pri...](http://www.salon.com/2013/12/17/more_proof_that_americas_prison_epidemic_is_a_complete_disaster_partner/)

By and large, we made it illegal to be poor in the city.

<comment><USER10> That article triggered my "bullshit" detector:

> In 2010, The Economist highlighted a case in which four Americans were > arrested for importing lobster tails in plastic bags rather than in > cardboard boxes. That violated a Honduran law which that country no longer > enforces, but because it's still on the books there its enforced here. "The > lobstermen had no idea they were breaking the law. Yet three of them got > eight years apiece." When the article was published 10 years later, two of > them were still behind bars.

Yeah, that's a pile of shit: [http://www.eenews.net/stories/1059964426](http://www.eenews.net/stories/1059964426).

TL;DR version: they were arrested and convicted for importing over $15 million in illegal lobster tails. The plastic versus cardboard boxes issue is a red herring--it was the means by which they concealed the undersized tails, not the primary basis for prosecution. As for the Honduran law--the Court of Appeals determined that the Honduran law was in fact valid during the relevant time period. Moreover, the Lacey Act only criminalizes importing animals harvested in violation of a foreign law when the importer knows or should know about the law. The prosecution proved that the defendants took measures to conceal the undersized tails and evade inspectors.

<comment><USER11> They also at times routed their lobster tails through Canada to avoid detection --- for lobsters sourced in the jurisdiction of Honduras and destined for Alabama.

People love to fixate on the "undersized lobster" part of this story, but that's an irrelevant detail. The important fact is that all fishermen were required to take lobsters under a specific set of rules, and report their compliance with those rules. This particular fisherman cheated the rest of the market by ignoring those rules.

Nobody bats an eyelid when "banksters" are convicted and serve sentences† for violating rules far more abstract and far less connected to real-world consequences than overfishing regulations.

† _yes, this actually happens, probably more often than it does to fishermen_

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> So I live in downtown Seattle, and there are _not_ a ton of residents here. For one thing, there are no schools in downtown Seattle, and so almost no one with kids wants to live downtown. And while I wouldn't characterize it as "dead and deserted" at night, it's not particularly _lively_ either.

In fact, most people think it's _weird_ that I live downtown. It's definitely not a common choice around here.

It is largely true that young tech workers want to live "in the city" (as opposed to in the suburbs), but (at least in Seattle) that means one of the "cool" neighborhoods in the city, not _downtown_.

<comment><USER13> > In fact, most people think it's weird that I live downtown. It's definitely > not a common choice around here.

That's a good thing, it keeps prices down.

I live on 1st & Union.

Everything is next door:

      - the market, Target, Kress, dry cleaners, all downtown stores

      - all the bus lines stop on 3rd, 4th or 5th

      - the light rail station is 2 blocks away

      - numerous bars and restaurants in a 3 blocks radius

      - Belltown is 5 min away

      - Capitol Hill is 15 min away

      - Pioneer Square is 10 min away

      - the waterfront is 2 min away

I have a room, with view on the Puget Sound, with my own bathroom in a 2 bedrooms apartment (1200+ sqft) with a parking spot. The building has a doorman and all utilities, even internet are included. I pay $1,250 / month.

It is a bargain compared to other neighborhoods.

<comment><USER14> That's the price of a nice _bedroom_ in a shared house (including bills) in zones 1-3 in London.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> In Vancouver, we call this Vancouverism: [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vancouverism](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vancouverism)

It is a long-term commitment to mixed used development, walkable streets, view corridors for everyone, public parks within walking distance, and mass public transit into and out of the core.

<comment><USER16> These things are by definition not for everyone who is driven out by high property prices

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> There is bias here though. They mention that cities with good downtowns have stories histories that people come up with about the planning that went into it. That will happen with every single successful thing. Conversely, nobody wants to take credit for a failure so people are happy to say that a downtown got crappy because of a lack of planning.

Downtowns die because money flows out of the city due to the economy or because the culture transitions to one based on suburbs. There are many people that have no interest in living in an expensive downtown apartment. If you start to lose the small percentage of the population that desires and can afford the downtown lifestyle, it will either on the vine regardless of the amount of planning that goes into them.

<comment><USER18> Culture doesn't just "change", forces shape it. Culture moves towards a suburban, car oriented culture when the local governments pay (at great taxpayer expense) for an overbuilt highway system to quickly get people in and out of it.

<comment><USER17> Consider what you just said. People clearly aren't that interested in being downtown if all it takes is a better Highway system to let them move out.

What you are describing is a culture that already dislikes being downtown but is only there because the transit sucks. That's not a sign of a healthy downtown.

<comment><USER19> Highways occupy startling amounts of space. For instance, the entire city of Florence takes up the same amount of space as a single cloverleaf interchange in Atlanta: [http://www.treehugger.com/urban-design/you-cant-set-shop- sid...](http://www.treehugger.com/urban-design/you-cant-set-shop-side- expressway.html)

The very presence of freeways drives people away because they are noisy eyesores and impediments to local travel. In Seattle, I-5 cuts across the street grid and separates downtown from Capital Hill and First Hill, while the Alaskan Way Viaduct cuts downtown off from the waterfront. If both of these were removed (I-5 could take a bypass route around the Seattle city center using what is now I-405), downtown Seattle would be much more livable and would have better traffic on account of being able to reconnect the street grid.

<comment><USER17> You don't put a cloverleaf interchange downtown so that comparison is dumb. An international airport takes up way more space and cities still seem to have them. See why that's stupid?

The presence of freeways does not drive away people. If that were true there would be no freeways in any populated location.

If you remove all freeways it would impede people's ability to visit and make the downtown less crowded. Perhaps that's your intention.

<comment><USER19> You're being extremely reductive here, frankly to a dishonest degree. For regional and national transportation networks, freeways are necessary. Freeways are unnecessary in the city center and do not belong there, just like international airports don't belong in the city center. New York City and San Francisco are completely bypassed by the major interstate freeways, and they are more livable and desirable for that very reason. By way of contrast, Seattle suffers from the presence of I-5 throughout the city center, or the I-5/I-90 interchange in the city center.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> I'm surprised he didn't mention Santa Monica's downtown. In the 80s it was generally considered seedy & filled with blight. The now-famous Santa Monica Pier was in disrepair. 3rd Street wasn't really a thing, nor was Santa Monica Place, Casa del Mar and so on.

