I Am Not a Real Programmer - <AUTHOR> https://dev.to/andygeorge/i-am-not-a-real-programmer-1ogo <comment><USER2> Another imposter syndrome article.

I agree that the condition is real, but at some point we all have to take responsibility and control of our own careers.

Chances are, you were hired and qualified for the position you hold, with the understanding that there is room to grow within that position, and ideally, that is where you want to be your whole career.

Walking in to work everyday with a complete mastery over everything you do and write is a problem of its own.

For those odd jobs that are somewhere between support and development, calling yourself 'not a real programmer' is a ridiculous mentality to have. Being able to comb through a codebase to insert 5-10 lines of code that fix an issue is a delicate art. I know because I did it for 5 years. Editing black boxes is scary, especially in those instances where tests are scarce.

Embrace your role, and do the best you can. You will be happier for it.

<comment><USER3> > I agree that the condition is real, but at some point we all have to take > responsibility and control of our own careers.

Impostor Syndrome is, or has, become like Asperger's, where every dev thinks they have it. It's a "humblebrag". I honestly tell people I mentor, be confident, but humble. You have this job because you're qualified (or you made yourself qualified), so have confidence in your skills - sit up right, answer questions, take ownership. But also be humble. Don't be afraid to say I don't know, admit you don't know everything about developing.

It's OK To say "I don't know, but I'm doing my best, and if I did, I could answer you."

<comment><USER4> Maybe this is me being in a bubble or something, but I've never heard a developer (in school or at work) claim to have Aspergers. I've encountered many software developers who have experienced Imposter Syndrome.

<comment><USER5> It came weirdly into vogue around 2013-2014 I think? It wasn't a massive thing but I do remember it coming up far, far more often than it has before or after.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> I'm all for not gatekeeping who "real" programmers are. But I feel like we are doing entry-level developers a disservice when we repeat "Learn to code, it's easy FREE MONEY!" It's not. It's a slog. Programming gets very boring sometimes. It takes time.

Anybody else sick of the "Just gluing stuff together" and "I just copy and paste from stackoverflow hahaha" lines? It does not reflect my day-to-day at all. Whenever I hear someone say that, it shows they are early in their career or they are not spending their time learning outside of hacking together code.

More than anything, I find that NOBODY has already done what I'm currently doing, and that online resources other than primary documentation is mostly useless.

Programming is hard because you have to be constantly learning and there is SO MUCH TO LEARN. Not just programming languages, or mathematics, although THAT is a whole mountain to climb in itself. But other skills:

\- Communication, both internally and with customers

\- Project management, requirements gathering

\- Writing good documentation

\- Management, mentoring new developers

\- Marketing

\- Leadership

\- Other random software and tools that are NOT programming.

And NONE of this knowledge is going to come without study. We have worked hard to develop technologies and techniques to try and increase the probability of our projects succeeding.

"If you want to be a writer, you must do two things above all others: read a lot and write a lot. There's no way around these two things that I'm aware of, no shortcut." \- Stephen King

To be a great ANYTHING means being a great student first. Which means it behooves you to study and learn from the past before charging ahead.

<comment><USER7> > Programming gets very boring sometimes

Not to be contrary, but I've never found _programming_ to be boring. What I've found to be the biggest frustration of working as a professional programmer (25 years now) is the expectation that programming, shared by apparently everybody who doesn't program for a living, that programming is easy as long as you've read the "learn programming in 24 hours for dummies" book and put ridiculously unrealistic expectations on anybody who calls themselves a programmer of any level of experience. And, in my experience, protecting that what they're asking for is unreasonable is a waste of breath - "I can't deliver that in that time frame because I still don't even know what it is" is always met with "you have to, figure it out, lowly programmer".

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> I think like anything else, there are tiers to this profession. It's fair for someone in this position to call themselves a programmer but I think the OP is doing themselves an injustice by not taking the time to actually learn how to write code. Writings like this are fine, but a point should be made that progressing ones skillset is just as important as getting into the profession.

Otherwise, we support the notion that you don't need to learn how to solve problems to be a "Programmer". Which at its essence, is what a "Programmer" is.

<comment><USER9> I believe this why "coding interviews" are so controversial. Different people perhaps have a different definition of "programmer".

One person may think a "programmer" should know how to design/implement algorithms, while another would say algorithms are a library implementation issue.

<comment><USER8> I agree that may be part of it.

I think coding interviews are fine as long as they aren't insane like what you see a lot these days. We just need a good metric on how to know if the person I'm interviewing can solve general problems, my problems, and has the appetite to grow more.

That's really hard.

<comment><USER10> I still find a big part of coding interviews to be just looking at the quality of someone's code. The problem I've used for years as a take home coding test is not intended to be a test of ability to implement any particularly complex algorithms or to solve unfamiliar problems on the spot but more to see how people write code in the small. Many candidates still don't make a great showing on the basics unfortunately.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> It seems like a significant subset of the developer community, or at least that proportion of that posts online, is hung up on questions of identity as related to their career. E.g. whether they're a programmer or not, whether they're a "real" programmer, whether they're a skilled programmer, why type of programmer they are, and all manner of critique of _others_ answers to these questions and the set of assumptions and prejudices that underlie them.

While I can understand the instincts that drive this phenomenon, does anyone else not think it's all a bit self-absorbed and unnecessary? Like, why is it so important? Is your self-actualisation really so dependent on how you label the activities by which you make money? Bear in mind, to the vast majority of the population, the difference between somebody who "is" a programmer and somebody programs as part of an IT role is a barely existent irrelevance.

<comment><USER7> I think it's partly driven by fear - a fear that I myself share in spite of having a degree (or maybe because I have a degree?) that the standards are going to change, the ground is going to shift underneath their feet and they'll find themselves no longer employable as programmers, or as anything else after having nothing except programming in their background.

<comment><USER12> Every failed interview feels like this has already happened. Which is really not good for someone with a history of depression.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> This guy is definitely a programmer ("real" is a silly qualifier imo). However, he might want to reconsider calling himself a systems engineer, when it sounds like he means a sys admin (those are quite different things).

</comment><comment><USER14> I try to not call myself a "programmer" for the same reason I try to not put specific languages or platforms on my resume: I don't want to be pigeonholed into a single category. I don't like saying I'm a "Java Engineer" or an "F# programmer", since I want to be free to move around as needed.

Nowadays, usually when people ask what I do, I tell them that I'm an eccentric. This started as a joke, but I honestly feel that it has led to me finding more interesting jobs than I'd have had if I had just said I'm a "programmer".

<comment> 52-6F-62 I understand completely.

I usually describe myself as a Software Engineer or Software Architect because of the projects I undertake.

My current job title: _Digital Publishing Programmer_.

What does that mean: HR processes made it complicated-to-impossible to hire someone for generalist software purposes because it didn't comply with regulated pay schedules within the parent company. In other words, it doesn't really mean anything explicitly.

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> Impostor syndrome is just impostor syndrome until suddenly you do 20 interviews and nobody will hire you and you don't understand why.

</comment><comment><USER15> I think the tragedy here, is that people need to view themselves as "programmers" (by which I assume they mean software engineers) to feel valuable. It's like a paramedic / EMT arguing that they are "surgeons" because they perform some surgical procedures in the course of their work; that the bulk of surgery is cutting and stitching. The reality is that there is more to being a surgical doctor than performing surgery, yet a paramedic is still saving lives.

Rather than everyone trying to put themselves in the "programmer" box, and everyone saying "anyone is a programmer". Maybe the technicians need to see / be shown how vital what they do is to the business.

</comment><comment><USER16> I think a lot of us hire into jobs we 'grow into'.

When you find you've reached your level of incompetence, it's probably time to look for a way to move laterally. But if you find yourself still learning and growing into your role, then you've still got room to move up.</comment>


Technological Books you should read in 2020 - <AUTHOR> https://medium.com/@pchojecki/technological-books-you-should-read-in-2020-82ba23dda054 <comment><USER2> Yet another list of Amazon affiliate links from this same author (tag petacrunch-20).

