Notch's next game is an MMO - <AUTHOR> http://0x10c.com/ <comment><USER3> I was a developer for the ill-fated Perpetual Entertainment's Star Trek Online MMO (which was later sold and successfully launched by Cryptic Studios).

Star Trek Online's #1 most common feature request from beta testers was "ship interiors." Players didn't want to play "WoW _in Spaaaace_ " game. They wanted to play "The Sims meet Star Trek" and relive their favorite Star Trek TV episodes. That sounds like a pretty cool game (for a small, but dedicated niche), but Perpetual's game designers scoffed and (having worked at Blizzard) proceeded to create "WoW in Space."

<comment><USER4> This is the one thing stopping me from reaching 100% rabid-fanboy-mode about this news. We already have Quake in Space, WoW in Space, and Spreadsheets in Space: I hope this doesn't turn out to be "Assembly Programming in Space". This quote gave me hope:

> A cloaking field, for example, might require almost all the power from the > generator, forcing you to turn off all computers and dim all lights in order > to successfully cloak.

I'm hoping that "dim lights" means actually dimming the lights _inside_ and being less able to see, and that the fact it's mentioned is a sign that this is their intended direction. I really hope Notch nails this. Give me a chilled-out space MMO that lets me have a friend ride shotgun and take over the controls to check out the awesome spaceship I just bought and then help fight off some attackers Millenium Falcon style. Please.

<comment><USER5> I completely agree, except I would extend this to say that all genres beyond space games should consider more "in ship/plane/building" type of interaction.

For example, I've long wanted a submarine and/or battleship simulation that would provide a true feeling of being part of a huge ship, with players assuming various roles as necessary. Add a MMO element and it'd be just amazing.

<comment><USER6> Problem is, most things on a sub (et al) are boring. Clean this, cook that, monitor this, listen to that. You would have to constantly be under attack with only brief respite to repair your ship. Listening to whales, cooking with lard, and mopping the floors wouldn't make a compellin... actually, people pay to do menial tasks in MMOs all the time _right now_. How many chefs were there in Runescape, or dedicated crafters in WoW?

You might be on to something.

<comment><USER5> Exactly! I think in a weird way the mundane elements of the game could even be fun, provided there was a strong MMO backbone to it with guilds, clubs, etc...

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> A four paragraph website outlining the vision coupled with a simple way for customers to engage directly with the CEO of the company.

Notch understands "Minimum Viable Product"

<comment><USER8> Should there be a button so he could have some feedback?

<comment><USER9> No, there shouldn't :) Nothing worse than game design by committee.

<comment><USER10> >Nothing worse than game design by committee.

Notch clearly disagrees: "The game is still extremely early in development, but like we did with Minecraft, we expect to release it early and let the players help me shape the game as it grows."

<comment><USER11> Design by committee ("the players say they really want X, let's include X") is not the same thing as design with consideration of feedback ("the players really liked X_0, let's build X_1, and deemphasize Y because it didn't turn out fun").

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> Technology of note: "The computer in the game is a fully functioning emulated 16 bit CPU that can be used to control your entire ship, or just to play games on while waiting for a large mining operation to finish. [...] The cost of the game is still undecided, but it's likely there will be a monthly fee for joining the Multiverse as we are going to emulate all computers and physics even when players aren't logged in."

<comment><USER13> Programmable 16-bit CPUs? Sounds like work disguised as gaming!

<comment><USER14> Aren't all MMOs like that?

<comment><USER15> Yes, but most MMOs simulate minimum wage busywork this one involves some actual skill/thinking.

<comment><USER16> So true, I played WoW for about a month when it came out then I thought: "Didn't I get into to programming because I didn't want to work at UPS delivering packages?"

It should have been called World of Errands.

<comment><USER17> It's better since Cataclysm, the errands are more directly, visually, and emotionally tied to saving the world (of Warcraft.)

Anyone who once thought they liked the game's single player questing aspects should spend a week with a free scroll of ressurection and experience what the game has become, because it's really awesome and fun.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> I hope this will be like EVE Online but actually fun.

When I played EVE, I always thought that a programmable ship would be fun. Although there is a risk that programmers will get an unfair advantage.

On the other hand it may get more people interested in programming.

I wonder if this will ship with an interpreter/compiler for any language or whether you will have to write ASM?

Surely won't be long before there is a LISP for it.

I can also imagine a lot of people getting pissed of because they keep getting killed accidentally by someone else's buggy software.

<comment><USER18> > When I played EVE, I always thought that a programmable ship would be fun. > Although there is a risk that programmers will get an unfair advantage.

If programming is part of the gameplay, then being good at programming means you are good at the game. It would then be best considered an entirely _fair_ advantage.

<comment><USER15> True, but I imagine their target market is not just programmers.

Perhaps there will become a market in the game for selling programs to run on the CPUs.

Some players specialize in programming, others in logistics , battle command etc.

Of course it will be an interesting microcosm of the software industry in such a case.

Will people care about piracy of their code? Will anybody start releasing under GPL etc?

As I have said elsewhere , most likely all the best code will end up on a wiki somewhere and everyone will use that.

Of course it depends upon the dynamic of the game. Whether it is like Eve where you just get one ship. Or whether people will build full automated fleets, space stations etc.

In the latter case they better be prepared to buy some _serious_ hardware to run the server end of this on.

<comment><USER19> Keep your core secret, open source the support code, declare war on those who violate GPL >:[

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> "We are going to emulate all computers and physics even when players aren't logged in."

I built a prototype trying to do something similar, inspired by a text-based RTS/MMO that kept running while you were asleep. For me this was an unrealistic goal, if the simulations are complex enough you can't operate at a price point users will pay for. Even if you can, because the game is now CPU bound, far less players fit on a single instance -- you now need incredibly clever partitioning and load distributing facilities to keep the world appearing seamless. Even AAA titles haven't solved that problem, a look at world PVP lag in EVE or WoW will tell you as much.

<comment><USER9> Really? Given what Notch plans (2,000 DCPUs per machine - which is certainly doable), let's assume he's running a high-cpu instance (large) at Amazon for those 2,000 DCPUs. That's $500 per month for the machine. If he can't get that much money out of 2,000 players, he's doing it wrong.

Assuming you allow for eventual instead of atomic consistency, and allow for loss of CPU for several seconds if an instance goes kablooey, the load distribution is really not that hard. (And your spaceship really doesn't need five 9's. It's a game, so just blame it on "an ion storm". Or "a space monster" if that floats your boat ;)

Partitioning does not need to be too clever if you can constrain the number of ships per region - certainly something you can impose via game design.

Lag _only_ matters if you interact twitch based. Notch's plans lend themselves to indirect agency via the simulated ship's computer instead, so if everybody perceives the world as it was a few seconds ago, not much is lost.

It's certainly a doable task. Notch's mind is in the right place to pull it off. No doubt, it'll be hard - but it'll be interesting to see what he comes up with.

<comment><USER20> Well a first person shooter engine only really needs an (x, y, look-at) tuple for each player, certainly putting thousands of players on one map is doable. You're dreaming.

Assume for a moment a team of developers spend several months if not years doing infrastructure build-out to support the imagined CPU simulation system. Now they just have to implement the rest of the engine, the part powering the actual game, in which all players, CPUs, and other elements are active and interacting with one another at all times.

I'm hoping Notch succeeds, but lets be realistic -- the closest anyone has got to offline simulation is effectively "event queue and timer" and not for lack of trying.

<comment><USER9> > Assume for a moment a team of developers spend several months if not years > doing infrastructure build-out to support the imagined CPU simulation system

Huh? A CPU simulation is not that complicated a task. If it takes Notch several developers and years of time, he's definitely doing it wrong.

> active and interacting with one another at all times.

Yes. That's a solved issue, mostly. It's a large task, but it's not an unsolved problem. (See e.g. social networking sites. Humongous amounts of people interacting with each other)

The point is that you'll need to make some concessions to the realities of large scale when it comes to the game design.

> the closest anyone has got to offline simulation is effectively "event queue > and timer" and not for lack of trying.

Funny. And here I thought Havok just gave a talk on physics in MMOs. (GDC China).

<comment><USER20> I think you might be missing the point, all simulation continues while players are offline. Implementing consistent physics in an MMO is (very) hard, but having all players simulated even when they are logged off is something else entirely. The state of the art there is things like mail systems, auction houses, and skill queues.

<comment><USER9> I wouldn't be surprised if the offline simulation curtails your abilities somewhat, enabling a much lower CPU-effort simulation. We'll see, I guess :)

(There's also the point that a monthly subscription fee of $15 buys you a nice VPS slice these days. If you're willing to cut into the - significant - <USER2> margin of MMOs, you have a lot of performance available for offline simulation. I'll stand by my judgment that it's a hard, but solvable, problem)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> Between this and <http://www.ftlgame.com/> , it's nice to think that the scifi games I used to be only able to dream about are slowly becoming real.

<comment><USER22> Wow, thank you for posting about that. I'm really glad there are people doing really original work in the indie gaming world, it gives me hope that we haven't seen the last of the xcoms and fallouts (the original, scrappy versions of these, not the recent AAA incarnations)

</comment></comment><comment><USER23> The creator of Minecraft is creating a space game!? He should totally call it Starcraft.

<comment><USER24> You sir, are the best hybrid of geek and reddit. Have an upboat.

Shame the name is trademarked.

<comment><USER24> Wow, tons of downvotes. There goes 6 months of hard work. Bad way to start a day.

<comment><USER25> Welcome to Hacker News, where everything is made up and the points don't matter!

<comment><USER24> Love it. Best show ever.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> I don't know what I'm more excited for: the possibility of a DCPU C compiler, or the first player to exploit the security holes in a program written for the DCPU C compiler.

