Ask HN: Has anyone ever been hired from "Who wants to be hired?" threads? - <AUTHOR> Just a simple question, I have seen stories of people who were hired based on the job postings threads. Never once have I heard of anyone getting anything other than recruiter spam from the Ask HN: Who wants to be Hired threads. I think it might be useful to hear stories either way.
Were you hired after someone contacted you?
Did you receive responses that weren't recruiter-spam from your posts there? <comment><USER2> I started the "Who wants to be hired?" threads over 5 years ago [1] after dang giving his blessing on it [2], and was super excited that it led to the job [3] that I still happily hold today.

I really wish these threads were more active -- and received more upvotes -- relative to the "Who's hiring" threads, as it seems like the signal to noise is so much better, and also seems like the success rate would be quite a bit higher.

I'm not sure if a) people aren't aware of the threads, or b) people don't have confidence in their success rate.

But as someone whose career -- and as a result, life -- got a big boost from it, I highly recommend anyone considering a move to try posting there. Seems like it could only help!

[1] [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7685170](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7685170)

[2] [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7682189](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7682189)

[3] [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7833251](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7833251)

<comment><USER3> I've thought about it and my concern with using the thread if I were job hunting is that if a coworker saw me on it, it might come out that I'm looking elsewhere when I'm not wanting that out yet.

The Who's Hiring Thread would help me keep my search more private.

<comment><USER4> And this is the reason why your online persona needs to be separated from your real life persona.

<comment><USER2> Or, just use throwaways (with throwaway contact info) when you want to post but remain anonymous (assuming you don't need to go into details that would otherwise identity you).

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Yes! I posted in the threads on Jan 1 and Feb 1 of this year. I was contacted by a cumulative total of 14 companies, of which 2 were actually interesting to me. I'm a mechanical engineer working in robotics hardware, so that's a little different to the typical opportunities listed here. For both companies I was interested in, the process started with 2-3 phone interviews, then I was invited to fly out for on-site interviews (very important when working on hardware!). I was offered the position at both places, and ultimately accepted one. I joined a couple of months ago, and I'm loving it so far!! Feel free to ask me any questions

<comment><USER6> I have just general interest in robotics. Would you mind sharing what are you working on?

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> Absolutely. I posted a message on a 'Who wants to be Hired' thread and was contacted about a month later by a lead developer who was hiring for a fully remote front-end developer position. After a few video chats and a 2-hour take-home coding exercise they extended an offer that I accepted.

I've been there for about 10 months and it's been a wonderful experience. Working remotely has literally changed my life, and the team members I work with are all fantastic people.

There are great companies out there and it's definitely worth posting. Good luck!

<comment><USER8> Not related to the original topic, but shout-out to working remote. It's been a game-changer for me, too. There are too many benefits to list, but the biggest one for me has been physical; after trying for years to stick with working out, it finally clicked for me with remote work + a gym in my garage.

<comment><USER9> I have been working out since 2011, and I have been working 90% remotely since 2016, I even edited my linked in to say Work From Home so anybody who intends to write to me knows in advance, I still visit the office rarely - when some big manager comes over, or to collect some documents.

<comment><USER10> Is there possibility to working remotely and learning tech lead skills?

<comment><USER11> Yes!

Also, "jeziňka" is a Czech fairy tale being [1]. Did you know? Or perhaps it's a Polish word play on "jeżynka"?

[1] [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Jezinkas](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Jezinkas)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> My view on these 'Who wants to be hired?' and 'Who's Hiring?' threads...

90% of the readership of Hacker News are Web Developers, either front end only, or full stack. As such the hiring threads are mostly jobs in that discipline.

I'm an oddball on Hacker News, I have a keen interest in all tech development, but my official skill set is Windows Server Applications based Architecture[1], and Identity & Access Management Design with a bit of Azure and Office 365 thrown in for good measure. I've posted a few times in the 'Who wants to be hired?' but not surprisingly had no responses.

For what it's worth, I _am_ looking for work, remote/wfh only. My LinkedIn is here:

[https://www.linkedin.com/in/mattowen/](https://www.linkedin.com/in/mattowen/)

\---

[1] Although I do hands-on admin as well. I'll design it for you, and then build it as well.

<comment><USER13> Based on your skill set, we'd hire you immediately (we're a listed, 3000+ employee company). I work in the Berlin office, but we do have offices in every world region. The other comment here is BS. People who work with Windows Server, AD and .NET are sorely needed. Even more so in Europe, where an enterprise world exists that HN people apparently never heard of (see your 'oddball' statement). The real problem here is the WFH requirement. That's just a no-no. That doesn't mean we don't offer WFH (in fact, I'm working from home 3 out of 5 days a week), but remote only is not an option. I think the maximum WFH days per week for other people is around 2.

So I guess I'll say this (to anyone here): If you have experience with AD, C# and SQL Server optimization (nice to have) get in touch. I don't care if you have a formal education or you're 15 or 55. In Berlin with German skills, I can get you an interview almost immediately, for other languages and regions I'll redirect you to the appropriate contact.

I don't post in the we're hiring threads because we'd drown in the ML/ad etc company profiles. We don't save the world. We don't stop climate change. We don't use AI to be the next Uber of X. We need somewhat skilled devs working on (what HN would consider) boring problems, to help tens of thousands of companies/IT people get other boring shit done quickly.

minxomat[at]gmail.com

<comment><USER14> While I am not applying / not eligible for the post but this is so refreshing to see:

> We don't save the world. We don't stop climate change. We don't use AI to be > the next Uber of X. We need somewhat skilled devs working on (what HN would > consider) boring problems, to help tens of thousands of companies/IT people > get other boring shit done quickly.

<comment><USER15> Nice summary. From my experience in the corporate world there is a huge amount of legacy software to work on, to migrate to more modern platforms (read: the web) and to replace with better software. All while people depend on it to get their work done every single day. Working brownfield and bespoke custom software, often on Windows in VB6 or Access, is not giving you elegance cred but it's definitively giving you street cred on the market for not requiring shiny toys to get work done.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> I decided to put myself back out there after a few years of freelancing and, among other avenues, posted in a "Who wants to be hired". I had psychologically prepared myself for a long and frustrating search as I wasn't in a particular hurry and promised myself to be selective about where I landed, making sure it was a genuinely good fit.

I got three responses through HN, one from a company in the city I live in, one from a fully distributed team, and one from a holy s__t SV company I had fantasized about in years past.

All three were amazing opportunities and the people I spoke with were so awesome--genuine, authentic, enthusiastic, and of an altogether different caliber than what I had been anticipating.

I interviewed for a few weeks with all three and was honestly agonizing about what I'd do if I got an offer from more than one. I don't know what exactly I was expecting, but what I was _not_ expecting was to feel so much like I was in the driver's seat of my job search experience. It was almost like I was interviewing them for the job, or more accurately, it was as if we were on an equal footing (I don't delude myself that that was actually the case, but it's how it _felt_ dealing with such awesome point's of contact).

I wound up accepting a completely different offer from a co. in my city that I connected with through a different channel and that really ticked all the boxes for me--I mean--I feel really lucky, I truly love my job. It would have been an insane opportunity to take the role at the SV unicorn (had they extended me an offer, I'll never know) but at the end of the day I just wasn't ready to pick up my whole life and move cross country in my 30's.

Wow did I ever get derailed. The moral of the story is, while I didn't technically get hired through a "Who wants to be hired" thread, I did have an altogether highly positive experience, and I imagine, if anyone else's experience is like mine, that lot's of people get hooked up with awesome opportunities through that channel.

</comment><comment><USER17> I tried out the last thread not expecting much to come from it and some surprisingly well-matched opportunities came my way. In fact, someone contacted me just yesterday from the same thread and that was over a month ago now!

What seems to happen with hiring is good companies very quickly get overwhelmed by bad applicants. Consequently, they have to instate barriers to try filter out the hundreds of unqualified people who apply. Unfortunately, the same filters also affect the people you want to hire and make it less likely you'll be introduced to a good engineer.

If you've already been in the industry a while you'll probably suffer from the same problem: A hell of a lot of low quality recruiter spam; Bad companies wasting your time with sub-minimum wage offers, and so on. Sometimes you just need 10 minutes to speak to a real person and you can both tell straight away if it's a good fit or not.

Good luck to people looking for their next opportunity. There are some great companies out there.

Edit: I find it amusing hacker news works so well for this compared to traditional career websites. It probably works so well precisely _because_ it doesn't market itself as such, and on a dice roll the signal to noise ratio is far higher. Hopefully this doesn't change any time soon as having a high- quality service like this is very, very useful for people!

<comment><USER18> >If you've already been in the industry a while you'll probably suffer from the same problem: A hell of a lot of low quality recruiter spam; Bad companies wasting your time with sub-minimum wage offers, and so on. Sometimes you just need 10 minutes to speak to a real person and you can both tell straight away if it's a good fit or not.

As a noob I would just like to say...it isn't limited to experienced professionals.

As soon as I landed my first job my email and linkedin caught fire. Non stop spam, bad matches, and etc.

"I was looking at your resume..."

No way you were looking at my resume and came up with this job... kinda stuff.

<comment><USER19> We get TONS of people that apply to our jobs with shotgun strategy... Really annoying looking for an experienced Linux admin and we have to review a fresh college grad with no Linux or Mac experience and one year of java programming. HR policies require us to be fair to all applicants, so our panel had to spend 15 minutes recovering the application and highlighting why they do not meet 9 of the 10 required qualifications.

This is mostly because it system makes it easy to apply to multiple listings, so people upload their information then click 2-3 times to apply to each job.

So, compared to getting a whole lot of those, or "I can find someone for you" responses, I can see why people have more luck reaching out to a community of people with the rough skill set

<comment><USER20> > Really annoying looking for an experienced Linux admin and we have to review > a fresh college grad with no Linux or Mac experience and one year of java > programming.

