Lessons from Hiring a Remote Team - <AUTHOR> https://cvcompiler.com/blog/7-rules-of-hiring-a-remote-team-for-your-project/ <comment><USER2> > Put some 'traps' in the job description

Careful with that, it implies you have an issue with trust or micromanagement. As a candidate, I'd roll my eyes and move on.

> Talk about life with your candidates

Careful with this one too. It's illegal to discriminate candidates based on non-work aspects (e.g. candidate has kids). If you're a small company C-suit doing the hiring, this is especially problematic as it can come across to a candidate as being overly nosy and raise flags.

<comment> T-hawk > It's illegal to discriminate candidates based on non-work aspects (e.g. > candidate has kids).

This is true only when a specific law creates a specific protected class. Discrimination is legal by default. An employer can freely choose who it associates with. It only becomes illegal when a specific law makes it so.

Protected classes in most US jurisdictions include characteristics like gender, race, religion, some medical conditions. Age is a protected class only over age 40; discriminating against a worker of age 39 for being too old, or favoring workers over 40, is entirely legal. I don't know offhand if family status of kids is a protected class.

But protected classes don't include a lot of things that people commonly think they do. Some example non-work factors that are perfectly legal to discriminate on because there is no US law protecting the class: smoking, obesity, height, car you drive, method of commuting, sports team favoritism.

<comment><USER3> If you're asking invasive personal questions like "what are your life plans?" during a job interview it can look like you're trying to discriminate against a protected class.

I'm a childless woman at the age where most conversations about vague future life plans are actually inquiries about childbearing.

It's risky and there's just no good reason to do it.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> > Talk about life with your candidates

> I have one simple rule: I don't want to work with people whom I wouldn't > invite for coffee. When hiring a remote team member, I always talk to them > about their life plans or favorite books. This small talk shows me whether a > person will be a good fit for our team.

This is _fine_ , so long as you recognize your own biases and don't expect to be mirroring yourself on to other people. Humans looking to make an honest living are not your personal canvas. If you look for people who can get along with you without necessarily expecting them to be your "bro", then being chummy with candidates should be acceptable. Be sure to accept people with different interests and personalities.

<comment><USER5> What if I don't read books? Am I instantly not allowed to be on the team? :(

<comment><USER6> All joking aside that's one of my filters for any hiring, and whether or not I'll work with someone. Someone who doesn't read, or hasn't read recently (tech, econ, whatever), I find is then missing all sorts of other things that make it a bad experience.

<comment><USER7> As an insatiable reader: yikes!

There has got to be such a poor correlation between reading and being a good hire, I'm shocked you'd admit to seriously using such an awful filter for hiring. Hiring people that are most like you in appearance, philosophy, mannerisms, hobbies is a TERRIBLE way to hire.

<comment><USER8> I find there to be decent overlap between readers and intellectually curious people. It's hard to be intellectually curious if you don't read.

<comment><USER9> Many if not owerwhelming majority of people who read do read same story or kind of book over and over. It is called preference.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> >I have one simple rule: I don't want to work with people whom I wouldn't invite for coffee. When hiring a remote team member, I always talk to them about their life plans or favorite books. This small talk shows me whether a person will be a good fit for our team.

Hrm.... I was under the impression that people hiring were looking for employees/teammembers/coworkers, not buddies??

I don't personally care if I would enjoy coffee/beer with a coworker as long as they are a good teammate, employee, and coworker. I don't find an team full of people that have the same hobbies and enjoy the same literature particularly beneficial in any way.

I just don't think "enjoys the same books as me" is a good test for "makes a good teammate."

In the past I have had some absolutely fantastic coworkers that I had absolutely nothing in common with outside of work and would never want to hang out with (stuff like young earth creationists, has a mail order bride younger than his daughter, incredibly sheltered people, and just weird people). OTOH, some people I've become friends with outside of work make for horrible coworkers (stuff like poor work ethic, poor code quality, horrible attitude towards work, primadonnas in a work setting, control freaks at work). I also worked with a guy who just wouldn't talk about anything personal at work with coworkers (boss obviously different) because he believed in a separation between personal life and work life. No problem, he still made a fine coworker.

I'd very, VERY strongly discourage asking interviewees about their "life plans," like, seriously, this is a BAD idea. Asking about "life plans" can come across as looking to discriminate against people with families, people who plan to start a family soon, or even people who have certain religious beliefs, which is illegal in many parts of the world, including the US. It might seem like a harmless question if a young male is asking another young male "what are your life plans?" in an interview, but it seems a _lot_ less harmless when the interviewee is a female of childbearing age. If an interviewer asked me "what are your life plans?" I'd assume the subtext was "are you planning on going on maturity leave soon?"

Also, what the hell sort of answer to this question would be a "good" answer and what would be a "bad" answer? Are you just looking to hire people with the same life plans as you???

<comment><USER10> I hate to say it, but I agree. My most annoying collegue is the most dependable, knowledgable person I know. Once you navigate his fuckedupness he is quite a joy to work with, but god forbid I ever socialize with him, it is a nightmare.

<comment><USER11> Coffee with a co-worker isn't socializing. In many cases it's just an extension of work.

<comment><USER3> Why would someone say "I have one simple rule: I don't want to work with people whom I wouldn't [work with]?" That's a meaningless tautology. You also don't need to know someone's life plans and literature preferences if you're just working with them.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> Aside from "paying well" this is like a laundry list of what to not do.

1\. Unless you're paying me, I'm not doing homework.

2\. This isn't a dating ad, it's an employment offer. You're not hiring PIs.

4\. Be careful about building a social club instead of a company

5\. I don't work with people who don't understand the separation between work and my personal life. My political views, social views, and what I do with my free time are none of your business as long as I don't make them your business. Frankly, I don't want to be your friend.

7\. A book is garbage onboarding. Your onboarding needs to be task oriented and fast. Give them a quick checklist on how to get access, pull down a project, and build it and run tests. Don't expect them to study a godforsaken manual.

<comment><USER3> What does "PIs" stand for in this context?

<comment><USER12> Private Investigators.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> Lessons #1. Tricking candidates is a fake filter. It doesn't get you better candidates. Why not take every 2nd application and toss it out for no reason. Or only call back names that start with a vowel? Same effect.

Lesson #2. Would we make a good coffee date? Why not base it on if they would make a great bowling buddy or dance contest partner? Are they single? Do they have good looking friends that they could set me up with?

Lesson #3 References are a degree more useless for remote candidates. Easier to make up and fake. It worked well 100 years ago when everyone knew everyone less so now.

Lesson #4 Having someone do a test closely mirroring your process is great for temp contractor not so good if you are looking at someone to take your codebase to the next level.

</comment><comment><USER14> "traps" comment is attracting a lot of flak in comments here - easy to understand why, it gives the sense of being set up for failure.

I'd love to see OP expand on this point as I feel the wording distracts from the main point, which is a subtle test of someone's attention to detail and / or facility with written communication, both of which are important for remote work, where 'over-the-desk' clarifications are not available

<comment><USER15> This will happen naturally during the negotation and interview process and it will look a lot more like "real work" than any trap, trick or quiz. Are they effectively writing emails as you have your back and forth? Do they ask good clarifying questions? What do they do with their contract once it's sent to them?

Actually getting someone in the door requires a lot of work on both sides of the table. It's a perfect and natural way to vet what it's like to work with someone.

<comment><USER14> You're right. Nothing beats actually working with someone to learn whether you want to work with someone. However there are inefficiencies in doing this, which is why assessments (which are all proxies for the work) are used.

I don't think it's unreasonable to use subtle testing like this. We likely do it anyway (i.e we make judgement calls when reviewing someone's online profile, portfolio etc) - all equally sub-optimal but we use it because we need a short cut

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> I don't consider a "50-page PDF" as on-boarding. It feels more like a cover- your-ass document. I would fear that when the candidate becomes confused about something, the book gives the team a free pass to give the look of "did you even RTFM?"

Proper on-boarding is pairing, it's a walkthrough, answering questions contextually as they arise.

Not a brain dump of everything you think they should know.

</comment><comment><USER17> > Talk about life with your candidates

That's the best way to not hire introvert competent people.

<comment><USER18> I'm an introvert and I don't mind talking about life. Just don't expect the things I talk about to be bent towards social endeavors.

<comment><USER19> I'm an introvert and on the spectrum - when someone asks me about "life", I immediately find the question to be like an inquisition into my personal life.

I'm also gay and married, that makes any "personal life" questions fraught with discrimination liability.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> This article reminds me of one of my favorite "quick filter" stories:

I had a female friend who would ask every guy she met two questions: 1\. Do you have a passport? 2\. Do you have a library card?

If the answer to #1 was 'No', then that meant that they had never left the country.

If the answer to #2 was 'No', odds were that they didn't LOVE to read. (This story is from the pre-ereader days)

I've always been fascinated by questions like these that can quickly allow you to parse/grok/filter people with a high degree of success and minimal false positives.

