Don't call me a '5:01er' (2015) - <AUTHOR> http://czep.net/15/dont-call-me-a-501er.html <comment><USER2> Can we stop with the implicit assumption that children are the only valid reason to have a life outside of work?

I cook dinner, read fiction, take weekend live audio gigs, took motorcycle class and bought one. I plan to learn to sail, get an amateur radio license, pick up an instrument, and (money permitting) earn a private pilot rating. Oh, and see friends who are not coworkers. And date.

When I program outside of work, it's in a domain or part of the stack I wish I knew more about, i.e. not what I'm doing at work.

My on-call shifts are scheduled well in advance. When I'm not on call, work stays in its timebox.

We all deserve to live full lives, not just parents.

<comment><USER3> I think it's just an easy fallback from an emotional perspective. It would be a "political suicide" of sorts to argue against a parent wanting time with their children. Not so much about a sailor wanting time with their boat, etc.

<comment><USER4> "political suicide" or not, I'm paid for 8h/day. What I do with my free time is nobody's concern and I sure don't have to defend myself for respecting my contractual obligations.

<comment><USER2> Sure, but I'm pretty sure the problem being discussed here is specific to at- will salary workers, who do not have specific contractual obligations and are not paid for specific hours.

<comment><USER4> I'm not familiar with "at-will salary workers". How does that work? If they don't have contractual obligations, what do they get paid for?

<comment><USER2> Oh boy, welcome to employment in the United States.

At-will: either party may alter or terminate employment at any time for any reason, and the other has no legal recourse. There is no contractual specification of what you're paid for because the employer does not need to prove anything about the relationship between actual and expected behavior to fire you. You get paid the rate that was agreed upon for time already worked, and then you're done. In effect, you get paid for not having been fired yet.

Salary: your compensation is per unit of time elapsed on the calendar, not at your workstation.

These conditions describe the vast majority of professional, intellectual, and managerial work in the United States. Working 40 hours per week, working 9am-5pm Monday-Friday, etc. are merely cultural norms, not legal standards, and some industries (like tech and finance) have very little respect for them.

Working 40 hours per week is encoded as a legal standard for hourly workers (via overtime pay requirements), but only below a certain wage threshold. Many fields, including programming, are exempt from overtime requirements even when paid hourly.

<comment><USER5> Is it reasonable to assume that you can still do alright by providing exactly the value that you are paid for, and no more? If you can fulfill that value in 20 hours a week, then it seems like you should go home at that point.

Otherwise you're just creating an easily consolidated power vacuum above you and contributing to the collapse of civilization.

<comment><USER6> Depends on the company. Survive? Sure. Advance? There will likely be many others competing for advancement, and longer hours will make them seem "hungrier" than you.

<comment><USER5> That seems false. What is my incentive, as an employer, to give such an employee a promotion or a raise? I'm not trying to get him to work harder for _more_ pay.

<comment><USER7> They have visibility.

"Bob was here until 7 at night fixing bugs in the code! Where was Alice?"

It won't matter that Bob didn't fix the bugs; Alice did when she came in the next morning. It won't matter that Bob caused the issue in the first place. Alice probably didn't even hear the above exclamation, it was an internal dialogue in their manager's mind, so she can't even offer a rebuttal.

Bob was seen working "when it mattered". Perception trumps performance, sadly.

<comment><USER5> I meant to say that I don't see why I should give someone a raise simply as a result of increased performance. it's my goal as an employer to extract more value from an employee than they cost.

The only thing that would compel me to give out raises is a change in market conditions, which can usually be detected by an employee threatening to leave for a job which pays more.

<comment><USER7> If you're waiting for employees to leave, you're waiting too long.

Raises, bonuses, cost of living adjustments; all are part of how you attempt to retain talent. If you're hiring coding cogs, then no, you don't need to give any raises. Just hire at the market rate and plan for 50% attrition every year.

But if you want to keep your employees for more than a few years, you pay them more than the market rate. You match the cost of living increases, you give them performance bonuses, and you give them a minimum of 5-10% raises annually. Bonus points if you recognize that ass-in-seat time is not a good proxy for performance.

Do that, and they won't leave because they aren't getting paid commensurately with their skills. Still need to give them interesting work, though.

<comment><USER5> You are making the false assumption that value is fixed for a fixed amount of work. Programmers, and more generally engineers, do not have a fixed value for labor. It is generally the case that it is much more efficient to have the same engineer starting and finishing a project. This means that you as a programmer, have negotiating power that scales with the amount of work that you have already done. If you are not getting paid in proportion to what it would cost to replace you at any given point of the process, then you are getting paid well below the actual "market" rate.

This means that if you are an at will programmer, you can do less work the closer the project gets to completion without it being a good idea to fire you. If a small raise disproportionately discourages this behavior, then it makes sense, but it does not count as "paying you more than the market rate". I suspect that you receive, on average, a smaller percentage of the cost of replacement as time goes on.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> I manage a dev team. I don't care how many hours they work. I don't measure when anyone comes in or when they go home.

I care about output. We don't pay people to sit at desks. We pay people to write code. Writing code is a creative endeavour - good code can occur in the shower as that sudden realisation strikes about how to refactor the messy state engine.

Insisting that people sit at desks until the boss leaves is a really strong signal of bad company culture, and probably bad code.

Because development is creative, it is affected by mental state. Worrying about the kids or the bus timetable is counter-productive (you're not thinking about code, you're thinking about what your colleagues will make of you running to the bus). Good development environments minimise these worries, allowing developers to focus on writing code.

<comment><USER9> > I manage a dev team. I don't care how many hours they work. > I don't > measure when anyone comes in or when they go home.

> I care about output.

I've got a personal anecdote, it's not meant as an attack on you.

Had a manager at BigCo. who claimed exactly that. That BigCo. was also the one who won awards for being model employer.

One time he decided he really-really wanted a raise at the next review and introduced a system of punishment where if you're late by N minutes you'll have to do N*P (Where P is number of people in the team) tasks from the backlog.

After work. Unpaid.

I was on vacation when this was introduced. Got into minor traffic accident soon after I came back. Got assigned the tasks. Put in my resignation soon after - the man could not be reasoned with.

His arguments? I broke employer's rules being late. And the unpaid overtime part?

I asked him specifically at the interview 2 years before that if the company had unpaid overtimes. The answer was a resolute "No".

EDIT: Formatting.

<comment><USER4> > One time he decided he really-really wanted a raise at the next review and > introduced a system of punishment where if you're late by N minutes you'll > have to do N*P (Where P is number of people in the team) tasks from the > backlog.

I'm sorry, but I don't see how this relates to the parent. Your story portrays a hypocritical and abusive manager. That "rule" was not enforced by the contract, and you were not legally obliged to follow it. I would've been more curious to see what you tried to do or say to repel it.

<comment><USER9> What I did was try to stall to see if he would run out of steam and come to his senses, this was on Wednesday. That day I also made the call to a team I've interviewed with before to ask if they would still be happy to see me. They were.

Next Monday what I said was roughly this: "We've got more important tasks than the backlog now, let's discuss how we can fit them in later today". What I heard next were profanities saying that I literally fucked up and I have to do them after work.

(Mind you, this was not 1-on-1 but a team meeting, so the entire team was present, 3 more people) Next I asked whether I would be paid for that work and the answer, of course, surprised nobody. I asked him whether HR would share his point of view (This is a company who cares about the image of a model employer), to which he said that I come to work later than the hours that are in my employment contract. (This was a guy who supposedly cared about the output, not asses in chairs and he was OK with people showing up later) I grew tired of this attitude and politely told him that I already made arrangements for my next job and I quit.

Transferring my work to the team was smooth and I left in good spirits.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> At my company, leaving at a reasonable time is encouraged, if not insisted upon. Facilities locks down the building and parking lots in the early evening and doesn't like people staying late.

Practically speaking, there's no way to put in >8 solid hours of programming or engineering work, day after day. Like a lot of people, I have a handful of solid programming hours each day before mental fatigue sets in. The rest of day is spent handling the related work - planning, emails, background reading, etc. More than 8 hours would be an absolute waste of time.

<comment><USER11> Totally agree. Firm I used to work for, for my first 2 years, 7 to 7 was required M-F, and 8 hours on Saturday with 4 work from home on Sunday. It was utter bullshit. We didn't even have that much work to do at the time. A lot of it was inventing work. It was all about facetime to management. Result was burnout and a lot of turnover. Once i was the only one left, i basically said fuck it. Especially, as a team of 1, I was also on call 24/7\. Going from 7 to 7 to a 9 to 5 day increased my productivity, happiness and income.

<comment><USER12> > Once i was the only one left, i basically said fuck it.

I'm amazed it took you that long.

> Going from 7 to 7 to a 9 to 5 day increased my productivity, happiness and > income.

Wait what, 'fuck it' meant 'I'm cutting back to a 40-hour work week', not 'I'm walking away and not coming back except on a contract rate 10x what I'm currently being paid'?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> Our dev instances all live on AWS. We don't keep them up 24/7 - instead, we save about £2k/mo by running them only from 08:00-18:00 UTC. (Probably we'll move that an hour in summer.) At six o'clock, your dev instance goes _off_. This saves me shouting "GO HOME!" a lot ...

<comment> jon-wood That's a fantastic way or working, more companies should do it!

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> C'mon, does't your company put a little extra in your paycheck once in a while when you need it?

"Hi boss, it's crunch time at home with the new kid on the way. I'm gonna have to ask you to put some more money in my check this month, you know, just until she ships."

(That is sarcasm for the impaired.)

<comment><USER15> You don't get bonuses or raises when you really need it?

