The Difference Between Amateurs and Professionals (2017) - <AUTHOR> https://fs.blog/2017/08/amateurs-professionals/ <comment><USER2> Don't you find that fs.blog is increasingly clickbaity? I mean, this article is just a listicle that could have appeared in Business Insider or HuffPost or the likes. Does someone agree?

By the way wasn't Einstein an amateur physicist?

<comment><USER3> Einstein got a Bachelors in 1900, a PhD in 1905 and was a lecturer at Bern by 1908, he held a series of prestigious positions over the following 20 years. After he emmigrated to America in '30s he worked at Princeton. I don't know how anyone could assert that Einstein wasn't a professional physicist.

<comment><USER2> a PhD in 1905 means that he got it around the time he published his 4 articles in Annalen der Physik. I understand your point, but by the time he wrote the relativity theory he was, by the standards of this article, an amateur.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> It's a good comparison, but the use of the words "amateur" and "professional" to contrast the negative and positive points is unfortunate. Amateur is historically a positive word, describing people who pursue a particular field that is not their primary source of income (for the love of the field itself, thus the word "amateur"). For example, Francis Bacon and Isaac Newton were amateurs.

<comment><USER5> What was their primary income?

<comment><USER4> Francis Bacon was a statesman, and Isaac Newton was a mathematician by profession.

<comment><USER5> Is it fair to say that Newton was a professional mathematician and an amateur physicist?

<comment><USER4> Amateur physicist, astronomer, author, and theologian.

<comment><USER6> and alchemist, which commanded the majority of his curiosity and written output.

<comment><USER4> ... at a time when alchemy (chymistry) and science were not yet fully distinct. Also, only a tenth of his written works deal with alchemy.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> What a ridiculous list. Amateurs are people without formal training who contribute as a hobby, professionals are trained and get paid for what they do. There isn't any correlation between the things on that list and amateurs/professionals at all in my opinion. It simply reads as a list of good/bad traits that you want or want to avoid in the people in your network and yourself.

People who do things as a hobby don't just stop once they reach some goal, at least not in my experience. In stead they set new goals, and I really don't think people give up easily either. I mean, most people who do an Ironman are technically amateurs who self-train and participate because they think it's fun.

Likewise, when we operate open source projects we evaluate your contributions not your personal status. If your code is solid, no one is going to care if you're a 89 year old retired truck driver who codes for fun.

<comment><USER8> Looking at Collins dictionary, I think the author is using the third definition of amateur: "a person unskilled in or having only a superficial knowledge of a subject"

And the second definition of professional "a personal who engages in an activity with great competence"

These are implied by the question that begins the article: "Why is it that some people seem to be hugely successful and do so much, while the vast majority of us struggle to tread water?"

The author could have chosen better words, but I feel you're missing most of the article by focusing exclusively on them.

</comment></comment><comment> GuB-42 That list is not the difference between amateurs and professionals, it is about being good at the job.

In reality there is only one difference between professional and amateurs: money.

Professionals know how to turn their skill into a regular income. It doesn't mean they are really good at their job, more that they know how to deal with customers, work on a schedule, budget, advertise,...

There may be one skill that professionals have more than amateurs and that's the ability to finish the job. That's because people usually pay for a finished product, and if you don't finish, you don't get paid.

</comment><comment><USER3> These points aren't about amateurs and professionals and most of them don't stand up on their own merits.

>Amateurs have a goal. Professionals have a process.

I'll tell my boss this the next time we set my goals for the year.

</comment><comment><USER9> There's valid points here, but the impact is lost in the disjoint laundry list communication style.

<comment><USER10> I think most of the points are invalid.

Amateur means something more like "doesn't get paid". Professional means "gets paid."

Consider amateur marathoners. Some indeed "stop when they achieve" their first marathon. Others dedicate years to participating in marathons, and running culture. But they are all amateurs.

Some amateur marathoners "have a goal" \- do a marathon. Some "have a process."

Most amateurs runners _do not_ "think they are good at everything".

Many amateur runners have coaches, and join running clubs, and read advice books, all to get feedback and coaching.

Go down the list, and pretty none of it applies to dedicated amateur marathon runners.

Nor does it apply to other fields, like dedicated amateur birdwatching.

<comment><USER5> I think the list is more relevant for how it describes professionals, and less relevant for how it applies to amateurs. From professionals we expect a certain level of efficiency and proficiency. From amateurs we generally don't but that does not mean there are no skilled amateurs in a field.

<comment><USER11> E.g. Sir Isaac Newton who was a professional mathematician but an amateur physicist.

Professionalism to me means a few things: \- you earn money with the thing you do \- given a outline of the project you can judge how long it will take \- you also care about communicating your work \- once you agree to do something, you do it unless you can't

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> > Amateurs think in absolutes.

So amateurs are Sith. Sorry for this comment, but I cannot really take this post too seriously (yes, yes, this is probably just an amateur comment and I take the blog too personally).

The difference is probably just that professionals earn their money in the domain in question. That often has a positive influence on experience of course.

Having worked at least a few years in industry it quickly becomes apparent that magic formulas are quite rare.

<comment><USER13> It seems to me that whoever wrote that article thinks in absolutes...

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> I dislike articles that attempt to turn people into binary groups such as "amateur" vs "professional" \- there's some parts of my life where I'm amateur, others where I'm professional - and a lot of areas where I count myself as "clueless"

I was happier with the list after I replaced all instances of "amateurs" with "happy people" and all instances of "professionals" with "INTJ personality types"

(Disclosure: I'll admit to testing as an INTJ personality type, though I find the whole Myers-Briggs thing only slightly more convincing that astrology)

</comment><comment><USER15> Amateurs write clickbaity listicles to bolster their own fragile self- importance.

</comment><comment><USER16> Albert Einstein is an amateur physicist, a professional patent office clerk.

</comment><comment> martin-adams It's interesting to see how people interpret the word amateur in this.

There are two definitions:

1\. a person who engages in a pursuit, especially a sport, on an unpaid rather than a professional basis.

2\. a person who is incompetent or inept at a particular activity.

My interpretation is that it's only referring to 2 and isn't referring to those who engage in a pursuit without payment. Or more specifically, being an ameteur is a product of those actions.

</comment><comment><USER17> I've interpreted "amateurs" as people that are not good at what they do. People that have a job or a main activity but don't try enough and don't have the mindset to give the best of them. The whole list made sense from that point of view and less from "amateur" as a person that has a hobby.

</comment><comment><USER18> Try not to focus in the exact terminology used (I agree that "amateur" and "professional" are used incorrectly here).

Instead, understand those terms to mean good workers and bad workers, and there's actually some good advice in here, even though it comes across as trite in this format.

</comment><comment><USER19> If you replace the words "amateur" and "professional" with "Goofus" and "Gallant" you get a much more accurate article.

About that level of sophistication too.

</comment><comment><USER20> This is not about amateurs but people acting "professionally" vs. those acting "unprofessionally"...

<comment><USER21> Agreed. I think the professional/unprofessional distinction would have been much better. In this article the term 'amateur is used in a derogatory way, a sort of 'put down', such as one professional referring to another professional colleague as an 'amateur'. It's used in a sense that amateur is bad and professional is good. However it's not unusual for amateurs to be as good as professionals. For instance, major golf tournaments will often invite an amateur as a guest competitor. And so, in this case, the amateur/professional distinction isn't how good they are at playing golf (they're all equally good) - instead it's in the sense of 'is it a full-time career' and 'are earnings derived therefrom'.

Our industry (software dev specifically) is inclined to use put downs in this way. I've often thought the phrase 'code smell' is used as a 'put down', a way of diminishing someone's work in order to make them change what they do (i.e. to be more like some perceived standard). I think the use of that (and other similar derogatory phrases) is unprofessional - which is a tad ironic.

