Show HN: Find tech jobs that come with a visa - <AUTHOR> http://www.jobsintech.io <comment><AUTHOR> For those interested by the stack:

\- RoR, twitter bootstrap and some jquery.

\- The search is powered by Algolia.

\- The server is on a OVH dedicated server.

\- Deployment with Capistrano and Active Job is paired with sidekiq :)

Also something that is not mentioned anywhere on the website. Job posted are distributed to +- 20 US universities(USC, UCSD, Cal Tech, Standford, ...) and few French computer science schools.

And I forgot to mention, it's 100% right now.

<comment><USER2> OVH, Algolia... Is that built by French people?

<comment><AUTHOR> Correct sir. I'm French :) However I chose Algolia because the service is spot on and I'm a long time fan of OVH. They're have a really good service and they are cheap!

<comment><USER3> OVH quality seems to be changing dramatically. I tested one of the new vps offers and it was totally laggy, with freezes and disconnects. But what really disappointed me was the fact that I got zero reaction from OVH support, even after three emails - seriously, no reaction. This is new to me, they have always played very well, but this was very bad.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Every work in there comes with a visa, or just a part of them? Because i can't find information about that in the website

<comment><AUTHOR> The companies posting the offers are willing to sponsor a work visa for the person(s) applying to the job ads if it's a good fit.

<comment><USER5> Awesome, this was also my doubt... Hopefully now that you're in the front page more companies will post their offers. A lot of people would love to explore new cultures! =)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Here's a script I've been using in my search for a job in the UK:

github.com/winmillwill/uk_sponsors.sh

Note that this doesn't do anything to verify that the company has jobs in tech, or if they're actually in London or nearby, or if they have a position listed for which they would sponsor a visa. I just use it to eliminate an otherwise promising listing if they can't sponsor.

</comment><comment><USER7> Cool stuff - would be nice with some filtering though, it kind of sucks that you have to go in to each individual ad to actually see if they sponsor visa's.

<comment><AUTHOR> Yes, definitively coming in the next release!

For the time being I tweaked the search to only return jobs that sponsors for visas.

Thanks for the feedback!

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> There's nothing worse than being qualified and fitting in a company, but hearing "sorry, no visa sponsorship"

<comment><USER9> At least you've hopefully learned something from the programming challenges if there were any. And then you shouldn't feel bad about something that is out of your control.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> This is kind of cool! At one point a while ago, I really wanted to move out of the US to Europe or anywhere for a year or two. It seemed like an exciting idea.

A bit late for me though... I have kids and a mortgage now :(

<comment><USER11> It's not easy, but still doable. And think what a great chance for your kids to learn another language and experience a different way of life!

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> Another idea to expand: find tech jobs that _don 't_ do flawed SiliValley style whiteboard algorithm coding interviews.

And also add REMOTE support to that...

<comment><USER13> Actually having done various coding tests recently, I decided that whiteboard in front of people is probably my favored method.

At least that way I can explain my thought process. Far better than "You have two hours to design, implement and test this". Sure, if the domain a clone of your everyday work its quite feasible, but any other problem, I prefer to think through properly rather than rush it. I personally see that as a sign of my maturity as a developer.

<comment><USER12> Besides the specific stressful situation (which one will never experience on the job, doing day-to-day duties), one thing that is really flawed in those kind of interviews - it is assumed that you spent several months preparing for coding interviews. Many don't have a time for this, and many don't even enjoy these kind of puzzles, competitive programming. There is nothing wrong with that.

<comment><USER14> > it is assumed that you spent several months preparing for coding interviews.

Not all companies are like that.

The point for prepping is that you're likely going to go through several coding interviews at a variety of companies, and the upfront prep time is to kick the tires on those skills.

Whiteboard coding _is_ a skill, and like any skill can be mastered with practice.

<comment><USER13> I like the fact that you can explain the way you are thinking. You might not get things right, but people can see where you are heading. As opposed to google's test where a brilliant solution popped randomly into my head. Half an hour after the phone interview.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> Getting an H1B is is getting harder every year its expected to be less than 50/50 chance, so this website is more like; jobs that come with a chance to enter the lottery so that you can start working in 7-8 months

<comment><AUTHOR> H1B isn't the only visa available to work in the US. It doesn't take 8 months to get the visa once you applied.

<comment><USER15> Well you can only apply in April.. So what happens if you get the job in August :) ?

<comment><USER16> If employer really needs it, one can work remotely for a while.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> I was really looking for this specific option "visa". I have applied many companies and unfortunately the process for rejected due to the visa issue.

Nice work!

Do you know if there is such site for other departments like Biotech or Research ?

<comment><AUTHOR> I'm not aware of such website. The visa situation is not easy. For a previous job in the US I had to explain why sponsoring for a visa was not complicated and not time consuming.

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> Apparently "everywhere in the world" consists entirely of San Francisco, Paris, and _maybe_ Palo Alto ;)

Cool idea regardless; just needs a more diverse assortment of job offers.

</comment><comment><USER19> It is good initiative. I am looking for a job in US without immigration intention. I just want to spend good time in vast land with beautiful nature before my 2 years old son goes to school. currently we stayed in city state on tropical island. it is clean and civilized and low tax. but just nowhere to go during the weekend other than air conditioned shopping mall. seriously I am open to be exploited

</comment><comment><USER20> Does this aggregate postings from different sites or does it only show jobs posted there? A blanket search on Colorado doesn't return any. :(

<comment><AUTHOR> No aggregation is being done. I don't have a lot of jobs yet.

<comment><USER21> Would be great if you aggregated job postings with H1Bs or similar from HNhiring. GREAT PROJECT though!

<comment><AUTHOR> I thought about doing, definitively on one of my todolist!

Thanks for the kind words.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> Great service, spotted a typo. "You've applied for the job, you should hear back form the Plume Labs soon! Good Luck!"

Keep it up dude!

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks! Correcting it asap!

</comment></comment><comment><USER23> Hello. Thank you so much for this article. This is very helpful to me because I can now learn french via skype. I have also tried some lessons by skype with a native speaker from [http://preply.com/en/french-by- skype](http://preply.com/en/french-by-skype) and it was also worth trying.

</comment><comment><USER24> Unrelated, but the mission description on this one is really interesting. Delivering ads fast in a competitive environment is quite a beast. (See 'Your mission'):

[http://www.jobsintech.io/jobs/senior-data- scientist-020615-c...](http://www.jobsintech.io/jobs/senior-data- scientist-020615-criteo)

<comment><USER25> As the ex-founder of an online adserving platform that did similar things, I concur; the whole reason I got into that world was because the technical challenges are so.. well, challenging.

Having said that, it was the most stressful 8 years of my life, I learned so much, but I would never want to go back fo that again.

By the way, Criteo is a fairly big name in the CPC/remnant inventory world, and they are used almost all over the world. The qualifications look brutal, too brutal in my opinion -- it seems to be only about qualifications, and none of the people I hired had qualifications like that. I suggest that if this job interests you, and you have some leverage, apply anyway.

</comment></comment><comment><USER26> They should add the "react" skill!

<comment><USER27> The reason why React probably has not been added is, it is a relatively new technology. And there are only few companies out there who are using it right now.

</comment></comment><comment><USER28> From where do you get the list of companies? Both Facebook and Google sponsor H1B visas, and neither is on this site.

<comment><AUTHOR> I know, it's a pity they did not use my service :(

Kidding, the jobs are posted by the companies. It's not a job directory :)

</comment></comment><comment><USER29> Are there other job finding sites like these? Not necessarily ones that come with a visa. Thanks!

<comment><AUTHOR> I'm not aware of competitors yet.

</comment></comment><comment><USER30> I think there is a bug. There is a window on the right side telling "French jobs aren't being displayed. You can change it:".

But at the same time, I can see : "Full Stack Developper Afrostream Paris, France Logo Mission"

<comment><AUTHOR> Good catch, I'll look into it asap. What browser are you running?

<comment><USER30> Google Chrome (sorry if it is too late)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER31> I moved to Beijing, and started working for a healthcare startup. I'm finally on a legitimate work visa. It was a pain, but I'm definitely glad I did it.

Found the job by writing cold emails to people in Beijing through meetup.com

</comment><comment><USER32> How does this tie in with the H1B situation in the US?

That means these companies are willing to try, but that only gives you a 50/50 chance for the H1B, as everywhere else, right?

<comment><AUTHOR> Yeah, if they decide to sponsor you for a H1B but this is not the only visa available for work.

<comment><USER33> > but this is not the only visa available for work

Hmm, care to elaborate?

I don't think there's any US work visa that is _easier_ to obtain than the H-1B. As far as I know:

* The L-1 visa is only for intra-company transfers, so unsuitable in most cases.

* The O-1 visa is for proven extraordinary talent, and as such is inaccessible to 99.9% of the population.

* The EB-3 visa has a 4+ year waiting periods, so out of the question.

* The EB-2 visa, if you have a master's degree (related to the job), and were not born in India or China, can be obtained in circa ~1 year. (Labor certification alone could take nine months to a year.)

* The J-1 visa lets your work for a short amount time, but imposes a 2-year ban after the year is over. Anyone even mildly considering moving to the U.S. for longer than a year and half would not use this visa.

* International students in the U.S. can work for a short amount of time after graduation with OPT. But this requires being a international student in the US, of course.

* The EB-1 visa is primarily used by managers transitioning from L-1A visas. The "extraordinary talent" EB-1 oddly has a much higher standard than the O-1. (A good candidate would be a Nobel prize laureate.) For all practical purposes, it is inaccessible to 99.9999% of the world population.

So right now, the "best" alternative to the H-1B is the EB-2. But a company will have to wait for a whole year vs. the 6-7 months for the H-1B. In addition, labor certification is a very expensive process costing around $10k-$20k. It's not guaranteed to return a positive result either. A single _minimally_ qualified U.S. worker could bar the entry of the potential would- be immigrant.

So in your knowledge, is there any visa that's actually easier to obtain than an H-1B and that offers the (AC21) job portability of an H-1B as well?