<comment><USER16> No, and they should not. Giving bonuses or raises to employees during personal rough times is a slippery slope. It eventually leads to mentality like, "Well of course Tom makes 5k more, he has a family to support." Its easy to turn this around, and for employers withhold pay or advancement, because the the employee is perceived to not need it.

<comment><USER17> And as an employee you should do the same with your time.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment> a-saleh Fortunately, we don't have at-will employment over here, and I have been quite up-front to my manager that in this team I would be leaving at 5:01, because I have a little daughter at home. And it was fine, because we already had a senior guy, working from his house, from 7:01 to 15:01 :-) And it is fine if somebody leaves early because of i.e. board-game night, or pub-crawl, unless our servers are on fire or you already have a scheduled meeting :)

To be honest I kind-of pride myself on being a 9 to 5 programmer. I remember reading about some studies that consistent work 6 hours a day is more productive than 12 hours a day after ~3 months.

Then I saw this with my own eyes, where I worked with a friend on a project, and I always worked every day between 8 00 and 12 00 and he tried to crunch from like 1 pm to 1 am ... my code was less buggy, more stable and by a week we actually had ~same ammount of working lines written.

</comment><comment><USER18> They shoot tv shows and movies in my building several days per month, starting right at 5:01, and it ain't quiet.

We were Turing Industries for a while!

</comment><comment><USER19> I'm a 4:58er. If I don't get out before the warehouse people I might as well stay until 5:30 by the time the parking lot clears.

On the flip side, I'm usually in at least 20 minutes early every morning.

</comment><comment><USER20> [http://www.ted.com/talks/dan_pink_on_motivation](http://www.ted.com/talks/dan_pink_on_motivation)

</comment><comment><USER21> Ha! And here my approach has always been "leave when the work is done", with a liberal application of "time to call it a day and clear my head".

There's a latent assumption that the author hasn't touched upon, which is that putting in more hours yields a greater productivity. I've found the opposite to be true (to a point).

All I can say is I don't regret my decision to freelance.

<comment><USER22> Also consider, If you worked until you were so tired you were no longer productive, any outside work (personal projects etc) done after work will suffer low productivity too.

I _want_ to save a little energy for after work, not just spend it recovering.

</comment></comment><comment><USER23> This seems like an overly-passionate response to an inconveniently tight bus schedule.

<comment><USER24> Hello,

I logged in purely just to respond to you. Inconveniently tight is an understatement when it comes to public transport. You're dealing with a beast that can appear ANY time within a 30 minute radius around the "estimated" arrival time. And if you miss it, that can be an hour out of your life. Combining the fact that now you'll miss your transfer(s). This also ignores all the prep time that goes into catching a bus such as packing your things, ensuring you have the money, getting out of the office (where people don't respect or understand the bus schedule).

I also didn't account for things such as crosswalks and rude drivers. I assume every crosswalk will be about 10 minutes to cross, given lights and drivers general disrespect for pedestrians.

For reference, I've gotten so angry at my local Public Bus system I started a blog to deal with my rage issues caused by it.</comment></comment>


Feds: Hackers Ran Concert Ticket Racket - <AUTHOR> http://krebsonsecurity.com/2014/07/feds-hackers-ran-concert-ticket-racket/ <comment><USER2> The hackers are going to get in trouble with the feds. That's great.

However, certainly, Stub Hub has some culpability here, right? The article is light on details as to how this happened, but but whether it was negligence, or if they knew about this and let it happen, Stub Hub still profited from this, and it will probably happen again.

That's the problem with e-commerce security: e-commerce shops have little incentive to secure their system, especially a shop, like Stub Hub, with such a large piece of the pie.

</comment><comment><USER3> Was this related to eBay's leak of user info?

eBay owns StubHub, and getting usernames, home addresses, email addresses, etc. could help with account takeovers at StubHub even if the systems are separate.</comment>


MyGraphQL Performance Problem [video] - <AUTHOR> https://youtu.be/uFH5S5dUPr8 <comment><AUTHOR> This is a response by the author of the tweet that hit the front page of hacker news a couple days ago "The Darkside of GraphQL: Performance".

Basically his result here after his tweet is that there was a performance bug in TypeGraphQL which is a TypeScript GraphQL frameworks was using.

By the way if you've never heard of Ben Awad and are looking to learn GraphQL he has some great videos on his channel that I have found tremendously helpful.</comment>


Relaunch of HearWhere - Rate/Review my startup - <AUTHOR> http://www.hearwhere.com

<comment><USER2> My comments (as neutral as possible):

1\. Adsense is way too big and too prominent. Take it away from the fontpage and only put it on the search results page

2\. Static frontpage is empty. Boring.

3\. The page is aligned leftwards on my macbook widescreen.

4\. This is not important, but you are not being careful to properly center align stuff. Like the "Next 30" button

5\. The difference in your font sizes on the sidebar is too large. Make it smaller

6\. The names of the cities, like 'Paris' have some wierd dots before them

7\. "Feature Artists"? Do you mean featured artists?

8\. I don't like music auto-playing on a website. Inform me first.

9\. Your favicon colors suck. No seriously, those are very dull colors

\- Now here are some things you should do

1\. Go to one of the online avatar creators and make yourself a vector avatar with big ears. It will give your site a more friendly look

2\. Drop that big-ass adsense banner, it makes your site look cheao

3\. Change the color scheme slightly to a more appealing color. Mixing gray and brown is not good

4\. Importat: When I search I want to see the artists I searched for in the middle, not some features artists. Show more results in the middle, the sideways display is a bit strange

5\. Explain what the map does, I could not figure it out.

6\. Clicking next did not work

\-- Things you did good

1\. Nice page after the front page

2\. I like the photoshop work

3\. It's focused on a problem. I just wish it would just show me what I want, which is musicians in my town this weekend and next weekend.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks Max,

First off, let me apologize for the stupid mistake with the 'next' page not working. I think I've fixed it now. Testing this morning after google launched a new version of the Map API which broke my site, so ...anyway, my bad...bad me...

I laughed at the 'favicon colors suck' comment, I just haven't had a chance to get a good new favicon going, so I left the old one.

I have two questions for you 1) what would I do with the avatar I would create? you mean for a new logo? or as an avatar? or just stick it somewhere??

2) the site should have shown you musicians in your town, if google could't find you by IP address, than it would show you everything. Or were you saying that it wouldn't show you this or next weekend because of the 'next' buttons not showing up?

Hopefully I'll be able to get 'date ranges' going in the next few weeks, but if you select the 'day' from the filter, it should give you the shows in your area.

Thanks again for the comments. I likely won't be doing a FULL redo of the site again, but I'll be doing another review and will be making more changes of course.

<comment><USER3> Hey Pete good job, I didn't see the original launch but I'm fairly impressed with what you have now. The myspace music playing is really good and I do think it should auto start after you click on an artist. The map didnt really do anything for me but I noticed most of the gigs in my area (Perth Western Australia) didnt have any street address mentioned.

Anyway Congrats, I like.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Hey pedalpete,

Good show. Tons of smaller feedback: -"Feature Artists" -- should be "featured" -you have 3 distinct styles on the rhs list, for date/pic/details. I'd say go with one and make it work, it looks cluttered. Otherwise the design got a lot slicker! nice! -"featured artists" -- two-line genres go on out of bounds. -right column header should left-align to that column's boundary (it's sticking out left, at least in chrome) -orange-colored div is duplicate content w/featured artists (at least in my area) and pushes the map below the fold. -okay, taking another look, I get it now: the orange-colored div is associated with the map. you could make that clearer by grouping them visually -- bunched in one div, for instance. but I actually don't like that choice for what goes on the homepage map: I'd say put the featured artist events on the map, and kill the orange div. -I second utnick's suggestion for a weekly digest -I still don't like the adsense, but I like maxklein's suggestion to only show it on secondary pages: you'll keep most of your money (I'd guess that you'd get 5-7 pageviews per visitor on avg, which means you'd lose 15-20% of your ad revenue) and make a much better first impression. -The player needs to be higher on the page! that's a rad feature and it needs to be above the fold. Kill one of the "artist" sections (featured, rhs, orange-top).

<comment><AUTHOR> thanks for the comments shawn,

unfortunately ads can't go on 'secondary' pages (I'm pretty sure) as you aren't allowed to load adsense in an ajax request (terms of use).

When you say 'kill one of the artist sections' you mean kill one of the styles? or actually get rid of a section?

I might not be understanding what you mean by orange-top, which you mention twice, but I'm guessing you mean the artist you just selected which shows with an orange bar at the top? I think people might get lost if I don't show them what the artist is that all the new data is pointing too.

<comment><USER4> actually get rid of one. I did mean the div you're talking about, but I didn't understand its function in your site fully. now I see that this is really a one-page app, and that that div is critical, and that you can't show ads on secondary pages. that's a tough problem, dunno what to say; I still think the problems I mentioned (music player should go up higher, ads shouldn't appear on first impression) are still problems, and if you can figure out a solution, it'd be grea. what about making the music player smaller to help fit it in with another design element?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Look really interesting. I don't like the design though. The banner at the top is too big.

Where are you getting the data from? There is even data for Luxembourg in it, which I think is only published on the websites where artists are going to play?

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> A month and a half ago I posted a "rate my start-up" post here on YC, and the response was amazing.

I went back to the drawing board and rebuilt the site. Unfortunately two features haven't made it in yet (select a date range, and get a better way to manage genres), but there have been MAJOR changes to what the site offers and how it works.

Thanks to all who commented originally, hope you like the new version, and I'm keen to get any feedback on what I can do to make it better. Pete

<comment><USER4> Way to go pedalpete!