<comment><USER20> Depends on the area of expertise we're talking about. In sport amateurs absolutely can be as good or better than professional athletes. Musician or painter or programmer, same thing. But a skilled worker in jobs that are all about practice and experience? For instance I can manage to lay a brick wall or put tiles on the wall, but I did it only a few times in my life and I doubt that anyone not doing it professionally can have a significantly more experience than that - you just don't get a chance to do a lot of DIY projects like that - while someone who does that professionally is doing it for many hours a day, every day. That makes a HUGE difference in experience and that translates into the quality and speed. As DIY amateur, even if you come close in the quality, it will certainly take you 10x more time than professional.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> one do it for love and curiosity, the others for money?

</comment><comment><USER23> Why is this drivel on Hacker News? What's next? "See how these 20 celebrities have changed over the years"?

<comment><USER24> Have you seen the Olsen twins lately?? The years have not been kind..

<comment><USER25> And yet, if you take the Olsen twins at face value, they've had successful primary careers, have managed to hold on to their money, generally stay out of the spotlight, and have had numerous business ventures with varying levels of success. I don't think that the Olsen twins can be judged too harshly, in fact they really deserve quite a bit of credit for taking a single acting role and turning it into a lifelong empire. If they were in tech they'd be HN rock stars.

<comment><USER23> They would be Apple under Tim Cook: existing on old momentum…

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> There is one and only one difference between professionals and amateurs. Professional make the majority of their income doing the thing they are professional at, amateurs are doing the thing on an unpaid basis.

That's it. End of story.

<comment><USER11> Exactly, although some use "amateur" as a way to tell you you are not good at something, it doesn't actually follow from it's definition.

It is perfectly possible e.g. that an amateur artist makes better art than a professional one. Amateurs can be better than professionals especially in fields where the market forces you to do the same cheap stuff over and over again without any need to create something truly beautiful.

That beeing said: probably most of the best software out there has been created in an non-professional environment.

<comment><USER27> Another example: amateur investors can beat professionals quite easily. Sometimes by doing nothing at all.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER28> Amateurs write trite blog posts about professionalism for free.

Professionals don't sum up being professional in a few sound bites.

And of course the main difference, missing from the article, is getting paid for what you do vs doing it purely for the love/fun of it.

If you have a market you can drop all or most of the points in the post, and still be "hugely successful and do so much". If you don't you can do all of the above and still "struggle to tread water". And of course you could do all of the above while being an amateur as well (amateur != low quality output).

The post is more "how to be a better person / colleague / more efficient worker" than pro vs amateur.

</comment><comment><USER29> Most project managers are amateurs.

<comment><USER30> Wow, you should try working somewhere where project managers actually get paid.</comment></comment>


Citizen Command Center – got things/need things - <AUTHOR> http://citizencommandcenter.org <comment><AUTHOR> We aim to enter command & control information for regions IN ADVANCE of a disaster, AND immediately following, so as to help relief groups hit the ground running, and to help survivors immediately locate services and supplies in the event of a disaster in their region. This command & control information might be as simple as entering the name and cell phone for groups that are prepared to be first responders in a region. Or if a region's disaster community chooses, it can mean entering a list of disaster response units and/or facilities that are on "standby" for disaster response activity. There are many disaster response "command and control" systems in use by VOADs and EMA organizations. We hope to compliment what these established systems offer and we hope to offer unaffiliated groups a method for tracking their own needs and resources.

This online, public tool aims to serve both survivors of personal tragedy (fire, flood, poverty, etc) as well as groups of people affected by, or responding to disasters. The tool aims to serve case managers in helping their clients find resources, and it aims to help people working and surviving IN a disaster zone.</comment>


Hyperlocal Neighborhood Maps Reveal the Chaos in Aleppo – Wired - <AUTHOR> http://www.wired.com/wiredscience/2014/02/map-chaos-aleppo/

<comment><USER2> I wonder if the information they are collecting can be just as useful to the bad actors (particularly the government). As in "Oh look there's still an open bakery in this sector! Let's start shelling."

</comment><comment><USER3> Is interesting how low tech can be used to get better penetration than high tech...

<comment><USER4> It's not particularly surprising given that, in a region without stable electricity for 10+ hours/day for 60% of the population, you're not going to rely on electronics to do the work for you.

Take for instance the numerous stories of people hovering around and sharing power strips when they are available just to charge whatever devices they do have. It's a scarce resource.

<comment><USER3> Of course is not surprising, but I find it very interesting.. we are relying too much on technology. Or at least, I am.</comment></comment></comment>


IBM and the Seven Dwarfs - <AUTHOR> http://www.dvorak.org/blog/ibm-and-the-seven-dwarfs-dwarf-one-burroughs/

<comment><USER2> It was certainly more interesting to learn about the details of the architecture of Burroughs machines than to actually use them - the CANDE "shell" was an abomination.

The only bright spot (at least for Tron fans) was the OS kernel being called the "Master Control Program".

</comment><comment><USER3> I knew about the Burroughs B5000, but this tidbit about its 1956 predecessor is thought provoking:

 _The 205 had a number of interesting characteristics besides being a decimal computer. It utilized an spinning magnetic drum with average access time of 8.5 milliseconds. The drum had two sections. The high speed access section which had each piece of data duplicated 10 times and offset on various bands on the drum to increase the access time by 10. Here the average data access time was .85 milliseconds._

<comment><USER4> Yeah, that's interesting.

The 1954 IBM 650 is rather famous for each instruction having the address of the next instruction; one of the final phases of program construction was to lay out the program optimally so that the next instruction would be just about to come under a drum read head. Wikipedia says there was also an instruction optimized for drum reading (<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IBM_650>).

<comment><USER5> Relevant: The Story of Mel. <http://www.pbm.com/~lindahl/mel.html></comment></comment></comment>


Gmail feature lets recipients know where you are coming from  - <AUTHOR> http://news.cnet.com/8301-17939_109-10161264-2.html?part=rss&subj=news&tag=2547-1_3-0-20 <comment> tsetse-fly dupe and linkjack:

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=476641>

[http://gmailblog.blogspot.com/2009/02/new-in-labs-add- your-l...](http://gmailblog.blogspot.com/2009/02/new-in-labs-add-your- location-to-your.html)</comment>


Hacking a $30 IoT camera to do more than it's worth - <AUTHOR> https://hackernoon.com/hacking-a-25-iot-camera-to-do-more-than-its-worth-41a8d4dc805c <comment><USER2> There's a virtuous cycle thing going on here: Someone releases a product with hackable/open specs (Xiaomi has a good track record here), people are overjoyed because you can't easily get good hardware for cheap and build a bunch of software around it, thus (usually greatly) extending the capabilities of the product, other people buy that product because it's much more advanced than competitors (because of all the extra software), profit for the parent company.

Basically, the company gets a bunch of people to do work for free, the product gets improved, the company makes profit, everybody wins.

<comment><USER3> Except when the business model was to sell the hardware at breakeven and make it up with the monthly subscription, and people are buying subsidized hardware and skipping out on the subscription fees.

If the company sets out to create an open platform and has a business model which works in that world, that is a beautiful thing.

Is that the case here and are we seeing a virtuous cycle, are features contributed back to the company and actually integrated into their product? I think that's a beautiful model but I'm not sure that's actually what's happenning here?

Literally the first sentence of the article;

"...its price is cheap but in exchange you are tied to the Xiaomi's Mi Home App & Cloud."

<comment><USER2> Xiaomi is, in general, quite good about opening its products up. The YeeLight bulbs, for example, have a nice open API.

<comment><USER4> Yeelight is just a startup marketing under the Xiaomi brand and is promoted by them, it's not technically Xiaomi. Same as with other branches of products (e.g. the vacuum robots).

It also happens that Xiaomi later releases products which actually compete with their partners (in this case yeelight and their bedside lamps). Also the whole Yi Camera brand. First marketed with the help of Xiaomi and now a competitor to the Mijia brand (Xiaomis own brand).

(Citations and more insight needed, that was just from memory).