</comment><comment><USER21> > Hiring a remote team is not an easy task, but if you believe it's for you, > you will cope with it. Good luck!

The best I can hope for is "coping"? Doesn't sound so inspiring!

<comment><USER22> Hiring is a huge pain point for many people. It's a billion dollar problem. We want it to go away. Of course it ain't going to be fun, nor inspiring.

</comment></comment><comment><USER23> I don't see a problem with the "traps" mentioned, which are only a mean to check whether the candidate has read the job description in full before applying and/or that (s)he can follow simple instructions when applying.

So not really traps at all, and not aimed at tripping candidates up.

<comment><USER19> Adding requirements for candidates to be fulfilled during the application process shouldn't be a trap!

<comment><USER23> It's not a trap. Perhaps the author did not choose the best term.

<comment><USER19> It is. He literally explains what kind of stupid actions he suggests going "candidates to replace the subject line of their application with a specific phrase".*

If you want attentiveness, then ask for a rational action to be completed... Not senseless idiocy.

* - Had I seen this request(I read the job postings carefully) I would definitely skip the job.

<comment><USER23> If someone cannot follow a simple instruction in a job posting then perhaps they shouldn't call the job poster 'stupid'...

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> Really disagree with a lot of this (and I'm a strong advocate for remote work).

> _It's reckless to judge a candidate only from the perspective of their > portfolio or resume, not seeing this person in real work._

I try to hire exclusively based on portfolio and having an engaged and in- depth conversation with a candidate about their work. Works great! Doesn't waste anyone's time and I've got many excellent candidates who flat out refuse to take tests or do homework to get a job.

> _Put some 'traps' in the job description_

Hell to the f'ing no! Do not work with anyone who tries to trap or trick you during the interview process.

> _I have one simple rule: I don't want to work with people whom I wouldn't > invite for coffee_

Grow up. You're not looking for friends you're looking for co-workers.

This company sounds extremely toxic.

<comment><USER24> >I try to hire exclusively based on portfolio and having an engaged and in- depth conversation with a candidate about their work. Works great! Doesn't waste anyone's time and I've got many excellent candidates who flat out refuse to take tests or do homework to get a job.

What kinds of positions do you hire for? I can see this possibly working alright for senior positions, but I've interviewed entirely too many people for entry-level positions who seem competent on paper and can talk about technologies on their resume in broad strokes, but struggle to solve even simple problems (e.g. implement an array-based stack) in their environment of choice in a screen-share interview. I started doing these simple exercises intending them to be a way of gaining insight into the candidate's approach, seeing what questions they ask, etc. Instead I find that many candidates simply aren't able to solve the problem, which I would never have guessed from their resume and conversation up to that point in the interview.

<comment><USER25> These are entry-level positions, and frankly I wouldn't expect so much of someone who is a junior engineer. They should be able to do it with coaching, they may need you to remind them of things from time to time, but I wouldn't expect a junior to be capable of just doing 100% without any coaching.

I would expect them to try to figure out what you're looking for, and I would expect them to do some googling to figure out what that means. But I've met too many juniors who couldn't do what you're asking without some coaching, and they all did fine.

Frankly, software development is a team effort, and you have to work to build a team. I've worked for too many companies that expect their entry-level juniors to competently deliver without any coaching, and it just doesn't work. Maybe we're all having so much trouble hiring because we're expecting too much of people and giving them too little help?

<comment><USER19> +9000

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> I'm fine with the "traps" mentioned. I know I would pay attention to those things even if I was looking at many job applications and I would expect anyone I'd hire to do the same.

As for "talking about life" I think it's a great idea. Many people ITT think it's about finding buddies, it's not. It's about getting a reading of the person and be able to make a better decision. This goes both ways, the candidate will also know what type of person he will be working with.

<comment><USER3> What sort of non-(illegal)discriminatory reason would you consider someone's life plans in a hiring decision? And it is _really_ worth the legal risk of asking this question?

<comment><USER26> It's not really about life plans or discrimination, it's about getting a sense of what the person is like outside of the professional skills and experience. Everyone brings extra baggage when getting into a job.

Does he/she have interests outside of the tech world? Maybe contributes to open source projects? Maybe likes learning new things constantly? Etc.

I've been hiring people for almost 20 years for my company, working as a manager in other people's companies, or sharing a project with other freelancers. It's undeniable the chemistry between team members is an important factor.

It also works the other way around, for the candidate to evaluate what kind of person his/her next boss will be like.

<comment><USER3> >what the person is like outside of the professional skills and experience

Not relevant as long as they are professional and capable at work. Just sounds like a (poor) justification for illegal discrimination.

>Maybe contributes to open source projects?

If you want to know this try asking "do you contribute to open source projects?" instead.

>It's undeniable the chemistry between team members is an important factor.

Sounds like an proxy for illegal discrimination. "Oh, our teams chemistry is important so we don't want to hire an older person/woman/Mormon/mother/Indian/recent immigrant/double amputee because they are too different and would mess up the team chemistry." Even if this isn't intentional its the end result.

I'll tell you what's important for team chemistry - respect and professionalism in a work setting, good work performance, and good work ethic. Not their life ambitions, what type of literature they read or what type of hobbies they have. I've _only_ worked in incredibly diverse teams and it's not a problem for "team chemistry." However, I would think working with someone who could only work with people they are friends with WOULD be a problem, a big problem.

But, really, could you actually honestly defend this position in court if you had to? Doubtful. I'm a childless woman at the age where most conversations about vague future life plans are actually inquiries about childbearing.

But, really, what's an example of a "wrong" answer to this question? Are you really going to say "Oh, she's boring outside of work, lets not hire her?" How silly.

I know a guy (not a coworker of mine) who literally does absolutely nothing outside of work except sleep, play video games, exercise, cook and clean, and very occasionally grabs a beer with me. He rarely leaves the house except to go to work. He's got the most boring life ever but he's gotten several promotions over the course of the first couple years of his career.

<comment><USER26> > _respect and professionalism in a work setting, good work performance, and > good work ethic_

And how do you evaluate that in an interview?

> _I 'm a childless woman at the age where most conversations about vague > future life plans are actually inquiries about childbearing._

I already said this is not about life-plans.

> _But, really, what 's an example of a "wrong" answer to this question? Are > you really going to say "Oh, she's boring outside of work, lets not hire > her?" How silly._

You are making many assumptions here which clearly indicate you are missing the point. It's not about knowing if the candidate prefers reading Dostoevsky or Dan Brown, it's about knowing a bit more about his/her character and personality.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER27> Most of this advice also applies to hiring onsite employees.

</comment><comment><USER28> There were several good points in the post and one really bad one ("traps" which has been pointed out a few times).

There are a few issues with "traps" that should be avoided (any kind, not just the one mentioned): (1) Taking a failure to pay attention to a minor detail in a job application and assuming that applies more broadly is a nice idea, but not practical. People make mistakes, people overlook things and they prioritize how much they'll pay attention based on the task, not desire -- i.e. if I'm applying for 30 jobs, 2 of which I'm really excited about, I'll spend more time on the two I'm excited about but I'm probably going to spend as much time reading the description and instructions as I did for the previous 30 because the task is repetitive and similar. (2) It's likely to turn people off -- when I see very specific, very odd instructions in a job application, it's a signal that the company is doing things ... oddly. Are all of their internal processes this rigid? Especially for _remote_ hiring, where your staff usually places a high value on flexibility, it's the wrong message to send.

But it makes you feel good, as the person doing hiring. It looks like a "quick way to eliminate a large number of resumes" and works about as well as all of those other quick ways.

The flip side of this sort of trap is that it can back-fire. Assuming that it truly does weed out candidates who lack an attention to detail, it could also skew toward perfectionist types who get everything perfect ... once it _eventually_ , _maybe_ gets completed at all.

<comment><USER29> To play devil's advocate:

If I'm the hiring manager, then I probably don't want to hire you for the 28 out of 30 jobs you're not interested in.

Sure, you're selecting for perfectionists, but arguably that's better than hiring people who don't really care about your company.

<comment><USER30> But at the same time, I only have so many hours in the day to research companies. If you asked me what companies I was interested in working at, you'd mostly get big-name stuff, even though right now I work somewhere you've likely never heard of.

If you're not a FAANG company, you almost have to be hiring folks who are applying to you because "why not", and then pitching them on your company. I've gone to plenty of interviews and been sold on a company that I previously had almost no knowledge of, especially in B2B industries. Massive portions of the jobs in tech are for teams, companies and industries that your average developer has no exposure to, and no real reason to care about, but it doesn't mean people can't become passionate about working there if given more information.

<comment><USER28>
        > even though right now I work somewhere you've likely never heard of.

I'm with you on that. I'm working at a place that, prior to the interview, _I_ had never heard of. It turned out I and much of my family had DTE Energy Bridges, which they were responsible for, had watched a cable news network who featured their Surface Table app for the 2008 elections and a number of other things that I'm not actually sure I'm allowed to mention.