<comment><USER34> Nice, I didn't know about the EB-2 visa (and I do have a master's degree).

Would a prospective employer find an EB-2 sponsorship easier, harder, preferrable than an H1B visa? I understand the 1 year vs 6 months, but it's a 50% chance with those 6 months. Does it have less restrictions on job switching?

<comment><USER33> In terms of freedom, an EB-2 visa is actually a green card category. An EB-2 or EB-3 confers permanent residency status, which means you can do whatever you want. Start a new company, be unemployed, apply for citizenship, etc. You enjoy the same rights as citizens in almost every regard except voting (and running for office).

A correction though: the EB-2 (and any employment-based green card) takes about 21 months or more to process right now. So a company is looking at a circa 2+ years processing time. Because of how complex, expensive, difficult, and time-consuming the process is, I don't know if a lot of employers would use it to bring someone over to the US.

In nearly 99% cases, companies bring people over on an H-1 or L-1, and then over a period of 2-3 years (or more) help them transition to permanent residency (via EB-2 or EB-3) if they really like the person (i.e. you're performance is excellent, etc).

Unfortunately it's really really hard[1] to immigrate to the US. Most people do _not_ realize how hard it is. The "easiest" route unfortunately, is to interview with companies that are willing to apply for an H-1B, and then take your chances at the annual lottery. You'll have to find a job with a company willing to sponsor by mid-March in order to be able to have a shot at coming to the US that year in October.

[1] Recently a bipartisan group of senator published a document that lays out a framework for immigrition reform. In it, they acknowledge: "Our failure to act is perpetuating a broken system which sadly discourages the world's best and brightest citizens from coming to the United States and remaining in our country to contribute to our economy. This failure makes a legal path to entry in the United States _insurmountably difficult for well meaning immigrants_." (see: [http://www.flake.senate.gov/documents/immigration_reform.pdf](http://www.flake.senate.gov/documents/immigration_reform.pdf) – page 3) The phrase " _insurmountably difficult_ " describes very well the status quo of the U.S. immigration system.

<comment><USER34> Thank you very much for your answer.

I agree, I've certainly been discouraged of immigrating to the U.S. due to the legal system there.

I know several H1B visa holders, and while they're not doing badly (they might be shorted a little salarywise, but not too much), they're pretty much tied to their jobs (good thing they're on megacorps and can shuffle between divisions, but they're severely limited in their job choices).

<comment><USER33> You are completely wrong on H1B visa holders being tied to their jobs. H-1B holders can switch jobs quite easily. A law (commonly called "AC21") passed in 2000 enabled H1B visa holders to change jobs with ease[1].

I know plenty of H1B that have switched jobs with no problems. I don't where this ridiculous myth originated. Also: there's absolutely nothing that prevents you from getting paid well on an H-1B. If you're being underpaid, you can find a company that'll pay you as you deserve, and yes, switch jobs.

[1] In tech, it's extremely easy for H1B visa holders to change jobs. That's because, pretty much every tech company will sponsor an H1B transfer (not all companies will do an original/initial H1B petition though). Perhaps in other fields, it's a little harder to find a company that'll do a transfer.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER35> Searching for Java shouldn't return JavaScript results.

<comment><AUTHOR> True, thanks for the feedback. I need to tweak the search.

</comment></comment><comment><USER36> Do you list companies that are pro-remote?

<comment><USER37> You can also check out this repo for remote friendly companies: [https://github.com/lukasz-madon/awesome-remote- job/](https://github.com/lukasz-madon/awesome-remote-job/)

</comment></comment><comment><USER38> If you look for "C#", you don't get C# jobs. Typical keyword bug in job sites.

<comment><AUTHOR> You're right, the search need more work. This is def something I will work on.

</comment></comment><comment><USER39> I don't know about you guys , but i feel that US visas and UK work permits are becoming easier to get through these days ... i remember 10 years ago switching jobs in london that would sponsor me was a pain! now it's quite easy. Do you agree?

<comment><USER40> US Work visas? No...unfortunately. There is not only a cap on it, but the demand is way much more than the cap can handle (also thanks partially to companies like Infosys which abuse the system).

</comment></comment><comment><USER41> well designed site!

I saw some job listings mention about 'remote' working status. How do I find out all the jobs which allow remote?

<comment><AUTHOR> I did not yet implemented a search with faceting, this is definitively coming in the next release. I'll edit my post in few minutes to make a list for you.

EDIT: Here you go [https://gist.github.com/theonegri/26737451719ab2f3267a](https://gist.github.com/theonegri/26737451719ab2f3267a)

</comment></comment><comment><USER42> Everything for PHP is in France :/

</comment><comment><USER43> This whole notion of "jobs that come with a visa" is so screwed up and wrong and totally flawed at its core.

I am sure that doesn't line up with what the vast majority of people think, especially on this site; but it's a wholly damaging and negative practice in the long term, whose positive claims only mask the exploitative reality that underlies it.

It's really nothing more than brain-drain, more like colonialism than not; the siphoning off of resources, knowledge and information resources from less advantaged places to be absorbed to compound the wealth in wealthy societies.

<comment><USER44> I'm not totally convinced by that – it's really easy to see that there could well be long-term positives. For example, what proportion of people who travel for work end up returning to their home country, bringing back skills which are beneficial domestically?

I think we'd need to see some studies on that to draw any real conclusions, but your reaction seems too negative.

<comment><USER45> There's also sort of an iron-curtain mentality emergent in telling people, "you can't come to the West to work on these tech jobs: your home country needs you to work on something you will probably find to be much less lucrative, technologically advanced, and fulfilling."

People do not exist to be slaves exploited by their homeland any more than they exist to be slaves exploited by a colonial power.</comment></comment></comment>


Salesforce acquires Manymoon - <AUTHOR> http://thenextweb.com/industry/2011/02/01/salesforce-com-acquires-social-productivity-company-manymoon/

<comment><AUTHOR> The manymoon blog regarding the acquisition- [http://blog.manymoon.com/2011/02/01/manymoon-acquired-by- sal...](http://blog.manymoon.com/2011/02/01/manymoon-acquired-by-salesforce- com/)

</comment><comment><USER2> This is clearly something that google should have acquired, with such great integration to google apps. Hopefully Salesforce builds and integrates this service. A win for Salesforce!</comment>


We ignored evidence linking cigarettes to cancer – Let's not do that with vaping - <AUTHOR> https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2019/feb/16/we-ignored-the-evidence-linking-cigarettes-to-cancer-lets-not-do-that-with-vaping <comment><USER2> I don't think anyone's ignoring evidence with vaping.

Rather, vaping is (from what we know so far) legitimately a far, far healthier alternative to smoking cigarettes. The biggest health risk by far isn't the nicotine, it's the smoke, which vaping doesn't have.

It's been framed as a public health question since the very beginning: do the population-wide large health benefits of smokers who can't quit then switching to vaping, outweigh the (as currently understood) much smaller potential health problems with vaping, but which may be taken up by many people who otherwise wouldn't smoke at all? It's a balance of harms.

What I've heard about Juul addiction among college-age kids sounds a little scary. (But then in my generation it was scary binge drinking, and that's fallen significantly over the past 10 years.)

But at the same time, I've seen friends finally be able to give up smoking for vaping, which can only be a good thing given what we know right now.

<comment><USER3> Vaping causes nicotine addiction which has the secondary risk using of tobacco products later in life. In other words ecigs is a gateway to smoking.

 _Youth Who Use Vaping Products Are More Likely to Smoke Cigarettes, Increase Use of Both Over Time_

[https://www.rand.org/news/press/2018/10/02.html](https://www.rand.org/news/press/2018/10/02.html)

<comment><USER4> The real long term danger here might be to get an entire generation hooked on vaping as a safer alternative, then remove vape devices from the market. That's a whole lot of potential new customers (nicotine addicts) for traditional cigarette companies.

<comment><USER5> In what world would vaping devices not be sold, but cigarettes?

<comment><USER4> Recent comments about regulation lead me to believe it is possible. The government has already pushed to remove Juul from gas stations while leaving cigarettes. Maybe it is far fetched to say this approach could be expanded but I'm not so sure anymore.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> It doesn't seem like the effects, good/bad are being ignored. A little over a year ago, the british ministry of health conducted a very large study which concluded that vaping is not health, but its approximately 95% less harmful than cigarettes.

<comment><USER7> It's most telling that the two writing this piece are from the US. British medical opinion, and previous Guardian pieces, seem to boil down to it's good as it's not tobacco and that vaping is far more successful at getting people to quit whilst dramatically less harmful.

The "common knowledge" around vaping is dramatically different on each side of the Atlantic

<comment><USER8> The British have skin in the game via the NHS. In the USA, adverse health affects due to smoking are masked via higher insurance premiums while states reap sin taxes; in the UK reduced smoking is a public cost savings measure. It makes sense that the views would differ due to different self interests.

<comment><USER7> Good point, hadn't looked at it quite like that. Does the surgeon general still put out scary warnings?

It's fair to say vaping has had huge and surprising impact on smoking in the UK, it's now become _really_ rare to see a smoker. It's now an occasional surprise when you catch a whiff of tobacco in the street.

It helped that cigarettes have been progressively taxed to nearly unaffordable (not sure, but I think a pack of 20 is now comfortably over £10). At the same time tobacco has been hidden in ugly packaging and no visibility is allowed in stores.

<comment><USER9> Yeah, a 20 pack is now well over a tenner. It's great. I do not smoke at all in the uk now, where I currently predominantly live, as the cost is just nuts. £4000 a year or so if you're on a pack a day, which is where most active smokers sit. I now vape, spend about £200 a year on it.

I will confess that I do still smoke if I find myself in a country where vaping is illegal and the cigarettes are 50p a pack, as I am still a nicotine addict, but I would much rather vape. Cigarettes make my lungs hurt. Vaping doesn't.

So, unless it turns out that vaping is somehow worse than smoking, this is a resounding public health policy success. My behaviour and the scarcity of smoking you note underscores this.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> I spoke to a number of researchers several years ago before vaping really became so mainstream.