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> This ecosystem is ripe for software based innovation. There's a lot of great hardware out there but the API's are often closed and the existing software lackluster. After some research I recently purchased a Wifi camera, and am planning on using it to track my 6mo old's sleep habits (using some custom scripts / classification / etc). Guide's like this are great because they help make these things possible. I hope over time as more people publish hacks and cool projects based on them, some of these companies will start to open up their platform / API's. There's so many potentially cool projects that will hatch out of these.

</comment><comment><USER6> I see a lot of products like this on Alibaba that I wish I could put my own firmware on. I've messaged a few of them telling them "I'd buy 1000 of these if I can put my own firmware on them" but haven't gotten any good responses. What I'm aiming for sometimes gets lost in translation, but mostly I think they just don't get the premise I'm presenting to sales people who answer the Alibaba inquiries.

<comment><USER7> A lot of the seller in Alibaba are just buying camera OEM from a factory so they wouldn't be able to get you the software. The factory itself might be just copying the reference design from chip manufacturer and they might not have access to the code or under a NDA. The chip manufacturer does not have an incentive to provide you custom firmware. You aren't their customer.

<comment><USER8> These are exactly the same reasons which prevented mp3 players manufacturers back in the day from opening up their specifications to open source projects, such as Rockbox

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> I wonder how he got the root password. I see he found it but not a description of how. Does anyone know how can this be done?

<comment><USER10> The trick for most device is to get a serial console and set uboot "flashargs" or using the init=bin/sh trick, grab the root hash, shove it through hashcat.

<comment><USER11> You are exactly correct.

[https://github.com/EliasKotlyar/Xiaomi-Dafang- Hacks/blob/mas...](https://github.com/EliasKotlyar/Xiaomi-Dafang- Hacks/blob/master/hacks/getroot.md)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> I want to buy bunch of them and setup a grid in small farm. My challenges are * how do I connect to wifi router which is located in the farm house, because some will be very far from the router. * Also another challenge is how to charge the cameras?

Has anybody worked on above issues ?

<comment><USER13> We have p2p wifi between our barn and farm house. The barn is powered by solar.

I use engenius WAPs, a 100Ah battery, 2 100W solar panels, a $15 solar charge controller, various buck/boost converters for other power requirements. The system also powers an LTE repeater and LTE modem, to provide the farm with internet access.

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> Speaking about cheap cameras. I'm planning to setup some cameras at home. Anyone have any recommendations for devices that are cheap, can see moderately good in the dark, can be connected to a raspberry and doesn't force you to connect to some cloud service?

<comment><USER15> I have a Wyze cam that I installed OpenIPC on. Very simple process if you've ever flashed a firmware before. OpenIPC lets you turn off the cloud stuff and I have mine pushing video over my local network to MotionEye on a Raspberry Pi. The Wyze has IR night vision but the IR can't see through windows at night so be aware of that.

It was like $25 on Amazon, pretty good deal I think.

<comment><USER16> I've got the same thing going at home, tough to beat ~7 of these cameras flashed with OpenIPC for the cost of a single drop cam.

Got the rtsp stream connected up to smartthings and blue iris and have had zero trouble with them.

They're only $20 if you order from wyze.com

<comment><USER2> Does anyone know of a good Android viewer for RTSP? I'm probably going to proxy it with an HTTP webserver over TLS (if I can do that with RTSP? EDIT: Apparently I can't, I'll have to find a way to add authentication) to add basic auth, so the viewer will need to support that.

<comment><USER15> I use TinyCam on an Amazon Fire tablet to view my RTSP stream but only locally. Over the Internet I view the stream from MotionEye on my RPi using their authentication. In that case I can view it in the browser, no app needed.

<comment><USER2> Thank you, I didn't know of those apps, I'll try them now.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> Any cool use cases?

<comment><USER18> In the UK, that makes it cheaper than the Philips Hue PIR-based motion sensor, which is crazy. And while non-Zigbee, you could easily integrate it into an existing Hue setup.

It enables you to add more intelligence to your home automation because not only can it detect motion, if you offload the processing, it can enable object recognition.

So your cat doesn't trigger it. Or triggers a different action.

Because you can control the IR leds and filtering, you can mount it in a dome for ultra-cheap external pan and tilt with an external IR illuminator.</comment></comment>


Scholarly Publishing's Gender Gap - <AUTHOR> http://chronicle.com/article/The-Hard-Numbers-Behind/135236/ <comment> guard-of-terra "Men talking about mathematical proofs, about a South Park episode on evolution, about their latest mountain-climbing adventures.

"The lab is like visiting a fraternity,""

This is seriously disgusting. Imagine an article when a male journalist writes upon visiting some research faculty that "it is like visiting a sorority". I imagine there would be a serious torrent of anger from the defenders of whatever rights. That journalist will be immediately labeled as a biased chauvinist.

However, when a woman visits a lab and tells us that it is like visiting a fraternity, it's somehow okay. Obviously there is something discrediting in climbing or watching the (award winning) South Park.

To clarify: I (as many and many Hacker News readers) am male and happen to work in mostly male environment, but it does not feel like a fraternity. In fact, it feels like a place where grown-up intelligent people do creative work. And yes, we occassionally do discuss climbing and TV series. And no, there is nothing wrong about that.

<comment><USER2> What's odd is the implication that if you went to a sorority (or some other all, or mostly, women enclave) women would not be taking about mathematical proofs, or a South Park episode on evolution, or about their latest mountain- climbing adventures.

<comment><USER3> I don't see that implication.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> One explanation of why women might publish less than men do is, as you might expect, completely ignored by the article: discrimination.

Consider a simple model in which, to become a professor, you must have at least 10 pts - you get 1 pt from a first-author publication and half a point from a second-author publication. Suppose further that the process is biased and women get 2 points simply for being a woman.

In such a model, you'd expect women to have about 2 fewer first-author or 4 fewer second-author (or some linear combination) publications than men.

I.e., women might have fewer publications because discrimination in their favor allows them to publish less to achieve the same position.

This is the straightforward economics explanation, although of course academic employment is hardly the epitome of an efficient market.

<comment><USER5> Only if you have data (or blindly assume) that women at some level of "the career ladder" have fewer publications than men at the same level.

<comment><USER4> You are correct, this could also be entirely a compositional effect. I.e., women in academia might also be be on average younger than men, and hence have fewer publications.

There are a lot of possible explanations. Ultimately we need data on the authors as well as the publications to know what's really going on.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> The thing that jumps out at me as a question from this data is why some sub- topics/specialties of a subject have such a huge range? Some things make sense. Lots of women write papers on Sociology/Gender, and this doesn't shock me in the least since I think more women consider gender issues over men who have the privilege of not needing to think about it (which is part of the problem). Culturally, we push women to studying things that are family, children and fertility related as well (and push men away from them)- and these are present in the numbers.

Yet under Law, you've got only 8% of papers on Antitrust by women, but 34.6% on legal oversight and regulation. It clear isn't that there are no women in law, but something has influenced them to study different things in the larger subject of law.

Similarly- Mycology has 57.1% of the papers on Yeast with authorship, but 7.7% on Zygospores. What makes yeast more equitable than zygospores? Again, it isn't that women aren't in mycology, but for some reason are studying different things it seems.

And for mathematics; 24.3% for Lie Algebras, and 4.5% for Oscillation Criteria. I honestly don't know what either of those are, but they don't appear to be particularly gendered sub-topics/specialities in math. I understand that culturally we push young women away from some subjects, but I've never heard someone intone that a woman shouldn't do oscillation criteria or automorphic forms in math, or encourage algebraic groups instead?

(Numbers above looking at first author)

Clearly, there is a gap. This is a problem. I'd just like to know more about the causation on more of the stranger gaps.

<comment><USER7> > Clearly, there is a gap. This is a problem.

I grant you your first point.

...but that doesn't remotely prove your second point, which you've just asserted.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> Powerful tangent, stolen from Dan Knoepfle posting at Quora:

</comment><comment></comment><comment>=

What's in a Surname? The Effects of Surname Initials on Academic Success, Journal of Economic Perspectives, 20(1), Winter 2006, 175-188 (available here: <http://www.stanford.edu/~leinav/pubs/JEP2006.pdf>)

In short, they find that it's better to have a name starting with a letter early in the alphabet, and that authors with names starting with letters late in the alphabet are less likely to collaborate with more than one other person (and end up in the et alia part of the citation).