Today the area is hot enough that it commands rents comparable to SF & Manhattan. The median rent for the area is $3,200 and one bedrooms in newer construction (w/o an ocean view!) can go for $5k.

<comment><USER21> i've lived in sm for 6 years now. it's changed dramatically even in that short period of time.

i like to think of santa monica as an improved version of san francisco, with the rest of los angeles attached as a bonus. if you live and work (i.e. no commute) in santa monica, it's easily the highest quality of life in urban california, and i've lived in pacific heights, downtown san diego, and central LA proper.

<comment><USER22> San Fransisco has a more more diverse set of options for nightlife and culture compared to downtown Santa Monica.

If you bicycle around Santa Monica/Venice there's not much going on compared to SF. Sure you could hop in your car and drive to Hollywood, DTLA, or other parts of the city but that's not really the same as the work/live urban core ideal.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> Notice:

 _It took a long time, but for nearly fifty years this effort has carried on, successfully I think, but hardly anyone recalls that the origins of the effort were very deliberate and came about when the nighttime downtown was the precise opposite of what it is today, and few people probably think of it as involving a conscious goal then or now. They just think "that's the way Seattle is." But Seattle wasn't._

This should remind us of yesterday's post ([https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9400259](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9400259)) about the importance of long-term planning. The good things about today came about because people decades ago consciously made efforts to make them happen. The good things that are to come—light rail, bike lanes, reasonable rents that stem from increasing housing supply—are only going to come if people consciously make efforts to make them happen.

See also _Zero to One_ ([http://jakeseliger.com/2014/09/24/zero-to-one-peter- thiel-an...](http://jakeseliger.com/2014/09/24/zero-to-one-peter-thiel-and- blake-masters/)).

<comment><USER23> Those efforts also need humility. In San Jose, Rod Diridon and the VTA thought the city would radically reshape itself around the light rail, which didn't really happen: [http://www.mercurynews.com/traffic- old/ci_22264605/25-years-...](http://www.mercurynews.com/traffic- old/ci_22264605/25-years-later-vta-light-rail-among-nations)

For those not familiar with the VTA, I'll just say that it's the kind of light rail system that _passes_ by the airport, but the closest stop to the terminal is more than a mile's walk away.

<comment><USER24> Not serving the airport is amazing.

<comment><USER25> It runs so damn close along North First, its a crime it wasn't connected in the first place.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> The only thing that killed happy dense urbanism in the USA is 50 years of weird mortgage and highway subsidies that encouraged suburban growth even when it makes almost no sense whatsoever, combined with a lingering Anglo anti- urbanist set of cultural assumptions. However, worldwide, the USA is the weird place, and mostly the core parts of cities are better than the rest.

</comment><comment><USER27> I'm sorry, but where are the people who think that nice downtowns _aren 't_ the result of long-term planning and hard work by city officials? I'm genuinely curious, as this is not something I am accustomed to hearing. Whenever the conversation of a nice downtown comes up, it's almost always accompanied by conversation about the planning and execution that must have happened to make it that way.</comment>


U.S. to leave global postal union next month barring last-minute action - <AUTHOR> https://www.freightwaves.com/news/us-to-leave-global-postal-union-next-month <comment><USER4> I'm not sure what the unintended consequences are but I believe this is the right move. It is completely unfair that it's cheaper to ship from China to the United States than it is to ship from Chicago to New York. It naturally puts American businesses at a disadvantage. There is always the argument of semantics of what makes a developing country a developing country, but I think being the second largest economy on Earth isn't afforded that label.

<comment><USER5> The traditional US way to change the rules: get other countries together to back up your position, suggest a principled approach, be willing to make concessions in other areas. The new way: flip the table over.

<comment><USER6> Hasn't the US been trying to do that (regarding China's categorization in the global postal union) for years, with no success? At what point does 'flipping the table over' become an acceptable action under your models?

<comment><USER7> _> at what point does..._

That really depends on the economic and other consequences of flipping the table. Dies a single, albeit large, bad actor like China warrant a table flip? What proportion of mail comes from them and what from developed nations with whom we'll need to come to new agreements, drastically increasing the friction of overseas shipping to everyone involved?

I'm not sure this is the wrong move, in fact I think it might be the right one, but that's my gut. It doesn't seem like a real economic impact analysis has been done though, and that is problematic, making this seem much more politically motivated than from a position of careful consideration of what's in our best interest.

<comment><USER8> There are a variety fraudulent shennanigans that this agreement facilitated such as people in China shipping random packages to the US so they can use the tracking details to validate fake reviews.

I purchased a temporary replacement phone via a website that claimed to ship domestically in the United States when it was actually shipped from China. There were several issues with the phone, but to return the device I would have been on the hook for over $100 in shipping. The credit card company refused to help through their purchase protection coverage because I had not returned the device.

How was it ever in our interest to force our e-commerce retailers to subsidize shipping for Chinese e-commerce retailers?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Planet Money on NPR did an episode on the UPU and the impact on the US at [https://www.npr.org/sections/money/2018/08/01/634737852/epis...](https://www.npr.org/sections/money/2018/08/01/634737852/episode-857-the- postal-illuminati)

It's worth a listen to. I learned that it can be cheaper to ship things from China than across the street. In the episode the break down some elements of the UPU, where costs are, and who pays for things.

</comment><comment><USER10> Traffickers were using the UPU to ship Fentanyl into the US from China, because are almost zero inspections compared to private shipping companies. This action may still be a pretext in the trade war, but it seems like it could slow down the overdoses significantly, so I'm all for it.

[https://www.lawfareblog.com/withdrawal-universal-postal- unio...](https://www.lawfareblog.com/withdrawal-universal-postal-union-guide- perplexed)

<comment><USER11> I'm sure they could just as easily route it through Mexican cartel channels or other commercial vectors just as easily.

At the end of the day it will never be economical to search more than even 1% package and port crate or non-commercial boat coming into the US shores. Those packages will still get through and millions of dollars of Fentynal can be hidden in small packages.