It's not your fault, but the industry has relatively few entry-level positions, especially for the bottom 75% of graduates.

<comment><USER19> I personally support 3 entry level Linux admins / clouds engineers under me (1 well paid intern, 2 full time)

One was in college, one fresh grad 2-year degree, one with degree and 1 year experience.

But I need someone who's actually better than me to help with weird issues that you simply don't get in school... Like adjusting the DNS resolver process.. or dining out why gnome won't start in a virtual infrastructure (which most people don't even know where to start looking in logs)

So I'm very open to entry level people, but I need another experience person to help

<comment><USER21> I've found that you seldom get any deep level Linux admin training in schools. They all teach fundamentals, the seven layer cake^W OSI model, how http works, stuff like that. If you're lucky, they cover /var/log/messages, a few basic commands, then dive deep into stack traces or something else programmer- centric. Then again, I'm mostly self taught and have 10+ years experience. BTW, debugging Docker just sucks. I'm looking for better tools for that.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> I just gave it a go yesterday but I don't have high expectations. Even in "Who is hiring" thread I noticed most offer are onsite USA - at least for me (iOS developer) and for many this is out of reach or they don't want to go through lengthy VISA process.

"Remote" tag is often confusing since in many cases it means: 1) Remote but USA only 2) Remote but only 1-2 days a week 3) We put remote just to grab your attention and to get more candidates but we actually prefer onsite

Personally this often discourage me to apply even if otherwise I could be a good fit. Also if you put REMOTE I guess for many companies you are no-go candidate since you haven't gained trust yet.

As for me I wouldn't mind relocating somewhere for the first few months for higher bandwidth communication and to gain some trust but that rarely works if company doesn't have remote culture.

</comment><comment><USER23> I find these threads a good way to be aware of interesting tech stacks being used and companies I might not otherwise have read about.

I once talked to a CTO of a local company without the primary intention of working there purely out of curiosity. I did end up working there as the other company I was accepted at had a hiring freeze for a month or more. I turned out to be a great place to be. New (to me) Rails stack, Go microservices when it wasn't so common and scaling challenges.

</comment><comment><USER24> Similar a couple of months ago with 4 positive responses: "Ask HN: Has anyone got any offers via "Who wants to be hired" thread?" [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19062296](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19062296)

</comment><comment><USER25> I got my first professional contract on a "Who wants to be hired?" over 5 years ago! I didn't have any professional experience and was a junior dev at the time. I met my current employer because of/during that contract as well.

</comment><comment><USER26> I had a company that wanted me to put in several hours of using their DevOps simulator before they would even talk about salary or the position.

They just wanted to get people to test a product from an unrelated company.

</comment><comment><USER27> My 2c: I like the idea, but if I were searching I would not post because I know people in my current job browse hacker news and my profile is quite specific.

<comment><USER28> Why not make another account just for that if and when the time comes?

<comment><USER29> > _Why not make another account just for that if and when the time comes?_

That's not how HackerNews works.

I have an alternate account from which I have posted a few times in different _"Who wants to be hired?"_ threads, and every single time my post is marked invisible _(aka. shadow banned)_. I only realized that some time ago when, by chance, I checked my post with a private browser session both with and without logging in with a different account to the one used to post the message.

I've resorted to contact companies instead, that way I can handle my options a bit better. Most of the time when I get contacted to interview at a company is recruiters trying to position me in a company that I have absolutely no interest in, or startups that don't even know what they are doing.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER30> I hired someone from one of these threads a few months ago. I chose them over other candidates based on a strong "portfolio" web site, showing me the person understood their code existed to serve business values (not the other way around).

<comment><USER31> So the HN candidate had a website that a business was based on? Or the candidate just had a good "fake" website that has a lot of good business code in it?

<comment><USER30> No, rather they had a good "I'm a freelance developer" web site that showed two things:

1) Some amount of professional experience in the technology we were looking for a contractor in.

2) An attitude that boiled down to "I write software to fulfill business objectives." (The opposite attitude is what I characterize as the "hipster coder," who says "I couldn't possibly work on your legacy system unless you agree to rewrite it from scratch in $hot_new_stack." Yes, I have literally had a contractor tell me that before, about a webapp based on a 5 year old front- end framework.)

<comment><USER32> It is a funny old world when the one fact that they are willing to be managed as a technical contributor sets a candidate apart.

<comment><USER33> There are developers that if you let them loose on your code base without supervision for 6 months you'll find that your simple rails app turned into a 12 docker container microservices monster without ever so much as stumbling near a business requirement.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER34> Related: Does anybody have a job or job ideas for me? I finished my veterinary degree in Germany (very late, but I finished) and I am a proficient coder, mostly web development in Django, but I also have a passion for Data Science (in Python and R) and Machine Learning. The veterinary degree here means I have a broad understanding of biology, medicine and food safety. I also did a bit of bioinformatics.

People often say that's a killer combination, but actually I have problems finding concrete positions I would fit in. I fear I have to somehow create that position myself, which is also not that easy. Ideas or hints would be appreciated!

<comment><USER15> We are hiring at the moment, have a look here: [https://www.redheads.de/joomla/index.php/?option=com_jobs&vi...](https://www.redheads.de/joomla/index.php/?option=com_jobs&view=single&id=4)

<comment><USER34> Looks interesting...

<comment><USER15> Feel free to send your CV anytime. Our HR staff are super approachable and nice to work with.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER35> I reached out to a company from a Who's Hiring post and got hired. Great job, got to move with relocation.

<comment><USER36> How does relocation actually work, especially if you are overseas?

I got like a ton of stuff in my home... I guess I could trash my furniture and buy new one, but what about my other things?

Does relocation include transportation for that too?

<comment><USER29> > _How does relocation actually work, especially if you are overseas?_

It depends on the company, of course.

In my case, when I interviewed at Booking.com _—just to give an example—_ I was offered a relocation package to move from New York to Amsterdam, this package included transportation of some of my belongings, support for my partner, and two months of rent. They also offered me some help to find an apartment, and was told I would get a discount in my taxes for the first year, which they also offered to take care of for the first year _(assigning one of their accountants)_.

I know they offered a similar _—if not the same—_ package to other candidates.

For other companies, no matter how big or small they are, the relocation package depends on how important your position is going to be. For a regular software developer, you may get the plane tickets which may or may not include a budget to bring a some luggage, but you'll probably have to bring the rest on your own. For more relevant positions like managers and specially a CEO, CTO and the like, they may offer you to pay for your accommodation for certain period of time, will assign you a budget to move your belongings, and similar benefits to what I got offered to move to Amsterdam.

If you are Apple's Tim Cook, they will move absolutely everything you need no matter how expensive, troublesome, or delicate.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER37> I posted here and was contacted by the founder of a startup the same day. Got invited for an interview and received an offer a week later. I don't recall getting much spam from that post.

</comment><comment><USER38> I've hired people from here, and have been consistently impressed with the quality of CVs I've received whenever advertising roles. The only recruitment agency I've worked with that has been able offer candidates of the same level/niche would charge me $1500 a month or more.

</comment><comment><USER39> I think another thing to take into account is geography. My impression is that there are many international readers that would not consider jobs inside the US. I know there are international job postings as well, but (and I may be wrong) I don't see people moving jobs across countries unless they were approached more personally (or vice versa: they would not necessarily approach a country switching job posting based on a HN thread).

</comment><comment><USER40> I've had several great connections and solid job interviews, as well as my current role at the USDS.

I am currently* a "Senior/Lead SWE" that's flirted a lot with SRE.

Earlier in my career it was a lot harder to get responses, but still managed to get an interview or three out of it.

</comment><comment><USER41> About to start in 2 weeks! This was the first job I contacted through HN, and they were very responsive. No recruiter, no spam.

</comment><comment><USER42> I posted twice in the past. Only received one email from a recruiter at Cryptokitties. The message was a complete mismatch with my profile. Stopped posting.

</comment><comment><USER43> I had a couple of phone conversations based on posting in the "Who wants to be hired". Nothing led to work but enjoyed speaking to people who reached out. I'm in a less popular niche with manufacturing applications so I think it's good for spreading a wide net.

</comment><comment><USER44> I received some messages when I last posted in a 2014 thread, including one from who would eventually become my first manager trying to grow her team. It wasn't even a good pitch (relative to what I wrote) but I needed a job so talked to pretty much everyone, and as I learned more I convinced myself to continue and readily accepted the offer. Though I thought I might only spend a year in bigco, here we are just about 5 years later...

My last job before that was found by getting contacted after uploading my resume to craigslist in 2010, so I consider myself 2/2 on the post-and-wait strategy.

I get lots of recruiter spam (mostly via linkedin) but I don't really want to ever think of it in complaint. It's kind of nice to know if I need a new job fast I have a lot of contact entry points to try before playing the submit- application-here lottery or post-and-wait game. And occasionally I've been very tempted to reply to some anyway. It's "spam" in the sense that I've listed not being interested in jumping ship except for having a few rare details that would at least make me consider, but we all know most everyone's technically on the market regardless given the right offer even if it lacks certain 'requirements'. Recruiters just have a job that depends on believing they always have the right offer.

</comment><comment><USER45> I got interviewed by two large linux os vendors that make roughly identical products, and both interviews were identical - they seemed to go extremely well, they spoke of having me fly in for team interviews, and how training would happen, but then they completely ghosted on me. With both companies I followed up a week later with a thank-you probe, but absolutely no follow up. Since it happened from both I was able to move on by convincing myself it was just procedural and not personal.

</comment><comment><USER46> Have any recent grads/<2 years of experience folks gotten interviews or an offer from these threads? It seems like it's mostly for senior engineering roles.

</comment><comment><USER47> Yes. I made a post 3 months ago with my resume, and was contacted if I was interested in a position. I just started at the job last week.

