Employees leave managers, not companies - <AUTHOR> http://www.alaisterlow.com/employees-leave-managers-not-companies/ <comment><USER3> The problem here is that the modern company embodies a lot of the principles of medieval serfdom.

Serfs occupied a portion of land and owed a portion of their crops to the lord of the manor or their feudal lord. It was slavery in all but name.

The modern company is a kingdom. Managers are feudal lords. Managers can decide to hire (and fire) employees such that the employee is essentially beholden to that manager. Employment status is analagous to the land serfs worked.

The problem is that most companies have little internal mobility. If you don't get on with your manager the best thing for you and the company is to work for a different manager yet most companies make this exceedingly difficult.

At Google, individual engineers are far more empowered than that. There is a strong internal process for simply changing projects.

Also, most companies have performance feedback come solely from managers. Managers are an important source at Google but peer feedback carries a huge amount of weight.

So in many companies employees leave because they can't escape their feudal lord. I get it. The problem here is corporate feudalism.

Companies need to stop making it easier to move to a better team or getting a pay raise by leaving the company rather than moving within the company.

<comment><USER4> The biggest irony lies in the fact that in most traditional companies managers (people who manage developers) are usually the people who were never smart enough to make it as developers in the first place.

My company does this all the time. Didn't do well enough at the job interview or you're a total bozo and poor at understanding technical concepts/writing code? No problem! They'll appoint you as a project manager and you will get a team of developers to manage. At the same time, the brightest and the best engineers rarely get promoted because they are keeping their heads down and actually getting shit done. And there is little incentive for the company to promote such people because they lose a skilled and productive programmer if they do that (they don't care about anything except for how fast you can crank out code - one of the typical ailments of consulting companies).

It's a very sad state of affairs. Makes me want to quit really.

<comment><USER5> Speaking as a developer I have to say the arrogance in this post is very disturbing. It reeks of someone who has no idea what they're talking about and can't understand the challenges people other than developers face. To think that managers are people who aren't as smart as you are, or are people who couldn't hack it as a developer is ridiculous and naive and arrogant.

If your job is that shitty, and you're that smart and good, quit and find a better job.

<comment><USER6> And in fact the amount of shit that corporate developers are protected from is phenomenal. Getting shit out of the way of developers is the job of these managers.

Now of course, some companies are better or worse than others, some managers are better or worse than others and so on.

Personally I don't see myself a manager because I lack the social skills. In some days I barely remember to do minor things like sending out an email to my team at the end of the day or ask about the status of some roadblock.

<comment><USER7> Developers are supposed to be grateful that managers protect them from shit from even dumber and insane managers above them? Nope. Why not just fire those insane managers slinging shit everwhere.

<comment><USER8> It's not that black and white.

Ofttimes, what looks like meaningless corporate bullshit to a developer looks like valuable fertilizer to some other part of the organization, or to a regulatory body, or to something else that makes the company go. "looks like" phrasing was intentional here.

I was a damned good developer back in the day, and am working on being a good manager (of managers at this point). There is an insane amount of red tape that sprouts up over time in any large assembly of people. Some of it has some positive purpose somewhere; some of it has no evident purpose.

The best managers seek to protect their teams from unnecessary BS, but that doesn't necessarily mean eradicating it from the company. Shielding can be just as effective locally, at a tiny fraction of the cost.

<comment><USER7> Maybe we are talking about two different things. There's no qualms with stupid requirements, red tape, or regulations. The bullshit that I am talking about are the ethical lapses, the lying, the backstabbing, the disrespect, and the threats. There's no situation where that is legitimately valuable to some other part of the org. Anyone out there who thinks this is necessary or just part of the game needs to do an ethics check.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> I am considering leaving my job for this precise reason. I feel if I worked under anyone else I would enjoy what I am doing but currently it is impossible.

The problem is the guy has no managerial skills. Employee moral across the company is rock bottom. We get tasks day-to-day because he cannot plan ahead. We often drop projects to work on something else, only to drop them and work on what we was originally. Manager never sends final designs or when he does they later change anyway. (These are not tweaks, tweaks are understandable. This is the entire page layout) I could go on...

Why haven't I quit already? I am currently indispensable to the company I work for. I need to support my family. Not sure if I want to risk it on a new job in the current climate. The short term plan is to continue being miserable.

NOTE: I would go around my manager if I could. Unfortunately it is a team of 7 and its this guys company.

<comment><USER10> I've heard that line of being indispensable to a company so many times. Turns out that it's not true. They'll find someone to replace you.

<comment><USER9> I think in many cases people over-estimate their worth. Where I work I am the only real developer. I wrote and maintain all the products.

This makes me pretty indispensable. It also helps that before I arrived the guy in charge of the company had a bad time with at least 3 developers. If there is something I cannot do he tasks me to find someone and manage them so you know...

Obviously, guy could find someone else. Someone else could take the reigns of what I am doing. However transition time and the guys past experience with developers makes this very unlikely.

<comment><USER11> Please do not believe he is unaware of this situation and is not made nervous by it. Unless he is a fool - which he cannot be so much because he trusts you to get the job done :-)

He operates in a market for lemons, but one day it may be more comfortable for him to risk getting a Lemon Consulting firm than live with the stress of one guy who might leave and take the whole thing down with him.

<comment><USER12> Plenty of companies have a keystone developer that they don't replace/duplicate.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> Anecdotally, I spent 2 years at Microsoft (MSN division). I loved my manager to death, and telling him I was leaving felt kind of like breaking up with a long-term girlfriend. But MSN was a supremely depressing place to work because there was a palpable sense that nothing we did mattered, and Microsoft was simply running out the clock on those [hundreds of millions] of people who haven't figured out how to change their browser homepage away from msn.com. I left the company, not the person.

So while the lesson of this post -- that managing is important and a good manager can greatly increase employee retention -- is well taken, the headline is certainly overstated.

<comment><USER14> I think you are a lucky outlier. I've left all my jobs due to poor managers. If my manager doesn't even have the basic 'shit sandwhich' approach to telling me that I suck, then I tend to start looking for another job.

Also, broken promises in interviews - yeah, monk.e.boy, work here for a year and you'll be the head of your very own dev team. I've fallen for that one about 4 times. Then I leave and they ask 'Why-oh-why?' And I say 'Remember in my interview that you said X Y and Z and none of them happened?'

<comment><USER15> I think he may not be an outlier for Microsoft.

I've worked with a few people from Redmond who left not because of a crappy manager or an unpleasant team, but because their projects kept getting cancelled. It's hard to feel like you're working on something important if all of it gets scrapped before shipping two or three times in a row. Especially if this happens not due to any issue with the project, but due to political happenings miles above your head.

At least, this is what I've been told. I've never worked for them myself.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> I spent 5 years as a full time consultant building 'Human Capital Management' software for enterprise companies. I learned many things about enterprise dynamics in those 5 years, but my biggest takeaway analytically is that performance management is backwards. The people actually doing the work are graded by their managers, and in very few cases are managers formally reviewed by their employees. I can't speak for small companies, but enterprises would do much better if the employees had a formal process to get a manager on some sort of performance track - without the fear of going above their head in an informal process.

<comment><AUTHOR> I like the concept of putting managers on some sort of performance track. That is an interesting idea. I wonder what organizations would look like if this was allowed to happen.

<comment><USER17> The reality is that managers are performance managed, just what their teams think isn't normally one of the metrics because many organisations by and large don't care that much.

Speaking as a manager you'd be surprised (actually scrub that, you wouldn't) how often when I raise concerns the team has the instruction comes back "screw what the team thinks or wants, just do X" (where X flies in the face of what the team want and best practice but supports what the screaming customer and short term revenue demands).