The supply of drugs to America has never been seriously hampered for long by decades of advanced drug interdiction tactics.

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> Good! No longer will we be ripped off by funding shipping from China to the US with taxpayer money.

I actually think it would be better to stay in the agreement with most countries but slap a "transport fee" or creatively name it, on all the things coming from China, and use that to pay for the shipping cost. It should be looked at on a country by country basis, where countries we export more than import to get to send for free.

<comment> t-writescode The big problem with this theory is that building manufacturing in the United States will be expensive, and if the next president is going to undo this, then what's the point of building it? It could be less expensive to weather through those 4 years.

edit: could, not would

<comment><USER13> Do you know that the next president is going to undo this? If the bar for action is that someone might undo it in the future, why do anything?

<comment><USER14> You have to make a decision given the information you have. You can chose to wait, but that is a decision. You will always have to choose again in the future based on new information, but often once you set a plan in motion you should continue even if though without the sunk costs of the past you wouldn't.

I don't know who the next President will be. The current president could die in an hour. The current president could win or lose re-election. The current president could become a military dictator for life. The above applies to any president of any country (not just Trump). You have to decide what the risk of each is and prepare accordingly.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> The current pricing system is nuts, the European nations should consider doing the same. In Denmark, sending a package within the country (a country the size of Maryland), is more expensive than getting one sent around the world from China.

</comment><comment><USER16> You'll notice all those cheap packages from China come stamped "Petit Paquet," which is to say surfaces mail. Now go to the post office and try to ship something out surface mail and you will find it's impossible... express service is the ONLY way that the USPS will ship internationally, as of a decade or so ago. You cannot compare shipping prices to and from China because you are comparing two totally different services. If the USPS would once again start doing surface mail abroad it might be possible for American companies to sell small items abroad again.

</comment><comment><USER17> Yikes. This seems to set a bad precedence.

For the majority the union's existence, the US has had the net benefit. It doesn't benefit us anymore? Time to leave. It just reinforces the idea that the US only participates in the world when it unilaterally benefits us.

<comment><USER18> What other countries have a record of regularly doing things that cause direct harm to itself for the greater good of other countries?

<comment><USER19> > that cause direct harm to itself for the greater good of other countries?

That's not what he said. "unilaterally benefits us." This agreement greatly benefited the US which is why we were in it this long.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> Get your Aliexpress and Banggood orders in ASAP!

<comment><USER21> I've never shopped on these sites. What are people typically buying? Is there something I should be stocking up on?

<comment><USER20> Oh gosh.

Head over to banggood.com and see what you've been missing.

<comment><USER22> Are any such companies like this listed on a US stock exchange? I'm thinking this has got to hit some companies with serious risk to sales or profit?

<comment><USER23> Alibaba is on NYSE as BABA (AliExpress is the internationally facing version of Alibaba/Taobao)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> Ohh NO. Does this mean I won't be able to get a 79 cent LED bike light shipped from Chi na to my seaside Bulgarian Village (or Vancouver, Canada apartment) for free anymore?

<comment><USER25> No. The USA might pull out, not Bulgaria or Canada.

</comment></comment><comment><USER26> That's great news for anyone looking for business opportunities. Just start selling all the stuff to Europeans that so far was too cheap to ship over from the US. /s

</comment><comment><USER27> Good and bad.

I find it quite useful to purchase parts and goods directly from China at 1/10 the cost of buying the exact same Chinese made goods from a middleman for 10x more.

Now if I was buying non-Chinese goods that would be a different issue of course. But such are not available, nor will changing shipping costs make these goods made in USA.

Going forward we will be able to buy the exact same Chinese goods as before, but at much greater cost. However it will enrich middlemen whom we didn't need before.

In any case this will mostly affect small shipments. Larger shipments than China Post air packets (let's say 2-20kg) currently are sent through services like DHL and SF Express. SF Express is able to handle mid size (>1kg) packages economically. They send a container load of Chinese goods to the US at which point they are broken out and dropped into the US postal service, paying full domestic rate at that point.

Pulling out of this treaty will also affect our costs of shipping overseas. Granted we don't ship to China so much but we do ship other places. Also things like buying books from UK booksellers, and selling books to the UK, is feasible under this treaty. That will be less feasible. Prices will go up. Which has its advantages and disadvantages.

</comment><comment><USER28> This is probably going to hurt China big time. They will either have to open US warehouses or China will subsidize shipping even more.

<comment><USER29> China will just pool shipments to US ports and mail them from inside.

<comment><USER30> That's just as expensive as it is for US shippers now, so it doesn't fix anything.

Source: I ship 10K+ packages overseas per month using that exact method.

<comment><USER31> Maybe his idea was that domestic postage fees would go down, so that this would be economically viable.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER32> No more 1 dollar 4 week shipping from Hong Kong?

</comment><comment><USER33> For products that currently cost $1 to order from China, what will be the typical cost after this change?

<comment><USER34> Let's say that $1.00 item now costs $5.00 with shipping after the change.

How much would that item cost to purchase and ship here in the USA?

I always use the example of Ametek vs TSiny - they are both DC electric gearmotor manufacturers, both are fairly international, but Ametek is headquartered in America, and TSiny in China.

They make comparable products, though I would have to say that the quality of the Ametek brands could be said to be better.

That's where things kinda stop.

If you purchased (from a supplier/vendor) a single TSiny motor, it might cost you right now $15.00 USD, and free shipping. An equivalent motor from Ametek, however, might cost you anywhere from $50.00 to $75.00 USD before shipping.

So - if the shipping of that motor from TSiny rises to say, $5.00 USD, and they also increase the cost of the motor by $5.00 USD (just because they can) - now that same motor costs $25.00 USD.

Versus $50.00-75.00 USD (sans shipping) for the USA made motor from Ametek.

I'm a company in the USA that builds widgets with motors in them - <USER2> supplier should I go with, assuming comparable products, in order to make the better profit?

Hint: It ain't gunna be Ametek, unless they can offer a sweetheart deal for me...

</comment></comment><comment><USER35> Have the USPS decided which UPU member they would route their international mail through?

</comment><comment><USER36> I know the concern is about parcels specifically, but doesn't this agreement also cover all international mail?