</comment><comment><USER48> I don't like the fact that if you post a thread there, it'll last forever : [https://hn.algolia.com/?query=who%20whant%20be%20hired&sort=...](https://hn.algolia.com/?query=who%20whant%20be%20hired&sort=byPopularity&prefix&page=0&dateRange=all&type=story)

</comment><comment><USER49> Yes! Last time I was interviewing I got multiple offers from my post. I did get some recruiter spam but it was mostly founders or early engineers that did the reaching out.

</comment><comment><USER50> I have. About 6 years ago. Turned out to be a career defining role for me.

I also just reached out to someone from the "Who wants to be hired?" thread about an open role on my current team.

</comment><comment><USER51> I have applied to companies and posted my contact info a few times on different usernames: Usually no response.

Compared to some of the other people in those threads, my resume is not stellar, so it's not surprising that they can wait or find someone else that's better.

</comment><comment><USER52> Several interviews with very few solid (or high quality) experiences. It's becoming a bit of a dumping ground for recruiters running out of ideas. Especially frustrating are the folks that don't seem to understand what "remote" means.

<comment><USER53> "Remote" means the job is 100 mi away, and you will be given the opportunity to work from home 1 day a week after a year on the job. Oh yes, and we will pressure you to interview with this client because we really need the commission money.

<comment><USER54> Remote also means you need a US visa, of course.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER55> I've tried to find people that way, but usually there is nobody. Let's see, searching for "assembly" and "assembler" and "embedded"...

1\. I already asked. He wants Rust and probably won't leave Albuquerque. Bummer. He'd be perfect.

2\. Argentina... nope.

3\. Barcelona... nope.

4\. One might work. I probably already asked, but don't remember.

5\. Remote only... nope.

6\. Lisbon... nope.

7\. Paris... nope.

8\. I already asked. He won't leave southwest Florida, even for Tampa or Melbourne. Bummer.

9\. Bay Area and won't relocate... nope.

10\. He's hesitant to relocate. Hmmm, I could try.

11\. Paris... nope.

So that is the situation as of now, with 155 comments 7 hours after the post. I can email a couple of them.

<comment><USER56> It's funny, because people who code assembly and embedded systems are exactly the type of people well-suited for remote work.

<comment><USER57> Huh, why do you say that? I'd assume not because of the hardware constraint, etc. I'd imagine web devs are best suited to remote. Usually low sensitivity to the code or data and no hardware and the product itself is accessible everywhere.

<comment><USER56> Compilers/assembly/embedded systems/demo scene people have been coordinating on mailing lists since the 90's, sending patch files to each other on their slow clunky machines on their slow clunky 56k internet connections. This demographic imo is going to be way better at remote work than some brogrammer, which is what the OP is looking for perhaps inadvertently. And I say that as someone not at all of the noble compilers/assembly/embedded systems demographic. With these people, you don't need to worry about the ops and management impact of low face-to-face time, because they need zero of it. Could be a stereotype, but it definitely tracks with the people I know.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER58> I found my current job on the "Who is Hiring" thread, and I have had two gigs plus a couple of near misses from the "Seeking Freelancer" thread. All of this occurred in 2019.

</comment><comment><USER59> I tried it last month, since I'm averse to LinkedIn and similar resume sites. One of the responses was spam from a startup that scraped&NLP'd from the montly HN post, to generate resumes for people on their own resume site. Their spam seemed to imply that I already had a generated resume presence on their site, and I should create an account so that I can edit/correct it. (Which is some of the sketchy resume site behavior I was trying to avoid by trying HN instead.)

</comment><comment><USER60> Sure did. If I recall correctly (this was about 5 years ago), I probably had 3-4 phone interviews / tech screens out of it, and got hired at a really great place (Mavenlink).

</comment><comment><USER61> > Were you hired after someone contacted you?

I got 2 interviews + 1 follow-up not leading to an interview out of emails sent to 6 companies. Didn't convert either of the interviews but I think I was very close with one of them. I think talks broke down over salary expectations when speaking with the VP of Eng.

> Did you receive responses that weren't recruiter-spam from your posts there?

Yes. 3-4, of which about half were promising, in response to 1 post. They didn't work out for other reasons.

</comment><comment><USER62> I've been posting in the "Who wants to be hired" threads occasionally since they started (somewhere in 2014 if I recall correctly) and have been doing so monthly recently. I'm also including a basic Q&A in my posts. I've varied the tone and content a bit over time. It's not an A/B test, just an attempt to keep things entertaining.

You can find my recent post here: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20326583](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20326583)

What each month brings is very diverse. Companies are of all shapes and sizes, from different locations and different lines of businesses. It's fairly interesting by itself. I've gone through multiple interview hoops through the years and those tend to also be very diverse. I've done HR chats and tech chats, phone screens with code and phone screens without. I've done take-homes and I was twice flown to on-sites. There is also a fair amount of spam, canned recruiting emails and the automated "CTO bait-n-switch", but the overall positive far outweighs the negative in my mind. If you are considering to post - just do it.

I've learnt a lot from those postings. Reaching out is not easy and I'm thankful to whoever does. My main take-a-way is this: by reaching out, a person shows that they are the proactive kind who cares for their organization and tasks. That fact by itself is a very positive signal to me. I'm thus always trying to put best effort into whatever organizational recruiting process follows.

I have yet to be hired as a result of those posts.

P.S - ... but that one from last month that is still in process would be perfect for me. Especially if it goes south... ;)

</comment><comment><USER63> Nope; my big problem is that people are looking for senior positions with 10+ years experience, yet are paying entry level salaries...

<comment><USER21> ... and will dump you as "not a fit" if you are over 30.

</comment></comment><comment><USER64> Yes. I was hired by a university on a temporary position from HN after I finished college. It was my first job post-graduation.

</comment><comment><USER65> I have hired multiple people using that thread.

</comment><comment><USER66> I have hired an excellent junior engineer from one of those threads.

<comment><USER67> Would you mind giving some information about what makes a junior engineer stick out in those threads? I'm currently looking for that type of work and any advice would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks!

</comment></comment><comment><USER68> I landed a job interview for tech startup in LA, but I blew the interview. I didn't know my linux terminal commands.

</comment><comment><USER69> Yup, I posted for the first time a month ago, and got hired by someone looking for exactly my skills. I liked them enough that I took a chance, dropping other opportunities that were in the pipeline.

Meanwhile, I'm STILL getting rejection notices from companies where my application has been sitting in their queue for over a month.

</comment><comment><USER70> My co-worker found his current job from a HN post a number of years ago. Also we're currently hiring so check us out :) [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20327435](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20327435)

</comment><comment><USER71> I was in the middle of a harsh bout of unemployment after the startup that hired me out of school folded unexpectedly (literally in a week's time). I was going from contracting gig to contracting gig but got tired of chasing people for money.

On a whim, I responded to just one such thread on HN. I got no recruiter spam, but rather an email from a company (I won't say which for privacy reasons) that totally changed my life. Great recruiting process, interesting and challenging interview gamut, and they made me an excellent offer contingent upon relocation, which I was hoping to do anyway.

So, the answer to the question is YES those threads work IF you work them. Stay on top of your emails, follow up, be diligent, study hard. It's so so worth it.

</comment><comment><USER72> I have hired about 12 developers from these threads over the past 5 years.

</comment><comment><USER73> > Did you receive responses that weren't recruiter-spam from your posts there?

Maybe I've obfuscated my email address well enough, but I don't get any recruiter spam from the listing. Now that I look back on that, it's something of a miracle.

That said, I've only been contacted once per the thread. After one email I was ghosted by the company. Not uncommon really.

I'm not really the niche for HN, I'm mostly a bio/medtech and engineering person. I love the discussions here, but my expertise is on the edges of the Gaussian that is HN.

<comment><USER74> My experiences do not really match: Some CV compiler website has been emailing me ever since I posted on the thread, and the opt out is "If you don't want to hear from me anymore, just let me know".

Except there's no MX record for the website (Image: [https://elixi.re/i/oamrerwz.png](https://elixi.re/i/oamrerwz.png) ), so I can't reply to them asking them to remove my email from their list.

If the person behind those emails is reading this: Please stop, it's annoying and I will not give you my money, even with a discount.

<comment><USER73> In taking a look at your postings on the 'Who want to be Hired' thread you list your email outright: firstname.lastname@example.com

I've written mine out as : robert.heffern (at) gmail

I suppose that the way that I wrote out my email address is just a bit more difficult for a computer to parse and scrape, hence my lack of spam. However, it may also be screening out people that want to talk to me, and I would never know.

That said, you have a very impressive gitlab resume! Great work!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER75> `Ask HN: Freelancer? Seeking Freelancer?` is also interesting.

<comment><USER76> The freelancer thread has delivered me a few new clients. I wouldn't want to rely on it alone, I've probably had as much work from network contacts as I have from that thread but it's not nothing.

My current "steady" (albeit less than 100% of my time) client found me through that thread several years ago.

</comment></comment><comment><USER77> My previous job came from a "who wants to be hired" thread (and by extension my current job, which came about through people I worked with).

An engineering manager noticed my post and passed it to their internal recruiters. I was interviewing with multiple companies and they came out on top.

It turned out to be a great experience. After 4 years they were acquired and most of us have moved on, and several of us formed the engineering team at a seed stage startup.

</comment><comment><USER78> I got a few offers that were aborded midway for one reason or another, for example a few ones were cancelled after they realized I didn't had a EU citizenship (I made clear I was brazillian and lived in Brazil, but they assumed I had some kind of EU passport anyway... although legally I should have one, bureaucratic issues made me not have one)

Also some companies asked me to do some puzzle style tests, that at the time I didn't pass.

</comment><comment><USER79> I have definitely gotten interviews over this. I am not sure if my job was through who's hiring but I do know I did at least 2 onsites from it.