Ironically, it's behind the Medium paywall.</comment>


Guava/wiki/GraphsExplained - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/google/guava/wiki/GraphsExplained <comment><USER2> Guava 20.0 adds Graphs as an abstract data type. This is great; graphs are immensely useful and doing them by hand is fraught with the usual peril of rolling your own implementation.

So most people would use JGraphT [1] or JUNG [2], which IMO have different focuses: JGraphT focuses solely on algorithms and datatypes, while JUNG branches out into visualization and has an emphasis on networking. This Guava Graph implementation is by the main author of JUNG, but targets a feature-set closer to that of JGraphT.

[1] [https://github.com/jgrapht/jgrapht](https://github.com/jgrapht/jgrapht) [2] [http://jung.sourceforge.net/](http://jung.sourceforge.net/)</comment>


Curation as a Service - <AUTHOR> https://www.billiondollarstartupideas.com/ideas/curation-as-a-service?ss_source=sscampaigns&ss_campaign_id=5ed69d90d4de5221016048a8&ss_email_id=5ed69dbe94c44c55af85b3a6&ss_campaign_name=Curation+as+a+Service <comment><USER2> Actually working on something like that.</comment>


Ask HN: Startup opportunities in bioinformatics - <AUTHOR> I'm a first-year computer science PhD student currently working in optimization and machine learning. For my PhD, I have a long-term goal of building a commercializable piece of technology (an algorithm, a piece of software, etc.) and hopefully turn it into a company. One potential area for this that seems exciting is bioinformatics. I was wondering if anyone here had any insight into developing bioinformatics technologies and turning them into a startup. Is bioinformatics a good field for this? Are there any examples of comp. bio. technologies that have been successfully commercialized?
Right now, most bioinformatics research that I see in universities seems to be more on the pure science side. I feel like in this kind of research, progress is extremely incremental, and one individual's work will have a noticeable impact only within a small community of academics.
Also, let me know if there are other promising areas besides bioinformatics that I should consider for what I would like to do.
Thank you! <comment><USER2> I run one of these companies, Seven Bridges Genomics. I'd encourage you to learn more about genomics, biology and the problems these fields are trying to solve. Technology is useful only insofar it solves a problem in a big market -- so instead of starting with a technology / picking an area; I'd start with a problem.

</comment><comment><USER3> There seems to be quite a lot of interest right now in companies trying to build platforms for cloud-based 'genetic-analysis-as-a-service', such as DNAnexus. The data management/storage and scaling problems in genomics are very real, but to a large extent these issues are not really specific to bioinformatics. There are also companies working on software for NGS, such as Real Time Genomics and Novocraft.

Historically, pure-play bioinformatics startups have had a pretty tough time, perhaps because the primary users have been academics who are loathe to pay for software. I think many of the successful ones also involve proprietary databases (eg. Ingenuity) or have deep scientific experience and expertise (eg. OpenEye).

The real opportunities at the moment are more likely in companies that are tightly integrating genomics technologies with diagnostics and services. There are many, but for example, look at Foundation Medicine in cancer, or Counsyl or Natera in prenatal diagnostics.

</comment><comment><USER4> First thing you can do is to 1\. Contact few bioinformatics professor/researcher from your university (If your university has a bioinformatics dept) or other universities and ask what are the problems nagging them for a long time. You will have an idea.

You can also contact industries (23andme). For more info go to <http://bionet.awardspace.info/company.html> and see what bioinformatics companies do and what interests you.

2\. In healthcare it is just an open field. You can take open data from data.gov and analyze and if you can develop an algorithm which can predict the likelihood of hospitalization post surgery in a patient then insurance companies will be drooling over that.

</comment><comment><USER5> I personally don't know much about bioinformatics but what I do know about potential commercial applications has come from hearing speakers from Singularity University discuss what they are working on. You might be interested in looking into <http://singularityu.org/> or their FutureMed conference <http://futuremed2020.com/>

Good luck!

</comment><comment><USER6> Don't know if you consider it as bioinformatics but tissue 3D printing is an interesting field. <http://forums.reprap.org/list.php?194>

If you want to keep working on machine learning, your progress also depends on which databases you can access. Other ideas: \- Predicting how cells evolve and grow over time. \- Predicting how viruses spread</comment>


Business Bankruptcy Snapshot: Toys R Us, Inc - <AUTHOR> https://www.inforuptcy.com/business-bankruptcy-snapshot-toys-r-us-inc <comment><AUTHOR> This is the declaration Of David A. Brandon, Chairman Of The Board And Chief Executive Officer Of Toys "R" Us, Inc.</comment>


Google Analytics & Webmaster Tools Now Track the Impact of Tweets, Likes & +1s - <AUTHOR> http://mashable.com/2011/06/30/google-analytics-social-plugin/

<comment><USER2> Postrank, is that you?

</comment><comment><USER3> On the whole, I find the new GA to be very clunky and a lot harder to navigate than the previous version.

Now that they are adding new features like this, it might be time to start getting used to it.

<comment><USER4> Clunky? That's the opposite of how I see it. It's much more stripped down; the nav menu is far simpler and less bloated.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> It's not yet showing as a feature in my analytics, but I look forward to testing it out.

<comment><USER6> First, you have to be logged into the "new" Google Analytics. Second, it shows +1 tracking by default. To use it for Facebook and Twitter, you will have to modify your GA script. More here: [http://code.google.com/apis/analytics/docs/tracking/gaTracki...](http://code.google.com/apis/analytics/docs/tracking/gaTrackingSocial.html?utm_source=helpCenter&utm_medium=helpCenter&utm_campaign=social&utm_content=socialPluginTracking)

<comment><USER7> Can't wait to see people integrate things like the Reddit's upvote buttons or Stumble's thumbs up into Analytics.</comment></comment></comment>


Botnet pierces Microsoft Live through audio captchas - <AUTHOR> http://www.theregister.co.uk/2010/03/22/microsoft_live_captcha_bypass/

<comment><USER2> I was talking about this with Ashish (who's fairly well known in the Python community as a web automater, and broke WP hash cash a couple of years ago) at PyCon a little while back: even though audio files have distortion applied to them, the threshold at which you can distory audio data and still have it be understood is much lower than with visual data - so a lot of people look to test to speech as a CAPTCHA breaking mechanism.</comment>


Mac security and crying Wolf - <AUTHOR> http://daringfireball.net/2011/05/wolf

<comment><USER2> One thing I have noticed in the Mac security space over the last few months are increasing occurrences of Trojans.

It seems that with the lessons Apple has learned with curated app stores and the launch of the Mac App store Apple may actually be working hard to mitigate this risk.

As an example I have an easier time telling my mother in law that if she wants to install software on her iMac use the app store. Compare that with trying to educate my dad on what is safe to put on his laptop.

</comment><comment><USER3> Considering how The Boy Who Cried Wolf ends, maybe we should take each article's merits individually and not just make fun of them?

<comment><USER4> Agree. And you turn the point around very nicely. I don't think Gruber used a very good metaphor to make his point.

He also doesn't provide any sort of counter-argument. I'm curious as to whether he thinks there actually is something about the Mac that makes it more resistant to hackers/malware.</comment></comment>


Theranos Founder Elizabeth Holmes Attempts to Clear Up the Bad Blood with WSJ - <AUTHOR> http://techcrunch.com/2015/10/21/theranos-founder-elizabeth-holmes-attempts-to-clear-up-the-bad-blood-with-wsj/ <comment><USER2> WSJ posted a statement in response to Holmes' interview. [http://www.dowjones.com/press-room/wall-street-journal- state...](http://www.dowjones.com/press-room/wall-street-journal-statement- regarding-theranos-ceo-interview-at-wsjd-live/)

> Nothing said at the conference by Ms. Holmes refutes the accuracy of the > reporting done by John Carreyrou or of the articles, which were subject to > the Journal's rigorous and careful editing process. Contrary to Ms. Holmes's > claims, the Journal shared all facts and anecdotes published in the articles > with Theranos before publication, in accordance with our longstanding > editorial practice and principles. The company was given plenty of > opportunity to respond. Ms. Holmes declined interview requests from the > Journal for more than five months, but the general counsel and outside > counsel of Theranos provided significant input, which was fairly reflected > in the articles.