Is the US going to be essentially cut off from international mail delivery until the USPS can negotiate pricing and a contract with each individual country's postal service (i.e., not in place over Christmas)?

</comment><comment><USER37> I wonder if this would spur the creation of shipping consolidation centers in China, where orders from multiple vendors (on a site like AliExpress/Alibaba/DHGate) are combined into a single box before sending (like Fullfilled by Amazon tries to do)

</comment><comment><USER16> You'll notice all those cheap packages from China come stamped "Petit Paquet," which is to say surface mail. Now go to the post office and try to ship something out surface mail and you will find it's impossible... express service is the ONLY way that the USPS will ship internationally, as of a decade or so ago. You cannot compare shipping prices to and from China because you are comparing two totally different services. If the USPS would once again start doing surface mail abroad it might be possible for American companies to sell small items abroad again.

</comment><comment><USER38> Goodbye Wish?

<comment><USER39> More than just Wish. There's more than a few companies in the US whose business model revolves around cheap (total cost, including shipping) goods from China.

</comment></comment><comment><USER40> I wonder what this is going to do to US electronics/devices manufacturing. If companies were previously importing some/all of their components and then building the final product here, will they just move assembly & mfg overseas to only get dinged once instead of eating massive costs on the import of every component?

<comment><USER41> No, that hit has already been taken. The trump tariffs already added tariffs on the electronics components, hurting the US manufacturing of any electronics already.

<comment><USER34> Only for manufacturers and resellers, from what I read. If it's for domestic use and not resale, then you shouldn't have to pay the tariff to import the item.

Problem is - once the tariffs on the electronic components and other similar items went into effect, Chinese vendors - even those selling to individuals - raised their prices.

Still - it's cheaper for me as a hobbyist to buy these parts from China, than it is from anywhere else here in the United States. Sometimes, for certain parts, you can get it cheaper from Mouser or Digi-key, but that's really rare, and usually limited to fairly "new on the market" parts (those introduced in the last 10-15 years). But anything older (ie - PDIP 5 volt TTL/CMOS variant ICs - for instance), it's cheaper to go to China (usually, they aren't even available via major parts suppliers anyhow) - or if you're lucky, you can find it surplus domestically.

So even if it now adds an extra $5.00 for shipping an epacket from China - <USER3> parts, components, modules, motors, whatever - are still going to be much, much cheaper than the USA version (in most cases, unobtanium anyhow).

All these changes have done - at least with electronics - is make it more expensive for hobbyists; small manufacturers will get a break on the shipping (at least competition-wise - in theory - because they'll still be paying the same, maybe a little less - and China will be paying more), but they still have the tariffs working against them (because they can't buy their parts here in the USA cheaper than what they can get them for from China - even with tariffs and shipping costs).

The only ones who might "win" here are larger manufacturers - but I'm not sure how many of those we really have (in the electronics realm - that is, who make Arduinos here in the USA besides maybe Adafruit and SparkFun?) - but I doubt even they will "win".

I really think this is going to end up being a net overall loss for the USA, that it will do nothing to stimulate manufacturing, and that shipments from China will hardly slow at all.

It's crazy in my view - it's like none of our lawmakers have stepped foot in Shenzhen, where there are litteral multi-story buildings where vendors sell nothing but LEDs, where if you need a particular screw purchased or specially made, you can walk a block or two and find a manufacturer and it can probably be pumped out by the end of the day. It is literally a city for hi-tech manufacturing, supply, design, tooling, you-name-it-you-can-get-it-there-and- cheap. A maker/hobbyist/hacker's fantasy dream 24/7 technology store city- sized.

They can't seem to understand that if you wanted to have any hope of replicating what China is doing, you'd have to literally build something (with ports) the size of Los Angeles that does almost nothing but design and manufacture cutting edge technology and parts 24/7 - using everything from people who live in the factories to lights-out robotic systems.

In other words, it ain't ever happening here - never.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER42> Here is something practically all news article about China exploiting these low terminal dues fail to reveal:

Since 2018 the UPU moved 40 countries, including China, to a new tier and this actually _is_ causing them to already pay higher terminal dues. This decision was made in resolution C 7/2016, see the list of 40 countries in "group III" at page 212 of [http://www.upu.int/uploads/tx_sbdownloader/actCompendiumDeci...](http://www.upu.int/uploads/tx_sbdownloader/actCompendiumDecisionsCongressEn.pdf)

The tiers that countries are classified into are called "transitional" (developing country) and "target" (developed countries.) Transitional countries pay lower terminal dues. Target countries pay higher terminal dues. The longer you have been a target country the higher are your terminal dues. And again, China has been a "target" (developed) country since 2018. This is explained in [http://www.upu.int/uploads/tx_sbdownloader/questionnaireTdrA...](http://www.upu.int/uploads/tx_sbdownloader/questionnaireTdrAnnex1En.pdf):

Countries in the target tier prior to 2010 pay the most

Countries that entered the target tier between 2010 and 2012 pay less

Countries that entered the target tier after 2016 pay even less

Countries that are still in the transitional tier pay the least

Every few years these dates change (by approving agreements amongst UPU members) and countries pay more and more. So everything is set for China (and 39 other countries) to pay more and more as the years go by, since they've been moved to the target tier in 2018.

This 2015 USPS report explains it ([https://www.uspsoig.gov/sites/default/files/document- library...](https://www.uspsoig.gov/sites/default/files/document-library- files/2015/RARC-WP-16-003.pdf)): « _Forty of these countries, including all of the BRICS except for India, will join the target tier next year. However, moving these countries to the target category may not immediately lead to significant terminal dues payment increases. The UPU Congress will approve new rates, for the period from 2018 to 2021, next year — meaning implementation is 2 to 6 years after a decision. The new target countries may continue to have an advantage during this period._ »

Keep in mind this USPS report was written in 2015. This is now 2019 so the terminal dues have already been increasing 2 years in a row (2018 and 2019) and will continue to increase until 2021: [https://www.lexingtoninstitute.org/terminal-dues-time-end- dr...](https://www.lexingtoninstitute.org/terminal-dues-time-end-drain-u-s- economy/)

They increase 13% every year. In 2019 they are up 27.7% since 2017. In 2021 they will have increased 63% since 2017.

