Apple's next feature - Voice (no not Siri) - <AUTHOR> http://appicurious.com/2011/10/15/apple%E2%80%99s-next-feature-%E2%80%93-voice-no-not-siri/ My view on what is next to come from Apple. I would love to hear your opinions. <comment><USER2> Interesting point... I would love to see it in practice. I also think the wireless carriers have a hard road ahead of them. They need to figure out a way to change and change fast.

</comment><comment><USER3> Definetly some food for speculations... although I don't agree with it 100%. worth the reading</comment>


When Your Neighbor's Drone Pays an Unwelcome Visit - <AUTHOR> http://www.nytimes.com/2016/01/28/style/neighbors-drones-invade-privacy.html <comment><USER2> Author suggests 'just ignore them and they'll go away' when drones spy through your window. But that won't work for famous people, or some of the more attractive. Then what?

Somebody come up with a drone deterrent, quick. And make a fortune.</comment>


Arduino Tool That Connects Each Board to it's Own Source - <AUTHOR> http://labs.ideo.com/2012/03/15/arduino-tool-that-connects-each-board-to-its-own-source/

<comment><USER2> Nice work, Dave. This has come a long way since last summer.</comment>


Libc on macOS invokes Perl as a subprocess for string processing (2017) - <AUTHOR> https://twitter.com/PttPrgrmmr/status/918705233072594945 <comment><USER2> Well, FreeBSD does it by calling a sh builtin:

      		/*
      		 * We are the child; make /bin/sh expand `words'.
      		 */
      		(void)__libc_sigprocmask(SIG_SETMASK,
      &oldsigblock, NULL);
      		if ((pdes[1] != STDOUT_FILENO ?
      		    _dup2(pdes[1], STDOUT_FILENO) :
      		    _fcntl(pdes[1], F_SETFD, 0)) < 0)
      			_exit(1);
      		if (_fcntl(pdesw[0], F_SETFD, 0) < 0)
      			_exit(1);
      		execl(_PATH_BSHELL, "sh", flags & WRDE_UNDEF ? "-u" : "+u",
      		    "-c", "IFS=$1;eval \"$2\";"
      		    "freebsd_wordexp -f \"$3\" ${4:+\"$4\"}",
      		    "",
      		    ifs != NULL ? ifs : " \t\n",
      		    flags & WRDE_SHOWERR ? "" : "exec 2>/dev/null",
      		    wfdstr,
      		    flags & WRDE_NOCMD ? "-p" : "",
      		    (char *)NULL);
      		_exit(1);
        	}

<comment><USER3> funny that glob doesn't do that [http://xr.anadoxin.org/source/xref/macos-10.14-mojave/Libc-1...](http://xr.anadoxin.org/source/xref/macos-10.14-mojave/Libc-1272.200.26/gen/FreeBSD/glob.c) however wordexp does.

<comment><USER2> Glob is easier to code than wordexp. Much fewer rules.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Seems it's very old code. New Libc doesn't do this. This is Libc from Mojave:

[http://xr.anadoxin.org/source/xref/macos-10.14-mojave/Libc-1...](http://xr.anadoxin.org/source/xref/macos-10.14-mojave/Libc-1272.200.26/gen/FreeBSD/wordexp.c#105)

The 'perl' code was a part of Libc v825.24, which seems to be included between 10.7 (Lion) and 10.8 (Mountain Lion).

Of course I still find it hilarious that even the old code did that!

<comment><USER5> The current version replaces the perl subprocess with an sh subprocess. Doesn't seem like much of an improvement.

<comment><USER6> Well, wordexp's purpose is literally to "perform shell-style word expansions", as quoted from the man page. It even supports command substitution if you don't pass WRDE_CMDSUB.

So really, the entire premise of that POSIX function is horrible[1]. Just like system(), which also explicitly executes the given command line using the shell. These functions are not safe to use with untrusted input (e.g. remotely), ever.

EDIT: [1] But arguably only as horrible as calling out to the shell is in general. If you e.g. use it as part of a shell utility that assumes full POSIX-permissioned access to your user anyway, it's not unreasonable because there isn't any privilege escalation at all. Though I'd argue that in the case of system() it's probably more clear to the developer that a shell callout is happening. And also, that the "shell-style" expansion performed here is kinda muddily defined.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Discussed in 2015 (the code was out of date even then): [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9025572](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9025572)

</comment><comment><USER8> That's obviously wrong.

It should use Emacs instead.

<comment><USER9> I'm actually surprised there isn't a library called libemacs. It would fulfill the mythos and be really useful for a lot of tools.

<comment><USER10> Emacs doesn't do anything in C other than running lisp, emacs really is just a lisp implementation with GUI and text editing focus. libemacs would be just like lua or cpython.

<comment><USER11> Emacs has over a quarter million lines of C, which must be there for a reason.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> Perl doesn't depend on libc?

<comment><USER13> It does, but that's "not a problem" as long as it doesn't use this function to implement something that's executed during this function.

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> Turns out this is actually documented in the manpage for wordexp()! (And refers to the mentioned fact that it now calls 'sh' directly.)

> BUGS

> Do not pass untrusted user data to wordexp(), regardless of whether the > WRDE_NOCMD flag is set. The wordexp() function attempts to detect input that > would cause commands to be executed before passing it to the shell but it > does not use the same parser so it may be fooled.

> The current wordexp() implementation does not recognize multibyte > characters, since the shell (which it invokes to perform expansions) does > not.

</comment><comment><USER15> Shall somebody send a pull request [0]

        -    /* XXX this is _not_ designed to be fast */
        +    /* XXX this is _not_ designed to be safe */

[0] [https://github.com/Apple-FOSS- Mirror/Libc/blob/2ca2ae7464771...](https://github.com/Apple-FOSS- Mirror/Libc/blob/2ca2ae74647714acfc18674c3114b1a5d3325d7d/gen/wordexp.c#L192)

<comment><USER16> Isn't the line bellow that line enough? /* wordexp is also rife with security "challenges",

<comment><USER15> My assumption was that those security "challenges" were related to expansion (wordexp()) per se; not to the way wordexp() was implemented in this particular case.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> Now I see why you can't change /usr/bin on macos. actually there is both perl5 and python2.7 in /usr/bin, libc does have a choice (that is if the tweet is true)...

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

<comment><USER17> You can't change use/bin because that's a common malware attack vector.

It also has the nice effect of forcing user installed utilities to install in the /local/ variants (which user build projects should be doing on Linux iirc), so an OS update doesn't overwrite user data.