To be honest a number had a rather surprising view: if it has nicotine in it then it must be bad.

I formed my own opinion back then: the researchers did not seem that inretested in the effects of vaping and preferred to instead just associate it with cigarettes.

This article talks about us not knowing the long term effects (which is true) but then goes on to regulating vaping. Why not advocate for more research instead?

I don't think vaping is without side effects but it's my personal view and I have no scientific basis for it. But we should be doing more research before we clamp down on it.

<comment><USER11> Nicotine itself _is_ bad.

Yes, it's probably much better for you to not inhale hot smoke particles in your lungs and all the other ancillary chemicals from cigarettes, but if vaping is undermining decades of hard-fought progress against the single largest preventable cause of death globally (responsible for ~30% of cancer deaths) by bringing in new smokers and reducing the urgency to quit among current smokers I can see how public health officials would be cautious about embracing it.

<comment><USER12> Addiction aside (looking at you too caffeine)... how is nicotine bad exactly?

<comment><USER11> Nicotine itself promotes tumor growth and metastasis. It increases your risk of getting cancer.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> I think we are going to have much better evidence on e-cigarettes, and by association, vaping, soon. NIH recently established and started producing a standardized nicotine and placebo e-cigarette for researchers to use. A big barrier to studying health effects was not being able to compare studies.

[https://www.drugabuse.gov/funding/supplemental- information-n...](https://www.drugabuse.gov/funding/supplemental-information- nida-e-cig)

</comment><comment><USER14> People should just learn these 2 simple facts and stop focusing on just one of the pair: 1. vaping is not healthy. 2. vaping is much healthier than smoking (as long as you use a liquid that doesn't contain nasty chemicals that cause popcorn lung syndrome, e.g. diacetyl).

Whoever smokes and doesn't consider quitting as an option should try switching to vaping, whoever vapes should consider quitting as whoever smokes should, whoever doesn't smoke and doesn't vape should better avoid starting either.

<comment><USER15> > use a liquid that doesn't contain nasty chemicals that cause popcorn lung > syndrome, e.g. diacetyl

The levels of diacetyl found in (certain) vape liquids are probably not a concern. Cigarette smoke contains much higher concentrations of diacetyl and popcorn lung doesn't appear to be endemic in smokers.

Indeed most of the cases in medical literature seem to involve factory workers who were exposed to high amounts of diacetyl, plus a handful of people who consumed massive amounts of microwave popcorn. Are there _any_ observed cases of popcorn lung in smokers?

<comment><USER14> Interesting. Thanks. Perhaps the idea of particular vaping liquids causing popcorn lung is a myth too. Here's an article I've found that includes some references to research: [https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/vaping-causes- popcorn-lung...](https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/vaping-causes-popcorn- lung/)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> I'm not a scientist but I simply can't imagine that vaping a full JUUL cartridge and smoking a pack of cigarettes is even remotely the same.

<comment><USER17> Does the factor matter, if both are unhealthy enough to be a problem?

<comment><USER18> Yes, it matters because the government has an interest in improving the public health. When you reduce access to vaping that decreases the number of vapers and increases the number of smokers. So the relative risks of each are important in deciding how much you want to promote/restrict access to vaping.

If vaping is just as bad as cigarettes than you probably want to make vaping really expensive and hard to get. If it's completely risk free you'd want to subsidize vaping and make sure it's available at every store. The best evidence looks like it's 5%-10% as deadly as smoking which means we probably don't want to restrict it too much.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> Inhaling nicotine is very harmful to your heart. Repeated doses of a stimulant can cause heart disease, and about as many smokers die from that as lung disease. With vaping, even more nicotine is delivered immediately to the system. It seems that this would have the same negative consequences on cardiac and vascular health. Why is that not more often discussed? It seems like this risk alone is enough to declare vaping to be unsafe.

<comment><USER18> Because most of the cardiovascular risks of smoking aren't related to nicotine.

<comment><USER20> How do the CO risks compare with the nicotine risks? Because nicotine on its own does raise your blood pressure substantially.

<comment><USER18> This article argues that nicotine barely increases blood pressure, and nicotine replacement therapy is therefore safe in hypertensive individuals.

[https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1111/j.1524-6175...](https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1111/j.1524-6175.2001.00483.x)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> I vaped for 6+ months as a "nootropics" stimulant to augment caffeine intake.

Could I code/work one more hour per day? Yes, usually.

But the trade-offs were insomnia, irritability, and anxiety.

It wasn't until I quit cold turkey that the effects of nicotine withdrawal really kicked in. I felt like crap for days.

Sure, e-Cigarettes are a _far_ better alternative than their counterpart. But the addictive quality, and recurring financial investment are very real.

</comment><comment><USER22> I feel that the culture that builds up around things like vaping, marijauna, etc. are far more overreaching than the health effects itself on the individual. Because a culture has built up around it, easily influenced people, especially those who are younger, willingly take part in something that can/will worsen their health just because it is trending and 'everyone else' is doing it and it's 'safe'. Yes, marijuana and vaping are not as bad as cigarettes and other things. But I find using that as a justification is concerning since they can still bad right? Weed may have not ever killed anyone, but have you seen stoner culture? Let's say marijuana itself doesn't make you dumber or lazy, but stoner culture certainly will.

You can justify anything if you have something worse to compare it to. Now it's weed or vaping, in the future it may be something else.

</comment><comment><USER23> Reminder that mainstream media pieces and non profits against vaping are being funded by tobacco companies.

</comment><comment><USER24> In my opinion, way too many people bend over backwards to defend the rise of vaping through the lens of "better than cigarettes" equating to "healthy".

My view - just like my view with marijuana - we need to do a better job of quantifying the negative impacts of addiction. It is fundamentally a bad thing for your body to be addicted to something, and we normalize that view by engaging in whataboutism; oh, it's just coffee, it's just sugar, it's better than cigarettes and on and on.

There hasn't been enough research on it, it's certainly more opaque for consumers to really know where the ingredients are being sourced and how much nicotine they're actually receiving. These are all bad things, even if it's "better" than combustibles.

That's of course in addition to the extreme shittiness of these companies blatantly advertising to kids, but that's another argument altogether.

<comment><USER25> What blatant advertising to kids, tho? The only time I ever see vape ads, it's in store promos for Juul and the only copy is along the lines of "Satisfying alternative for adult smokers"

</comment></comment><comment><USER26> Also GMO, 5G, advert effects of vaccination, misprescribing and overprescribing of drugs, bad diets, lack of exercise... lets not ignore.</comment>


Amazon now loaning capital to sellers - <AUTHOR> http://www.amazonstrategies.com/2012/09/amazon-lending-amazon-starts-loaning-capital-to-sellers-to-help-them-scale.html

<comment><USER3> Amazon has more details on every seller than any bank could hope to have. They know what products they sell, in what volume, they probably know the approximate margins achievable on the products sold and they know the customer service rating of each merchant. With this information, machine learning and the number of merchants they have, they have more than enough to be able to make really smart loan decisions. I bet you they can keep the default rate much lower than any bank could achieve and they can better price their loans interest-rate wise.

TBH many of the internet giants (or any company who has grown enough to have enough of their own cash to manage) ends up adopting features of banks. They get the benefits of banks (easy money) with less regulation. Paypal for example promotes the holding of cash in Paypal accounts. Paypal isn't a bank, but all that money from users is cash that they can "loan" to the federal government and other AAA and AA rated companies in the form of bonds.

<comment><USER4> Yes, this is not a new idea by any means. For example, GMAC: <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ally_Financial#History>

<comment><USER5> No that's the other side of the coin. GMAC helps consumers finance their purchase.

The GMAC equivalent would be apple's credit card (with barclays) or an amazon credit card to finance purchases.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> A colleague of mine commented that he would not sell volume through Amazon, and instead creates his own ecommerce sites. Why? Because, he argued, Amazon uses volume sellers to discover new products to sell, and then Amazon undercuts large sellers after the sellers have done all the market validation.

I don't know if this is true or not, but if it is it's bloody brilliant.

So this seems like a great strategy to improve market discovery for Amazon.

<comment><USER7> >So this seems like a great strategy to improve market discovery for Amazon.

I am guessing if walmart does something similar, it is not brilliant, but in fact evil. I don't understand the enthusiasm for things like this if it is a brand that we like.

Remember walmart tried to open its own bank, guess what happened?

<comment><USER8> I think that "great" should be interpreted as "great-for-Amazon".

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> "Amazon is lending up to $800,000 to some merchants...charging some sellers interest rates of up to 13 percent, but some other merchants are being offered rates as low as 1 percent..."

Source: [http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/09/27/amazon-lending- idU...](http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/09/27/amazon-lending- idUSL1E8KRA1020120927?type=marketsNews)

</comment><comment><USER10> I suspect these Amazon loans are _secured, with inventory as the collateral_ , which in plain English means that if the borrower defaults, the lender (Amazon) can take the inventory and sell it to payoff the outstanding balance of the loan.

If I'm right, given that Amazon manages fulfillment for many third-party sellers (meaning that their inventory is already stored in Amazon warehouses[1]), these new Amazon loans appear to be virtually no-risk.

Brilliant.

\--

[1] [http://www.amazonservices.com/fulfillment-by- amazon/benefits...](http://www.amazonservices.com/fulfillment-by- amazon/benefits.htm)

<comment><USER11> And this gives the incentive for sellers who don't use amazon's warehouses incentive to use them.

Really , when you think about that ,classically sellers/wholesellers have the following roles:

1\. Finding people/stores willing to buy stuff

2\. Financing of buying stuff from many manufacturers(until getting paid)

3\. Storing said stuff

4\. Distributing said stuff to stores, online stores and users

5\. Prediciting demand

6\. Marketing to users/stores.

It seems that amazon is attacking/replacing all those roles, and probably doing a better job. The end game seems simple: To skip the sellers(for products sold online), and deal directly with manufacturers(like their doing with ebooks).

It's not unique to them, walmart already did it. But amazon sells almost everything.