So the reality is that the US leaving the UPU is no because China pays low terminal dues. They want a deeper reform that address other issues as stated by the 2015 USPS report: excluding packages (as opposed to letters) from terminal dues, stopping private carriers from being at a disadvantage compared to national posts who receive terminal dues, etc

<comment><USER43> > stopping private carriers from being at a disadvantage compared to national > posts who receive terminal dues, etc

So, basically private carriers lobbying US govt. to handle them the baseline postal service market.

</comment></comment><comment><USER44> that means aliexpress and those purchases from HongKong will get much more expensive I guess? good for US exports I hope, assuming we will start making things here again.

</comment><comment><USER44> that will help 'made-in-usa', or at least, 'make in mexico' assuming they can get the drug-war-violence under control, which is unlikely considering the drug dealers have much better weapons than the government army nowadays.</comment>


A letter from China  - <AUTHOR> http://m.douban.com/note/163650046/?session=ca013478_46863736

<comment><USER2> sad</comment>


A guide to university - <AUTHOR> https://docs.google.com/document/d/1u_rrVsW7i5QpD58gZSLvHKpSKU7QpHBSKshHIb4kwnA/edit <comment><AUTHOR> I posted this. Found this doc while browsing: [http://thinkingcomplete.blogspot.co.uk/?m=1](http://thinkingcomplete.blogspot.co.uk/?m=1)

Some of the advice here seems to value just being at university as an experience in of itself. Other bits are tips on how to optimise for graduating quickly or learning loads.

I think I personally lean towards the former. I don't see the rush to get out of uni quickly or learn loads fast - compared to three years as an undergraduate, life is pretty long (on average) and university seems like a pretty important part of growing up that's hard to recreate later on in life.</comment>


Student Arrested in Connection with Cyber Attacks on Miami-Dade Public Schools - <AUTHOR> https://www.nbcmiami.com/news/local/student-arrested-in-connection-with-cyber-attacks-on-miami-dade-public-schools/2287613/ <comment><AUTHOR> It seems to me that if a school district's network is vulnerable enough that a child can bring it down, there is liability on their side. The schools' network shouldn't be crippled by a kid.

It feels like borderline absurdity for the FBI and Secret Service to pat themselves on the back for tracking down a child who broke a system so vulnerable that simply pointing a tool at it can break it. It's treated the same way they'd treat a kid who pulled off an Oceans 11 style heist.</comment>


"There is an element for that" - <AUTHOR> https://medium.com/@sebastianhenneberg/there-is-an-element-for-that-a9fcdafe4a25 <comment><AUTHOR> I'm really excited of what will come. There is a great list of tools for Polymer developers.</comment>


Ask HN: Do you talk about your startup or business at family gatherings? - <AUTHOR> I don't know the reason why, but I never talk business at family gatherings, but I see everyone doesn't do the same. How about you? <comment><USER2> I hate talking about business to non-entrepreneurs. It has always been a bad experience. I'm always told I am not doing it right. I usually get advices like "Your website should be more pretty", "why would someone use your app when there's a free (shittier) version already?", "you charge too much money, people can't afford that", "don't send emails, that's annoying!", etc

</comment><comment><USER3> Me nether. Mostly because they dont understand what we do.</comment>


Taking the LOL out of the GOP - <AUTHOR> http://weblog.muledesign.com/2010/05/taking_the_lol_out_of_the_gop.php

<comment><USER2> I disagree--we should instead continue what appears to be the current trend, namely, putting 4chan in charge of the national political discourse. This seems likely to substantially increase the amount of honesty, intelligence, and common sense involved in the whole process.

 _This message paid for by Friends of Longcat._

<comment> m-photonic Some Republican thinkers share your sentiment.

[http://biggovernment.com/mholt/2010/03/07/internet-sets- the-...](http://biggovernment.com/mholt/2010/03/07/internet-sets-the-stage- for-gop-rebirth/)

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> That part showing the submission was hilarious: "The government should never give you up, never let you down, never run around and desert you. Never make you cry, never say goodbye, never tell a lie and hurt you" I would upvote that on a gov 2.0 website.

<comment><USER4> I feel slightly rickrolled.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> The whole site has been trolled to hell now. There was one "idea" that was something like "This is more fun that 4chan".

It's also failing pretty often. I'm sure the GOP will calim that is a sign of success: "x million visitors in the first 12 hours"

It's sad that sometimes I can't work out if it is trolling or serious. Eg: [http://www.americaspeakingout.com/questions/4441/first- ensur...](http://www.americaspeakingout.com/questions/4441/first-ensure- members-of-t)

<comment><USER6> The comments on that were pretty epic. ;)

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> Those submissions really need to take into account the economic credentials of Reagan Republicans. Which would mean having MONKEY DAY in March, not December, to provide a necessary retail boost.

</comment><comment><USER8> I rather like this bit of Dadaism: [http://www.americaspeakingout.com/questions/3702/why-the- hec...](http://www.americaspeakingout.com/questions/3702/why-the-heck-does- dems-really-been-when-even-as-they-go-to-as-if-we-try-to-look-for-that-detail- when-they-spend-us-so-we)</comment>


Why I Go Home: A Developer Dad's Manifesto - <AUTHOR> http://adamschepis.com/blog/2011/09/15/why-i-go-home-a-dads-manifesto/

<comment><USER3> Sorry, but this is getting a little unctuous.

I don't think the trend in our time of parents organizing their lives around their children is very good for anybody, especially the children. I'm thinking, for example, of fathers who call their kids "buddy" and think it's the meaning of life to play with them. This is pandemic where I live. People have convinced themselves that the good life consists of being child-centered parents in child-centered families. Everybody [†] is busy confirming to everybody else that this is true (consider the platitudinous tone of most of the comments in this thread), but I doubt that it is true. It has much to do with parents' emotional needs (edit: specifically the need to Be A Good Parent, which if you think about it is actually a selfish concern) and little to do with kids'. Children ought to be running around outside playing with _other children_ and depending on nice-but-otherly (not pseudo-peer) adults to keep their world secure and stable and fix things when they cry. Children raised by child-centered parents seem at a loss when they aren't at the center of attention. This bodes ill for inner strength and good breeding. Most such parents fail even to teach their kids basic manners. They're so identified with their child, or rather with the mini-me they imagine their child to be, that they don't notice if the child is routinely disrespectful to others. When they do occasionally notice something egregious and limply intervene, it's always with the same whiney "Honey..." followed by a feeble plea which the child ignores with no consequences. What they ought to do, of course, is what any ordinary mammal does when their offspring goes too far - smack them. Figuratively if you prefer.