<comment><USER18> Also if it bothers you, you can just turn it off. It's just difficult enough people can't simply put some screenshots on a webpage to work around it because they are too lazy to code properly.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> I find it hard to believe that there's any software out there that doesn't, eventually, invoke Perl as a subprocess .. I mean, its Perl.

<comment><USER20> That's essentially what the OG tweet is saying: _Pinnacle of software development: you can solve the problem with three lines of Perl, but you don't, because of a non-argument against Perl._ Since there didn't used to be that many arguments against perl/Perl it worked its way into a lot of systems even if it wasn't actually implementing the system.

Of course Perl, having fallen out of vogue, probably wouldn't be used today but it used to be _everywhere_ so its footprint is still pretty large.

Also - I can't help but see the irony in shelling out _to_ perl given experienced Perl developers always tell the less experienced ones to avoid shelling out _from_ Perl if possible and to only do that as a last resort if there isn't an existing library to solve the problem.

<comment><USER21> Only loud-mouthed inexperienced middle managers tell their juniors to follow NIH and do everything in pure perl. It's pure fear to be broken by changed dependencies.

More experienced managers tell their devs to shell out to standard tools like sh, wget, curl, dig, mysqlclient and not use the builtin pure-perl libs. The tools are much better, the code is 10x smaller and faster, and you are getting updates for free (e.g. ssl). Even in C I very often call system("wget [http://..."](http://...")) and avoid libcurl.

<comment><USER20> _Only loud-mouthed inexperienced middle managers tell their juniors to follow NIH and do everything in pure perl. It 's pure fear to be broken by changed dependencies._

It's not NIH if you're advocating using CPAN modules or existing libraries.

Sure, use the right tool - but don't advocate to juniors a method that can lead to OS command injection because they're not experienced enough to know to, or how to, sanitise their inputs.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> Not exactly related to the link but apparently the author of that tweet blocked me. I don't recall having ever had any interactions with them. Is there a way to contact that person and figure out why? I have no idea what I did and I'm quite puzzled.

<comment><USER23> You find out someone has blocked you, and your instinct is to communicate with them? The specific thing they have explicitly disallowed? I'd reconsider this, and just move on.

<comment><USER22> Is that how you are supposed to deal with that? How is one supposed to improve as a human if one does not know where their mistakes are? If I did something wrong I would like to know.

I did not contact that person anyways and I doubt there is a way. But at least knowing when I was blocked could help me deduce what might be the reason.

Honestly I do find this quite upsetting.

<comment><USER24> > Is that how you are supposed to deal with that?

I believe the commonly accepted answer is "Yes, it's not my job to give you the necessary information to improve yourself". The same people who say that also often ask "Why aren't the people around me improving themselves?" :P

(Personally, I would prefer it if people pointed out my mistakes, and I do the same for others as a courtesy, not an obligation. I do understand if they don't have the energy to do that, but I think if they don't, then they forfeit the right to complain about a lack of improvement)

<comment><USER22> > I believe the commonly accepted answer is "Yes, it's not my job to give you > the necessary information to improve yourself". The same people who say that > also often ask "Why aren't the people around me improving themselves?"

But that's in no way comparable. When in the real world i screw up I can tell from people's responses. Body language, their actions etc. In this case it's just discovering at one point someone blocked one without any indication of when that happened and why without any indication.

//edit: also even weirder in an effort to see where our interactions might have been i found a tweet from 2014 by myself about the same topic: [https://mobile.twitter.com/mitsuhiko/status/5264923088676700...](https://mobile.twitter.com/mitsuhiko/status/526492308867670017)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> Not good looking at all but, latest commit to that repo is Updated on Oct 11, 2012.

So how well does it reflect reality?

<comment><USER25> The official sources are published by Apple on [https://opensource.apple.com](https://opensource.apple.com)

This repository is just a snapshot that somebody else prepared and uploaded to GitHub, but apparently it is not maintained.</comment></comment>


Show HN: JS-emulated Linux with network support, everyone on one subnet - <AUTHOR> http://jor1k.widgetry.org <comment><AUTHOR> Everyone is also running a telnet server by default, and nmap is installed on the image. Have fun, but please try to be nice ;-).

Edit: If this looks familiar, this is the jor1k OpenRISC emulator which Sebastian Macke built and submitted around a month ago. Most of the credit for this still goes to him. I just added the emulated ethernet controller, as well as the network backend (virtual switch/router) which acts as the LAN on which the demo is running.

For more info, I've written a blog post here: [http://www.benjamincburns.com/2013/11/10/jor1k-ethmac- suppor...](http://www.benjamincburns.com/2013/11/10/jor1k-ethmac-support.html)

<comment> s-macke Try to start the emulator two times and to login to the other emulation via telnet. If you login via ssh, you can even start an encrypted chatting session. I am wondering if this is more safe than Cryptocat :)

</comment></comment><comment><USER2> Amazing what you can do with JS these days. If you could run another vm on top of it you could get interesting screenshots of an emulated OS running on an emulated OS in a browser.

<comment> s-macke Yeah I was thinking of X86 -> Windows 8 -> Firefox -> Javascript VM -> OpenRISC Emulator -> Linux -> Dosbox -> Windows 3.11 -> C64 Emulator -> Basic -> Z-Machine -> Zork

Oh man, I am real nerd.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> Erm...we don't seem to have DHCP working. :(

<comment><AUTHOR> All I can say is try again. I've been monitoring things throughout the day and improving the stability as I go. It still seems to clam up every now and then, however.

Part of the problem is that the backend wasn't really the focus for this, so I kind of just hacked it together. It hasn't been standing up as well to the constant churning load as I thought it would. In the future I intend to remove VDE2, and do all of the switching in my websocket server with the aid of something like rabbitmq. I may also decide to write it all in go instead of Python as well.

<comment><USER3> Thanks for your efforts!

I run ifconfig and don't see any IP having been assigned--and we don't seem to have dhclient installed

I was going to host a webpage using netcat:

[http://www.howtoforge.com/useful-uses-of- netcat](http://www.howtoforge.com/useful-uses-of-netcat)

<comment><AUTHOR> If you were to try now, it seems that things are behaving much more reliably...

<comment><USER3> 10.5.130.140:80

:)

NOTE:

Ack, is not responding to ping anymore... :(

<comment><USER3> Hm... note that this incantation:

      while true; do nc -l -p 80 < hello.html; done

Will suddenly cause ping not to work.

I suspect this is some weirdness in the driver or backplane?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> where's my '-b' flag in `ping`!

<comment><AUTHOR> busybox... sorry...

Also I'd obviously really prefer to not have a bunch of broadcast traffic.

