Mobile TCP optimization – lessons learned in production - <AUTHOR> https://www.snellman.net/blog/archive/2015-08-25-tcp-optimization-in-mobile-networks/ <comment><USER2> They are breaking the TCP contract:

"The server sends the first part of the response which we ack"

I have seen this strange behavior on mobile networks: the server sends a heartbeat to a mobile client every 10 seconds, I pull the battery on the mobile client and still get an ACK for a minute or so. Now I have to bring the ACK up to the application layer so I know whether I am actually talking to the device, or the mobile network is lying to me.

<comment><USER3> They're breaking the TCP contract because they're strengthening the IP contract. When you've got a re-transmit facility sitting below TCP, it's reasonable to make some speculative promises. It's not reasonable to keep ACKing for a full minute or to ACK more than a handful of packets, though. But especially in the case where you've got more knowledge of the last-mile link's loss characteristics than the congestion control algorithm at the server endpoint, you can make some pretty nice bandwidth/latency tradeoffs.

<comment><USER4> True, they really should stop acking when they hit the window limit.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Amazing their how much data they can process by side stepping the kernel and building their own custom TCP stack in userspace. Think the BSD folks are on top of such technology of have a TCP stack completely in userspace.. great presentation.

</comment><comment><USER6> Kudos for a fantastic presentation combined with fairly detailed notes about the complexity of of mobile networks. I'm sure it took a huge amount of time and effort.

One a meta note, it's rather disappointing to see such fantastic content being relegated to 9 comments in almost an entire day.

</comment><comment><USER7> Same guy being interviewed in a software-defined-networking podcast

[http://blog.ipspace.net/2015/03/tcp-optimization-with- juho-s...](http://blog.ipspace.net/2015/03/tcp-optimization-with-juho- snellman-on.html)

</comment><comment><USER8> So mobile networks this days do MITM to all TCP connections, nice. Happy time to debug problems ....

<comment><USER9> As someone who has worked on mobile networks, and has a great deal of TCP/IP experience on CDMA, UMTS, and LTE networks, unless you know the mobile network inside and out, as a customer you likely won't be able to troubleshoot the network anyways.

Now you're right on another aspect, is that additional complexity is a pain, and can make troubleshooting more difficult, but there are many steps of complexity in a mobile network, far beyond this. If this works in the majority of cases (and the claims of fall through do work), then there is a massive upside to this type of product.

So one additional hop in the complexity of the 3GPP standards and associated equipment, than on top of that with a carrier grade NAT, a firewall, a cache, and perhaps an IDS system or two, and you've already got many potential places for failure. I think we just need to understand that these systems are complex, and try and understand and build them as robustly as we can, while offering the best customer experience possible. And ensuring that as problems are found that they're correctly addressed.

Anyways, I think it's an interesting approach to a problem that affects many users, assuming the requisite due diligence is done and that the equipment operates as advertised.

Disclaimer, I work in the mobile telecom industry in Canada, and my views are my own, and do not reflect those of my employer.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> Sounds like QUIC ([https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/QUIC](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/QUIC)) would be awesome for these networks</comment>


The Real Hacker News - what-to-do http://web.archive.org/web/19981202000844/http://www.hackernews.com/

<comment><AUTHOR> Holy shit, I'd forgotten all about that, and that used to be one of my favorite websites. Amazing what the passing of time does... well, maybe more "sad" than "amazing," but whatever.

HNN... wow, those were the days.

</comment><comment> what-to-do 1998 I used to visit this site all the time.</comment>


Ask HN: What are the best resources you have used to teach yourself mathematics? - <AUTHOR>

I feel that my background in math isn't as strong and well-rounded as it should be, so I'm requesting some assistance from all of you. If you've used any sites, books, or listened to any important recorded lectures that you wish to share, please do so.
The obvious resources are Khan Academy and such, but I'm looking for things that might not be as distinct or popular.
Thanks! <comment><USER2> I recommend this book:

[http://www.amazon.com/Mathematics-Elementary-Approach- Ideas-...](http://www.amazon.com/Mathematics-Elementary-Approach-Ideas- Methods/dp/0195105192)

> Covering everything from natural numbers and the number system to > geometrical constructions and projective geometry, from topology and > calculus to matters of principle and the Continuum Hypothesis, this > fascinating survey allows readers to delve into mathematics as an organic > whole rather than an empty drill in problem solving.

I find the book to be a great introduction to topics that are (actually) explored at the upper division level. The vast majority of what I've learned from lower division mathematics courses was a list of methods rather than understanding (which is understandable as it's really geared for engineers, who arguably care more about results rather than a _deep_ understanding), with the exception of linear algebra and perhaps calculus 1.

</comment><comment><USER3> Well, do you like math?

I think the first thing you need to do is actually learn to like math. If you really enjoy doing math stuff, if you can see the beauty in it, then you can learn it from the shittiest of sources. I used to suck at math in high school, but after joining a prep course I started liking it and one year later I was teaching it to other people.

Suppose a friend of yours wanted to learn how to code, but he keeps telling you how he hates it. You can give him the best book on the XYZ language written by the most awesome hacker in the world, show him some more friendly resources like CodeSchool or whatever but it won't work. Have you ever heard of a programmer who doesn't like to code?

My two cents!</comment>


Keeping the NSA in Perspective - <AUTHOR> http://www.stratfor.com/weekly/keeping-nsa-perspective

<comment><USER2> ...wait, [TrapWire]([http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TrapWire](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TrapWire))?</comment>


The Isle of Man is not in the UK - <AUTHOR> http://www.bbc.com/travel/story/20191008-the-british-isle-that-doesnt-belong <comment><USER4> Isle of Man has zero percent corporate tax on (most) money earned outside the Isle of Man, which includes money earned in the UK. If you're a non-resident citizen of the UK, you can deposit your dividends from your Isle of Man company in your UK bank account, tax free.

For the time being, IOM companies have GB VAT numbers, and a banking system that integrates seamlessly with the UK one, as well as a postal system (quick, which country is 15 Hope Street, Douglas, IM1 1AQ, British Islands?). This makes the sales process to UK and EU companies painless.

So if you're a British citizen who's managed to convince HMRC you're not resident in the UK, this is a great way to pay very little tax. BUT WAIT, there's more!

If you _are_ resident in the UK, and a British citizen, but you can convince HMRC that you are in fact not _domiciled_ in the UK, you can pay HMRC £30,000 a year flat-tax, and only pay tax on the money you bring into the UK -- so if you keep it in IOM, or send it to Guernsey, it's tax-free, as long as you manage to avoid CFC regulations, which are left as an exercise for the reader.

None of this should be considered as tax advice, although if you genuinely don't live in the UK, and aren't anywhere else long enough to be resident (that DigiNomadLyfe), then the top three points should be of significant interest.

If you think the owner of the Daily Mail and similar glitterati[0] should be paying more tax than a Senior Developer in London, paragraph 4 needs some scrutiny.

[0] [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_people_with_non- domici...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_people_with_non- domiciled_status_in_the_UK)

<comment><USER5> After living in the UK for a year and encountering this tax system firsthand, I'm convinced that one of the main reasons for Brexit is that rich people in England are worried that EU tax harmonization could one day take away their sweet loopholes and convenient neighborhood tax havens.

I've personally benefitted from the system as a "resident non-domiciled" foreign citizen. But on the whole it's not fair to British taxpayers, and it's not fair to the rest of Europe to be a punching bag for this secret agenda whose enacters care more about continued personal enrichment than national or European economies.

<comment><USER6> I hear this theory a lot, but the fact is most of the support for Brexit came from low income households, and people in low skilled or manual work. Generally the higher the household income, the lower the support for Brexit, even at the higher income levels.

[https://www.jrf.org.uk/report/brexit-vote-explained- poverty-...](https://www.jrf.org.uk/report/brexit-vote-explained-poverty-low- skills-and-lack-opportunities)

<comment><USER5> Most of the support for Brexit came from tabloid newspapers owned by the ultra-rich.

Polls in the 2010-15 timeframe consistently showed that Britain's European relationship didn't even make the top 5 of issues amongst voters. Consistently fewer than 6% listed Europe as their most important issue: [https://ftalphaville.ft.com/2018/12/11/1544504400000/The- onl...](https://ftalphaville.ft.com/2018/12/11/1544504400000/The-only-Brexit- chart-you-need-to-see/)

Today more than 50% see Europe as the most important political issue. Yet nothing of substance changed in Britain's relationship with the EU in the past decade. Support for Brexit was manufactured and is draining the oxygen from solving UK's actual problems.