Some of the best companies are hidden gems like this and almost all of the people I've interviewed have started out not knowing who we were before the interview and being very excited to work for us by the end (the others were already excited). Even _though_ we tend to attract great talent -- it's _difficult_. Frankly, lately, I'd _like_ it if my thinking was "I need fewer people who are ~qualified~ somewhere-in-the-same-time-zone-as-qualified for this position[0]" that would require a trap to weed some out.

[0] And we've paired down our job requirements -- these are also common positions: C# Backend Web / JS Front-end React (with TypeScript as a bonus!)

edit: the year was 2008, President Obama, not 2018 mid-terms (the network was MSNBC)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER31> Has any of this been A/B tested?

Is it disowning of me, if the absence of A/B testing make me think this is rather random opinions than solid advice?

</comment><comment><USER19> A few rules that are sorely missed

\- Remember to check out local work culture.(Americans stick out like a sore thumb in many western European work social situations)

\- Always, always, always have a good leader on site.

<comment><USER32> >Remember to check out local work culture.(Americans stick out like a sore thumb in many western European work social situations)

Care to elaborate a bit? I'm an American working at a large US University with a very diverse community. I've daydreamed about moving to western Europe, so I'd like to hear what the work social situations you're referring to are.

<comment><USER19> Depends where you want to move to. Diversity has really nothing to do with it. I work in a very diverse workplace, but many European countries have strong cultural norms for the workplace.

As an example - corporate events in Europe rarely include a +1. That confused all of my American colleagues, that are used to having their spouses join. Making friendships with people at work requires more than just "we work together".

In England having a pint after work on Thursday or Friday is basically a team building event. You better join in, or you'll stop being invited.(Drinking isn't mandatory, though)

In France - lunch time is not work time, so don't talk about work.

<comment><USER32> Thanks!

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER33> > It's reckless to judge a candidate only from the perspective of their > portfolio or resume, not seeing this person in real work.

> Put some 'traps' in the job description

Good grief.</comment>


Ask HN: Question about startup salary - <AUTHOR>

I've been offered a position in a bay area startup (10th employee) and since this will be my first opportunity working for a startup, I'm looking for some advice. The equity package is reasonable, but I'm not so sure about the salary. They're offering about 75K - I have abt 4 years of s/w experience, albeit in a different technology. Is this a reasonable offer ? <comment><USER2> Read this recent thread/article and reexamine your equity position:

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1151743>

Also, read this:

[http://www.tonywright.com/2008/a-newbies-guide-to-startup- co...](http://www.tonywright.com/2008/a-newbies-guide-to-startup-compensation- or-stock-options-will-make-me-rich/)

What is your % stake in the company? If you aren't getting a good piece of equity then I would push for a market rate salary based on your position and years of experience.

<comment><AUTHOR> thanks - i'm getting around 0.3%

<comment><USER3> Whats the current valuation of the startup? Raised money? Profitable?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Something else to remember is that when they get acquired, depending on where you moved to as they grew, you're left with a crappy payout and either get eliminated by the buying company or you're stuck with a well below market rate salary stuck at the company's "max annual increase" which usually tops out at 10%. Essentially, get salary reevaluation at set intervals locked into a contract with the salary adjustments only allowed upwards and based on your past and company performance.

</comment><comment><USER5> No, that is not a reasonable offer. It is a typical offer, though.

<comment><AUTHOR> typical of most bay area startups ?

<comment><USER5> Yes. The prevailing package for employee 10 is 70-80K with 0.5-1.5% of the options.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> 75k is not bad, considering "abt 4 years of experience". I would say make sure to enjoy working there before anything else.</comment>


Troubleshooting Systemd with SystemTap - <AUTHOR> https://blog.janestreet.com/troubleshooting-systemd-with-systemtap/ <comment><USER2> The centralized journal daemon and Desktop Bus broker with a single Desktop Bus are two of the major weaknesses in the systemd architecture, sources of problems as varied as log floods affecting unrelated services, journald (originally) taking everything with it when it died (a failure to understand the lessons of daemontools, also explaining why originally every service was proofed against SIGPIPE), and the Desktop Bus Death Rattle.

* [http://jdebp.uk./FGA/dbus-death-rattle.html](http://jdebp.uk./FGA/dbus-death-rattle.html)

One does not need SystemTap to see the mount unit problems, never fear. As the article notes, near the bottom, the behaviour is documented in the systemd.mount manual page; and one can look at the Desktop Bus traffic with busctl monitor.

But again, this is a failure to learn the lessons of previous softwares; in particular the lessons of the many softwares that do/did data updates over limited bandwidth channels. From everything, from redrawing the screen in a full-screen TUI program like vi, through sending the Fidonet nodelist around the world, to doing quick tape backups, one learns the lesson of _sending just the diffs_. As the author noted, it seems daft for systemd-logind to be told, again, all about the 1999 of the 2000 mount points that _have not changed_.

The sad thing is that systemd-logind isn't even interested in mount units. It registers an interest in all unit properties change announcements, but is only really interested in the properties of session and "user" slice units.</comment>


The Netherlands has universal health insurance – and it's all private - <AUTHOR> https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2020/1/17/21046874/netherlands-universal-health-insurance-private <comment><USER2> This works only in countries with functioning rule of law and long-term thinking. In Eastern Europe (Slovakia) we sought to emulate this model, but it did not work so well, due to greed/corruption of both corporate and politicians. We are slowly and painfully converging back to one state-owned insurer.

Despite all of this, the healthcare system is still working and usable.</comment>


Ask HN: Anyone else write the commit message before they start coding? - <AUTHOR> I feel like I just learned how to use Git: writing the message first thing has made me a lot more productive. I'm wondering if anyone else does this; I know test driven development is a thing, where people write tests before code, and this seems like a logical extension. <comment><USER2> I know that people usually put down stories for Scrum or Agile and then they will list out "action steps" or "acceptance criteria" but this is a very smart way of tying it directly to work. This is brilliant! I look forward to trying this out.

</comment><comment><USER3> Yep, great idea. Today I broke my work into a whole list of commit messages, then made the changes one by one.

</comment><comment><USER4> Love this. I've been using the readme driven development and press release driven strategy. Git message driven commit fits right in!

</comment><comment><USER5> I'm not following. Git is source control: the message should be tied to the code that went with the commit. Are you amending before pushing?

As for tdd, I don't see this as a logical extension (yet). My logical extension is document driven design. Write the api, get feedback on that, then make it work. I like to design from the outside in.

</comment><comment><USER6> No, but now I've read your question I'm definitely going to start and see how it works. It sounds like a great idea!

</comment><comment><USER7> Sort of. As soon as I have something working locally that does the thing I set out to do, I commit it locally on a new branch with a WIP: commit message. I can then amend it with improvements or move on to adding more commits, each with a separate message.

</comment><comment><USER8> What a great idea. Are you updating the commit message with `git commit --amend` until you squash and push, or writing a novel on the side?

BDD acceptance tests can be written in a pseudo-prose syntax (and ideally, executed)

</comment><comment><USER9> I've found myself doing this lately too! Great approach.</comment>


"Fox the News" Skins NYT, WaPo Stories to Look Like Fox News - <AUTHOR> https://foxthenews.com/ <comment><USER2> Cool idea. Unfortunately I expect a cease-and-desist letter in a few moments.

</comment><comment><USER3> Would be great as a chrome extension

</comment><comment><USER4> I think this does a better job of showing how similar the mainstream media outlets are.

<comment><USER5> Good, fact-based journalism obviously looks fairly similar. Fox does have people who do that. The editorials are the primary difference.

<comment><USER6> I'd argue still and say these outlets represent the same class, albeit with different approaches to public relations, and it shows through quite clearly.</comment></comment></comment>


Water shortages could affect 5bn people by 2050, UN report warns - <AUTHOR> https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2018/mar/19/water-shortages-could-affect-5bn-people-by-2050-un-report-warns <comment><USER2> Prediction: water shortages will not impact 5 billion people in 2050.

Nearly all these predictions rely on extrapolating some trend and ignoring innovation and changing market dynamics.</comment>


Macaw – Code-savvy web design tool - <AUTHOR> http://macaw.co/ <comment><USER2> Either that app is really good, or the demo video was really good.

I normally don't get excited over tools like these, but wow that actually seemed very well done and very impressive.

The HTML/CSS code it produced was beautifully clean, so interestingly I'm actually most excited about the possibility of this being used as a training tool: the option to be able to instantaneously see the code in a side window as you're 'drawing' it -- this kind of simultaneous feedback is always a real boon for the beginner learner.

<comment><USER3> Narrator on video: "We're going to move through this pretty quickly".. Video length: 20 minutes.

The code produced by the app does look quite clean for a WYSIWYG however.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> This looks really neat. It also helps me understand why so many websites look bad on non-Mac platforms (aka 90% of desktops): designers who do stuff like "that looks a bit heavy, let's bump down the font weight a bit" without realizing that these settings look unreadable on Windows or Linux.