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> Man you should do something on the designing and UI of the site... its just not rocking enuf! :) I'll suggest to get the site down for a week or two... re-design (seriously.. take care of colors and alignment.. content too.. maybe seek help from rock-events posters or sumthin lik tht) and then re-launch... because as per me, first impression is the last!

</comment><comment><USER7> any plans on rss support or some kind of weekly digest for my town?

<comment><AUTHOR> there is always more to come.

by weekly digest, I'm guessing you mean - what's coming to my town that suits me?

If so, I sure hope so. Very challenging thing to do (I think), but I love a good challenge!

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> HearWhere placed me in Mt Victoria, Wellington, New Zealand which is slightly off but very close.

Two minor things: 1) "DJ Carlito" came up as "�J CARLITO" and when I clicked on "Peaches" the "About Peaches" section was for a different group. Otherwise I thought it was pretty good.

</comment><comment><USER9> jQuery+jMpas cool</comment>


IOS App Icon Template - <AUTHOR> http://appicontemplate.com/ <comment><USER2> This is a great template that I use often. Just mentioned it in my resources post: <http://nathanbarry.com/25-free-ios-design-resources/></comment>


Bill Gates on Predictable Global Catastrophe - <AUTHOR> http://www.vox.com/2015/5/27/8660249/gates-flu-pandemic

<comment> T-A > what's likeliest to kill more than 10 million human beings in the next 20 > years?

Looking for spikes in mortality charts may not be the best way to answer this question.

Cancer currently kills more than 8 million people every single year [1].

Smoking currently kills almost 6 million people per year [2].

At the current rate, road traffic will kill 25 million people globally over the next 20 years [3]. Maybe self-driving cars will reduce that significantly, but given rapid urbanization and the prevalence of developing countries in the data, I have my doubts.

You don't see any of these stand out in charts because they constitute a smooth background, steadily reaping lives, year after year.

[1] [http://www.who.int/mediacentre/factsheets/fs297/en/](http://www.who.int/mediacentre/factsheets/fs297/en/) [2] [http://www.who.int/mediacentre/factsheets/fs339/en/](http://www.who.int/mediacentre/factsheets/fs339/en/) [3] [http://www.who.int/violence_injury_prevention/road_safety_st...](http://www.who.int/violence_injury_prevention/road_safety_status/2013/en/)

<comment><AUTHOR> Correct. Spikes only present evidence that something may have occurred.

So the deaths during world wars could have been due to a flu pandemic, we will never know ⸮.

The main point is that there are some processes which can grow at a faster pace than we're prepared to control. Just like cancer.</comment></comment>


Star Forts - <AUTHOR> http://www.castlesandmanorhouses.com/types_10_star.htm <comment><USER2> Nicosia, the capital of Cyprus (specifically, its city center) is essentially a giant star fort. The fortification walls are visible from a satellite view:

[https://www.google.com/maps/place/Walled+Old+City,+Nicosia,+...](https://www.google.com/maps/place/Walled+Old+City,+Nicosia,+email@example.com,33.3550179,3863m/data=!3m1!1e3!4m5!3m4!1s0x14de17443c2304b9:0x8ed6d4d80f21bce8!8m2!3d35.1745446!4d33.3626418)

<comment><USER3> I think quite few cities in Europe either has some remnants of a star fort solution in their city plan, or a regular star fort.

In Sweden the central part of the city of Gothenburg still has parts of the star fort left:

[https://goo.gl/maps/hsn3fQWB61B2](https://goo.gl/maps/hsn3fQWB61B2)

And the castle of Landskrona has multiple layers of star fort shaped moats and walls.

[https://goo.gl/maps/aAAb2fACJDt](https://goo.gl/maps/aAAb2fACJDt)

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Fun fact: the base of the Statue of Liberty is a star fort named "Fort Wood" [1]

[1] [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liberty_Island#Fort_Wood](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liberty_Island#Fort_Wood)

<comment><USER5> I had noticed the design and had assumed it was an example of military fashion leading civilian fashion. Thanks

<comment><USER4> This quick video[1] is where I heard it, it has some other fun facts about the development of liberty island.

[1] [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SgZ1f4ACZBQ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SgZ1f4ACZBQ)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Not an expert, but I think these are forts rather than castles. I would describe a castle as the stronghold of a noble, with a form that evolved from iron age hillforts and progressed to the great citadels and their massive towers in the 13th and 14th centuries CE, just before the development of effective artillery rendered them obsolete. Forts on the other hand are rather more an expression of centralized state power and a professional standing military. I didn't look at the dates on all of the depicted forts but I would expect them to be 17th to early 19th century CE.

<comment><USER7> From the intro

>Historians enjoy debating the scope of the word, but usually accept a castle to be the private fortified residence of a monarch or nobleman. This definition excludes fortresses, which were not homes, and also fortified towns, which were public defences rather than private residences. Taking a little licence we can extend the definition to buildings that might not technically qualify under this definition

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> Great page. Gee, I wish I'd read that before I read _Tristram Shandy_. Ravelins, hornwork, glacis etc etc get a _lot_ of mentions from Tristram's fortification-obsessed Uncle Toby. Somehow the joke never gets old, even not knowing what they are.

<comment><USER9> Did you read Tristram Shandy to the end? I read the first 400 pages and then I gave up. And up till this moment, I'm the only person I knew who got that far.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> My wife and I spent about two months driving around europe living in a "caravan/camping car/vonmobile" (small, class-B-ish RV) and had the opportunity to stay in both Carcassonne and Neuf-Brisach.

Neuf-Brisach is an examplar star-fort, with a beautiful, calm, country feel to it.

There is a lot to be said for the design of European towns compared to those in the US.

If you are planning to go to the Yucatan over the winter, a quick trip to Valladolid will give you an easy impression.

The closest I've seen in the US is downtown Charlottesville, VA.

Curious if anyone here has found anything else in the US with a similar, car- free town center with mixed-use zoning.

</comment><comment><USER5> What was the effectiveness of these forts? They look quite beautiful, to the point that I'm starting to wonder if it's a case of form over function. I get that the 'legs' of the star are supposed to A. Cover the other 'legs' at close quarters, and B. Create an angled surface for shot to bounce off.

<comment><USER11> _What was the effectiveness of these forts? They look quite beautiful, to the point that I 'm starting to wonder if it's a case of form over function._

Fortified buildings of that era tended to be very functional, though I agree they can also be quite beautiful in shape.

One advantage of the angular bastion shape is that the triangular point does not allow for a dead zone created by circular bastions, where enemy troops can hide at the base of the wall and undermine it while concealed from most defensive fire by the bastion itself.

Normally the bastions are not just an outward triangular point, but angle back inwards on the curtain wall side as well. This would allow defenders to bring enfilading fire along the curtain wall should the attackers get that close, without being subject to direct fire from attackers further out.

Combined with the presence of a wide ditch with a glacis to the outer side and the thicker and sloped lower walls on the inner side, this made any approach to the main curtain wall, either to undermine it or to scale it, extremely difficult and dangerous for the attackers.

In addition to the angular bastions, star forts typically featured separate ravelins. These also served a number of useful functions, not least providing a relatively safe forward firing position that was protected from the front but left exposed on the curtain wall side in the event that the position was overrun and its defenders retreated. Even if they fell, their shape and position would force enemy forces to divide before reaching the main wall, and they also provided some additional protection against incoming cannon fire for the curtain wall behind, helped by being set on a different angle as you mentioned.

These tactical advantages remained relevant for quite a long period in military history, from the first star forts in the 15th century until around the 18th. They rapidly faded after that, however, as the introduction of indirect fire weapons like mortars and high explosive shells rendered the intricately shaped defensive fortifications obsolete.

<comment><USER5> Interesting choice of words: "the triangular point does not allow for a dead zone" In one sense you are right, in another you are precisely wrong. Blind spot perhaps?

Thank you for your input though :)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> Fascinating! Castle of Good Hope is another example that I don't see listed here: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Castle_of_Good_Hope#/media/Fil...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Castle_of_Good_Hope#/media/File:Kasteel_de_Goede_Hoop_circa_1680.jpg). Thought of it as soon as I heard the title but never knew it was a trend or such a practical design.

<comment><USER13> I notice they left off the most historic fort in my area.

Fort Monroe is a 7 pointed star fort at the mouth of the Chesapeake Bay.

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

<comment><USER13> I don't know what kind of people run this place but everything in my post is the same as all the others.

Some kind of inferiority complex at work. This place seems full of bullies. Facts are inconvenient huh.

Could be racists here as Fort Monroe accepted any slaves who could make it there.

It is also the largest stone fort in the US.

Maybe moderators should read a history book instead of thread bullying.

<comment><USER12> What bullying are you talking about?

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> There's a whole belt of those around Antwerp (at least the moats usually remain).