</comment><comment></comment><comment>==

When I was a kid, I new a friend's dad who spoke of the important of marrying well: into a higher position in the alphabet. Miss Z<comment>~~ would have no trouble improving her lot in life.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> > the prestigious last-author position,

The what?

[http://www.quora.com/What-is-the-significance-of-the- orderin...](http://www.quora.com/What-is-the-significance-of-the-ordering-of- author-names-on-an-academic-paper)

(Wow, Quora being useful.)

I did not know that.</comment>


Will NASA retreat from human space exploration? - <AUTHOR> http://www.newscientist.com/blogs/shortsharpscience/2010/01/will-nasa-retreat-from-human-s.html <comment><USER2> The retreat was started decades ago. It is coming to a close.

The US simply can't afford a 'war on terrorism', a 'war on drugs' and a space program at the same time.

Cool if you downmod because you disagree, but please enlighten me as to _why_ you disagree.

The height of the space program was the commencement of the shuttle programme and the assembly of the space station (arguably an international more than a US endeavour, but without US participation it would never have happened).

But the shuttles are at their end-of-life and it remains to be seen if there ever will be successor.

They always were near-earth devices, some people would argue that the US space program ended with the last manned moonshot.

A significant reason for this is that the US has spent large sums of money keeping a vast number of people locked up in jail for minor infractions, spent countless billions abroad to try to influence events in Latin America and the middle east.

Not to mention two wars that might have been avoided by not empowering people that turned really bad (tm) when they slipped their leash.

<comment><USER3> I upmodded you because no one is countering your argument, and I don't think you're entirely misguided. The US has stagnated like crazy when it comes to space. I don't know if it's necessarily our fake wars going on. I think it's because people (the general populous) does not care. If they cared I'm sure we could just print even more bogus cash and pay for it.</comment></comment>


Bad Microsoft - <AUTHOR> http://badmicrosoft.com/ <comment> nonymous-- For people supposedly so intelligent, programmers often appear quite foolish, at least when compared with other professionals.

They give away enormous quantities of their labor for free through open source (some even going so far as to sign one-sided contracts granting the copyright to for-profit corporations without compensation). They openly denigrate their own skills by spreading egalitarian myths like "everyone can be a programmer" (whereas I doubt many doctors or lawyers would make similar declarations concerning the practice law or medicine) and by preferring the title "coder" over its considerably more prestigious alternatives like "programmer" or "software engineer." They promote bootcamp-style vocational schools to flood the market with cheap labor to compete with them and to further bolster the perception that programming is an easy, low-skill trade, perhaps a rung or two above mere clerical work.

And then when it becomes apparent that they are getting screwed by their employers who collude with one another to drive down wages with no-poaching agreements, H-1B visas, and by firing senior devs in favor of 20-somethings, the long-ignored subject of unionization is revived.

And of course, being programmers and therefore unsavvy, the model proposed is invariably that of a blue-collar trade union like the United Auto Workers Union and never an innocuous-sounding, white-collar "professional association" like the American Bar Association, American Medical Association, or American Dental Association. These outfits are so successful in both their lobbying and PR that they've made their members among of the highest paid practitioners in the world (particularly doctors), and the gullible masses remain wholly ignorant of their true nature and consequently spare them from the condemnation usually heaped upon unions, both public- and private-sector alike.

In fact, their PR has been so successful that I wouldn't be surprised if someone responded to this very post contesting my characterization of them as unions, despite evidence of their anti-competitive practices being trivial to come by: [http://www.usdoj.gov/atr/public/press_releases/2006/216804.h...](http://www.usdoj.gov/atr/public/press_releases/2006/216804.htm)

<comment><USER4> The thing is, most programming really _isn 't_ brain surgery in most cases. Unfortunately most professional programmers are arrogant douches that _really do_ believe they're on the same level as a doctor. Maybe some are, especially if they're coding medical equipment, but the majority of programmers are just regular people with average IQs. Programming is only "hard" because traditional western schooling doesn't introduce you to any programming concepts.

<comment><USER5> Good point. The act or programming is comparable to writing or simple arithmetic.

However, where things get complex is when we reach the systems-design level. Doctors need ten years of studying to be qualified. I would claim that you need at least that much of programming to be really qualified for a position where the evolution of an expensive system depends on the intuitive design decisions you perform on the spot.

The cost of unskilled medical practice are localized and can result in large costs and an individual tragedy.

The cost of unskilled systems design practice can be spread temporally over several years, result in large organizational costs in maintenance and small tragedies for the poor bastards who have to maintain the system.

While I do not suggest comparing the economic risks are a good key metric in computing a professionals pay check I think it should be a part of the equation. It's really hard for me to figure out who has more financial risks tied to their profession, the systems designer or the doctor.

If we continue the risks analysis one could say a regular lorry driver can easily cause as much in damages with careless driving. However, in the case of the lorry driver learning to do a proper job does not take ten years.

Edit: Auch, the downvotes, they hurt. I was trivializing a bit with the comparison to arithmetic. What I should have said is 'a fundamental skill applicable to many domains _just like_ arithmetic or writing.

<comment><USER6> _The act or programming is comparable to writing or simple arithmetic._

I have interviewed many people who claim to know programming, but can't program. These same people I think could read and do simple arithmetic.

Like many things, once _you_ know how to do it, it looks easy. I never understood why people have a hard time with pointers, recursion or dependency injection, but many people do. Programming is not some impossible to learn skill, but it does require dedication, a level of abstract thinking not often found in other disciplines, and logic. Reducing programming to writing or arithmetic is maybe true for simple Excel macros, but not what most people on this site would consider programming.

<comment><USER5> Is the 8 year old doing Scratch exercises not programming? I would claim she is. The difference we want to make then, is between 'simple' programming and complex systems level programming.

I claim both can provide value. Even simple programming can be used to automate domain specific tasks that will reduce the amount of manual labour required, freeing the professional to other tasks and thus increase their productivity.

Programming in a professional setting has thus at least two facets - a tool to create new systems and a tool to automate existing ones. I would claim both tasks are programming but with dramatically different mechanisms for adding value.

"Reducing programming to writing or arithmetic is maybe true for simple Excel macros, but not what most people on this site would consider programming."

Yeah, I went overboard with simplification there. The difference I wanted to communicate (but failed) was between the human requirements for entry level scripting and actual systems programming as the post I responded to stated programming did not have the same economies of scarcity as skills in medicine. I would have been more correct to state that programming is _more like_ arithmetic than medicine in the sense that both novice and experts alike can provide added value through the act of programming but in widely different circumstances.

I'm a professional software engineer but my wife with a PhD in physics 'just happens' to write Matlab scripts in her day job as an R&D engineer to chew through terabytes of production data in an indusrial setting so I think I have a pretty good view to these different kinds of domains :)

<comment><USER6> I think a lot of what we call _simple_ programming today will just be expected knowledge for most people in a short amount of time. Doing Scratch exercises or writing a macro will not make me a future person a programmer in the same way doing some simple math does not make me today a mathematician.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> _" Telling your story to HR or the ERIT will make you feel good, but all you are doing is giving Microsoft Legal a heads-up."_

This can't be emphasized enough: In any conflict between employees and management, HR will always be there to cover the company's ass legally, not to help the employee. Don't expect them to be on your side.

I've been reading the book "Corporate Confidential", recommended recently by a HN contributor.[1] Strategies like "managing employees out" seem to be a ubiquitous practice in corporate America, not just limited to Microsoft.

[1] [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8600716#up_8602172](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8600716#up_8602172)

<comment><USER8> Agree completely. It's amazing how many people don't realize this. HR should be called "Employee Risk Management." I can think of few things you should ever talk to HR about other than your benefits.