<comment><USER5> On Low-Res devices running Linux or Windows, that is.

<comment><USER6> In other words, you're confirming the 90% figure, right?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> I had actually expected something for "real" code. (e.g. Scala, Go, younameit)

While CSS3/HTML5 definitely made web design somewhat closer to actual coding (esp. on the CSS end), I still find it difficult to call renderer instructions in a markup language true "code".

However, this looks like an interesting tool! Too bad that you only seem to be aiming for OSX. Are ports planned?

<comment><USER8> OSX and Windows seems to be the targeted platforms according to their Kickstarter FAQ.

> We have no plans to bring Macaw to Linux at this time. Once the Mac and > Windows versions are released we will look into Linux.

[http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/macaw/macaw-the-code- sav...](http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/macaw/macaw-the-code-savvy-web- design-tool#project_faq_70302)

<comment><USER9> I can understand not paying any mind to linux for other developers. It's a mostly unused platform for almost all demographics... except actual developers.

This is not the kind of application I was expecting to "not support linux". That said, They're not actually supporting windows right now either, so I guess for designers only. Oh well.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> As a Webflow user, this seems to handle a lot of the things that annoy me about Webflow and gives the author more freedom. All around, it seems like a better product. Super keen on giving this a go when it's ready. Oh _and_ no monthly subscription charge, it would appear. Fantastic.

</comment><comment><USER11> Certain technical things really are amenable to the Archy inspired "Zoomworld" spatial organization ideas behind iOS 7. There are lots of things that are best understood in diagrams, as flows of information, or material. Scheduling natural gas or petroleum, for example. Operations that data scientists do to tables of data in something like Stata are another example.

That said, not all things are suitable for this. For many things, you still want code. I suspect that there are opportunities for people to find harmonious ways of blending the two.

EDIT: Wouldn't something like hosting a web app be amenable to a Archy/Zoomworld style representation? The relationship between front-end servers, app server workers, back-end processes, and databases could exist as a giant diagram.

<comment><USER12> speaking on iOS 7, I would love to look at that page in an iOS 7 phone, landscape and see how much gets cropped out of view.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> > We have no plans to bring Macaw to Linux at this time. Once the Mac and > Windows versions are released we will look into Linux.

 _damn it_.

<comment><USER13> Their language was slightly more optimistic in this October 10 comment:

> There is definitely a chance we will port Macaw over to Linux. We are > working on getting the Mac and Windows versions out first then we will re- > evaluate.

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> In the sneak peak, at 7:20, Why Command-Option-C to copy visual styles? A simple Command-C to copy, and the user has the choice to Cmd-V to paste as normal, or modify with Cmd-Opt-V to paste only the style seems more intuitive. Looking forward to this! Nice logo animation & sound btw!

</comment><comment><USER15> I have to say after trying a few visual website editors (Dreamweaver, et), I've pretty much given up on this. But this video is really impressive. As someone else said, this could be really awesome specially for beginners. Looking forward to try the final product.

</comment><comment><USER16> FYI, on Ubuntu 12.04 using Google Chrome, the Vimeo player kept going black after starting the video, I had to keep making small movements with the mouse to keep the video showing.

It's almost like a div is made black and floated over the top of it if that's possible.

<comment><USER17> I had the same problem on OS X 10.8.5 running Chrome 30.0.1599.69. When I clicked the fullscreen button, the black went away, but it was only showing a static image of the program (I did have audio though).

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> You can help fund it on kickstarter - [http://kickstarter.com/projects/1658523427/macaw-the-code- sa...](http://kickstarter.com/projects/1658523427/macaw-the-code-savvy-web- design-tool).

</comment><comment><USER19> "Stop writing the mark-up for your designs by hand, let us do it" more like. Perhaps this is an example of where the original title _is_ misleading and requires editorialising.

<comment><USER20> That makes them sound like a front-end development agency.

</comment></comment><comment><USER21> Awesome demo and App. Interesting name for the App. Made me look it up. Macaw: a large long-tailed parrot with brightly coloured plumage, native to Central and South America.

</comment><comment> ezequiel-garzon Any ideas as to how much it will cost?

<comment><USER22> If you support 99$ on kickstarter they will give free. There is no pricing option they mentioned other than that :)

<comment> ezequiel-garzon Got it. Thanks!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> It looks great, i wonder what technology it uses(what is it built upon? qt?...)

<comment><USER23> ok , i found the answer , looks like it is JS/HTML with chrome embedded. I hope it will run fast.

</comment></comment><comment><USER24> Not coming to Windows? :(

As you mentioned it's coming to app store soon?

<comment><USER25> It is coming to Windows... eventually.

[https://twitter.com/macawco/statuses/378215232512208896](https://twitter.com/macawco/statuses/378215232512208896)

</comment></comment><comment><USER26> This. Is. Beautiful.

</comment><comment><USER27> nice palette!

where is that big red button for start?

</comment><comment><USER28> Stop the press. Web developers discover tooling desktop RAD developers were using in the 90's.

<comment><USER29> RADs didn't target web browsers (and especially not to this extent)

<comment><USER28> Because browsers are for _documents_.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER30> Divshot?</comment>


Looking to Disrupt Mobile Advertising and GPS - <AUTHOR>

I am working on the design work of an app that deals with notifications and GPS. This app will greatly serve as an alternative to IOS Maps App.
If interested in cofounding a startup. Please post a comment with contact info. LOOKING FOR A CODER THAT CAN CODE IN OBJ.C and HTML/CSS.
With the addition of a coder to our team, our goal is to raise funds, acquire 100K users, and merchants.
PLEASE POST A COMMENT IF INTERESTED... <comment> future-guru Can you pls get in touch with me at tarun dot anand at gmail...</comment>


Show HN: The Skeleton I use for Node.JS Projects - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/bcoe/node-mocha-skeleton

<comment><AUTHOR> I've been working on an article that discusses test-driven development in Node.JS, using Mocha. As part of the article, I decided to put together this skeleton project, which demonstrates how I usually tend to structure my JavaScript libraries. Curious to hear how others approach it differently.</comment>


3D Video Capture with Kinect - <AUTHOR> http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7QrnwoO1-8A&feature=player_embedded <comment><AUTHOR> Now this is the sort of thing I was hoping for - another Kinect or two to cover "shadows", and we'll really be on to something.</comment>


How to deploy a React app for free - <AUTHOR> https://blog.logrocket.com/8-ways-to-deploy-a-react-app-for-free/ <comment><USER2> So cool to see all the different free services out there for getting in to web dev. I remember having to do graphic design work growing up to afford a shared hosting plan on my mom's credit card. Times have definitely changed :D

Lately I've been enjoying KubeSail's ([https://kubesail.com/](https://kubesail.com/)) free tier for playing around with some SSR things. A lot of the lambda like services don't do great with doing realtime stuff since they're just meant to run one piece of code then die a few seconds later

<comment><USER3> Hey thanks! I'm the cofounder/CTO of KubeSail and this is more or less our purpose for existing! Our goal is to help people learn - open source tools and not black boxes - from just learning javascript to bootstrapping a company :)

Thanks so much for the shoutout!

<comment><USER4> This is a nice discovery. Thanks!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Great list. My personal choice is Netlify.

With Netlify Functions and FaunaDB (also with a generous free tier), I have a full stack web app, complete with a database, hosted for free ([https://www.quidsentio.com](https://www.quidsentio.com))

<comment><USER6> FaunaDB's 50MB/day data output quota is _tiny_ , and they explicitly state they don't have a hard cap or throttling so if you ever get hugged to death by a viral HN/Reddit/whatever post it's going to be _expensive_. That puts me off using it for anything publicly accessible.

<comment><USER7> Do you (or anyone else) have any other suggestions for good low cost database/data layer services to work with these options?

These free services are fantastic but the limitation is that they seem to be only for static sites (static in the sense that there is no data persistence).

<comment><USER6> Firebase's free tier is enough to run a small startup on. The 1GB database size is small, but if you're only storing simple structured text records rather than media it goes a long way.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> It's worth pointing out that most (if not all) the options listed are only free to a certain point.

Netlify and Github Pages, for example, are capped at 100 GB of bandwidth per month. It's a very generous cap and ample for most use cases, but something to keep in mind as your projects gain traction.

<comment><USER9> Yea, they are very useful for small sites. The bigger problem for me was to find a free backend hosting service, I've only found 3 free and all of them were pretty limiting: Heroku (the instances go to sleep and take 30+ secs to wake up), IBM cloud (256MB memory limit), Azure (pretty complicated, need a credit card for the free tier).

I was looking for a solution where I can host Java Spring/ASP.net toy projects easily and none of them were satisfactory

<comment><USER10> Check out google cloud run, you can run containers super cheaply

<comment><USER11> Do you dare to post the URL of your "super cheap to run" could run instance to test that theory?