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> Huge. Period. If you didnt already do volume on Amazon, now you will try. Looking back at the start of AWS a few years back, i shudder to think what this does for small businesses nationwide 5 - 10 years from now. Amazon's underwriting the internet with AWS, underwriting small ecommerce cos with its seller programs, and now underwriting the financing side with this lending program.

Wonder what their protections are/how they will deal with defaults?

<comment><USER13> I take a completely different view. If these sellers are only lacking capital in order to see growth, wouldn't they be getting it from others by now, even in a tight lending market? I look at the wording: "pre-qualified for a loan up to <XXX see below>" and then "If approved, the funds will be advanced" and it reads just like every junk mail credit application ever. You are "pre- qualified" because you made it onto the suckers list, and you'll be approved if you're gold plated. Here comes the internet lending bubble?

<comment><USER14> Thing is, Amazon is in a different game than your normal lending agency. Proper lending agencies make their money from the interest, and thusly, they have a desire to make your interest higher. Amazon on the other hand makes money from direct sales- they might have interest there to discourage people from borrowing without reason, but they can also chance it at a lower rate because of the possibility of making more money via real sales.

<comment><USER15> It's more than that actually.

Let's say that Amazon lends money to a high volume seller. And we know that Amazon is going to take a cut of sales. But, let's say, hypothetically, that all of this is a wash, in the end it ends up netting Amazon zero direct profit. Has Amazon lost money on this effort then?

Consider the indirect benefits to Amazon. By increasing the amount of business flowing through the site they further cement their brand and they increase the network effect of using the site. They bring more customers to the table who then become repeat customers due to a good experience on the site. Or they bring additional business as people buy related or unrelated merchandise on the site, perhaps in the same order. And they increase the potential customer base for buying Amazon gift certs. All of these things tie together and help bring Amazon more business.

Now, in reality Amazon is going to make sure it makes money on these loans and on direct sales as well, but it doesn't have to make a very high margin on such things because of the indirect effects I mentioned which provide additional margin.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> Google has a similar thing for middling successful AdWords advertisers (including me): they've got a deal with a bank for a subsidized AdWords credit card. 8% interest, credit limit is your yearly AdWords spending, works only on AdWords.

I was thinking they could go one step further beyond just peeking at my AdWords data and conclude my Internet footprint justifies a $500k limit at 4%. (I.e. Now they're underwriting) And one step further than that would be "Make sure you pay your bill on time, because we wouldn't want anything to happen to those rankings." That strikes me as unGoogley but you never know.

</comment><comment><USER17> Hm. I really don't know the specifics of this move or its market, but: I believe there are two ways for amazon of getting a benefit out of this, in some way.

The first one is setting a reasonable interest rate (13% in this case) and make a benefit out of it (they have spare cash, and a very good interest rate, plus a fairly secure investment).

The second one is actually investing at a lower rate (how about 5%) in their mid-sized, strong sellers, to create some growth (long-term) and increase amazon revenue (as I said, that's thinking long-term and sometimes loans won't be administered properly). Amazon can probably estimate the risk of each seller (they have a lot of information about their sellers' sales and additional information about almost everything else too!), so that would be clever for them.

It sort of surprises me that amazon is putting such an interest rate, as the only benefit I can see this way (instead of other ways of getting a traditional loan) are probably 'amazon benefits' (if any), as it might be faster / more flexible / less painful than a different kind of capital loan. And for Amazon, it's more of a way to get some easy money out of a pile of cash (which I presume they have), and not another creative way to keep strengthening their business.

</comment><comment><USER18> Cant' blame Amazon for taking advantage of an opportunity to lend money at 13% but I question the need for anyone with a truly self-sustaining business to borrow funds at such a high rate. If your margins are low and you need the capital to factor your receivables, the interest rate is going to be painful or destructive to you long term. On the other hand, if your margins are high like in software and subscriptions/services you probably get paid quickly and don't really have a need to borrow. The only businesses I've seen use borrowed money for payroll are failing businesses. Admittedly I'm a big believer in bootstrapping.

If you're young and have nothing to lose, I think it's a lot more effective to obsessively work on your business and just run up your credit cards than waste time with investors and lenders.

<comment><USER19> 13% is not that high a cost of capital for a business - venture capital is _far_ more expensive yet still a smart choice for many companies. To put it in perspective the cost of equity for the S&P 500 has historically been at least around 13%.

<comment><USER20> That's the ex-post return on equity, not the cost of equity. You could argue that the former is an approximation of the latter, but they are not necessarily the same.

Anyways, it's not really relevant for a small Amazon Seller who may get a _loan_ at which rate a huge S&P 500 business can get _capital_ (if a S&P 500 business wants a loan, I doubt it would typically even pay 5% these days).

<comment><USER19> That's CAPM cost of equity assuming a market of rich and emerging market stocks and bonds and a risk-free rate of gilts or Treasuries, whichever cheaper; the average ex-post return of the S&P 500 for the period (1926-2012) is closer to 10.5%.

Regarding VC one plugs in expectations; VC is modern portfolio mechanics at its most vivid.

This is relevant because 13%, as a cost of capital, is not intrinsically high when even Bank of America today would pay that if it raised equity (it has) and could assume a long-run return on its stock of at least 7.3% (below its targeted ROE). A quick bond search shows that several S&P 500 members, BofA included, paying over 13% on at least _some_ of their bonds (no doubt the riskier ones).

Therefore 13% isn't usurious and probably a fair cost of capital for a small business.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> I wouldn't be suprised if they started making these sorts of loans to AUTHORS soon.

<comment><USER22> Are you being sarcastic?

<comment><USER23> It's common for publishers to give authors an advance on sales of a book - effectively a loan, paid back via royalties. If Amazon gets deeper into traditional publishing it wouldn't be crazy for them to do some version of the same.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> This reminds me of an interesting little fact I learned about how Sony makes money: Life insurance and personal finance!

Source: <http://www.splatf.com/2011/11/sony-profits/>

Consumer electronics still generate most of its revenues (about half) - <USER2> just like GE, Sony appears to make a lot more profit financing the acquistion of their goods rather than from the goods themselves (GE makes more financing hydro-turbines for governments than from the turbines themselves).

Curious to think that the entire PlayStation line might not just be a loss leader for games, but also for the entire Sony financing arm.

<comment><USER25> Not just Sony: many Asian consumer electronics companies are really part of much larger conglomerates. Samsung is the largest provider of life insurance in South Korea, and they also run a large ad agency (Cheil) as well a other service based subsidiaries.

</comment></comment><comment><USER26> Man, I wish that Amazon would run the health care system. They are so smart. They always beat the system.

</comment><comment><USER27> Don't sellers make like 6-8% from their Amazon sales? How does that work with a 13% interest?

<comment><USER28> 13% ANNUALLY. If their margin is 6.5% they will still make profit as long as they keep their stock less than half a year on average.</comment></comment>


Analytics used to predict who will leave a job - <AUTHOR> http://frobertjacobs.wordpress.com/2013/03/15/analytics-used-to-predict-who-will-leave-a-job/ <comment><USER3> I think this is neat, though I wish the article had more details!

At first my reaction was obvious: "Well of _course_ you can tell which employees are going to quit! If they're not getting paid well, don't feel like they have mobility, and don't have flexibility, they will move on!"

But so much of what you read about "what employees want" is both anecdotal and highly-personalized. Some employees want to work from home and others prefer face-time. Some folks want a decent salary, whereas others (like myself) choose something less lucrative in order to work at a startup. For some, upward mobility equates to a track to management, and for others a tech lead, and yet others just want to be left alone to write some darn code.

But if we can try and predict, using actual real data, what kinds of corporate knobs (raises, promotions, job rotations, etc) can decrease attrition, then that also means a company would be increasing job satisfaction _in the ways which are important to employees_. Why haven't we been doing more of this all along?

<comment><USER4> Trying to predict that with data and algorithms is bollocks...

There is someone, called manager. I know, I know, it has a bad reputation. But is supposed to talk from time to time and keep an eye about how things are going. If talk is done properly, can be very useful to know if someone is not happy.

I know that we are engineers, we love data, and talking to someone is awkward and out of the comfort zone. But this is ridiculous...

<comment><USER3> How do we evaluate whether a one-on-one is productive? How can a business, in aggregate, learn from the hundreds of independent weekly manager-employee meetings to see what kinds of issues keep cropping up?

This of course presumes both a good manager _and_ an employee who is willing to speak candidly with them. This may not always be the case. (How often is it not the case? Let's examine the data and see! Maybe there is a systemic problem with trust between managers and their employees that needs work?)

It is not uncommon for businesses to periodically do "employee satisfaction surveys." I don't think crunching data to measure the effectiveness of management (which affects employee attrition) is ridiculous at all.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Boss: We've predicted you're going to leave, so you're fired.

Analysts: See, they're no longer employed! Another successful prediction for the algorithm!

<comment><USER6> Just another poor implementation of tech into enterprise really. Why not vet employees rather than chastise them? The top down approach is a failure at all levels.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> And this is why I'll never work for a company run by MBA driven bull-crap.

Any properly managed business group will have this covered because they treat their human "resources" like actual humans - not variables in a spreadsheet. A GOOD manager would know an employee was at risk as a result of doing their god damn job properly. You do not need a team of data scientists to figure this out.

Advice for younger engineers: if a company has grown past 100 employees, stay away from it. It's inevitably laden down by morons who would forego talking to you on a personal level in favor of a mechanical system with as little interaction as possible (liability and all).

<comment><USER8> I believe these kind of systems are implemented in much smaller companies as well. The last company I worked at started implementing mechanics to determine roles and payment when the company grew to 40 people or so.

The system that was introduced annoyed me, since it seemed to favor people in a management roles and also with a Masters. The system was created by consultants on behalf of my employer. To me the system felt like me being a horse with a carrot held in front of me. I guess it's true what's being said about engineers and herding cats. Engineers do want a personal treatment.

This rewarding system was one of the reasons I decided to leave later that year. It seems the turnover inside said company has increased shortly after I left, perhaps other people felt the same.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> > _An analysis of which factors made employees more likely to quit yielded > some surprising results: "Those employees who had been promoted more times > were more likely to quit, unless a more significant pay hike had gone along > with the promotion," Mr. Siegel wrote._

Sounds like it's just a simple case of disparity "hey, I know I can get a much higher salary elsewhere given my experience and title. HP hasn't given it to me over the last few years, so it's time to go."