The problem is that we're immature and infantilized ourselves, so we've forgotten all of this. Perhaps it's an outgrowth of postwar youth culture.

One tell-tale symptom is that children have fewer friends than they used to, and adults consequently have fewer friends and less time for the ones they do have. (Nowadays when a friend has a kid I tell them "See you in 20 years." Not my choice.) Adults' time is taken up with the sacred family-ness we all must bow before. Children's time is taken up by their parents. I remember how hard it used to be to arrange for my son to play with a classmate after school. (Arrange! When such a thing need to be _arranged_ in the first place, we're already losers. This whole subject really needs a Louis CK to do it justice.) Parents would look up times for "play dates" in a calendar. I swear they were jealous of their kids seeing other "buddies".

In short, a little neglect never hurt anybody.

p.s. Maybe it seems like the above hasn't much to do with "work-life balance" (blessed be its name), but it totally does. However, I'm over quota.

[†] Well, everybody in my lily-white liberal world.

<comment><USER4> Let me take a wild guess: you don't have kids, do you?

<comment><USER5> "Adults' time is taken up with the sacred family-ness we all must bow before. Children's time is taken up by their parents. I remember how hard it used to be to arrange for my son to play with a classmate after school. (Arrange! When such a thing need to be arranged in the first place, we're already losers. This whole subject really needs a Louis CK to do it justice.)"

Heh, I initially had the same reaction, but he's talking a lot of sense. It needs to be read a couple of times.

Way too many peoples' lives are utterly dominated by their children, essentially because children can be allowed to exist in this world for even a minute without supervision.

This is very much not how it was for me as a child. Benign neglect would be putting it nicely.

<comment><USER3> Your last paragraph (if I'm reading it correctly) leads to a point I've often mulled over. We tend as parents to overcompensate for what happened to _us_ as children. I think this happens at the social-historical level too. Traditional child-rearing was something between harsh and brutal. Physical and emotional violence was common. We have rightly come to abhor that. But, typically human, we (or at least the educated white North American middle class) have merely flipped a bit and gone to the opposite extreme of elevating our children to little gods. This can't be good for the little buggers, deceive ourselves and adore our own virtue though we may. (Side note to the indignant: I like children. Including my own!)

Back to how, as parents, we overcompensate for what happened to ourselves in the past: we do this unconsciously, so it's hard to know that we're doing it. And it's a bad thing, because almost inevitably we end up creating a mirror image of the old mistakes. But there is a way out of this dilemma: personal healing and growth. To the extent that one can integrate one's own experience, feel one's own feelings, etc., one becomes free of the compulsion to resolve them through one's child and able to behold the child as an independent being.

<comment><USER6> > We tend as parents to overcompensate for what happened to us as children

It happens at all levels. It's a common criticism of militaries that are equipped to fight the last war, not the next one.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> This reminds me of this great article by Clayton Christensen to Harvard Business students about life balance: <http://hbr.org/2010/07/how-will-you- measure-your-life/ar/1>

Looking back over a short 7 year or so career I can't remember many projects where I can go: "Oh man, I'm so glad I spent all that time late at night on that project. It's really made a lasting difference in the world."

I'm sure there are some things that are worth spending a lot of overtime on; I'm sure there are ways to write software that will literally make a massive change in the way the world works. But most of the stuff that I see coming out of startups, most of the stuff that I've worked on in a wide variety of companies is stuff that ends up being rewritten soon, or changed or what have you.

One of my favorite CS professors was diagnosed with terminal cancer relatively early in life (late 50s, early 60s). He had another 10 or 15 years of teaching in him probably if he hadn't gotten sick. Towards the end of his fight with cancer, one of the other professors visited him and came back to us and said that he had been visiting the dying professor on a way to his daughter's flute recital. The dying professor looked at him when he mentioned the recital and said something like: "Good! More flute recitals! More ball games! Fewer papers! fewer conferences!"

I know that the time I spend away from work, particularly on my family -- my relationship with my spouse, with my kids -- ends up being the time that matters most in the long term.

<comment><USER5> Time is so fleeting, and so precious. It's criminal to stuck in cube for a large portion of that lifetime.

Every so often, stop, just stop and think about what's important. Best to do it now, rather than regret later.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> Totally agree with all these points. Ever since my first daughter was born I made a similar decision but I still work less hours than you do. I end up working around 40 hours a week and have never felt compelled to work any more. I will work after the kids go to bed particularly when my wife goes to bed and I don't feel like reading for whatever reason.

My first obligation on this Earth is to my family and part of that means not being gone all the time at work. I do that for the kids but also for my wife. Raising kids is hard work and she needs my help particularly at the end of the day. This changes a little when the kids are older and are less physically demanding I guess but when you have small kids you really need to take your wife's feelings into account when deciding how much to work. She really needs to feel respected and honored in the decision and part of that comes from making sure she is in total agreement with the final decision.

Also if you're any good at programming companies are so desperate to hire you that they will accept pretty much whatever schedule within reason you want. You might not be the absolute favorite employee of management but if you're good people will respect you and your contribution.

<comment><USER9> > My first obligation on this Earth is to my family

No disrespect but to what was your first obligation before you had a wife and kids?

I'm always tempted to interpret this kind of statement one of two ways: either your life before your family was so miserably empty that it gave you a purpose (nothing wrong with that) or you're borderline schizophrenic that you can fool yourself (or worse, truly believe) that your personality suddenly morphed and you're now a different individual who will be just as content with a lifestyle radically different from what he ever had, obligations as well as satisfactions that cannot be possibly imagined until you actually cross that line and have kids.

I personally have a hard time believing people can change _that_ much...

<comment><USER6> > No disrespect but to what was your first obligation before you had a wife > and kids

Obviously something else... ?