</comment><comment><USER27> As a fan of old space travel role playing games like "Traveller", I'm looking forward to this.

If it combines the "build-it-yourself" bits of Minecraft (build your ship, build your computer, build your programs) with MMO trading, and guild-building of EVE Online, and let players build the universe, then it might be a real winner.

I'll sign-up regardless.

<comment><USER28> The amazing implication here is that if the game were to use a sufficiently realistic physics engine and realistically model materials and energy generation/consumption, then the ships and control systems that you design could actually be potentially viable designs for real-world spaceships!

I doubt even Notch is able to accurately and fully emulate reality itself just yet, though.

</comment></comment><comment><USER29> I was reading those specific two bullet points:

        * Hard science fiction.
        * Space battles against the AI or other players.

which, combined with:

        * Lots of engineering.
        * Fully working computer system.

reminded me of essays such as "Realistic Space Combat" [0]. I wonder if Notch considers such a thing.

[0] <https://gist.github.com/1526107>

<comment><USER30> Just glancing at that essay it's pretty awfully written and repeatedly wrong. And my physics is extremely poo. Ever heard of a heatsink and then releasing it later? Decoys of simple complexity but same mass are as cheap to make as real ships of complexity? Nope.

<comment><USER31> You can start here: <http://www.projectrho.com/rocket/misconceptions.php>

<comment><USER29> That's exactly what I meant with 'such as'. I couldn't find that link again, thanks.

I was more concerned about general physics considerations (inertia, etc) and scale (like intercepting stuff flying at 30000km/s).

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER32> I hope this doesn't ship for a year or two. I'd like to get more work done first :)

<comment><USER33> I hope it ships soon, because it's the only thing that will be able to keep me from wasting so much time on Minecraft

</comment></comment><comment><USER34> One word. SpaceChem.

This looks heavily inspired by this indie game. In spacechem you must you use "chemistry pipe design skills", that highly resemble how you design logic circuts, in order to create certain molecules.

It also seems quite inspired with what you can do in minecraft with the redstone.

All that, but more open, pushing the limits. Not such a bad idea.

</comment><comment><USER35> @notch: The DCPU-16 specs are up, with some sample code and a memdump: <http://0x10c.com/doc/dcpu-16.txt>

</comment><comment><USER36> Hopefully it'll have some sandbox features! MMO Scene has been missing a decent sandbox since UO and SWG (Pre you know what. And dont' say EVE online cause to me, that was just a huge game of stare-at-your-UI-windows)

<comment><USER37> Can it please be "EVE-craft"? If it were just "Minecraft in space" on the EVE scope?

Go mine iron to craft parts for your spaceship!

</comment></comment><comment><USER38> Slightly off-topic, but—how mercilessly correct he is about physics of our space-time. We all know the universe is expanding, but many consequences of this phenomenon are not obvious—such as that after some time we'll be unable to see (and therefore ever reach) even nearby galaxies, since they're constantly getting farther and farther away.

We'll be completely alone forever, and future scientists would have completely wrong picture about universe in such an absence of information. Thinking about that, we already miss a lot of information because of red shift… There're facts potentially explaining the eternal question 'about universe and everything', but they are slipping away from us, crossing the event horizon never ever to be learned about. Not a fun thing to know.

Personally for me that was a discovery thanks to the explanation by Lawrence Krauss in his 'A Universe From Nothing' popular talk (<http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7ImvlS8PLIo>).

</comment><comment><USER39> Has anyone decoded the name? He said it was related to 1 in a 64-bit system read in 16-bit with the wrong endianness, or something like that. I tried my hand at it briefly but gave up.

<comment><USER40> 0x10^c in base 10 is 16^12, or how many years into the future the people woke from their sleep.

I think you're referring to his tweet: "What happens if you try to read a 64 bit representation of 1 in a 16 bit system, but you get the endianness wrong?"

In other words, the endianness and 64/16-bit comments in that tweet weren't a puzzle, so much as the back story. (Check the paragraph beginning "In 1998"). i.e.: "What happens if you specify something one way and a program reads it a different way? You end up a 200 trillion years in the future!"

<comment><USER41> He's poking fun at the Y2K, Y2K38 problems. :)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER42> EVE Online meets Minecraft.

<comment><USER43> I was thinking the same thing.

</comment></comment><comment><USER44> What Notch means with "Hard Science Fiction": <http://0x10c.com/doc/hardscifi.txt>

<comment><USER45> What an amazingly complex game it would be if he decided to include relativistic effects of time-dilation.

</comment></comment><comment><USER46> I think I'm going to lose a lot of time to this game...

</comment><comment><USER47> I'm super excited for this game. I like open ended games, and Notch spends a lot of time trying to make the game fit each user. But does anyone know why Notch gets so much shit online for being "greedy" or an "ass"? I've never seen or heard about him doing anything to get those ugly titles. Looking at the twitter feeds on 0x10c.com, I see a bunch of "greedy bastard" comments. There is nothing wrong with selling a game in the alpha stages. People will get a chance to voice their opinions on how the game should function.

<comment><USER48> In light of his giving away his dividends last year to his employees[1], I think it's hardly appropriate for anyone to call him 'greedy' or an 'ass'. He actually seems like a genuinely great guy.

[1] [http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/03/02/markus-notch- persso...](http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/03/02/markus-notch-persson- gives-3-million_n_1317396.html)

<comment><USER47> Exactly. And he also did that last coding competition for charity.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER49> Great, now I can finally stop pretending that Infinity: Quest for Earth is actually going to happen.

<comment><USER50> Yes, the seamless planet landing thing made me thing of Infinity too...

</comment></comment><comment><USER51> While I'm def excited about this game, when I thought about it, how is this not just the second half of Second Life by Linden Labs? Second Life already offers an MMO with object creation (Minecraft) and scripting (0x10c). While the sci-fi story line is more appealing to me, the concept of building thing and coding their workings in a 3D MMO doesn't seem novel to me... Unless I completely misunderstood something.

<comment><USER52> Execution counts.

A similar concept doesn't guarantee a similar user experience.

<comment><USER53> It's not even such a "similar concept". SL's "resources" are just... money. Real money. And it doesn't really have any inherent "gameplay". It's a pure sandbox -- with dollars for grains of sand.

Notch is talking about real resource management issues, combat as an inherent part of the game, random AI encounters, etc..

This is a _game_ that happens to share _some_ SL-like properties. SL is just a framework. Arguably that makes SL more interesting in some ways, but it's also a lot harder to "get" something out of SL other than pure socialization.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER54> Notch is officially my programming hero. This post inspires me; to take risks and be brave with my coding decisions while nurturing the process. Before today I would code and think over think and run into wall, while the original plan remains stagnant, always looking forwards to the finale. Now I look to code richly, daily, and to water my plants. Notch is zen. I can't wait to play this game.

</comment><comment><USER55> I'm getting a git repo up for DCPU16 on dcpu16.com, .net & .org as we speak. With a custom design by a Swedish guy that looks like notch's twin. :D Will update you guys when it's up, should be today. I already have people that want to push.

</comment><comment><USER56> He's released the spec for the 16-bit CPU used in the game: [http://notch.tumblr.com/post/20056289891/start-classified- tr...](http://notch.tumblr.com/post/20056289891/start-classified-transmission)

</comment><comment><USER57> Okay so I'm just a simple PHP dev, would someone be so kind as to point me in the right direction to start learning what I'm going to need to write for the in game CPU, so I can try and get a jump on things?

(0x10c.stackexchange one day?)

<comment><USER58> Never think of yourself as a simple X dev. While you may not have the same experience or background as someone else, that alone doesn't take away from you being a developer (keeping in mind I don't know your proficiency or length of time as a developer).

That being said, since it's going to be a virtual CPU with what seems to be a system based on 6502 opcodes (or similar), we can assume that this means there will also be an opportunity for abstraction/compilation to that system. Basically, there would most likely be cross compilers available in a matter of time that could aide in the development so you don't have to learn ASM or anything that low level. If you want to learn for the sake of learning, and with a great chance of being able to implement that new knowledge in to this game, then learn C - it will teach you a lot more about lower level development and would be a great candidate for a cross-compiler when one were to come out (ex: <http://www.cc65.org/>)

</comment></comment><comment><USER59> depending on your chosen minecraft server, his first game was an MMO too!

</comment><comment><USER60> Notch mentioned in another interview that he was looking to create basically a modern 'Elite' set in a persistant universe but this programming thing seems to deviate slightly. Super interesting!

</comment><comment><USER61> This looks great, and it's evident from Notch's success with Minecraft that he really knows how to provide a great product and interact with his fans. Looking forward to trying it out.

</comment><comment><USER62> I thought Scrolls was his next game?

<comment><USER63> If I remember correctly, Scrolls is Mojang's next game, but Notch was uninvolved in its developement (aside from hiring everyone).

<comment><USER64> Notch was at least involved in the original concept for Scrolls. I don't know if he's been involved in the actual development.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER65> The DCPU-16 specification is up at <http://0x10c.com/doc/dcpu-16.txt>

I am so exited right now!

</comment><comment><USER66> This might be a great environment to encourage people, and especially kids, to learn how to program. This was seen in Minecraft and maybe he will try to extend the idea into this new MMO.

I hope so because anything which encourages and helps people to learn programming is a plus in my book.

</comment><comment><USER16> Wouldn't it just be simpler to use an x86 CPU and qemu? Or a sandbox'ed process, etc, etc.

I'm sort of thinking that if you used an x86 CPU there are so many existing tools that could be used for it instead of having to write new compilers, etc.

<comment><USER56> That would be incredibly slow if you wanted to run more than a handful of CPUs...

</comment></comment><comment><USER67> If Minecraft was a hit then this sounds like it could be a mega-hit I mean a computer you can program in the game (I think I read that right), duct tape (how can you possibly keep a modern spaceship together without it?)!