<comment><USER9> No, "Human Resources" covers it just fine. Humans are merely resources a company can use and discard as it sees fit.

<comment><USER10> I spent some time this week reading old CIA interrogation manuals (which openly discuss "coercive" techniques), for personal background on the current debates.

Anyway, the CIA interrogation manual for the wars in Central America in the 80s was titled "Human Resource Exploitation Training Manual", which struck me as perfectly Orwellian from a couple of directions.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> Join a union. I know they're not particularly popular in the USA - <USER2> especially not in the high tech sector. But if these actions don't convince you that they're necessary, nothing will.

In the UK I pay ~£16/$25 per month to be a member of Prospect, a union for workers in the telecoms sector. When I was made redundant (downsized) they were able to get me an excellent settlement and provided me with incredibly useful professional advice.

I also know that if I'm in a disciplinary situation, they'll have trained employment rights specialists available to fight my corner.

The best way to think about a union (IMO) is as legal insurance. You pay for car insurance in case someone plows into your automobile - why wouldn't you do the same for your career?

<comment><USER12> > You pay for car insurance in case someone plows into your automobile - <USER3> > wouldn't you do the same for your career?

Few people willingly pay car insurance; fewer still have any confidence that their insurance will pay-out. But we pay the premiums because it is a legal requirement, even though it might be more effective for some people to put that money into a bond instead.

It's a similar situation for unions; few people expect that a union really protect them from a determined private-sector employer, so they assess the cost-benefit of such "insurance" to be negative. Particularly when the premium, much as in your example, costs a lot in terms of minimum wage.

<comment><USER13> > Few people willingly pay car insurance

By that rationale, no-one would by the more expensive fully-comprehensive insurance (where your own car is insured, not just third parties) but they do.

<comment><USER14> Many people only buy the comprehensive insurance because their loan contract and/or lease terms require it.

<comment><USER15> And that makes sense, you can just return the car and get a new one. And lease contracts fees reflect this. If you have a fixed term lease, then returning a car ahead of time costs you, so you opt to repair it, and probably the leasing company wants it repaired at a brand licensed garage, so higher prices on that means you're likely to get a proper insurance, but you get the lease for cheaper.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> I love anecdotal data, so I'll share mine: I'm at Microsoft, almost 46, and most of my managers have been younger than me. Nearly all of my reviews have been extremely good; the remainder just good.

It's true that there seems to be a sort of cliff around my age; there are very few people in product development roles over the age of 50. I would attribute that to the way the industry evolved: mine was the first generation that really had the opportunity to grow up with PCs. My first exposure was a programming class in summer school in 1981. The demand for software developers also really exploded in the 1980s. These things combined to make software both more interesting and more compelling as a career than it had been in earlier generations.

EDIT: It's probably also worth pointing out that anyone who'd joined Microsoft before ~1995 and was careful about managing their money could likely have decided to retire by now.

<comment><USER17> To find an explanation of the process I would really just look at the number of programmers working in any given year. There are many times more new programmers starting professionally in 2015 than 1985 while mechanical engineers, lawyers and poets get produced at a roughly even rate.

That in itself creates a huge skew, there are fewer 50-something programmers because 1985 produced fewer programmers. I think a lot of the concern/focus on the youthful "fetish" in the industry is this kind of an illusion.

In the early 70s, Rockstars were by definition in their 20s. These days, if you are looking for rock mega stars who can fill arenas anywhere in the world, you will find rockstars of all ages. In fact, rockstars like Mick Jagger (70s), Steven Tyler (60s), Prince (50s) are more likely having had decades to accumulate fans.

It turns out that the 27 year old rock god cliche was a product of the fact that it takes time to make a 60 year old and no one was making rockstars in 1929.

<comment><USER18> Unrelated to your point, but undercutting your conclusion is the fact that the "27 year old rock god" cliche came about in large part due to the # of rock stars who died at 27. Check out the wiki article on "the 27 club" for more info.

Plus, when you're 27, you're probably at or near your physical peak. IE, you're good looking. And that's arguably more important than any skill.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> This story reminds me of my current company. A large fortune 500 company that has recently had most leadership moved to Silicon Valley, in which there were major layoffs to most of the older engineers, based on a consultants suggestion. Most of these engineers maintained and supported older legacy and mainframe systems. Now everyone is scrambling to fill the gaps and it puts a toll on everyone. Not to mention the fear of current talent fleeing as the word is out that you don't spend more than 5 years here or you will be forced out.

<comment><USER20> _based on a consultants suggestion_

No top management decision is ever based on a consultant's suggestion; it's the other way around. The consultant's job is to provide the appearance of neutral outside expertise to justify whatever the executives wanted to do anyway.

</comment></comment><comment><USER21> Only 17.7% of Microsoft employees are younger than 30. Almost half are 40+. Average age: 38.7.

Source: [http://news.microsoft.com/facts-about- microsoft/](http://news.microsoft.com/facts-about-microsoft/)

Don't be scared. Instead, learn to have more compassion on others while you are young. Join a Union. Keep improving. And consider moving into management later or start a small business in your late 30s.

<comment><USER22> Wow, I'm trying to imagine what that age distribution curve looks like. It must start out pretty heavy, and then have a super hard drop right after 40.

<comment><USER23> Why? A bit more than half the company is under 40 and the average age is slightly under 40. Seems like any sort of distribution could yield these sorts of numbers.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> Stories like this one terrify me. No matter how young you are today, someday not too long from now you'll be 40+ and on the receiving end of this type of discrimination. Is that the kind of industry we want to be?

<comment><USER25> But we don't know the full story (for each individual) - we don't know if it really is discrimination based on age or if there are other things going on. I've seen both things happen in medium sized companies so I won't be surprised if it's the same for Microsoft (or other major companies for that matter)

\- case 1: a guy in his fifties writing C++ like it's C with classes in the same style he did 20 years ago. Every piece of code is a complete trainwreck. I could go on for hours on how bad it is. Anyway, the programs he creates like that sort of work. Barely. But because there isn't anyone else to do his job, managment is stupid and too lazy to find someone else and rather waits until it explodes in their faces (i.e. when he retires), he can stay. Until one day a new manager steps in and immediately sees the problem and lets the guy go. Would you really call this discrimination or rather the proper thing to do?

\- case 2: the opposite. Decent guy in his fifties, hard working, always learning, writing proper code, not afraid to speak up. The letter eventually yielding him fired because (again) of stupid managment: one manager able to convince the rest he's too old and too costly too keep, rest of the pack too lazy too stand up and just let it happen.. That is discrimination.

<comment><USER26> There is also a trickier and more interesting case 3:

Experienced guy in his 50's, seen it all before. Remembers the era of object databases, knows why SQL was invented, and shuts down his hipster colleague's plans to use Mongodb. Remembers CORBA, SOA and J2EE and is skeptical about microservices. Understands why logging/metrics/dependency injection is necessary and pushes RoR guys to use more verbose syntax to support it.

Younger folks dislike him because of this. There is conflict. Management has a real problem, since they both need experience but the senior guy can't build everything on his own.

<comment><USER27> dependency injection isn't needed in RoR, as mocking/stubbing is so simple, and built in (with RSpec, say)... (Same with metrics, they can easily be injected into the entire object tree). Logging sure, you need to write some of that.

There are also arguments for NoSQL dbs as well, some times old knowledge is exactly that.

This doesn't seem to be a compelling example... But alas, I think I've taken this off topic.

<comment><USER14> > dependency injection isn't needed in RoR, as mocking/stubbing is so simple, > and built in (with RSpec, say)

Disclaimer: not a RoR guy.

Dependency injection isn't about unit tests. Dependency injection is about weak dependencies, easier refactoring, and preventing bad design decisions from being a disaster 5 years down the line. Dependency injection is a good idea no matter what the language/framework is.

That's the point of the parent comment. A dev in his 50s would point these things out.

<comment><USER28> Dependency injection in practice is almost always implemented for tests.