Life has a way of changing whether you want it to or not. So, maybe whatever was #1 got bumped down to #2. That doesn't mean that their life was meaning- less and empty before having a family. Nor does it mean that their lives really had to change all that much with a family.

I don't understand the false dichotomy here.

<comment><USER10> This is exactly it.

You don't prioritise your life around things that aren't relevant to you - <USER2> have your number 1 priority as kids when you don't have kids clearly makes no sense.

It's like suggesting that someone who gets a new hobby had an empty life before that hobby. Nope, they just filled it with different things. When something they wanted to do more came along, everything else got shuffled about a bit.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> Reminds me of:

[http://jbf.posterous.com/bluyah-development- blog-5-things-i-...](http://jbf.posterous.com/bluyah-development- blog-5-things-i-wish-someo)

From which comes one of my favorite lines about business ever:

"You will be forced to choose between work and family - and there's only one right answer."

</comment><comment><USER12> > When you work crazy hours you yo-yo between 20 hour days and 8 hour days > that really only have a few hours of productivity (or none at all!)

This would not have made any sense to me until I had actually spent three months working 12-18 hour days (+ Saturdays). Yay for salespeople selling things the company doesn't actually make! It's a really stupid feeling to spend 12 hours staring at your keyboard, getting almost nothing done, and knowing you're going to come back and do the same thing tomorrow.

<comment><AUTHOR> and honestly, you probably could have done the job better and faster if you had done 8-10 hours (or less) per day and had enough time to mow your lawn, pay your bills, unwind, etc.

<comment><USER12> No question about it. Repetitive long hours are deleterious to critical and creative thinking abilities. It always makes me think twice when I see stories about game dev / wall st / startup developers working insane hours. I think the story is better than the reality.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> _Death marches and late nights take a lot out of you_

Death marches seem to happen far less often (in my experience) when I'm releasing early and releasing often.

If the system automatically tests and ships out every incremental change multiple times daily, you don't have the crazy weeks before/after big releases as there are no big releases. Shipping new code is a normal part of every day and I get to go home to hang out with my kids on time.

<comment><USER14> A bad week or tricky release isn't a death march, and I congratulate you on a career well managed if that's what you genuinely believe.

<comment><USER13> You are completely correct. I've been involved with bad weeks, tricky releases, death marches, pretty much every sort of dysfunctional software development clusterfuck you can imagine short of Duke Nukem Forever.

The point remains the same. My experience shows that committing to incrementalism in design/code/test/release improves quality of life as well as quality of product.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> Sounds like he's made the right decision. It's important to have balance in your life. However, I don't want to hear him cry "ageism!" when that young kid that's doing 80hour weeks gets promoted ahead of him. It's important to make these kinds of sacrifices when you have a family, but you should also understand that they are _your_ sacrifices.

<comment><USER16> experience can do in 40 hours what younger, inexperienced can do in 80. As you build your tool chest, things become faster and less mistake prone.

<comment><USER17> Except that it's often more like 80 minutes vs. 80 hours, or the inexperienced ---although it's more often the less ... skilled---simply can't solve the problem at all. In my other comment I mentioned debugging; my ability to recognize the ... pattern/smell/whatever of a bug will often let me heuristically narrow the search to an amazing degree. What once would take me hours or days became minutes.

<comment><USER18> You're just a whole bucket full of humble aren't you :-)

<comment><USER17> Heh, indeed.

But just as it's unbecoming to boast about what you are not, one needs to recognize what one is and can do to arrange that things work out best, at least in startups where that vs. e.g. politics determines personal and project/corporate success. The flip side of the theme of the 2nd Dirty Harry movie, "A man's got to know his own limitations."

Plus I think I'm allowed to be proud of what I've accomplished over decades of hard work. I started with punched card FORTRAN "IV" on the IBM 1130 in high school in the fall of 1977 (scare quotes because it was closer to a FORTRAN II, e.g. no logical IFs), that prompted me to begin a lifelong independent study of software engineering (since I realized there _had_ to be better ways to do this) and the cited level of skill in debugging nasty C programs was achieved by 1999, a full 22 years later. One would really hope one has learned a thing or two over a couple of decades.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> This is a great article about work/life balance. Frequently that balance is asymmetrically weighted in favor of work at the expense of time spent with family.

The author is making a commendable point to commit to time well spent with his family while still putting in nine hours at the office.

When we're near the end of our lives and reflecting, are you going to wish you spent more time with your family or more time at the office? There's a simple answer there.

<comment><USER20> I'll just make a comment from my cosy European perspective. He's still working 9 hours a day. But it's okay, he "doesn't feel as burned out". Seriously, is this what is expected, or is it just the default?

<comment><USER21> I think 8-5 is actually 8 hours in the US: federal laws guarantee you an hour lunch break, just as in the UK. Of course, I imagine in a lot of start-ups that's ignored or perhaps doesn't even hold.

<comment><USER20> Ah, so that probably means he's not actually working 9 solid hours per day. That's better. I admit to doing the same, albeit at different times of the day (10h-19h).

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> I completely agree with the post. Most of the negative responses are clearly from people who have no clue what it means to be a parent. Firstly, it has nothing to do with raising kids with 'good manners', or anything as simple or _boring_ as that. Hanging, teaching and interacting with your kids is actually _fun_ and _rewarding_. A lot like coding.

I can also highly recommend a 4 day week. 1 day a week is purely my daughter (20 months) and I. Not only does it give you more time than you have in an evening, it also opens up other opportunities to go out and do things you wouldn't normally be involved with. I've been fortunate to have employers who are happy to oblige and live in a country - New Zealand - where it's relatively easy to arrange.

I also agree that it makes you a more focused coder. It gives you a healthy dose of perspective about what you're doing, and I've found I spend far more time on productive work than I did before.

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> hey all, thanks for the positive discussion. Apologies that my blog is terribly slow. I didn't notice that it spiked because, well, it was between 4:30 and 7:30 ;)

I'm working in my spare time to get it all off of wordpress and onto Jekyll so i can just host it out of S3 and get rid of the EC2 instance its running on.

<comment><USER23> > I'm working in my spare time

There is a subtle joke in there somewhere.

Great piece and thank you for writing it.