<comment><USER7> > Most of the support for Brexit came from tabloid newspapers owned by the > ultra-rich.

Aren't most newspapers owned by the ultra-rich? Couldn't you just make the exact same arguments you leveled against your political opponents (that they were hoodwinked by "the media") against your own position? At the end of the day, people showed up and voted for something. Twice (basically). That means something.

<comment><USER5> _" At the end of the day, people showed up and voted for something. Twice (basically). That means something."_

"Voted for something and it means something" is the portrait of Brexit.

A question was posed to the public but it was never explained properly, and so nobody knows what it means. Did people want a border in Ireland? A third-party status for UK products imported to EU? A separation from European scientific collaboration?

These are just a few of the hundreds of open questions. The UK government hasn't figured it out in three years. Yet the vote definitely means "something", so "something" should happen.

<comment><USER7> You're changing the topic. The post I responded to was attempting to make the case that consent was manufactured and, thus (presumably), invalid. Do you accept my argument that this is not a reasonable approach to arguing about the validity of the Brexit vote?

<comment><USER5> What exactly are you arguing? That we shouldn't examine the evidence of how Brexit became public issue #1 when it barely registered in polls a few years earlier?

The validity of the vote is simple: it means exactly what Parliament decides it means at any time. Referendums don't become law automatically, and Britain doesn't have a constitution that could force it (unlike some countries like Switzerland).

<comment><USER7> I am arguing that pointing to the fact that the owners of right wing publications are very wealthy is not evidence that somehow consent was manufactured for Brexit, _since the owners of left wing publications are also very wealthy_. Owners of large businesses are _usually_ very wealthy. Doubly so with publishing businesses, which are often unprofitable, and, thus, _require_ a wealthy benefactor to keep operating.

And pointing to fact that Brexit was a non-issue a few years before hand is also irrelevant. There are a myriad of political issues being hashed out now that weren't on anybody's radar a few years ago. This is a normal part of how media and popular culture work.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> UK and tax havens have a long history. It is pretty sad and tells a lot about the quality of information in UK that most British people do not know about ATAD: Anti Tax Avoidance Directive, a EU attempt to crack down on tax havens, which will come in effect on 1st of Jan 2020.

Thanks to Brexit, UK will secure its tax havens, to the benefit of very few and to the detriment of many...

See [https://www.taxjustice.net/2019/01/23/brexit-and-the- future-...](https://www.taxjustice.net/2019/01/23/brexit-and-the-future-of- tax-havens/) for some more info.

[Edit: corrected the date]

<comment><USER9> Whenever the voters vote the wrong way the EU subverts it with the result in effect being overturned in one way or another, so the UK will probably end up staying in and this ATAD will be implemented.

<comment><USER10> For those downvoting, there is truth in this e.g.:

* Ireland voting (twice) on the Nice Treaty - 2001 then 2002

* Denmark voting (twice) Maastricht Treaty - first 1992 then 1993

* Ireland (again) this time on the Lisbon Treaty - 2008 then 2009

There was also a case where the Labour government (in the UK) promised a referendum on a couple of EU treaty changes, before changing their mind after other countries' referendums voted them down, and just ratified it in parliament instead: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_Kingdom_European_Consti...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_Kingdom_European_Constitution_referendum)

<comment><USER11> Had Cameron taken this approach, things _could_ have worked out OK for the UK. Every one of those involved renegotiation and change of treaties before a re- vote.

The timeline could have been:

Cameron attempts to renegotiate with EU, achieves little.

Calls a referendum, leave achieves a very narrow margin.

Cameron _doesn 't_ resign, but attempts to renegotiate with the EU, achieves some small but significant improvements.

Second referendum, this time for remain.

UK and Cameron would still have some reputation.

<comment><USER10> Good point - I agree, and I'm really disappointed it didn't play out like that.

Instead the UK has had political stalemate for 3.5 years and even now it doesn't look like we're closer to 'a deal'.

<comment><USER11> No, we're stuck with a "government" that's lost every vote they called, and a no-deal crash out looks the only option. Realistically that was always the _only_ option without moving some of those infamous "red lines", or accepting Theresa May's deal. I don't see room for _anything_ else.

So the no-deal that was explicitly ruled out during the referendum campaign. The Swiss invalidate referendums when the electorate haven't been given correct information.

What a mess.

<comment><USER12> I have found the best source of information about Brexit, although it certainly has its own bias, to be eureferendum.com . They have long advocated for Efta/EEA membership as the first move for the UK before gradually disentangling from EU directives.

IMV (I'm not British) the only _sane_ option was some form of soft Brexit. Which was the only way to avoid most of the economic damage and also prevent hordes of Leavers with pitchforks. But the damage was done at Lancaster House which made immigration a red line. Theresa May concluded that Leavers wouldn't consider anything without immigration control to be a real Brexit, thus implicitly agreeing with the idea that the referendum passed because of immigration.

And now you have a neverending shitshow as a result. So I mostly agree, but there was a window of opportunity for TM to sell a soft Brexit. She opted not to.

<comment><USER11> See this is where it gets truly silly. You may not be wrong about some form of soft-Brexit, or EEA status, but whichever level of closeness you consider that is not "hard Brexit" would have required dropping one of the UK's "red line" issues. Anything else that was not Theresa May's deal needed the EU offering cake and cookies for free. It wasn't so much she couldn't sell it as the hardliners of the Tory party wouldn't take it. For 3 years the UK's negotiating position has been "la, la, la, not listening", whilst asking for the impossible (or cake).

Michel Barnier, the EU's chief negotiator summarised it _all_ beautifully in a single slide he put out in about 2016 or 17. Each level of softer Brexit available is ruled out by a UK red line.

Should you want a breakdown, CGP Grey did a short video about "that slide". [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=agZ0xISi40E](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=agZ0xISi40E)

<comment><USER12> Yes, I've seen that slide. In fact, it was exactly what I had in mind when I said to pytester below that "Barnier has been crystal clear about what is required of the UK and what the options are". Certainly you are right about what has been the Tory negotiating strategy.

I meant, however, that she could have attempted to sell it to the hardliners in her party or, more likely, cross-party as described below. None of the red lines were inevitable, because no one knows why Leave won. Some say immigration, some say sovereignty, ECJ, payments that could "fund our NHS", and myriad other things. Some in Labour are even said to have supported it to get around state aid rules.

So there was a fundamental lack of clarity what the referendum had actually meant shortly after it passed. That was TM's window of opportunity to show some leadership and choose an interpretation of the referendum that could command majority support.

If she had presented a soft Brexit agreement to the house, yes, she would have thrown the DUP and ERG under the bus, but she also would have put Labour, LD, etc into an extremely difficult position. At the time, they all said "we should respect the referendum". If they had rejected a soft WA the blame would be all on them instead of, as it is now, on the Tories. She would have faced accusations of being a closet Remainer, but she got that anyway.

I am convinced everyone hates the DUP and very few like the ERG. Instead of tossing them, the Tories toss Ken Clarke and Nick Soames? Sounds like a bad plan.

<comment><USER11> You're right. You're entirely right with every word. But politics.

Cameron originally offered and called the referendum expecting a win for remain, _to put the Tory lunatic fringe back in the box for a generation._ They campaigned terribly, remain lost. So much for putting the hardliners back in line, they were brought front and centre, fed and given a spotlight. Michael Heseltine wrote a good piece about this a year or three back, I forget where. Guardian or FT probably.

The DUP are seriously unpleasant, so it's only necessity that brought them in to prop up a majority-free Tory government. Even then it was a surprise.

Selling a soft-exit deal to those hardliners probably needed _not_ losing the campaign. TM being charisma free and terrible at presentation didn't help. The Tories haven't been good with leaders lately. Yet I don't think anyone could have sold the soft-Brexit deal to the ERG. It would interfere with shorting UK plc with their overseas funds. :)

Labour? Bizarre. They have been unable to take a stand, or we wouldn't be in this mess. Most of the party are remain. They could have voted through any deal at any time. Yet their official stance is "it depends, maybe". They were told to vote against TM's deal. So throwing the ERG under the bus still wouldn't have got enough votes to win.