This zooms to just a few of them:

[https://firstname.lastname@example.com,4.394239...](https://firstname.lastname@example.com,4.3942394,14.5z)

<comment><USER15> In case you're interested in their original placement:

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Race_to_the_Sea#/media/File:DE...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Race_to_the_Sea#/media/File:DEFENCE_OF_ANTWERP.jpg)

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> For people in the UK, Star Castle in the Scilly Isles is worth a visit [http://www.castlesfortsbattles.co.uk/south_west/star_castle....](http://www.castlesfortsbattles.co.uk/south_west/star_castle.html)

<comment><USER17> Fort George as well:

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fort_George,_Highland](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fort_George,_Highland)

<comment><USER18> There's one in Tilbury, just outside London:

[https://www.english-heritage.org.uk/visit/places/tilbury- for...](https://www.english-heritage.org.uk/visit/places/tilbury-fort/)

But there's not much else in Tilbury, so i've never been.</comment></comment></comment>


Closing the Farm-To-Table Gap in Alaska - <AUTHOR> http://www.nytimes.com/2016/01/04/us/closing-the-farm-to-table-gap-in-alaska.html?_r=0 <comment><USER2> Asks me to sign in on mobile</comment>


The Bookmark Manager Chrome Extension will be discontinued on 8/15/2018 - <AUTHOR> Bookmark Manager Extension in Chrome now showing the message 'The Bookmark Manager Chrome Extension will be discontinued on 8/15/2018' https://imgur.com/a/xNhJpmY<p>Anyone know more information? <comment><USER2> Only other mention i found was here: [https://productforums.google.com/forum/#!topic/chrome/c85R7G...](https://productforums.google.com/forum/#!topic/chrome/c85R7GWVtCQ)

</comment><comment><USER3> This is a bummer. Anyone have a good alternative?</comment>


My wonderful world of iOS - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/nikitavoloboev/my-ios <comment><USER2> Try [https://everyday.app](https://everyday.app) for an habit tracker and tell me what you think :p

<comment><USER3> Your web-app is the best habit tracker ever created and I used it for a while after I paid for it very early on. :) However, I left it because mobile app is not as smooth of an experience. Currently using habitify.me across my devices but will switch back once mobile app catches up with other apps.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> My killer apps...

Messaging: Signal

Password manager: 1Password

Task managers: Any.do

Habit building: Streaks

Finance: Quicken, Stocard for shopping cards

Transportation: public transit app, Lyft, Car2Go

Reading: Apollo, Inoreader, OverDrive, Kindle for iPhone, Hoopla

Playback: Downcast for podcasts, Cesium for music

Health: MyFitnessPal

Browser: Dolphin

Education: Flashcards Deluxe, Imiwa, Pleco

Utilities: Dark Sky for pinpoint weather, Scanner Pro document scanning

</comment><comment><USER5> I just can't find a simple "Gone app"kind of Todo list app. There is this one called TET but it's just for android. Does anyone know a "Gone app" for iOS?

</comment><comment><USER6> I recommend [http://readder.co](http://readder.co) as a Reddit client instead :)

</comment><comment><USER5> I really find this to be useful. Thanks nikivi.

<comment><USER5> Just downloaded Apollo and Streaks tho.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> Coming soon to Hacker News: The 30 Best iPhone Apps You Absolutely Must Install!

</comment><comment><USER8> Is there anything like this but for Android? Thanks.

</comment><comment><USER9> Why is this on github, where's the code?

ps: Github is not just for code okay... But let's be honest, this is a blog post, let's keep github clean

<comment><USER10> You may have missed the part at the bottom labeled 'Contributing'.

 _I love finding new awesome tools and apps. If you have a favorite tool or app that you think I missed, please say it._

While there are certainly a lot of 'I's in the list, I could see this evolving like some of the other 'awesome' lists have.

<comment><USER11> [https://github.com/vsouza/awesome- ios#about](https://github.com/vsouza/awesome-ios#about)

<comment><USER12> That's for frameworks and libraries though. This is for user-facing apps.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Maniac Tentacle Mindbenders: ScummVM's unpaid coders keep adventure gaming alive - <AUTHOR> http://arstechnica.com/gaming/news/2012/01/maniac-tentacle-mindbenders-of-atlantis-how-scummvm-kept-adventure-gaming-alive.ars/1 <comment><USER2> The most impressive part of the story for me: "Strigeus, who left in early 2002, went on to develop several more open-source projects, most notably OpenTTD—a remake and expansion of Chris Sawyer's classic sim game Transport Tycoon Deluxe. He also authored BitTorrent client µTorrent, which was purchased by BitTorrent, Inc. in 2006, and was chief architect of the Spotify beta."

It appears as though the only significant piece of software written by this guy which I haven't used extensively is Spotify, and that's just because it isn't supported in South Africa yet.

<comment><USER3> Reminded me of another super-coder: <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fabrice_Bellard>

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Does anybody know the name of this game, please?!

[http://static.arstechnica.com/scummvm-history/scummvm- androi...](http://static.arstechnica.com/scummvm-history/scummvm-android.jpg)

<comment><USER5> It's Gobliiins: <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gobliiins>

<comment><USER4> Thanks. I loved it when I was a kid.</comment></comment></comment>


Ash HN: How do you handle looking at the screen for long hours? - <AUTHOR> Some measures I take include breaks after 20-30 minutes, wearing caps, dvorak and, using flux like software.<p>What measures do you take and recommend to prevent damage to health due to usage of computers over long periods? <comment><USER2> Generally I don't finding using a computer for very long periods to be much of a problem. Granted I am still young. I found that sometimes typing for long periods made my hands hurt. I have done a few modifications to make my experience nicer:

\- Mechanical keyboard, cherry MX blues \- Dvorak keyboard layout \- Tiling window manager \- Dark color themes for night

Thats about it.

</comment><comment><USER3> For eye strain specifically - f.lux on all computers, Night Shift on my iPhone, and anti-glare coated glasses. Combine that with getting up every 20 minutes to walk for a few minutes.

Additionally, I use some good quality eye drops like Systane Balance which help lubricate my eyes when I wake up and before bed.

A new thing I've been trying to do for multiple reasons is write out my designs on pen/paper before sitting down at the computer. This has helped with eye strain and also helped me better clarify my ideas instead of sitting at my computer and "wandering" through the problem space in my IDE.

<comment><AUTHOR> How effective is anti glare? I was thinking of getting those since I already wear spectacles.

<comment><USER3> I think anti-glare is helpful. For a while I had a pair of glasses with and a pair without and I definitely preferred anti-glare on work days.

It is something that is added when they make the lenses.

<comment><USER4> I also wear anti-glare lenses and find them to be helpful.

I use Refresh Optive Advanced in the morning for my dry eyes, and take a high quality fish oil supplement (Minami).

Last but not least, I sleep. A lot. Once in a while I will stay up late watching TV, but then my eyes really feel it the next day.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> I found adjusting lighting around the screens helpful. I can't comment on any heath-related pros or cons as this is not scientific.

Specifically, adjusting ambient lighting near my desk that is brighter/darker than the displays.

I work at night a lot and try to keep a couple lamps on - not work in a dark room. Likewise, I work near a window during the day but added a pull-down perforated window screen to allow sun in but dull (~25%) of the bright sunlight.

My eyes looked off screen more than I realized and adjusting ambient lighting feels like it reduced eye strain and reduced time to return to focus.

<comment><AUTHOR> This is pretty good. I didn't realize how different my ambient lighting was from my screen.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> I recommend buying a vertical mouse if you're doing a lot of precision mouse work. I generally don't consider surfing the web precision work, and I can offload a lot of muscle twitching to the scroll button.

You can use ambient lighting which changes color to match what's on the screen. This is a well known technique to reduce eye strain.

Grab yourself a decent chair with memory foam padding. A lot of the pain that comes from sitting is in the lower back, so it's absolutely crucial that the lower back is looked after.

A lot of the other comments regarding breaks and eye strain are generally fine, but can be overdone very easily. Flux + eyeglasses + antiglare screen covers combined together can be overkill.

Try to use autofill as much as possible and isolate applications so everything is not in one place and thus difficult to find. For example, I have one browser for Reddit, one browser for hackernews, one browser for casual surfing, etc. I'm pretty sure an SSD can handle multiple contextual browser like this and it doesn't take long to split a browser up like this, and believe me it's worth it!

<comment><AUTHOR> How does splitting the browsers help?

<comment><USER6> It makes it easier to surf different sites, as each browser is tailored for specific content. So on Reddit, I can disable images globally and it only affects Reddit and not other sites. And the bookmarks menu doesn't have to be a cluttered mess either. You can do this easily in Chrome by creating different profiles. In Firefox you can do it by switching profiles. It helps because I find it's easier to navigate the web

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> One side benefit of the pomodoro technique (focus for 25 minutes, then take a break for 5 minutes) is that it gives you a good excuse to get up and look away from the screen.

[https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pomodoro_Technique](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pomodoro_Technique)

</comment><comment><USER8> Most obvious one for me is I try to do as much work as possible (where work = typing) in dark mode, i.e., amber or colored type on a black background.

I wish there was an acceptable way to view web pages in dark mode, but the vast majority of web sites look like garbage and are functionally unusable if you change their color scheme.

I rarely read long documents on a monitor. If it's something that will take longer than 2 or 3 minutes to read, I will print it and read it away from the computer.

Other than that, I just try to make sure I take breaks, and one thing I've trained myself to do is to recognize when I'm pondering something and to turn my head/body away from the monitor and look at something 10 or 20 feet away while I'm pondering.

</comment><comment><USER9> In addition to f.lux and Night Shift as others have mentioned, I'm using a Mac menu bar app called Awareness [1] that reminds you to take breaks regularly.

The Pomodoro style timing of 20+5 never really worked for me. I found a lot of my light tasks need 5–10 minutes while for serious dev tasks, 45 minutes of work is a better period of time to dig in deeply and get something done. Then I'll take a longer break of 10–20 minutes to balance that out. If I'm really in the zone at the 45-minute mark, I'll go ahead a plunge through a second 45-minute period without stopping.

[1]: [http://iamfutureproof.com/tools/awareness/](http://iamfutureproof.com/tools/awareness/)

</comment><comment><USER8> One other big thing I forgot: computer glasses. I'm old enough that I need reading glasses (I don't _have_ to have them, but they help), and I actually got a pair of reading glasses calibrated specifically for reading at a distance of ~24 inches, i.e., monitor distance. I call them my computer glasses. I think that was the term my optometrist used too. They are a _huge_ benefit; I can't even hardly look at my monitor for more than a few minutes without them.