> We note that Ms. Holmes sought to challenge the reliability of our sources, > but it remains the fact that she doesn't know from whom the information for > our articles was gathered. We assure her and our readers that our sources > were well positioned to know the information they provided about Theranos, > and they were vetted before publication.

> The Journal reiterates that our articles about Theranos were thoroughly > reported, fair and wholly accurate.

</comment><comment><USER2> It sounds like she has a fantastic PR team and has been coached very well. But, and perhaps this is unfair, it's starting to feel like there are too many denials here for all of the accusations to be wrong.

> Theranos has reportedly dialed back its 240 blood tests to just one. > According to the Wall Street Journal, a source close to the matter told the > paper that Theranos has caved under regulatory pressure from the Food and > Drug Administration and has stopped collecting drops of blood for all but > one of its tests. [...]

> "We've been transitioning to the FDA system voluntarily. As of right now, > we're only using it for the one test," Holmes told Bloomberg.

This answer could be deceptive. "Transitioning to it voluntarily" could mean anything from that they made decision on their own, to that the FDA has declared its intention to file a lawsuit against them to get them to stop, and they caved to that request, and no lawsuit has been filed yet. (They have not yet been compelled to, i.e., it is voluntary). Meanwhile there are claims that the FDA has concerns and conducted an unannounced inspection. I don't think Holmes has claimed that no such inspection has taken place.

On the other hand, similar publications have published hatchet pieces against companies I've worked for that advanced one point of view strongly without any balance or contrary point of view, all while doing a very good job of _seeming_ balanced and reasonable. So, who knows.

I wonder about one aspect: why does Theranos bother with venous draws if the only thing they do with that blood is put it through commercially available machines? They've just said that the unique service that they provide is by thumb prick only. So they've wasted a bunch of money on equipment and process for lab results that are just the ones that are already commercially available. Why bother? I imagine they must have had to purchase some equipment just to perform their own experiments on their testing methodology, versus existing methods, but why go into commercial operation? There must be a different scale of capital and operating costs involved in that. As an investor, it's not where I'd want them to focus unless there was a good reason, yet it sounds like it constitutes the vast majority of their current business.

Perhaps it is a strategy to build up their brand somehow? But venous draws miss their key differentiator that is the premise of their company ... I don't know what to think.</comment>


IBM purged 'gray hairs' and 'old heads' as it launched Millennial Corps: lawsuit - <AUTHOR> https://www.mercurynews.com/2019/03/27/ibm-purged-gray-hairs-and-old-heads-as-it-launched-millennial-corps-lawsuit/ <comment><USER3> Age discrimination for older software engineers is real. It gets enforced in subtle ways. It is up or out culture at the end.

Age discrimination doesn't get the same coverage as gender, race or sexual orientation discrimination. I wish companies also added age in the diversity reports, and if they did talk about why there are such a few percentage of older folks in engineering. If we wish to make engineering career to span several decades, we should all actively try to get o address this.

<comment><USER4> > _" why there are such a few percentage of older folks in engineering"_

No, there's a small percentage of older folks in _software engineering_. In almost any other engineering discipline, you'll find many older engineers who enjoy long careers, and whose perceived value often grows with age. That's because actual engineering principles change very slowly.

Most software jobs do not involve much engineering in the traditional sense; most of the effort is keeping up with the constant churn of flavor-of-the-week libraries and frameworks, information that will be often be outdated and useless in a few years.

<comment><USER5> _> will be often be outdated and useless in a few years._

Often it's "useless now and outdated in a few years". It's amazing how much software today justifies its existence through a weird self-referential loop that isn't connected to solving any problems outside of itself. Complex tools to manage complexity and so on.

<comment><USER6> MSBuild... _cough_

<comment><USER7> Msbuild, MSdeploy, and SqlPackage are those kinds of techs where I profoundly resent the man-hours I've spent learning to work around their quirks.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> I know I will be downvoted to hell by the young folks that don't know how things work, but the only way to fix the absurd power imbalance and worker hostile laws we have in the USA is through strong unions.

It is such an obvious thing that you can even spot when union-busting laws were passed in the trends for inflation adjusted wages.

Software engineers think they are irreplaceable and our current conditions will last forever but it's a lie.

Good news is it seems we have a new generation of politicians worried about it but we as workers have to do our part or we will progressively lose more and more of our hard earned "privilege" and make sure more can benefit from it.

<comment><USER9> I'm 45 and the last thing I want is a union. Unions tend to make all workers equal even those who work harder/smarter. If I am 50, staying current with technology, kept my resume up to date, and kept my network strong, why would I want to be lumped in with someone who has done none of those things?

<comment><USER10> What an odd thing to say in a thread about discrimination.

"The last thing I want is someone to protect me from widespread discrimination, after all, why would I? Look at all my merits!"

The point of age discrimination is that none of your merits matter, the only thing that matters is that someone doesnt like your age, and you're out.

<comment><USER9> I've also said that I think ageism is overblown in software engineering. Yes, this is a clear cut case of discrimination what happened with IBM. But, IBM is far from being a software engineering focused company.

I also don't live in a fantasy land where the world is fair. I've learned a long time ago not to depend on a _job_ for my livelihood, but my _career_. For software engineers who have kept their skills current, live in a major metropolitan area in the US, and have kept their network strong, in 2019, I know for a fact that companies are falling all over themselves to hire us. How many people at IBM fall in that category?

Given the choice between unionizing and taking the tact I recommend - <USER2> jobs anytime you see that your skills are falling behind the market, keeping your resume up to date, keeping in touch with former managers and coworkers and just really not being complacent- I would prefer keeping my future in my own hands.

I said in another post that I'm 45, Black, with a mild disability that only allows me to type with one hand. If anyone theoretically should have to worry about discrimination it's me.

<comment><USER11> >I also don't live in a fantasy land where the world is fair

So we just settle for how things are? Why not at least to try to cut out some of the bullshit that absolutely doesn't need to be there?

<comment><USER9> Because I have bills to pay right now.

But the alternative that is being proposed - unions - aren't about fairness if your definition of fair is that people who work harder should be awarded more.

<comment><USER12> Can you provide some concrete evidence to back up your claim that unions treat everyone the same? Unions exist in hundreds of occupations in the US that have clear career progression. Police, teachers, pro athletes, pilots, manufacturing, and many many more utilize unions for labor negotiations.

I don't buy this sweeping generalization argument at all.

<comment><USER9> "Denver teachers strike in bid to dismantle pay-for-performance system"

[https://www.washingtonpost.com/education/2019/02/11/denver-t...](https://www.washingtonpost.com/education/2019/02/11/denver- teachers-strike-bid-dismantle-pay-for-performance- system/?noredirect=on&utm_term=.2e6dffacb736)

Police Unions: "Why We Fight Against Performance Based Pay"

[http://www.mesampa.com/why-we-fight-against-performance- pay/](http://www.mesampa.com/why-we-fight-against-performance-pay/)

"Merit Pay for Police Officers Is Overruled by Labor Board"

[https://www.nytimes.com/1999/03/03/nyregion/merit-pay-for- po...](https://www.nytimes.com/1999/03/03/nyregion/merit-pay-for-police- officers-is-overruled-by-labor-board.html)

"Why It Can Take Six Years to Fire an Inappropriate or Ineffective Teacher"

[https://www.publicschoolreview.com/blog/why-it-can-take- six-...](https://www.publicschoolreview.com/blog/why-it-can-take-six-years-to- fire-an-inappropriate-or-ineffective-teacher)

<comment><USER8> Wow, that sounds really bad... until you read why. Have you tried to see if "pay for performance" schemes are weasel words by conservative politicians to institute damaging policies?