Organisations that genuinely care about the staff I don't think would change much, those who don't won't ever do it so it's kind of moot.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> I've left two organisations (BBC and Sony) and neither time did I have any problem with my direct manager in fact in both cases I liked them although I did have a lack of faith the top management and the direction of at least my area of the organisation.

In the BBC case (amongst other issues) my department was earmarked to be moved to Manchester (about 200 miles away) in about 4 years. I was clear (for family reasons) that I wouldn't be moving so staying would have felt like a personal dead end to me (although later the BBC's plan changed and much of the department moved into London instead which might have been OK but the lack of thought through initial decision was a really bad sign about the senior management).

At Sony it was a general lack of faith that the management had enough capability that Sony could become a profitable, viable, mass market electronics company again. That made me happy to leave to see what I could do on my own and be home to take and collect my son from school.

<comment><USER19> Odd... I've never even worked at any one company for 2 years, so... making work plans based on what someone decides will probably happen in _4 years_ is simply incomprehensible to me.

The few companies I've worked at have taught me that for the most part, companies can't do much real planning beyond 6 mos to a year at most - <USER2> stuff we considered important in 2006 was often irrelevant by 2007 because of changes in the market conditions, competition, etc. Planning out moves that far ahead is probably necessary in some situations, but I've seen enough of those 'long term plans' have to change anyway that I don't actually believe many of them.

<comment><USER20> Agreed. I feel like it's more of an exercise to have some sort of vision but in reality, it's really difficult to predict what the environment will be like in 4 years.

Looking at what I have learnt just 2 years ago, some of it is already starting to get irrelevant!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> I agree that employees might leave managers.

But I disagree that people don't leave companies.

First, there are some companies that kinda act on their own, they are very old, and people just obey tradition and old rules and policies. This sometimes the managers can fight hard against, and several will fail anyway.

Sometimes, the company is in a field that make the employee leave, I know for example many IT people that after they realised how banks operate, they felt bad about it and quit.

Sometimes the company itself is having problems, like being sued, or going bankrupt...

So no, sometimes the fault is of the company.

But sometimes.

Asshat managers can make people go away too.

<comment><USER22> Very good managers might shine in a bad environment and very bad ones disrupt a good environment. Most though just reflect the organisational culture.

<comment><USER21> Exactly, and it is very hard sometimes to deviate from that culture, it requires exceptional individuals.

Unfortunately it is seemly easier to be excepcional toward the bad than toward the good.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> When my dad left one of his previous jobs, in which he was a manager of about 10-15 people; 3 of his team quit within the week. One of them told him that he was the best manager he'd ever worked under, and that he couldn't face working in that company with anyone else.

If I ever end up in a management position, that's the sort of manager I want to be.

<comment><AUTHOR> Wow...what aspect of your dad's management attributed to this?

<comment><USER23> As far as I know he's very fair; he shared work out between himself and others evenly, trusted them to do the work, and made sure everyone was doing their share. He always tried to shield his team from the managerial crap from above. He also never got involved in office politics, and is generally quiet and softly spoken (I differ a little from him there).

I think a lot of people resent managers because they seem to do less of the actual work than those they manage. My dad always works hard at whatever he does, and he expected the same of his team. Now he's retired, part of me really wants to try doing some projects with him. He has a real interest in building web apps that I'd love to collaborate on.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> This article unfortunately resonates on a personal level. This is why I believe I enjoy consulting so much. On a short term basis I can put up with ignorance, credit taking, silent treatment etc (All the qualities respondents mentioned in the survey). For a long term career I'm not sure I could last.

I'm curious if anyone has any stories of how they overcame a Manager that was not their _Champion_? I have been thinking about this a lot. In my short time at large corporations it seems you really need someone on your side to move up the ladder a bit.

</comment><comment><USER25> Yeah, but companies pay mortgages, not managers.

In other words, I could be working for the most awesome, charismatic manager in the world but if I'm being paid significantly below Market Rate, I'd still leave.

</comment><comment><USER26> I offer a corollary, "Employees follow leaders, not managers."

At one time I considered leaving a company I believed strongly in, due to an immediate manager with which I didn't work well. However, I looked higher in the organization to the leader(ship) I believed in and decided to stay. I'm glad I did, because the management problem rectified itself soon enough and now I follow good leaders and learn from a great mentor.

</comment><comment><USER11> I think there is a tidal change in software at the moment - imagine the Venn diagram of remote working technologies, continuous integration technologies and a willingness to shed middle manager white collar jobs like never before.

As we can enable people to work from home, because we can see the code they wrote today up and working on the CI server, we can do away with needing a boss to telll them what to do and watch if they do it - in fact we can pass the autonomy many bosses have down the line - and I hope see a world where the developer says - I have done this cool thing and it has improved our bottom line because I measured this change.

A culture of Continuous Integration, testing changes for business KPIs allows us to let go of the middle rank of supervision, and allows us to change the working conditions now the supervision is unnecessary

</comment><comment><USER11> For me the best solution is to stay small - keep the organisation under the dunbar number. That way a competant CEO can manage the politics personally, and guide the culture effectively.

But if you are going to grow, you need one of these proxy solutions.

To me there are two outstanding solutions:

1\. Free Labour Market 2\. "add or out"

1\. Google-like - have projects and allow engineers to move around to join different projects, and adjust via funding. THis is trying to create an internal job market, and may or may not be effective but its a response to Dunbars number problem.

2\. "add or out" - add measurable value, or the worst performing 10% leave. This _forces_ a culture of testing and measuring value, and whilst it is subject to being gamed, it might be workable.

<comment><USER27> The world would be a very different place if the government did not provide corporate protection to any organization with more than 150 employees (Dunbar number).

</comment></comment><comment><USER28> I've had fantastic managers at terrible companies. In each case, I left because of the company, not because of the manager.

<comment><AUTHOR> Yeh this doesn't apply to all situations. What made the company terrible?

<comment><USER28> Really ineffective performance measurement standards and incentives. When there is no reward for going above and beyond or penalty for simply coasting by, you're essentially creating a haven for shitty employees.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER29> Best way to handle this? Get rid of management. Flat hierarchy. Just to make sure to hire really smart engineers. Code it, test it, ship it. If two forces opposite each other, put it in a hackathon and gain votes.

<comment><USER30> Do you think there might be practical issues that you're not considering, or don't have exposure to, which might explain why such a vanishing percentage of companies work the way you're saying is obvious? Is it because no-one else is smart enough to have thought of this?

<comment><USER31> Holy fuck that is an arrogant comment.

Yeah, non-tech companies who produce actual products/services can't really do that, but then they are also not really that relevant since nobody here works for them (outside of IT departments, which could be run as suggested).

No the real reason for almost any stupid thing done in corporate environments is politics. Everybody is a peer and results only environments threaten those who have accumulated power under the old system and who couldn't cut in the new system -- which is basically all managers.

So of course this only happens when somebody with enough political capital to institute it does so -- typically the owner.

Add to that that it is extremely unorthodox and that very few people have previous exposure to systems like that.

And you get the few companies that do this, and do well by it.

<comment><USER29> Well thank you good sir!

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER32> If the manager does not provide direction, ask for it. If they still do not provide direction, set your own. The grass always looks greener on the other side. Sometimes, you are the problem, not the manager.

Reminds me of the story about the traveler and the new city. He left because he thought the people there were horrible. Upon arriving at the gate of the new city, he asked a man sitting by the gate, "How are the people here in this city?" To which the sitting man replied, "How were they in the city you came from?" "Oh... they were horrible, mean people."