<comment><USER10> Also, as you get promoted, you acquire additional responsibilities which bring with them additional stress and frequently longer hours. Plus tedious or painful stuff like endless meetings and doing performance reviews and firing people. It can get old rather quickly, so you need to give people lots of money to convince them to keep doing it. If a company needs big data and guys with PhDs to figure this out, they're not paying attention to what's going on around them.

Some people say they'd write code even if they didn't get paid, but I haven't heard anybody say they'd be a manager for free.

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> Very similar analytics work takes places in the telecom industry with respect to customer churn. However, this typically requires a large data size for it to be accurate. So, I wonder how many companies are large enough to benefit from it.

On a larger note, I wish "managers" used other simple means like talking to people openly about their aspirations, instead of blindly following the processes laid out by the company. Thankfully I don't work in such a place - but most big corps could just do better on the attrition rate if they made their appraisal process more employee friendly, focussed on encouraging a open culture and reduced needless hierarchy.

</comment><comment><USER12> If I was going to run such a program (whilst stroking my white cat[1]...), I'd correlate website access to attrition. This could uncover not only active job searching, but general boredom and dissatisfaction surfing patterns...

I'm guessing obvious websites like linkedin would pop up, but I wouldn't be surprised if other patterns would emerge.

[1] Companies, especially of this size, already do this kind of spying on their staff. Not necessarily with cats.

</comment><comment><USER13> This is a sales pitch by HP - they are trying to sell 'big data analytics' to huge clients, like General Electric. Oracle and IBM are also trying to sell this stuff. It's supposed to be the next big thing.

I think there is some doubt here that it is valuable, which fails to appreciate scale.

If someone said to you 'I don't know why Twitter need all these engineers - <USER2> made a site like twitter in 2 hours in an introduction to rails tutorial', you'd explain that scale was the problem.

The CEO of Toshiba oversees business units that do nuclear power plants, LCD screens, and business systems. His understanding of any of these units is fairly shallow - he knows less about nuclear power plants than the CEO of that unit, who knows less than his chief engineer. The chief engineer knows less about the workstation login page than the junior who implemented it.

When you are working at that scale, your tools and information are limited and broad. You can set budgets, issue directives, and try to create culture.

On the other hand, because you are working with large numbers of people (data points), it makes sense to make decisions statistically.

When N is 1, you need to make decisions subjectively - it doesn't matter that taking Statins after 50 slightly reduces the chance of heart disease for some people (possibly including you). You decide if you want to take a pill every day, and broadly if you want to do things that are healthy vs things that are enjoyable.

For the guy deciding whether to spend millions on Statins as part of your health insurance, it makes total sense - he can model how much heart disease costs, and how much statins reduce that, along with some value placed on an extra year of life, plus something about cost to acquire customers and policy retention, and decide if it's worth the money. So the British NHS decided to give everyone over 50 Statins.

The guy in charge of HP can model how much staff churn costs, and assign budgets that are sub divided down by business units. Using this data he can target that budget where it will help the most.

And that is all he can do.

Another thing is that it doesn't matter if it's a good idea, it matters if someone will pay for it. If HP can demonstrate measurable financial advantage to doing this they can land clients. That's a lot easier to measure = sell than 'not being a douche' training for managers.

</comment><comment><USER14> just watch who's updating LinkedIn.

<comment><USER15> You wrote it first!

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> I should probably follow some of the links referenced in the article. The article itself is a little irritating. It seems like the goal is askew: predict who will leave so you can keep them. In every organization I've been in, some people should leave. Perhaps they're at a bad point in their lives; perhaps they're just not a good organizational fit. Whatever the reason, keeping them poisons the team they work with.

The approach is seriously lacking in the factors it looks at for flight-risk. Every organization has a culture: a way of going about getting work done, dealing with petty administrative tasks, behaving, talking, etc. These factors are extremely difficult to convey when hiring someone. Unfortunately, some individuals aren't always a good fit for a culture.

Over time, I've found out from experience that I don't like large organizations. Large organizations have a certain bureaucracy and formality that I find irritating. I left one particular organization just for that reason. My current employer is still too large for my tastes. They treat me well, the pay is fine, the benefits are unheard of nowadays. I just don't like the bureaucracy and formality.

One more point is that the reasons for leaving may be different in our current era of entrepreneurship. People may simply leave to follow their own ideas about a business.

</comment><comment><USER17> I remember Google doing this back in 2009.

<https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=617533>

</comment><comment><USER18> Geez, I'd think it was kind of obvious! Promoting someone by adding more responsibility but no pay is a sure-fire way to get employees to leave.

</comment><comment><USER19> Analysts: Analysis shows that if you treat your employees like crap and pay them badly, they're likely to leave!

This is only a preliminary result though, we need more funding to back up this radical hypothesis.

</comment><comment><USER20> People don't leave jobs, they leave bosses.

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> Here is an another one from IBM [http://blogs.wsj.com/cio/2013/01/29/ibm- security-tool-can-fl...](http://blogs.wsj.com/cio/2013/01/29/ibm-security- tool-can-flag-disgruntled-employees/)

</comment><comment><USER21> I predict people who work for HP are likely to leave. No software required.

</comment><comment><USER22> this seem dangerous.

</comment><comment><USER23> We need analytics for that now? Wow... Next, lets automate lungs to breathe.</comment>


Golang: Don't be afraid of makefiles - <AUTHOR> https://sohlich.github.io/post/go_makefile/ <comment><USER2> Two things I try to get people to do with Makefiles:

1\. Use the := syntax

:= means that a variable is immediately expanded; = means it's delayed until the variable is used which on a large Makefile has a speed penalty. If you know that a variable is fully defined (i.e. all the $(...) references in its value are fixed) when the variable is being defined then use :=. That's the case here where the Makefile starts:

        GOCMD=go
        GOBUILD=$(GOCMD) build
        GOCLEAN=$(GOCMD) clean
        GOTEST=$(GOCMD) test
        GOGET=$(GOCMD) get
        BINARY_NAME=mybinary
        BINARY_UNIX=$(BINARY_NAME)_unix

which can be written

        GOCMD   := go
        GOBUILD := $(GOCMD) build
        GOCLEAN := $(GOCMD) clean
        GOTEST  := $(GOCMD) test
        GOGET   := $(GOCMD) get

        BINARY_NAME := mybinary
        BINARY_UNIX := $(BINARY_NAME)_unix

2\. If you have a one line recipe then use the target: preq ; command syntax to avoid tabs. For example,

        build:
            $(GOBUILD) -o $(BINARY_NAME) -v

is the same as

        build: ; $(GOBUILD) -o $(BINARY_NAME) -v

<comment><USER3> While it is not so important in simple cases, '=' allows to not depend on the order of definitions, so you can group variables in logical order, not as statements. You can look at := as variable definition and = as semi-function definition. Penalty of delayed-but-many variable expansion that doesn't contain shell code is questionable. Also, with := half of them may not be used by 'maked' rule at all, actually losing performance.

There is also ?= which only sets a variable that was not set before or via command line or environment (make inherits current environment variables iirc).

<comment><USER4> > and = as semi-function definition.

Variable binding.

<comment><USER5> Well, = doesn't really behave like traditional variable binding, since you can do stuff like:

        build = cc -c -o $@ $<
        file1.o: file1.c
            $(build)
        file2.o: file2.c
            $(build)

(This is meant to illustrate the difference, this isn't a good makefile.)

To reinforce the notion that variables are really functions, you can even supply arguments when you call them:

        # reverse is a function
        reverse = $(2) $(1)

        # eventually expands to 2 1
        a = $(call reverse,1,2)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> There's another good use for Makefiles with go.

Gopath is one of the dumbest ideas I've seen. Multiple large projects under the same directory? Who thought that was a good idea. (and yes, I know you can create subdirectories, and mix all your packages together to create a giant mess.)

So I separate the projects into their own directories.. and use a Makefile to set gopath and run the go commands.

Still trying to figure out why golang tried to be innovative here.. What couldn't they use cwd like every other compiler I've ever seen?

<comment><USER7> Yeah, that is what turned me off of Golang. It was kind of a "straw that broke the camel's back" thing, though. Go is just an EXTREMELY opinionated language, and if you don't like that then you won't like it. The Best Way to do everything is decided for you ahead of time, which irks me because it isn't always true. But I can see the frustration it grew from when I use a language like Ruby, which has a half-dozen nearly-identical ways to accomplish most simple tasks.

Anyways, you could muck around with symlinks and crap, but come on. If I can't simply mkdir/vim/compile/run a 'hello world' program, there's probably something wrong with the language.

<comment><USER8> > If I can't simply mkdir/vim/compile/run a 'hello world' program, there's > probably something wrong with the language.

Like this?

`cat $HELLO_WORLD_PROG > /tmp/hello.go && go run /tmp/hello.go`

<comment><USER7> Yeah, like that!

But you know what I mean; multiple scattered workspaces, project folders on removable storage, etc. That sort of thing should be painless.

<comment><USER8> I've definitely had some other minor pain points with GOPATH, and I hate when veteran users of another language trivialize my pain points with their language, but I think all of the use cases you've described are all well within GOPATH's wheelhouse:

export GOPATH=$HOME/go:/media/USB-DISK:/foo/bar/baz

Now Go can find any projects in any of those workspaces. The only caveat is the projects have to be in a workspace, which is a directory with a src folder containing your project. I agree that this is a minor nuisance and I would design it differently, but Go's tooling is still far easier than pretty much anyone else's (it's actually what brought me to Go).

<comment><USER9> _> but Go's tooling is still far easier than pretty much anyone else's (it's actually what brought me to Go)._

Really?

Maybe that's true if you compare it to PIP (Python), Gems (Ruby) or NPM (JavaScript/NodeJS).

But I think that Cargo (Rust) got it almost perfectly right, and Opam+Ocamlbuild (OCaml) is very close.