</comment></comment><comment><USER24> After a particularly bad stint at a previous job I've vowed to never work past my normal hours just for the sake of being there. If there's something immediately wrong that I can help with, or if it's something that I broke, I'll stay and work the problem. Otherwise, I'm in out at my established hours.

</comment><comment><USER25> As an added bonus, I've discovered that not being able to hack till after the kids are in bed means you're more motivated to get them to bed on time. They get more sleep and you can code once the house is quiet and you brain just had a break. I find it extremely productive.

</comment><comment><USER26> My husband (a developer who is frequently "death-marching" his way through projects) sent me this article yesterday. We are about to have our first child, and it was so cool to read this, especially since we've already been talking about what it's going to be like after our son is born in regards to his work schedule. He also works with West Coasters and is a team leader, which makes things tricky in terms of scheduling meetings and conference calls. Let me just say I so appreciate that this blog post was written and that he came across it. I love that my husband loves his job and is so incredibly talented at it. He is so dedicated to his work and spends way more than 9 hours a day at it (his recent "early" bedtime has been 3am consistently, with 6am actually being the most frequent hour he finally lays down to get a minute of shuteye). It's a kind of commitment that I admire, and that I myself have benefitted from. But it's also good to read that his dedication can still be seen, even if he isn't "death marching" through coding problems night after night. I do not see this at all as "parents organizing their lives around their children," but rather a parents taking care of and giving priority to all aspects of their lives, especially their children. I think there is so much wisdom in the statements concerning how a person can always get another job, but not just "get" another family.

Cheers to you and yours and all the hard work you put into all aspects of your life!

</comment><comment><USER27> Sometimes I think about how lucky most of us white collar workers really are. I grew up with a Dad that worked rotating day/evening/graveyard shifts and I know how much it would have meant to me if he could have spent more time with us.

My neighbour, who used to work in construction, gave me some advice after the birth of my son: "Make sure to spend time with your kids, especially when they're young. One of my biggest regrets was working too much and not being around to watch them grow up." Now they live in Australia.

</comment><comment><USER28> I find it really hard, because nobody in this career has kids! Very few have wives, i have a suspicion that most are single. So when you put family first, it really is a culture clash. My solution is to try and become self employed. I hope it works out.

<comment><USER29> Maybe in bohemian Silicon Valley startup circles of 20-somethings. However, that is an extremely inaccurate supposition about the IT profession as a whole.

</comment></comment><comment><USER30> I was recently in the process of changing roles at work, so I was doing a few internal interviews for another roles that seemed to be good fits.

I lost one of the roles, because apparently I wasn't hungry enough for it. One of the reasons stated by the manager doing the hiring was that I consider my kids more important than my work. It wasn't stated exactly like that, but that's what he meant. In my younger days I would've let the idiot have it or bursted out laughing.

I am so glad I no longer work there.

</comment><comment><USER10> One thing that seems to be missing from the debate here is that spending time with your kids is actually fun, it's something that's nice to do and really isn't a sacrifice.

I know no-one who spends time with their kids out of a sense of obligation (and trust me, your kids would work out if that's what you were doing and really not want you about) - in spending time with my daughters instead of in the office, I'm doing what I want to do, not what I feel I should do.

</comment><comment><USER31> I think people should do what they want to do. If you are passionate about your work, and want to spend more time there than everyone else, I'm not sure that sends a bad message to kids. If you want to spend more time home with kids, that's fine too. People are different, and you shouldn't adopt the standards of other people.

</comment><comment><USER32> Thanks for giving all of us future Dads (or soon to be) something to aspire to.

</comment><comment><USER33> He should cut that 9 hours at the office to 6. And yes, I fail at this too :(

</comment><comment><USER34> Egads, are we at the point where developers with young children have to write a manifesto to justify working a "mere" nine hours a day, followed by frequent meetings after the kid goes to bed?

</comment><comment><USER35> I would have never understood this before I had a child of my own.

</comment><comment><USER36> I feel the same way about my cat. I love her and would rather spend a bigger percentage of time with her than what I spend now.

Question though is, why is this on hacker news?

</comment><comment><USER37> Very true, and I learned this early on: your job, no matter how much you like it, will never hug you back.

</comment><comment><USER38> I'm in the UK.

I spend as much time as possible with my children so that I can teach them that a 37 hour working week is actually normal and that they don't NEED to become an American-style 80-hour-a-week corporate slave.

Humans have needs: family, friendship and companionship.

"Work" is a relatively new thing; a product of the rapid growth of the population and the distribution of self-responsibility. Go back a couple of thousand years, and we were farming in family groups much like the Amish are today.

We're short-changing ourselves and missing out on a large chunk of life by not spending time with our closest ones.

</comment><comment><USER39> I'm impressed that the guy managed to find a wife while working so hard during the earlier years.

<comment><AUTHOR> LOL. I'm lucky, that's very true. She is a saint.

<comment><USER40> Long time lurker and made an account just to reply to this. What does it say about the expectations of this industry when you have to _even_ weigh working almost 60 hours a week against 15 hours with your daughter!! Good god. I am so glad that you made the right choice. Great article.</comment></comment></comment>


Ask HN: How to start reading the source code of an open source project - <AUTHOR> I am very interested in contributing to the open source community, and hope to eventually be able to create and share my own projects with the community too.
I decided to learn by reading and analyzing the code of already well established project first, and get to know how projects are structured. But it seems very overwhelming if I just try to sit down and start reading the code without a clear path or strategy in mind, even if the project may be a relatively small one (a JS library under 7k LOC for example). I don't know if I should read the code from the entrance point to finish (which seems to require tons of patience), or start from the usage POV (how some features are implemented).
Does anyone have some advice for reading and analyzing a project?
Thank you! <comment><USER2> Personally (and I don't think I'm alone in this), I find it quite difficult to read a codebase top to bottom to 'understand' it. Someone else's code, no matter how good it is written, is difficult to grok without context.

To answer you question directly: the best way I've come across to become acquainted with any project is to find an issue that causes you a problem (or one you at least find interesting), and dig in from there. You'll read the codebase in a more directed manner this way. And hey, you may even find the bug!

Check out the 'good first issue' flags on some of the popular repos you like. Usually they will have a good deal of background about what the problem is, so you can dive right in.</comment>