At heart Corbyn wants Brexit, but some sort of undefined and unexplained lBrexit - leftwing-Brexit - that recreates his view of former 1960s politics. Or something. He avoids explaining. Schrodinger's lBrexit: It's unknowable. :)

Bizarre because on the rest of their policies they damn near got elected, and found much sympathy with voters. A remain Labour could have been running the country by now.

As for losing Churchill's grandson, Ken Clarke, Michael Heseltine (now publicly a LibDem voter), and the rest: The acceptable face of the Tory party is gone. For doing what Johnson and the ERG did under May dozens of times. They have kept and become the hardline fringe. Perhaps not yet, but I think they will come to bitterly regret that.

Idiocy everywhere.

<comment><USER12> > Cameron originally offered and called the referendum expecting a win for > remain, to put the Tory lunatic fringe back in the box for a generation. > They campaigned terribly, remain lost...

All true, but even then there was the opportunity for spin, especially because Cameron resigned. TM could have said, "I respect the need to leave the EU, but we can't just ignore the needs of Scotland and NI (not to mention business, in the days before fuck business). So we'll do a compromise soft Brexit reflecting the 52/48 vote. It was made clear that Leave didn't mean leaving the SM. Also, David Cameron is an idiot." She didn't.

> Labour? Bizarre. They have been unable to take a stand, or we wouldn't be in > this mess. Most of the party are remain. They could have voted through any > deal at any time. Yet their official stance is "it depends, maybe".

Tell that to pytester below. I have no idea how anyone could be watching Labour and think that they have ever taken a clear stand this entire time, but apparently, some people do buy into this "kinda-sorta SM and CU but not the actual thing" and "second referendum? uh, no, maybe, yes but we'll be neutral" stuff of Corbyn's.

Labour may well have some good policies, and my wife and her far left American friends think Corbyn walks on water, but they have been punished severely in the polls for this lack of clarity. How could anyone think Corbyn is a good leader when his party is doing so horribly in the polls despite ongoing Tory fuckups is also beyond me.

If the thought process in the UK is anything like the US, presumably staunch Labour supporters simply chalk it up to the 40+% of Tory voters being ignorant, bigoted rednecks. Just as an honest person has to ask some hard questions of Hillary Clinton for losing to Donald Trump, anyone who can lose to BORIS JOHNSON needs to find another job.

<comment><USER11> Well again I am not going to disagree much.

I don't think TM could have pulled that off. At all. I _suspect_ that Rees- Mogg, the ERG and other fools gallery (BoJo etc) felt their prey had been weakened after referendum, so could push right for hard exit. I'm not nearly stratospherically wealthy enough to understand why that is quite so appealing for the vastly moneyed. It seems like it would come with downside for them too, or maybe they'll all be asset stripping the bankruptcy sale from Cannes.

So where do the votes come from to make up the gap? Labour is dogmatically voting against, SNP are firmly remain, LibDems have no one left, so without Labour or ERG support it's not happening.

Labour have taken a remarkable manifesto that even I could mostly support, a decent election resurgence, an electorate firmly in favour of many of the ideas, and turned it into a huge trail in the polls to the worst government and PM's since Lord North (That minor difficulty in 1776). That's quite an achievement!

Among the Labour supporters I know, the opinion of Corbyn varies wildly. He achieved a remarkable election campaign, and achieved worse than nothing in opposition. He seems terrible in the Commons. Some think his electioneering will swing it come election, as many think he should be replaced before we get 5 years of BoJo (heaven help us).

A cold restart of the system seems to be in order. Bring it back with proportional representation. :)

<comment><USER12> I love how many people in the UK talk about fundamental changes of the voting system like PR. In the US such a thing would require a constitutional amendment and would therefore be utterly impossible, particularly since the Republicans and Democrats would stand to lose from it. But you don't have a written constitution, so...

But still, even if you got PR, then you'd have a substantial percentage of Brexit Party people in Parliament, making the UK even more of a laughingstock. Doing the same sorts of shit they do in the EU Parliament. And Greens and so forth. Sure that's what you want? I can see pros and cons to it, it is just interesting there is such desire for reform.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> "And speaking of finance, the island has no capital gains tax, stamp duty or inheritance tax, making it an enticing prospect for many."

This one sentence sums up why the Isle of Man exists the way it does. What a puff piece.

Britain/UK/whatever are full of these little places to hide your money. That's all this is. Yet another crowny thing that allows the rich to avoid paying their due in an undemocratic society.

<comment><USER14> Yep there's plenty of fun little offshore places if you're so inclined. However we also have an onshore tax haven of sorts - the City of London: [https://www.newstatesman.com/economy/2011/02/london- corporat...](https://www.newstatesman.com/economy/2011/02/london-corporation- city)

<comment><USER15> This article is a really fun read, but it is fundamentally mendacious: the City is not, in fact, a tax haven. You can't dodge tax, as a person or a company, by moving to the City, or being involved with the City in some special way.

There are certainly people in the City who will help you move your money into tax havens. But then there are people in Loughborough who will do that, and we don't describe Loughborough as a tax haven.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> > It's also not part of the European Union, but is within the EU Customs zone.

As opposed to the British Overseas Territory of Gibraltar, which is within the European Union, but outside the EU Customs area (until Brexit, at which point it leaves the EU too).

The political status of British territories and dependencies is... _complex_.

<comment><USER17> ... and the sovereign military bases in Cyprus, which also get mentioned in the treaty discussions and full titles.

I wondered how Gibraltar was outside the customs union; at time of UK joining, not only was Spain not in the EU, it was still a fascist dictatorship. [https://www.quora.com/Why-did-Gibraltar-opt-out-of-the-EU- Cu...](https://www.quora.com/Why-did-Gibraltar-opt-out-of-the-EU-Customs- Union-when-the-UK-acceded-in-1973)

<comment><USER18> I don't have an answer to your question but calling that EU is, historically inaccurate at best.

"During the 1950s the regime also changed from being openly totalitarian and using severe repression to an authoritarian system with limited pluralism. Spain joined the United Nations in 1955 and during the Cold War Franco was one of Europe's foremost anti-communist figures: his regime was assisted by the Western powers, and it was asked to join NATO. Franco died in 1975 at the age of 82." [1]

At that point (1975) there was no such thing as the EU (it was called EEC [2] (EEG in my language), and very different from what the EU is today). There where still customs between all members of EEC, except Belgium and The Netherlands. I know this because in the 80s we traveled regularly from The Netherlands to Brussels where my aunt lived as a diplomat for the EEC, while we also bought fuel in Germany which was cheaper than The Netherlands (and there was customs there).

The Wikipedia page of EEC [2] is a recommended read if you want to know more about the predecessor of the EU. Apparently, Spain joined in 1986. We went to vacation to Spain multiple times in my youth, including after 1986. We had customs checks. We also had these in France. And we had to take French Francs with us, as well as Spanish Pesetas. I even remember paying with Italian Liras at one point in 90s (1996?) and I felt very rich!

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

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

<comment><USER16> But relevantly, the EEC laid the foundations for the customs union well before it transitioned to becoming the EU, which is what GP is interested in. The EU customs union is separate from the borderless arrangements of the Schengen Area - the UK is part of the customs union but still has border checks - <USER2> of course back in the EEC days it wasn't as complete as the EU customs union is now.

Of course Gibraltar joined the EEC back when the UK did...

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> And of course there's "Big Clive" who is probably familiar to many of the people here. He lives on the Isle of Man and frequently talks about it.

(He does a "hands channel" on YouTube taking apart electrical devices and other gadgets: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OMv2KyuZEp4](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OMv2KyuZEp4) )

<comment><USER20> Big Clive and his house full of disassembled and broken things :)

Tremendous channel though and thoroughly educational.

</comment></comment><comment><USER21> I'm relatively familiar with the geography, but why oh why, in an article with this headline and subject, is there not, before anything else, a map indicating the UK and the Isle of Man?

<comment><USER22> it's on the bbc website? the British public do generally have a good idea where IOM is.

plus the subheader:

>Despite being ringed on all sides by the UK – Northern Ireland to west, Scotland to the north, England to the east and Wales to the south – the Isle of Man is not actually part of it.

does tell you quite well where IOM is.

feels like complaining that an article on the NYTimes about Connecticut vs Pennsylvania doesn't show a map of the USA indicating where the states are.