<comment><USER8> Some other languages that make Go's tooling look awesome: C, C++, Java

Cargo is comparable to Go's tooling in my mind (in terms of ease of use; I think it's better in other categories), but figuring out how to use libraries (mod vs use) and organize a multi file project is a notorious pain point with no analog in Go. This means it's harder to get started with Rust than Go (language features notwithstanding), which is pretty much what we're discussing here.

I don't really know what to say about Ocaml. I don't have much experience, but most of it has been bad. It seems like you're supposed to use Makefiles, and an Opam file. The more I learned the less I liked, and it seemed to be the consensus that the build tooling was one of the language's weak points. I will say that installing packages from Opam was a painless experience. The build tooling wasn't the only thing that drove me away, but it was right up there with the poor standard library, ecosystem fragmentation, and low-quality documentation. Which is a shame because the language features look great.

With Go, all you need to know to get started is "go get".

<comment><USER10> >poor standard library

What's wrong with containers, batteries and core?

>go get

Wow, once I've tried go the package management was utterly broken, even cabal hell looked better than this. What, no package versions? Downloading directly from git repo, are you kidding me?

<comment><USER8> > What's wrong with containers, batteries and core?

Well, between those three and the actual std lib, there are four standard libraries, which defeats the purpose of having a _standard_ library.

> Wow, once I've tried go the package management was utterly broken, even > cabal hell looked better than this. What, no package versions? Downloading > directly from git repo, are you kidding me?

`go get` isn't a package manager. Go's solution to dependency management is vendoring, which has its own suite of problems, but my comment was about getting newbies off the ground, and for that `go get` is suitable.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> Nice article!

In my opinion, this level of abstraction may be going a little far:

        GOCMD=go
        GOBUILD=$(GOCMD) build
        GOCLEAN=$(GOCMD) clean
        GOTEST=$(GOCMD) test
        GOGET=$(GOCMD) get

It might seem like a good idea to constantize everything, but in practice, those commands are _never_ going to change.

By just invoking them directly in the targets you'll come out with something more readable and no less maintainable:

        build:
                go build -o $(BINARY_NAME) -v

<comment><USER12> But you may want to add a compiler flag, or change the path of the binary. If the binary is called in multiple places it does make sense to constantize it.

<comment><USER11> Possibly, but by moving flags up to the constants you also run the risk of obfuscating things further. A little bit of repetition when it comes to compiler flags (especially in Go where there are relatively few) is a good trade for the added clarity it conveys.

Invoking a particular binary is valid, but even there, you only need one constant, not one for every subcommand.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> In my recent cross-platform projects, I just make a build.go script that can handle multiple commands and then just have builders only use that. E.g.

        go run build.go build release

This crosses platforms, is easy to read and contribute to, is a much better language than make + CLI utils (or shell scripts), etc. It's not too much asking them to have "go" on the PATH. A similar approach could be taken w/ Python too. For most of this, there really isn't much code reuse needed, but it's often better to embed it than rely on external deps. Complex build script example: [https://github.com/cretz/doogie/blob/8c53a266f35146a3c0d8f14...](https://github.com/cretz/doogie/blob/8c53a266f35146a3c0d8f14fa22d830141f1497b/src/build.go).

<comment><USER14> camlistore does this too, but a Makefile calls "go run make.go" [https://github.com/camlistore/camlistore/blob/master/Makefil...](https://github.com/camlistore/camlistore/blob/master/Makefile)

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> You're missing half of what makefiles are for: only building what you need based on dependencies.

I never used Go so the following may not be technically correct, but in principle:

\- The `build` rule should be `build: *.go` so that it builds only if a file has changed. \- The `run` rule should have the `build` rule as dependency, so as to not rebuild if nothing has changed. Plus, it avoid to repeat the almost- identical build command (which is not very DRY)

Plus, I'm not convinced of the usefulness of having a $GOCMD variable (or $GOGET, $GOBUILD...). But again, never used go, no idea if the tooling is as tweakable as C (for which this kind of variable is used a lot in makefiles)

<comment><USER2> You really don't want to do that. I know what you mean but the go command handles the dependency stuff. Trying to shoe horn that into a Makefile is a disaster.

<comment><USER16> It's doable though: 'go list -f "{{.Stale}}" $PACKAGE' can be used to determine if a package needs to be rebuilt; this can be used in a make rule which touches a stamp file, and then the stamp file may be relied upon for other make rules.

My quibble with the example Makefile as written is that it doesn't utilise 'go install,' which I much prefer to 'go build.'

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> There are a lot of problems with this approach and a few errors in the post, but I'm just going to highlight the most significant one:

> If the project uses CI/CD or just for consistency, it is good to keep the > list of dependencies used in packages. This is done by the "deps" task, > which should get all the necessary dependencies by "go get" command.

This is a very strong anti-pattern. Everyone should be using a dedicated version management tool (ideally dep[0], but there are others), which handles this seamlessly and behind the scenes. Introducing another place where dependencies are tracked and can be installed is a recipe for problems down the line.

[0] [https://github.com/golang/dep/](https://github.com/golang/dep/)

</comment><comment><USER18> Makefiles are great for *nix systems. But, Go is a first class language on Windows. For open source projects who want to have contributors cross platform... how can they use Makefiles effectively?

<comment><USER19> Install gnu make. I personally typically go with msys since it is slightly less intrusive and more windows friendly than cygwin. There is also the new Linux subsystem...

<comment><USER20> If you build under the new Linux subsystem, you'll get a Linux binary. That's not a good solution if you want to build a Windows binary.

<comment><USER19> Note I didn't say anything about what compiler will be used or commands actually run. Make just calls the shell. If the shell runs stuff that produces Windows binaries you get Windows binaries.

(Assuming they fixed the Linux subsystem in a way that execve(2) works on Windows binaries, which I heard in the first version they didn't have working, then there should be no problems.)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> Quick feedback:

There should be a BINARY_NAME target that 'run' depends on instead of repeating the build command.

The source files should be named as dependencies when they are inputs to a build step.

Anything that isn't a file should be listed as .PHONY target. Otherwise, make gets confused if you, for example, create a directory named 'test'.

If the goal of your makefile is to make your workflow simpler and easier to discover, consider adding a 'help' target that at least describes the interesting targets. It might also direct users to a more involved explanation if there are interesting things about your project they need to know about.

</comment><comment><USER22> My only gripe with Makefiles is the lack of support on Windows. I work on several Go projects, all of which use a Makefile. It makes for a great experience on MacOS and Linux, but on Windows I have to break down the Makefile logic into powershell scripts or run raw `go test/build`. Both are fine, but just pointing out the fact that it's not a silver bullet if your project is intended to work across multiple platforms (like a CLI).

<comment><USER23> If you use Cmder[1] as your terminal, and you install the full package, make is bundled with it and works exactly as you'd expect it to. I do this with a couple of cross platform Go projects, and make works nicely on macOS, Linux, and Windows.

Of course, this is less useful if it's a team project, because then everyone will have to install Cmder (or at least msys) to use the Makefile on a Windows system.

[1][http://cmder.net/](http://cmder.net/)

<comment><USER22> Sure, I have `make` installed and I'm using cmder, but some things do not translate well in Windows.

[https://cognitivewaves.wordpress.com/makefiles- windows/](https://cognitivewaves.wordpress.com/makefiles-windows/)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> This is gonna get me in trouble here, but I like using Python for build tool. The reason for it is because Python plays nicely on all 3 major platforms.

<comment><USER25> Fair question. What do makefiles have that make them better than a good scripting language like python ?

<comment><USER26> Make will check if your dependencies need to be rebuilt, and will only rebuild them if they have changed / been updated.

This is hugely valuable because you can save build times by not needlessly re- compiling the whole world. Linking times are always going to remain the same regardless, but you can definitely make the process more efficient. An example from C/C++ is not generating new object (*.o) files for source files that haven't changed (and who's dependencies haven't changed).

Make also has a pretty standardized syntax and has a bunch of open source implementations. This may not seem to matter since Python has many implementations (as an example), but remember that make is just a program, not a full platform. Python may execute differently depending on the version of Python, the version of any library you're using in the process, or even on the architecture (okay, maybe not in Python so much, but in some scripting languages it could matter). Make only depends on the version of make that you install.

Lastly, make comes with parallelism in your build mostly for free. Calling `make -j4 all` will run up to 4 rules at a time in parallel. In some cases this won't work because your dependencies are tangled in a mess and parallelism can't be guaranteed, but it's a lot easier to get parallel builds for most projects with make compared to something like Python, which either has to use something like the multiprocessing library, or pray that the GIL doesn't bite. In my opinion, this is not something you should be baking yourself into your build system. Make has done it and it has been done right for years.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER27> For tasks like the one the author describes, I prefer using just [1] over make. It's designed to be a command runner rather than a build tool, so you lose things like considering whether files have been modified when executing a target, but it includes some features that make it better than make for keeping a list of commonly-run commands.

In particular, it can: \- list/show available commands \- pass through command line arguments \- run commands in a different directory \- run with a different interpreter \- has better error messages

[1] [https://github.com/casey/just](https://github.com/casey/just)

<comment><USER28> > For tasks like the one the author describes, I prefer using just [1] over > make.

Just really ought to be better known.

</comment></comment><comment><USER29>
        # Go parameters
        GOCMD=go
        GOBUILD=$(GOCMD) build
        GOCLEAN=$(GOCMD) clean
        GOTEST=$(GOCMD) test
        GOGET=$(GOCMD) get
        BINARY_NAME=mybinary
        BINARY_UNIX=$(BINARY_NAME)_unix

A little bit of Clean Code education is needed here :) Why on earth do you want to introduce so unnecessary abstraction? If those would use a lot of switches which you don't want to duplicate and just possibly want it to change in one place, I would say OK. But you don't even use it that way:

        $(GOBUILD) -o $(BINARY_NAME) -v ./...

        CGO_ENABLED=0 GOOS=linux GOARCH=amd64 $(GOBUILD) -o $(BINARY_UNIX) -v

So this doesn't make sense at all. You should write the commands as it is and it would be a lot easier to read an already hard-to-read syntax Makefiles anyway.