"You'll find them the same here."

</comment><comment><USER33> On the day I put in my notice for my last job I found out that my immediate manager had put in his notice as well the day before, much for the same reasons I did. I liked working for the guy so quitting felt bad. Basically choices made by upper management made the working environment not so good and we had decided to move on. Turns out we weren't the only ones, within three weeks five out of six of the web team left and gutted the department.

</comment><comment><USER34> Nice to see this discussion on HN. Back in early 2000, when I worked at Walmart's home office in Bentonville, we had a speaker come and talk to ISD about this exact topic. That was the main line that stuck with me, "Employees leave managers, not companies". It's probably not the case 100% of the time for causing the loss of an employee, but having a good manager makes all the world of a difference in an employee's happiness.

</comment><comment><USER35> I had an MBA roommate once and frequently read her books on management culture. I've never actually seen what was used in those books put into practice, but my experience is relatively small (once a manager).

The books talked about the Organizational Cultural Assessment Index (OCAI) and a manager capabilities assessment test (cannot remember the name). Anyone out there used these?

These seemed like reasonable, standard approaches to improving the workplace.

<comment><USER36> Things like OCAI really don't work that well in practice. The main benefit you get from them is actually asking the questions, not in the results of the 'test' or anything like that. People (and organizational culture) is too diverse and complex to understand with a few simple charts. Beware snake oil salesmen trying to sell you quick and easy 'fixes' for people or culture. Always.

Culture is incredibly hard to change once it is engrained, and is going to take real work and real sacrifice, not simple questionnaires. You should look at changing company culture in the same way as looking as getting a smoker to stop smoking. It's not as easy as 'presenting an argument'.

<comment><USER35> Yes, culture change is hard.

The OCAI is a tool, like the Myers-Briggs. The book I read [1] treated it as a start for diagnosing your organizational culture, then provided a framework for accomplishing cultural change. I believe it's extraordinarily dangerous to approach (organizational) change without treating it as a process with defined goals.

BTW, I am a former smoker, and quitting was pretty hard. I'd chalk that up to changing my environment (I stopped hanging out with smokers).

[1] [http://www.amazon.com/Diagnosing-Changing-Organizational- Cul...](http://www.amazon.com/Diagnosing-Changing-Organizational-Culture- Competing/dp/0470650265)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER37> I've never left a company because of my managers, in fact my managers were almost always one of the reasons that I stayed as long as I did. The true reasons, at least in my case, for leaving was always the lack of freedom to make my own decisions and the companies' support for "non project related" work. In fact, my manager did as much as he could to support my endeavors, everything within his realm of power at least.

</comment><comment><USER38> This issue stems, in my experience, from the top of an individual department or location (if it's a franchise). The top level management in large companies couldn't possibly supervise all their department managers at the same time. So things fly by under the radar that shouldn't because they don't have stringent enough criteria for employee satisfaction and manager competency.

I recall this happening when I used to work at P.F. Chang's (the restaurant chain).

We had a general manager who was absolutely loathsome to work with. We frequently ran out of the kinds of food you'd be embarrassed to lack at a Chinese restaurant (read: white and brown rice, lettuce, etc). However, he had a stellar reputation and history with "corporate" and had even won awards within the company.

The reasons this happened were twofold: 1. he was the general manager, and in the eyes of corporate he was just saving money (they never saw the restaurant descend into chaos and dysfunction due to lack of ingredients), and 2. he was honestly kind of a dick. Unless you were above him on the pay scale he would respond to suggestions with, "I'll take that under advisement."

</comment><comment><USER39> There was a book in the late 1990's, "First Break All the Rules: What the world's greatest managers do differently" which was the write-up of a Gallup study about manager effectiveness. One of its conclusions is the point made in this article almost verbatim, that people leave their managers not their jobs or companies. One of the most powerful sections for the book for me was the opening chapter where they explain their assessment methodology. They compiled it down to a catalog of 12 questions and they found that if these questions were answered positively it correlated with high employee performance, good financial results, good retention, etc. The rest of the book dives into more detail on the reasons for this, one being that each employee's talent is different and managers should try to align talents with business need, focusing on employee strengths rather than weaknesses.

Here's the Amazon link: [http://www.amazon.com/First-Break-All-Rules- Differently/dp/0...](http://www.amazon.com/First-Break-All-Rules- Differently/dp/0684852861)

</comment><comment><USER40> According to this meta-analysis, employees dont leave managers nor do they leave companies.

They leave (maybe) because of the job.

Estimated true score correlation Job Fit - Tenure: 0.18 Company Fit - Tenure: 0.03 Group Fit - Tenure: 0.06 Supervisor Fit - Tenure: 0.09

[http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1744-6570.2005....](http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1744-6570.2005.00672.x/full)

</comment><comment><USER41> Seems like there are a lot of war stories on this thread. I disagree with the article based on my personal statistics. When I have decided to move on, in all but one case it has been that either we weren't shipping or the overall product path got stale (beyond the control of day to day engineers).

I like working on things and I like working on things people use. If we aren't shipping, I have to ask why. Periods of development are certainly reasonable but at the end of the day you have to ship.

Where I have moved on due to management? An alpha presence who treated everyone under him as a contractor, yet we weren't hourly, and we weren't compensated for following up on inane decisions. I ended up stepping up, guiding two mis-managed resources, and pushing back on some very dumb decisions (a few were backed by the CTO). However, at the end of the day, when I stepped back anded look at the energy I put in and what I was getting out, it was time to leave.

Decisions to leave are complex.

</comment><comment><USER42> Very timely read for me. I work in a successful company with lots of challenges and room for expansion, I am a key member of the team and work very long hours (which would be better spent on my own side project).

My current manager has done all of the listed reasons-for-leaving in the article at one point or another - I'm not the only one this happens to; it happens to all who work with him, however I'm the only one who has to report directly to him.

It's a sad situation because the guy is a good guy, he's just difficult to work with and as a result I'm currently looking at my options - if I can help it, I would prefer to stay at the company.

I understand it can be difficult for a manager to be direct with their team, but it's something I know a lot of good people appreciate - honest, direct feedback. You don't want to feel like you're being "handled" or used as a crutch for the manager's own self-actualisation. It's the whole golden-goose scenario - you don't want to kill it.

edit: typos :)

</comment><comment><USER43> I would not wish a petty/spiteful manager on anyone. I was in a similar situation in my last company: personal problems between my manager and I forced my departure.

In my situation the terrible fact was that my manager's inability to separate his personal and professional life caused the top four of my hierarchy of needs to be threatened (it's hard to be creative and solve problems when you're in a very shitty situation).

At the very end of my tenure, instead of talking about and trying to resolve our personal differences, he chose to go hyper-managerial on me (in manner and communication), making it clear that this was how my day-to-day was going to be from then on.

I loved working with my coworkers and almost everything else about working there, but I found it no longer mattered when I sat next to someone who will only communicate with me in writing with HR cc'd.

</comment><comment><USER44> There is one thing that is overlooked here. There is as much pathology at the managerial level as is at the subordinate level. We can all say we have shitty bosses. Lets face it, there are shitty workers among us too.

It is easy to complain about managers, but "craving credit" and "silent treatment" happen asymmetrically because the average worker is an order of magnitude different than his cube mate.

Going from a concrete project/goal focused position with expectations to managing those people is a much harder proposition.

I hated managing people. As a manager, you expect the same things from your crew as you would yourself. Instead you hear every excuse, tragedy and jealous rant for attention, rather than just getting the work done.