</comment><comment><USER68> This sounds like its the beginning of OASIS: [http://www.amazon.com/Ready- Player-One-Ernest-Cline/dp/03078...](http://www.amazon.com/Ready-Player-One- Ernest-Cline/dp/030788743X)

</comment><comment><USER69> It'd be cool if someone made a Minecraft IDE, where you program using preformated elements in a visual style by literally building your program with blocks. Sorta like Scratch.

</comment><comment><USER70> This sounds similar to ogame only for hardliner geeks. I like it already. But i guess it will all be in the interface, i hope he nails it right. This could be very interesting.

</comment><comment><USER71> Reminds me of an MMO version of SunDog (<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SunDog:_Frozen_Legacy>).

</comment><comment><USER72> Wasn't Notch's first game an MMO? Didn't he work on Wurm?

</comment><comment><USER73> Without any context for the name: maybe "sixteen (or hex-ten) to lightspeed"? Space game with a focus on the ingame CPU, seems logical.

</comment><comment><USER74> Is this some hint? the year 281474976712644 - 1988 (first year of deep freeze) == exactly 2^48

And how do you get that much sleep on a 16bit cpu

<comment><USER75> That's why it's called 0x10^c. And the 16-bit CPU supports extended addition and multiplication via ADD/ADC and MUL, so it's easy.

</comment></comment><comment><USER76> Sounds as if I can program the computer to play for me? I'm in! Wanted such a game for decades (former Corewar player here).

</comment><comment><USER77> An Elite for the 21st century? Want!

</comment><comment><USER78> I hope someone comes up with something like "Spaceship on Rails"

</comment><comment><USER79> "The only thing to it, is to do it!" -- Martin Lawrence

</comment><comment><USER80> If someone will create a .net-like framework for me to run managed code upon, then sure, I'll play this game.

<comment><USER81> DCPU-16 = CLR

DCPU-16 machine code = MSIL

The framework is the machine. Free your mind.

</comment></comment><comment><USER82> We are in the year 281 474 976 712 644, but there are only 16 bit computers on the ships? Anachronism!!!

<comment> Tuna-Fish No. The ships were launched in the 80's, and all the tech they contain is 16-bit. Presumably, there are more powerful computers out there, but they are advanced enough that _you_ are certainly not going to do anything useful with them.

(Let's just ignore that the tech ran without issue and succesfully woke you up after 281*10^12 years.)

I find this actually really clever. I suppose the less programmatically inclined will trade new programs from the people building them.

<comment><USER82> Ah I think I misread that. ;) Still, I think even a thousand year gap in tech would make ships obsolete. I mean, look at how far our tech has progressed over the past century...

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER83> Red Dwarf!

</comment><comment><USER84> Funny timing. I was designing a new space/SF computer game this weekend for a few hours. I tend to make one new one every few years. I saw a little overlap between his feature list and mine, but a lot of potential differences too, which is great. I may put it up on Kickstarter too if/when I have some proof- of-concept demos ready to show. So little free time though...

</comment><comment><USER85> Guess its pronounced "Oh X ten C" or something like "Oh! Extacy"

<comment><USER86> I'm guessing that it's pronounced "2 cents". There are 0x10 kind of people in the world ;)

<comment><USER87> I'm truly sorry to rain on your parade like this, but the "0x" signifies hex, aka base 16, which makes "0x10" equal to 16 in decimal.

Now, if it were 0b10...

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER88> I'd like to see this on the iPad vs. Java.

</comment><comment><USER89> I hope the graphics don't suck, like they do in Minecraft. I know it sound superficial, but graphics _do_ matter. Minecraft succeeded _despite_ its graphics, not because of them.

<comment><USER90> Strongly disagree with this. Minecraft's graphics are a direct consequence of what the game IS (i.e. a world made out of large-ish blocks). More realistic (that is, less stylized) textures look strange on top of huge blocks, and anything that obscured the block structure of the world would have made Minecraft a worse game.

<comment><USER91> Minecraft needed to be made of blocks, it's true. But Minecraft could be more beautiful than it is. Which isn't to diss it - what it does well, it does really well. And it can often be beautiful -- the terrain generator can produce some wonderful things.

While it isn't aiming for all the same points, and is obviously inspired in some parts by Minecraft, I think for example Cube World is a much better looking game. <http://wollay.blogspot.co.uk/>

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER92> The game looks really awesome, I love space games, and if you combine it with Minecraft... and not only that but programmable CPUs !!!! I would love it.

Sadly "Monthly Fee" is something I don't like... I don't have the money to pay it, nor a credit card to do it, so nope.

<comment><USER78> you can't spare 5 USD for potentially many hours of monthly entertainment?</comment></comment>


Ask HN: Do you have to move out to move up? - <AUTHOR> I'm in a technical / product manager role at a non-tech company. For people in a similar situation, do you feel like you have to move out to move up? If not, how do you parlay technical strengths into increased responsibility & promotions. <comment><USER2> I think you have to take a brutally honest assessment of how important technology is to your company. By important, I mean, is technology a frequent consideration in C-level decisionmaking? Is technology directly, or at least closely, tied to revenue? Who is your boss, and to whom does he or she report? What about that person's boss? Where does your group fit into the org structure? These are the indicators that matter. Lots of non-tech companies can talk the talk, or at least make the necessary noises. But check to see where your company's mouth and money are.

Don't be fooled by trends, or by your company's current infatuation with any buzzy topic of the moment that happens to play to your strengths. Companies eat up and spit out new trends every quarter. Instead, look to things more fundamental and deeply ingrained: org structures; career tracks (if any) for your function there; the power structure and network of decisionmaking; how the company makes its money; etc.

If tech is not really that important to your company, you've got a choice to make. Stick with the company if you want to coast, and perhaps to reach a nicely compensated sinecure within the firm. You can do well for yourself, but you might never really climb the ladder, or attain strategic importance. There's nothing necessarily wrong with that. That's the endgame perhaps 90% of all workers strive for. Leave if you hunger for something more than that.

On the other hand, it is _certainly_ possible to become a hot, exotic, and indispensable figure at a non-tech company by being a techie who is sufficiently skilled in the arts of politics and influence. But you will need to master those arts. Technical competence alone, even extreme competence, will be necessary but insufficient.

<comment><USER3> Where tech isn't integral to what the company produces it usually can nevertheless significantly boost areas that usually are: "operations" or "marketing". The person who introduces the system that gets customers from Google to the right regional sales rep and can produce neat little charts to prove it works is the sort of person that gets consulted on strategic marketing and sales operations decisions even at the sort of organization that thinks "growth hacking" is a type of computer crime.

Ultimately it boils down more to people than positions or market. Do management perceive any ideas you have about tech projects that could improve the company's efficiency or sales as a sign you're a rising star or that they haven't given you enough instructions on how you should be spending your time?

<comment><USER2> Absolutely, but as with anything, what really matters is optics. Who's getting the credit for the innovations you introduce? And are your suggestions going to be taken seriously in the first place? If so, who presents them to leadership? You, or the marketing director who does a trial run and sees the business results? How and when will those results be disseminated, and in front of what audience?

You'll have to consider and navigate all of these things. While these are good skills to have in any role, technical or non-technical, they are especially crucial at a company where you're removed from the core line of business. If you're in a technical role at a non-technical company, you need to be an especially strong presenter and "internal salesman" of ideas. Don't assume that because you brought an idea forward, it'll be adopted straight away -- or that when it is adopted, you'll be credited.

I'm not saying this out of cynicism per se. I've seen technical people thrive, and even kick ass, in leadership roles at non-technical companies. At the same time, I know that those people are an exception and not a rule. What tends to make them exceptional are their political skills. Corporate America likes, but does not necessarily reward, a workhorse. But it _loves_ , and handsomely rewards, a "Big Idea" person. It's hard to be the Big Ideas guy unless you can hook your ideas into the KPIs your company cares the most about.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> I've worked in big corporate environments and small startups (both as a manager and a developer). In the former, I think you have to ask whether your boss has your back. Is he/she interested in furthering your career / ask about your aspirations / come up with a concrete plan for getting you there? If not, you're stuck. In that case, I've found it helps enormously to make yourself visible to your boss's peers (and his/her boss). Figure out what their priorities are and start to address them.

If you're in a smaller company or startup then you've just got to have hustle. Chances are that there are half a dozen unfilled job roles around you and you just need to step in.

Both cases summed up by this advice I received early in my career:

"People don't promote you into a role until you're already doing it."

</comment><comment><USER5> Well, you haven't really explained the situation you're in very well, so I can only make general statements.

Being in a non-tech company could be a good thing. It mostly shouldn't be a variable in your situation. You could have the chance to greatly expand the tech work in the company. I personally think all companies need to have a huge emphasis on in-house technology these days. Even if they contract out the bulk of their work, they still need knowledgeable people on staff to be responsible for the consultants. I say this speaking as a freelance consultant myself. I can only do what I'm told. Someone else has to set the policy, and I've seen what happens--on several occasions--when liberal arts majors are made CTOs of companies.

I also firmly believe in not asking for permission to take on responsibility. If you are meeting your expectations for work, on time and on budget, then there is nothing stopping you from being proactive about side projects and anticipating needs within the company.

If, in doing that, you don't receive the recognition you think you deserve, then you will know it's time to find a new company. But just because you're not being given the chance to shine that you think you need to get the promotion you want, isn't related to it being a tech company or not. You won't find a tech company that hands you opportunities.

</comment><comment><USER6> tl;dr - Yes.

I worked at one company for a long time (10+ years). There was something about it that really bothered me, and it took me a long time to be able to articulate it.

The way I eventually phrased it: You are what you were hired to be.