(My point being you'll need cloud flare DDOS protection or something similar, and I'm not sure I'd classify that as "super cheap" if we are comparing against "free".

Don't get me wrong, Cloud run is certainly an amazing product, I love it slot. It is also cheap to run as long as you don't run into any hiccups. However, It's ability to generate a personal $1000 or $10000 credit card bill disqualifies it from being a good candidate for small to medium projects. It is clearly an enterprise product.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> We've been using AWS Amplify and it's been pretty nice. It allows pairing with Github and deployments by branches. CI Integrations are not that great, like Slack bots and stuff, but it gets the job done as a good place to deploy code. The free-tier is fairly generous, and it's nice that everything lives in AWS (if you're already using them for other things)

[https://aws.amazon.com/amplify/console/](https://aws.amazon.com/amplify/console/)

<comment><USER13> Google Firebase offers a similar product called Firebase hosting [1]. They also offer a fairly generous free tier with 10GB of storage and 10GB of transfer for the hosting. The free plan also includes SSl and supports custom domains.

I've been using it to host project websites or single page apsp for a while and so far it turned out to be the cheapest option.

The CLI is also fairly good so its relatively easy to deploy with a CI system

[1] [https://firebase.google.com/products/hosting?hl=en](https://firebase.google.com/products/hosting?hl=en)

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> I used Vercel for the first time last week and the time between creating a repo to have a Next site publicly deployed was minutes. A custom domain was a couple minutes more. I was gobsmacked, this is something that took me weeks four years ago.

</comment><comment><USER15> Great list, I'm glad to see the number of options increasing.

This reminded me of one of my projects, [http://hasgluten.com](http://hasgluten.com), kind of forgotten but still up & running on github pages since I learned react 6y ago.

Code is here for the archeologists: [https://github.com/hasgluten/hasgluten](https://github.com/hasgluten/hasgluten)

</comment><comment><USER16> I don't recommend Github Pages as they have issues with routing.

Read this [1] for workarounds but it's more than annoying to work around instead of just using a better hosting solution.

Personally I have only ever tried GH Pages and Netlify had no issues at all with Netlify.

[1] [https://github.com/rafgraph/spa-github- pages](https://github.com/rafgraph/spa-github-pages)

</comment><comment><USER17> What's the point of using those services over uploading the app files into a directory that is served by any webserver?

>Render is a unified platform to build and run all your apps and websites with free SSL, a global CDN, private networks and auto deploys from Git.

Apart from the CDN, that's all available for e.g. Digital Ocean Droplets. But why would a CDN be needed for static websites?

<comment><USER18> A CDN is most useful for static sites, no? Since the page content rarely changes it's easy to cache.

<comment><USER17> But why do you need it? Being on top of HN with 10,000 visitors doesn't kill a simple static site. Likewise, a client-rendered web-app shouldn't be too much for a simple server.

It makes sense to use those services for all the additional stuff, like Netlify's offers:

>User identity, Serverless functions, Instant forms, Split testing & rollouts, Analytics, Large media

But for a basic web-app, where's the benefit?

<comment><USER19> I think it isn't so much about what traffic to a static site will do to a server, but rather what the experience is for the end user. The tie in to CDNs help reduce load time for your end user.

<comment><USER17> Yet web-apps are made to not be bothered by load-times. Web-apps are cached by the browser. Once downloaded, startup-time should be instantly.

And downloads shouldn't take too long. Basic 1Gbit connections give you 100Mbyte per second, 10M per 100mils. A landing page should be doable in 10M, and then there is at least one second left to load the rest of the page before the user can react and make a choice.

<comment><USER20> The problem is more about latency, not so much bandwidth. Also, not everyone has a good connection.

Cache only works the second time the user comes to your page. By definition, every user will experience slow loading the first time.

That said, it probably depends on your use case if it is worth bothering with a CDN or not.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> Netlify is one of the best services my team uses. It does exactly what you expect it to do and then gets the fuck out of your way. I love it!

They also have smart features baked right in like pre-rendering. Literally hit a checkbox and you're prerendering.

</comment><comment> josep-panadero It is fantastic how far we have gotten. I had a web in Geocities before the Yahoo purchase. It allowed 150 Kilobytes of storage and no CGI (Common Gateway Interface).

I do no see mention of size limits in the article. I just checked Firebase and the free tier allows up to 1 GiB total.

Security is the other change. To run CGI allowed control of too much for any provider to be comfortable with it. Containerization and overall Operating System improvements allow for server-side code with safety (Spectre aside).

Great article and great opportunity for anyone that wants to start small on the cloud.

</comment><comment><USER22> I have always disliked services like netlify or vercel. Sure it seems nice with free hosting but in reality it's quite limiting and often it's cheaper to host on a $5 DO droplet or some similar vps offering. Also, with those kind of services that are free, soon gets very expensive as soon as you leave the free tier.

With a vps, you can do front and backend and host hundreds of low traffic websites.

I don't really understand what type of developer only does front end work or where do you host your backend stuff whjen you use Vercel / Netlify?

<comment><USER23> Couple of reasons why you'd pick one of these services over a $5 DO droplet:

\- Maintenance (zero)

\- Auto deployment

\- Global CDN

\- Serverless functions can deal with spikes automatically, but cost zero when idle

<comment><USER22> Yeah I get that, it's a fair reason to choose serverless stuff before a VPS and I understand why people do it.

In fact, I understand it enough and have felt the pain enough that I am actually working on a project that will help solve several of these issues for traditional server hosting. The only thing it won't have is a global cdn but that could potentially be added in the future as well.But I think a CDN is not needed for most projects actually and my service will focus on smaller to medium sized projects.

[https://deployjs.com/](https://deployjs.com/) \- but it's pretty far from even reaching an alpha release :)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> Great list! Thank you for putting this together. Highly appreciated. What about way 9: [https://stormkit.io](https://stormkit.io)?

<comment><AUTHOR> This is new to me :) I would have added if I knew of this. Maybe next year I will try to update this post and try to get the number to 8

<comment><USER24> If only I had known you were writing the article ;) I am curious to hear what you'll have to say about it.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> Very nice free service list. I think it could been added a way of running node CLI's without installation through npx instead of installing global packages.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks and That's a very good feedback,

</comment></comment><comment><USER26> The word "React" in the title is irrelevant and clickbaity. "X ways to deploy a static site" would have been more appropriate.

<comment><USER20> Disagree - some advice is specifically tailored to React apps (created using create-react-app).

</comment></comment><comment><USER27> I use Netlify for [https://expose.sh](https://expose.sh)

It's configured to auto deploy from GitHub every time I merge to the "master" branch.

Works pretty well for my static site and it's free because I'm a solo founder therefore there's only one team member.

</comment><comment><USER28> This is kind of Off-topic, but I've been getting back to doing web development for the past few months. One thing I've been surprised is how much high quality content marketing/blogs there are especially regarding React.

The Logrocket blog is an excellent example of this. Lots of useful blog posts. Another one I've been relying on is the blog of Robin Wieruch [1].

I guess stating this is a little obvious, but one of the upsides of using popular tools is the productivity boost you get from the surrounding ecosystem.

[1]: [https://www.robinwieruch.de/blog](https://www.robinwieruch.de/blog)

<comment><USER29> Really questioning this. The things available in vanilla js, html5 and css3 are immensely powerful and extremely well documented for those who care to dig into it

<comment><USER30> You are correct that those have a pretty good interface.

But here is some advice from an old programmer: once you start making bigger and more complex projects, you will start to make your own convenience libraries. And soon you will realize that you've built your own React-like library. But only less stable and less well thought out, because react has the huge community and maturity.

But if you only do some small functionality, or something specific with the technology, vanilla is perfectly fine.

However, if you are a single page app coder, I would definitely go for something like React.

<comment><USER31> Not everything has to be built with React, and the size of it is orthoganal to the technology.

If fact, huge projects are likely to suffer from using React, because virtual DOMs get out of hand and a lot of resources a wasted by building and rebuilding VDOM and looking for the changes.

Also, for some reason, React brings a lot of cargo-culting. Many don't stop to thing whether they should even if they can. They bring React, then they bring Redux, then all the rest is being dragged in and you get multi MB bundles for some truly trivial purposes. Of course, that's more on developers than on React, but it happens way to often. And for some reason just bringing React and Co. is not enough, it usually ends up in some imressive architecture astronautics. At the end you have a project that is big, but slow and still impossible to understand because the levels of indirection are off the charts.

<comment><USER32> I'm not going to say you're wrong, because I don't have claim to back mine up, either. So, this is for the sake of discussion.

The sentiment that everybody reaches for Redux is tired, in my opinion. After following many in the web development community and keeping up with online forums such as this, it's fairly clear to me that people have moved on from the heavy armor previously associated with React if they have a choice. For instance, people learned that they were using Redux for prop drilling, which led to many switching over to the context API natively from React. Another good example is Gatsby, for those who realized they have a static site and would like to address the SEO issues associated with a SPA.