</comment><comment><USER80> Yes. Had a hiring manager reach out to me from a company I already blindly applied to but was in limbo with.

Went directly to on-site interview stage after a quick call and am still happily employed here 5 years later.

Definitely the most important post I ever made in my life :)

I don't think I got any additional recruiter spam around the time of that post. Maybe back then recruiters didn't watch those threads yet?

</comment><comment><USER14> Also to provide a bit of a tangent to your question, the "who's hiring" thread is predominantly developers and some project manager openings. People with a narrow set of specialised / a bit old skillset like Windows AD / Enterprise Setup administration, VMware / Citrix Administration and related profiles find it difficult to get suitable opportunities here.

</comment><comment><USER81> I posted once from an old account but never received any responses. Most of the jobs at the time were for web developers in the US. I'm a devops/systems engineer (AWS/Security/Scaling so whatever the new title is for that) so my skills don't seem to be in very much demand.

It would be nice if we could maybe break up the threads into different types of roles perhaps?

</comment><comment><USER82> Yea, I've gotten at least two jobs that way - one fulltime, and another part time consulting. And a few interviews, which went well.

When I'm looking it, I just normally search for Ruby or Rails and see what pops up. I almost never get turned down for an interview if they are using one of those, which is likely due to having ~10+ years experience with them now.

</comment><comment><USER83> For the people that are hiring / have hired people from these posts, what do you look for? What makes a post stand out?

</comment><comment><USER84> Yes. Was a lot simpler/faster than the usual process. Instead of stereotypical questions, just start to actually _do_ something (analyse, code) so a lot less stress and more the the point.

"If you were to meet a very rich man ____*? " "-Does not matter: you are not rich anyway and once we are married...."

</comment><comment><USER14> Absolutely. I have applied multiple times and contacted once. While I did not get hired, I can assure you (based on the series of interviews and a coding challenge) , yes , people do get hired and the interviewers are genuine people looking to hire talented people for the role they advertised. No recruiter spam yet.

</comment><comment><USER85> I have, for three fulltime remote jobs so far. Also got an offer for another FT position, but that was from a comment somebody left in some other thread, not in Who's Hiring.

I'm from Europe and these jobs were all in the US. It's doable, you just have to be a reasonably strong candidate.

</comment><comment><USER86> Interestingly I'd been wondering the exact same thing, having only recently decided to respond to the latest "who wants to be hired" thread.

This is me - [https://www.simongilbert.net](https://www.simongilbert.net)

</comment><comment><USER87> Yep, am currently working remotely for a company that found me in one of those threads :)

</comment><comment><USER88> Somewhat related, I reached out to a few people on the "Freelancer? Seeking freelancer?" threads and had several responses, one of which I just started on.

I wouldn't be surprised if people had similar luck on all such threads.

</comment><comment><USER89> I was just going to post a similar thread from the hiring manager's side. Genuinely curious how many responses y'all receive. I'm in Chicago, not SF but the responses almost never come.

<comment><USER55> I usually get several responses off of something like this: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20328264](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20328264)

It's almost always at least 1 response. I don't think I've ever gotten more than 10 responses. Something like 4 is typical.

On average I think I find one that is good and one that is minimally acceptable. Several have been hired, but at least one of those was redundantly discovered elsewhere.

<comment><USER89> Thank you! I felt like my description wasn't far off so I'm going to adjust a little. I'm not opposed to juniors but that's all I have received thus far after 6/7 months of using the thread.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER90> I've posted in the May 2019 thread and I've been contacted by 2 companies, no recruiter-spam; I didn't get hired, but I've slightly adjusted my search parameters since then.

</comment><comment><USER91> Yup. I joined a company in SF in November 2015 (thanks @jlisam13). Now neither of us are there, but I met the people with whom I co-founded my current company.

Definitely changed my life!

</comment><comment><USER92> I'm a hiring manager, but not a recruiter, I use it most months we have a position open to do direct reach out as the pool of people is generally pretty good.

</comment><comment><USER93> Yes, I got a job at an ad tech start up. It was a huge move up for me (previously doing government contracting). Since then I got a job at a FAANG.

</comment><comment><USER94> I talked to some internal recruiters but all emails came to a dead end. I got a better response than applying on LinkedIn or company websites.

</comment><comment><USER95> I hired the best Engineering leader I have ever worked with early in his career from posting on an HN "who's hiring thread".

</comment><comment><USER96> I wasn't hired, but I got an interview on the basis of one -- at a real company that you have almost certainly heard of.

</comment><comment><USER97> I got my current job from there 3 years ago, started my freelancing career, then moved to New Zealand to work full time

</comment><comment><USER98> I was hired ~5 years ago from a post on one, and we have since hired a couple other people as well from those posts.

</comment><comment><USER99> Yes, multiple times, and with relatively high quality organizations compared to the norm, I think.

</comment><comment><USER100> Yup, I got hired through those threads for the first time in the US almost a decade ago.

</comment><comment><USER101> One day I hope to be a success story here. Glad the thread exists every month!

</comment><comment><USER102> Yes, I was hired of such a thread. Still working for the same employer.

</comment><comment><USER103> Yes I was, and am currently doing work for them remotely.

</comment><comment><USER104> Yes, my current role was found from that thread.

</comment><comment><USER105> I always have this overwhelming desire to comment on people's posts in those threads. I wish they had a peanut gallery.

<comment><USER106> I've actually done this (in who's hiring). There was a startup that was going to rate people or something and I thought "wow that's super weird and not good." A few years later, and I think they're pretty big. I generally feel like a lot of the posts sound goofy and pointless.

</comment></comment><comment><USER107> I have

</comment><comment><USER108> Recruiter spam seems inevitable when responding to such posts, but the way I avoid long term recruiter spam is by creating an email addresses for each time I seek employment.

I own a domain so I create an email address such as firstname.lastname@example.com where example.com takes place for my actual domain. I recommend this. I also use this temporary email to sign up for linkedin for the duration of my employment seeking.

After having secured employment, I delete the linkedin and then never use the email again, nor look at whatever may arrive into its inbox.

<comment><USER109> You can always just do email@example.com

<comment><USER108> This approach doesn't prevent your email address from being clogged with recruiter spam, unless you want to maintain filters forever, and as another says, the real email is still there. I don't even use the same domain as my real email. Jumping in exposes one to a subset of misbehaving recruiters, those making a bad name for the rest, an experience comparable to taking a bath in shit and I don't want to taint my daily life with its rank smell once I'm done prospecting.

<comment><USER110> A throwaway GMAIL address and using +XYZ would be a reasonable solution. You could set up a rule to forward everything to your main email, but then as you get spam on certain addresses, adapt the rule to not forward email sent to those.

<comment><USER108> Yes this would also work.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER111> This is a pretty famous story along these lines. Ryan graves (now billionaire) at Uber: [https://www.cnbc.com/2019/05/10/uber-billionaire-employee- no...](https://www.cnbc.com/2019/05/10/uber-billionaire-employee-no-1-ryan- graves-got-job-thanks-to-a-tweet.html)</comment>


Five Questions For Peter Lundblad, Google Programmer - <AUTHOR> http://www.informationweek.com/news/internet/search/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=193100330 <comment><USER2> A buddy of mine is a blind hacker, he has a braille reader, but prefers text to speech. He's just recently spending more time in Python, so he's modified a text-to-speech plugin to convert 4 spaces to a single short "dit" sound. I can't imagine trying to keep indentation levels in my head.

His desk consists of an IBM Model M... and that's it... (He's also an audiophile, and has his TTS wired to the surround sound system in the room). I find I can use his system, but I have to slow the speech down to less than half the speed he runs it at.

</comment><comment><USER3> Article (printable: [http://www.informationweek.com/shared/printableArticle.jhtml...](http://www.informationweek.com/shared/printableArticle.jhtml;jsessionid=VKQUXPJO0AXMVQE1GHPCKH4ATMY32JVN?articleID=193100330)) is from 2006.

Does anyone know what Peter Lundblad is up to now? Would be interesting to know.

</comment><comment><USER4> I really don't understand the braile parte. What's the cool side of reading code using braile?

<comment><USER5> When did he say it was cool? The alternative is having text-to-speech, I suppose, which would take quite some work to customize in an acceptable way for programming languages.

<comment><USER6> Text to speech is also used by some blind programmers. I've seen a demonstration once. The speed of reading is very accelerated, so the computer sounds like Donald Duck. Also, believe it or not there's a form of syntax highlighting, different voices are used instead of colors.</comment></comment></comment>


"Women Who Write About Tech Are Still Being Abused Online" - <AUTHOR> http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/women-tech-writers-abuse_561d3368e4b0c5a1ce60a42d <comment><USER2> This is not ok. This is not free speech. It is not taking a noble, principled stand. It is not clever, or admirable, or justifiable.

If you get caught doing this I sincerely hope that a judge sees fit to put your internet acess on a tight leash, to say the least. Such behavior does nothing to further any rational debate. Intimidation tactics are the surest sign of a weak argument, and damages rather than helps any underlying goals

<comment><AUTHOR> I completely agree with you. I had noticed that on a lot of tech articles written by women - especially articles where they remark on their experiences of gender bias in the workplace - the comments are particularly brutal and offensive. But I was surprised to see that those kinds of hate comments escalate to such a frightening level.</comment></comment>


Show HN: InstaBAM - Find Instagram pictures around your current location - <AUTHOR> http://itunes.apple.com/gb/app/instabam/id437615875?mt=8

<comment><AUTHOR> Hi all, just wanted to show you guys a app I made with my iOS developer friend during some spare time in the evenings and weekends.

When Instagram launched their API we thought it would be really interesting to see your location through the eyes of others so we made this pretty simple application.

You can also like and follow people you find, plus there's a map view search and freetext search too.