The brainwashing runs deep in this country, a couple generations was taught to fight against their own interests in support of oligarchs and corporations and was sold as "democracy". We're witnessing the terminal phase of that, where it goes from here is up to us but you're killing all faith I have that we will have better lives in my lifetime.

Some are born to be willing slaves and some are born to break the chains.

<comment><USER9> From the NYT - the favorite magazine of the right:

 _Even though the pay plan meant more money for many of its members, the Patrolmen 's Benevolent Association filed an improper practice petition against the city, arguing that any changes in pay rates must be negotiated through collective bargaining._

Tell me again why I would want this?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> I don't know if the suit has merit but I was pretty amazed at the stuff IBM wanted me to sign when I left. There is a saying that every clause in a contract tells a story, well there were a _lot_ of stories in my separation agreement :-). Comparing it to the agreement I signed when I left Google it was clear that over its lifetime, IBM has been sued a _lot._ :-)

<comment><USER9> I'm usually down voted a lot on threads like these because I usually say that ageism is overblown (I'm 45). But when you have smoking guns like:

 _One in-house presentation showed that this posture meant doubling the proportion of workers receiving negative performance evaluations, so 3,000 employees could be laid off and replaced with "early professionals," according to the suit...

IBM made presentations to its senior executives calling for IBM to evaluate its long-term employees more harshly, to use those negative evaluations to justify selecting long-term employees for lay-off, and to replace these employees with 'EPs'— IBM management short-hand for 'early professionals.'" _

It's pretty obvious.

<comment><USER13> I tend to agree with you that ageism is over blown but that statement isn't a "simple" statement because ageism is complex.

There are institutional issues, where a single job can take 5 years to learn do do efficiently but company policy is to give raises every year to people who meet expectations (called a "salary ratchet"). In such a situation, if someone has been doing the same job for 15 years they probably have 10 years of raises that were "seniority" based rather than "skill" based.

The discrepancy between what it costs to get the 'skill' to do a job versus keeping someone on who has a lot of history can easily reach a breaking point. Is that ageism? Or is it a failed compensation policy? Would it be better if a company said "The max we are going to pay for this position is $X" and once you get to $X you won't be getting any more raises in this job."? That might work for some jobs, it sounds a bit like forced attrition in others.

There is also skills movement, which is to say that an engineer that has developed skills and understanding in a particular "stack" may find that when that stack is no longer current, their skill level on the new "stack" is functionally identical to a new hire, with a bonus of additional wisdom. But is that pay the same as their current pay?

People change jobs to get an increase in pay, which works until it doesn't. People rarely accept a reduction in pay when they transfer within a company. It's hard to internalize how you are "worth" $X in one role, but only worth $0.8X in a different role. So that transaction has the person leaving and someone getting hired who currently only makes $0.75X and they get a bump up to $0.8X and they are happy to come on board.

The "new" thing in HR would appear to be that salary ratchets are dead and variable pay on a fixed base is the thing. This is a fairly common situation at big tech companies these days, base pay plus some variable modifier, either additional pay bonuses or stock 'units' that convert to a variable number of shares based on contribution.

My guess is that today's new engineers will find that 10 to 15 years from now their pay is no longer growing and their bonuses and RSUs never seem to quite be all that much better than they were the previous year. Is that a good thing? Bad thing? I don't have an opinion one way or the other, but as a career, engineering is becoming a lot more 'standardized' than it was.

The way I see this expressing itself is that older engineers who are up front about being ok with more median salaries tend to get hired. Ones who insist on their 'top of the tech ladder' salary from the previous place where they worked for a decade or more, have a much harder time of it.

I know from being both an engineer, a manager, and an executive that they equations usually have nothing to do with age and more to do with work product per unit $ applied. It is easier to hire someone below their optimum value and give them a pay raise than it is to hire someone at a premium and ask them to take a pay cut to bring them in line. I also know that Google tried to do this with their 'slotting' system and it had a lot of issues (mostly negative), and that the stack ranking type systems that Microsoft used to have were similarly designed to prune toward the optimum value. Bottom line is that there isn't a good system that I know of for having this kind of salary discussion that works.

<comment><USER14> I see a lot of software folks, myself included, not "solving for compensation" because we make pretty good money compared to other professions, find the work stimulating, and don't want the stress of job hopping.

But it's also import to remember that any year your "merit increase" is lower than inflation, you are actually getting a pay _reduction_ (and official inflation usually lags behind rent and some other expenses).

<comment><USER15> In SV, engineer pay raises are what cause rent inflation, ironically.

<comment><USER9> And that's also why I have no interest in SV. I like my nice, big, cheap house in the burbs that I could get with an FHA loan by putting less than $12K down....

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> This appears to be the initial complaint, from 2018: [https://regmedia.co.uk/2018/09/17/ibmdiscriminationsuit917.p...](https://regmedia.co.uk/2018/09/17/ibmdiscriminationsuit917.pdf)

On the surface, allowing recent hires to be exempt from performance-based layoff programs isn't particularly unethical, as they may still be ramping up. It certainly seems like there's substance here, though, beyond just "think _like_ a millennial" or "give recent hires a chance" rhetoric. Will be interesting to follow. It's essential to our entire industry that lawsuits like this draw lines in the sand - we're all in danger as we age if big tech can get away with age discrimination.

<comment><USER17> It's generally very difficult to get younger STEM people on board with this. They often believe themselves to be different or just straight up better than their predecessors. For them, it doesn't matter because they're clearing not going to be ousted, or are so short sighted that they believe it won't matter if/when it happens to them.

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> I am 63 and I'm having an amazing career right now. I am levels and levels above where I ever thought I'd be. It's too stimulating to retire. I've always been attracted to the hardest problems I could find and that paid off, but it took a long time. I don't know how people do that quickly, unless it's partly luck. I'm not Ivy League so I had to earn every opportunity.

<comment><USER19> Yours sounds like an incredible career. I've never worked with any developer who was past their 40s. What did you do throughout your career? Did you experience ageism or any hurdles based on your age? I saw in your comments you worked for MS, was working for a large corporate easier than getting involved in a startup or small business?

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> Never trust anyone who attempts to get you to waive your right to collective action, or attempts to force you in to binding arbitration. This is especially true when it comes to employment.

There is _never_ any benefit for you, and it means that they will, one day, try to screw you.

<comment><USER20> There was a direct benefit to waiving their rights:

> Employees were offered severance worth a month's salary, continuing health > and life insurance coverage for a period depending on time with the firm, > free career counseling, and up to $2,500 for skills training

<comment><USER21> That's a lot less than the statutory minimum in the UK - I got 9 Months from BT on Voluntary Redundancy 15+ years ago.

Some Higher grades got 100,000 k and 6 years extra pension.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> I worked on a team that had a lot of amazing talent (many members of the team had 20+ years of experience in the field). Got a new manager who wanted to reduce cost and bring in "new ideas". Funny thing was: those experienced engineers had been promoting many of those new ideas for quite a while to no avail. End result was the green team that was brought in ended up taking way too long to redo everything and missed the market opportunity. They also missed the boat on the new ideas, confusing different techniques and tech for new product features that would be useful for customers. The whole thing died.

</comment><comment><USER23> I think the appropriate market response is to start pricing this behavior into our salary asks as younger engineers.

Rather than assuming a long career with increasing pay, point to cases like this in salary negotiations. Your highest income generating years maybe be 30-40.

<comment><USER24> That is my plan, invest like I will be forced to retire by 50. I mean, I'll probably pick up some 'fun' min wage job in my 50s to get social interaction. But I save heavily assuming the worst

<comment><USER25> I feel like beavis constantly thinking "FIRE FIRE FIRE" at work

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> IBM is in a bind. They were so behind for so many years that anyone talented left. The ones who stayed were around were there because of tenure, not talent. What do you do when your best employees are gone and your best days are past? Share buybacks, overmarketing, and aggressive pursuit of license audits. But none of those require a large senior employee base. So they took the most aggressive policy possible while still plausibly remaining inside the law.