<comment><USER30> I'd say "GOCMD" would be sane if it were phrased "GO" instead. That's the convention for most commands in makefiles, stemming from the fact that if you need to invoke `make` recursively, you use `$(MAKE)` (provided automatically) to do it so you don't break nice things like -j.

</comment></comment><comment><USER31> I really liked makefiles and thought wouldn't it be interesting if new features could be added to them so I made [https://github.com/gabrielcsapo/build.sh](https://github.com/gabrielcsapo/build.sh) it isn't completely done as you can only run the entire pipeline but I really like the ergonomic that makefiles provided. (Written in node, also provided as a binary, node not necessary)

</comment><comment><USER32> Aren't all the targets in OPs Makefile phony? Why not just have a simple shell script instead and not involve make at all?

</comment><comment><USER33> I like Makefiles and Makefiles for Go are especially simple, but they don't play well with "go get", do they?

<comment><USER34> Just because you have a Makefile in your repository, it doesn't mean the package(s) aren't `go get`-able. As long as the package can be built with `go install`/`go build` it should be fine.

<comment><USER33> Right, but then the value of the Makefile is pretty marginal.

<comment><USER35> The value of the Makefile is for automating repetitive dev tasks. Consumers of a golang CLI should use `go get` but this makes it easier for contributors who run tests, cut releases, ..

The authors example is clean/simple. Here's an example not so clean/simple example where we needed to do more complex stuff like build for all target platforms[1].

[1] [https://github.com/cloudfoundry-community/stackdriver- tools/...](https://github.com/cloudfoundry-community/stackdriver- tools/blob/master/src/stackdriver-nozzle/Makefile)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER36> Been doing this since I started to use Go, with one twist: I set $GOPATH and have a vendoring target for each project, because Go _really_ needs per- project environments and saner dependency management... (dep is OK, but I need more control)

</comment><comment><USER37> How do large Go projects outside of Google get built, anyway? Is it idiomatic to use Makefiles?

Inside Google, there are BUILD rules for Go, but it looks like they haven't been open-sourced in Bazel yet.

<comment><USER38> There are some released bazel rules for Go:

[https://github.com/bazelbuild/rules_go](https://github.com/bazelbuild/rules_go)

<comment><USER37> Nice! Are there any plans to document their existence in the Build Encyclopedia[0]? Or is the idea that each company should vendor the build rules for languages like Go?

[0] [https://docs.bazel.build/versions/master/be/overview.html](https://docs.bazel.build/versions/master/be/overview.html)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER39> Don't forget to use "go build -i", otherwise everything is compiled every time. With the -i flag you get caching, which can significantly speed up compilation.

</comment><comment><USER40> I've seen many articles lately about using Make for NodeJS, Go, and other modern languages. I really do not understand it. Lots of these languages (Go and NodeJS) were designed to be cross-platform or at least easily compiled on different OS's.

Why use a platform specific tool and restrict yourself to Linux? I'd prefer people find a similar tool that is designed to work on any platform.

<comment><USER41> Huh? I use make all the time on Windows. You don't even need Cygwin, MSYS, or Windows Subsystem for Linux. There are make binaries that work well, for example:

[http://gnuwin32.sourceforge.net/packages/make.htm](http://gnuwin32.sourceforge.net/packages/make.htm)

<comment><USER42> What do u use for all the shell scripting and commands that usually go along with make

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER43> Is the word "be" missing in the title, or it's a joke?

<comment><USER44> Did you read the article? It's fairly clear that the author isn't a native speaker.

<comment><USER45> We may have been too hard on the GP, as I think he was just wondering whether it was accidental or the popular "doesn't afraid" meme.

<comment><USER43> Poe's law strikes again!

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER46> Cool! A variant of C language, makefiles... Now all I need is a tower PC with Windows NT 4.0 on it and I'll be all set!

On another thought... no. I'll stick in 2017 with modern tools and languages.

<comment><USER47> However you feel about go, it's not really a variant of C. The syntax is a bit similar, but there are a lot of fundamental differences.

<comment><USER46> This is a fair point. What I meant is that I think the usability niche for Go is similar to that of C. Is that a fair statement?

I was unfair to Go and this is because I seem to see many cases where Go is brought to where it does not fit.</comment></comment></comment>


General Electrics plays down industrial control plant vulnerabilities - <AUTHOR> http://www.theregister.co.uk/2017/01/20/ge_scada_vulns/ <comment><AUTHOR> another one [http://download.schneider- electric.com/files?p_enDocType=Tec...](http://download.schneider- electric.com/files?p_enDocType=Technical+leaflet&p_File_Id=5989386180&p_File_Name=SEVD-2017-011-01+HomeLYnk+Controller+v2.pdf&p_Reference=SEVD-2017-011-01)</comment>


App installer design: click packages - <AUTHOR> https://lists.ubuntu.com/archives/ubuntu-devel/2013-May/037074.html

<comment><AUTHOR> Initially I tried to submit this [http://www.webupd8.org/2013/05/ubuntu-might- get-new-simplifi...](http://www.webupd8.org/2013/05/ubuntu-might-get-new- simplified.html) since it has all the key info and better title, but HN just told me to stop spamming. Is Webupd8 banned or what's going on? (Also OMGUbuntu submissions are just not shown at all anywhere.)

<comment><USER2> Turn on showdead in your profile and you'll see the omgubuntu links that you've submitted, marked as [dead].

It's a shame that your better link didn't get posted.</comment></comment>


How to Start Unit Testing .NET Projects: A Unit Testing Guide - <AUTHOR> http://www.typemock.com/unit-testing-dot-net

<comment><USER2> As a .NET developer who has yet to integrate regular unit testing into his work, I thought this article was too short to be useful. Some concrete examples would help.

<comment><USER3> There are additional examples at <http://www.typemock.com/articles></comment></comment>


Userbase: Build client-side web apps - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/encrypted-dev/userbase <comment><USER2> I feel deceived by this statement:

> No backend necessary.

Because its soon followed by:

> Running the Userbase server requires an AWS account.</comment>


Japan revises law to ban parents from physically punishing children - <AUTHOR> https://japantoday.com/category/national/Japan-revises-law-to-ban-parents-from-physically-punishing-children <comment><USER2> >TOKYO > >The requested article has expired, and is no longer available</comment>


Uniqueness in Logic Puzzles [pdf] - <AUTHOR> https://pdfs.semanticscholar.org/0621/4f835eab60a3ef1853ce5ba30ad4aaa48a54.pdf <comment><AUTHOR> Uniqueness was something I guiltily used to solve puzzles but it is interesting to learn that it is sometimes a required part of the solution. It is sort of a self-fulfilling prophecy. Also since a brute force solution will usually not be the one that puzzle creator intended, you can argue that we are creating puzzles that humans can solve but computers can't.</comment>


Pocket Sized Virtual Reality Device - <AUTHOR> https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/smartvr-make-your-phone-a-virtual-reality-viewer/x/7469849#/ <comment> n-gauge I wonder how this would work without any magnetic switches - just that having made my own cardboard viewer for a nexus 7 and without the magnetic switch you have to tap the screen somehow which breaks the experience (for me)

<comment><AUTHOR> Hi, Designer of the VR device posted here. The bottom of the viewer is open so you can touch the screen with your thumb. We really wanted to make the most sharable VR device so we focused on simplifying and making it fit into a pocket.</comment></comment>


Four Reasons Apple Is the New Microsoft - <AUTHOR> http://blogs.wsj.com/moneybeat/2014/02/20/four-reasons-apple-is-the-new-microsoft/

<comment><USER2> > Barclays isn't convinced. "We believe the valuation argument is becoming > less and less helpful," the firm said. "Furthermore, we look at a valuation > analogy vs. Microsoft from 2000 to about 2010 and see no precedent that > large-size tech companies simply start to broadly outperform again after a > tough year or two if the law of large numbers is catching up to them and > margins have peaked."

In my fantasy world, said analyst would be facing a massive fine for mistaking "Same % growth is harder the bigger you get" and "The Law of Large Numbers".</comment>


Galaxy Nexus Available In US - <AUTHOR> http://www.google.com/nexus/#utm_campaign=us&utm_source=ha-bk&utm_medium=sem&utm_term=%2Bnexus

<comment><USER2> Maybe I'm alone, but I won't be getting the Galaxy Nexus because it's too damn big. My current phone is 4.3", and it annoys me because it's a struggle to reach the top of the screen with my thumb (i.e. one-handed operation). I tried a 4.5" Galaxy SII and it was just too much for me.

That said, my old Nexus One feels tiny once I've gotten used to a larger phone. I think 4" is the sweet-spot for me- I just hope that phones don't keep climbing ever higher and ignoring the smaller form factor.

<comment><USER3> I liked when phones were getting smaller. I don't like this getting bigger trend. I'd like an iPhone sized Android that doesn't suck.

<comment><USER4> I love that they are getting bigger. I had a big issue with the Galaxy Note vs Galaxy Nexus. The Note's 5"+ screen sold me, but the button configuration was last generation (android 2.x), and no ICS, and not the pure Google experience.

HP, ignoring the disaster that they are, really were headed down the right path. A tiny phone, a large phone, and a tablet. Over the years, you could totally see that large phone getting larger and the tiny phone getting even smaller. Great for both me and you. Too bad they went and screwed everything up.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Google is really letting Verizon screw this up. First no Wallet, then Verizon apps on phone, and now that the LTE model is released, we find that the GSM model is cheaper to import than the Verizon LTE model is to buy without contract.

The GSM model also happens to be pentaband 3g, so it works with TMobile and AT&T in the US. I've been using mine on TMobile for 2 weeks now, bought for about $730 from Expansys.

And yes, it is awesome. Just make sure you unlock the bootloader immediately, so you dont have to wipe it later if you choose to unlock then.

<comment><USER5> >we find that the GSM model is cheaper to import than the Verizon LTE model is to buy without contract.