Would love to get some feedback, good and bad, it's still rough around the edges but it was fun to make and learned quite a bit.

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> Oh and we also made a Jquery Mobile version <http://www.instabam.com></comment>


The Tetris Effect - <AUTHOR> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tetris_effect <comment> nappa-leon I saw this today as a result of xqc playing chess on twitch and I can absolutely say this happened to me when I got really into chess last year. I would sometimes play 6 hours a day of blitz. I've curbed down playtime and it's gone away, I assume it would have even if I hadn't stopped playing so much.</comment>


How hot are atoms in the shock wave of an exploding star? - <AUTHOR> https://phys.org/news/2019-01-hot-atoms-star.html <comment><USER2> Confused. The article doesn't answer the question in its title. They say they know; but I can't find the number in there.</comment>


Sandra Bland, It Turns Out, Filmed Traffic Stop Confrontation Herself - <AUTHOR> https://www.nytimes.com/2019/05/07/us/sandra-bland-texas-video.html <comment><USER2> I really don't understand why this is being flagged. Bias and police brutality is a life and death issue affecting millions of people, not only black people in America but other marginalized groups including those with developmental trauma aka mental injury. This particular article refers to an incident where the use of technology (citizen cell phone recording) could have played a major role in a legal outcome. I could not think of a more appropriate topic for conversation on HN.

The issue isn't that all cops and police departments are bad/can't be trusted. The issue is bad cops and the system that allows them to abuse their power with impunity. The more this is discussed, the higher chance of changing the police culture and helping many, many real people not live in fear of death or total dehumanization during a traffic stop gone awry.

</comment><comment><USER3> Once more the blue line stands.</comment>


Ask HN: Who uses Parse? - <AUTHOR>

I'm a heavy Parse user (http://parse.com) and am considering building a developer-focussed product on top of Parse. I'm interested to know how many of you guys are currently using or have previously used Parse.<p>Thanks for replying! <comment><USER2> I have a lot of experience with Parse. What are you considering building? There are definitely some gaps in the product, particularly a sane job scheduler. I also found it tricky to deal with the relatively short timeouts, which ate a lot of our cycles to track down and work around.

Unfortunately my next few projects won't be built on Parse, which is too bad because I know and really like the team, and think there should be something a little more abstracted than Heroku for building a backend service.

</comment><comment><USER3> We used parse for the DB of our game on Playstation Mobile. Really enjoyed developing with the service but the app never saw a huge amount of traffic.

Plan on trying it out with a few larger jobs in the near future. [http://karmaninteractive.com/2013tikirush/](http://karmaninteractive.com/2013tikirush/)

</comment><comment><USER4> I use Parse Cloud, the express framework, for creating an endpoint which can send push notifications to specific iOS devices.

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> I'm specifically curious to know how many people have used Parse Core (the cloud DB service).

</comment><comment><USER5> We use parse for publicapis.com and have no complaints.</comment>


The Untold Secrets of Grand Central Terminal - <AUTHOR> https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-02-23/the-untold-secrets-of-grand-central-terminal <comment><USER2> The room behind the clock made me think of the movie Hugo. See, for example [http://i419.photobucket.com/albums/pp273/monochorme/monochro...](http://i419.photobucket.com/albums/pp273/monochorme/monochrome/MBandF/Huge- movie-20.jpg). I wonder if that was deliberate on Scorsese's part, or if it's just convergent evolution. (Large train terminals will tend to have large clocks, and clocks that size will inevitably have _some_ room behind them. And hidden rooms are always cool.)

And there's _tennis courts_ in Grand Central?! I'm more surprised by the fact that there are operating tennis courts than I am by them being used for skiing in the past.

Grand Central is magnificent. I try not to take it for granted when I go into the city.

<comment><USER3> It's kind of sad that Grand Central is such a beautiful building, while Penn Station has been relegated to a literal basement, with a sometimes-dangerous track layout that dates to the early 1900s.

<comment><USER4> Penn Station (both Amtrak and LIRR) is moving across the street to the Post Office building. It looks like it's going to be pretty beautiful when they're done:

[https://www.nytimes.com/2016/09/28/nyregion/penn-station- new...](https://www.nytimes.com/2016/09/28/nyregion/penn-station-new-york- andrew-cuomo.html)

<comment><USER3> Sadly, while the building may be nice, the original track layout will remain (although I'm not sure it's feasible at this point to rework it). Some tracks, especially 5-8, seem to have fewer exits and it can take five or more minutes to get off of the platform during busy times.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> My favorite Grand Central easter egg is the 'Whispering Arch' by the Oyster Bar. Standing in one corner, you can speak into the wall and be heard by someone standing in the opposite corner.

[http://www.sonicwonders.org/whispering-walls-grand- central-s...](http://www.sonicwonders.org/whispering-walls-grand-central- station/)

<comment><USER6> I remember standing there and wondering why people kept coming up and pressing their faces against the wall.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> [http://www.grandcentralterminal.com/info/eventplanning](http://www.grandcentralterminal.com/info/eventplanning)

      > 93% of Grand Central Terminal commuters are college graduates.
      > 21.6 million out-of-town tourists, with a mean income of $62,000

Where is this data coming from? Surveys?

<comment><USER8> The security system the article mentions uses facial recognition to identify the people coming in and out.

<comment><USER7> That's a good one :). Next time I'm there I'll try distorting their median with a $50K face.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> So here are some better and real secret of GCT.

1) The tunnel from the 456 to the Time Square Shuttle is the original tunnel of the first subway line. It ran from City Hall on the 456 track along the shuttle tunnel to what is now the north end of the 123. Walk that tunnel 100 years ago and you would standing on the tracks. 2) There is an abandoned level between the 456 concourse and the 7 train tunnel that was used for the original trolley line that was later replaced by the 7 train. 3) During the 60s there was a full size ICBM mockup hung in the great hall. 4) There is a body buried in the walls of the station - a construction worker who fell into pouring concrete a century ago and the body couldn't be recovered.

<comment><USER10> Do you have a source on #4 by any chance?

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> The usual overhyped secrets of Grand Central are 1) Roosevelt's private siding, and 2) the "generator room".

The real story of the "generator room" is here.[1] There was a coal-fired power generation plant with reciprocating steam engines far below the station from 1902, and an even bigger plant in 1918, when electric locomotives went into service. Exhaust came out a smokestack built into a corner of the Commodore Hotel. Around 1930, Grand Central finally stopped generating its own power and bought from Con Ed. But they still needed 600 VDC for traction power and 250VDC for lighting, and some 25Hz power (the NYC subways distributed power at 25Hz, then converted to DC at substations) so the old generating station space was reused for rotary converters.

In the late 1980s, all that conversion gear finally went solid-state. But it wasn't until the 1990s that Grand Central got a complete rewiring and everything except 600VDC traction power was converted to ordinary 60Hz AC.

Some of the more dramatic videos about this claim this station powered most of the Northeastern rail system. It never powered anything much beyond Grand Central Station.

"Roosevelt's private railroad siding" was actually one of several work tracks used to support all the moves of heavy equipment required over the years. It's still there.

[1] [http://magazine.ieee- pes.org/julyaugust-2014/history-14/](http://magazine.ieee- pes.org/julyaugust-2014/history-14/)

<comment><USER9> And the vaunted 'secret car' on that track is not Roosevelt's car - it's the old wreck crane support car from New York Central days. It's used to store track work equipment now.

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> Very cool article, but the images are extremely low-resolution and blurry if one has JavaScript disabled. Folks, please don't do this: HTML has an image tag for a reason.

<comment><USER13> But how could they track you to sell you discount pharmaceutical products without JavaScript?

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> Not a new terminal emulator. Damn.</comment>


Ask HN: Why should programmers/developers should blog? - <AUTHOR> I was having a talk with one of my good buddies and he was adamant that if you (aka myself) plan on having any part in tech (I'm studying CS) that you should blog, use Twitter and it seemed like he mentioned ever other social networking device.
My Questions:
    -Is doing so a definite must? and why
    -If so what social "channels" are "best"
Thanks! <comment><USER2> _"... if you (aka myself) plan on having any part in tech (I'm studying CS) that you should blog ..."_

Thinking about things isn't enough. Putting ideas into words lets you develop new ideas. Making something and writing about tells others about your new ideas. There is also another reason: you get to define yourself online. Nature might _"abhor a vacuum"_ but google doesn't care. [0] It will associate something to a search term against your name. Better it be something you have written.

[0] Idomatic use of the phrase _"horror vacui"_ described by aristotle ~ <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_thermodynamics>

</comment><comment><USER3> "definite must"? If I find a successful developer, for some value of successful, that doesn't blog, would that prove your friend wrong?

You need to decide what your goals are. Are you striving to optimize your career for followers/notoriety? Than yeah, having a blogging/twitter/social media presence is a must. If you're striving to optimize your life for maximum profits and earnings, than having an online presence can help, but is probably not a must. If you're striving to become a great developer/programmer and are doing it for the love of the craft, then spending time blogging/twittering/etc will probably get in your way.

<comment><USER4> I agree, it's not a "must." But if you do it, I think you'll find it has deeper benefits than just fame and career advancement. My own blogging is about fun hacks that are educational for me but unrelated for my work. Blogging helps me learn better, because:

\- Explaining things forces me to understand them better.

\- Wanting to share what I've done motivates me to finish it.

\- Comments from others teach me things I didn't know to look for myself.

<comment><USER5> I agree 100% with the above. In addition, I find that a blog permits me to document some of my programming beliefs with example code. I can then cite these entries when in discussion with fellow programmers.

It's very easy to show someone an XSLT script that recursively generates primes as an example of why I believe XSL transforms are very close to Functional Programming.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> If you're interested in building consumer products, using popular consumer products like Twitter is a must. It's just sort of expected that you have this background when you go talk to other consumer internet people. Plus your products will be better if you're inspired by all the other interesting things other people are already building.