<comment><USER23> Brit here. I must confess, I don't know where the Isle of Man is!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> > "Independence is a strong part of the character of the people of the island. > We're not part of the UK, or the British Isles – we're Manx," said Phil > Gawne, a former politician on the island...

Hmm.

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

> The British Isles are a group of islands in the North Atlantic off the > north-western coast of continental Europe that consist of the islands of > Great Britain, Ireland, the Isle of Man, the Hebrides and over six thousand > smaller isles.

Wikipedia disagrees.

Over the years, I've harbored a growing suspicion that the political Venn diagram surrounding the UK and associated entities has reached the point of such complexity that even the natives can't follow it.

(Not that I think that Americans know the US's territorial classification system either, but...)

<comment><USER25> This terminology is the official UK POV and generally accepted elsewhere. It's not surprising that any self governed or separitist faction is challenging this.

See the last paragraph of the introduction of said Wikipedia article.

See also:

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/British_Isles_naming_dispute#W...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/British_Isles_naming_dispute#West_European_Isles)

</comment></comment><comment><USER26> > Independence is a strong part of the character of the people of the island. > We're not part of the UK, or the British Isles – we're Manx

It should be noted that this is more aspirational than reality. It's not just the currency that's tied to the UK's pound, a lot of legislation is normalised between the two. The tax situation aside, it's more a part of the UK than some Manx residents like to think (and even the tax serves a purpose for the UK). This is unsurprising as most residents come from the UK and it is almost completely dependent on the UK. That said Tynwald (Manx government) can and does make laws that differ. Relatively recently its abortion reforms were in the news.

A geeky aside: Linux enthusiasts may know the Isle of Mann as the home of Mark Shuttleworth (creator of Ubuntu).

</comment><comment><USER27> You could tell, because there's no way their motorcycle race would be allowed in the UK.

I was halfexpecting this article to tell us they still used pre-decimalized currency.

<comment><USER28> A similar race is held in NI

[https://www.northwest200.org/the-history-of-the- nw200/](https://www.northwest200.org/the-history-of-the-nw200/)

<comment><USER29> There are loads of these road races in UK & Ireland (also in mainland Europe). It's a full calendar.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER30> The article is correct, but it's also less than relevant for most people outside the UK, unless they live on the Isle of Man.

British politics provides _endless_ wells of "Well, actually..." any time anyone says something about the subject. Shades of Mornington Crescent.

<comment><USER31> I am familiar with Camden and Mornington Crescent area, but "Shades of Mornington Crescent"?

<comment><USER32> Mornington Crescent is a station the you only stop at going one direction on the London underground. If you go in the other direction it disappears. Here it's being used as a short-hand for a complex situation/set of rules. The usage is probably drawn from the fact there was a comedy radio programme in the UK that played a ridiculous game involving many sets of convoluted rules upon rules and the name of the game was Mornington Crescent.

<comment><USER15> > Mornington Crescent is a station the you only stop at going one direction on > the London underground. If you go in the other direction it disappears.

I'm not sure if this is a valiant attempt to confuse Americans, but this isn't true. Trains stop in both directions.

A reason it might not seem like that is that there are two branches of the Northern line running in parallel between Euston and Camden Town, and Mornington Crescent is only on one of them. So depending on which way you turn when you reach the southbound platform at Camden, you may or may not pass through Mornington Crescent on your way into town.

<comment><USER33> You just demonstrated why "Mornington Crescent" is good shorthand for "a preponderance of edge cases and tribal knowledge"

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER34> What the author called a 'rumpy' cat is the colloquial term used on the island, along with 'stubbin'. Otherwise the cat is called outside of the island, not surprisingly, a Manx cat. I've seen them scattered around the commonwealth as beloved pets, various tail sizes but probably sadly mutilated for cat shows for a more perfect rump.

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

<comment><USER22> if you've seen tailess cats in the UK (I know you refer to the wider commonwealth), they would not be mutilated, at least legally, like that.

tail docking, ear docking, declawing, descenting (of ferrets), is illegal unless for the health of the animal or for a few working breeds where the dog is a working dog.

(England and Wales do have some different laws on this than Scotland and NI)

<comment><USER35> And there is an European Convention:

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20506954](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20506954)

Though I believe that it wasn't actually signed/ratified by the UK:

[https://www.coe.int/en/web/conventions/full- list/-/conventio...](https://www.coe.int/en/web/conventions/full- list/-/conventions/treaty/125/signatures?p_auth=4CalWFV0)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER36> Apparently the "Isle of Man has the largest wallaby population in the northern hemisphere":

[https://www.telegraph.co.uk/travel/destinations/europe/unite...](https://www.telegraph.co.uk/travel/destinations/europe/united- kingdom/england/isle-of-man/articles/wallabies-isle-of-man/)

</comment><comment><USER37> Jesus Christ everyone, just pay some taxes

<comment><USER38> The Manx do pay tax, up to 20% income tax and 17.5% VAT (sales tax). Yes, it's low, but a little place with no need for military is cheap to run.

There's plenty of countries with lower rates than that: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_tax_rates](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_tax_rates)

<comment><USER39> The UK spends just over 2% of GDP on defence. It's not a big part of the budget. Total government spending is around 40% of GDP.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER40> Makes sense. They have their own TLD: .im. There was a time in the 2000's when .im was a halfway useful TLD for startups to use.

</comment><comment><USER41> This explains the complexities on the "british isles" quite well: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rNu8XDBSn10](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rNu8XDBSn10)

</comment><comment><USER42> "The Island's climate is temperate and lacking in extremes, due to the influence of the surrounding Irish Sea. In winter thunderstorms, snowfall and frost are infrequent, and even when snow does occur it rarely lies on the ground for more than a day or two.

February is normally the coldest month, with an average daily temperature of 4.9 C (41 F), and July and August are the warmest - with an average daily maximum temperature of around 18 C (63 F). In summer April, May and June are the driest months whilst May, June and July are the sunniest.

Wind generally travels southwesterly, although the rugged topography means that local effects of shelter and exposure are very variable. Sea fog affects the south and east coast at times, especially in spring, but is less frequent on the west coast.

Rainfall and the frequency of hill fog both increase with altitude - <USER3> highest point of the Island (Snaefell at 2,036 ft) receives some two and a quarter times more rainfall than Ronaldsway on the southeast coast, where the annual average is 34 inches (863 mm)."

That's why the Isle of Man is a tax haven. It's beautiful if you like bleak islands.

</comment><comment><USER43> How do you write this article and not post the Venn diagram?

[https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/1/1f/British_...](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/1/1f/British_Isles_Euler_Diagram_13.svg)

</comment><comment><USER44> I enjoy European bilateral travel and trade agreements especially amongst microstates but this one is such an irrelevant distinction for practical matters that I think it isn't worth mentioning.

Thanks for the reminder, and the article and history was very interesting.

</comment><comment><USER45> I like how it's only mentioned in passing that it's a tax haven. Which probably explains why it's not in the UK.</comment>


Why We Still Believe in Private Offices - <AUTHOR> http://blog.stackoverflow.com/2015/01/why-we-still-believe-in-private-offices/ <comment><USER3> Am I the only one that considers lunch to be a sacred, personal time that I don't want to spend on small talk with coworkers? I need my lunch break to recover from the day's stress and pace, so I can come back refreshed and ready to code for 4-5 more hours. As an introvert, I find the team lunches to be waay more stressful than actual work, and that eliminates any benefits of a nicely cooked meal. If I end up in a team lunch situation, I find it hard to be productive for the rest of the day (unless I take a separate mini-lunch break by myself later).

The situation was especially bad at one recent job where the lunch conversations always revolved around local sports, which I had no interest in, or this guy remodeling his house, which was only interesting the first 3 times he gave us an update. So I started bringing sandwiches to work, parking in the garage beneath the building, and eating lunch all alone in my car in the dark, listening to NPR or just enjoying the silence. It was the most refreshing hour of my workday and I felt 200% more productive after that break than I would after 30 minutes of small talk about sports.

I just want to point this out to people who think team lunches should be mandatory. Not everyone enjoys them equally, and it's not always just about the food.

<comment><USER4> I'm really really glad you mentioned this, it's something I wanted to touch on in the blog post but it was getting too side-tracked. I'm definitely in the same boat as you, my previous job used to be in an open office environment (at two different co-working places so it was LOTS of different teams worth of open office environments) and my lunch hour would be the only alone time I got.