You try to "nurture" and "empathize" but in the end, workers run the whole gamut from narcissist to kaamchor to subservient drone.

</comment><comment><USER45> How far up the chain do you have to go before managers become come companies? At a certain point a company is defined by its management, just as to consumers a company is defined by its products. Anecdotally I have never quit a job primarily because of my direct manager.

</comment><comment><USER46> This has been true of almost every single company I've ever worked for. It's also worth noting that Companies are reflective of the management constituency because they control the levers; bad managers usually mean bad companies.

</comment><comment><USER47> When your company is small, your manager practically is your company. I'm a junior developer at a rather dysfunctional small company with really shoddy engineering standards. Here, due to the small number of employees, the manager and senior engineer practically are the company. Our senior dev has a cracker jack box cs degree, and has been stuck in his own bubble for the past decade writing horrible code. I also found out my company was sued by a customer 10 years ago because they thought our products and services suck. Good times.

</comment><comment><USER48> At my former place of employment -- I won't bore you with the "consolidation" memo and the unannounced reshuffling of titles and the change to generic job descriptions in the name of "flexibility." After the reorganization, I had to work for a smug, platitudinous, self-important, patronizing, repulsive know- nothing. I left within a couple months of the reorganization. In just about every case I've left jobs because I detested my boss. I tend to dislike bosses in general, unless they are exceptionally intelligent.

</comment><comment><USER49> From the article:-

"The key to being able to keep the good employees is not so much the salary you offer them or even the actual work, it is more about how you manage them and how they feel working under you as their manager. "

Personally I don't think there is a key, instead it's a case of all of the above. You can't keep an underpaid employee happy. You can't keep a bored employee happy. You can't keep an employee happy when you don't treat them well. I've left companies for all 3 of these reasons, it only takes one reason.

</comment><comment><USER50> I had exactly this issue at a well known British telecommunications company, I had a personality clash with my (newly promoted) manager and leaving was impossible because the manager did not want to see a diminished headcount. I manouevered myself out by working almost all of my time on some other manager's project and it got to the point where the argument that I may as well report to, and be appraised by this other manager was unarguable.

</comment><comment><USER51> Personally, I have observed this becoming more of an issue related to the times that we live in. Let's face it, America has been so ingrained with the survival of the fittest mentality for so long that finally it is sinking in.

Until people start valuing others more in society I do not feel that this will change. Behaviors flow out of beliefs. When the beliefs change then people change. Loving our neighbor as ourself is not a cherished value right now.

</comment><comment><USER52> This article sounds like a recap of Hertzberg's Two-Factor theory which is basically the application of Maslow's hierarchy of needs to the corporate world.

See: <http://www.businessballs.com/herzbergmotivationdiagram.pdf> See: <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Two-factor_theory>

</comment><comment><USER53> That was a great article. One issue that came to mind is how to interview for these skills when hiring managers. The more I think about this, the more I realize this is not something you can truly screen for during an interview. Reference checks are important, but they will have to be more comprehensive and less "self-selected" referrals (which would almost be very positive about a given candidate).

</comment><comment><USER54> I'm sure that this happens a lot, but it isn't my experience.

I lost my first job when 2/3 of the company way laid off.

I left my second job for manangerial reasons, but that was more that my position was an experiment and when the manager who'd created it left the person who took over didn't know how to manage me.

The company after that I left because we were bought out and I wouldn't sign the new, draconian NDA.

</comment><comment><USER55> A (good) manager's primary tasks are: 1) Make sure your team knows what to do and has what they need to do it. 2) Be a buffer between them and anything that distracts them from #1. 3) Be a resource to help them develop. All 3 require good communication.

Every job I've quit has ultimately been because of a deficiency in one of those 3 things that led to conflict.

</comment><comment><USER56> I'm sure this is true, but I believe that the root cause of the management practices that result in this situation is the byproduct of company direction and culture. As an example, if the direction of the company is primarily to maintain a headcount, then there is only so many mental games a manager can play to retain it's ambitious employees.

</comment><comment><USER57> I'm coming a bit late, so don't expect many to see this... but I worked at a company and had several friends leave for other jobs, but they were sad to part with their managers. They left mostly because the direction of the company as a whole wasn't satisfying them, which is a function of management, but usually not your immediate manager.

</comment><comment><USER58> Which is why employee satisfaction surveys rarely ask the right questions or if they do they are interpreted in such a way that the managers who are the problem are not declared as such. I learned real quick to not be amazed at how such a survey can be turned upside down to blame the employees or a select group of them.

</comment><comment><USER59> I have often thought that tech companies should pay more attention to how movies / tv series are managed then MBA programs. I get the feeling the Producer / Director / Show Runner model might work better for software. Support might complicate things though.

</comment><comment><USER60> I would not down-play salary that much. I am not sure if it applies to all sectors, but at least in my limited experience more you ask for - better you are treated and better technology you work with. Because otherwise it will be to expensive to keep you.

</comment><comment><USER61> I suspect Valve has a good way of dealing with this. There, manager is a role, and people can decide if you are good enough at that role to merit working with you in that capacity, or not. They get to vote with their feet, without leaving the company.

</comment><comment><USER62> Even without reading the article i couldn't agree more. Currently i'm in the position where i like my colleagues and the company, but the management is BAD ( i could write 3 pages long explanation but i won't ). Well sorry , iQuit.

<comment><AUTHOR> What in this instance defines bad management?

</comment></comment><comment><USER63> Perhaps its unusual but every company I have worked for this could be sorted out with a quiet word with upper management or HR. A little disruption moving people between teams is well worth averting a potential clashes

</comment><comment><USER64> We usually don't like our managers for one reason or another unless we ourselves become one and someone else replace us. This has been happening for centuries. Point is why don't we learn lessons from past mistakes?

</comment><comment><USER65> Either the boss is incompetent and so that boss makes work intolerable for the employee, or the employee is incompetent and the boss makes work intolerable for the employee. It's often hard to tell.

</comment><comment><USER66> you developers have no idea how good you have it.

Choose your boss? yes, by accepting a job offer. Move to a different team? Again, by choosing a company.

Move internally? Yes, if you don't mind a firestorm that burns bridges, and moving to a job that won't use the skills I was hired for.

I'm the only one -- or at best, one of a handful of people -- who can do my job at my nonprofit. Does that give me more power? Heck no. Best I can do is threaten to quit, and if the boss and I don't get along, then they probably are just aching to hire in someone else.

</comment><comment><USER67> I love working for my supervisor, manager, and director.

My company sucks, pay is sub par, benefits suck, policy sucks, forced overtime sucks....

If I leave I'll be leaving my company, not my manager. and the company is HUGE

</comment><comment><USER29> This is so true, so so true. Not neessarly "managers" per say, but people involved in "decision" making that affects you.

For me; the people doing the UX, the people doing product, and etc.

</comment><comment><USER68> A bad manager is going to hire a bad manager, and if you follow the organization chart to the top it stops being a bad manager, it becomes the company mantra.

</comment><comment><USER69> That is a well known (decades+) fact - employees join companies based on their global reputation but leave mostly based on their direct supervisor quality.

</comment><comment><USER70> I've left because of managers. I've left because of the company.

When a company cuts my salary by 30% while jacking up my benefits payments by 300%, it's usually time to leave.

But, on to the article at hand.

As a manager now, those statistics at the end really kind of tick me off. It feels very one-sided and the following text is just me rambling on... somewhat trolling.

39%: Their supervisor failed to keep promises

How many of these employees fail to keep theirs? How many of these broken promises were based on things promised to the manager? How much of it was in their control? When kept at this simplistic level, this one seems like a third-grade problem.