In terms of architecture, it's usually a case of YAGNI. Every dependency injected is a configuration point that is almost never altered, except for mocks in testing. When this style infects a whole codebase, it makes it far harder to read and navigate, because code flow is dependent on runtime data flow. Heavy use of indirections that only ever go to the one place is a bad code smell, and it's a stench over the entire field of enterprise Java.

Code that is easy to read is easy to refactor. Except for natural architectural chokepoints that are typically intrinsic to the problem being solved, you're fooling yourself if you don't think architecture changes are needed for most refactoring - dependency injection isn't buying you what you think you're buying. Every injection point you create is a prediction about the future, about the possibilities of change, but there's one gotcha: the future is hard to predict, so most of your decisions are wrong.

You're better off being agile, following YAGNI, doing the simplest thing that will work, and altering it when requirements change.

<comment><USER26> I've done DI many times for things other than tests - swapping out different algorithms is the most common case (BetaBanditCalculator -> TimeVaryingBayesianBanditCalculator -> HierarchicalPersonalCharacteristicCalculator, etc). It also makes testing easy, which is great, but that's far from the only use case.

DI tends to work great for the integration point between systems - e.g., connecting the REST or Thrift interface to the calculation backend and datastore.

The fact that a concept is hard to use in Enterprise Java is a poor argument against anything other than Enterprise Java.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER29> _" Microsoft uses bad performance reviews ("The How") as a tool to eliminate the elder (40+) and senior ranked employees."_

Current Microsoft employee here. A few years ago my manager at that time did exactly the above. The review process in use at that time rated employees on "What" you accomplished and "How" you accomplished it. I had done really well on the "What" and the manager still gave me a low rating because supposedly I did poorly on "The How". The "How" gave managers tremendous flexibility to rate employees however they want regardless of actual performance. So why did my manager do it? I believe he discriminated against me for age reasons. There is evidence to support this: This manager rewrote ("reinterpreted" according to him) the HR-supplied expectations for SDEs (Software Development Engineers) at each level, and he raised expectations for those at higher level, while leaving expectations for lower level employees the same.

While I believe this manager discriminated against me for age reasons, I don't believe there is Microsoft-wide, corporate-sanctioned, age discrimination going on. It might be happening at the level of individual managers, however.

<comment><USER30> So, how'd it all work out? I mean, obviously you still work for MS, but what happened with the manager? Did he move or did you?

This is actually part of classic corporate behavior: * Company starts small, based on people who want to get things done (and get rich)

* Small company succeeds, discovers need to expand

* Small company becomes big company

* At some point a threshold is passed: behaviors (such as are typical in middle management) begin to appear, and are tolerated, because the company is successful.

* But, the mid management behaviors are lethal in the long term. The reason its long term instead of short term is because the company success is a kind of inertia -- it takes a while before the "decelerating" behavior of mid management affects the company.

* By the time the success inertia has been countered, those mid managers have moved on, either through making a fortune, or being able to parlay their "success" into other positions in other companies.

Pessimistic, but I've observed it in many circumstances, up close and personal in one or two (including my current position).

<comment><USER29> I moved to another group immediately and doing well in the new group. The manager got demoted during a reorg several months later, likely because there was a lot of negative feedback from his direct reports. That's one thing I like about Microsoft. Microsoft collects anonymous feedback about managers from their direct reports during an annual survey, and if there is a lot of negative feedback about a manager that manager is not going to do well. Other companies should adopt this.

<comment><USER30> Good move on your part.

Lets hope Nadella works out well for you and MS.

I've made my career on MS technologies, and it's been painful over the past decade or so to gradually turn away from it as the big corporation management power plays run their course.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER31> This story doesn't exactly scream "STEM shortage", does it?

<comment><USER32> I've always taken "STEM shortage" to mean "STEM shortage of low cost, high tolerance for long hours overseas workers".

<comment><USER33> Does anybody actually still think it's anything else than that?

<comment><USER34> Same is true for talent. There's no shortage for talent. There's a shortage for talented people willing to work for "the price we're offering".

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER35> I guess it is just the audience on HN that is driving it, but I find it interesting that this whole discussion here is focusing on subjects like the purported STEM shortage and whether programmers should unionize. As far as I can tell the badmicrosoft.com site and suit in question really doesn't have anything to do with these subjects, other than the fact that Microsoft is the largest software company in the world.

Relatively few Microsoft employees are STEM workers or programmers, and none of those in the lawsuit in question. They are in the sales organization. They may work in the technology industry, but the questions of this lawsuit are more about ageism and management issues endemic in many Fortune 500 corporations regardless of the industry or role of the worker.

</comment><comment><USER36> Why are tech writers and programmers treated differently in the law? Recruiter lobbying: [http://andreas.com/faq-overtime.html](http://andreas.com/faq- overtime.html)

 _" The recruiters accepted our exemptions because they were going after bigger fish: the engineers. The computer engineers who work as W-2 contractors are generally earning $100-300/hr and often work 60-80 hours per week. The recruiters were afraid that if such workers were entitled to overtime pay, the companies may cut overtime work, and therefore the recruiters would lose their 30-50% share of that money (this can be much as $6,000 per week to a recruiter for a single worker.)

Engineers have always refused to organize or even to be aware of their interests: they think recruiters are their friends. One engineer said to me: "Engineers think they're so smart that no one could do such a thing to them. Wow. They got really screwed." The law is an annual loss of as much as $50-75,000 dollars per each engineer. Yep, it's legal. The recuiters wrote a law to take away their money. Silicon Valley engineers were plundered by their "friends"."_

See also [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8137958](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8137958)

<comment><USER37> Companies don't pay overtime. Those numbers cited would never happen. Instead, employees would simply lose the freedoms they enjoy now to work hours that suit them or spend company time learning.

I was hourly once because my company was very conservative about labor laws. Finally reaching the rank that no longer required me to fill out timecards or justify project time was a big upgrade in my life style. Did I work an occasional Saturday? Sure, but I also left early on other days or worked from home. I couldn't do that when I was hourly.

I'm far from convinced that overtime rules would make anything better for tech workers.

<comment><USER36> These rules are about hourly contractors, not equity-incented employees. You're comparing hourly to non-hourly. This is about hourly with overtime (tech writers) vs. hourly without overtime (engineers).

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER38> Microsoft has turned into Ma Bell. Microsoft is so large that any innovation at this point has to be minimal and highly managed or it would rock the boat, threatening the cohesiveness of the company. This is the worst environment for the hacker. It's an excellent environment for office slime who know how to play the game and lean more toward the psychopathic end of the spectrum. It's a world tailor made for the venal and the mediocre. A word about priorities, let the pricks take all the money, it's really worthless anyway compared to your mental health. In lieu of any positive creative talent middle management and HR thrive on destruction pursuits like emotional abuse, gas lighting and lying. Start living a real life worth having, live by your own rules and play your own game even if it means living on $20,000 per year which is all you really need anyway. Most of us are fighting an uphill battle with corporate suits to protect our clutter, distractions and excesses. Go outside for a nice walk, feel the sun on your face, read a good book, talk to a friend, take your child to the play ground, throw out the stuff you don't need, just start living for God's sake. Be happy now and leave all misery and bad feelings with them where they belong. Do not take the anger and resentment of your bitter experience with you (that's their greatest weapon BTW). It's very difficult to just drop your anger and resentment but do it fast, hard and don't look back. You want to be happy don't you? You want to be free? Don't waste your time thinking about them. Only think about good things. If it doesn't make you happy, you shouldn't think about it. If it makes you happy, you should think about it. You can and should become the happiest person you family and friends know about. Happiness isn't free. It requires a disciplined mind that allows good stuff in a throws out garbage like grudges. Happiness costs you but it well worth the price. There will always be enough money in your life. Social status is overrated and useless. Imagine yourself on your deathbed, are you going to regret not making $X million dollars and being the center of attention or the opportunities for true happiness that you let slip.

<comment><USER39> > In lieu of any positive creative talent middle management and HR thrive on > destruction pursuits like emotional abuse, gas lighting and lying.