I was hired as a junior engineer, and it seemed like no matter how much I learned and how much more I contributed to projects, I was at least partially viewed through the lens of that initial hire as a junior engineer. I had to fight hard for promotions, and like others have said, the commensurate pay only came after I had been operating at that level for some time.

Once you know this, it's not so bad. I'm happy where I am now, and I'm not job hunting. But I know I won't want to do this exact thing forever, and when the time comes for me to make a change, it will very likely be to another company. I tried too long before to find career growth satisfaction with one employer. I gave them too many years to underpay me (it's more than just pay of course, it's the recognition that your value to them has increased).

</comment><comment><USER7> Once I read somewhere: "You don't go anywhere and for more money seated in the same seat". I never forgot it.

<comment><USER8> What does it mean? Having difficulties parsing it for some reason.

<comment><USER9> rephrased: You can't move or make more money by staying in the same chair.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> You have to take into consideration that staying in your current job will increase your experience for the job that may come forth in the near future. If that is not the case, then leaving would be your best option. Always try to improve yourself, take additional responsibilities and learn new practices, anything that you invest in yourself will help you move up.

It sucks to assume that switching jobs will automatically helps you "move up" because in order for you to "move up" and gain higher responsibilities, you have to demonstrate the skills required for the higher position.

Try taking on some side projects, pick up best practices for Agile, learn new programming languages, launch new products. For a technical / product manager, your best bet of moving up is to keep launching products. I aim to launch about 8~10 products a year, about 5 of them are side projects.

</comment><comment><USER11> Without knowing about the particulars, I would say: yes. IT jobs in non-IT related companies are more or less dead end jobs, it's seen as a cost rather than profit center so you can be sure someone is working in replacing your job already (either by hiring consultants or automation, SaaS, PaaS, ...).

That said, in some specific circumstances, when you're the right-hand of the C-levels, it may pay off. But you have to marry the technical expertise with executive skills to move up, so they can see you as "one of them" and justify above market salary and/or promotions.

</comment><comment><USER12> > how do you parlay technical strengths into increased responsibility & > promotions.

Suggest tech focused projects that might serve the companies unmet needs. Sales & Marketing might need a dashboard to asses the customer pipeline. The CFO might need a tool to monitor energy usage & costs. Volunteer to help, you'll get known as the brains who figures stuff out.</comment>


Unix started with just 323 lines of code - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/dspinellis/unix-history-repo/commit/1d7af2e93d1404c98a4a42e5e3a9718fbc5eeb8d <comment><USER2> That's incorrect. That's just because the repo owner committed each V1 file separately.

For the whole V1 source code see [https://github.com/dspinellis/unix-history- repo/compare/Epoc...](https://github.com/dspinellis/unix-history- repo/compare/Epoch...Research-V1)</comment>


How do you create an Entrepreneurial environment? - <AUTHOR>

I'm in college and I've noticed that entrepreneurship at my college is an "underground society." Those in it know about eachother but the rest of the undergrad population doesnt know about the entrepreneurial scene. How would you recommend getting more people involved? <comment><USER2> I would suggest hosting an event that benefits the members of your 'underground society', but that attracts the attention of the college population overall. I was a non-business minded, non-tech person that haphazardly attended a Lean Startup Machine workshop in my community. It was one of the most exciting experiences I've had – I learned a lot, exercised skills I didn't know I had, and met people I never would have otherwise.

You could do the same thing. Just be sure to grab as many people from outside your community as feasible, and try to weight the teams in such a way that there is a balance between the entrepreneurs and the newcomers. Diversity of background is essential, but balancing skill sets also brings strength to teams, so ask people to fill out a survey of some kind when they sign up to help you plan the teams.

Keep it inexpensive, provide food/booze where appropriate, and limit the capacity so that there is more interest than you actually invite (enabling you to try it again a few weeks later).

This is unlikely to change the entire culture of the college, but it will bring in new people, new ideas, and perhaps some of the participants will hit on an idea that they can build out into an actual business.</comment>


Universal Basic Income Is Inevitable, Unavoidable, and Incoming - <AUTHOR> https://azizonomics.com/2016/04/29/universal-basic-income-is-inevitable-unavoidable-and-incoming/ <comment><USER2> Why not be honest and call it 'universal welfare'?</comment>


Microsoft, Once Infested with Security Flaws, Does an About-Face - <AUTHOR> http://www.nytimes.com/2015/11/18/technology/microsoft-once-infested-with-security-flaws-does-an-about-face.html <comment><USER2> This is a weird story, since professional security people would have told you the same thing back in 2007.

Windows wasn't originally designed to be secure. Even NT, which is a serious multi-user kernel, was a product of 1990s C programming style. And while that's true of the Unices of the time as well, none of them had Microsoft's absurd user base, and so none of them had the same terrible malware incentives.

This all came to a head around 2001-2003, when the Internet worm phenomenon got so bad that Microsoft was routinely on the front page of CNN, and serious talk of congressional action began.

From what I understand, there was a dramatic top-down response, led by Gates and Ballmer, requiring software security training for developers, giving product managers the power to slip release dates to ensure bugs were caught, and funding what I believe is probably the largest 3rd-party software pentesting program in the industry. Several well-known software security firms (my old firm, Matasano, not really among them) were basically bootstrapped out of Microsoft contracts.

Today, Google probably does a better job on software security than Microsoft does, but it's hard to come up with another rival. Tellingly, Google's security efforts were also a top-down reaction to a major security incident.

<comment><USER3> Not that weird. Illustrative perhaps. So you and I would have agreed in 2007 that Windows was much better at security than they had been, but we are both pretty tightly connected to the technology market.

Today, 8 years later, my Mom and Dad think Windows is a "secure" system as they haven't had any issues for long enough that their opinion of it has changed.

The final leg of this journey will be when Windows + Windows Defender is all you need to keep your system secure. Basically once there isn't a market for add-on security products because the base product is "good enough."

I'm curious why you mention Google though, their security record on Android is a lot worse than either Windows phone or IOS. In many ways I feel like they are _exactly_ Windows in 2003 with regard to "its secure if you use our APIs" kind of security. Would love to hear your thoughts on that.

<comment><USER4> > I'm curious why you mention Google though, their security record on Android > is a lot worse than either Windows phone or IOS. In many ways I feel like > they are exactly Windows in 2003 with regard to "its secure if you use our > APIs" kind of security.

Chrome (OS)'s security model is a lot better, and compared to Android it was designed more in-house. Android was an acquisition and has more legacy design baggage (though of course the vast majority of the code has been written by Google at this point).

<comment><USER5> Android's security is actaully fantastic. The problem is the inability for google to distribute security updates. In 6.0 I now get monthly security updates and there is even a "security update version" of like "november 2015" in the status.

The latest junk even made it into Android 4.1 devices for security updates. But that is neither here nor there, the fact that we have 4.1 devices is a problem.

<comment><USER2> Android's system security design is inferior to that of iOS.

But, iOS's superiority (a) derives in significant part from Apple's total control over the hardware platform†, and (b) comes at the cost of a lot of user control tradeoffs that nerds like us tend to hate.

Really, to suggest that Android's security is at parity with Apple's, you'd have to be arguing that Apple does a _terrible job_ at exploiting their inherent advantages of control over hardware and control over what's allowed to run on the platform. Apple does not do a terrible job at those things.

† _Yes, Google controls some of their hardware, but they have an ongoing support requirement for a lot of hardware they have no control over at all, and will have that requirement forever, which limits their options._

<comment><USER6> On the other hand, I'm unaware of any automated analysis of applications on the iTunes App Store, dynamic or static. Doing this properly isn't in Apple's DNA. For example, when XcodeGhost apps infected some hundreds of millions of users, it took Apple days to take down the affected apps, seemingly waiting for third party reports instead of simply scanning the entire store for the XcodeGhost signature themselves.

<comment><USER2> That's true. My friend is doing a company to address that now:

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

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Microsoft, after much R&D work, deployed two technologies in Windows 7 that improved the security situation considerably. The first was the Static Driver Verifier.[1] That's the formal proof-of-correctness system that checks the source code for a driver for termination, bad pointers, incorrect API calls, and anything that could result in a kernel crash. It's a symbolic path tracer - it symbolically executes all paths through the code. All drivers must pass that verifier. Before this was deployed, about half of Windows crashes were due to drivers. Now, very few are.

The other technology was a classifier for panic dumps. When Windows crashes and reports data to Microsoft, that data goes into a classifier system which tries to cluster similar crashes together. So, when there's a crash bug, the reports of similar crashes are all looked at by the same person at the same time, which tends to get it fixed.

Linux lacks either technology, which is a problem.

[1] [https://msdn.microsoft.com/en- us/library/windows/hardware/ff...](https://msdn.microsoft.com/en- us/library/windows/hardware/ff552808%28v=vs.85%29.aspx)

</comment><comment><USER8> "Still, episodes of online hacking have become even more startling, including the theft of personal data from millions of Target customers and terabytes of private emails from Sony Pictures Entertainment (and both companies use some Microsoft products)."

So somewhere in Sony and Target's organisations there are one or more Windows computers?

This is just lazy reporting NYT. Do better.

<comment><USER9> Agreed - I bet they use Google search every day and their execs have iPhones too.

<comment><USER10> Of mild interest, in the Sony hack: "The hack, which was launched Nov. 24, only affected computers with Microsoft Corp's (MSFT.O) Windows software, so Sony employees using Apple Inc (AAPL.O) Macs, including many in the marketing department, had not been affected." IMHO Microsoft still have a fairly ho hum attitude. If you want to hack a company like Sony the easiest way is to target employees still using old systems like XP and they could have mopped a lot of that up by offering free upgrades to 10 when they offered them to users of 7 and 8 but nah.