37%: Their supervisor failed to give credit when due

This perception of credit and recognition is one sticking point in our team right now, especially with the people born after 1980. They want credit and recognition for every single thing they do. If they manage to successfully eat a meal without choking on a bone, they want public recognition for it. The older guys on the team, we sit down and do the work because it is our job. That's what we're here to do. The old guys can sit around and come up with ideas and realize that together as a team we designed something. The team gets credit. No one person gets the credit. The kids, if they have one key idea at any point in a process, they want to be held up high. Oh and damn if their idea comes early in the discussion and is never used directly but expanded upon and changed, hell they think they were the sole party responsible for all ideas and all further ideas were stolen.

31%: Their supervisor gave them the "silent treatment" in the past year.

Yes, I do this. I usually do this when I am trying to decide what to do with spoiled or "entitled" employees. If I have asked somebody to quit looking at StupidVideos.com for 3 hours a day and they persist while their projects back up, I'm going to be silent for a while while I try and come up with a plan. I'm not going to sit and try to motivate them. Motivating geeks is a pain-in- the-ass. I'm not allowed to fire anybody or put them on disciplinary action w/out months of paperwork, especially when they know how to talk to HR and convince them that they are doing the best that they can.

27%: Their supervisor made negative comments about them to other employees or managers.

Agreed, this one is bad no matter how you slice it.

24%: Their supervisor invaded their privacy.

Again, if you're looking at Facebook and not getting your work done, you need to get over it.

23%: Their supervisor blames others to cover up mistakes or minimize embarrassment.

Yeah, this happens. Sucks. Lucky for my team, when I lie my eye twitches so there is a built-in lie detector. :-)

</comment><comment><USER71> "The significant problems we have cannot be solved at the same level of thinking with which we created them." --Einstein

</comment><comment><USER72> I'm about to leave my company and it has nothing to do with the manager. I actually feel bad that I'm leaving him.

</comment><comment><USER73> Employees also leave other employees, especially when they are the manager's favorites.

</comment><comment><USER58> FWIW - I cannot view this site as I get malware alerts, is anyone else seeing that?

</comment><comment><USER74> ...and managers are bad because of companies.

A crass generalisation, but no more than the title is.

</comment><comment><USER75> Companies are still fighting yesterday's war.

Traditional industrial labor has a concave relationship between input (effort, skill) and output (diminishing returns) where the difference between mediocrity and excellence is minimal to zero. Modern technological work has a convex curve (accelerating returns) where the difference between mediocrity and failure is minimal while that between mediocrity and excellence is massive.

When the work is concave, you want to minimize variance, which means you eliminate individuality and manage toward mediocrity. Control-freak managers and petty tyrants are good at that, because you can trust them to tighten down bolts and yell at people. ("Ahem! There's SAND in my boots!" -- Kefka.) You build out a hierarchy, give managers total control over their reports, and even though there's a lot of loss in the form of attrition (good people fired by bad bosses) and squandered capability (strong people doing mediocre tasks) that's treated as a rounding error. People are fungible and, if they're not, then something is wrong with your process. Your goal isn't excellence. It's repeatable mediocrity.

Convex work is an entirely different game. It's much more like R&D. The problems being solved are a lot harder, although the upside of a success is much greater. Technological work is becoming increasingly convex with time.

When you have concave work, your management strategy is to beat up on the slackers. If the best people are 1.5 times as productive as the average, then one slacker cancels out 2 excellent people, so rooting them out and disciplining them is the right strategy.

With convex work, the danger isn't having a few slackers. It's that you don't have _any_ excellent people, or that the excellent people you do have are unmotivated and underperforming. The best way to "manage" convex work is to hire the best people and get out of their way.

Managerial extortion (i.e. the manager's use of his unilateral ability to damage an employee's career to put the employee toward his career goals, rather than company goals or individual growth) is ruinous when one is attempting convex work, but large companies don't see it that way. Their processes are oriented completely toward concave, commodity labor.

So, "employees leave managers" is only half the story. Managers go bad because companies allow them to do so. A company that doesn't want managerial extortion can implement Valve-style open allocation, but few do. Companies allow them to do so because they're fighting the last century's war. They're industrial machines, and anachronistic in a technological era.

<comment><USER76> So how would you recommend fixing this? You mentioned hiring excellent workers and getting out of their way, but I'm hoping you could elaborate.

<comment><USER75> It's hard. Startups begin in a state of constrained open allocation. It's not "work on whatever you want" because the company needs laser focus, but it's also not big enough for managerial extortion/closed allocation to set in, because the nominal social distance between any two people is still 1 edge. Small startups can have problems, but the loss-of-culture usually happens when companies get larger.

Around 15 people, that one-edge factor becomes less true and if you don't explicitly manage the culture, you'll start having political problems. People won't turn malevolent right away, but your process becomes biased in favor of losing good people and attracting bad ones, especially as the TechCrunch coverage mounts and you become attractive to narcissists who want to be your next generation of transplant executives. You have to be an exceptional judge of character to avoid hiring bad executives (remember: many of these people lie and schmooze for a living) and judgment-of-character does not scale.

Most companies lose startup culture rapidly (like, before they get to 50) in the process of hiring executives, because traditional dinosaur managers assess their self-worth based on metrics like "number of reports" and want to be handed control of other people. Also, once you have a world in which engineers are getting 0.08% and VPs get 0.5%, the "Uncle Tom Engineer" effect sets in and you lose your engineer-centric culture.

Valve did a couple things differently. First of all, my understanding is that they use profit sharing instead of equity. There are advantages and drawbacks of that model, but at the sub-0.5% order or magnitude, "ownership" is meaningless and a more generous profit-sharing system is going to be a lot better for most employees than a meager equity/stock-option system. Second, they made open allocation a cultural pillar that no would-be executive can challenge.

Valve trusts before it hires, and that's different from these get-big-or-die VC-istan companies that hire people in bulk but don't implicitly trust most of them with their own time.</comment></comment></comment>


Electric Vehicles: Setting the Record Straight on Lithium Availability - <AUTHOR> http://www.ensec.org/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=213:the-future-of-electric-vehicles-setting-the-record-straight-on-lithium-availability&catid=98:issuecontent0809&Itemid=349 <comment><USER2> The supposed lithium shortage has always been a red herring used by oil supporters. The theory goes something like this "if we rely too much on electric vehicles and hybrids we will switch from reliance on oil exporting countries to reliance on lithium exporting countries, which will be just as bad or even worse." Then the oil supporter starts drawing a scary picture of evil socialist Bolivia which is poised to take over the US economy with its vast lithium deposits.

Of course this ignores a couple of things -- (i) lithium is not that rare, and is not only found in Bolivia and most importantly (ii) lithium is not used up or destroyed in batteries. It can be recycled. So it is very unlikely that we will get into the situation of progressively using up all the lithium supply and having a lithium crisis and so on.

</comment><comment><USER3> This topic is as fascinating to me as it is impenetrable. I'd love to understand what he's saying but get balled up in the abbreviations and not understanding how to calculate how much lithium is usable from each mined mineral.

Not to be too USA Today, but my understanding would certainly benefit from a couple pictures/graphs.</comment>


Why Facebook is the west's closest approximation of WeChat's ubiquity - <AUTHOR> https://4thquadrant.io/exclusive/amplifying-user-intent-for-connected-intelligence/ <comment><USER2> From the article - _" The ability to amplify the individual's intent through digital proxies depends on aptly capturing...experience in the physical world"_ The Self, The self in private contexts and the self in public contexts.