The Verizon LTE model is $650 off contract. Third party retailers may charge more because they only otherwise make money if people sign contracts and generate commissions. I read Radio Shack and Best Buy charge $750 for the commitment free device. But if you go to a corporate Verizon shop or buy it off the web, it's $650.

That said: I actually found that with my corporate negotiated discount with Verizon getting me $50 off a device if you signed a contract, it is cheaper for me to add a contract line to get the subsidized price, and then immediately cancel it and pay the ETF rather than buy the phone outright. Doing that also means I only pay sales tax on the subsidized price rather than the full $650.

<comment><USER6> If you're in California you'll pay tax on the whole $650 unfortunately.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> I went to one VZW store this morning, and they were sold out 10 minutes after opening. Headed straight for Best Buy and got the last of 5 (?!) that they had received.

The phone is not without problems. Everyone mentioned my voice sounds a little tinny compared to on my OG Droid, and Ubuntu won't recognize the phone so music transfer is a problem. Still, I think I'll be keeping it, even if it is unbelievably huge.

<comment><USER4> You need MTP stuff -- mtp-tools. The newest Amarok or Rhythmbox w/ plugin should work fine.

The Nexus unified the filesystem, and therefore cant give USB block-level access. MTP was the only way to go unless you want to have a separate partition, which leads to the terrible 'is the app on local or on sd?' situation.

Here is the situation described: [http://www.electronista.com/articles/11/11/19/galaxy.nexus.f...](http://www.electronista.com/articles/11/11/19/galaxy.nexus.follows.ios.model.of.unified.storage/)

For mac users, you want this tool: <http://www.android.com/filetransfer/>

After having the Galaxy Nexus for 2 weeks, the phone no longer feels large in my hands, but the Nexus S it replaced looks ancient and pathetically tiny/low- resolution.

<comment><USER8> I'm one of the bought-it-just-this-morning crowd, so I'm doing the "MTP, WTF?" dance with everyone else. For the record, for folks who don't yet know: ICS has dumped the idea of managing the internal storage as a FAT32 filesystem that can be mounted on the USB host. Instead, it stores it internally in ext4 and uses the Media Transfer Protocol to export it over USB.

I found this gadget, which is a fuse wrapper around libmtp: <http://www.adebenham.com/mtpfs/>

It's not packaged (though libmtp is on fedora 16 at least), but is trivially buildable and installs just a single binary. Then "mtpfs /local/mount/dir" will mount your phone's /data partition for you. Much cleaner than trying to sync via a media player IMHO.

<comment><USER9> What I have seen on reviews is that this is not an ICS issue, but rather because the Galaxy Nexus doesn't include a SD card. Which can be a good thing.

The article you linked to explains that in the fourth paragraph. Their reasoning is that they don't want people to need a file manager in Android. It makes since to me.I like that they are going to a one large internal storage location.

<comment><USER8> It's neither really. The reason is that the data filesystem used to be FAT, so that it could easily be read by host computers using the preexisting USB Storage standard. But FAT sucks (for reasons too numerous to list here), so they went with ext4. But that can't be mounted on anything but a linux box, so they had to pick a new file exchange mechanism. It could have been something like SMB over a USB CDC network device (phones have done that in the past) but they picked MTP instead.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> according to wirefly, verizon's basic plan is $60 per month for 450min and $30 additional for the basic basic data plan (4GB personal email only no idea what it means). That's a whopping $90 for a basic plan and I don't know if the data plan is viable to unleash Nexus Galaxy's power. Anything above that is going to be over $100 per phone. For comparison I just checkd out Sprint plan which is $70 per month with 450 min unlimited data. that's at least $20 per month and if you add the data plan you wanted it's easily going to be $40 difference per month. The unlocked version sells for $749 and with the verizon plan it sells for $189, which is $560 difference. With a $10GB data plan from verizon (seems to be the best discounted value) it costs $110/month from verizon yields a $40 difference per month. This will make up the difference ($560) in 14 mnoths. It mean this verizon offer is only cheaper if we are not forced to sign a two year contract and you are ought to migrate to some plans much cheaper as soon as you get the phone. Does it make sense?

<comment><USER11> It's sort of unreal how expensive phones are in the US. As an Australian who is used to everything being more expensive, you're looking at $57 per month for a fairly similar plan (500 minutes, 1.5GB data without charging for incoming minutes) with no upfront payment.

Total cost over 24 months is $1368, compared to (300+90*24 = ) $2460 on Verizon. Crazy.

(Note that I used AUD and USD interchangeably, they're pretty much worth the same).

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> Slightly off topic, but its a pet peeve that gadgets don't actually show (the limitations of) their product. See for example, their video camera: <http://puu.sh/aKx3>. The "video" taken is obviously not by the built in vidoe camera.

<comment><USER13> The burgers in the fast food commercials don't represent what your order is going to look like either

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> I'm pretty excited for this, I've been waiting to upgrade from my Droid Incredible and nothing else has grabbed my attention quite like the Galaxy Nexus.

<comment><USER15> I tried the Galaxy Nexus today and the really poor quality back plate (to gain battery/SIM access) threw me off. I was about to pay close to 700 dollars for a unlocked version and the quality seemed to be fairly humdrum. I can now categorically say that HTC phones seem to have better build quality.

Do pay attention to the finish of the backplate, in fact, try removing it in store. I saw that the fit and finish was slightly different between phones.

<comment><USER4> For a plate you will remove a few times in the life of the phone, it's a strange reason for killing the deal.

I agree, it is very cheap feeling, but it also feels thin and snug because it is a useless piece of shell.

You know, ideally, it'd be paper thin, but just as effective as holding in the battery/sim.

<comment><USER15> Precisely why I don't want it to be there, I don't really need access to the battery. For the SIM, a solution similar to the iPhone will ensure that the phone feels a lot more solid.

I guess you've tried putting back the back cover, each time a tab snapped into place, I winced, fearing I'll break one. I still have the first Nexus, it has its own issues, but it feels more 'solid'.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> What an incredibly botched launch. I signed up like 3 times on the google site to get notified and they never emailed me about it. I went into a Verizon store last week and asked to preorder, they had no idea when it was going to come out.

Well, I still want one but my christmas budget is spent. Maybe next year.

</comment><comment><USER17> I wonder if Verizon has some silly exclusive. The pentaband HSPA+ version went on sale here in Canada last week and even earlier in the UK.

I wonder when we'll see it available contract-free for ~500 from other places.</comment>


Police officer suspended for downloading movie in his squad car - <AUTHOR> http://host.madison.com/news/local/crime_and_courts/c7495b94-d411-11e0-8cd3-001cc4c002e0.html

<comment><USER2> Cops watch movies ALL THE TIME...

Military is worst...

They stream them usually but, this dumb-ass obviously over cooked his bacon.

"you have to install an external codec for this media content"

Hahahahaha!</comment>


Python -me: clever but useful command line hack - <AUTHOR> http://www.voidspace.org.uk/python/weblog/arch_d7_2010_12_25.shtml#e1200

<comment><USER2> Cute trick. I predict the bigger impact of this will be that namespace of single-letter modules on pypi will be used up shortly as people realize they want their own, slightly different hacks.

<comment><USER3> Good point. Can I suggest now then that people avoid x. Keep python -mx for private hacks.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Reminds me of the file ubygems.rb.</comment>


WHO head warns worst of virus is still ahead - <AUTHOR> https://apnews.com/bbf94a368f638e09ff5a45d06b886250 <comment><USER2> The worst is ahead if people miscalibrate their habits based on threat fatigue, impatience, conspiracy theories, hype, and/or lies. Without a vaccine or 100% quarantining+contact tracing, the pandemic will restart after each lockdown and keep going until essentially everyone is infected. Roughly between 3-25% of NY state and 5-15% of Santa Clara county has/had it, and removing the lockdown will just make it spread like crazy. New cases would've stopped completely after 2 weeks if people obeyed the rules or lockdowns were enforced strictly and the infected were uniformly isolated.</comment>


Living On Bitcoin For A Week: Can't Pay The Rent - <AUTHOR> http://www.forbes.com/sites/kashmirhill/2013/05/06/living-on-bitcoin-for-a-week-cant-pay-the-rent/

<comment><USER2> Ha, I'm moving in Saturday.</comment>


Web: As Seen By The Color Blind - <AUTHOR> http://www.colourlovers.com/blog/2008/07/24/as-seen-by-the-color-blind/

<comment><USER2> As someone with very mild red-green colorblindness (based on the article, probably protanomaly or deuteranomaly), I'm not really ever affected on the web. However, I HATE it when games (often puzzle games) use red and green color coding. I see them as distinct colors, but for certain shades, the contrast between them is very slight, which makes the game a lot more difficult and frustrating.

I guess it's one of those things where if no one on the team suffers from it, they have no real reason to consider it.

<comment><USER3> I'm in the same boat. That's why I'm glad when games, like Peggle, or Enemy Territory: Quake Wars (not really a puzzle game, but still works for the example) have options for color blind people. It's not that always difficult to add, but makes a huge difference to the end user, if they're colorblind.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Colorblind people are only just one small group that need to be considered. Since not many sites use a blatantly impossible color scheme (truth be told the last time I've been told by a colorblind friend that there was a problem was back when Apple used red and green dots for iPhone availability (2g, not 3g), now Apple's using shapes and colors), I'd say the bigger accessibility travesty I can think of now are sites that use image-based captchas with no alternatives (audio, answer a question, etc.). Grrrr.

Not to say I don't think much of colorblindness (I still test for that on the sites I work on, there are some excellent tools around for that purpose), and not to say that I love spam, but I hate those particular types of captchas.</comment>


Canada denied visas to dozens of Africans for a big A.I. conference - <AUTHOR> https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2018/12/canada-denied-visas-dozens-africans-big-artificial-intelligence-conference <comment><USER2> _I'm going to hang up this phone, and then show these people what you don't want them to see. I'm going to show them a world without you. A world without rules or controls, borders or boundaries. A world where anything is possible._

This is still what we should be aspiring to. Sad how little progress we've made over the last 20 years. Hell, we've probably regressed. :-(</comment>