<comment><USER10> I have mild myopia/astigmatism and also use a different prescription for computer use than for distance. Using my distance glasses at monitor distance gives me an eye-strain headache, but without glasses I get a headache from squinting and back pain from leaning in to keep my nose 8 inches from the screen.

10 years ago it took some persuading to get an optometrist or ophthalmologist to prescribe something like that, but nowadays it seems to be routine.

Even if you are able to get by in daily non-computing life without glasses, that doesn't mean they couldn't reduce eye strain. Focusing a couple feet away means engaging your eye muscles pretty strenuously unless you have moderate myopia. And a lot of people have astigmatism without even knowing it.

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> I'm using an app that blocks my screen at the interval I set. But it has the option to skip that break with a single click. When I'm focused on reading something important I dont even rember if it was me the person who skipped absolutely all breaks for 8 hours. But when I watch a video, that app must be disabled.

I think the best option is not software but hardware. For example when I need to wake up early in the morning, I put my alarm clock 3 meteres away from my bed, so the other ME doesnt turn it off.

</comment><comment><USER12> This might be a bit weird but I find washing my face with water helps. When you get a chance wash your face with water and if possible try not to dry it too much afterwards, a bit of moisture sticks around for a while and helps your eyes.

</comment><comment><USER9> Just curious to hear if anyone has considered something like Philips Hue bulbs to adjust light temperature and intensity with fine-grained control around their desk / office (for example, as a complement to f.lux).

</comment><comment><USER13> I get less eye strain when I wear contact lens instead of glasses.</comment>


Dealing with Hard Problems (2015) - <AUTHOR> https://artofproblemsolving.com/articles/hard-problems <comment><USER2> Polya's little "How to solve it" booklet has great advice.

It's great because it's addressed to math classes but based on the practices of a research mathematician. So it's not just solving the problems in the book, it's also about solving new unsolved problems. It's specific to math, but really useful for so many other questions.

There is much more to the book but one of my favorite parts is the Heuristics and their simple explanations. Wikipedia has a good table of them

      Analogy         Can you find a problem analogous to your problem and solve that?
      Generalization  Can you find a problem more general than your problem?
      Induction       Can you solve your problem by deriving a generalization from some examples?
      Specialization  Can you find a problem more specialized?
      Draw a Figure   Can you draw a picture of the problem?
      ...

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

The calm, deliberate attitude of the book is infectious, it's great for getting unstuck from tough problems. So do read the book itself in addition to the wikipedia article.

<comment><USER3> Thanks for sharing this! The steps in Wikipedia are so clear and concise in describing how I attempted to track down different bugs.

I'll definitely also read the book and use it as a guideline on what to try next instead of randomly asking myself "what else can I try?".

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> I got a great deal of insight on problem solving from being a university teaching assistant for 2 years. Every couple of weeks or so, there would be a particularly difficult assignment, and I would get many visitors during office hours that week.

The first thing I would always do is have the student walk me through their current understanding of the problem. What surprised me was how incredibly wide the range of mental models students used was. Also it was interesting that quite often students make their mental models far more complicated than the actual problem.

My job was really just to help the student simply and clarify their mental model, and from there they usually solved the problem on their own.

Smart data structures are better than smart code. I think this applies to your mind as well as code.

<comment><USER5> Kudos for doing that.

Such techniques involve asking pointed questions to the student and actually listening to what they say. This the basis for the Socratic Method and it fucking works.

Sadly, we have become so accustomed to "searching" for answers with queries (eg "googling it") that we're forgetting about really effective ways of learning and solving problems. We're even forgetting that learning and solving problems are the really part of the same activity.

The anti-pattern emerging is the "stackoverflow" style of problem-solving where it's all about the learner asking "the right questions" and getting smacked down for "the wrong questions."

<comment><USER6> I think this anti-newbie culture has been around far far longer than SO. It's probably just human nature to deride the rookies.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Taking a break from sitting at the desk and going for a walk and thinking about the problem has worked surprisingly well for me many times. It was something I first read about in a Poincare's article on how Mathematical ideas are generated.

Coming to general methods of problem solving in recreational math, I always look for symmetry and transforming the problem from one problem space to another and induction techniques before attacking it. For a research/modelling problem, my approach is to start working on the most simplified version of it and gradually progress towards the original problem.

There is an excellent numberphile video on Josephus problem that illustrates how examining specific instances to observe patterns can help solve the general case.

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uCsD3ZGzMgE](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uCsD3ZGzMgE)

Edit: Formatting

<comment><USER8> I am a developer and almost all the solutions to my software engineering (architectural) problems have occurred to me when I was walking. Even sitting down quietly dosen't work. I have to keep walking.

It has gotten so absurd that I do a lot of walking at my work, usually in an empty conference room and people have many a time wondered if I do any work at all.

But, I love it. The challenge, the walk and the solution is exhilarating to me.

<comment><USER9> Good for you :) - for me, laying down with eyes shut is when I will have attractive solutions to hard problems! Happens sometimes standing in the shower but those all tend to be strategic ones unlike the tactical ones that get solved laying down.

Crazy stuff!

<comment><USER8> Reminds me of a chapter from the book "Surely you must be joking Mr. Feynman" (as far as I remember).

The chapter describes how Feynman came across how his colleague visualizes a task. IIRC Feynman does it visually (imagines something visual in his mind) and thus can do voice related activities while he is thinking, but his colleague does it by visualizing sound (he thinks tick-tock sounds in his mind), so can do visual tasks while he is thinking.

Really fascinating how a human mind works.

Also reminds me of the quote by Einstein, something about judging the ability of a fish to climb a tree.

Everyone has a unique and effective way to navigate the world intellectually.

<comment><USER10> > Also reminds me of the quote by Einstein, something about judging the > ability of a fish to climb a tree.

Almost certainly not by Einstein, for what it's worth. It was probably made up by motivational speaker Matthew Kelly or someone close to him, as the earliest verifiable occurrence of the quotation is in his 2004 book _The Rhythm of Life: Living Every Day with Passion and Purpose_ [1].

[1] [https://quoteinvestigator.com/2013/04/06/fish- climb/](https://quoteinvestigator.com/2013/04/06/fish-climb/)

<comment><USER11> I wonder if it's derived from the feminist slogan "a woman without a man is like a fish without a bicycle"?

<comment><USER7> Wow. Thanks for sharing that piece of trivia! Now I get what this song from 1981 - The fish needs a bike by Blurt - was referring to. I always thought it was a reference to some surrealist work or something :)

[https://www.discogs.com/Blurt-The-Fish-Needs-A- Bike/release/...](https://www.discogs.com/Blurt-The-Fish-Needs-A- Bike/release/717696)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> The article touches on something that helped me excel at university: I consistently scored high grades, but compared to others around me I seemed put in less time and effort. However, I don't think I was significantly more capable or brighter than the majority. After spending several years studying alongside classmates, I do think the way I studied and 'learnt to learn' was quite different to the status quo.

Like the article mentions, being able to answer every question means that you're not pushing yourself. I spent the majority of my time attempting questions that I didn't think I'd be able to do, while many classmates would spend their time attempting questions they thought they would know. It forced me to constantly 'solve hard problems', and become better at doing so. A lot of the time I couldn't successfully answer the questions I attempted, but in doing so I'd learn a lot anyway.

The article content is great, but I'd add that practice is an essential part of learning to solve hard problems. If you're studying too, I'd really recommend the learning technique I used, at least to some degree - it will help you become a quick learner and good problem solver.

<comment><USER13> Thanks for the advice. I go to a top500 HS and all my peers seem to spend half the effort to get higher grades than me, and it seems I need to push myself harder in terms of the difficulty of the mathematics practice I do.

Side note: I used to think that the solution was expensive tutoring, but after attending a few tutoring sessions with little benefit, I slowly realized that tutoring (at least in my area) is for the unmotivated student who needs to be pushed by someone else. Just wanted to share my experience and say that it's almost never the expensive prep classes that make a successful student.

<comment><USER14> Funny thing about how I became a math major: I skipped precalculus in HS. All my peers that were as bright (or more) in my school were turned off by the year-long deathmarch of pointless bullshit[0] while I was taking more intuitive classes like Calculus and Linear Algebra. We both challenged ourselves, I just took the more fun challenges.

[0] [https://socratic.org/questions/how-do-you-evaluate-sin- pi-5](https://socratic.org/questions/how-do-you-evaluate-sin-pi-5)

<comment><USER13> Wow, this is exactly what I'm thinking. The advanced precalculus course at my school is actually harder than the college level calculus course and has much lower enrollment to the point where the course is being phased out.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> It's worth noting that this basically gives you competitive tips - how to be more effective at solving a problem after it's been given to you. I think it's much more valuable to be good at recognizing important problems that others don't believe are important.

<comment><USER16> How do you deal with being the company's Cassandra (I am in that predicament at the moment) ?

<comment><USER15> It's nowhere near as bad or pervasive as the competition to get into student debt. But I'm not really sure what psychotherapy would work. Maybe convince people to read about mimetic theory.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> These types strategies, along with persistence are what got me through a math degree that I felt highly unqualified for, especially when I started. They've served me well professionally as well. As an "analyst" techniques have served me well in producing actionable/appreciated insights. For anyone aspiring:struggling in depths of mathematics I would suggest reading up on the lives of historical mathematicians.(I'm A big fan of Galois) It's important to remember that we are truly humble in the face of ignorance. mathematics, and only through the endeavors of struggle and confusion do we chip away at the moutain of ignorance. Good luck to all those to venture into the darkness.