While i agree WeChat does a better job of this. I have to wonder if part of this is cultural. Just look at how much backlash Facebook has seen over the last year - and widespread skepticism about its trustworthiness especially when it comes to privacy. Is WeChat always going to be more ubiquitous because its users trust it more than Facebook's users will?</comment>


Ask PG: Working with infants - <AUTHOR> Feel free to ignore if there is too personal.
A few months back we were all congratulating you on the birth of a kid.  It appears that your output (essays, posts, etc) appear to have increased since then!
Any suggestions on how to keep productive during those the first few months?
I have some fond memories of writing code with a newborn on my lap, but I'd like to stay ahead of the curve this time. <comment><USER2> Be advised that this period does not last.

Newborns do sleep a lot, and there is lot's of in between time that a productive person could exploit, however newborns don't stay newborns for long.

Unless you are into totally ignoring the child while they are in your presence, once they start becoming active you'll have a difficult time doing anything but putting attention on them. As a parent of a 2 year old boy, trust me.

If I need to work somebody else needs to watch my little one. When I'm the sole guardian, I don't get a chance to turn the computer on, let alone work.

</comment><comment><USER3> I wrote about 100k lines of C++ with my first daughter sleeping on my shoulder. When they are at the "sleep alot" age it can work well if you are willing to synchronize to their schedule. Of course you could put them in the crib at that time to, but she didn't like it and where is the fun in that.

</comment><comment><USER4> Parenthood is inspirational!

First 10-12 months you can expect little mobility (though sometimes crawling earlier). Next 12 months they're usual able to be interested by mundane things quite easily, eating an apple could take an hour, that sort of thing; but they learn to walk and so can get away ... 2years+ they can get into just about anything and reach most shelves and aren't easily self occupying (though still having naps so you've some time do stuff). 3+ can sit and do things by themselves without being too much of a danger - though my lads 3.5 and was left for 10 mins while his Mum went to the loo and managed to empty every single toy/game he had into a pile on the floor that took the 3 of us about 45mins to sort out.

Somewhere between 4-5 they usually start school .. I'm hoping I might get some sleep then.

</comment><comment><USER5> Well, after 8 kids (now 8 to 25), all homeschooled, and working at home for the past 20 years, I think the only solution is to get a somewhat secluded office where you can retreat. (Locked, if necessary.)

(Though having a small child beating on the door and screaming to be let in can be embarrassing at times when you're on the phone. I don't use the phone much any more. ;-)

</comment><comment><USER6> I plan on being a stay at home dad hopefully if the woman says yes...</comment>


After 3072 hours of manipulating BGP, a Nyancat was drawn on this RIPE interface - <AUTHOR> https://stat.ripe.net/widget/routing-history#w.resource=as15562&w.starttime=2017-01-15T00%3A00%3A00&w.endtime=2017-06-23T00%3A00%3A00&show=Maxmized <comment><USER3> OMG. The ingenuity (and geek level) of achieving this with something that is essentially invisible to 99.99999% of the human race (even most network admins) and planning ahead to do this is... indescribable.

(the AS holder is [http://instituut.net/~job/](http://instituut.net/~job/), to those uninitiated - I had to double check my comment)

Sir, I take my many virtual hats off to you.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thank you for the kind words :-)

<comment><USER4> ... what is that VT510 connected to?

Is that tmux, with some ip config on the left, and an empty shell (with a fortune) on the right?

Do the sunflowers represent anything? :)

<comment><AUTHOR> PC Engines APU2 with openbsd

<comment><USER5> I'm glad people like you are part of the community.. Really cool project!

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> In similar category of doing fun things with internet tools, you can play tetris on IPv6 traceroute:

        traceroute -I -q 1 trh.milek7.pl

Game is controlled by appending chars into subdomain: w – rotate, s – drop, a – move left, d – move right. Example: tracerouting wwddds.trh.milek7.pl rotates 2x, moves right 3x and drops piece. After dropping to request new piece it is required to traceroute trh.milek7.pl without commands.

<comment><USER7> Doesn't work for me:

      # traceroute -I -q 1 trh.milek7.pl

      connect: Network is unreachable

<comment><USER6> Are you sure that you have IPv6?. I don't have 60k addresses to do it on IPv4 :)

<comment><USER7> I was sure the machine I was testing this on had IPv6. I was wrong. Ooopsie. How can I downvote myself?

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Screenshot: [https://gateway.ipfs.io/ipfs/QmcnTG8JBgvp3gAD7aDFVqZ53bYKfwa...](https://gateway.ipfs.io/ipfs/QmcnTG8JBgvp3gAD7aDFVqZ53bYKfwadXwdr5YvW8HYwi5)

<comment><USER9> Thank you! I was hoping someone is posting this

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> This sort of endearing Internet-scale thing reminds me of how NTT changes their reverse DNS's ([https://mailman.nanog.org/pipermail/nanog/2016-February/0841...](https://mailman.nanog.org/pipermail/nanog/2016-February/084128.html)). There's other vanity reverse-DNS tricks that you can see in traceroutes, but this is done with a global-scale IPv4/IPv6 network that actually is carrying a lot of customer traffic. Try "traceroute ntt.net" now, you'll see hops like:

9 ae-19.sayonara-todd.r04.sttlwa01.us.bb.gin.ntt.net (18.104.22.168) 17.225 ms 17.166 ms 17.171 ms

10 ae-5.sayonara-todd.r21.sttlwa01.us.bb.gin.ntt.net (220.127.116.11) 16.257 ms 16.156 ms 16.101 ms

11 ae-3.sayonara-todd.r23.snjsca04.us.bb.gin.ntt.net (18.104.22.168) 33.097 ms 33.125 ms 31.566 ms

12 ae-7.sayonara-todd.r23.dllstx09.us.bb.gin.ntt.net (22.214.171.124) 69.840 ms 69.764 ms 69.763 ms

13 ae-6.sayonara-todd.r10.dllstx09.us.bb.gin.ntt.net (126.96.36.199) 69.634 ms 74.424 ms 72.319 ms

14 ae-0.sayonara-todd.a01.dllstx09.us.bb.gin.ntt.net (22.214.171.124) 74.050 ms 74.046 ms 74.035 ms

or

3 ae-13.sayonara-todd.r05.plalca01.us.bb.gin.ntt.net (2001:418:0:5000::bae) 1.324 ms 1.307 ms 1.205 ms

4 ae-15.sayonara-todd.r02.snjsca04.us.bb.gin.ntt.net (2001:418:0:2000::172) 2.505 ms

5 ae-10.sayonara-todd.r23.snjsca04.us.bb.gin.ntt.net (2001:418:0:2000::cd) 2.091 ms 2.067 ms

6 ae-7.sayonara-todd.r23.dllstx09.us.bb.gin.ntt.net (2001:418:0:2000::1fa) 38.386 ms 39.757 ms 38.312 ms

7 ae-6.sayonara-todd.r10.dllstx09.us.bb.gin.ntt.net (2001:418:0:2000::1c1) 41.586 ms

8 ae-1.sayonara-todd.a02.dllstx09.us.bb.gin.ntt.net (2001:418:0:2000::135) 51.986 ms

<comment><AUTHOR> It might amuse you to know the same NTT people are behind the BGP Nyancat :-)

<comment><USER11> Is this NTT as in "Nippon Telegraph and Telephone"? It's a surprising and welcome sight to see such shenanigans coming out of a Japanese mega corporation that used to be owned by the government, and now operations in a heavily regulated industry.

<comment><USER12> yes! It is probably more accurate to think of NTT as many smaller companies.