<comment><USER11> By the time of the Sony hack, any machine still using XP is a machine that would be using XP even if Microsoft did exactly what you suggest. There's been no lack of opportunities to upgrade and the cost of a Windows license is generally trivial next to the labor expense, training expense, and monetized risk of "my critical software doesn't work" of the upgrade of these systems.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> Though many comments here speak of engineering flaws, but to me it was a cultural flaw. The most outstanding anecdote I have to illustrate this is when I told my manager that "I can't <note that I say "can't", not "won't"> run that internal test tool (the insect farm thing, for those that were in DevDiv around 2003-ish) that runs 24/7 with complete network access because it requires <but did not _need_ > admin privileges."

That nearly got me fired. You read that right: when I point out that a sloppily written application that someone wanted the entire developer division to run was insecure, my manager basically told me to run it or else. If the dev can't even be bothered to not write to PROGRAM_FILES (which is the only reason it needed admin privileges), what other holes does it have? Well, I'm not about to find out on my dev box that's hooked to the corpnet. Running on an internal-only alpha version of the early .NET runtime to boot; what could possibly go wrong? (And as it turned out, nothing went wrong, but still...)

And this was _after_ Valentine's mail was sent. SQL Slammer had already happened. What, you thought the whole company just jumped on the security bandwagon? Yeah, I thought a new day had dawned, too. You can make 'em quit blindly using _strcpy_ , but you won't change their minds with an email even after Valentine asks the whole company to come in and take Slammer support calls.

</comment><comment><USER13> "Microsoft was once the epitome of evrything that is wrong with security in technology."

Certainly they have improved over the last decade, but who hasn't? Not to mention they have boatloads of cash to throw at the problem.

But the fact^W opinion remains Windows is still the easiest target of any OS. A user can configure any OS to be less secure, and other OS can become as popular a target as Windows but there's something about Windows that makes it a far greater liability than all the rest.

It's closed source.

How are you ever going to assess the quality of this software in terms of security? By reading the New York Times?

Boatloads of cash also buys PR.

<comment><USER14> That's an interesting opinion... what makes you think it's the easiest OS to target? Do you have any data to back up the claim that a modern Windows OS is less secure than it's major competitors (OSX and, in some circumstances, Linux)

My feeling would be that Microsoft have done a lot in the security line and have also given a lot back to the security community (their SDL documentation which is freely avaiable for example) and that they are one of the better examples of security in the software industry these days

<comment><USER13> The "security line" is not simply a question of "doing a lot" and "giving a lot back", ex post facto, or setting an "example" in the "security industry".

It also has to do with design goals and priorities. Layer upon layer of cruft, with an OS weighing in at multiple GB, is not a confidence builder in the "security line". It also includes default configurations.

There are reasons that so many Windows instances have been and are now part of botnets. There are reasons why the security updates have increased in quantity and frequency over the years and appear to be neverending.

Some of those reasons have to do with design and priorities. Others with default configurations that Redmond assumes no user will ever change.

No amount of PR can change reality (e.g., massive botnets of Windows users), although it might change people's perception of reality.

Also, I never said "major competitors". I said "other OS". For example, the OS I use is probably not a "major competitor". It is much smaller and open source. That is what is important to me.

<comment><USER15> Sure design goals, well I'd argue that Windows has had "improving security" as a design goal for some time now, and that this has had measurable impacts on the security of their products.

For example take SQL server as a good example, compare the number of RCE issues that it's had with say.... Oracle's Database server, another well funded company with loads of "PR" money. You'll find the SQL server has many fewer security issues than the competition, and I would suggest this is evidence of Microsofts improved attention to security...

MS default configuration are really very good. I'd compare to your OS of choice, but you don't choose to disclose it :)

So on the server-side I'd say that when I test modern default installs of windows based products they tend to have a good security posture out of the box.

Security Updates, well everyone has a load of those, are you suggesting the MS is worse than their competition? Counting OS vulnerabilities is notoriously difficult to it's hard to get an Apples to Apples comparison here.

Botnets, well there are botnets on linux for sure, and OSX has had it's share of malware to as has Android.

If you like a small open source OS then that's fine, but it doesn't necessarily make another entirely different OS have bad security.

now I know there's a reasonable chance you're thinking I'm an MS "fanboy" or similar at this point, but I'm not. I use OSX/Linux and Windows (as well as some iOS and Android) where they work best for me.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> Would anyone agree that complexity provides a foundation for insecurity while simplicity makes audits easier? Large software with many parts have more potential for flaws. Small software with few parts have less potential for flaws because they are easier to find and fix. Implausible? Well, I happen to believe this.

If Microsoft ever released the Windows source code, what would we find? Simplicity?

How easy would it be to audit?

Bias disclosure: I like small software. Windows and most all other software released by Microsoft is large, or packaged in such a way as to necessitate a large download/install.

<comment><USER16> > If Microsoft ever released the Windows source code, what would we find? > Simplicity?

Depends on where you look. Much of the NT kernel is "simple", but it's not easy stuff to get right. There's a bunch of legacy code in the Win32 layers, especially dealing with user input, that is just frightening (comments like "This stupid hack makes the utterly broken Compaq XYZ-3000 keyboard not crash the system"). The COM stuff is just complex and arcane and top-heavy with architecture astronautics. The build system is, or was, a soul-destroying, radioactive and rotting cesspool of Perl; doing Windows builds sucked real hard.

So it's a mix of really quite good code, and really quite awful code (that they're dealing with, I think), and code that makes you want to quit, every day.

(Soapbox: You should _never_ have code in your project that you are scared of touching. Never. If you do, get rid of it and replace it. Don't layer over it, don't give it to some intern to maintain, just face the problem and deal with it, or it will be the most costly code in your product).

<comment><USER13> If the code were ever released in a form that I could compile myself, and I could omit the parts I did no want... then I might be interested in Windows.

Given that MS is a very successful company that got to where it is today based on closed source and copyright, I am not expecting that to happen, ever.

I appreciate your candor.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> At least part of the secret is formal verification. MSR throughout the last decade made some big advances in software verification technology. These resulted in more than just academic papers, they were used to find tons of real bugs in MS and external (as part of the driver development kit) source code. There was a point at which all of the biggest names in software verification were either academics or at MSR or at both.

SLAM, Z3, DART were all tools that came out of MSR and have been incredibly influential on the whole field of software verification.

</comment><comment><USER18> I wouldn't say that they are "the best in class". I have recently (~3 months ago) reported a pretty important security flaw in outlook.com (including its Office 365 version). They have only found the issue a week ago or so (and it isn't fixed yet!). I like Microsoft, but their awful responsiveness doesn't make me want to use their products, or to work again for them.

</comment><comment><USER19> > company's co-founder, Bill Gates, once ordered all of Microsoft engineers to > stop writing new code for a month

Source?

<comment><USER12> Valentine actually dictated it, but it did actually happen. Brian's mail was something along the lines of, "I'm tired of reading about the latest security vulnerability in the NYT, so...". And I think it was six weeks, not a month.

Source: me, who worked there (in VS, not Windows) at the time.

EDIT: oh, yeah, forgot about the Gates mail. References are buried in this link: [http://www.microsoft.com/security/sdl/story/#chapter-1](http://www.microsoft.com/security/sdl/story/#chapter-1)

I stand by the B. Valentine version, just can't find a link.

</comment></comment><comment><USER20> Not sure 10 years is an about face?

<comment><USER21> It takes Saturn 15 years to do an "about face" so that it's on the opposite side of the Sun. Perhaps Microsoft's code base, when printed out, is as massive as a planet.

</comment></comment><comment><USER22> "Microsoft's latest version of its operating system, Windows 10, has a feature called Windows Hello that allows people to log in to a PC with a scan of their finger, iris or face instead of using a password — weak versions of which are a common cause of data breaches."

Is that more secure in practice?

[http://hackaday.com/2015/11/10/your-unhashable- fingerprints-...](http://hackaday.com/2015/11/10/your-unhashable-fingerprints- secure-nothing/)

</comment><comment><USER23> Too bad it's doing the opposite on the privacy front, trying to collect more data than ever about Windows users, by default.

<comment><USER24> This is the salient point. What good is platform security when the platform is keylogging and shipping telemetry to a third party not in your control?

<comment><USER25> Which third party is this?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> "All software is large."

FALSE.

But this statement does not surprise me. It is this distorted view of programs that is a large part of the "security" problem, in my opinion.

<comment><USER26> Since this subthread turned into an off-topic flamewar, we detached it from [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10588972](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10588972).

</comment></comment><comment><USER27> So Microsoft hired a PR firm.</comment>


Yahoo! Earning 5% More With The New Ads System - <AUTHOR> http://www.avinio.blogspot.com/2007/02/yahoo-earning-5-more-with-new-ads.html <comment><USER2> Are web ads really going to be this valuable in a generation? Even now, most tech savvy people are so used to the omnipresent nature of goole ads that they ignore them by nature. I can't even remember the last time I clicked on a google ad or any ad for that matter! If we add real means to block ads (mozilla add ons for example) to this subconcious rejection of advertising one can see that, in at most a generation, the viability of ad based businesses will be tenuous at best.

Take the example of the Sprint ad which featured 3 guys dancing in the office. A majority of us watched, a majority probably even liked the ad, but I'll bet very few switched over. As technology and information become more pervasive, it's going to be harder and harder to sell a bad or second class product no matter how good your marketing team is. Better to spend those precious dollars on designing a top notch product and let the consumers be your advertisers.

<comment><USER3> If you have a second rate product, then good advertising can only do so much.

This is an age of rapid communication. Word of mouth has never been so valuable. A good word for your product will reach millions in a very short time span.

But I disagree with you about web ads. Web ads will continue to be viable and valuable. There is plenty of proof online regarding the type of conversion returns that firms are getting and the revenue publishers are generating. If someone wrote television ads off, saying that the majority of people just change the channel, they'd be dead wrong.