<comment><USER4> Good job anyway!

Unicast ping doesn't work here either. Are there too many people connected right now?

<comment><AUTHOR> Someone was just sending some pretty gnarly flooding traffic a few minutes ago, I had to "gently remove" them from the situation. It should be better now, but you'll need to refresh the page.

Right now there are about 100 hosts connected, but a minute ago there were about 140. It ebbs and flows. More ebb at the moment since I think we're no longer on the front page.

<comment><USER5> You're on location 5.

Prepare for liftoff.

<comment><AUTHOR> Yes, but not any more. Strange...</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Ask HN: Developers, how many hours do you feel you are productive in a day? - <AUTHOR> I had emotional discussion with my boss and I couldn't convince him that 40h in a week and 8h in a day is not always the most productive approach. So please share your feedback and based on that I'm going back to my boss - https://guaana.com/quiz/how-many-hours-do-you-feel-you-are-productive-in-a-day <comment><USER2> I feel like such a sucker! I got excited to go to your quiz and vote for the 5-6h option just to show your boss.

Then Spidey sense tingled...

Looked at your profile, then followed your last submission to product hunt and found out that you are the Founder CTO at guaana.com. Co-incidence?

Next time please do put a disclaimer and definitely do not try to "Growth Hack" HN.

</comment><comment><USER3> Going back to your boss . . . not recommended . . .

y, most likely you're never going to convince your boss that you're only productive 3 or 4 hours per day . . . if anything you'll be bringing scrutiny on what you accomplish daily and possibly lower reviews/raises/advancement.

Very few companies are open to anything less than 40 hours per week or even 4 day work weeks.

I would put your efforts in to finding a company/boss that does or work on starting your own thing in your extra time.

Good luck in 2016, fight the good fights.

</comment><comment><USER4> On your quiz, the average answer is "3-5 hours," and this squares with recent research suggesting that in an 8-hour day, mind workers are doing actual work about 3 1/2 hours on average. The rest of the day is spent on snacking, gossiping, Facebook, etc.

I'm a highly motivated independent developer and writer, and I've been studying my own work habits to try to become more productive. I use toggl — [https://www.toggl.com/](https://www.toggl.com/) — to track my time throughout the day. I'd work 12 hours a day if I could, but I can't. I run out of gas after 2 hours, 3 hours — and sometimes 8 hours. My limit on tedious, fussy, boring tasks is about 2 hours, after which I'm not much good for anything. My limit when I'm writing a book is 3 to 4 hours. If I'm building something out of code or working in Photoshop, sometimes I get addicted, and then I can go 8 hours. Addiction seems to be the only thing that gets me close to being as productive as I'd like to be. Sadly, I can't choose to focus only on the types of tasks that I'm addicted to.

My sense is that most people — probably including your boss — have never measured how much cognitive work they themselves can do before their brain is fried. I'm talking about real work, not meetings. Meetings use almost no brain glucose at all, so are a way to pad "working" hours without increasing fatigue substantially. I'm convinced this is why meetings are so popular in corporate America.

As long as no one is measuring, it's easy for everyone to kid themselves that they're good for 8 hours and that everyone else should be, no matter how unrealistic that may be.

<comment><USER5> Sometimes, at the tail end of a day, I'll be sitting in front of my computer, with a clear idea of exactly what I need to do and how to do it... and yet I'm just sort of sitting there stupidly, because my brain feels fried. It's the same sensation you get when you crank out one too many reps at the gym- you're sending all the right signals, the nerves are firing, but your muscles just don't _work_.

When I get this fried brain feeling, I've found that eating something sugar- rich, like a piece of chocolate, can attenuate this feeling- not completely, but enough to get me out of the paralysis and started, at least. I don't know how much is placebo, but hey, it works, so I'm not complaining, and there seems to be at least some studies supporting the existence of similar effects.

<comment><USER6> > I'll be sitting in front of my computer, with a clear idea of exactly what I > need to do and how to do it... and yet I'm just sort of sitting there > stupidly, because my brain feels fried

Thank you for that comment, I thought this was just me....definitely makes me feel a little better

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Code in your most productive hours, do documentation, emailing, whatever other tasks when your daily ration of coding energy is gone.

</comment><comment> t-rav I agree with your boss, 40h work weeks are the right way to do things. It's up to you to find the discipline to focus during the day to make it truly productive, not just feel productive.

Finding a good workflow for what you do is the hard part. A good workflow will include timeboxed sessions between 50-90 minutes with regular breaks after each session to keep your mind fresh and focused. A lunch session away from the PC, take a walk. And a firm commitment to sticking to a true 8h work day, the real mental strain happens when one tries to exceed this daily limit.

And most important factor required to only working an 8h day, is to keep the messaging and social media use to outside work hours. These nasty distractions will destroy productivity and focus likely causing you to "work" and +8h day. All the chatting and social media can wait until you are home, life will carry on. Every distraction you give into will cause you to take 20 minutes to rebuild focus.

<comment><USER8> > messaging and social media [are] nasty distractions [that] will destroy > productivity and focus

I have talkative people behind me, CTO to my left (on the phone a fair bit), sysadmins to my right (frequently desk-meeting with people), and a row of project managers over the minimal partition. Trust me when I say that there are far bigger problems for some people's focus than messaging and social media.

<comment><USER9> A good, noise cancelling headset has been one of my best investments - and I'm not talking about one of the nice looking $50 models from Best Buy. I'm talking about something in the $200-300 price point - high end gaming headsets are particularly nice for a number of reasons, but anything will do.

It seems like a lot of money, but if it triples your productivity while in the office (and I'd recommend measuring it with something like RescueTime - if the headset doesn't help your productivity significantly, you can always return it), it's worth it.

<comment><USER6> Can confirm, always was skeptical when I heard people say this, but I borrowed my brothers for a week when he was on vacation and it was a game changer. Now I've become a proponent myself.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Instead of talking about hours I think about how many times a day I get to be in flow.

For me personally being 44 I am only able to hit a good flow once or twice a day for 2-3 hours each time.

When I am in flow I am faster and more creative than when I am not, so more hours would not add significantly to my productivity.

</comment><comment><USER11> That depends on the kind of project you are working on, If you are highly motivated and the project is fun you may work for longer hours, my case I could go as long as 8hrs non-stop but if it's not as described above then 3hrs max.

Two years ago I experienced a burnout for the first time, for a 23-year old freelancer, I knew nothing about burnouts and thought I was severely depressed. My motivation level was 0.

So if your job is fun then you may find 8hrs a day not even enough, but it's not your fault, it's your employers.