</comment><comment><USER7> The #1 reason for blogging for a programmer should be altruism, since there is so much that programmers learn from blogs.

If you only read books, then don't blog.

If you ever saved time or got a tip or some code from a blog, then you owe the rest of the programmer community.

I think that's the right spirit.

</comment><comment><USER8> keep a journal. whether or not you post that online is up to you.

</comment><comment><USER9> It is a definite must if you want to be a really famous developer.

I think if you want to be a really great developer you should write code.</comment>


Two quantum properties teleported together for first time - <AUTHOR> http://physicsworld.com/cws/article/news/2015/feb/27/two-quantum-properties-teleported-together-for-first-time <comment><USER2> Can someone please comment on the significance of this for the physics layman.

<comment><USER3> 1\. They confirm a prediction of quantum mechanics more strongly than has been done previously.

2\. They have demonstrated improvements in technology that can hopefully be replicated by others to perform similar experiments.

Quantum teleportation is this cool property of nature that allows us to transfer the unknown properties of a quantum object onto another object far away [1]. Actually doing this for even the simplest system requires mastery of several sets of technologies and techniques: ability to create photons (or other quantum objects) in a state of our choice, ability to create entangled photons, good measurements. Therefore, till now teleportation has been demonstrated for only one degree of freedom (DoF) [2].

These guys put together technologies and techniques only recently created in physics labs and used them to teleport 2 DoF at the same time. This was not easy. On the other hand this was only done probabilistically, unlike 1 DoF teleportation which has been done deterministically. So there is definitely more work to be done.

Teleportation is cool. And a check on quantum mechanics. But it is also a quantum information primitive [3] that can be helpful in performing certain tasks such as linear optical quantum computing and implementing quantum communication networks etc.

[1] No, we won't get human teleportation for a gazillion years, if ever.

[2] Degrees of freedom are properties you can change independent of each other. For photons some of them consists of polarization, spin, orbital angular momentum, frequency spectrum, spatial profile etc.

[3] A primitive is a basic building block. e.g. In cryptography we have primitives like hash functions.

<comment><USER4> Very well. What is the application of quantum teleportation?

<comment><USER5> Instant (zero latency) networking.

<comment><USER6> No.

[http://lightlike.com/teleport/](http://lightlike.com/teleport/)

<comment><USER7> Isn't teleportation an incorrect word to describe what's happening? It seems synchronization would make more sense since it involves two distinct objects that are first entangled.

<comment><USER6> That's right. See:

[http://blog.rongarret.info/2014/12/quantum-teleportation- dem...](http://blog.rongarret.info/2014/12/quantum-teleportation- demystified.html)

And if you really want to understand in general what is going on, read this:

[http://www.flownet.com/ron/QM.pdf](http://www.flownet.com/ron/QM.pdf)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> [http://arxiv.org/abs/1409.7769](http://arxiv.org/abs/1409.7769)

<comment><USER9> Am I the only one getting 403s on arxiv for the past week?

<comment><USER10> Apparently

<comment><USER9> Fixed. Apparently I was blacklisted from the website even though I haven't even used it recently, let alone inundated it with requests :\</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Trade in Services Agreement - <AUTHOR> https://wikileaks.org/tisa/

<comment><USER2> This includes 17 documents of the secret text from the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) negotiations. Anyone know if it's legal to read?</comment>


Reverse engineering the iTunesDB File Format - <AUTHOR> http://www.linuxjournal.com/article/6334

<comment><USER2> Back in the day, I was heavily involved in reverse engineering iTunes to figure out the "authentication" hash sent with DAAP requests. I very quickly got sick of chasing my tail every time Apple unilaterally decided to change their protocols for the sole reason to disable third party interoperation, incidentally breaking old versions of their own software just for the hell of it.

I'm sick of Apple and all their works. If you're a software engineer, and you value open standards and competition, you should never, ever buy an Apple product. Their anti-competitive actions, from breaking their software through misusing legal instruments right up to controlling which apps one can and cannot write for the iPhone, reveal a fundamental distaste for standards, co- operation and even the law.

Every moment spent trying to interoperate with Apple is a moment wasted. For the free software community, most of us have stopped chasing our tail and gone to open standards such as UPnP media streaming. Apple's culture is that of the 70s, the dark ages of personal computing. I can only hope that people inside their organisation like Stuart Cheshire can make some sort of operational change.

<comment><USER3> Actually, the Apple II/II+ introduced in the late 1970s was quite open and a period of innovation for home computing. Apple even included the schematics as well as source code listing for their basic interpreter.

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apple_2>

<comment><USER4> At that time, you could look at the motherboard and figure out (or follow the traces on both sides) how everything worked.

I kind of did that with my first Apple II.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> This is an interesting coincidence. A site I run recently became involved in a tiff with Apple over reverse engineering their new iTunesDB file (which was updated Sept 2007).

Backstory: [http://yro.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=08/11/20/201246&f...](http://yro.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=08/11/20/201246&from=rss) [http://yro.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=08/11/23/017227&f...](http://yro.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=08/11/23/017227&from=rss) [http://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2008/11/apple-confuses- speech-d...](http://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2008/11/apple-confuses-speech-dmca- violation) [http://sam.bluwiki.com/blog/2008/11/in-defense-of- ipodhash.p...](http://sam.bluwiki.com/blog/2008/11/in-defense-of-ipodhash.php)

<comment><USER6> Did you wind up contacting the EFF and that blog entry is how they chose to respond, or does someone at the EFF read slashdot or HN? ;)

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> Apple makes some great stuff but I've been feeling more and more lately that I'd rather spend my time and money supporting open standards.

</comment><comment><USER8> please stop buying apple garbage. they are evil. there's nothing cool about crass consumption

<comment><USER9> If you have a version of this point that depends on reasoning rather than adjectives, you should probably use that instead.

<comment><USER8> steve jobs is a psycho-grade control freak whose "singular vision" of tech implies pointless upgrades on a regular schedule. apparently i can't mount my ipod in linux because his OCD control issues can't grasp someone using a computer that doesn't have a glowing fruit on it. but when you put all this in a tony mall with minimalist blonde-finished tables, its cool. but it isn't. monocultures always die and apple will be no different.</comment></comment></comment>


What is the best typing tutor in your practice? - <AUTHOR>

<comment><USER2> Long ago I went through AccuType - and it was a good system. Recently I have gone across on-line lessons (did not have a chance to try them yet): [http://www.typingstudy.com/en-us_dvorak-3/](http://www.typingstudy.com/en- us_dvorak-3/)</comment>


The world's most extreme startup festival - <AUTHOR> http://www.startupextreme.co/

<comment><AUTHOR> There should be some personality traits overlap between extreme sports people and people creating startups, so combining the two seems interesting.

High intensity events tend to bring people together quicker, so this could potentially create some unique connections between potential founders.

Also, being Norwegian its nice to see Norways strengths being used!

</comment><comment><USER2> Extremity is definitely the single most important metric in a startup. Otherwise, it would just be boring.

And, I see new olympic disciplines: Extreme start-upping and extreme investing. Not for the faint of heart! (Extreme tech-reporting has been tried out but found to end with AOL)

</comment><comment><USER3> So the elevator pitch has been replaced with a base jump pitch?

<comment><AUTHOR> After nailing your base jump pitch you'll kill it at elevator pitches!

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Dette var kult! Gleder meg!

</comment><comment><USER5> To the max!

<comment><USER6> Monkey banana raffle!</comment></comment>


Buying Copyrights, Then Patrolling the Web for Infringement - <AUTHOR> http://www.nytimes.com/2011/05/03/business/media/03righthaven.html?partner=rss&emc=rss <comment><USER2> Decent summary, but nothing new if you've been following the coverage at Ars.</comment>


Effects of Covid-19 on US Food System - <AUTHOR> https://www.refed.com/content-hub/refeds-covid-19-u-s-food-system-review/ <comment><AUTHOR> Curious what companies are doing to address the effects of food waste across the supply chain. It seems that ReFED has started a fund for this: [https://www.refed.com/content-hub/announcing-our- covid-19-fo...](https://www.refed.com/content-hub/announcing-our- covid-19-food-waste-solutions-fund/)</comment>


App reviews delivered to Slack and your inbox - <AUTHOR> https://launchkit.io/reviews/

<comment><USER2> hey there .. we planned to do this as a Show HN .. any way you can delete this post?</comment>


Dentists Are Seeing an Epidemic of Cracked Teeth. What's Going On? - <AUTHOR> https://www.nytimes.com/2020/09/08/well/live/dentists-tooth-teeth-cracks-fractures-coronavirus-stress-grinding.html <comment><USER2> Appears to be available here as well - [http://health4everyday.com/2020/09/dentists-are-seeing-an- ep...](http://health4everyday.com/2020/09/dentists-are-seeing-an-epidemic-of- cracked-teeth-whats-going-on-the-new-york-times/)

This is timely information for me, I am having TMJ like issues and grinding my teeth as well. Never thought about linking to my workstation setup.

</comment><comment><USER3> Ha, my tooth cracked within 3 weeks of the pandemic.

It was because of taffy. Note to all: taffy is non-newtonian, so if you chew hard, it gets really hard and can really leverage your teeth to fall apart.

<comment><USER4> Reminds me of when I was a child and my baby teeth were refusing to fall out. I was referred to an oral surgeon who sent me home w/ orders to eat a 2 pound bag of taffy before returning to see if the operation was still necessary. That doc knew his stuff: taffy is no joke lol.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> Stress

<comment><USER6> But not stress about the coronavirus.