</comment><comment><USER27> In case you missed the deep discussion on this "wake up" call from 2 months ago.

"64 and unemployed: One man's struggle to be taken seriously as a job applicant"

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19022000](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19022000)

[https://www.cbc.ca/radio/thesundayedition/the-sunday- edition...](https://www.cbc.ca/radio/thesundayedition/the-sunday-edition-for- january-27-2019-1.4989313/64-and-unemployed-one-man-s-struggle-to-be-taken- seriously-as-a-job-applicant-1.4991626)

</comment><comment><USER28> I'm in my late 20s and I've already learned not to trust our society/economy to ensure that I'll have a stable financial future. You need to have a plan and be doubly hedged against shittiness. Keep costs low. Save and invest. Job hop as much as necessary to boost your income. Try to build a business that can generate wealth (but don't depend on that outcome).

Above all trust no one to care for you. Not your government. Not a company offering options. Not even FAANG. Be ruthless and look out for yourself and those you love first and foremost. No one else will.

<comment><USER29> Not sure i buy this.

Life is not about accumulating the most amount of wealth.

Its about building meaningful relationships that last a life time.

Why would someone "job hob" if they really like the team/company? Yes you may make "more" at the next Co. but chances are your team/management will suck big time.

Find what you love/who you love and stick with it.

<comment><USER9> This has to be the worse piece of advice I've read in a long time and I read r/cscareerquestions.

If you stay at a job you love one of two things will happen.

\- you will get cost of living wages while people doing your same job will come in and get market wages.

\- you will "love" your job and your job won't reciprocate and you will find yourself unable to find a new one because you haven't kept your network strong, your resume up to date, or your skillset current and you will be crying "ageism" while people who have done all of the above won't have the same issue.

<comment><USER29> im not talking about situations where you love your job and your job "does not love you back". Im talking about situations where its mutual. in those very rare situations you stay and dont move around because:

\- you do get your salary bumped every year with consistent raises \- you get promoted and grow along with the company.

Its rare but it happens. when it happens you stick with the company and build something great.

<comment><USER9> I bet the people at IBM thought the love was mutual too....

<comment><USER29> Its hard to find these days a decent company that is run properly and that really cares for its employees.

i just finished a cycle of interviews and hiring managers viewed long stay at a company as a definite positive. They in fact disliked job hoppers (every 2-3 years new job) as it damages companies in the long run according to them.

<comment><USER9> If the companies want people to stay they can have compensation policies that base raises on a combination of market rates and the extra value they add to the company. The company is just as interested in maximizing their profits as the employee is in maximizing their income.

Both parties need to understand that employment is purely transactional. It's that way for all companies. Netflix was honest about it. The famous presentation that "we are like a professional sports team not a family."

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER30> Companies shouldn't be allowed to force arbitration on protected classes. Employees shouldn't even be allowed to sign over that right. If IBM is found innocent, the laws need to change.

<comment><USER31> Given the power imbalance that exists between employers and employees arbitration should be illegal in employment contracts.

</comment></comment><comment> a-dub "let's fire all the people who will actually do the horrifically boring work our company actually does that makes a lot of money so that young people who would never work here can replace them!". brilliant!!!

<comment><USER32> I've found that a lot of that horrifically boring work could easily be optimized or automated, but the old pensioners have little inventive to budge.

</comment></comment><comment><USER33> I wonder how much age bias is to blame for the constant reinvention of the wheel and hype-tech in the industry

</comment><comment><USER34> And the strategy works! [https://imgur.com/a/hpeFTyP](https://imgur.com/a/hpeFTyP)

<comment><USER35> For some definition of "works", indeed.

</comment></comment><comment><USER36> I think the hard truth here is that there will always be clever ways to get around anti-age discrimination laws and companies will always optimize to pay employees less even if they project a culture antithetical to that.

I wonder what the graph would look like at i.e. FANG in terms of average age per employee over time. My understanding is that they've been hiring undergrads very aggressively in the past few years such that the trend would be similar to more brazen companies such as IBM in terms of declining age of employees. It's happening everywhere in very subtle ways. LPT: don't get old? \s.

<comment><USER37> I disagree. This attitude is analogous to the US approach to healthcare, which is a compelling story until you examine one, then a few, then dozens of other industrialized countries' implementation of health care policy.

</comment></comment><comment><USER38> Age discrimination in technology is alive and well, flourishing under the veils of "over qualified" and "culture fit" and "no experience with the xyz product". I have had many great phone interviews. On site, in the presence of hiring decision makers, while I look like a typical white corporate employee, the gray hairs blending in with brown are visible enough for the comments such as, "this role may not be challenging enough for you", and the end result is being over qualified. Not too old for them, just too qualified. Makes everyone feel better. If and when I need surgery, I hope my surgeon is overqualified! But thecreal focus is on tools. "Do you have x years experience with the xyz software product?" I spent at least a decade of my career evaluating new technology...And implementing some of it. A tool is a tool. But what is the process? What is the purpose of the tool? A person says they have 5 years experience with a Milwaukee hammer. That's what the job req says is required. This person gets hired because the person with 7 years weilding a Craftsman hammer doesn't have the Milwaukee hammer experience. But what is the purpose? In the end, the 5 year Milwaukee experience person gets the job but still can't hammer in a nail without bending the nail. And places nails with no regard for rhe building code. Experience is not about the tool, but that is not what today's HR hiring/vetting process is about. ISAM, VTAM, DB2, Paradox, Oracle, Sybase, SQL Server, nosql, hadoop... tools. Third Normal Form? Data dictionary? Index optimization? Processes not addressed by a specific tool. Similarly, does memory management enhancements make the C coding language that much different? But I digress. Hire the experience with the process, not necessarily with a tool. Especially the "flavour of the year" tools.

</comment><comment><USER39> Forced arbitration is a racket and needs to be outlawed.

</comment><comment><USER40> I've always wondered why you don't see self-funded startups that just hire old people. The customers don't care.

</comment><comment><USER41> I don't know the merits of this particular suit, but I'd say everyone working at the company, or considering it, should see how it plays out.

There's a bit of a general rule that applies to a lot of situations, and can be phrased many ways. One way is: someone who is mean to others, but nice to you, will be mean to you.

</comment><comment><USER42> It would seem that "experience" is of little value in information technology, while knowledge of the latest technologies is all that is valued.

It says something about the industry that (it appears) there are few lessons to learn over time. Perhaps the term software "engineering" is a total misnomer.

</comment><comment><USER43> _The suit took aim at a 2006 IBM internal report on employee demographics that purportedly called older workers "gray hairs" and "old heads," and concluded that younger workers were "generally much more innovative and receptive to technology than baby boomers."_

Ouch. That seems pretty damning.

</comment><comment><USER44> _> IBM appeared to be winding down the Millennial Corps, cited in several legal actions as evidence the firm was biased against younger workers._

Pretty awkward typo in the article. Should be "bias towards younger" or "discriminate against older"

</comment><comment><USER45> Just reading some of the comments here makes me want to ask: is there an opportunity to disrupt the whole interviewing / hiring process with something along the lines of the show The Dating Game?.. where employers know a limited amount of data to make a hire?

Could some private company vet candidates for skills, culture and level of experience and provide clients profiles of candidates without name, race, age, etc... essentially scrubbed?

Would this solve problems, or make more?

<comment><USER14> Didn't California forbid employers from asking about salary history?

I think it's ripe for disruption, maybe more so outside the US. Many otherwise progressive countries still expect a headshot with your CV.

<comment><USER21> Its very surprising that Places like Germany get away with this.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER46> This is always so weird to me because I feel like older software engineers would have so much wisdom and be able to see through the hype and fads

</comment><comment><USER47> I think the more experience a person has with software engineering, the more they write efficient and secure software, and quickly. With junior developers, it takes longer to produce working code and it is buggier and less efficient. Same with construction work. Alot of this work is complicated. People who have decades of experience generally perform better.