</comment><comment><USER12> 3 or 4 hours. Can go up to ~10h/day for a few days, but that usually leads to a burnout. Burnouts are bad. Avoid them. You'd actually do better if you work less.

</comment><comment><USER13> If I'm doing heavy coding work my cap is 6 continuous hours after which I'm brain dead.

My daily average is around 6 hours & I accomplish a lot in this time.

</comment><comment><USER14> Depends on the project. If I'm on an intense project, easily 7-8. If I'm not on a project, maybe 1-3. If I'm unemployed and left to my own devices (pursuing projects/freelance or furthering my education), probably 4-5.

</comment><comment><USER15> For me it depends on the interruptions / context switching.</comment>


12 New Bluetooth vulnerabilities affecting a massive number of "Smart" products - <AUTHOR> https://asset-group.github.io/disclosures/sweyntooth/ <comment><USER2> Also worth noting is the section where they point out the gaps in Bluetooth specifications regarding error handling, failures of vendors to adhere to the existing specs, and terrible state of Bluetooth certification which allowed these stacks to pass muster. Read it and weep.

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> 12 vulnerabilities were found across different BLE software development kits (SDKs) of six major system-on-a-chip (SoC) vendors. The vulnerabilities expose flaws in specific BLE SoC implementations that allow an attacker in radio range to trigger deadlocks, crashes and buffer overflow or completely bypass security depending on the circumstances.

The researchers also made available the proof of concept code on their GitHub repository: [https://github.com/Matheus- Garbelini/sweyntooth_bluetooth_lo...](https://github.com/Matheus- Garbelini/sweyntooth_bluetooth_low_energy_attacks)</comment>


I'm being interviewed on Dianne Sawyer's show tonight. What should I mention? - <AUTHOR> Myself and a friend run sopablackout.org, and we've been contacted by ABC to be interviewed. I'll likely have less than two minutes to mention what sopa is, why it's bad, and what we should be doing instead. What key points should I hit?
Right now I'm going to try to mention:
-MPAA/RIAA support of senators/reps
-SOPA/PIPA not actually stopping piracy
-Loss of jobs/business/startups due to bill
-How promoters of the bill have said that if china can do it, we can too.
Other thoughts? <comment><USER2> You may want to read the comments on <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3467550> where Alexis Ohanion went on NBC to debate SOPA.

<comment><USER3> Well! Reading the summary comment by inmygarage, that's kind of heartening. I'll view the segment later today for a full impression. Thanks for pointing this out!

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> The action was "bottom-up", not top down. Pressure came from users, not (solely, principally?) from sites' management. This has been totally mis- represented in the "mainstream media".

Here's a comment I submitted to some friends after seeing and hearing some of the "mainstream" broadcast press coverage, last night:

 _Caught some of the "mainstream media" reporting on the SOPA/PIPA blackout (including public radio and TV). Universally terrible. Minimally reported, with most of the language making it sound as if the sites are supporting piracy. They aren't defending piracy; they're opposing horribly formulated legislation that lends itself to abuse and censorship, places enormous legal and management burdens on them, and undermines the technical infrastructure and attendant security of the Internet._

 _(And, to boot, cogent analysis makes good arguments that the legislation won't even accomplish what it ostensibly sets out to do.)_

Finally, I'd say that the "tech community" has been seeking dialog and participation. They've found a cold-shoulder. In the face of this -- being ignored and disrespected -- escalation to the "blackout" protest became their one avenue to attempting to gain a seat at the table.

Also, if there's any investigative journalism left at ABC and the like, they should spend some time really looking into the financial claims and mis- representations that have been made.

Tim O'Reilly is owner/CEO of a major publishing house that has a different perspective. He's eloquent and quite tied into the "progressive" technical community. They should talk to him (if they can reach a format he's comfortable with, e.g. not editing his words into a mis-representation -- that's my take on what the mainstream media often do, these days).

</comment><comment><USER4> "Policing" requirements on links that are unsustainable for small businesses. Something that might have hit home on an NPR interview I heard earlier today: how many people do you have to police your own blog comment section? The usual response from shills is to say that the bill doesn't target those sites. But the point is that it's so poorly drafted that it's likely to sweep them in anyway, by abuse of process.

Speaking of which: Prior abuse of DMCA process against sites like veoh, which got painted as pirates, and subjected to legal or government action, when they weren't. Including at least one fraudulent takedown which was used to censor a news story about a prior fraudulent takedown: [http://www.theverge.com/2011/12/14/2636680/universal-has- tec...](http://www.theverge.com/2011/12/14/2636680/universal-has-tech-news- today-episode-yanked-from-youtube-for)

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> Just got word that the segment was canceled. Sad days :(

<comment><USER3> I'm already fairly cynical. Nonetheless, I've been shocked at what I can only interpret as outright repression and slanting of the story particularly on U.S. broadcast media ( _including_ public radio and television).

When BBC America came on to that same PBS TV station late last night, it was like a breath of fresh air when they rain a several minute and at least somewhat balanced report on the blackout day.

For me, personally, this is pretty much the "stick a fork in it, it's done" moment for U.S. mainstream broadcast media concerns. Domestic press isn't altogether there, yet -- though that's in part a matter of relatively greater diversity ("relatively", I said).

I'll "watch the news" for the weather and the occasional breaking local story. For the rest, I'll get my information elsewhere.

Not that the TV shows had much substance anymore, anyway, but yesterday reinforced for me just how wholly owned they've become.

Public television and public radio's performances were particularly troubling, though. I've been worried about the trend I've observed with them; nonetheless, I'd hoped for better.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> Watch Salman Khan's video. It can probably give you a few good ideas. And also this Clay Shirky one:

<http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9h2dF-IsH0I>

<comment><AUTHOR> Watched, took notes. Gracias.

</comment></comment><comment> mark-r I think ultimately the worst thing will be the unintended consequences, but those are hard to predict before they happen - and don't fit conveniently into a sound bite.</comment>


TurbineLabs – Free Cleaned and Curated Corona News, Daily Mailing - <AUTHOR> https://www.turbinelabs.com/coronavirus-daily-update <comment><AUTHOR> These folks make such a great curated newsletter that they decided they didn't need to raise money.</comment>


Steamosaic: Generate a mosaic of your steam account - <AUTHOR> https://steamosaic.com <comment><USER2> Hey - it fails:

Cross-Origin Request Blocked: The Same Origin Policy disallows reading the remote resource at [https://us- central1-steamosaic.cloudfunctions.net/mosaic](https://us- central1-steamosaic.cloudfunctions.net/mosaic). (Reason: CORS header 'Access- Control-Allow-Origin' missing).</comment>


Apple Puts Carplay Into Pioneer - <AUTHOR> http://www.pioneer-carglobal.com/CarPlay/

<comment><USER2> why does it look so unatractive?</comment>


Code Reviews: Just merge it already! - <AUTHOR> http://fullbit.ca/code-reviews-just-merge-it-already/ <comment><USER2> At one job I had we have team members up to 2pm the day after the review was requested to respond. If no one responded by that time we were allowed to merge it. This solved the problem of often waiting for days for a review and the review being lack luster.