These guys are from GIN and are some of the best people I've had the pleasure of working with, both on a personal and professional level.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> I am as curious as the next guy but just a link to a random graph and no explanation... Uninteresting

<comment><USER14> He's doing announcements and withdraws of a bunch of /24s and a few other prefixes (including a few IPv6). The green bars are showing that a specific prefix was visible in the global routing table at a specific point in time (and the absence of green indicating it was not globally routed).

<comment><USER13> Thanks for this. Appreciate the response I wasn't complaining about the content, just the lack of context.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> That is amazing. Does anyone have similar examples of weird technological art?

<comment><USER16> [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RAbyeM2C1Oc](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RAbyeM2C1Oc)

Jump to 5:20 to hear Aphex Twin's face.

<comment><USER17> Also these animations in a spectrograph:

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hxx6Gqf1Q4w](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hxx6Gqf1Q4w)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> pretty effin' great... this strikes me as a new variation of the Hellschreiber technique:

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

<comment><USER19> That's just impressive for being minimalistic, not for what it does. We had better faxes at least 50 years earlier ([https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fax#Wire_transmission](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fax#Wire_transmission)), and (lousy) television using the same principle at about the same time ([https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mechanical_television](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mechanical_television))

</comment></comment><comment><USER20> whats a RIPE interface?

<comment><USER21> From their About us page: "We're the Regional Internet Registry for Europe, the Middle East and parts of Central Asia. As such, we allocate and register blocks of Internet number resources to Internet service providers (ISPs) and other organisations."

This interface is the historical bgp announcements for this particular ASN. The X access is time. The Y axis is ip address blocks.

<comment><USER22> So some employee at an ISP registered IP addresses over time in such a way as to create this pattern? Kind of like how people make art out of their github commits [1] (only without the ability to retroactively modify the dates)?

[https://github.com/gelstudios/gitfiti](https://github.com/gelstudios/gitfiti)

<comment><USER23> Nearly, but they didn't register them, they just had their network announce routes for them (which is just telling other networks "hi, if you have traffic for _this_ IP range I can send it on", the registration is unrelated to that)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> Whats BGP?

<comment><USER24> A cursory Google search would have revealed that BGP is Border Gateway Protocol.

<comment><USER25> Why did people downvote a pretty appropriate snark while not downvoting a question that took longer to ask than the google search would have taken?

<comment> martin-adams I for one appreciated the question "what is BGP?" for the following reasons...

1\. It allows me to understand that I am not the only one who doesn't understand the terminology involved, allowing the discussion to be more educational and inclusive.

2\. Sometimes searching for terminology is ambiguous and without prior knowledge of the subject domain, can result in lack of confirmation as to whether the definition is the same as the one in the article.

3\. For one person to ask here and have it answered, can save 100 people having to search for themselves when reading the comments.

<comment><USER25> On a technical newsfeed almost every story is littered with jargon and a ton of them I don't know what an acronym means. Not only is the correct wikipedia article the 1st result, Google actually includes the start of the definition right into the search. Its fine to ask, especially when its a generic acronym but that was not the case. Its a bad habit to get into and I speak from experience, spend a couple minutes on your own and come up with a question that shows you were willing to put in some effort.

Better yet, as I see people do around here from time to time, go read a brief synopsis and then post a "For other people who didn't know what BGP was: BGP is ....". I'm not for creating a hostile stuck up community but rewarding pure laziness seems pointless to me.

<comment><USER26> It takes less effort to Google it than to ask it here, so it's not laziness.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER27> This is pretty cool, and took months, nice! :)

</comment><comment><USER28> Did anyone grab a screencap? Following the link does nothing for me.

Or is it because I'm behind a corporate firewall....

<comment><USER29> I had to wait ~20 seconds and it loaded.

</comment></comment><comment><USER30> job, How did you come up with this idea ? I'm just curious what inspired you to work on it ?

</comment><comment><USER31> Were 128 days an additional target or simply a consequence of manipulation routine?

</comment><comment><USER32> What do these charts usually look like?

<comment><AUTHOR> This is a more regular example [https://stat.ripe.net/widget/routing- history#w.resource=AS82...](https://stat.ripe.net/widget/routing- history#w.resource=AS8283)

this shows the routing history of the prefixes originated by AS 8283 - <USER2> their observed reachability

</comment></comment><comment><USER33> But 2011 was 52560 hours ago!

Still, pretty neat. :)

</comment><comment><USER34> Pretty cool!

</comment><comment><USER35> Upvote! 'nuff said.</comment>


The dangers and observations of just driving the speed limit - <AUTHOR> https://bikeportland.org/2020/01/21/lets-be-like-leslie-carlson-and-make-driving-the-speed-limit-a-hot-new-trend-309934 <comment><USER2> I've been driving legally and defensively for more than a decade and have noticed few problems. It's relaxing in the moment, and even more so in the long run, given how bad I'd feel about killing someone with my car. Highly recommended.

Some people seem upset by this (on the Internet), which always baffles me. Do they also seethe in the elevator because it's not going fast enough?

</comment><comment><USER3> The author seems to acknowledge but then ignore how their strict adherence to the speed limit makes roads less safe overall.

The author is doing something that the rest of the drivers don't expect, which is increasing speed _differential_ by driving at unexpectedly slow speeds. The author is causing more danger by not following accepted cultural behaviors.

The culturally accepted speed is also 5-10 mph above the speed limit and not exactly at it, because that's the maximum speed you can drive before risking a ticket.

The design of the road itself often dictates the speed at which people feel comfortable:

[https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=3oP-Ndwv1zw](https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=3oP- Ndwv1zw)

What the author is doing is not far off from refusing to tip at restaurants because they disagree with the practice in the first place.

The only difference is that there's no human life risk to your dinner bill.

</comment><comment><USER4> Speed limits are often arbitrary and based on some sort of government regulation on the area (a state speed limit for example) or just decreased where there are narrower or winding roads.

The driver seems to be unaware of the negative effect she is having on the roads, creating a hazardous speed differential and upsetting other drivers.

I feel as though this is an inappropriate and dangerous place for the author to take her activism, putting others' lives at risk.

There is a reason why places such as the autobahn exist and have statistically lower accident rates when compared to standard roadways, even when there is no imposed speed limit. If someone like the author were to drive purposely slower than the traffic, the risk of accident increases greatly.

<comment><USER5> So you imply the best way to improve safety is to turn every road into autobahn, disallowing access to everyone except cars? This is incredibly wanton view.

Nope. The drivers' job is to look out and calmly accomodate the driving to all obstacles. Whoever is upset by mere speed differential, is not fit to be a driver.

<comment><USER4> I was not implying that, merely noting that there are other ways to improve safety rather than just slowing down.

Check out this link: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solomon_curve](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solomon_curve)

The Solomon curve describes the relationship between how likely one is to be involved in a vehicular accident based on their speed compared to the average speed of the road.

The author doesn't seem to take this into account. It appears she is attempting to drive slower to protect those using roadways in other means such as biking, which would benefit from added infrastructure such as bicycle paths.</comment></comment></comment>


App that analyzes public data to tell you exactly how to communicate with people - <AUTHOR> https://thenextweb.com/apps/2015/04/15/creep-on-your-friends/ <comment><USER2> Sounds like the Barnum effect[0]: "a common psychological phenomenon whereby individuals will give high accuracy ratings to descriptions of their personality that supposedly are tailored specifically to them but that are, in fact, vague and general enough to apply to a wide range of people"

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

</comment><comment><USER3> So it scrapes a ton of data about people from public sources, and encourages them to give it access to their private data such as email as well.. What could possibly go wrong?