A lot of people tune out ads online. Many, many don't -- especially today when they have become more relevant to your desires than ever.</comment></comment>


Microsoft's office: Why insiders think top management has lost its way - <AUTHOR> http://tech.fortune.cnn.com/2011/03/31/microsofts-office-why-insiders-think-top-management-has-lost-its-way/

<comment><USER2> As a recently departed (read 5 months) ex-PM at Microsoft, I think MS's problems, at least in my division, stem from three things: a lack of vision/leadership, too inward of a focus, and the ridiculous bevy of meaningless communication. I think the article touches on each of these in a certain way, but not exactly in the same way I mean them.

One thing I noticed about the middle management at MS was that they never defined a direction. No one ever set out a vision. The result of this was that each little section of a product would decide what the best possible direction for the product would be and build features to that vision. The summation of this effort is a frankenstein product with a user experience that is equally as scary. No one worked together unless they were forced to and even when they did, they never really worked toward a common goal. Based on my experience, I believe that a single charasmatic, intelligent, and visionary person could have easily turned our division around. All it would take is strong leadership and a crystal clear vision. We had neither.

The article makes a point of MS being focused too much on itself, and I wholeheartedly agree. One of the things I was praised for was knowing what the rest of the tech world was doing (I worked on VS). What astounded me was how little others knew about non-MS technologies. We were beaten to the punch by other products nearly every time because we only ever focused inward and not on what the world itself was doing. Moreover, when people did look out the window they focused on the wrong things and instead of trying to innovate saw it as a need to start chasing tail lights.

Lastly, I got several hundred emails a day as a PM. Despite that deluge of written communication, I felt that no one was really ever saying anything of value. Sadly, most people aren't great communicators and the result of a culture that promotes a ton of communication is a torrent of useless discussions that take away from what really matters. It seemed to me that most managers were there solely to deal with the fact that no one was working together or communicating properly. I would argue that at least 1/3 of a person's workload at MS is the direct result of this inability to communicate and it absolutely destroyed many of the efforts I would've liked to have seen succeed.

I don't believe replacing Ballmer is some magic bullet. I think the company needs to be 1/10 of the size to reduce communication and to get people working together. I think it needs someone with a vision for the way things should be that isn't based on what's already out there. And I think Microsoft has a chance if it could only take a step back and see that it's no longer an innovative company, but instead a peddler of last year's model.

<comment><USER3> _The article makes a point of MS being focused too much on itself, and I wholeheartedly agree. One of the things I was praised for was knowing what the rest of the tech world was doing (I worked on VS)._

I have to admit that I find this odd for a few reasons:

1) VS is one of the best products MS ships. And its probably best in industry.

2) VS has done a fair bit of really good work in the past few years. The work in C# has definitely been ahead of its peers in the industry. The debugger continuously seems to get better. And even where it plays catch up, like ASP.NET MVC, its doing so rapid and smartly.

3) VS is where it seems like there are a lot of people who look outside the company. I've never met Scott Hanselman, but he seems like the type of person who could rattle off every open source project in existence.

4) Scott Guthrie seems pretty visionary and he's in VS isn't he?

I'm not doubting any of what you said, but it seems like VS is the one place in MS that I'd tell the rest of the company to look for inspiration -- although as an insider it appears otherwise.

<comment><USER2> 1) I agree. It's probably one of the best IDE's out there and C# is undoubtedly a fantastic language.

2) In what ways is C# ahead of its peers in the industry? I think Async is a great step forward, but it's been in other languages for a while now.

3) He could and he has no impact on VS whatsoever. Scott is essentially a community PM. He talks for a living about stuff. He's a great guy and he's done some good on the web side, but he has no influence on the core of VS.

4) He's actually on the platform, not VS, though he does take a lot of interest in the core component itself. I like ScottGu a lot, I've worked with him a couple of times, but he's driving something very specific (.NET framework and its components).

MS is quite good at building platforms and not nearly as good at building interfaces. A big part of what I did before I left was prove that most people don't understand how to use VS. Moreover, there's a lot you don't see - all of the failed attempts to do things even more amazing than async. While VS itself seems like a model citizen, I would argue that's because it started out as the conglomeration of fairly strong original products and hasn't needed to move too far from where it started to be "best in industry."

<comment><USER3> I think in general we agree -- you just have an insider perspective so you can see some of the strings that I can't.

The only big contention is "In what ways is C# ahead of its peers in the industry?" This comes down to a language war where there is no winner, but the way C# has put together great feature sets around key scenarios. Generics done right, much improved co/contravariance, nice lambdas, dynamic support which is actually pretty useful, extension methods, and of course async. While async exists in some languages, it doesn't exist in what I'd consider peers (other popular languages) from Common Lisp, Python, Ruby, Java, C/C++, and Javascript. And frankly, I think this probably isn't all that important -- and more religious than anything else.

But I am curious about one thing you said, _A big part of what I did before I left was prove that most people don't understand how to use VS. Moreover, there's a lot you don't see - all of the failed attempts to do things even more amazing than async._

Could you expand?

<comment><USER4> There's a big difference between the c# language team and visual studio. The c# language has left java for dust, they are doing a bloody brilliant job but on the other hand were essentially playing catch up with python and ruby until 4.0. The dynamic CLR stuff has really changed the game.

VS, on the otherhand, has stagnated, between 2005 and 2010, apart from integration with the new hotnesses like Silverlight, MVC and LINQ, I can't really point out any improvements. While I must admit I love MVC over ASP.Net (keer-spit), even now you feel the meddlers interfering and making it do unnecessary magic.

Its javascript integration is still shockingly bad. It doesn't even highlight brackets or braces and the auto-indenting is erratic. Javascript is so key to web programming these days and yet for the first time I find myself juggling VS with Notepad++ because that free open-source program is actually a lot better.

<comment><USER5> "Its javascript integration is still shockingly bad."

Sooooo very shockingly bad. =(

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> The fundamental problem at Microsoft is that building your career is a better (more lucrative) use of your time than building your product. You can be successful there without ever making a successful product. Microsoft acquired my startup and I spent 2 years there wondering what the hell was going on until I came to that realization.

<comment><USER7> Yup. You get the behavior you incent, and my impression is that the incentives to play politics at Microsoft are far more pervasive nowadays than the incentives to build good product. In fact, one of the biggest incentives to build good product seems to be the additional leverage it gives you politically...

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> Some good quotes from the comments:

"I personally know two women got promoted to be managers, not because of their performance, but because they each is a higher manager's mistress. In short, Microsoft's is a fear-based culture. How could Microsoft not fall rapidly?"

"I'd attend a meeting where we needed 3 or 4 relevant people to discuss something but 30 or more would show up, to represent their group's interests, even if they had no real idea of what was going on. It was nearly impossible to reach any consensus, all decisions ultimately got made by whatever interested PM had the most clout - often not the PM with the most expertise or relevance"

" I recall the sole-sucking Business Process Reviews we'd go through. The culmination would be a Bill/Steve meeting. It was the 30 people developing 98 slide powerpoints with 2 point font (again, no exaggeration). It was game over for me once I sat through that."

</comment><comment><USER9> """

Yet Ballmer & Co. remain in denial, they say, because the great gushers of cash Windows and Office generate means they don't feel the urgency they otherwise would –shielded from the pain of its many disappointments by two of the more successful franchises in the history of business. """

That reminds me of an article about Pixar (which I can't find now) which talked about how the management team are especially careful to seek out problems when the company is being successful. If stuff is going well, it's easy to gloss over problems with morale, teamwork etc.

<comment><USER10> I believe Ed Catmull refers to this as 'keeping your crises small.' That is to say, it's much better to actively surface problems before they leave the shop than it is to ship with issues, and try to deal with implosions after the fact (ahem, Vista).

Here he is, giving a really good talk at Stanford Business School, in which he covers this (among other good ideas). About an hour, but worth much more.

<http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k2h2lvhzMDc>

Interestingly, an ethos like this suggests that the fate of Microsoft is NOT inevitable. It's only becomes that way when you no longer care about shipping garbage. Exhibit B: Detroit in the 70's and 80's.

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> To quote Steve Jobs: "The only problem with Microsoft is they just have no taste. They have absolutely no taste. And I don't mean that in a small way, I mean that in a big way, in the sense that they don't think of original ideas, and they don't bring much culture into their products. "

This is so true. With other leading companies, you'll often see a product and it'll be so well designed and everything will be so thought out, that it'll bring an instant smile to your face. With Microsoft's products, on the other hand, you're often frowning the minute you open them.

Just today, I fired up Entourage (MS Outlook for Mac) over a really flaky connection; and the first thing it does is update the Bulk Mail folder. Really, Microsoft? Would that be my first priority when I open an email client, to see what new junk mail has arrived? Then it proceeded to update other sundry folders, and near the end it did it update the Inbox (which is what I was waiting for).

<comment><USER12> Making usable software is extremely difficult, and I don't think Microsoft has been much worse at it than any of the other big companies. They have both well-designed products and poorly-designed products.

It's such a huge company with so many different development teams of varying quality that it's silly to attribute the behavior of Entourage to all of Microsoft, as in, "Really, Microsoft?"

<comment><USER11> This is just but one example. I could give dozens more.

The reality is: using MSFT products _often_ leave one frustrated and exasperated. These little paper cuts add up.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> One of Microsoft's biggest problems that contributes to their insular view is that they are located in Redmond. They're insulated from the rest of the highly competitive technology field (except for Amazon). This works out great for them when it comes to retaining talent in Redmond as employees are usually not willing to uproot their lifestyle to head to 'greener pastures'.