<comment><AUTHOR> That's a good idea. Speak now or forever hold your peace.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> As with all things in life, it's about balance. I have been more than happy to review other's code because I see it as more than just a critique. Often times it is also a learning opportunity by seeing their style or approach for example.

I have forced myself to be critical of my own code before others and try to keep it that way when it comes to reviews. There should be a standard of what to look for from language to language. This helps avoid style bike shedding with formats or naming.

<comment><AUTHOR> Bike shedding is the exact phrase for it. I have a feeling I'd enjoy working with you.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> I worked with someone who was definitely the nitpicker. He would even nitpick PRs that he wasn't a reviewer on and would happily unwind a merged PR just because he hadn't had a chance to review it first.

Many of the things that are often nitpicked can be automated with tools like linters. This really helps cut down on the pain of code reviews for both the author and the reviewer.</comment>


Dinosaur asteroid 'sent life to Mars' - <AUTHOR> http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-25201572

<comment><USER2> I have this vision of dinosaur astronauts, clinging to the rock that has been ejected into space, on their way to Mars to establish a new life there.

I have always found the pan-spermia theories interesting. It still doesn't answer the 'where first' question but it allows for many places to share similar lifeforms without requiring a recreation of an improbable event in all of them. Of course it would be _really_ weird if the universe was populated in this way with humanoids, and the original Star Trek was closer to the truth than not :-)

<comment><USER3> Given the right similar starting conditions in the DNA... It could be interesting.

What surprises me is that life can survive these trips. A rock ejected from the Earth would have to have tremendous heat during the escape velocity. Science is fascinating.

<comment><USER4> That's what I was thinking. That piece of rock must be very hot as it's flying out into space from a violent explosion. At least, that's how I picture it. It seems odd that the article was concerned about the danger of space itself, but never mentioned the exit from earth.

Science is very fascinating, but this phenomenon of life successfully leaving earth and arriving on other planets has never been demonstrated, so it's more idle speculation than science.

<comment><USER3> I think they've at least seen them survive in space. I recall reading stories of microbes surviving near absolute zero. Bacteria and spores could survive a lot, but I would think they would have to be inside a mighty big rock to survive the heat.

<comment><USER4> Some microscopic organisms are said to have survived exposure to space. But just because some of the pieces have been shown to be plausible, doesn't justify accepting the entire scenario.

<comment><USER3> I agree with you.

I think this is a good statistics exercise too. What's more likely? That life emerges spontaneously in multiple spots of space, or that life survives inter- planetary (and perhaps inter-solar system) journeys?

<comment><USER4> You couldn't possibly answer that.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> > "Even using conservative, realistic estimates... it's still possible that > organisms could be swimming around out there in the oceans of Europa," she > said.

        ALL THESE WORLDS
        ARE YOURS EXCEPT
             EUROPA
           ATTEMPT NO
         LANDING THERE

<comment><USER5> Have you seen the movie Europa Report? I don't want to spoil any part of it for you, but it's _really_ good. If you have Netflix, it's on there.

<comment><USER6> Is it realistic or do they find aliens/god?

<comment><USER7> [SPOILERS] There are some Hollywood embellishments I didn't care for, but I would say the movie is still a lot more realistic than 95% of sci-fi movies. It's definitely worth seeing. In the end, they do find complex life, but no "aliens" like you'd find in a typical sci-fi action movie.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Panspermia[1] is not a new theory. This whole article is highly speculative. It might sound compelling, but we just know way too little to make any sort of prediction on this matter. Any real findings must come from actual data provided by probes and landers such as the Mars 2020 Rover[2] and the ExoMars[3] mission.

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

[2]: [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mars_2020_rover_mission](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mars_2020_rover_mission)

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

<comment><USER9> The only way to confirm it is once the asteroid minimg begins. Then it's a matter of time to find an asteroid from earth. Maybe it'll tale long but eventually they'll be able to analize what's left there.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> So basically, if a planet has no dominant/intelligent species capable of protecting itself; not only nature resets that planet; it scatters the building blocks of life to other planets as well in the process.

Billions of years forward. Intelligent life on multiple planets from same building blocks. They fight for dominance in a new natural selection. This time to see which planet was conducive for creating better lifeforms.

</comment><comment><USER11> The notion that an asteroid impact could launch life-bearing debris to escape velocity is not new. I remember it being mentioned in one of Lester Del Rey's juvenile science fiction books -- possibly "Outpost of Jupiter", which according to Wikipedia was first published in 1963.

<comment><USER12> The difference is that this models a specific impact to see whether it would work. That's a long long way from conclusive, of course, but it's a useful addition.

<comment><USER11> I agree. I just find it interesting that the base idea has been around so long -- longer in fact than the "asteroid killed the dinosaurs" theory.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> Even if organisms got ejected with rocks, wouldn't they just die frozen or from radiation on the long journey thru the vacuum?

<comment><USER14> ....or from the rock they're in burning up in reentry.

<comment><USER15> Mars' atmosphere is much thinner, I don't think a 3m thick boulder would burn up (impact, though, would be, uh, energetic, however).

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> What if life on earth was also just a fragment of another past planet?

</comment><comment><USER17> For anyone who is interested in the Dinosaur asteroid, may I suggest listening to or watching the latest RadioLab, which went into some interesting (speculative) depth about what may have happened.

</comment><comment><USER18> This article is ridiculous. They have a theory and a model that says, for example, that 6 chunks of rock hit Europa. Of course we don't know that they did! This is unfalsifiable twaddle.

</comment><comment><USER19> How likely is it for these organisms to survive ejection in the first place? I thought asteroid impacts were incredibly hot and violent.

<comment><USER20> Rocks make great insulators though, which just leaves acceleration as an issue, though microbes handle high acceleration just fine.

</comment></comment><comment><USER20> This is interesting primarily because we know a decent amount about the nature of the Chicxulub impact event, so we can model it. And in doing so we've found that it should be possible for microbial life deep inside Earth rocks to end up in heliocentric orbits and to be protected from space radiation long enough to have a reasonable chance of surviving until the rock they are in hits another planetary body in our Solar System.