Everything changed when I started at Stack though. As an introverted person I don't _always_ want to be alone, but being alone is what makes me "recharge" so to speak. What's nice about having a private office all the time is I can choose to communicate with other people or not, there's always long-running Google Hangouts I can drop into if I just want to talk to another human being, or I can choose to be alone by myself for the entire day. Lunch though, is the only time I get face to face with my coworkers and it turns out I kind of miss that from being in an open office environment.

There's lots of people here that work on different teams and do drastically different things than me which would make it so I wouldn't communicate with them at all if I didn't simply grab lunch at the office and sit down at a random table.

I definitely agree with you that lunch as a team should never be mandatory though, it's asinine to steal an extra hour or whatever from everyone at your company with the goal of "morale" or whatever they want to say behind it. I'm super happy with the setup at Stack though, it works pretty well.

<comment><USER5> I wrote the article and I probably end up working through lunch (or most of lunch) at least 2-3 days a week. It's definitely optional.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> The thing to consider here is Stack Exchange is a company that serves geeks, and is built by geeks. Naturally the culture and values of the company are going revolve around developers. But for a huge chunk of the companies out there everything revolves around sales and marketing. The actual role and importance of developers varies from company to company but very few of them are going to revolve around them in the same way. At many they're an afterthought.

While there is no "typical manager" it's safe to say that if you sample any given company and take all their managers and executives you won't find a lot of coders. Executives don't sit around talking about Rust vs Go, because it really isn't that important to their business most of the time. So they really have no idea what it's like to be a coder, and probably don't take up a lot of cycles thinking about it.

Most jobs do benefit from collaboration. Development is no exception, however too much socialization and interruptions kill us. This is what they fail to understand on most levels. They see sales, marketing, and other groups that benefit from being able to swivel a chair and ask a question and automatically assume that it will help developers, since they "never meet their deadlines" anyway.

So in my opinion the push for open offices for coders is mostly out of touch thinking, a little need for micromanagement, and of course being able to show off work being done for people taking a walk through. How that affects developers is of little concern.

<comment><USER7> Consultants are also part of the problem.

I did a Master's degree that shared half its classes with the MBA, and we had some case studies where a consultant was the hero by literally tearing down a wall between sales and operations (the small company had communication and "empathy" issues).

I always end up linking to this summary of Chapter 12 of Peopleware:

[http://javatroopers.com/Peopleware.html#Chapter_12](http://javatroopers.com/Peopleware.html#Chapter_12)

<comment><USER8> I'm reminded of an old Dilbert comic--which I can't seem to find online--where the CEO or consultant is hailed as visionary by alternately proposing "centralize everything which is decentralized" and "decentralize everything which is centralized."

I guess that could be applied to physical space...

<comment><USER9> I believe it's a page from _Build a Better Life by Stealing Office Supplies_ , not an actual strip.

<comment><USER8> I'm quite certain there was--if not a full strip--at least an illustration involving the the CEO... Not the now-staple pointy-haired manager, but the heavily-jowled guy who's been supplanted by the bullet-headed CEO in recent years.

Each time, a diagram is behind him, either of a hub-and-spoke diagram or a spread-out cloud of nodes.

<comment><USER9> I remember exactly the illustrations you're talking about. They were on a left-hand page of the book.

 _Build a Better Life_ is composed mostly of pages divided into quadrants, in which Dogbert introduces the page's theme in the upper left and the next three sections illustrate it.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> There is another possibility, that all offices are fundamentally flawed creations designed not to foster work so much as to create a dynamic of control.

When you pay someone and you control both their place and time for over 1/3 of their daily life, there are inherent problems. I'm not sure that any office plan is ever going to be super ideal because of the fundamental problems of power and control that come with an employer/employee relationship.

Open plans are designed to look cool and help recruiting. They also create a sense of "busyness" that owners and managers love. Busyness is proof they are still in charge.

Arguing about wether or not it is better for productivity is a red herring. It was never about productivity in the first place. Most of what happens in an office is only tangentially related to the idea of work efficiency.

<comment><USER11> Businesses exist to make money, not just to give people in power a place to harumph about. More productivity IS important, because without that, businesses are losing out on potential income, and that's not what businesses like to do.

<comment><USER7> However, there are huge agency problems between the stated goals of a business (mainly, to make money for its shareholders), and the CEOs interests - <USER2> ego, power, and making money for himself might be more important than long- term decisions involving productivity.

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theory_of_the_firm](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theory_of_the_firm)

Apparently most relocations are closer to the CEOs home, for example:

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8604202](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8604202)

New buildings are also monuments to the CEO (or President, or whatever authority builds it).

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> It bums me out some to see the standard-bearer for private offices in our profession showing us floor-to-ceiling glass walls in a panopticon arc, "not as creepy as you think"[1]. The Overton window's shifted so far to the cage- free side that privacy isn't even in our frame? OK, a few companies still believe in offices with walls.

I don't doubt that it's a fine place to work, likely nicer than the cubicles I've worked in, though maybe not better than my home office. But they're clearly not private.

[1] From a caption on the original version of the page.

<comment><USER13> The glass walls would be more tolerable if the mid-section was opaque/frosted glass, so you still get the light but you also get a degree of privacy.

<comment><USER14> Putting up transparent bubble wrap does a great job of blurring what's behind, while letting people see if you're in your office. Raid the shipping department.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> I like what Stackoverflow does with their offices. Certainly better than what is trendy right now (open plan) and better than a cube' farm also.

I will say I think Microsoft's little offices are better overall. The ones I've seen have four real walls, a wooden door, and a window to outside with a blind on it. So if you want to work in the dark, you can.

Stackoverflow's glass offices mean that you cannot shut out the light, have to deal with any glare, may get distracted with what is going on in the offices either side of yours, and it means people can look over your shoulder whenever they choose.

They would be perfectly good offices with full length blinds on them. But then the people next to you may complain that you're blocking their natural light. But overall they still aren't even near the worst around...

<comment><USER4> I sit in one of our glass offices directly next to a lot of windows: [http://i.imgur.com/FZmvSZB.jpg](http://i.imgur.com/FZmvSZB.jpg)

I don't have any issues with glare or anything since all of our windows have nice blinds that anyone can adjust, some of them even have two sets of blinds (regular and complete block-out blinds) if you would like to make the surrounding area as dark as possible.

Not _all_ walls of our offices are glass too, we should've mentioned that in the blog post but it seemed pedantic. All offices have glass doors but they also have walls (painted with white board paint!), here's what my office looks like from the door in the previous picture: [http://i.imgur.com/2n3nDkc.jpg](http://i.imgur.com/2n3nDkc.jpg)

The only way I could get distracted by something that's happening in an office on either side of mine is by climbing up and looking at the 12" of glass on the top of the wall that's designed for allowing light to enter rooms that aren't facing windows (which I've definitely done before, it freaks people out, hilarious)

To be honest though, compared to the open work environments I used to work at any amount of glare is worth the change :)

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> I can't emphasize how important it is not to just barge in on somebody's office or workstation without pinging them online or on their phone first. Unexpected questions lead to incomplete, unsure, or downright incorrect answers, which can unintentionally alienate your employees/coworkers.

But it's also important that actual discussions do take place in person with undivided attention, not being distracted by things going on around you. Miscommunications lead to fallouts between coworkers or employers and bosses.

As I developer I need my focus space. But I also want a separate place to be able to discuss things with coworkers -- as long as my workstation remains my castle, I'm happy to come out and go to meetings, do trainings, ask/answer questions, and hang out during lunchtime or breaks.

In my last place of work, we had two main teams, and their rooms were separated by a shared commons room, but this led to a divided culture. Everyone had laptops and each desk had a couple monitors, so every week, a couple people swapped out from each room and mixed up the teams. That alone helped our productivity and intra-office culture.

</comment><comment><USER17> I liked the comment: "I'm a big advocate of remote work culture even if nobody works remote."

That really works: respect people's time even if you are in the shared, no- cube, open office world.

</comment><comment><USER18> I've recently left one organization for another. I was a Dev in a Cube for for several years. I now have my own office with a large window. It couldn't be a more pleasant experience.