Stress from a change in routine and the lag in managing that. Ie. Buying a proper home office.</comment></comment>


If you're renting a city apt. without a car, 16% of your rent pays for parking - <AUTHOR> https://qz.com/1029925/if-youre-renting-a-city-apartment-without-a-car-16-of-your-rent-pays-for-parking-you-dont-need/ <comment><USER2> It's fascinating to see the massive propaganda campaign ridesharing companies are launching against parking spots.

You do all understand that's where the massive wave of articles about changing building codes and zoning rules to get rid of parking, both public and privately owned, is coming from, right? Uber, Lyft, etc would love to make it hard or impossible to use a privately owned car in urban areas.

Getting rid of the requirement to put parking will mostly just lower everyone's quality of life- residents will take up all the street parking, making it harder for shoppers to access stores, restaurants, etc, making brick and mortar stores even further disadvantaged versus online retailers while also causing more headaches as businesses are forced to actively police their parking areas against use by non-customers.

But it'll be great news for ride sharing companies, as millions of people find themselves unable to own a car while living in American cities which are entirely designed to require car travel.

<comment><USER3> There is no conceivable market failure here that would require regulation of parking spaces. The market will build the amount of parking people want. If the amount of parking goes down it'll be because the land is valued more highly for other uses.

<comment><USER4> Zoning and height limits are experiencing no such liberalization. Previously we had a decent equilibrium system: low density but also a system of transportation well suited to low density.

Now that system of transportation is being decommissioned, but we're still stuck with low density.

How many hours of productivity must employers lose to their workers' long commutes? Yet the market has not provided us with anything faster.

<comment><USER5> "Previously we had a decent equilibrium system"

The system we had was not in equilibrium because:

1) The cost of maintaining the old system was predicated on a continuous growth which hasn't occurred. This is the "Growth Ponzi Scheme" \- [https://www.strongtowns.org/the-growth-ponzi- scheme/](https://www.strongtowns.org/the-growth-ponzi-scheme/) .

2) the Baby Boomers are now reaching retirement age. As they get older, they will be less able to drive, making it difficult for them to live in low density areas even if there were no infrastructure problems.

What does mandatory minimum parking have to do with workers' long commutes? Presumably if employee time is important to the employer then the employer will pay for parking spaces even if there were no minimum parking requirements.

<comment><USER4> If we can't even afford to maintain roads that serve our sprawling zoning schemes, why on earth would we be able to afford any of the alternatives (rail, etc) within our sprawling zoning scheme?

You cannot "fix" symptoms like car use without fixing the underlying problems of car dependence.

Living in a car dependent built environment without the ability to use a car is worse than the status quo, is the point. That's the world we're heading for if we remove parking but continue to resist gentrification and upzoning.

<comment><USER5> Do you agree with me that the existing system is not and was not in equilibrium?

If you disagree then this exchange will go nowhere, unless you can convince me otherwise. I think the evidence is overwhelmingly against you.

A current approach to reduce the Ponzi road scheme is to switch to unpaved roads and narrower paved roads. This reduces maintenance cost, though people don't like it because it means they need to go slower. (Which also makes it safer.) It also helps shift the balance between denser housing, vs. the sparse housing available if everyone assume there will be fast transit.

As I pointed out in [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14801413](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14801413) , other countries have switched away from car dependency. It's not like it's impossible, nor am I proposing a simple "fix" for car use. Removing or reducing mandatory parking requirements is one one aspect of a much larger systematic rethink that we need.

Your comments about resisting "gentrification and upzoning" seem to be about a different topic. I'm all for upzoning, and 'resist gentrification' is a very broad topic including solutions which have nothing to do with city planning.

<comment><USER4> I am categorically not interested in the idea that freeways cost too much, because public transit (at the level of speed, frequency, capacity, and comfort that would be competitive with driving) also costs too much.

>It also helps shift the balance between denser housing, vs. the sparse housing available if everyone assume there will be fast transit.

This is a fallacy. The limitations on housing density are driven by residents of the urban core and inner suburbs. It doesn't matter to them how bad transportation is for people who can only afford the outer suburbs. Increasing the pain of living in low-density outer suburbs will not create more housing in the urban core and inner suburbs.

<comment><USER5> "Do you agree with me that the existing system is not and was not in equilibrium? If you disagree then this exchange will go nowhere, unless you can convince me otherwise."

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> So what if you don't have a car: No car, but a parking space assigned to your condo/apt? Just rent it out to a neighbour with two cars, and you get those $150,- per month right back. Problem solved. I rented an additional space in my building for my motorcycle. Happy renter, happy parking-space-landlord.

</comment><comment><USER7> I rented an apartment for five years that came with an assigned spot. I wasn't there all that long when I gave up my car. All the neighbors were like "Yay! Free space!" My rent did not drop.

I felt all kinds of shit all over. Parking spaces should be extra or people without cars should get a discount.

<comment><USER8> Well, if they built the parking with the apartment I see no problem in the landlord charging tenants for the spot and letting them sublet it with the help of the landlord. If you didn't want the spot with the place, should've chosen another one.

<comment><USER7> _If you didn 't want the spot with the place, should've chosen another one._

There is all kinds of stuff wrong with this statement.

A) It was the only apartment complex that met my needs.

B) I don't think there were any apartment complexes where a parking space was optional.

C) As I said above: I had a car when I rented the place. I gave it up later. That was not in my plans at the time that I rented the place.

<comment><USER9> > C) As I said above: I had a car when I rented the place. I gave it up later. > That was not in my plans at the time that I rented the place.

Without commenting on (A) or (B), surely (C) is not a reasonable complaint? If you rent a 2-bedroom, but then your roommate moves out, then certainly it was not in your plans at the time that you rented, but just as certainly you wouldn't expect your rent to go down. (I recognise that it's a different situation, since no-one can readily use the other bedroom, whereas someone can use the parking space; but what I mean is that "That was not in my plans" is not in itself a justification for a rent abatement.)

<comment><USER7> It isn't a _complaint._ It is a _rebuttal_ of a completely ridiculous assertion that I should not have rented the place to begin with.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Y'all complaining about the price of parking seriously need to consider moving to a city with lower costs of living.

Ive got a 2 bedroom upper level duplex in Minneapolis with a 1 stall garage and 1 additional off street parking space, located on a block with ample street parking, and is only 1 block away from a bus stop on a major bus line that i take to work, all for $1100 a month.

</comment><comment><USER11> As a libertarian who loves the freedom my car affords me, I hate that governments are mandating building parking spaces. Let the market provide, if everyone downtown wants to walk, ride a bike or take a bus/tram then more power to them.

<comment><USER12> Isn't that freedom mostly an illusion? I suppose you can hop in the car for an impromptu road trip whenever you like, but you are paying to license, insure, and maintain the car 24/7/365... and most people can't take too many road trips. But I am trying to picture the market providing if there weren't parking requirements - would a neighborhood reach a point where car owners wanting to move in would pay so much to park that it'd make sense to knock down buildings and put up a parking lot? I suppose that would act as a sort of brake on the whole cycle, since there'd be less housing.

<comment><USER11> in my case work is 22 miles one direction, my daughters schools 15 miles in a different direction. I live in a state that prioritized roads and because of that my commute is fast and easy.

<comment><USER13> Assuming each workday you travel to drop your child at school, then to work, then back to collect your child, then home, you will be travelling (15 + 15 + 22 + 22 + 15 + 15) x 5 = 520 miles each week.

I'm sure you have come to some other arrangement but holy shit that would be a lot of time spent travelling each week. It's worth working out how much time you need to spend at work to pay for the fuel, maintenance, and depreciation involved because that is essentially also 'travel time'.

edit: Even assuming an average speed of 50km/h that is about 16.5 hours each week. Including time spent earning the money to cover the associated costs it's going to be over 20 hours.

<comment><USER11> I don't pick up my kids from school regularly, but occasionally i have to. I have to pick up a daughter from her dojo a couple times a week after work, which is in between my home and work.

My average highway speed while commuting is 75 MPH. 90% of my commute is on the highway.

Commuting also means i can afford a home in a one third acre lot, with plenty of backyard for my kids and their dog to play in.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> Where is parking included? Every building in my city that has a garage charges $200+ per month for parking in addition to rent.

<comment><USER15> I don't think they're talking about reserved spots. The issue is with the government-mandated "parking requirement" that forces builders to account for a certain number of parking spots per person as part of getting a project approved. The analysis is about how much this requirement increases development costs, which are then passed on to all tenants equally.

<comment><USER16> I think GP's post was saying that they're not passed on evenly. Developers in many cities have realized that they can satisfy the requirements _and_ charge extra for those parking spaces, whether assigned or not. I've lived in at least 2 buildings that had mixed assigned/unassigned parking and residents could choose whether to pay more for assigned, but unassigned spaces still cost extra. In both cases, not having a car would have saved me at least $200/mo.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> Huh. The last two major cities I lived in I payed extra for parking on top of my rent as did most others I knew. How's it work in that scenario.

</comment><comment><USER17> Huh. He last two major cities I lived in I payed extra for parking on top of my rent as did most others I knew. How's it work in that scenario.

</comment><comment><USER18> UNH bnj</comment>


California - <AUTHOR> http://www.joelonsoftware.com/items/2007/10/05.html

<comment><USER2> I've noticed "Made In California" as well, and it's an interesting choice of words for Apple.

It brings to mind PG's counter-example of the iPod to the "Squalor of the man- made bits of America" (in his Made In USA essay). When I lived in Europe, I noticed that general stereotypes of the "USA" differed dramatically from impressions of "LA", "San Francisco", "New York", "California".

When you say "USA", people around the world often think of an economic and military juggernaut. If you say "California", they often think "surfers, technology, Ahnold, the Golden Gate Bridge," and so forth. Various cities in the US also have their own international reputations.