</comment><comment><USER48> Holberger has noticed that there is almost no one in the basement involved in CPU design who is over 35. What happens to old CPU engineers? Holberger is 26 now, and though not exactly on his deathbed, he is curious about what a computer engineer does "afterward."

This was written in 1981 about late 70's in "Soul of a new Machine" Nothing new.

<comment><USER34> Not exactly the same thing. A 35 year old in 1981 would have entered college in 1964; "computer designer" would not have been a career path most people would have been familiar with. The entire field was relatively new, so it of course tended to trend younger. We tend to forget that virtually the entire history of our industry fits in one human lifetime.

</comment></comment><comment><USER49> Millenials are the largest and most educated generation ever. Also the first to grow up using computers from a young age. And, incidentally, the first generation with less purchasing power than the previous generation.

Why the fuck wouldn't a company opt to hire the most educated, computer savvy workers for less money?

<comment><USER50> > Millenials are [...] the first to grow up using computers from a young age.

No, they aren't.

\-- Generation Xer who grew up using computers from a young age, and was not at all alone in that.

<comment><USER49> You're in the minority, or are a very young Gen Xer.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER51> This depends on the company - where I work I regularly see people retire after 25-30 years of tenure, and it is a large, publicly traded company. The CEO/board sets the tone. It is possible to meet a company's bottom line AND treat your employees at the same footing as your clients/customers.

</comment><comment><USER52> This is 100% cost reduction, not age discrimination. Correlation != Causation

</comment><comment><USER53> Unpopular opinion: most 'gray hairs' I've worked with absolutely deserved to be let go. Keep in mind this is a sample size of 1 company, however.

I'm 100 percent against age discrimination, and some of my mentors fall in this age range. That said, I've also worked for a big corp full of 'distinguished engineers', which essentially in our company meant they did something really interesting in the 80s or 90s. Many rested on some one accomplishment, and found ways to interject themselves onto new projects while giving extremely vague or extremely outdated advice.

Our industry is ageless, if you keep up to date and keep learning. If you're relying on tenure, you're going to have a bad time.

</comment><comment><USER37> Management at IBM is so damaged and disfunctional that this is a primary strategic intiative that consumed their top level planning. I dont see great product coming from all this.

</comment><comment><USER54> This scares me a lot at 35 years old. Is my tech job going to put me out of work in a few years? Should I be looking for something else? It's scary honestly.

</comment><comment><USER55> I think age discrimination is really hard to prove because the plausible deniability is so strong. For one, older workers make more -- so discrimination can be masked as reducing costs.

Secondly, management is usually older, so if you're reshuffling divisions and reducing management overhead that also disproportionately affects older workers.

There are other tactics that I've seen used like holding those with higher pay grades to stricter requirements, making it easier to get rid of them.

All and all, I can't really see I being found at fault. I'd bet on a settlement being reached.

</comment><comment><USER56> [https://outline.com/bMsZxj](https://outline.com/bMsZxj)

</comment><comment><USER57> Something for the younger generations to look forward to.

</comment><comment><USER58> When your generation has slogans like:

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jack_Weinberg#%22Don%27t_trust...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jack_Weinberg#%22Don%27t_trust_anyone_over_30%22)

what do you expect from the kids and grandkids.

<comment><USER59> > my one sentence in history turns out to be something I said off the top of > my head which became completely distorted and misunderstood

So yay on you for distorting it some more.

<comment><USER58> It was distorted _at the time_ ; it became a popular slogan for throngs of hippies.

<comment><USER59> No, it really did not. It became popular for the media and right-wing figures to _claim_ it became a popular slogan.

Quoth Wikipedia: "The saying then went viral, becoming a favorite for reporters and columnists wishing to ridicule the young, the New Left, or the hippie/Yippie movement"

It's still being used that way. You're a shining example.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER60> What is the problem? If they are valuable, they can surely get another job. if they are not, why should IBM keep them around?

</comment><comment><USER61> Honestly looking for discussion: Why should we treat ages all the same? Age does change a person, physically/ mentally/ emotionally. It would seem that some companies and industries are better served by the young and some the old. Why is there a problem with that?

Clearly these companies aren't firing the old out of spite, are there are reasons?

<comment><USER33> What do you value? You can also make this argument to advocate ignoring web accessibility because its not a cost benefit tradeoff that is worth a single entity's bottom line for the sake of the small percentage of people that are disabled. Private actors in the capitalist economy regularly make very shortsighted decisions. It's up to us to establish the boundaries in which those decisions get made, and to some extent, our laws are a reflection of our values. What kind of world do you want your possibly disabled children to grow up in? (Edit: and what kind of sentiment do you want to be established in society and the industry when you are 50+ years old and looking for a job?)

</comment></comment><comment><USER62> I'll care when wage discrimination against younger works is made illegal.

<comment><USER63> Wouldn't it make sense for you to care now since you're guaranteed to get old but you're not guaranteed to become any younger?

<comment><USER41> "A society grows great when old [people] plant trees in whose shade they know they shall never sit."

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER64> No-one gave me a job when I was a young engineer. Now, why is it bad when your swap young people for older folks that might just sit on their desk and counting their days until retirement? If they have anything to offer I am sure they can find a new job easily on the market. Seriously.

IBM, well done!

<comment><USER37> One day you will be old and will remember these things you said.

<comment><USER64> Doubt it. After years of nightmarish struggling I feel well prepared to every challenge that I may face in the future (this includes health challenges by the way :-) ). In the end I realize it was always meant to be that way.

But this is your only argument why I should care about this older folks?

<comment><USER65> You should care about older folks because discrimination against the elderly is illegal and is a signal to your employees that they will not be valued at your company based on their merits but instead valued for a quality they have no control over and thus reduce morale in your workforce. Furthermore, as the lifespan expectations of humanity grows, we can anticipate that the economic view will also expand- more older people means more customers for products regarding their needs, more jobs available to understand their needs.

<comment><USER64> Ah. So discriminating against young is okay?

I assume if they can perform they will find a new job in this job market very quickly. Just on merits.

"reduce morale in your workforce" I don't know how old you are but this sentence lacks wisdom. Companies are never grateful or anything. In fact, it sounds to me like career advice from the last century. The time for employees is over, you better get your own shit together. Pursuing a corporate career can be a very dangerous thing. I remember a post from a MIT lawyer who observed how his mid 50 peers were either making a shitload of money (MDs, laywers) or struggling (engineers in their mid 50ies) and based on his observations he said that when even MIT graduates are struggling later in live this field then you should ask yourself if this is really a good field to pursue.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Ask HN: What do you first look for when diagnosing someone else's slow code? - <AUTHOR> I always look for a loop in the application logic over the result of a database query that fires off another query for each row (sometimes to the same table, even), instead of using a join.<p>How about you? <comment><USER2> Profile it.

If the profiler points to some awful thousand-line method and the cause isn't obvious, add logging statements to record elapsed time at several points within the method; use that to narrow down the cause.

Common culprits: nested loops (sometimes hidden by looping over function calls that contain loops of their own); database abuse; calls out to third-party services.

<comment><USER3> This except I just manually log timer statements because I haven't found a profiler I like so far.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> To be honest it is usually what you mentioned and if any obvious indexes were missed on the table.

After that it is generally a more formal investigation. Recently a coworker massively (like more than 100x) improved a vendor's product when he found, using an automated tool, that there was a huge area for improvement in the generation of links on a particular page. You might have seen syntax like

        reverse('app1.view.view1')

in Django

or

        Html.ActionLink(...)

In MVC. Well this app had to do something similar, but at the scale it was now doing it, its analogous method was far too slow and was really taking up the most time on the page.

<comment><USER5> Which tool?

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> A profiler will pinpoint the source of performance problems even when you can't recognize them by inspecting the source code.

</comment><comment><USER7> Loops, joins, making sure there are bind params used in queries so the DB engine will recognize them as the same query, and make sure there are indexes on columns being queried.