I think with open plans you're sharing a lot more germs too. How many times have your co-workers came into work sneezing? Even in a cube farm, those germs just spread. At least with an office you can keep you and your germs better confined.

</comment><comment><USER19> One thing I don't understand -- in this time of laptops, tablets and ubiquitous internet access (whether in-office wi-fi or the mobile broadband), why do we still have this discussion?

Are there any companies out there who have a heterogeneous office layout, with open-space areas, single-person rooms and anything in between which could then be used by anyone to their own preference? I would like to see a setup where I'm able to work together with my team in a small-group environment in the morning, and then retreat to a single-person office in the afternoon. In most companies, there is very little reason to be bound to a single desk throughout the day.

I can imagine such a workplace, with team leads/managers being responsible to coordinating their teams when it comes to workplaces, and ideally the company would monitor the usage and constantly adapt and improve the workplace accordingly.

<comment><USER20> Have you actually worked in an environment like that? In my experience, hoteling as the only option is deeply unpleasant. People like to have a single place to go. They like to have a desk they can personalize. They like to have a place they can leave their stuff overnight.

If you only provide hoteling, I think the majority of people will just claim a desk as theirs, and you effectively have no hoteling at all.

<comment><USER19> "People like to have a single place to go."

I'm pretty sure some do, and I'm pretty sure some don't. Heck, some people would prefer it for some time, and then not for some more. I certainly know that describes me pretty well.

My idea is not hoteling-only; it's the option you can choose and request, like any other you prefer; in case of any conflicts it would be up to the leads/managers to make the decision.

"If you only provide hoteling, I think the majority of people will just claim a desk as theirs, and you effectively have no hoteling at all."

The operating words being "I think". I think otherwise, and there is only one way to find out.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> I work at Esri where almost everyone gets their own office with a sliding door. Private offices are still alive here (Thanks Jack :)

</comment><comment><USER22> I've been seriously annoyed about that since I started working in one of those open offices. I've read a few articles about it and cannot understand why would someone like to be in such an environment. Stack Exchange's organization/culture seems to be a quite balanced approach, providing both the common areas where people can be together working/relaxing AND a proper space for them to stay focused while working alone on something. Really good to know there are companies trying to get it right instead of cool.

</comment><comment><USER23> It'd be nice if in an ideal setting there was a balance of both open and closed perspectives. I guess I consider myself an introverted extrovert. While I enjoy being around others and having physical interaction when the situation precludes the necessity open is great. But I think as others have said what the powers at be fail to realize is that in order to be productive SE's we need longer, uninterrupted fragments of time throughout the day for deep, intense, unadulterated focus...when this doesn't happen. Things go to Hell in a hand basket rather quickly. More problematic for me than physical space restriction was the timetable restriction that too many meetings and other time sucks can have. Non-code pushers fail to understand that that question they asked about in the 8 a.m. stand up hasn't been solved or even thought about b/c we can't get a waking 2+ hours of fluid thought. Having worked in pretty much every type of space I still can't say which I really prefer/which makes me most productive!

</comment><comment><USER24> The new offices my company is moving to will have an open floor plan _and_ a foosball table.

Time to fight for remoting rights.

<comment><USER25> Don't tell me. They want to put the foosball table next to your desk. When will they learn!

<comment><USER26> We just got a foosball table in our office. It is 1 meter from my desk. It's horrible.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER27> So what other software companies have private offices?

In addition to Stack Exchange, Microsoft was mentioned.

When I worked as a developer at Carnegie Mellon, I had an office shared with one or two other people (which was a nice perk, given the pay was much lower than industry).

Any others?

<comment><USER28> I believe [http://www.fogcreek.com/](http://www.fogcreek.com/), which is no surprise though since their affiliation with stackoverflow through Joel Spolsky.

</comment></comment><comment><USER29> I've worked in shared offices, open offices and for the last couple of years I've worked here [http://imgur.com/a/13uvk](http://imgur.com/a/13uvk) (office on the cheap, it's my own company so I spend money only where it's important)

For me there is zero comparison, I enjoyed a shared office, loathed an open office beyond measure and absolutely love the peace and quiet that comes from working in a private office.

If my company isn't a success and I go back to regular employment I'm dreading that bit more than any other part of been employed.

</comment><comment><USER30> This look like open plan to me: [https://email@example.com,-74.006763,3a,75y,268...](https://email@example.com,-74.006763,3a,75y,268.95h,76.83t/data=!3m5!1e1!3m3!1sQAt2ZhdcRLgAAAQIt- NLVw!2e0!3e2?hl=en-US)

I assume those aren't developers?

<comment><USER31> Correct. That's the sales bullpen.

<comment><USER30> I want (and have) a private office. Why doesn't the argument extend to them as well?

Also: using the URL in the article, I couldn't find the developer offices. Are they down the stairs? Google Maps didn't let me navigate down them.

<comment><USER32> Yeah, those hexagonal offices are on the next floor down.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER33> An important point is that focusing on online tools (instead of in-person encounters) _improves_ communication. Everyone is on equal footing in terms of being exposed to conversations.

In-person conversations, while arguably higher-bandwidth, are only shared by the participants. You had to have been there.

</comment><comment><USER34> (note: none of the following has anything to do with office layout)

 _" Joel's management philosophy is deceptively simple: hire smart people who get things done, and get the hell out of their way. The role of management is to give the people who actually do the work — the developers, designers, sysadmins, etc. — all the tools they need to get their jobs done, and then trust them to do the job!"_

Let's say you work directly with about 15 people. The majority of those people are remote, with some local. The manager hangs back in meetings and listens for problems, and hurriedly works to resolve roadblocks for their direct reports. They also chime in occasionally if people need a reminder of a pressing high priority item or objective.

Now let's say those 15 people all come from different places and all have different ways of 'getting things done'. One person builds a unicycle in order to achieve the goal of 'transporting A to B'. Another person builds a bicycle. Yet another attempts to build a space shuttle.

If you're really really lucky, all of these different inventions and methods will simply mesh, and there will be no friction within the team, and things just churn on forever.

If you're dealing with smart, experienced people, there may be a lot of back- and-forth discussion while people try to figure out which kind of solution is the best.

If you're dealing with egocentric 'rock stars', absolutely nothing gets done unless someone basically bullies someone else into caving on their method.

Even if nobody actually ever voices a problem with the way someone else works, it is in a manager's interest to be invested in the past, present and future of the work produced. Legacy systems need to keep working, current designs need to be in-line with best practice, and planned work needs to be future- proof and maintainable. How do they do that by staying hands-off?

Where do I think Joel's management philosophy leaves you? If you're lucky, with product that mirrors the quality of your employees combined with their ability to form a single cohesive unit where everyone's work complements each other. If you're not lucky, you get arguments, delays, and code that doesn't support the goals of the project or the group.

\---

On a completely unrelated note: Jesus would I love to have a full kitchen in my office. I would be inspired to try to cook creative dishes and share with my coworkers. And i'd spend more time in the office.</comment>


American tipping is rooted in slavery–and it still hurts workers today - <AUTHOR> https://www.fordfoundation.org/ideas/equals-change-blog/posts/american-tipping-is-rooted-in-slavery-and-it-still-hurts-workers-today/ <comment><USER2> "rooted in"

And then they describe the origins as not slavery, and then it touches on the topic of slavery, and then lots of history that doesn't have to do with slavery.

I feel like sometimes there is a historical game to find where a thing touches on something good or bad (depending on if the person likes the thing) and tie it to that. I don't think that necessarily is a reflection on what the thing is today.

<comment><USER3> It's like 6 degrees of separation but with an agenda.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> I always have this conflict when it comes to tipping.

I want to refuse and try to show that I do not agree with this practice, however if I refrain from tipping I know the only person I'm hurting is the individual I'm not going to tip in that transaction.

I always tip extra generously as that is how I was raised, and when dealing in a small town where you may frequent the same establishment many times eventually you do gain a reputation if you tip well and tend to get better service.

I feel if we really want to change tipping culture we need to start at the root of the issue where employers are allowed to pay their employees such a low wage and expect the clients to pick up the extra.

<comment><USER5> Yes, this is correct. It must be handled at the legislative level and I'd say at the Federal level to be effective.

<comment><USER6> Indeed.

Waiting tables is a job. Tipping allows employers to assign a lower wage, thus having to pay less payroll taxes... And they'll even try to get a clear conscience by saying "they just need to learn to budget properly".