</comment><comment><USER18> Claude Shannon wrote a great piece on methods of problem-solving: [http://www1.ece.neu.edu/~naderi/Claude%20Shannon.html](http://www1.ece.neu.edu/~naderi/Claude%20Shannon.html)

<comment><USER7> Wonderful write up. Thanks for the share.

</comment></comment><comment><USER19> I tried looking into ways to improve my problem-solving a few years ago. I think problem-solving changes depending on whether or not you know the end goal. Problem solving without knowing the end result seems to involve separating parts of the problem into systems, fitting said systems in your head space, mentally making them run, and then noticing new problems. There are bookshelves of books for what to do when you have a specific goal in mind. Mainly work backwards and remove obstacles. I figure most of the people on this site probably work between the two extremes, and do simulation/testing as well. Careful thinking seems to improve overall speed, but that's what i'm worst at.

</comment><comment><USER20> > Reflect on successes. You've solved lots of problems. Some of them were even > hard problems!

Good advice. Trying to learn something new, staring at a blank page or a list of requirements that you don't understand, it's easy to get into the impostor syndrome doldrums of "this is so hard, I must just be too dumb to do it".

You see the wall, right in front of you, and you wonder how to get over it. But the fact that your path has even led you up to the wall is a strong indication that you _can_ figure it out. If you understand the problem well enough to see just how difficult it is, you're already on your way to solving it. That doesn't mean it will be easy, of course. But _possible_.

</comment><comment><USER21> I grew up when the first math circle in San Diego was being launched. Richard R. was an amazing teacher.. helped me qual for USAMO twice when I otherwise would have never had a chance.. that too when my calc bc teacher couldn't solve many of the usamo probs himself even my linear alg Prof at the local jc couldn't crack many of the problems.. what a great resource for kids.. recommend it to anyone whose kid has an inclination to maths

</comment><comment><USER22> > We ask hard questions because so many of the problems worth solving in life > are hard. If they were easy, someone else would have solved them before you > got to them.

This is so true. And the strategies explained in the article can be adapted to deal with almost any problem in life. But you have to keep in mind that the bigger the problem, the longer it will take to solve. Some will take days, others years and even decades.

</comment><comment><USER23> How do people (parents?) use AOPS? In terms of logistics is it like after- school math tutoring? All in-person at their campuses or is there online?

<comment><USER24> I took some AoPS classes in middle school, they were entirely online - 2 (? maybe 1 or 3?) hour online lesson once a week with weekly problem sets as well (10 questions, the last few very hard). This was almost a decade ago so things may have changed

<comment><USER25> They were doing essentially the same thing five years ago when I was taking them. Some of my later classes moved away from the weekly problem set to assigning problems on Alcumus.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> 'how to solve it' by george-pólya is also on the same lines, and _really_ very good.

</comment><comment><USER27> While i agree with most of them, i would strongly recommend against "Work backwards". While this has helped me initially in mathematics, it took extreme effort to get rid of this habit.

<comment><USER28> Explain more why this is bad. I think it's very useful. In school, I used to say I reverse engineered a problem by finding way back from solution to the problem. Solving a problem from both ends is a reasonable way to get new ideas.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> And if nothing else works, try the Feynman Algorithm to solve really hard problems. :-)

<comment><USER29> Step 1: Be Feynman

</comment></comment><comment><USER30> Hacker New paydirt. There's good stuff in this one.</comment>


Email service SendWithUs will not be GDPR compliant - <AUTHOR> https://ibb.co/kJX4Vx <comment><AUTHOR> What's interesting here is:

\- this is the first confirmation I've received from a company stating outright that they're not going to be GDPR compliant and you should stop using them if you need to be.

\- they're explicitly saying it's too much effort to store data in a compliant manner and ensure their processors are complaint. this possibly raises some interesting questions about what exactly they're doing with the data they have today.

\- this GDPR thing is like async code, once it gets into a system it has long tentacles. I don't think this company fully realises just how many companies need to be GDPR compliant to continue doing business online. if you're in the SAAS business, it's very likely you're dealing with EU customers - or at the very least a customer that deals with EU customers, or an customer of a customer that deals with EU customers. You get the point - this tentacle keeps reaching down. You may think you're not excluding many of your own customers by not being compliant because THEY aren't EU-based, but it's their customers/controllers etc that require them to be compliant and thus you.

This tentacle is all encompassing.

<comment><USER2> Also interesting since there's been GDPR advice from their CEO: [https://www.martechadvisor.com/articles/gdpr/how-to- prepare-...](https://www.martechadvisor.com/articles/gdpr/how-to-prepare-your- email-marketing-program-for-gdpr/)

<comment><AUTHOR> Nice, hadn't seen that. I like the comment at the end...

If approached in the right spirit, GDPR compliance can be a win-win for email marketers, quite possibly providing a much-needed correction.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> We wanted to offer some clarification on a recent email regarding Sendwithus and GDPR compliance. While our initial communication is accurate, our team is planning to launch an enterprise-grade, GDPR compliant solution in the coming months. This new product, which is currently in private beta, will ensure that you can continue to easily send the right message to your customers at the right time, while ensuring GDPR data protocols are met. Please contact our Support Team or your account manager if you have any questions about Sendwithus and GDPR.

Sincerely, The Sendwithus team</comment>


Pure CSS 3D effect - <AUTHOR> http://www.romancortes.com/blog/css-3d-meninas/

<comment><USER2> Use the right tool.

This is a cool effect but it can be done very simply in Javascript. The CSS for this is a mess after adding line breaks it's 500+ individual CSS selectors and gads of additional markup to track the position of the cursor.

Someone spent a lot of time on this though.

<comment><USER3> It's just showing what can be achieved in CSS, but I agree, I would use JavaScript for a real world solution.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> As far as I can see,

      * Create a load of vertical elements, some overlapping.
      * on each one, have a hover css rule that adjusts the background position
        of various things.

Clever, not sure why it's better than just using javascript though.

<comment><USER5> I couldn't read the non-English portion of the post, but I took it only for the face value; being clever. Not necessarily better.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> This is clearly a _can_ and not a _should_ thing -- to all you folks saying "...but Javascript"

</comment><comment><USER7> This is sort of like the internet equivalent of a popup book.

<comment><USER8> I see nothing wrong with that. More tools means more art means more fun.

<comment><USER7> I agree.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> View Source: <http://www.romancortes.com/ficheros/meninas.html>

Edit: And images: <http://www.romancortes.com/ficheros/meninas_sprites.png> <http://www.romancortes.com/ficheros/meninas_bg1.jpg>

Edit 2: <http://www.romancortes.com/ficheros/meninas_bg2.jpg>

<comment><USER10> What about the wall on the right? How did he do that? It's as if it's an animated image, just just changing positions of an image.

<comment><USER11> i think stretching and squeezing the parts near and far the mouse position does/would do the "depth" effect. too bad he didnt do it for the y-axis as well.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> Cool effect. Creating this type of 3D effect for any arbitrary image, however, is much harder since you need to manually splice out individual images and sprites, compute position coordinates, and generate the various CSS3 styles and DOM elements.

It would be cool if there was some kind of utility/library to help do this.

Also, I'm not quite familiar with all the new features of CSS3. Which CSS3-specific constructs are being used here? Looking at the source, the main things I see are just many hover styles being declared, with specific positions and dimensions.

</comment><comment><USER13> Very similar to Start3d, <http://www.start3d.com> \- which can apparently generate these images as well as display them for 3d glasses.

</comment><comment><USER14> I'm pretty sure I've seen this effect elsewhere. (It was off an HN item some months back. It wasn't actually the story, it was just the header on the linked blog.)

<comment><USER15> Probably this one: [http://www.cssquirrel.com/2009/12/04/the-parallax-header- how...](http://www.cssquirrel.com/2009/12/04/the-parallax-header-how-i-do-it/)

<comment><USER14> No, I'm fairly sure the one I saw used a photograph of a road.

That is certainly the same effect, though.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> I've seen this effect used litely on other sites before to create the perception of depth in a background, but still 2D. This is the first I've seen the technique used to create a 3D view. Very cool!!

Check out the source ( <http://www.romancortes.com/ficheros/meninas.html> ) and you'll see it was no simple task.

</comment><comment><USER17> a little while back, possibly through hn, i found an artist who took 2 or 3 still photos simultaneously from different perspectives. kind of like a...dang, i'm failing at google and wikipedia today....you know the camera with two lenses that provides a 3d effect, only that requires looking at each image separately with each eye.

the artist in this case turns the two images into an animated gif.

spooky cool effect. i'm trying harder to find the link.....(eit)

still can't find it!!!

a much cooler post by the OP

<http://www.romancortes.com/ficheros/starry.html>

<comment><USER18> Could it be <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stereoscopy>

<comment><USER19> I think you're right, and diN0bot was referring to "Wiggle stereoscopy".