Also look at data volume. There may be much more data in table(s) after long usage and long after the code was originally written.

If it is a high throughput application you should have monitoring in place that can point you to where slowness may be. Some tools will having timings on queries, loops, HTML/XML generation, etc. If not, get a profiler.

Also make sure you are up to date on the latest stable release of the stack you are running. Performance or bug fixes might help.

</comment><comment><USER8> I check if there is a nice utility method to log timing information. If not, I add one and sprinkle the code with timer logs. Push the change to production, let it run for a bit, collect the logs & revert my commit. Easier to find culprit this way.

Bonus point if you push timing information as metrics to cloudwatch or whatever else you use. Important to look at stats like P90 for slow code that is not reproduced every time.

</comment><comment><USER9> I first look at the whole sourcecode itself, then at the database schema. I need to understand how it ticks.

I escalate only if I find nothing obvious, but most issues are obvious once I have even a basic understanding of how it works.

As you said with the loop, there are only so many ways to do things. With experience, you know them and their respective failure modes.

</comment><comment><USER10> I look for the basics. Is the code indented correctly? Consistent variable names? Redundant logic? Good abstractions? Usually, after you have fixed the basics whatever was the problem becomes obvious and trivial to fix.

</comment><comment><USER11> I install a profiler, like Ants performance profiler [no affiliate], to see what the code is doing.</comment>


Nokia Siemens Closes $975M Acquisition Of Motorola Solutions' Wireless Assets - <AUTHOR> http://techcrunch.com/2011/04/29/nokia-siemens-closes-975m-acquisition-of-motorola-solutions-wireless-network-assets/ <comment><USER2> Seems Motorola's handset business is not included.</comment>


First look at James Cameron's Movie: Avatar - <AUTHOR> http://io9.com/5302057/journalists-see-camerons-avatar-lose-their-minds

<comment><USER2> I don't like to read about movies that are supposed to be good.

It raises my expectations, and then I enjoy the movie less when I see it.

I think there are some in the movie world who take note of this. I think the previews for The Dark Knight were made with this in mind. In the first trailers there is very little pre- _view_ and much more building of anticipation without building expectation.

</comment><comment><USER3> If it takes ten years to truly learn a programming language, it might as well take ten years to make a true movie.

<comment><USER4> Perhaps it takes ten years to learn the language of film. In fact, it almost certainly does. But if you're spending ten years developing every product you launch, you're doing it wrong.

<comment><USER5> James Cameron has earned the right to take as long as he wants on his projects; he has one of the highest signal to noise ratios in Hollywood.

<comment><USER4> What other films has he made, out of curiosity? This is the first I've heard of his name.

<comment><USER6> Notable films from: <http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0000116/#director>

Titanic (1997) Terminator 2: Judgment Day (1991) The Abyss (1989) Aliens (1986) The Terminator (1984)

<comment><USER4> Ugh. Not the sort of person I'd expect to suddenly turn around and release a good movie. This story re: the graphics was interesting, though. I might give Avatar a shot.

<comment><USER7> > Not the sort of person I'd expect to suddenly turn around and release a good > movie.

Well, you shouldn't dismiss his movies just because some of them fall into the action/horror category.

In fact, you might want to consider watching them.

<comment><USER4> I've seen a few of the movies on that list. Titanic in particular stands out as a non-action/horror film on the list that was resoundingly mediocre.

<comment><USER5> The thing about a film like Titanic (and most other films in the epic genre) is you know the ending: the boat sinks, almost everybody dies. 'Personal heroism overwhelmed by unfortunate circumstances' is a pathetic narrative, in the most literal sense of the word pathetic: pathos is a literary device of reflecting a characters problems in their environment, eg it starts raining to show someone is sad. Normally this is terminally cheesy, but when its set in the context of a real event it's rather different. Films like this are not meant to leave you feeling satisfied.

You're welcome to email me if you want to vent on what you disliked about it. I work in film/TV so I'm quite interested in people's point of view.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> I know movies run on hype, and I know that I'm feeding the monster.

But still -- I'm really looking forward to this movie. Cameron is an excellent director, and the new technology angle is potentially jaw-dropping.

If nothing else it should be a great flick. Maybe it will be totally incredible. There's no downside to this.

</comment><comment><USER9> The problem with CGI is that it (almost) always looks fake. Cloverfield was a good movie until that goofy CGI monster came into frame. If Cameron figured out how to make CGI look real and I mean really real, Avatar will truly be a breakthrough.

<comment><USER10> Jurassic Park succeeded I felt.

<comment><USER11> Jurassic Park didn't make CGI look real; it just used real-looking models that happened to move.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> It sounds like Cameron may have beat the uncanny valley...</comment>


"Ideas are cheap, execution is everything" – prove it for $1 - <AUTHOR> https://www.ideasarecheap.net <comment><AUTHOR> (I made this)

I mostly did this because I wanted to see just how minimal you can make a site that sells something these days.

If I make any actual $ from it I'll update in here :-)</comment>


Small Indiana county sends more people to prison than San Francisco - <AUTHOR> http://www.nytimes.com/2016/09/02/upshot/new-geography-of-prisons.html <comment><USER2> It's interesting how the exact same facts can be described in so many different ways, in order to imply vastly different conclusions.

\-----

 _" This small Indiana county sends more people to prison than San Francisco"_

Implication - the county's law & order apparatus is dysfunctional and is oppressing the local population

\-----

 _" This small Indiana county has more convicted drug dealers than San Francisco"_

Implication - the county has a severe drug problem, and harsh efforts are needed to combat this problem

\-----

 _" This small Indiana county catches more hard-drug-dealers than San Francisco"_

Implication - either other counties are incompetent/indifferent in combating the selling of hardcore drugs, or this county is exceptionally good at achieving this goal.

\-----

 _" This small Indiana county leads in the nation in narrowing the racial- incarceration-gap"_

Implication - the county's law & order system is tough but fair, and should be a role model for others in pursuing White criminals just as vigorously as Minority criminals.

\-----

The phrasing involved in _" sending more people to prison"_ in particular, sweeps under the rug the fact that the people being sent to prison are dealing hard drugs, and spawning/enabling a generation of drug addicts whose lives are going to fall apart as a result. Instead of making the drug dealers the lead actors who initiated the subsequent chain of events, the headline is structured such that the county's justice system is portrayed as the lead actor instead. Neither wording is _wrong_ , but they clearly bias the audience in different directions.

I trust the NYTimes more than any other American media source, but it's hard to deny that they too have their own spin that focuses more on one side of the story, more so than others.

<comment><USER3> Fair points, but did you read the article? There's more to it than that.

> Donnie Gaddis picked the wrong county to sell 15 oxycodone pills to an > undercover officer ... After agreeing to a plea deal, he was sentenced to > serve 12 years in prison.

> From 2006 to 2014, annual prison admissions dropped 36 percent in > Indianapolis; 37 percent in Brooklyn; 69 percent in Los Angeles County; and > 93 percent in San Francisco.

> Prison admissions in counties with fewer than 100,000 people have risen even > as crime has fallen

> Just a decade ago, people in rural, suburban and urban areas were all about > equally likely to go to prison. But now people in small counties are about > 50 percent more likely to go to prison than people in populous counties.

> "I am proud of the fact that we send more people to jail than other > counties," Aaron Negangard, the elected prosecutor in Dearborn County, said > last year. "That's how we keep it safe here."

I think the implication of "Small towns are sending way more people to prison for petty drug crimes (like selling 15 pills to an undercover cop) than big cities" is supported by the article.

<comment><USER2> I read the entire article yesterday, long before it was posted here. Not sure why you think I haven't read it, or how your quoted snippets contradict what I said in any way.

My previous comment doesn't take a stand in any direction, or make any normative statements. Simply pointing out that there are multiple valid ways of headlining the exact same facts, each of which would bias the audience in very different ways.

<comment><USER3> > Not sure why you think I haven't read it, or how your quoted snippets > contradict what I said in any way.