Contrast this to how Google handles compensation and employee retention. Granted, Google is a much smaller organization and can afford to be more nimble, but part of it has to do with with the fact that being in the valley means that its incredibly easy for talented, motivated engineers to move to the next hot startup once they're dissatisfied with their current job.

In Redmond, however, these options don't really exist and creates a culture of stagnation. People goto their jobs because they have and leave as soon as it is culturally acceptable.

I fear a lot of Microsoft's future as I just don't believe that they are able to recruit top young talent anymore. Not only is Microsoft not a "hip" place to work anymore, but their compensation is generally below market. Its pretty standard for funded startups to give more BASE salary than Microsoft. Google's base is roughly 50% more than what Microsoft pays. New hires at Google make more money than level 64 Microsoft engineers (5 levels from starting).

Microsoft will continue to execute and create good products, but until their internal culture drastically changes they will slowly slide into irrelevance.

<comment><USER14> I'm not going to claim that Microsoft isn't too insular (it is) and I live and work in Seattle on purpose, so I'm a little biased about this, but I don't think it's just about the location. Besides Amazon being a huge presence, more and more established tech companies are opening development offices here (Google, Facebook, Zynga) just to take advantage of the talent that's here. Not to mention the fairly healthy startup culture that feeds from and back into the beast in Redmond.

Leadership, culture, and politics are all much bigger problems than geography.

<comment><USER15> I agree leadership, culture, and politics are bigger problems than geography, but it's still an issue.

Sniping younger people from MSFT is sometimes trivially easy because of its remote location in Redmond - surrounded almost exclusively by nice, quiet suburbs. I know a lot of MSFTies braving the commute across the lake daily (1-1.5h each way!), but people get tired of it _fast_ , and by and large the young want to live on the west side, in the city proper, not out in the 'burbs.

There's a reason why Google is now in Fremont, Facebook is downtown by the Market... I know personally (and some others who feel the same way) that there's not a chance I'll take a commute over the lake every day, and likewise no chance I'll _live_ on the east side.

<comment><USER14> I totally agree with the East-side West-side thing. I commuted across Lake Washington once and I'm never going to do it again. In fact, I turned down what seemed like a promising position at a cool startup because they were threatening a move from Fremont(!) to Bellevue(!?).

Of course, two years later, they're still in Fremont.

Microsoft has done some good work with their connector shuttles. I could actually take a little shuttle van from my neighborhood straight to Redmond if I worked out there, and spend the commute time playing Tiny Wings on my iPad instead of driving.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> What I found most interesting about that article was how, unlike most articles on CNN, the comments were dominated by people saying approximately "Yes I actually worked there from xx to yy and I fully agree with the substance of this article."

</comment><comment><USER17> I've often thought that Microsoft would have done much better if the justice dept had broken it up. Being everything to everyone just doesn't work as a business strategy. But separate Windows/XBox and Office/enterprise apps companies could focus on their respective markets.

</comment><comment><USER18> I still don't get how all these articles frame the debate as Microsoft playing catch-up with all the "innovation" coming out of Apple? I get the management culture and internal struggles and "analysis paralysis" that comes with the cover-your-butt mentality, but as far as I can tell, Microsoft is one of the very few companies that has entire departments dedicated bringing cutting-edge technologies to market. The only other companies that comes close(that I've seen) are Google and perhaps Philips. Talk to researches at elite technology schools, and I would venture to guess that they would put Microsoft far ahead of Apple, and maybe Google, in the innovation race. However, if you talk management or P/E people, they would probably give you a different answer. So I guess I'm in agreement that there's an internal problem at Microsoft, but that it lies with the culture, not the actual scope of their ability to innovate.

<comment><USER19> > Microsoft is one of the very few companies that has entire departments > dedicated bringing cutting-edge technologies to market.

So where are these technologies? And why isn't Microsoft hauling huge sacks of money home each year from multiple products that didn't exist in the 90's? As far as I can tell, they make money from vendor lock-in with Office and Windows, and a gaming division founded by a visionary who left because he couldn't stand working there anymore.

<comment><USER20> Kinect is pretty impressive, and I think WP7 is innovative in its ability to display content on a small screen in a natural way.

I don't know if I agree that they are ahead of Google and Apple, but they have come up with a few cool things.

<comment><USER19> Kinect is awesome, but as I said here:

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2420579>

 _They bought Kinect from another company – the hard work of getting approvals and resources and everything else to start on it had already been done outside of Microsoft.

It's definitely an impressive bit of tech, but would it have been possible were its genesis subject to the byzantine internal politics of Microsoft? I dunno. I wouldn't put money on it._

As to WP7, it's actually more of an indictment of Microsoft than it is a credit to them. Consider how much of a clusterfuck their mobile strategy has been for the last four years. It took them forever to get their bureaucratic shit together and actually ship something that resembled a next generation smartphone, and once they did, they did a piss-poor job supporting and improving the platform, despite the very high standard set by both Google and Apple for the same. It's a perfect example of their inability to execute or respond to changes in their industry.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21>
        A survey of more than 1,000 Microsoft employees
        conducted in October by Glassdor.com showed that
        only 51% of them approved of Ballmer's performance
        as CEO.

I'm familiar with these types of corporate surveys -- the questions are more likely phrased with bias, like "Do you agree that Ballmer is a good CEO?" (careful, he's watching your answers).

And then they do an all hands in which results are discussed with team-level granularity to keep anonymity, but if the team has 5 people, out of which you're most likely to speak your mind (and everybody knows it), then everybody knows it was you who criticized the CEO.

I've seen such a survey end up with 80% in favor of everything, even though the people were actually discontented with the way the company was being managed -- 51% is pretty bad ;-)

<comment><USER22> My former employer did these types of surveys a couple times in the last few years I was there. Supposedly 100% anonymous but the survey link mailed to each employee had a hashed (unique) query string. People not taking part in the survey got follow up notices till they complied.

No one believed any of it was anonymous. The results were worthless, but quoted regularly. It was that type of place.

</comment></comment><comment><USER23> "Windows Everywhere" is a bad strategy for Microsoft. I still don't think _Windows Phone 7_ was a good name. Why didn't they just go with _Microsoft Phone_ or something?

<comment><USER24> I believe that kind of misperception happens when you ask your employees the important questions rather than asking your competition's customers.

<comment><USER25> I have to disagree. You think Apple polled Windows Mobile users what to call the iPhone?

<comment><USER24> No, but Apple has Steve Jobs. Microsoft has Ballmer.

There is a difference. ;-)

<comment><USER3> But the name of the iPod originally came from a freelance marketing guy, not Jobs himself. After the success of the iPod, the iPhone name was pretty easy. With that said they could have called it the Apple Phone and probably not lost a sale.

<comment><USER26> "Good artists copy, great artists steal."

-Picasso

Jobs is an artist. Ballmer isn't.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> It seems like most of Microsoft wants Steve Ballmer to make a major change to Microsoft. I'd really like to see him follow the "New Detroit" idea and announce a major re-thinking of the company. But, I'm sure he won't. They'll complain, his approval ratings will get worse, Microsoft will decline, and he will stay in denial. Peter Drucker is rolling in his grave.

<comment><USER27> > I'd really like to see him follow the "New Detroit" idea and announce a > major re-thinking of the company.

How about we wait until "new Detroit" actually succeeds before using it as a model?

Folks are constantly doing "major re-thinking" of various things and most of the ones that get implemented turn out to be disasters, especially the urban ones. ("The projects" were one such "re-think".)

</comment></comment><comment><USER28> everybody/everything is subject to natural lifecycle. At 35 one is completely different from the one at 15. The complex living system like a large company is subject to it as well. You go through life, you change, you age [the undead of course are exception from the rule, like vampires or IBM]

<comment><USER29> +1 for the mention of the undead. COBOL is the undead. It refuses to die, billions of lines of COBOL still run today and will still run 50 years from now, probably much longer. In my nightmares I see an Undead Arcane Mage cranking out PROCEDURE DIVISIONS for centuries to come.

</comment></comment><comment><USER30> This is the natural end-game of being a hugely successful company: you box yourself in. You make so many rules about what can happen and how it all has to work that nothing can escape.

They have to break up. I just don't see any other way around it. Each little new idea that might help somebody competes with dozens of special interests all looking out for some little fiefdom or concern that may or may not be important -- nobody knows. The place becomes a huge echo chamber where outsiders can't be heard except through marketing studies and sales staff reporting through the chain of command.

I wish this situation was unique to Microsoft, but it is not. Any large shop that makes software ends up creating their own prison.

The open question is whether Google and Facebook will also end up in this same spot.

<comment><USER3> _The open question is whether Google and Facebook will also end up in this same spot._

As you said, everyone will end up here. There's virtually no way a rational company can avoid it. It's textbook Innovator's Dilemma. Eventually you're faced with a situation that there is a new product/service that is cannibalizing your product. You can hasten the cannibalization of your cash cow and maybe succeed in this new space (or maybe not), or you can milk you cash cow for all its worth. If you do the math its almost always better to _NOT_ hasten your own demise for an uncertain future.

But even if you were to break them up, there's really no good way to break them up that really helps all that much. Windows and Office? Nothing else can really exist on its own. Now you have two big monsters that have the same problems, but spread out in two companies.

I think you have to let nature take its course. Which probably means some breakout technology that lets them continue their cash cow while providing new scenarios. If Windows 8 can actually merge the desktop, tablet, and phone in a way never even envisioned, that would be a shot. But it's such a long shot I wouldn't hold out much hope.

<comment><USER31> But Apple in contrast has turned out to be surprisingly nimble and my impression is that their employees are quite happy.

<comment><USER32> I imagine Apple as an absolute monarchy, with Jobs handing down dictates from on high. If I imagine decisions at MS, I imagine a committee process.

I think the results the companies are having bear out those impressions.

<comment><USER33> Its interesting to me that one of the most successful absolute monarchies, Great Britain, in the end became ruled by committee.