This whole post is crazy but this quote especially is absurd.

I'm a current Microsoft employee and I'm not a brainwashed corporate drone constantly abused by incompetent management. I don't think you've had any experience being employed by Microsoft.

</comment></comment><comment><USER40> What incentive does Microsoft have to get rid of high performing older employees?

<comment><USER41> Nothing for Microsoft. Microsoft managers, and really any manager, see older people as threats to their power/jobs. They did not get into the business because they want to make successful products and technology that makes everyone happy. Management is the business of controlling people for a paycheck, and nothing more. Obviously the type of people who get into that kind of business are not the kind that give a shit about replacing workers for their own benefit at the expense of the company.

<comment><USER42> I must be lucky because in 25+ years I have worked for only one manager like that, during my (brief, and regretted) foray into sales. Every other manager I've had has been interested in building things and enabling his employees to do great things.

My point is just that if you have a manager like you describe, leave. You don't have to with that; there are better options out there.

<comment><USER43> Agreed, in fact at our company it's the opposite: engineers mostly don't want to manage, and director level managers keep trying to push us into the positions. For the managers we do have we are mostly thankful that someone is willing to do that thankless job and sacrifice their coding time :-)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER44> "Microsoft uses bad performance reviews ("The How") as a tool to eliminate the elder (40+) and senior ranked employees."

Proof please. This not only reeks of confirmation bias, but could it also be explained by resistance to acquire new skills in line with advances in fast- paced technological improvements?

<comment><USER45> _Proof please._

I'm kinda thinking that's what the case could possibly be about?

Is this one of those _divert the conversation by asking for citations for things that are obvious_ sockpuppet things?

<comment><USER46> Could you explain your position a little better? Maybe I'm misunderstanding you, but it's not immediately clear to me how the proof being asked for was already obvious.

Also, I'm wondering how you know for sure that someone is a so-called "sockpupppet"? This is a skill I'd really like to master because reading people over the Internet is so difficult.

<comment><USER47> A sock puppet has no interest in actually participating in a discussion. It's only interested in harping on one side of a political debate. You ask for specifics and they just repeat a bunch of talking points.

Someone like this might be a sock puppet, but they might also just be an ideologue. A sock puppet will have created a login, assuming a login is necessary, just for the purpose of sock puppetry. An ideologue will stick around and argue other topics.

Sock puppets also like to work in teams, you'll see them in groups of two or three 'me-too'ing each other's points. If this happens, all of them will have created accounts specifically for that purpose. Sometimes they'll also all have the same IP address. This kind of manipulation is easy to detect, so generally you'll only see them rarely and in the short window between their spamming and the subsequent detection and banning.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER48> I hope these people do get any justice they truly deserve.

But, I work for a big company. I've only been here 4 years and I've been desired by other teams and at least a half dozen occasions - I do my job, I learn the technology and processes used here, I solve problems, I deliver, I am reliable and consistent, I treat people with respect, etc. Even still being a junior, if I lost my job today, I'd have at least 3 different job offers in different areas of the company just by my perceived worth. No, I'm not a brown noser.

So my question is, how can one work for a company for so many years, deliver and execute on so many projects, only to be invisible to the entire organization? This makes it sound like these are line workers getting laid off despite their long-term employment with the company.

If I was as invisible in my current job as these people were, I'd be looking for a new job so that I can actually be valued for my worth. Are these people victims, or are they mediocre and their career came to an end sooner than retirement?

Just a perspective, don't hate.

Edit: My company isn't one that values young workers - our primary TS core is older. Thing mainframe old. So I don't actually have much of an advantage with my "youth".

</comment><comment><USER49> These stories lead you to believe that engineering, as a profession, is broken. Like athletes and models, software engineering is one of the few career paths where your perceived value starts declining at a relatively young age.

If a developer's value truly increases faster than their cost over time, why are software companies engaging in age discrimination? We can all tell ourselves that these companies are shooting themselves in the foot in the long run, but do facts back this up? Presumably, if another company hired all these valuable experienced professionals, they'd wipe the floor with these companies staffed by cheap college grads. Why hasn't this happened?

I'm currently in my early 30s and working in a different engineering discipline, but I love programming and part of me would love to jump into professional programming. I interviewed at a few start-ups recently and got an offer for that money than I'm currently making. Ultimately, I turned it down because jumping into software this late in the game feels like possible career suicide. In my current occupation, senior engineers are valued and their accumulated knowledge and experience has demonstrated value.

By comparison, writing software the HN way feels like building on sand. It's fun how a new programming language or database or web framework is announced weekly, but in the end everyone is chasing a moving target. I enjoy this now, but I can see how I might eventually grow tired of playing this game.

I don't think Facebook, Google, Apple, Microsoft, etc., have consciously been creating/adopting different programming languages to silo their workforce and reduce the fluidity of the labor market, but that might be a side effect.

</comment><comment><USER50> I don't feel like the article convinced me that Microsoft has any wide spread process for removing older employees.

A little off topic, but: I am in my 60s and I have never felt any age discrimination (at large companies like Google, Disney, and remotely working for many small companies, some of them startups).

I think it is critical to put effort into developing your own career, in addition to giving fair value to whoever is paying you at the moment.

</comment><comment><USER51> Metrics for MSFT vs GOOG: [https://blog.kissmetrics.com/google-vs- microsoft/](https://blog.kissmetrics.com/google-vs-microsoft/)

Pay > $150K: MSFT 40%, GOOG 20%. Age Over 55: MSFT 16%, GOOG 20%. No children: MSFT 74%, GOOG 79%.

As for me, I am 57, a developer in a startup, and still get offers. MMV

</comment><comment><USER52> Just when I was starting to think Microsoft had turned a new corner. Can't say I'm surprised. But definitely a little disappointed. I guess it's just part of their corporate identity.

<comment><USER53> All big companies have this; if you have a lot of employees and buy a lot of companies which need to be 'integrated' you'll have elaborate plans to sack them without it costing too much money. It sucks but it happens everywhere. It is really really hard not to be evil as a big company, hence it's probably better to just stay small if you have that goal. In some companies you have a social net to catch you; I believe companies, when hiring/acquihiring, should be held responsible for those people. But I understand this is not (always) possible. The staff being the most important asset of a company (as they like to say) usually only goes for the super-human part of the staff, not for the rest.

<comment><USER52> I appreciate your thoughtful response. Though I don't think it's a size thing, I think it's about culture and priorities, and being beholden to stock holders and profits; having no loyalty for the employees (or likely customers) that got you to where you are.

Some people / companies believe that the only way to get ahead is by screwing someone else over; either out of some money, or out of a job, or what have you. That's just a shitty way to do business, and a clear sign of lack of respect or appreciation.

But then again it might be a scale thing with them and a matter of acquisitions and such too, as you said.

+1 for staying small; or at least growing slowly and carefully. Companies that just spam hire are likely not thinking about how they'll support any given hire for the next few years let alone the rest of their lives.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER54> The article has a lot of innuendo, but I couldn't actually find any data in it. Did I miss it? From my observations MS is one of the "older" tech companies.

</comment><comment><USER55> No disrespect, I have something that is pressing on my heart.

I am absolutely mind blown by reading the comments here. You are afraid of what will happen to your job when you reach 40? Ask yourself this: how do you think people managed to live and have a job a hundred years ago when they hit 40 or 50?

OK, perhaps this is a cultural thing. I am from eastern Europe where a "normal" annual income, for a single person, can be $12,000. So a couple can bring $24,000 I assume this would be devastating in US. Just like the news the other day with the president of a university (in UK?) where he was complaining of having to deal with an €220,000 annual income.

But of course, you are aware of this discrepancy. Otherwise why would these kind of job offerings exist: [https://www.elance.com/j/wordpress-plugin-theme- developer-mo...](https://www.elance.com/j/wordpress-plugin-theme-developer- month/66087187/)

$300 / month "FULL-TIME wordpress plugin and theme developer from Pakistan and India only."