You seemed to be saying the article was generic and the slant could be changed by changing superficial aspects of the argument. I'm saying that this is sometimes true but does not apply here. In fact, I thought your comment was so out of place that I wondered if you'd read the article. Apparently you have. Regardless, I didn't want your comment to dissuade people from reading the article and making up their own mind; it's well written and well researched.

<comment><USER2> The article makes the case that the county has a large drug-abuse problem, and also that the justice system is responding to this problem with very severe policing/sentencing policies, in a way that severely punishes not just Minority offenders, but also White offenders. In this regard, any one of the 4 spins can be reasonably made, given the facts presented in the article.

You seem to think that just because I pointed out the spin in the headline, I'm attacking the article in some way - that's a vast misunderstanding of what I said. Let me clarify this further: _there is no concise headline that can possibly describe the article in a spin-free manner_. No matter what concise headline anyone comes up with, it will be biased in one direction or another.

I certainly hope people read the article regardless, but I also hope that people will read the article while being mindful of how the wording used will bias them towards certain directions.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Make the counties pay for the cost of sending their offenders to (state) prison and you'd see this "overconsumption" of an expensive resource self correct.

</comment><comment><USER5> People should also know that people go to jail for years for 1 failed drug test in rural communities. Happens everyday, just not on our radar.

<comment><USER6> You mean the ones on probation? In which case they don't go to jail for the failed drug test, but for the crime they had committed, then were given a chance to be released early, and failed at that chance.

<comment><USER7> Did they fail that chance, or false positive that chance?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Perhaps all prosecutors and public defender would be chosen randomly from a pool, instead of making prosecutors a political office?

<comment><USER9> It is like saying fill water in gas tank if you are worried about gas pollution.

If prosecutors are chosen randomly they will little incentive to go after anyone. I think we must drastically reduce the tools these people have at their disposal.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> The whole f __*ing USA sends more people to jail than any other normal country in the world.

<comment><USER10> …than any other country, by both absolute numbers and per capita (with the exception of the Seychelles)

<comment><USER9> I was not sure about North Korea and China.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> It sounds like the article is suggesting defenses under the equal protections clause in the Constitution.

Does anyone know of cases where it's been applied in this way? It seems like this would be a new way of showing bias, and possibly reducing harsh prison sentences.

</comment><comment><USER12> I find it worse that San Francisco would possibly give 0 years to someone dealing heroin.

<comment><USER11> Do you believe prison should be used punitively or for rehabilitation?

Prisons currently fail very badly at rehabilitation, and actually tend to make worse criminals. We should be spending less money on punitive unfair sentences and more on trying to make people productive members of society through good rehab and education programs. This would actually make society better. Fixing the root of the problem rather than ignoring it by just locking people away.

We should reserve prison for only those people from which we need to protect the general population, e.g. violent crimes. Though I do have a special place in my heart for locking away fraudsters and con artists.

<comment><USER13> Rehabilitation? The parent post was about dealing - not using.

Someone who makes money off of the victims of drug dependence is horrible scum, and if you're willing to lock up con artists you should be able to work up the give-a-crap to lock up a heroin dealer.

<comment><USER14> You're thinking of rehabilitation in the "recovery from addiction" sense.

The poster you're replying to is using rehabilitation in the "correct this person's future behavior" sense.

> lock up a heroin dealer

The problem is that nearly 3/4 of all prisoners end up back in prison within 5 years [0]. Locking people up isn't changing their behavior. Locking up a heroin dealer isn't keeping them from dealing heroin once they get out.

So, either we need to lock people up indefinitely (which costs $$$ even if you're not swayed by the humanitarian arguments), or we need to figure out something more effective than trying to hammer our square peg (prison) through this round hole (reducing criminal behavior).

0: [http://www.nij.gov/topics/corrections/recidivism/pages/welco...](http://www.nij.gov/topics/corrections/recidivism/pages/welcome.aspx)

<comment><USER11> Precisely.

And since the other post mentioned my comment on fraudsters and con artists, dealers are not lying to people, they're just providing the consumer with what they want.

The ones who should be locked up are the fraudsters, because they mix things like Fentanyl, which may directly lead to someone's death (not to say people don't OD without that, but it is less often).

Honestly, I dislike anyone who takes advantage of other people's ignorance or incompetence. They are the bottom of the barrel of society in my opinion.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> So the new face of mass incarceration is white rural conservatives, the same demographic that is largely responsible for the "tough on crime" push that led to disproportionate incarceration of poor people of color. Now that their fortunes are shifting, I wonder if the rural white conservatives will still be so gung-ho for harsh criminal penalties.

<comment><USER16> FWIW, it was Democrats who pushed for severe mandatory sentences to create a hot button electoral issue:

[http://www.thisamericanlife.org/radio- archives/episode/143/t...](http://www.thisamericanlife.org/radio- archives/episode/143/transcript)

> _Eric Sterling: The Speaker convened the Democratic leadership, the Steering > and Policy Committee, the chairs of the committees, and says we 're going to > put together an anti-drug bill. It is going to be a Democratic initiative > and I want everybody involved. We're going to have a comprehensive anti-drug > provision. And I want it out of committees before we go on our August > recess, August 14 or 15. And this set off about a four week stampede. They > were told, look, you've got one month to put together your anti-drug agenda > and then you're going to go home in the middle of August and you're going to > campaign the hell out of that agenda. And we're going to come back in > September, we're going to take it to the floor, and we're going to vote on > it. And this is what we're going to ride to electoral victory in November. > That's the plan._

<comment><USER15> "Tough on crime" has always been incredibly popular. But Nixon was the "law and order" candidate. Reagan was the "tough on crime" guy. Center-right Bill Clinton continued and expanded Reagan's policies. So yeah, there's a lot of blame to go around. But I think you're being disingenuous if you think liberals support mass incarceration policies to the same extent that conservatives do. I don't think urban liberals are the ones clamoring for harsher law enforcement.

<comment><USER16> I disagree that I'm being disingenuous but I could be a moron. Are you disputing the claim that congressional Democrats initiated the tough-on-crime laws that are responsible to this day for harsh mandatory minimums for low- level drug crimes? The piece I linked to is from 1999 and it refers to bills initiated by Democrats in the 80s which are still largely in effect today, and for which we can plausibly argue a correlation with a 700% increase in the prison population and Bureau of Prisons's budget [0].

I agree Democrats are pushing for reform today (and some sentencing reform was passed when they controlled Congress in 2010). Republicans [1] and conservative think-tanks [2] today are also actively fighting for sentencing reform. Tt's one of the few issues that are bi-partisan today. You can make a judgment based on how you've ascertained the composition of political cockwalking, but in the end, it's the actual laws that get passed that put people in prison.

[0] [https://www.brookings.edu/blog/fixgov/2016/04/08/addressing-...](https://www.brookings.edu/blog/fixgov/2016/04/08/addressing- mass-incarceration-with-evidence-based-reform/)

[1] [https://www.govtrack.us/congress/bills/114/s2123](https://www.govtrack.us/congress/bills/114/s2123)

[2] [http://thehill.com/blogs/blog-briefing- room/228145-charles-k...](http://thehill.com/blogs/blog-briefing- room/228145-charles-koch-eyes-sentencing-reform-as-a-priority)

<comment><USER17> There is a difference between your average liberal and what the politicians did. it's widely known that liberals have always been against mass incarceration. However I don't dispute that Democratic politicians did that to gain votes in a center right country. (at that time)</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


What's your focus? - <AUTHOR> http://warpspire.com/tipsresources/personal/whats-your-focus/ <comment><USER2> My focus is to save Cocoon! That's what Serah said!</comment>


Dark Energy Instrument's Lenses See the Night Sky for the First Time - <AUTHOR> https://newscenter.lbl.gov/2019/04/03/dark-energy-instruments-lenses-see-night-sky-first-time/ <comment><USER2> so cool! I was just there on a tour last month.</comment>