And eventually lost its empire, with the next great power ruled a committee constrained by a constitution. And that constitution eroding away has led to the committee pretty much pissing it away.

So, yeah, committees are not good. A system governed by sensible rules that rewards smart action, punishes bad actors and forgives errors is better.

<comment><USER34> True, but there is no evidence that such a system can remain for any significant length of time (or in most cases even come about in the first place) in practice. If you look at any country of significant size they mostly appear to be ruled by a committee or an absolute dictator. The committees could be said to generally be doing a bad job but nowhere near as bad as the worst cases of the dictators, but nobody has this ideal system governed by sensible rules - possibly because when you get enough human beings together in the first place they can't agree on what any sensible rules would be.

<comment><USER35> An absolute ruler who is competent can get a lot done. An absolute ruler who is incompetent or bad for his people, OTOH, is hard to remove.

<comment><USER33> I think those absolute rulers whose territories are small and whose populations can easily leave probably make more sound decisions. Singapore seems well run, for example. The people can remove a ruler by removing themselves.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER36> Google has apparently taken this lesson to heart. With Page taking over, it looks like his goal is to allow each group to act more independently, like startups, and to reduce the management structure so teams have more flexibility to do what they want to be successful.

</comment><comment><USER37> > _its people knew the competition so intimately that the best product > managers could rattle off the birthdays of the CEO's kids._

That's not competitive research, that's stalking.

</comment><comment><USER38> Microsoft lost its way once Gates left. He was the visionary that started the company, and Ballmer was just a businessman. They need a visionary to lead, and from what I've read they need to do away with the internal turf wars. I know I've read a lot of blog posts from insiders saying that great ideas get smothered by other divisions all the time when they feel "threatened" by them.</comment>


Show HN: Nooze – compare international news sites headlines - <AUTHOR> https://nooze.world <comment><AUTHOR> Author, I wanted to have some fun with Go, GCP and Google Sheets and decided to solve a problem I am facing: I wanted a simple way to compare the covid 19 coverage across national press around the world, with a pragmatic UI like HN. Turned out it is quite funny to watch the differences in journalistic focus between countries. I am currently looking for increasing the list, maybe add some visual indicators of journal's editorial position on the political spectrum. I would be hapy and grateful to welcome any recommendations HN folk could give me !</comment>


Xcel Energy Says It Will Close Two Coal-Fired Power Plants a Decade Early - ga-vu https://finance.yahoo.com/news/xcel-energy-end-coal-upper-154800947.html <comment><AUTHOR> Natural Gas prices have done a great deal to reduce coal usage. Shutting down a plant is no easy decision.

It is clear coal is just being priced out of the equation.

</comment><comment><USER2> Imagine how much faster we'd go if we actually had the help of the federal government (via grants, etc) instead of fighting these utilities tooth and nail and forcing them to make these upgrades under court settlements and to wait until they haven't exhausted every penny of profits before moving to renewable energy?

<comment><USER3> Be careful what you wish for. Look at Germany for the best example of what you are asking for. Ignore the PR and look at the data. They have increased solar capacity, but are closing natural gas and nuclear plants to build new lignite coal plants(the worst of the coal burning plants). Since their focus on solar, Germany's CO2 reductions have actually slowed!

<comment><USER4> It seems like the biggest problem is the retreat from nuclear, not the focus on solar.

<comment><USER3> Or the fact that the sun doesn't shine that much in Germany? Look at a world solar potential energy map. They are throwing money down the drain.

<comment><USER5> A combination of shutting down nuclear to just import from France's nukes down the road and use solar where they don't get much sun I would guess.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Good, leave it in the ground where it belongs. Here in the US coal plant closures are more due to the rise of natural gas plants rather than renewables, but even natural gas only has half the carbon emissions and doesn't produce toxic coal ash.

<comment><USER7> American coal won't stay in the ground any more than Australia's does. There are plenty of coal burning power plants in the world, and while it may not be economic to burn it for electricity in the US, there are countries which import a lot of coal.

[https://www.worldcoal.org/coal/coal-market- pricing](https://www.worldcoal.org/coal/coal-market-pricing)

<comment><USER8> Environmentalists should buy the coal, artificially inflate the price, and store it permanently so it never gets burned.

<comment><USER9> That would just increase demand, raising prices only until the coal mining companies caught up with their production.

No, the only solution is to get away from coal consumption.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Germany made a similar announcement recently, and I have the same questions here as for there.

Although there has been progress to use coal plants as variable output plants, they tend to be used base load plants that run all or most of the time. The same thing is true for Nuclear plants, and to the extent that power prices occasionally go _negative_. (This essentially means that the utility is willing to pay people to take their power for a brief time at low system loading, so that they can avoid turning a plant down or off.)

Renewables are used differently, in that there's a lot less ability to rely on them to generate power. So they're not really a replacement. This makes me think the ability to shutter these coal plants is a lot more dependent on the decision to extend the life of the nuclear plant and buy the NG plant than it is to do with the renewables they're adding.

<comment><USER11> Our municipal power plant where I live converted from coal to natural gas recently. My understanding was the decision was based solely on the (now cancelled?) Clean Power Plan, and the inability to make the existing plant meet those regulations.

Given the instability of US politics, I'd guess most utility companies are operating under the assumption that those laws could quickly be put back in place after any given election cycle.

<comment><USER12> According to a utility in South Carolina (Santee Cooper):

"Related to cost — in 2008, natural gas generation was as low as $55/MWh and coal was about $22/MWh in our most efficient units. In 2018, the comparable prices were $26/MWh for natural gas and $34/MWh for coal."

<comment><USER13> Thong in Germany is that CO2 certificates are so dirt cheap that the incremental cost of power generation puts coal plants second behind wind and solar with basically zero variable cost (I'd have to look up where hydro power stands). So gas effectively gets squeezed out of the market.

The easy fix would be cutting the available CO2 certificates or making them more expensive. But for some reason that ain't happening.

<comment><USER11> Doesn't Germany get most of its natural gas from Russia, which is a bit contentious for political reasons?

<comment> village-idiot Yes.

Fun fact, all of the natural gas that Germany bought from Russia used to flow through former Warsaw Pact nations like Poland. Now the gas goes at least partially through the undersea Nord Stream pipeline and the under construction Nord Stream 2. It's generally believed that this transition has made Russia much more bellicose in the region, as they can now threaten to turn off Poland's gas supply without also harming Western Europe at the same time.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> This was a legal settlement to shutdown two old coal plants earlier than expected so they could buy a large natural gas plant. With the _promise_ that they will build solar and wind too. But keep the coal plants on the books until 2035-2037, but I expect the truth of the matter is those plants would be cost ineffective by then anyhow. A lot could change in their plans.

I only read the legal page briefly but my guess is if you are looking at this as entirely Hope and Change, you should probably be more a little more skeptical.

<comment><USER15> Linked legal agreement: [https://www.eenews.net/assets/2019/05/21/document_ew_01.pdf](https://www.eenews.net/assets/2019/05/21/document_ew_01.pdf)

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> Note that a _decade early_ is pretty misleading in this context, because the headline gives no baseline - someone could erroneously assume that this means they're shutting it down now, instead of in 2030.

Since no baseline is given, it's up to the reader to look at the content of the article.

In reality, it seems they were planning to shut down the big plant in 2040, and will now do so in 2030, which means it'll still be polluting for 10.5 years.

Any progress is better than no progress though.

</comment><comment><USER17> This headline should be changed to "Will Close Its Coal-Fire Powered", as the announcement is really just for 2028 and onwards. They haven't shut down the coal-fired power yet, thus the present form of the verb is overly charitable.

<comment><USER18> Ok, we'll put that above.

Edit: actually, let's change the URL from [https://e360.yale.edu/digest/a-major-u-s-utility-is- closing-...](https://e360.yale.edu/digest/a-major-u-s-utility-is-closing-its- coal-fired-power-plants-a-decade-early) to the press release it points to, which is actually more informative. Being less informative than a press release is maybe not the greatest quality for an article...

</comment></comment><comment><USER19> In the spirit of saving you a click to find our the name and location of the "major utility":

Xcel Energy Inc. announced it will close its remaining coal-fired power plants in the Upper Midwest a decade ahead of schedule and add 3,000 megawatts of new solar capacity by 2030.

<comment><USER18> Ok, we'll put that name in the title as well.

</comment></comment><comment> Iwan-Zotow "and add 3,000 megawatts of new solar capacity"

And what people supposed to do during evenings/nights/no sun? Fornicate?

<comment><USER9> That's a splendid idea.

Oh, wait. There exists such a thing as batteries. Dang!</comment></comment>


Ask HN: Planning a move from SF to NYC. Need help in salary comparison. - <AUTHOR>

I'm planning a move from SF to NYC provided my salary negotiation goes well. Quora/Glassdoor/Cost of living calculators weren't really helpful so may be HN gurus can throw some light?
I'm curious to know what a 110K salary (Product Manager - 2 years experience) in SF would be in NYC? I don't want to intentionally short-sell myself (I'm sure Bay Area talent is in "high demand" in NYC as I experienced it myself) but don't want to throw out an outrageous number based on all these Cost of living calculators as well. May be folks who moved from Bay Area to NYC can comment?
Thanks so! <comment><USER2> Your cost of living in NYC should be equal to SF and you have the added value of being from Silicon Valley — so my gut tells me that you might be able to stick with your range. The factors that are going to impact you are what industry that you work in and what your previous experience was before your current job. Your best bet might be to talk to a recruiter and pump them for information...

</comment><comment><USER3> From what I have seen, both your salary expectations and cost of living should be very similar.

However... 110k for a PM w/ 2 years exp. does sound pretty high to me (for NYC), but it does depend on industry/company.</comment>