Please, if you are being laid off at 40 and in the case you are not suffering from a company downsizing, bankruptcy or you don't have medical issues (another interesting topic to talk about) it means that you are either an incompetent or a lazy individual.

No disrespect, please just wake up from your dream.

EDIT: I just realized from the feedback to this message how completely and utterly naive I am to not taking into account that HN is in no way representative of the average worker in US. Here, the absolute majority seems to be only people from IT which don't quite appreciate the opportunity and privilege actually to be able to code and think that only > $60,000 salaries are worth their time and effort.

Good luck then!

<comment><USER5> If we take the global perspective the quality of the state funded safety nets combined with the local culture and job market greatly affect what the implications of a lay-off are. And they can vary drastically.

For instance in the USA the economically worse off are in relative terms considerably more worse off than in countries with lower income inequality.

<comment><USER55> I just cannot believe you are arguing that in US you have a more hard time finding a job then in a less developed country like in Eastern Europe.

> You seem rather ignorant of the U.S. then.

To this type of a comment you can easily answer the same way. You madam or sir seem to be equally ignorant of Europe as well.

<comment><USER5> I don't think I argued that - but that the amount of economic options available to individuals should not be deduced from comparing GDP or such. I think in eastern europe most countries are still civilized enough to offer basic medical care without insurance?

Any way, I have no local knowledge of either issue ... I'm located in northern europe.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER56> It`s somewhat bizarre to find that programmers are starting to have a much shorter shelf life (In SV only?), something that used to be associated with more the 'fickle' fashion world ... what does that say about us?

</comment><comment><USER57> Now I am scared for my 40s.

<comment><USER58> Just keep being good, learning new skills and liking what you do. I'll be 40 soon so I'll let you know if this tactic works out.

<comment><USER57> Yep, I started learning C and ethical hacking, to start with. I do have a decade till I turn 40, but that's not too long honestly.

<comment><USER59> It feels like time goes faster as I get older (I'm mid-twenties).

<comment><USER58> It most certainly does. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Time_perception#Changes_with_ag...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Time_perception#Changes_with_age)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER60> Yet another reason to start or join a worker cooperative. [http://techworker.coop](http://techworker.coop)

</comment><comment><USER61> So glad to see the "new Microsoft* is _so much different_ than the "old Microsoft".

/obvious sarcasm

<comment><USER46> Care to elaborate on your sarcasm? I'm interested to know how Microsoft is no different than they were 10 years ago because of an employee dispute.

</comment></comment><comment> kuni-toko-tachi I agree with many of the sentiments here regarding software engineers particularly in regard to not effectively capturing the economic value of their own work and that corporate interests which depend upon that value do not have their interests at heart. While open source and information sharing is one of the joys of working in this industry, I wonder if there is not a middle ground - confederations of engineers who charge for their products as independent entities as a means to reclaim that value for themselves, where the software they create is charged for, and shares of the profit are distributed on a contribution basis. Does this idea have merit, and is there interest in the community to write software to manage this confederation model?

</comment><comment><USER62> I understand the reason behind replacing older coders. However, I think software companies like Microsoft should have transitional programs to better help seasoned programers proceed with their careers.

There are plenty of transition paths I think. For example, education, research, legacy support, etc.

<comment><USER63> When I was 25 I preferred recruiting 25year olds. Now that I'm 35 I realize I didn't know squat when I was 25 so prefer to recruit at least 35year olds. I suspect this story will repeat when I'm 45.

What could possibly be the reason to avoid older coders? You probably don't want the 85-90 year olds but 40? 50? What you want to avoid are those who stop evolving and stop being curious. Those who go to the office and apply what they learned a decade ago but doesn't learn anything new. That can happen at any age. Evolving doesn't require putting in 12hour days. Also it's likely cheaper for the company to encourage employees to grow within their field than to move all "old" people to supporting roles.

If you could learn a new programming language when you were 20 it should be easier, not harder, to do at 50. Experience should ensure that.

<comment><USER64> It's probably the cost factor. The salary of a 50 year old will be way more than a 25 year old for doing the same job.

<comment><USER63> That may be one part, but somehow that should rather mean that most big-city corps should hire really good 40 year olds to telecommute and be paid less than the 20 year olds in whatever tech mecca this may be taking place. But that doesn't seem to happen in my experience.

Another reason of course is the ever changing tech landscape; when I had 5 years under my belt C# had existed 5 years and I had 5 years of C# experience. I had more pro experience with C# than anyone, including of course most of those a lot older than me. The takeaway is that the exaggerated focus on experience _with specific tech keywords_ means that young age often trumps longer industry experience, simply because the young dev may have started just as Tech X took off. This obsession with resume keywords _will_ go away as our industry matures. Companies that don't realize that won't be around long.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


The Future Of Television Isn't About the Hardware - <AUTHOR> http://www.macgasm.net/2013/05/29/the-future-of-television-isnt-about-the-hardware/

<comment><USER2> Apple isn't going to solve this problem more than anyone else looking to change the balance of power, unless the big distribution companies get their tithe, nothing changes.

<comment><AUTHOR> that's what they said about the music industry. ;)</comment></comment>


Coteline, a new programming language for the JVM - <AUTHOR> http://typeunsafe.github.io/coteline/ "Unifying Hipsters and Enterprise Developers more, more clearly." <comment><USER2> I looked at this, but it seems horrible? Why is everybody enthusiastic for this ;)</comment>


Riches from Rags - <AUTHOR> https://www.bloomberg.com/features/2019-wiping-rags/ <comment><USER2> Looks like the US rag industry is ripe for disruption: if you source old clothes & cut locally in Asia, you should be able to cut costs considerably (lower wages, less transport). Of course, the remaining non-trivial problem is getting US buyers to trust you.

<comment><USER3> In the article they explain this is already done and elaborate on it in several directions.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Apparently Painters, Mechanics and Auto-Body shops (at the very least) have need for these recycled rags!

Which, from a pure business perspective is fascinating... who would have thought that there was a market for rags?

And yet, apparently, there is!</comment>


Why Twitch builds its own in-house transcoder software stack - <AUTHOR> https://blog.twitch.tv/live-video-transmuxing-transcoding-ffmpeg-vs-twitchtranscoder-part-i-489c1c125f28 <comment><AUTHOR> From the article:

FFmpeg is a versatile video processing software supporting various video/audio formats for the standard ABR transcoding workflow. However, it cannot handle a number of technical requirements that are specific to Twitch's operation. For example,

1) Frame rate downsampler Our typical incoming bitstreams have 60fps (frames per second), and we transcode them to 30fps for lower bit-rate variants (e.g., 720p30, 480p30, etc.). On the other hand, since Twitch is a global platform, we often receive incoming streams of 50fps, most of which are from PAL countries. In this case, the lower bit-rate variant should be downsampled to 25fps, instead of 30fps. Simply deleting every second frame is not a good solution here. Our downsampler needs to behave differently for the two different kinds of incoming bitstreams. One kind has constant frame rates less than 60fps, and the other has irregular frame dropping, which makes its average frame rates less than 60fps.

2) Metadata insertion Certain information needs to be inserted into the HLS bitstreams to enhance the user experience on the player side. By building our own transcoder and player, Twitch can control the full end-to-end ingest- transcode-CDN-playback pipeline. This allows us to insert proprietary metadata structures into the transcoder output, which are eventually parsed by our player and utilized to produce effects unique to Twitch.</comment>


Do you really need a front-end framework? - <AUTHOR> https://netguru.co/blog/posts/kick-off-ui-development-with-these-simple-steps

<comment><USER2> UI toolkits are useful for covering the edge-cases. No matter how much work you (or your team) put in, you simply can't test your own code to the extent that the Bootstrap community (or whoever) tests their code. Unless you have wildly esoteric UI requirements that you can't fulfil with an existing, open, well-supported framework it's always going to be more effective to put time in to learning and customising that, and getting all the benefit of tens of thousands of hours of people testing it on _everything_ , than building something from the ground up yourself.</comment>