What this actually means, though, is that likely many other impact events in Earth's history could have done the same thing. Even going back billions of years. Which means that the probability of Earth life having landed on Mars, Venus, or Europa in a way which might have seeded locations favorable to life is very much non zero.

This sort of thing has been speculated about before but never modelled so rigorously using real-world impacts as examples.

</comment><comment><USER21> I don't believe this story! Why don't we find those rocks ejected during the impact on Moon?

<comment><USER20> Are you asking why we never found a small number of Earth rocks scattered over the entire surface of the Moon during a period of only a few hours total of lunar exploration? The answer should be obvious.

<comment><USER22> To be fair...the surface of Earth's moon has been much more extensive than just physical lunar surface exploration.

It's also a fair question, have we seen evidence from this on our moon? And if not is it really because of the limited exploration or some other factors?

<comment><USER21> Thank you josefresco!</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Things I learned about rapidly scaling websites with Azure - <AUTHOR> http://www.troyhunt.com/2014/09/10-things-i-learned-about-rapidly.html

<comment><USER2> This really is a fantastic rundown of Azure websites and scaling on Azure.

As always Troy has put loads of effort into writing a really high quality blog post that shares some really useful information for devs working on this stack (and for non .Net devs too).

</comment><comment><USER3> This is a great writeup, and it shows that Azure provides fantastic UX. I'm also grateful that you include the price. If HIBP ran on < $50, I can surely launch a product and shell out $5/month, if only for bragging rights. You've sold me on trying this out

</comment><comment><USER4> scaling? databases?

this is serving up some static content, and a string lookup in a hash table.

a single cheap vps with 768mb of ram should be able to handle thousands of requests/second without issue.

(50 chars email average + 2 * 4 byte pointers) * 10M entries => 512mb ram

(and with some noddy splitting by email domain you could probably quarter that)

</comment><comment><USER5> Good write up, I also would add two alerts from diffferent locations with server response time > 5 seconds ive or take depending on your site speed.</comment>


14-Year-Old's 'Bubble Ball' App Knocks 'Angry Birds' Out Of Top Spot - <AUTHOR> http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/01/17/robert-nay-bubble-ball_n_810023.html

<comment><USER2> A commenter on the Huffington Post article wrote

       This is a publicity stunt by Corona. How does this not read like ad copy?
       "Some months back, a friend suggested that if Nay liked his iPod touch so much,
       perhaps he should try his hand at programmin g for it. At first he tried the
       standard Objective- C programming tools, but found the learning curve a little
       steep. He tried another tool called GameSalad, but didn't like the results. In
       the end, he settled on the Corona tools from Ansca Mobile. Corona was easy to use,
       he said, and also let him write once and publish for both Apple and Android
       devices. [...]"

Corona is definitely going to be a huge winner once this is over.</comment>


Google Plans Large New York City Expansion - <AUTHOR> https://www.wsj.com/articles/google-plans-large-new-york-city-expansion-1541636579 <comment><USER3> This coupled with the Amazon news is starting to get distressing. With the amount of companies that copycat them it's like the rich are getting richer and the economic benefits are still going to be concentrated only in the most affluent cities. The rest of the country desperately needs real industry and good paying jobs - and will go to huge lengths to try to get them but it appears nobody can come up with a business plan. We're truly heading for Elysium.

<comment><USER4> > The rest of the country desperately needs real industry and good paying jobs > - and will go to huge lengths to try to get them

No they don't. Tax breaks aren't enough. One of the big reasons a lot of people really like NYC is that it's one of the few cities in the US that actually feels like a city. NYC is urbanist in a way that relatively few American cities are (and most of the other cities in this category are also big economic winners, like SF and Boston).

How many of those more conservative/cheaper US cities actually take walking/biking/transit over driving as a serious issue? Virtually none of them that I've seen, they put in token efforts at best; an unprotected bike lane here, a "technically counts as transit" bus stop there, but very little that really moves the needle or challenges the status quo.

Name one of these cities, and I'll show you how they're failing miserably on at least this front just by a quick look at Google Maps.

<comment><USER5> Define economic winner....you mean top line income and area GDP? These places are the most expensive places in the country to live, and quality of living is considerably lower. Incomes may be lower in many areas of the country, but when you consider you can pay $2k/mo on a 5,000 sq ft mortgage instead of renting a 900 sq ft apartment, I don't view these places as economically successful as many perceive them to be.

<comment><USER4> Yes, I mean by having lots of high-paying jobs. Speaking in the abstract, that means economic success. You're not wrong that high cost of living can often cancel much of that out at the individual level though.

> quality of living is considerably lower.

See my other nearby comment for why this is a "it depends" thing. A lot of people would consider living in Kansas City to have lower "quality of life" than NYC even if it's less crowded and it's much easier to afford a house.

Your comment itself illustrates the disconnect here: we have one side arguing that the other side is wrong in what they want, ala

"Why don't more techies want to come here?? This is ridiculous!"

"Well, because they want to live in places with X Y Z even if they're expensive and crowded."

"Well, they should care more about A B C instead (because I do)."

<comment><USER6> > _" Well, they should care more about A B C instead (because I do)."_

I'm guilty of this, but I think your formulation is a straw man. All I want to tell people is that they shouldn't reflexively rule out the middle of the country, because a lot of people _really would be_ happier there. Not everybody, but _some people_.

And the way (some people on) the coasts talk about the Midwest and the South is as though they're a complete and total non-starter that's out of consideration entirely. "Yeah, New York's expensive, but what am I going to do? Live in _Cleveland_? Obviously I can't do that!"

I think that kind of talk convinces a lot of people who would be happier somewhere else that they shouldn't even bother looking into those places. And that's a tragedy of human flourishing.

Edit to respond to one comment below:

> _I think you 're dismissing people's issues too easily._

On the contrary, I think you're inordinately focused on your own particular (and somewhat eccentric) issues. Most Americans _prefer_ car ownership. You might think they're wrong to prefer this. I do, too! But, "I don't want to live somewhere where I have to own a car" isn't a mainstream American opinion.

<comment><USER7> I grew up in Michigan and moved to greater NYC after grad school, and I want to push back a bit against the idea that nobody on the coasts even considers the middle of the country.

My spouse and I would love to move somewhere less expensive than NYC, but we just can't make it work. We're both in fairly specialized tech fields, and prioritize walkability, diversity, great schools and career growth opportunity. Outside of say Chicago, it's hard to come up with a place that checks those boxes.