Also, a lot of times, companies adopted React and Redux before the inception of these new, more powerful libraries that are obvious choices on the ground as of August 2020. But, have fun refactoring your entire client side state seamlessly if you're tracking state more sophisticated than the status of the application sidebar.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER33> vs "How to earn $2.5 a month to deploy your apps the way you want"

</comment><comment><USER34> I like vercel/zeit, and dislike firebase

<comment><USER35> Your comment might be interesting if you could explain why you like and dislike them, but as it is it's not very useful.

<comment><USER34> Oh, I did not realised that explaination is required.

Reason:

Zeit is very easy to use, you do not even need to config your workflow, and FaaS and multiple framework are well supported.

Firebase, it belongs to Google, there is no doubt Google will limit the free tier and charge you more in the next a few years.</comment></comment></comment>


Ask HN: Is ASP.NET Worth Learning? - <AUTHOR> I'm currently learning Rails and Swift. But my Current Job requires me to learn ASP.NET. <comment><USER2> Are you working is Microsoft shop or mixed development skill set for different projects? Learn it would be useful where some projects required building from scratch and tight integration, I'm simply on Javascript where it cover almost everything + photoshoping.

If you plan to work oversea, Singapore, plenty of programmers use either Java or MS technology.

</comment><comment><USER3> The majority of Fortune 500 companies run a mix of Java and .NET stacks, it is surely worth learning if you plan to work at a corporation that deals with these type of companies.

</comment><comment><USER4> Do what you have to do to pay the bills and keep learning on the side. Either way you'll come out ahead.</comment>


StackOverflow podcast with Steve Yegge - <AUTHOR> http://itc.conversationsnetwork.org/shows/detail4090.html#

<comment><USER2> It's frustrating when people put so much effort into trying to shove the dynamic block through the static hole.

I develop mostly in C# and love it, but have absolutely no interest in a "compiled" or more-static JavaScript. JavaScript is a great language as it is (ignoring the DOM mess).

I spent most of the podcast wondering if Yegge hasn't seen Script# or JSLint, and wondering why Joel's architecture astronomy alarm wasn't going off.</comment>


Apple reportedly testing three iPhone 5 prototypes - <AUTHOR> http://www.tuaw.com/2011/02/15/apple-reportedly-testing-three-iphone-5-prototypes/ <comment><USER2> 3 prototypes? I guess Gawker will need to budget $15k and three disposable staff members for this product launch </snark></comment>


NPR tried Google's 20%-time with their developers - <AUTHOR> http://www.niemanlab.org/2011/08/npr-tries-something-new-a-day-to-let-managers-step-away-and-developers-play/

<comment><USER2> "Lumbard said the managers had toyed with the idea of adopting Google's 20 percent time, but they concluded it wouldn't work for NPR. Google has thousands of employees and extraordinarily deep pockets, which mean it can afford to let employees take a day every week for side projects. Plus, Lumbard says, 20-percent time puts the emphasis on individuality, whereas NPR's approach values teamwork."

I often hear the 'Google is bigger, so they can afford it' argument... Bigger means they have MORE PEOPLE. That means it costs more.

I can understand a startup saying they can't do it, but an established company with profits? They could, if they wanted to. (Not that it would necessarily make sense, mind you. It depends on the industry.)

And the teamwork thing is nonsense, too. Googlers can work on other peoples' 20% projects in their 20% time. So it encourages teamwork as well. (And I'd likely be one of those, as I have few good ideas, but enjoy helping others flesh theirs out.)

<comment><USER3> On the topic of company size and affordability, have you ever heard of any smaller companies (read: startups) that have 20% time?

<comment><USER4> We're a small company of 40. If someone wants to take time out to learn something or try an idea or work on a project of their own then they should do that. We don't allocate a specific portion of time to do that but we don't measure hours worked anyway. We only measure what people achieve. If they do meet company objectives by only spending half a day a week hacking on "directed" work then that's great. More time for them to invent something really cool. It helps that everyone in the company has equity and feels like a real owner which means timewasting and abuse is quickly pointed out and stopped.

I'm the CTO. Feel free to ask me anything about the culture we have.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Not really "tries," per submission headline, but rather "tried, one day."

"Lumbard said the managers had toyed with the idea of adopting Google's 20 percent time, but they concluded it wouldn't work for NPR. Google has thousands of employees and extraordinarily deep pockets, which mean it can afford to let employees take a day every week for side projects. Plus, Lumbard says, 20-percent time puts the emphasis on individuality, whereas NPR's approach values teamwork."

<comment><AUTHOR> You're right, thanks, I updated the headline.

<comment><USER6> NPR is not trying Google's 20% time, per se; what they call "Serendipity Day" is simply their adaptation of the idea. The next one is planned for September, and the goal is to make it a quarterly event.

<comment><USER7> Yeah I wouldn't call that 20% time at all, it's just a quarterly hack day, which I think is also a cool way to get employees excited about working on cool things and ideas.

<comment><USER8> Yeah, internal hackathon. But if they want to make it really work, they should do the Silicon Valley long-weekend style hackathons:

1\. Let your employees decide/vote on the weekend, so as few miss it due to vacation and whatnot as possible.

2\. Make it Thursday night - Sunday afternoon, and give them Monday off to recuperate/run errands/catch up on life. 8 days off/year instead of 52 should be much more doable for a smaller operation like NPR.

3\. Schedule it far in advance, encourage people/teams to brainstorm ideas and have a rough project plan or three ready to go Thursday night.

4\. Provide all the junk food, health food, and caffeine they can eat, free. Let them choose the menu when they're voting on the dates. Set up an internal website for all of this.

5\. Make sure they've got all the hardware and software they could anticipate needing all on-site and ready go at the start. Minimize setup time.

6\. Have something for planned for families as well, involve them if possible. Imagine, instead of going to watch a baseball game on the weekend with your mom and/or dad, going to a hackathon with them. Have a mini-hackathon on the side for the kids.

7\. Have demo night Sunday at the end, fun/funny awards as well. For example, I dig Foursquare's 'Bender' badge for someone who goes out 4+ nights in a row. A hackathon equivalent would be whoever worked on site the longest and slept the least.

8\. etc.

I don't think one work day every quarter is going to do much for them, but if they set it up like a hackathon sprint party over a very long weekend, they might get some interesting results.

<comment><USER9> >they should do the Silicon Valley long-weekend style hackathons

>Make it Thursday night - Sunday afternoon,

>8 days off/year instead of 52 should be much more doable for a smaller operation like NPR.

Yeah, if I want to spend extra time at work I can focus on whatever the hell I'd like to, too.

You seem to be missing the point of a "20% time" or "serendipity day" if you think it can be duplicated by giving extra work to people in a salary exempt position.

One provides periods of autonomy without asking any more from workers, it only gives. The other asks for a huge time commitment. It shifts a big portion of benefit from employee to employer.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Where I work, TechSmith, we've been trying the 20% time thing on different teams. We call it "TechSmith Fridays" and the goal is to make TechSmith better by Monday.

That goal is pretty loose and many people have spent their time working on their own cool ideas as well as internal tools that our sales team can use to make their lives easier.

I've found having a "free day" to look forward to makes it easier to focus on my regular tasks the first 4 days of the week.We also have the rule that the project needs to be shown off so you're accountable for the time. Nobody uses it just to goof off.

I know at least one new product is likely to come from this already and we've only been doing it for a few months. I'm really excited to see what comes out of it in the future.

<comment><USER11> > Where I work, TechSmith, we've been trying the 20% time thing on different > teams. We call it "TechSmith Fridays" and the goal is to make TechSmith > better by Monday.

Soo... it has fuck-all to do with Google's 20%?

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> Could a Googler give their input on this? Having spoken to a couple of Google fulltimers on this note, the general impression I've received is that 20% time is largely a myth and that spending this time working on alternate projects is widely acknowledged to not being conducive to moving up the company hierarchy.

<comment><USER13> I assumed that 20% time was a clever way to harness engineers' idle time and redirect it from "dickin' around" (and Hacker News ;) to projects that may benefit the company.

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> Not to be cynical, but I bet the devs at NPR are already working on interesting side projects about 20% of their time, because if they don't they quickly become obsolete, and if they are grown ups their managements isn't monitoring them so closely they would even know. It's just that management (often) likes to pretend that they are completely in charge; "giving" devs 20% is sort of like "letting" a teen age son or daughter drink an occasional beer at a party.

<comment><USER15> Exactly. It's estimated that out of a eight-hour day only four hours of actual work gets done. I can easily believe that figure. The other four hours get dissolved into various events and distractions, including coding something that nobody asked but you just _have to_ do so that you can do something else better and easier.

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> Every manager in the world needs to spend 10 minutes and watch that video.