This whole situation reminds me of the congresswoman from California, Katie Porter, questioning the CEO of J.P. Morgan [0].

In my opinion, minimum wage shouldn't be an arbitrary number; it should be linked to each city's cost of living, and perhaps some sort of multiplicative factor based on the metropolitan's area population.

This would hold urbanization at bay, and you'd see -- in the long term -- a more balanced spread of cities.

[0] [https://youtu.be/2WLuuCM6Ej0](https://youtu.be/2WLuuCM6Ej0)</comment></comment></comment>


Show HN: Matrix, a fast and flexible blogging engine - <AUTHOR> http://ec2-54-83-122-123.compute-1.amazonaws.com/admin Still pretty rough ...
Emphasizes:
1) Simple, no-frill dashboard for managing posts (files). 2) Lightweight markdown editor 3) Relationships: taxonomy (file tagging) and fast linking (content to other posts)
Some of the important key bindings I have are ctrl+c for code, ctrl-L for linking text to other posts. Right now this is baked in but I'd want to allow users to customize it.
It's still pretty beta but let me know what ya'll think!
Here's the github page if you want to help out: https://github.com/keera/matrix <comment><AUTHOR> I posted a text description but just found out that you can't post both in a submission.

This is still in the very alpha stages but here are the main ideas of the project:

1) Simple, no-frill dashboard for managing posts (files). Once you're happy with a file you can publish it to your blog.

2) Key bindings (right now the only main ones are ctrl-c for code formatting and ctrl-l for linking). Eventually these will be completely user configurable.

3) Relational (not in the db sense): you can tag your files with labels and fast link text in your files to other files.

Sorry about the confusion! You can find the source here [https://github.com/keera/matrix](https://github.com/keera/matrix)

</comment><comment><USER2> Growing very tired of trendy new apps that have no "about" link whatsoever -- just "login" and "sign up". Login and/or sign up for WHAT?!

Edit: I mean, where are the screenshots? Feature lists? Information about WHO is providing the service/app? Et cetera...

</comment><comment><USER3> It broke my back button...

<comment><AUTHOR> Ah sorry about that. Fixed!

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> What is this I don't even

</comment><comment><USER5> (The submitter included a text description of the project, but those don't show up if the post has a URL. You need to post it as a comment in a thread.)

<comment><AUTHOR> Oh I see!

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> This is pretty unpolished sir

</comment><comment><USER7> Why the hell would you put the new file into a popup that disables resizable?

(additionally why the hell does chrome honor that brain dead option.)

<comment><USER8> And additionally additionally why the hell is my Chrome detecting the popup as spam and blocks it?</comment></comment>


IE taught me something valuable today – who would have thought? - <AUTHOR> http://www.webinsation.com/ie9-taught-me-something-valuable-today/

<comment><AUTHOR> Has anyone else ran across this before?</comment>


FirstEnergy Says It's Fixing a Leak at Ohio Nuclear Plant - <AUTHOR> http://www.businessweek.com/news/2012-06-07/firstenergy-says-it-s-fixing-a-leak-at-ohio-nuclear-plant

<comment><USER2> "no radiation was discharged"

Note massive trading spike late afternoon yesterday with minor drop.

[http://finance.yahoo.com/q/bc?s=FE&t=5d&l=on&z=l...](http://finance.yahoo.com/q/bc?s=FE&t=5d&l=on&z=l&q=l&c=)

Makes you wonder if daytrader types knew about it on Thursday.</comment>


Ask HN: Is Ryan Bates okay? - <AUTHOR> Ryan Bates announced he was taking a monthlong break from Railscasts -- he then updated saying he would be taking another month. It has now been about 7 months since his last message on the site, his last tweet, and his last commit on Github (except for one day in October). Is he okay? It is great that he is taking time off, 400 screencasts is a <i>library</i> if content to create, but he seems to have completely dropped off the face of the internet -- and with his last few communications sounding very tired, it is a little bit worrying. <comment><USER2> From Reddit 28 days ago ([http://www.reddit.com/r/rails/comments/1ysbdb/any_news_about...](http://www.reddit.com/r/rails/comments/1ysbdb/any_news_about_ryan_bates_of_railscasts_is_he/cfnvl3g)):

"I am a friend of Ryan's, and know his dad as well. I haven't talked to Ryan directly, but his dad assures me Ryan is doing very well, and has just been on a very much needed break. He also does plan to return to Railscasts."

<comment><USER3> I think frankly there's a lot of techies I know who are so burnt out they don't even remember what it feels like not to be burnt out. There's a lot of people who could really do with putting every electronic device in a box for 6 months and just breathing fresh air, thinking new thoughts, and doing things in the "real" world for a while. I hope that's what Ryan is doing and I hope it's working out for him.

<comment><USER4> I just left my job recently. It's amazing how good it feels to work on yourself and not to work on a product.

<comment><USER5> I was recently laid off, but it was one of the best things that happened to me. I had become involved with so many projects and was being constantly interrupted, that I could not hardly get anything done anymore. I tried putting in 60 hour weeks to catch up, but I would come in and just stare at the computer screen for an hour or two each day before I could get any work done. Now in my unemployment I've been working out consistently and feel like I'm emerging from a deep fog. It occurred to me the other day "Oh yeah, this is what real life feels like."

<comment><USER4> I should probably work out. I've been drinking a lot of bet and coding really bad toy programs :P

That said, I agree. Turn that bad experience into something good.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Seen 1 hour ago -> [http://stackoverflow.com/users/148722/ryanb](http://stackoverflow.com/users/148722/ryanb)

</comment><comment><USER7> Shouldn't this post now be deleted given the Reddit article? Seems sort of pushy if Ryan wants to be left alone for a little longer to keep such a thread up that has no news value.

<comment><USER8> Can't speak for Ryan but I think its nice to see how much the community supports him.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> I wish he'd start charging me again.

I'm cool with paying for the work he has already DONE, I don't need new work or new things, the back catalogue, even if it was free, would be something that $9 is and amount I'd happily pay.

<comment><USER10> This. I subscribed to railscasts for the massive, incredibly useful catalogue. Not in particular for the new content every week.

I'm also totally happy to continue to pay. I'm sure we're not in the minority.

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> If you're reading this Ryan: <3

</comment><comment><USER12> He's literally made the world a better place

</comment><comment><USER13> <3 you Ryan, hope you're well.

</comment><comment><USER14> <3 you Ryan, owe you my business

</comment><comment><USER15> He was last active on Github in October: [https://github.com/ryanb?tab=activity](https://github.com/ryanb?tab=activity)

</comment><comment><USER16> you don't have to keep making vids but don't pull a why__ lol

</comment><comment><USER17> [https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/5652890/rails_casts.png](https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/5652890/rails_casts.png)

</comment><comment><USER18> Hope he is doing well!

</comment><comment><USER19> Did the links to stackoverflow remind anyone else of how they found DPR?

</comment><comment><USER20> you da man, Ryan!

</comment><comment><USER21> [http://stackoverflow.com/users/148722/ryanb](http://stackoverflow.com/users/148722/ryanb)</comment>


Is the US Really a Nation of God-Fearing Darwin-Haters? - <AUTHOR> http://www.spiegel.de/international/europe/0,1518,628389,00.html

<comment><USER2> _"The American observer of Europe is often baffled at European claims to secularism since official expressions of religion are so public and yet -- apparently -- so taken for granted. A 10th-century depiction of the crucifixion, for example, is part of every Danish passport, regardless of whether its bearer is -- as many nowadays are -- a pious Muslim."_

There's a difference between culture and religion. Having a 10th-century depiction of the crucifixion in my passport doesn't imply that I'm religious, but it does remind me that I come from a country with a long and rich history and culture. In Northern Europe religious artifacts are primarily seen as cultural heritage, not as a way of showing your devotion to a god. I can't speak for Southern Europe, but from my limited experience of living there it doesn't seem very different.

 _"American church attendance and religious belief is not off the European scale if one compares it with Europe's Catholic regions. A smaller percentage of Americans consider themselves religious than the Portuguese and Italians. Proportionately fewer Americans say they believe in God than the Irish and Portuguese."_

The article compares all of America to a small very religious part of Europe. That would be like saying that Americans produce 20 times as many cars as Europeans because the average number of cars produced per capita in Detroit is far above the average number of cars produced per capita in Europe.