Here's a few more examples, that to me are more effective than the one on the wikipedia page:

<http://www.stereomaker.net/sample/ani/ani_e.htm></comment></comment></comment>


Nigel, the world's loneliest bird, dies next to the concrete decoy he loved - <AUTHOR> https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/animalia/wp/2018/02/02/nigel-the-worlds-loneliest-bird-dies-next-to-the-concrete-decoy-he-loved/?utm_term=.0e67948ad1f4 <comment><USER2> I'm going back and forth between "damn that's depressing" and "does a bird even have the capacity to love or is it driven by a desire for procreation"</comment>


Ask HN: How do I license Amazon's 1-click tech? - <AUTHOR> Amazon licensed it to Apple in 2000, but according to my research they remain the only licensee and details about the transaction are private.
Bluntly: what's Amazon's deal, here? They've completely changed how the web works with AWS, yet they haven't gotten around to set up a reasonable licensing system for 1-click? I want to pay them money!
It just seems silly for such an innovative company to lock up the most obvious shopping metaphor in patent bureaucracy when they could be taking 2% of my sales instead.
Jeff! Werner! It's been 10 years. This isn't about protecting your innovation against Barnes and Noble anymore. Now it just kind of... sucks. <comment><USER3> Relevant article: [http://openp2p.com/pub/a/oreilly/ask_tim/2003/bountyquest_10...](http://openp2p.com/pub/a/oreilly/ask_tim/2003/bountyquest_1003.html) Tim O'Reilly: "some months after we'd awarded the bounty, splitting it three ways for prior art that wasn't completely on the money, someone sent in a killer piece of prior art. I still have it on my bookshelf, in the odd event that Amazon loses its senses and sues anyone else over 1-click."

</comment><comment><USER4> I don't think you're seeing the longer game Amazon is playing here. Yes they could make a small amount of money licensing 1-click to you so you could use such a system with your user info.

But if they only offer the service through the Amazon Payment program than they get your users to use their identity system, they get a much bigger cut of each payment and they get to add info of the sale to their already massive database of user preferences.

Which is probably why they offer 1-click via Amazon Payments and no where else. (I'm not saying it's honest or that I agree but it does make sense from a profit point of view)

<comment><AUTHOR> If I could use Amazon as a low-level payment processor and in do so this gave me license to use a 1-click implementation (my code, not some generic JS hack) in my marketplace, I would happily be the first customer.

Unfortunately, Amazon Payments - as offered today - is simply not a fit for my platform. If they rolled out a 100% API driven payment gateway that didn't require any Amazon credentials... again, I would happily be the first customer.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> This patent is stupid, as they didn't invent this technology... I can't believe how it was granted...

Sorry if this is off-topic..

<comment><AUTHOR> Your anger is well-placed. As far as I've ever understood it, the patent was used to ensure a competitive advantage against its competitors during the era when Amazon was promoting itself as the world's biggest bookstore.

11 years out, Amazon is the world's biggest a-lot-of-things. IANAL but at some point this is just stifling innovation, pure and simple. 1-click was licensed to Apple 10 years ago, and this arrangement doesn't seem to have threatened Amazon's market situation.

The real goal of my post is the hope that the right people will see is, so that we can start a process of change in terms of how (and why) they lock this IP down.

<comment><USER6> I wonder whether this particular patent (and its licensing unavailability) is what is holding back micropayments?

<comment><USER7> I am pretty sure that is not the problem.

<comment><USER8> As far as I can tell, the main problem with micropayments is to do them, a company has to be licensed as a bank. In the UK, the regulatory requirements for banking are such that it takes £100 million to set up a new one; other jurisdictions are similar I imagine.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Many of the claims of the patent have been overturned. The interesting part is the legal way that this was accomplished. Instead of using lawyers, the person responsible here (who was mad at amazon for slow deliveries of a book) paid for the USPTO to reexamine the patent with new evidence of prior art submitted. Here is the post of the person claiming victory over amazon:

[http://igdmlgd.blogspot.com/2007/10/amazon-one-click- patent-...](http://igdmlgd.blogspot.com/2007/10/amazon-one-click-patent- rejected-by-us.html)

<comment><USER10> If you look at the Patent Office record, you will find that the patent was ultimately upheld, with a few wording changes. The blog post refers to the Patent Office's initial opinion (called a "non-final Office Action"), not the final decision.

Here's a post from the same person, discussing the final result:

[http://igdmlgd.blogspot.com/2010/03/one-click-patent- reexami...](http://igdmlgd.blogspot.com/2010/03/one-click-patent- reexamination-over.html)

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> I assume that the patent is generic enough that I couldn't have a "slide to buy" mechanism?

<comment><USER12> Interesting question. It seems pretty broad.

The meat (claim 1):

 _..displaying information identifying the item; and in response to only a single action being performed, sending a request to order the item along with an identifier of a purchaser of the item to a server system .. ..fulfilling the generated order to complete purchase of the item whereby the item is ordered without using a shopping cart ordering model._

snippets from claims 2 - <USER2>

 _2 The method of claim 1 wherein the displaying of information includes displaying information indicating the single action.

3-4 The method of claim 1 wherein the single action is clicking a button / is speaking of a sound

17-22 . The method of claim 11 wherein the single action is:

\- clicking a mouse button when a cursor is positioned over a predefined area of the displayed information

\- a sound generated by a user

\- selection using a television remote control.

\- is depressing of a key on a key pad.

\- selecting using a pointing device.

\- selection of a displayed indication _

<http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/amazonpatent.html>

I'm not a lawyer and don't know anything about patents. What I thought I knew seems to be proven wrong by the existence of this patent. But, it looks like "slide to buy" is covered in the last one.

If someone wants a topic to research and blog about, how about a round up of one-click patent workarounds that have been implemented. Especially if these have been reviewed by lawyers or implemented in response to litigation threats.

<comment><USER13> Hm, in the GUI world, a mouse press and mouse release are generally considered distinct actions...

<comment><AUTHOR> Can you imagine if the legal world regularly consulted Tufte for clarification and inspiration?

<comment><USER13> That would be a freaking awesome project. Have there been attempts to do visualizations of all the ins and outs of, say, allowing evidence from a traffic stop, or jurisdictional disputes?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> yeah, it would seem to me that with amazons patent reservoir and others reservoirs that creating a marketplace and a way to pull in that ability legally into your app would be a natural.

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> Here's a link to the patent, which I believe was most recently updated in 2007 (to defend against numerous claims of prior art):

[http://v3.espacenet.com/publicationDetails/originalDocument?...](http://v3.espacenet.com/publicationDetails/originalDocument?FT=D&date=20070510&DB=&locale=&CC=US&NR=2007106570A1&KC=A1)

The patent was upheld in Canada (where I live) because the courts ruled that 1-click produced a "physical effect".

</comment><comment><USER15> The point wasn't ever to protect their innovation (if it can be called that) against others. The point is to ensure that only Amazon has the ability to do one-click checkouts in the way that is described in the patent. Licensing that technology to you would dilute that monopoly and defeat the purpose of gaining it.

</comment><comment><USER16> I didn't realize they had a patent for this until now. Does this mean that no shopping cart can let you check out in under 2 clicks?

<comment><USER17> I used it for years. I had a "shop" page where each button went directly to the payment provider (with the appropriate details). This was the most basic way to make purchases years ago. The payment providers used this method in its examples. You still come across sites doing it this way, here and there.

The patent is beyond ridiculous. I doubt it would hold outside the US. (I'm not in the US, but I use some US-based service providers.) But I guess someone, sometime will have to go through the process of knocking this patent down, such is the madness that the patent process has become.

<comment><USER18> The patent was upheld in Canada.</comment></comment></comment>


An Industry of Guys Writing Wedding Speeches for Other Guys - <AUTHOR> https://melmagazine.com/the-secret-industry-of-guys-writing-wedding-speeches-for-other-guys-2ed1d26d7e5c <comment><USER2> I'd imagine many of the richest and most powerful people in society have done this throughout history. Seems like the "story", if there is one, is that fiverr has found ample willing supply to bring the price point down to something affordable to the (upper) middle class.</comment>


Ask HN: Why is it easier to get a raise with a new job? - <AUTHOR> Or why is it hard to get a decent raise? In my experience it is pretty much industry standard to favour new employees versus old ones, but to me it does not make any business sense (apart from showing who is boss). It cost time and money to cover for turnover and still new employees can be hit and miss. Also, they most probably need some form of training and it will be years until they have the same experience. <comment><USER3> I found I was being 12% less than my peers. My boss said yes I'll get you a pay rise to match. 6 months later, nothing had happened. It then took me 3 weeks to get another job paying 20% more. When I told my employer I had this offer, all of a sudden the 12% appeared. I said no, too little too late - <USER2> few weeks later they said "Name your price" to stay.

Simple explanation: they saved money. Of course now they have to recruit, and then the new person needs a lot f time to learn what his company does (it's complicated). Cost is WAY more than that 12%, but it doesn't show up on the balance sheet.

So to answer OP's question: because companies don't really value their people.

<comment><USER4> Sorry to be nosy, but did you end up staying? I feel like being screwed over like that would leave a bad taste in my mouth. Every single topic involving pay from then on would just be awkward in my opinion. I may be a bad example because I have a hard time letting stuff like that go, it was very similar to a reason I left my first job in college.

<comment><USER5> It isn't exactly "screwed over" IMO but it is really poor management.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> I've seen it time and time again. An employee wants a 10% raise but management says no and the employee quits. Then after a long search a new hire comes in at 10% more. Why not just give the existing employee that 10%?

I think the reason is that big raises are not sustainable over time. If you keep giving your employees 10% raises every year, eventually you can't afford it. So you keep raises to 2-3% as long as possible and only give larger raises along with promotions, or when hiring a new employee.

I was fortunate to find out this pattern early in my career, and I was able to average 18% raises for over a decade by switching jobs nearly every year.

<comment><USER7> > I was able to average 18% raises for over a decade by switching jobs nearly > every year.

Hmm. For those curious, assuming I still understand how to do basic math like this and a few relatively low starting salaries for year one:

      40k*(1.18^10) = 209k
      60k*(1.18^10) = 314k
      80k*(1.18^10) = 418k

Are you one of these software engineers I hear about making 400k? I suppose I would find 150k-200k as more believable since your bio states you are a "remote software engineer". Or maybe you over-estimated the annual raises?