</comment><comment><USER17> I just posted a blog post related to this. My company has done a similar thing to NPR, we call it "build it in a day". I see it as a step towards 20% time projects being encouraged. I know one of the contractors with us at the moment has what they call "innovation friday" every 2nd friday. So be it a spin on the idea, I find it encouraging companies are realising there's better ways to motivate people and increase their productivity.

</comment><comment><USER18> If your company ever tries this, please try harder so word gets out that it causes your developers to try harder, so I will get 20% time as well.

</comment><comment><USER19> Who is NPR? The article doesn't say.

<comment><USER20> <http://www.npr.org/></comment></comment>


Decline of motor industry drives global economic slowdown - <AUTHOR> https://www.ft.com/content/cd2f8bdc-fef6-11e9-be59-e49b2a136b8d <comment><USER2> It's hard to discuss articles that are behind paywalls.</comment>


Wolfram Alpha iPhone app costs $50 [iTunes link] - <AUTHOR> http://itunes.apple.com/WebObjects/MZStore.woa/wa/viewSoftware?id=334989259&mt=8 <comment><USER2> That's a good way to guarantee that no one uses your app. Especially when it is to access a service that no one uses anyway.

<comment><USER3> _That's a good way to guarantee that no one uses your app_

Exactly. It will therefore appeal to the market of geeks with disposable income - people who enjoy paying for something cool and exclusive. People who buy $500 mobile surveillance bots on ThinkGeek, mainly because nobody else has one.

Maybe the solution to the "race to the bottom" in the App store is simply to make really high quality apps (not claiming that W@ is) and sell them for a really high price.

Though, personally, I wouldn't buy such apps unless I felt safe about being able to back them up, transfer them to new phones, and most importantly that they wouldn't get "removed" from the store at a moment's notice.

<comment><USER4> Other than the "removed from the store" thing, you can backup the app, use it on a new phone, redownload it without repaying for it, etc.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> ok, I'll ask the stupid question, what is my advantage in using this app as opposed to just pulling up the site on mobile safari? I cannot see the difference.

<comment><USER6> I'm wondering exactly the same thing myself. The app is only 0.5 MB in size so they couldn't possibly be licensing a standalone copy of the evaluation engine the way a chess playing game gives you a copy of the game evaluation engine.

<comment><USER5> Given what the screen looks like, it seems like it is just a custom webkit view. There is no mention of local storage or processing (it says "connect to Wolfram|Alpha's supercomputing cloud").

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Between this and their API pricing, I really wonder who makes these genius decisions. Do they talk to customers or people AT ALL? You could have talked to your community/potential buyers easily. Ask HN: How much would you pay for a wolfram alpha iphone app? and Ask HN: How much would you pay for API access? would have resulted in more than enough initial market research.

<comment><USER8> Do you know how much money they are making off the API and App? How do you know it isn't a genius decision?

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> Requires iTunes. Can you please put this in the title?

<comment><USER10> A shameless plug of my own site, but hopefully helpful to those not wanting to open iTunes:

<http://www.appstorehq.com/wolframalpha-iphone-77717/app>

<comment><USER11> _hopefully helpful to those not wanting to open iTunes_

Why do people assume that everyone has iTunes installed? I wouldn't let my computer touch that resource-hogging piece of shit with a 10 foot pole.

<comment><USER12> Am I the only one that actually likes iTunes? Is it really a resource hog? To be honest I've never really noticed (it seems to work well for me), but recently have seen a lot of anger directed towards iTunes, so am wondering if this is mainly a problem with iTunes on Windows?

<comment><USER13> iTunes is the best music player I've ever used, and that includes the one I cared enough about to write for myself. It's "big", but so is my collection, so I forgive it.

<comment><USER14> For windows one of the better clients is foobar (I use itunes for the ipod and foobar for listening), for linux well you are kinda sol if you want a good music player (mpd with a gui client or ncmpcpp come somewhat close).

<comment><USER15> How does it compare to old stand-by players like Winamp?

<comment><USER16> foobar2000 requires a little more finagling than winAMP to set up, but it can be very nice when you do. It's also significantly lighter than winamp. They both do things that iTunes won't (in particular play flac and ogg, which is a very important feature for me).

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> Great word of mouth advertising: the legendary $50 app.

</comment><comment><USER18> CIA analysts? Not sure if that is helping the app.

</comment><comment><USER19> Bring back the $999.99 "I Am Rich" app!

</comment><comment><USER20> Maybe if you could talk to it to input the question like the google voice search app. How can anyone in their right mind drop $50 for an app that you could just as easily use the browser for? (and I just tried it, almost exactly the same as their example page.

</comment><comment><USER21> I'm willing to bet that it will become a top grossing apps. The premium price will make a some people feel like they it is an app they really need. Some will buy it to show off.

</comment><comment><USER22> The app looks nice, but nothing amazing, just a native viewer for the website contents.

Hey, I can code this one in two hours. Definitely not worth the price.

<comment><USER23> You make less than 25 dollars an hour?

ED: Five downmods? Okay. If so-and-so wants a product that costs 50 dollars, and his time is worth 30/dollars an hour, then it doesn't make sense for him to spend 2 hours remaking it. If his time is worth 20/hour, then it does make sense. What part of this is offensive? The Math 101 or the Econ 101?

<comment><USER24> Chances are he gets paid a salary, so working on this project would not reduce his income. Considering his skill set, he is better off working on this, so he can spend the $50 on something which would take him longer to build, for example a toaster.

Do they cover specialization of labour in Econ 101 still?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> On a side note, it will be telling how many reviews there are based on the fact you need to buy the app to review it.

<comment><USER25> It has one 5-star review. iTunes doesn't seem to let you copy/paste review text...

<http://twitpic.com/m1s8m>

<comment><USER26> That's a fantastic review.

        "Don't know why I purchased this application but
        it does what it claims to do."

/me runs for his check card.

<comment><USER27> Wow, I wish I could be in the "more money than brains" camp. Oh, wait, I guess I probably am; I just don't have any money, either.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER28> Yikes.. This feels awkward..

A $50 iPhone app with a name like WolframAlpha - how can these guys lose?</comment>


Test Apple MacBook Pro 13 2018 (Touch Bar, I5) Laptop (German) - <AUTHOR> https://www.notebookcheck.com/Test-Apple-MacBook-Pro-13-2018-Touch-Bar-i5-Laptop.316002.0.html <comment><AUTHOR> Conclusion (translated):

After the first benchmarks, the results are sobering and fall short of expectations. The Coffee Lake U-Chip consumes more power than the Kaby Lake R CPUs, and the MacBook Pro 13 can reach the temperature limit of the processor within seconds.</comment>


From 0 to 5,000 Planets in 20 Years - <AUTHOR> http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/outthere/2015/10/06/from-0-to-5000-planets-in-exactly-20-years/ <comment><USER2> It used to be that the discovery of an exoplanet, any exoplanet was big enough news to warrant its own discovery paper. But these days we know of so many planets that putting out an individual paper describing a newly discovered hot Jupiter is a little ho-hum. There has to be something unique about the planet to justify its own paper, otherwise it'll just be lumped in a big data dump paper.

</comment><comment><USER3> From 0 (+9) to 5,000 (+8) Planets in 20 Years FTFY

</comment><comment><USER4> _super-Earths: rocky worlds that are up to 10 times as massive as our own, and potentially habitable_

Wouldn't the gravity on such a planet be 10 times as strong as Earth's? Is it feasible that life could exist on the surface, or only in an ocean?

<comment><USER5> Gravitational attraction scales as M/r^2, so if the planets have larger radii they won't have 10 times the gravitational attraction.

That said, any speculation about life on super earths should be taken with a huge grain of salt.

<comment><USER6> Let's build a tiny eco system in a large centrifuge and see what happens.

<comment><USER7> Practical, in space. Start the ecosystem spinning, and it won't stop (essentially frictionless). Maybe a balloon/bag on one end of a rope, a weight on the other end.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Yahoo, Microsoft Back At The Table - <AUTHOR> http://www.techcrunch.com/2008/05/18/yahoo-microsoft-back-at-the-table/ <comment><USER2> I don't understand why Microsoft has to _acquire_ yahoo. Most acquisitions are pretty disastrous in terms of clashing company cultures, new power struggles, and the best people of the acquired entity leaving.

The main argument for this acquisition seems to be "to compete with google", which further seems to boil down to "to compete with adsense".

Why then can't MS and yahoo just do a joint venture ad network to compete with adsense instead of MS trying to swallow yahoo whole?

My only "answer" is that MS a) has too much cash they need to get rid of (fast?), and b) doesn't realize that some people find them as repugnant as the proverbial creepy child-molesting uncle.

<comment><USER3> Ding!

Bill could hang out on the sidewalk in front of Yahoo and hand out a billion bucks (total) in hiring bonuses to people who know how to spell "Java," and it'd be far, far cheaper.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Microsoft is acting like a desperate & spurned lover, Yahoo like the 30+ year old former HS cheerleader who thinks she still has what the boys want.