The US is the country with the smallest percentage of non-believers (3%), and as stated in the article Portugal and Italy aren't far behind(4% and 6%). The article doesn't however mention Sweden or France that are 46% and 43% non- believers.

Source: <http://www.swivel.com/graphs/show/8244121>

Spiegel should really know better than manipulating numbers like this.

<comment><USER3> >There's a difference between culture and religion.

That's an interesting statement. Only in the West, and only in the last few hundred years can religion be conceived of as a discrete object, separate from culture.

Indigenous American and Hindu culture, for example, have traditionally had no such division between religion and culture. With the rise of global capitalism we may be starting to see a secular/nonsecular divide in traditionally Hindu areas (India, duh) but this is a very modern development.

edit: I should say, none of the above necessarily negates anything you said. I just think it's interesting.

edit number 2: Also, the above could also be further illuminated in a short description of the differences between orthodoxy and orthopraxy. Worth checking out each concept on Wikipedia if y'all are interested.

<comment><USER4> Lots of Asian countries have a common culture that spans groups following different religions: Indonesia, India (and particular Indian regions), Sri Lanka etc.

Also, most of the major religions spread to different cultures a long time ago: A thousand years ago a Russian and a South Indian could have both not only been Christians, but both Eastern Orthodox, or an Indonesian and a Libyan could both be Sunni Muslims, or a Sri Lankan and Laotian could both be Theravadan Buddhists.

If people of disparate cultures could share common beliefs, sure religion and culture have always been separable. Especially pertinent to your examples are the South Indian Christians who have undoubtedly shared the culture of the Hindu majority for 2,000 years.

<comment><USER3> What you say is true, as far as I know. It is entirely possible to share the culture of the people who one lives nearby and yet practice a different religion. It is also true that this has been going on for a long time. In the case of the spread of Abrahamic offshoots (Islam and Christianity), a couple of thousand years. In this sense religious expression has always been fluid. However, I think that is different than viewing religion as an object. It is a modern move to split culture into many different categories: public, private, family, government, religion, education, medical, etc, etc. This way of understanding and ordering the world is a particularly Western (some might say Germanic) form.

Furthermore, there are languages that still survive to this day that have no word for "religion" as such, something I talk elsewhere in this thread. This says to me that in some cultures religion cannot even be conceived of as separate from culture because the language does not provide the imaginative capacity to understand it that way.

So, always fluid, yes. Separable, I don't know.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> The point of credibility meltdown:

"The modern American creationist, interestingly enough, no longer takes scripture as sufficient reason to believe the Biblical account of the origins of the world. The debate is, instead, conducted on the turf of science, with creationists attempting to argue the fine points of the age of the fossil record, suggesting that orthodox evolution has gaps as a seamless explanation, and otherwise indicating their acceptance that the modern world speaks the language of science."

<comment><USER6> Why? This is certainly consistent with the exponents of Creationism and/or "creation science" that I've met, seen and heard of...

<comment><USER7> The key is "speaking the language" of science, not actually _doing_ science.

Neo-creationists use scientific terms and talk about scientific theories, but do not advance any scientific theories or apply those terms to their own thinking. The creationist standpoint is and always has been that a literal interpretation of particular English translations of the Bible is unquestionably factually accurate, and that anything which contradicts that interpretation is to be attacked by any means available.

The only difference is that now they talk about things "irreducible complexities" (which aren't) and "the lack of transitional forms" (which isn't) as a scientific-sounding cover.

<comment><USER8> In other words, _they_ believe in creationism just because the Bible and their church say so, but they try to make it sound scientifical for their propaganda. Science has a hard-earned cachet that comes from many years of delivering the goods, and creationists would like to co-opt that.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> This essay proves that you can find data to support pretty much any conclusion, as long as you choose your data selectively.

<comment><USER10> So true; he has 27 diverse countries to flagrantly cherry pick from, however when I read "But talk is cheap, and these findings may indicate desire as much as reality" I was amazed for a second thinking he was going to analyze his techniques and sources for biases but alas, no such evaluation ensued. Fainly reminds me of Gladwellian journalism.

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> _Despite the myths of a hyper-motorized nation, Americans own fewer passenger cars per head than the French, Austrians, Swiss, Germans, Luxembourgers and Italians_

I find this very surprising!

<comment><USER12> I find this surprising not because of cultural norms, but because of the much higher price of gas and taxes on cars in Europe.

<comment><USER4> Europeans may also use their cars less. Most people I know in London own a car, but most only use it on weekends or holidays.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> > a sober look at its empirical basis suggests that it is an inverted pyramid, > a lot of conclusions perched on flimsy premises

Der Spiegel examines the US vs Europe in a large number of dimensions and finds that the US differs far less than one might expect. For example, the white murder rate is less than that of Britain. Or that we are doing pretty well in the pollution department. Even the majority-minority tensions in the US are starting to appear in Europe because of immegration from poorer regions.

<comment><USER14> Majority-minority tensions? Is this an euphemism for racism and xenophobia?

My observation is that most of us Europeans are pretty racist and xenophobic and big hypocrites about it too.

Now, while I will not erase the above, keep in mind that both the EU and US are huge and diverse places and generalizations are generally useless. Huge in different ways and diverse in different ways.

<comment><USER13> I didnt mean it as an euphemism, maybe a shorhand. The article draws a parallel between racism in the US as a residue of slavery, and xenophobia in Europe as a result of immigration of lower class workers who are different and dont care much about the culture of the host country.

Integration in the US has taken huge steps in the last half-century. My ex- wife's relatives were put in US concentration camps in WWII. I remember seeing whites-only and colored signs in the south. I remember the civil rights movement of the 60's and 70's. The article speculated whether European countries are facing the same kind of transition from individual monocultures to diversity.

I certainly would welcome any insight you have.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> Another case of lies, damned lies and statistics. When I lived in the U.S. I found the differences to be much bigger than I expected. Obviously, I did not expect or find a god-fearing nation of Darwin haters. Rather, I found a society that is different on every level. Despite being void of any religion or conservative views, I found myself to be a traditionalist. Given an alternative perspective I found the key principle behind European society to be tradition, whereas in the U.S. it is business. These principles have perpetuated into every aspect of society, from holiday celebration to city planning, on to social welfare, politics, religion, etc. It was quite a culture shock to me, but I really learned to appreciate the differences. Or as I described it an American friend: Europeans know how to party, but Americans know how to have fun.

More recently I've moved to another European country with entirely different socio-economic and religious statistics. Same old.

</comment><comment><USER16> This is related to something I often say: The US is more liberal than Europe.

Much of Europe feels relatively rigid, in the sense that there are ancient attitudes, customs, social structures, and institutions that would seem out of place in the US.

You might say Europe is to the left of the US, but then we'd be talking about something else.

<comment><USER17> Assuming your premise is correct: What did you expect?

The origin of modern America dates back about 400 years, the origin of Europe about 2000 years. Also, the reason for many early US immigrants was to escape ancient European social structures. Europe was already crowded before America was explored: there simply was less room for outside influence from other parts of the world.

Even so, there are also quite a few attitudes, customs, social structures, and institutions in the US that would seem out of place in (most of) Europe. In fact, the sentence may even hold true for many comparisons within Europe.

I doubt, one could conclude that -- due to such differences -- one country or nation is more liberal then the other.

<comment><USER16> It wasn't unexpected. :)

What matters is the nature of those differences. For example, in one place it's considered acceptable for a government to regularly collect money for a church. In the other, this would look very suspicious.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> I think there is no SCIENCE behind any Religion, Race, Class, or Caste, because all CURRENT living humans mtDNA is derived from a SINGLE woman.

And she is the MOST-RECENT common ancestor of all humans alive on Earth today with respect to matrilineal descent. <http://tr.im/kvhm></comment>


Once humans will get their hands on asteroids, it would be a game-changer - <AUTHOR> https://twitter.com/Yuval_Halevi/status/1147446219842760705 <comment><USER2> > quintillions USD

Oh dear Mr. Halevi.

The value of metals in asteroids can be massive if measured by their current value. If the scarcity of metals decreases, their price will collapse.

Primary sector produces just few percentages of global GDP. If you flood markets with markets with gold, palladium, platinum, copper, nickel etc. The share of mining sector in the economy is not going to increase.</comment>