<comment><USER6> It would be pointless to try to speak to your particular situation, but I think a lot of people who think they can't get this or that thing out of, say, Nashville or Minneapolis, or whatever, are _wrong_. I don't mean to say their opinion is wrong. Live wherever you want! I mean to say that they have objectively false impressions about quantifiable aspects of those cities.

<comment><USER4> > I think a lot of people who think they can't get this or that thing out of, > say, Nashville or Minneapolis, or whatever, are wrong.

If a person values a thing, saying, "well [thing] exists in these other cities too, there's just a whole lot less of it there" is maybe not a super effective counterpoint.

Like, I realize that basically every major city in the US does have public transit...technically. But pointing out that out is not useful when for most of those cities, said transit is slow, unreliable, sparse, and infrequent.

I don't just want transit. I want _good_ transit. I don't just want walkability in a few isolated neighborhoods. I want _widespread_ walkability.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> It's exciting. Google has been talking about expanding its presence forever. At least since purchasing the Chelsea Market complex. The Youtube studio is an amazing space. As is the AWS Loft downtown. Cornell Tech will have a new campus on Roosevelt Island. And Brooklyn has its New Lab / Navy Yards that is almost a tech city unto itself. It feels like there's community. And a multitude of events every day and night. With rents stabilizing, and burgeoning FinTech and AI momentum, I just think everyone at some point in their lives should consider a stint in the city ;)

<comment><USER9> The nice thing about NYC in comparison to the Bay Area is that we're not afraid of building more housing here, so supply increases every year and has a dampening effect on rent increases. Also, mass transit is much better, so if you live even 30 minutes away on a subway line the rents will be much lower. If you're willing to commute an hour each way (which is still less than a lot of people who drive every day on I-101 put up with) then rents are a fraction of what they are in nice areas of Manhattan, or the Bay Area for that matter.

Though personally I don't like relying on the subway (which increasingly has problems these days), hence I live in biking distance.

<comment><USER10> > and has a dampening effect on rent increase

Is that really true? I don't know if this data is accurate but googling "average rent new york city" vs "average rent san francisco" brings up these 2 results as the first hits. They look almost identical. The site claims average rent for NYC is $3634 vs SF at $3735. It also claims prices increased in NYC by 9.46% over last year vs SF at 0.62%

[https://www.rentjungle.com/average-rent-in-san-francisco- ren...](https://www.rentjungle.com/average-rent-in-san-francisco-rent-trends/)

[https://www.rentjungle.com/average-rent-in-new-york-rent- tre...](https://www.rentjungle.com/average-rent-in-new-york-rent-trends/)

<comment><USER11> I'm a tech worker in NYC and none of my firends (except one idiot) pays more than 2500 for their studio apartment within Manhattan. I share a super fancy apartment in a hirise in Brooklyn and pay less than 2K. If you're okay living in Queens you can get a 2BR with less than 1h commute. And this is not even talking about distant Brooklyn, Bronx or jersey (also less tax)

<comment><USER12> You can also get a 2BR less than one hour's commute away from San Francisco for under $2000 / month.

<comment><USER13> A transit commute?

<comment><USER12> Yes, my commute from South Hayward to Embarcadero station in SF was 45 minutes, I used BART (obviously), and rent was under $2000.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> I wonder if the banks, who are increasingly branding themselves as "tech companies"[1], are worried about Google and Amazon encroaching on their territory.

My understanding is that at least part of the appeal of NY to Google and Amazon is the quality and quantity of systems engineers at banks and hedge funds.

[1] [https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2018-02-15/lloyd-...](https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2018-02-15/lloyd- blankfein-wants-goldman-sachs-to-push-technology) (among many other such articles)

<comment><USER15> They definitely are. I left the finance industry in late 2013 after getting an offer in tech for 50% more. My bosses demanded to see the offer letter- they didn't believe me. I eventually acquiesced- and showed the entire team- to make them realize that they can't just keep screwing people out of bonuses, forcing them to work late nights and weekends and expect people to put up with it.

About 6 months later, two others also left for tech. I talked with a friend still at GS, and banks are at least making token moves now to be more attractive- "casual fridays", ping pong table on the floor, etc. Not real change, but it at least shows they are somewhat concerned.

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> New York, especially Manhattan and nice parts of Brooklyn also have a great public school system. It's very, very big with dozens of schools. This is critical for any parent obviously.

My kids go to PS11, which is excellent, just a few blocks from Google HQ (I don't work at Goog) with some real diversity in the classroom, literally kids of all possible colors from around the world. Interestingly, none of the other parents I know work at Google. I wouldn't mind if that number ... doubled.

Right now we're looking at middle schools and I am pleased to say the options in district 2 are fantastic, again.

<comment><USER17> > I wouldn't mind if that number ... doubled.

Pardon me if I misunderstand, but isn't double "none" still none?

<comment><USER18> I wondered the same thing and assumed it was a joke. Then I wondered why they didn't say "halved." Oh well. I probably thought about this too much already.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> One of the reason is that, people who are incharge of these decisions are invested in these cities. They've real estate in these cities.

So, using public money of the company to invest in these cities increase the value of their personal investments :)

It won't be changing anytime sooner.

Shareholders aren't bothered. I wouldn't be surprized if majority of shareholders by value live in these cities too.

<comment><USER20> I don't remember the actual source, so it might just be a funny anecdote.

But I remember reading that after WW2 a lot of US companies were expanding and looking for new headquarters. They'd commission huge research teams to find the best location for the new headquarters, spend a lot of time and effort to find a good place.

A book written about 10 or 15 years after many of these companies found that almost invariably the result of the research placed the best location within a short distance of where the CEO was from/currently lived.

So what you're saying doesn't really surprise me :)

<comment><USER21> I was curious so I hunted the anecdote down.

Via [https://www.joelonsoftware.com/2003/03/28/20030328/](https://www.joelonsoftware.com/2003/03/28/20030328/)

I found this HBR article: [https://hbr.org/1989/03/corporate-architecture- from-the-outs...](https://hbr.org/1989/03/corporate-architecture-from-the- outside-in)

Which has this quote:

> A dozen years ago, William Whyte, author of the classic book The > Organization Man, tried to do just that. The sociologist took his map and > phone book and set out to chart which corporate headquarters had gone where > and why. Contrary to official rationales, which emphasized corporate > enhancement or a disinterested pursuit of the great outdoors, Whyte found > that most of the new campus compounds were sited within eight or nine miles > of the CEO's home—a chilling and widely broadcast statistic that jarred with > corporate claims about humane treatment for those uprooted in the move.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> Meanwhile, the executive team openly laughed at the idea of investing in offices any distance from the coast.