</comment><comment><USER5> M$ + Yahoo = Google wins

</comment><comment><USER6> It's like a race where one guy is ahead and the number two and three stop and have a fistfight, each thinking they'll win the race if they knock out the other.

Both these CEOs are dead. The only life left in them is the natural processes that result in shutting down and turning into fossils. Vista was like when a person dies and shits their pants, and this yahoo takeover is like the aggressive erection the embalmer has to deal with before they can replace the blood with embalming fluid, show the body off one more time, and put it in the ground..

<comment><USER7> _It's like a race where one guy is ahead and the number two and three stop and have a fistfight, each thinking they'll win the race if they knock out the other._

Interesting analogy. Are there any cases of #2 and #3 in an industry merging and taking over from the #1?

I can't think of any offhand.

<comment><USER6> I guess I should of said "the number 3 guy thinking he can win" instead of each of them (yahoo doesn't want this fight).

I can't think of any, but I would imagine there are cases. There is no way this hybrid frakenstein beast would be one of them though.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> i dont know why i'm shot down (by down arrow) by the readers - but once again i would like to clarify if u guys have mistaken me ... first thing first, this is definitely 3 way fight (yahoo, google and ms) - the timing is important here as yahoo & goolge is almost there to announce a deal and MS shows up with an alternative to keep google away from the deal (this is no brainier). This gives Yahoo an awesome position (at least for short term) with huge multiple benefits,such as #1 it can get best of the best deal possible either from google or MS (doesn't really matter who as far as good money shows up in yahoo's bank account), #2 these negotiations will put a speed breaker on Carl Ichan's bid for getting a new board (remember shareholder meeting is not far away, again it is all about timing) #3 if any deal is announced (whether with google or MS) before shareholder's meeting then yahoo's stock price will go up for sure and the chances are Carl Ichan will soften his position, #4 the deal (with google or ms) will make everyone happy with win win situation for all 3 important yahoo stake-holders (employees, end-users and shareholders) and #5 the biggest of all is if yahoo and google get in to a deal then stock prices will go up and yahoo will be then able to justify why they didn't budge to sell the company to MS - also now if at all MS wants to buy yahoo (even after a year) then they have to bow down to the price that yahoo wants, also remember this deal (between yahoo and google) will also make all 3 stake- holders happy. So by this analysis i think Yang is proving to be in a very strong position and he is smart enough to get the best out of these 2 bidders to make all 3 important stake-holders happy ....

</comment><comment><USER8> oh! this is going to be interesting !!! it will create a clear 3 way fight (yahoo, google and MS) with fair chances and platform to everyone ... on the other side it could also be a tactic by yahoo to divert the shareholder's attention so that any attack on their board thru proxy war can be eliminated. THIS IS REALLY GOING TO BE A FUN !!! (smart one though)</comment>


Axial Brought DevOps into Slack Saving 1000s of Hours of Developer Time - <AUTHOR> https://cto.ai/blog/how-axial-brought-devops-into-slack-saving-thousands-of-hours-of-developer-time-and-costs/ <comment><USER2> "Adopting Ops has allowed Axial to immediately reduce their cloud spend, enable easier adoption of new technologies, and even open the door to empowering non-engineers to run operations." All via Slack workflows and the CTO.ai SlackOps capability. Bravo!

</comment><comment><USER3> "Having this technology available is going to make it easier to develop dev operations around new systems. It's definitely going to be a big advantage for us going forward"

</comment><comment><USER4> The three types of Ops/workflow automations they used: "Axial built 3 initial Ops to empower their engineering teams right away: The Dev Op, The Vault Op, and The Cluster Op."</comment>


OpenHAB 2 has arrived - Empowering the Smart Home - <AUTHOR> http://www.kaikreuzer.de/2017/01/23/openhab2/ <comment><AUTHOR> I had my share of endeavours with closed and open home automation solutions and this one really hit it off. openHAB is an amazingly flexible center for your smart home, regardless if you are playing around with ESP8266's or driving a whole KNX installation. It's open source and the ~120 Add-ons can talk to nearly everything out there, from Z-Wave over Alexa and IFTTT up to whatever you get onto MQTT. Check it out.

</comment><comment><USER2> Can confirm - it's a great piece of software. Looking forward to see new stuff integrated.

</comment><comment><USER3> What a great solution for integrating multiple stuff in my home environment !

opanHAB 2 is highly recommended !</comment>


China's Biotechnology Development: The Role of US and Other Foreign Engagement [pdf] - <AUTHOR> https://www.uscc.gov/sites/default/files/Research/US-China%20Biotech%20Report.pdf <comment><AUTHOR> They don't really beat around the bush:

> The Chinese government has formulated policies to support the use of big > data and modern techniques to drive new discoveries and cures by analyzing > large healthcare, genomic, and other personal health data sets. China's > State Council treats the role of big data in health and medicine as a > national priority, and China is building national and regional health and > big data centers in Fuzhou, Xiamen, Nanjiang, and Changzhoi. China has also > launched a 60 billion yuan ($9.3 billion) precision medicine initiative that > will benefit from this capability.

> China's biotech companies have access to healthcare and genomic data on US > persons through various channels, including investments and partnerships. At > least 23 companies with a nexus to China are certified according to the > Clinical Laboratory Improvement Amendments (CLIA) and accredited by the > College of American Pathologists (CAP), giving them direct access to US > medical and health data via their participation in our healthcare system.

> Compared to other nations, the US has fewer protections on sharing of > medical and healthcare data, including internationally, facilitating foreign > access to data on US persons. The EU's General Data Protection Regulation > (GDPR) protects identifiable information more strongly than any US > regulations, including the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability > Act (HIPAA). China's laws go even further, preventing export of data on > Chinese persons and requiring a permit for each research use of genomic > information.

> China's efforts to acquire US health data combined with limited data > protections by the US raise questions about national security. > Theoretically, access to private information on security-sensitive US > persons creates a risk of blackmail and may reveal health conditions > exploitable in a targeted attack, although no public reports suggest this > has yet happened or is a current aim of the Chinese Government or industry.

> China has numerous laws requiring or authorizing access to private-sector > data by the central government, ostensibly for national security reasons. > While it is difficult to discern the level of access afforded to the Chinese > government through these laws, their vagueness when it comes to oversight > could allow collection of data to go relatively unchecked.

> The US is not moving as aggressively as China to advance the use of big data > in healthcare, and that could, over time, open an innovation gap. The US can > prevent this outcome by investing in its own infrastructure, knowledge base > and scientific enterprise.</comment>


Does Your Computer Lab Scare Away the Girls? - <AUTHOR> http://blogs.msdn.com/alfredth/archive/2010/04/16/does-your-computer-lab-scare-away-the-girls.aspx

<comment><USER2> "Does Your School's Computer Lab Scare Away The Girls?" would make a less ambiguous title.</comment>


Starting an IT Blog - <AUTHOR> Probably you could share some tips on how to improve your writing skills when it goest to software engineering articles? Thanks! <comment><USER2> You should put "Ask HN:" in the title of your submission, so the title would look like this:

"Ask HN: Improving writing skills for starting a tech blog?"

</comment><comment><USER3> I consider myself a good article writer actually, but when it goes to IT and software engineering, I usually choose services like [http://writemypapernow.org/](http://writemypapernow.org/). Try it!

</comment><comment><USER4> Well, once I watched this tutorial [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h0dHLhpS5M8](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h0dHLhpS5M8) Try it!</comment>


Ask HN: Form Website: NoSQL vs. Relational? - <AUTHOR> I have limited experience with databases, so this has been tricky to answer for me. I'm building a website where users "own" some forms they can send others to fill out. Later on these forms get compiled together and they can see some basic analytics on the data.
At the moment these forms are premade but long term I'd want these default forms to be extensible. I'm productionizing my demo (built on MongoDB) and trying to figure out if I want to migrate to Postgres.
It just seems like building something like this would require creating countless tables for every different form type adding much complexity. I've been pretty happy with Mongo's data validation. At the same time a lot of this data seems relational and I'm worried this could turn into a nightmare over time on Mongo. Seems like no one has good things to say online about it.
Not sure if anyone has input and could point me in a direction. Any help is appreciated. <comment><USER2> If it works and you have experience with MongoDB, just keep it like that. Your use case seems pretty simple and it is unlikely that you encounter any architectural or performance limitations.</comment>


DynASM with Lua mode - <AUTHOR> http://luapower.com/dynasm <comment><USER2> First time I hear about the luapower package manager - but it appears to be by the same author as the excellent winapi binding, which yielded great results in my experiments.

I'm not sure how it differs from LuaRocks (which is the "original" Lua package manager) and LuaDist. I guess it aims for more simplicity? The website definitely outshines the other two, I like the clear and simple overview of the available packages.

EDIT: Upon closer inspection, it seems that it's the first package manager to properly integrate LuaJIT. So yeah, I'm converted!

</comment><comment><USER3> Looks fantastic, definitely worth looking into!</comment>