<comment><USER8> I'm also a remote software engineer, and my guess is that you're starting too high. My first job (on-site in Ohio) paid something like $7.50/hr (so ~$15k annually), and I'm now at $165k base 14 years later. That puts me in the same ballpark of 18% annually.

<comment><USER6> I started at $30k in 2004 and by 2017 I made $200k. It is about 18% on average. The biggest jumps in a single year was 2009 going from $55k to $80k in a 3 month period, 2011 going from $80k to $110k, and 2013 going from $117k to $140k by using a counteroffer.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> I think there are two main reasons.

1\. Internal process: the budget/process for promotion and pay raises are probably relatively fixed for mid to large companies, so there isn't much room for managers to navigate even if he/she champions the salary bump.

2\. More cynically, there is also friction for an employee to leave their current position (interview, potentially relocate, risk of new job being bad fit, etc). And this friction manifests as the pay gap between market rate and salary. As a corollary to this, for an employee with a competing offer, this friction is removed and the company is forced to re-evaluate the pay. But there may not be anything the manager can do. See #1.

<comment><AUTHOR> 1\. is cited most of the time, and it is exactly the issue at hand: it is not set in stone budgeting must be done poorly.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> Lots of reasons. People tend not to appreciate what they have. However I think the main reasons are economic and political. Companies want to keep costs down. They don't want to pay market rate. Some employees will stay put, because they're comfortable, and don't want to uproot they're life; so you can pay them less.

Politically companies "want" to budget raises as a fixed cost and divy up among employees. So they'll try to negotiate against their budget and fixed, manageable raises / promotions. Lots of people will play along.

The logic is insane. Suppose I'm the employee, and selling a car; the company is buying one. I want 10k, the company says, I've only "budgeted" 7k, but will agree to 8k. Meanwhile I have a buyer willing to pay 12k; company says no deal, and instead goes out and pays 15k for the same car. This seems to be how many of these situations unfold. The crazy thing is many employees are willing to stay for less than they can get on the market; but the company just won't do it.

</comment><comment><USER11> Three main reasons which feed back on each other:

1.) Giving big raises to existing employees often causes morale problems with their coworkers. People talk, and they get resentful if someone who (in their view) is working no harder than them is suddenly getting paid $20-30K more. So giving a big raise to one person usually means you have to give it to all of them. There are mitigating circumstances if you can point to some external circumstance that's changed (eg. "Alice got her MBA", "Bob just led this big project that made us $10M", "Cindy got promoted"), which is why companies are more likely to give raises under these circumstances. By contrast, a new employee doesn't have the gossip networks of existing employees, and the business can often invent a reason why they're being paid more (eg. "David brings special skills that are crucial for us right now", "Erin was hired in at a higher level based on her experience at XYZ Corp.")

2.) Usually the company that hires away an employee for much more money has very different profit margins and revenue growth than the one they were hired from, and so they can afford to pay more. This is the economy functioning as normal: employees _should_ jump from companies that are less productive and less profitable to those that are more productive and more profitable, because their labor will net both them and the company more.

3.) There's a cognitive bias known as anchoring, where people form a mental model of how much a person/security/job/product _should_ be worth, and refuse to update that mental model in the face of gradually changing facts. So if you get hired in as a junior dev fresh out of college at $60K/year, your boss's mental model of you will be "that college kid we're paying $60K/year". But after a couple of years of experience, you will be _way_ more valuable to everyone else in the market than the new college kids coming out now, and your salary will reflect that on the open market - but your boss will still think of you as "that college kid we hired for $60K/year".

The factors feed into each other, eg. anchoring is also why companies don't adopt new production techniques and go into new emerging markets that generate higher productivity per #2, higher productivity generates a qualitative difference per #1 that justifies higher wages, anchoring is the reason why bosses & coworkers are blind to minor or gradual differences in productivity per #1, and social customs of the employees often reinforce old production techniques and prevent them from benefitting from #2.

It may be helpful to think of the rational state of the workforce as _always_ requiring retraining, the rational state of business relationships as _always_ hit-or-miss, and the rational state of the job market as _always_ requiring turnover. And then individual companies create bubbles within them to satisfy human needs for security & stability, because our emotions evolved when the pace of change was significantly slower. Because most people have a bias toward stability, it creates economic opportunities for those who rationally choose instability and throw away their old relationships for more productivity and higher profits.

<comment><USER12> This is very interesting, especially #3. Easy to forget that the employer's view of the employee is unlikely to change even with the addition of value adding education.

<comment><USER13> Aspects of #1 are interesting because it offers a path to making it easier to get a raise/promotion if you can creat the optics that enable the promotion. Any thoughts on how to accomplish that?

<comment><USER11> Advanced degree, leading a highly visible project, generating significant sales or new business relationships, getting external recognition for your work and reflecting it back on your employer. All of which are strategies that are successfully employed by many professionals to get large increases in compensation.

Even more interesting is how to profit from these incentives as someone who _doesn 't_ work for the company. Many highly-visible startup acquisitions happen because a mid-level executive is trying to create highly-visible external accomplishments that justify them being raised up a compensation level.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> Because for many employers, they live under the false pretense that not giving you a raise is saving them money. Granted, it works most if the time. Most people stick around out of complacency or even inability to get a new job. This makes it so that the employer has absolutely no incentive to proactively give raises. You really must force their hands. This is why I don't believe in the stigma around job hopping. It makes no sense why anyone believes that being loyal to a company is in their best interest. Every 2-3 years make sure you are putting yourself on the market to test how much you're worth.

</comment><comment><USER15> This gap is way too big here in India. Here you get yearly hike of 8-10% while by getting a new job you can get as much as 60-100% hike easily. Maybe here starting salaries are too low, You have to job hop to reach a good salary.

</comment><comment><USER16> Game theory. Calling your bluff, most people won't leave if the boss says no.

<comment><AUTHOR> It would be a very elaborate bluff to interview at another company, receive a bigger offer and not sign it.

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> I'd say it's related to how HR is measured. They typically get their "big wins" by bringing in "rockstars", not giving raises.

</comment><comment><USER18> Maybe its the same reason why Phone, Cable, power, real estate companies give better offers to new customers. Once they have you they think you will fall into a routine and not look for a new jobs. You will have to go do interviews find a good fit etc.

</comment><comment><USER19> Equity compensation is both the cause and solution to this, I think. Newer employees are favored on a cash salary basis, but older ones have lower option strikes and/or larger equity grants.

Roughly speaking, any new equity grant from a company your parents haven't heard of is worth $0 when you join. If your employer is successful, these grants become worth actual money, and _that_ is your effective raise. If not, then you can and should job hop instead for a cash salary increase.

On the flip side, since the new equity grants are worth approximately $0 at signing, employers have to match the actually valuable equity that candidates are receiving with cash salary instead.

<comment><USER20> > any new equity grant from a company your parents haven't heard of is worth > $0 when you join.

There are companies that give sizable equity grants that your parents have never heard of. Equity you could see on a public market that's worth more than $0.

<comment><USER19> oh of course publicly traded equity has value, just "parents have heard of them" is roughly the threshold for _private_ companies whose stock is illiquid.

</comment></comment></comment><comment> a-saleh I would say it is about incentives.

If hiring manager is 'graded's on number of people hired, usually has a decent budget that might dissappear every new fiscal year, and they want to hire you, they will be willing to negotiate :)

On the other hand, your manager might operate on assumptions that you either won't leave because of your pay and if you'd leave you would have left even after you receive a raise.

</comment><comment><USER21> I got an offer for 150% of my current salary and a senior title. I declined because it didn't match where I want my career to develop.

any way to leverage this in my current job? I'd have to disclose that I was flirting with others...

<comment> who-knows95 well, you should be going to interviews anyway right? i would just mention that you do interviews with competitors to see what level of skill and employment they would offer.

you aren't holding them over a barrel, but just make it known you know your worth?

sorry if my advice isn't as formed as it should be.

[https://www.forbes.com/sites/jacquelynsmith/2012/10/26/the-d...](https://www.forbes.com/sites/jacquelynsmith/2012/10/26/the- dos-and-donts-of-job-searching-while-youre-still-employed/)

<comment><USER21> Sure I should, but if I say something about it I'd have to double-coat it in sugar so they don't start looking for a replacement or stop investing in me.

I might move away and look for a new job. If I don't I can tell them the I'll stay in town but started checking my market value and need an adjustment :)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> nobody likes paying more for the same service.

<comment><USER23> Good luck I quit.

<comment><USER24> You must be prepared to follow through. Always Be Interviewing. Give notice, move, level up, rinse, repeat.

<comment><USER25> How often can you do this without it being a problem? I'm trying to make it past a year at current job, it definitely requires discipline to see it through. I don't want to be a job hopper but there are always shiny new opportunities.

<comment><USER26> When the economy is good, less than 1 year at a job seems excessive hopping.

When the economy is worse and employers can choose, even 3 years look like "job hopping individual, will jump ship as soon as economy turns around and he can get $1 more somewhere else".

Just decide if you optimize for comfort or money, and make sure you have a few months buffer for the bad times.

<comment><USER25> I don't really hop, but I don't have a great track record because one job wasn't a good fit, then I freelanced / contracted for a while, etc, then landed at another job that wasn't what they promised it would be in the interview, etc.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER27> Because you have more leverage: No "raise", no work. At your current company "No raise" _only_ means an increased risk of you leaving.

</comment><comment><USER28> There is more inertia to move to a different job than stay. Companies know that and thus have to compensate you for that added inertia.</comment>