It's pretty clear that the rest of the world has very negative _and_ very positive impressions of the United States, and these can be triggered by how you present yourself. Perhaps Apple is trying to grab a more positive reaction by claiming California rather than the USA? When Bush refused to ratify the Kyoto treaty, there was some talk in England about boycotting US products (pretty hopeless idea there, but it shows the anger). California did raise its international brand by bucking that trend.

I expect the US will regain some of its stature once the current administration is gone, but even if/when it does, I'd expect more local branding. Cities compete with each other more than countries do. What does it even mean to say it was "Made in the USA" anymore? If it's made in Seattle, Sydney, or Barcelona, it isn't made in San Francisco. We may be moving toward a world economy where that's the only thing that actually matters.

<comment><USER3> > When Bush refused to ratify the Kyoto treaty, there was some talk in England > about boycotting US products (pretty hopeless idea there, but it shows the > anger).

Actually, it shows ignorance. The US president doesn't ratify treaties, the Senate does. And, the Senate voted Kyoto down 95-0 during the Clinton years.

You got played by Clinton, but you can't object too much because you didn't bother to comply either.

<comment><USER2> You're absolutely right: that my use of the word "ratify" was incorrect. The senate does indeed ratify treaties. And the senate did reject Kyoto (which may have needed some work), as you have said.

But one debating tactic I've noticed in people with a weak argument: they go quickly to detail, identify flaws in phrasing, redefine words, argue over procedural details. Sometimes this is referred to as a "strawman argument", where you take your opponent's argument in its weakest form, and knock it down. I'd like to invite you to take the argument in its strongest form, and actually say something substantive.

So instead of "refused to ratify the Kyoto treaty," let's instead say "actively undermined efforts to take meaningful action against global warming." That would be taking the argument in a stronger form, and would give you an opportunity to explain how the Bush administration does not deserve a reputation for undermining efforts to combat global warming.

So... would you claim that George Bush has nothing to do with the America's rejection of the Kyoto treaty, or America's remarkable inaction on global warming in general? And would you disagree that his administration has repeatedly tried to undermine California's efforts to do something about it?

Before we start arguing about votes and procedures, I'd like to hear your big picture view on this issue.

<comment><USER3> Bush treats Kyoto as Clinton did. If Clinton made you feel better about that, well, they don't call him Slick Willy for nothing.

I'd argue that Bush is actually irrelevant to the US and the climate arguments. Since their rejection predates him, it's hard to argue that he's a cause. And, since no one else bothered, it's hard to argue that the US is especially wrong on this point. (Then again, since the best-case benefits of Kyoto are within the margin of error...)

And no, what I did is not a strawman. I took what you wrote at face value.

<comment><USER2> The strawman is Clinton. There's no reference whatsoever to Clinton in my original post. You claim that I'm elevating Clinton and the Senate to some high position, and then knock it down, when my post is about California's legislation.

My claim is that that _California_ has made efforts that the United States have not made, and I _do_ claim that the Bush administration has been actively undermining these efforts - both nationally and in California.

(edit - oh wait, I get it - I should have said "when the US failed to ratify Kyoto, rather than "when the Bush administration failed to ratify kyoto". I think Bush had a lot to do with it, but he wasn't the only one. If that's your position, fair enough).

<comment><USER3> The claim was that Euros were angry at Bush because of Kyoto. Since they weren't angry at Clinton and Clinton did the same things wrt Kyoto, the "because" is either wrong or shows that the Euros are ignorant.

And then there's the small matter that the Euros have done much the same wrt Kyoto and the fact that Kyoto doesn't do anything towards the stated goals and ....

<comment><USER2> I agree, the Europeans to some extent are piling on America, and Americans are piling on Bush, as a convenient way of blaming someone else without doing anything themselves.

That said, the Europeans were irritated with Clinton/Gore about this, and I thought it was somewhat unfair back then as well. When the Kyoto treaty failed the first time, it almost seemed that the Europeans had deliberately constructed a flawed treaty so they could blame us for failing to ratify it.

All the same, I think that Gore would have worked to overcome the negatives of this treaty and get a good agreement through. Whereas I think Bush used it to snuff out _any_ action on Global warming.

California's actions can actually be used to refute some of this international criticism: California was willing to go against its own national government to get global warming legislation through - surely Australia, France, and Germancy can find a way to act without US leadership (or in spite of US opposition).

But my very first post was really about branding - that California may have a better international brand than the US does, partly because of this type of legislation. I really didn't want to spin off a long debate about global warming.

<comment><USER3> > Australia, France, and Germancy can find a way to act without US leadership > (or in spite of US opposition)

Opposition? How is the US forcing anyone to burn hydrocarbons? (France is going nuke in a big way so Germany may end up dependent.)

Euros are constantly saying how they're the economic equal of the US. If that's true, "US leadership" isn't all that relevant. Moreover, if the claims about a carbon free economy are true, doing so would be incredibly lucrative.

When someone insists that something is incredibly profitable but they're not trying to get as much of that profit as possible, their actions refute their words.

California and the US are both brands whose impression, like many brands, often has nothing to do with reality. Suggesting otherwise, especially with bogus arguments, is foolish.

<comment><USER2> We've hijacked this thread enough by now. Time for us to make our closing arguments and move on. This will be my last post, though I'll read whatever you post in response.

Your last post seemed scattershot to me, but I do want to respond to what I think was a very peculiar argument in your first sentence.

The US isn't forcing anyone to burn hydrocarbons, of course. But a treaty is still important, because many smaller nations will conclude that if the huge emitters aren't going to change, there's no real point in sacrificing themselves (to some extent, this was Australia's rational for rejecting Kyoto).

There's an article in this week's economist about applying prisoner's dilemna to global warming action - where it pays to defect (let other people do the heavy lifting on reducing emissions). If the rest of the world gets it together on global warming, then you'll get a free ride. If the rest of the world doesn't - well then we're all going to hell in a bucket anyway, so why bother with sacrifices? But if everyone acts this way, we'll all be much worse off than if we had cooperated.

The economist article also points out that while defections pay off in single- run games, they don't necessarily pay in repeat games, where subsequent punishment for previous defections may cost more than the benefit of the original defection. In this context, the community of nations who _do_ cooperate may be able to punish defectors severely enough that they prefer to come on board.

I suspect that California is trying to signal to the world that it is cooperating, not defecting, on global warming - by making a very big and public break with national policy. This, along with other policies, is part of the california "brand." While California needs to do more (and an editorial in the SF Chronicle comparing California's policy to New Zealand's shows that we are in no position to get smug), this is no bogus fabrication.

<comment><USER3> My first sentence is not odd at all if you take the low-carbon folks seriously.

> But a treaty is still important, because many smaller nations will conclude > that if the huge emitters aren't going to change, there's no real point in > sacrificing themselves (to some extent, this was Australia's rational for > rejecting Kyoto).

What sacrifice? The low-carbon folks claim that it will be cheaper. If they're correct, how will hydrocarbons be an issue?

> If the rest of the world gets it together on global warming, then you'll get > a free ride.

That's assuming that the IP rights are worthless. I'm prettty sure that they'll be worth quite a lot, arguably far more than the development costs, and a lot of that money will come from latecomers, or if you prefer, "evil deniers". The relevant metaphor is "land grab", not "free rider".

Of course, the low-carbon folks could be wrong, but if they're correct, they make huge amounts of money and do good. Why are they trying to avoid the former?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Yet another article from Joel that's a thinly-veiled ad for FogBugz... antiquated bug tracking soft.

<comment><USER5> _"... Yet another article from "Foo" that's a thinly-veiled ad for 'Bar' ..."_

HackerNews is an ad for yc, pg's articles and talks are for publicising yc. I think the real difference b/w blatant advertising and the type Joel and pg (Buchheit, Greenspun, Yegge, maybe 37Sigs) is they impart knowledge, useful knowledge. If they did not entertain, inform and question readers wouldn't bother reading their pieces.

But I do understand the continuous _'Fogbugz'_ references. Maybe it's the geek in you rejecting someone telling you need something when you don't.

<comment><USER6> >pg's articles and talks are for publicising yc.

I don't think so. PG was writing essays and giving talks about startups before YC.

<comment><USER7> When I first started reading PG's articles, I assumed he wrote them in order to prepare the ground for Arc. I still think it might have been partly true initially, and then his priorities changed.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Ugh, Im tired of Seattle stereotypes. Seattle is a well cultured city, and his generalizations are pretty weak to prove his point, not mention irrelevant. Sorry, I just have to stick up for my home town. BTW, it rains more in NY than Seattle.

<comment><USER9> It may rain more in other places - I'd bet that it rains more in Padova, Italy, than my own Northwest hometown of Eugene, Oregon - but the important thing is that it is gray in the NW. Often. It may rain a bunch in a day somewhere else, but in the NW, it will drizzle for a week.

<comment><USER10> For the one winter I lived in Seattle, we went for 4 months straight without sunshine. When a ray of light fell outside our office on the parking lot, we all ran out to revel in that one ray - I'll never forget how desperately we all missed and needed the sunlight.

<comment><USER11> Winter of '98 - '99?

<comment><USER10> '95 - '96

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> Eh, California isn't all it's cracked up to be. It's crowded, it's expensive, there is insane traffic, and the schools are far below decent.

Sunny beaches and summer fun are one thing... Reality, I'm afraid, is much different.

And I've lived here my whole life.

<comment><USER13> Try living elsewhere, then you'll see how much California rocks in comparison.

I grew up in San Diego, never appreciated it fully until I left.

<comment><USER14> Did this same conversation take place some months ago, or am I having one wicked case of deja vous?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> He has a point. Sometimes you look at a product (including software) and you wonder what the certain buttons or phrases are for! Most companies simply do not put thought into their products. They just literally copy the feature with a color, shape, or phrasing change and stick it onto their copy-cat product. No thought is put into why the other company chose to do it and if there are better ways of solving the same problem. This is a great example of this.

</comment><comment><USER16> Sad, but true.</comment>