<comment><USER23> They bought their new building in Boulder for $131 million, which about doubled the available seating. They also expanded their Pittsburgh office in the last few years.

[http://www.dailycamera.com/boulder- business/ci_31319589/goog...](http://www.dailycamera.com/boulder- business/ci_31319589/google-buys-land-buildings-at-boulder-campus-131m)

[https://www.bizjournals.com/pittsburgh/news/2014/02/03/googl...](https://www.bizjournals.com/pittsburgh/news/2014/02/03/google- confirms-expansion-to-bakery.html)

</comment></comment><comment><USER24> I wonder how much goodwill Google could have generated by locating this hub in say Orlando or Des Moines.

Even if they spent 150k per engineer in relocation costs (1 time fee), it's hard to imagine they wouldn't make that up in terms of cheaper real estate and lower salaries.

There were obviously some benefits in choosing New York City (and I realize it's an expansion technically), but still, it's so......unimaginative.

Would have been a great contrast to Amazon's bait and switch yesterday.

<comment><USER25> > Even if they spent 150k per engineer in relocation costs (1 time fee), it's > hard to imagine they wouldn't make that up in terms of cheaper real estate > and lower salaries.

Are you suggest that elite talent wants lower salaries in the Midwest or Florida as long as they can get a one time relocation payout?

Google might save support staff salaries, but I don't think they'll save engineer salaries with your plan, they might even have to boost them.

<comment><USER26> That's how it works in medicine - salaries are higher in less desirable areas.

<comment><USER27> I think you're missing the point. It's a tough sell to relocate someone and give them a lower salary. Who'd take that deal?

<comment><USER28> People who understand the lower salary is easily made up for by lower living costs.

<comment><USER10> I'm not sure I'm convinced. To give an example a recruiter once tried to get me to move to some place in India (2002). He told me I'd be making $30k a year which was 10x what locals made so I'd be living like a king. Even if that was true that I could live like a king for that salary in India all I could think about is how I'd be stuck there because I'd have no money to leave to a more expensive place in the future.

<comment><USER26> Yep - this is an extreme example, but the main reason it's a bad idea.

If you live in a high cost of living area, but are okay living with roommates you can save a ton of money. More than enough to make up the difference compared to living in a low cost of living area.

You also get better quality of life and a lot more opportunities - <USER2> people for work/friends/dating. It's also better to have a high salary in order to more easily keep a high salary.

I think you also learn more faster from increased exposure to talented people. I grew up in Buffalo which is a nice and very cheap place, but there was nobody to learn from.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER29> This should be good for engineering salaries in general in NYC.

<comment><USER30> Given Google's penchant for lowballing people without FANG experience or competing offers, probably not.

<comment><USER31> Do you have any references for this?

It definitely seems plausible and matches my (very limited) experience with a few friends that have joined Google, but I was wondering if you have any links.

I guess you would have to accept joining with a lower salary, and then try to switch to another FANG company to get a fair salary?

<comment><USER30> Well, there's me. I passed their interview gauntlet, but their initial offer was well under what I currently make, and their second barely matched it. They also badly down-leveled me (which is partially my fault for not insisting on an L5 interview loop).

From my direct experience, and talking to other people who have negotiated with Google, the only ways to get a good offer out of them is to either come from a FAANG or get a competing offer from one.

<comment><USER32> in SV, got an L5 offer couple years back, barely matching my relatively low for SV total with the base lower. They pretty much refused to negotiate. The same experience as couple acquaintances - one even took such an offer and not surprisingly ran away a year later. On the other hand - some other acquaintances make $400K-$500K as L5/L6 there.

<comment><USER30> > one even took such an offer and not surprisingly ran away a year later

I thought about that, but I'd rather not put myself through the job change gauntlet so often, and the role was such a step down in responsibility that I would be better off with a year in my current role.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER33> If it's going to make NYC a major engineering hub, on a similar scale as Mountain View, then it's a huge deal. If it's going to be mainly non-technical roles, then meh.

<comment><USER34> If NYC becomes a monoculture like SV than it truly is a big deal.

<comment><USER9> NYC is the largest city in the nation and is the main hub of many industries including finance, fashion, network TV, publishing, and advertising. The population of the overall NYC metropolitan area is 24 million.

The only way to change it into as much of a monoculture as Silicon Valley would be to add _tens of millions_ of tech workers, without adding any attendant employees to service industries. Not gonna happen.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER35> Every time I see a company setting up shop in the Mid-Atlantic, I just assume it's to set up shop a quick Amtrak ride to DC.

</comment><comment><USER36> Google doesn't want AWS to take over NYC

</comment><comment><USER37> Counterpoint: these jobs are increasingly meh and will not be impactful on the local economy.

Lifetime comp (salary + retirement benefits) for Amazonians in Crystal City will probably be less than for comparable Federal workers.

Google is like any other white collar business now - a small cadre of well paid execs surrounded by an army of people just doing ok.

80% of Googlers in NYC will probably have lower lifetime earnings than firefighters or cops once you factor in pensions

These companies are just factories with desks

<comment><USER33> > 80% of Googlers in NYC will probably have lower lifetime earnings than > firefighters or cops once you factor in pensions

No way. How much do you think Google entry level fresh graduate engineers earn in total compensation?

<comment><USER37> You will probably be retired for thirty years. Public employees are getting paid for those years, techies aren't.

I have a relative who is retired CHP. $200k a year total retirement benefits. Show me a rank and file Googler who has that lined up.

Typical techie trajectory will be maximum salary around age forty and then increasing irrelevance

As I tell everyone in tech now - imagine 64. It's coming.

<comment><USER38> Very, very few retired CHP are getting $200k/year. The average CHP pension is <$100k/year and is worth $2.6 million. Only about 1000 retired CHP are getting more than $100k/year.

The average Googler should be making 300-400k+/yr after 5 years. If that Googler is willing to live on a CHP salary for 30 years, it should be trivial to have saved well over $2.6million. They should, in fact, be able to save well over double that over 30yrs giving you the equivalent of that $200k a year in benefits.

<comment><USER37> bullshit that the "average" googler is making $400k after just five years, come on, thats just fantasy football.

remember Google employs people like HR and Accounts Receivable and lots of rank-and-file tech

there's really nothing more to do than come back here in twenty years and comment on what will be a flood of stories with titles like:

"Ask HN: was once a staff engineer at Google but since I turned fifty no one will hire me and all new jobs require fluent Mandarin. I'm running out of money, advice?"

The typical HN reader at this point hasn't even experienced a downturn.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>