</comment><comment><USER4> Crystal isn't a new app, I was using them years ago and they have a good integration using Linkedin. Also they launched in 2014, its been pretty much 3+ yrs.

</comment><comment><USER5> What the fuck.

I really, really don't know how I feel about this.

</comment><comment> King-Aaron Just playing with the Chrome extension and viewing linkedin pages of people I know.

It's scarily accurate.</comment>


The knife is out for Ruby - nerds-central http://nerds-central.blogspot.com/2010/05/knife-is-out-for-ruby.html
Dynamic languages are coming to the end of their honeymoon period. This is bad for Python and maybe PHP, but it is nothing short of a disaster for Ruby. <comment><AUTHOR> Github is just another data point, but that's not how things look there at all: <http://github.com/languages>

</comment><comment><USER2> _I once asked a team leader, who had .net and PHP experience and was in the middle of a large Ruby On Rails project, what the benefits of Ruby and Ruby On Rails were. She could not think of a single one._

...

<comment><AUTHOR> Ruby and Rails both have their flaws, of course, but that's just silly.

Stated plainly, vs any static language, rapid development and easy metaprogramming. Vs PHP, a cleaner, saner language and a more rigorous, consistent and powerful object model and stack architecture.

<comment><USER2> _Ruby and Rails both have their flaws, of course, but that's just silly._

I agree. I don't see how anyone who is both competent and familiar with all of the technologies mentioned would not be able to state a single advantage. It's a preposterous statement in an all around FUDdy article.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> [http://babel-programming.blogspot.com/2008/02/tiobe-index- is...](http://babel-programming.blogspot.com/2008/02/tiobe-index-is- meaningless.html)</comment>


Realistic digital screen characters are finally here - <AUTHOR> http://www.kurzweilai.net/amazingly-realistic-digital-screen-characters-are-finally-here

<comment><USER2> And we've been working successfully in this area for quite a while, with a solution you can access today: www.3D-Avatar-Store.com.

We perform photo-realistic 3D Reconstruction given as little as one photo of a person. Given more photos and our reconstruction quality improves. We're neural net driven, so we're super fast: original reconstructions in under a second, and refinements require 40% less time. Multiple geometry outputs, including Maya performance-animation rigs, full body skin-tone corrected texture maps, perspective distortion correction and more.

We're exhibiting next week at the Game Developer's Conference, booth #935. Come visit and have an avatar of you made!

<comment><USER3> Automatically generating the avatar is very cool, but in terms of realism, there is no comparison between what I've found on your company's YouTube channel and the video from the article.

My conclusion is mostly based on this video from your YouTube Channel: <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iggXtQ-jBBU>

...and this video from the article: <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5d1ZOYU4gpo#t=527s>

Finally, this video from your channel, even though it's a few years old, is both technically impressive and downright horrifying. <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UFS05tR9028>

If you have better material to show, I'd recommend featuring it somewhere on your main website.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Still deep in the uncanny valley in my opinion.

<comment><USER5> Exactly my reaction. Beautiful actress but it still gave me the creeps.

I think the approach of decoupling the eyes/mouth/etc. is a mistake. Our brains are trained to unite all of them and when they don't match up naturally it sets off alarm bells in our minds that something is not right.

<comment><USER6> I think you didn't watch the second video - which was better than the first.

<comment><USER3> Thank you -- that's what happened to me. I got seriously creeped out by the first video and wrote off the headline as misleading.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Notice how he has no hair. Still a long way to go, I think.

</comment><comment><USER8> As we get closer to being able to perfectly replicate the sounds of human speech, I wonder if we'll find an "uncanny valley" effect. Check out 0:10-0:13 in the video (especially the word "now"). I actually prefer this GLaDOS-esque inflection to something perhaps closer to human-producible phonetics. The imperfection in sliding up and down tones is actually very musical, almost like "grace notes".

</comment><comment><USER9> Really impressive stuff, especially considering that is still just the beginning. The skin around the mouth and cheeks seems completely (uncannily?) real, although the lip movements could still use some work.

Also, whether it was intentional or not, as a Caprica fan, I greatly enjoy that the talking head is named "Zoe". :)

</comment><comment><USER10> I wonder how far off all digital characters we are. Seems logical as a next step and to be honest I'm not sure I personally would feel any different about watching a movie with zero flesh and bones humans in it.

</comment><comment><USER11> Notice that the model, before texturized, has fang's for teeth... scared.</comment>


Ask HN: What websites can save you time/money when starting a business? - <AUTHOR> As an example, there are Terms Of Service generator websites, which save me from having to find and pay a lawyer to create a ToS for my product. What kind of things like this can you recommend? <comment><USER2> If you want to track visits or conversions on your website and aren't a good programmer, I would recommend using Tag Managers like Google Tag Manager. You can organize every Tag in this manager instead of changing your whole code by your own.

</comment><comment><USER3> Competitor Insight from semresh or spyfu</comment>


Show HN: Simple version control for designers - <AUTHOR>

Hi HN,
I've been waiting to post what I've been working on for a few weeks now:)
Today we're launching LayerVault, which is a version control system made for designers. The URL is http://www.layervault.com
LayerVault keeps track of what you're working on without adding extra steps to your process. The app runs in your toolbar and tracks changes you make to your files. Basically — each time you create or modify a file you're working on, LayerVault saves a copy. You can then login, flip through its versions, and download a version from a few weeks ago.
It's pretty neat — and we've built some stuff that makes impact to bandwidth pretty much negligible. We've been testing it with a small beta group for a little while now, and we're pretty excited.
A handful of beta invites are floating around but we're going to be open the private beta to more people today.
As always, feedback is welcome. <comment><USER2> Looking like a great MVP.

I've just had a quick look at your demo video. 2 minor things struck me.

1) It's really blurry. Can I suggest you either re-encode it at a higher resolution, or perhaps record it on a smaller screen resolution (that way you can keep the file-size down, but can keep the bit-rate higher).

2) The timeline has no markers. It might be nice to add some little indicators to give the user a visual indication of where the versions lie on it.

<comment><AUTHOR> Hi ollie,

The video is a bit blurry, yes. For the moment, might be best to head over to vimeo and watch it in HD. We'll likely take another pass at the demo and address the quality issue.

As for the timeline markers - if you hover over the timeline, you get a nice tooltip that indicates where you're scrubbing to in the file's history.

It's still a first iteration, so we're open to suggestions if you have some input on how we might do that better. Hope to get you into layervault soon — would love the feedback.

Thanks!

<comment><USER2> Ahh, that's much better. Not sure how many people would know to do that to view in HD though?

I saw the hover effect. I was talking about something more like this. <http://gyazo.com/9eeaf082b72b63cf020b8869ebad538d.png> (Google Chrome's find feature).

Are the versions spaced along the timeline equally or by time apart?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> Looks great - designers desperately need a better solution for versioning. My thoughts on existing options:

\- Dropbox isn't great because (as far as I know) you don't get to leave messages as you do with Git/SVN commits.

\- Git isn't great because (as far as I know) it's not so easy to quickly compare a whole history of iterations

\- I haven't looked at hosted options for a few months, but they've always seemed to be expensive.

So you're left with:

\- Trying to remember to incrementally increase filenames (Website01.psd, Website02.psd etc) - still leaving out memorable 'commit messages'.

\- Saving the files with memorable 'commit messages' in the filename (Website_WideSidebar.psd, Website_NarrowSidebar.psd). Janky.

\- Grouping all of your layers and duplicating the entire site for different iterations, turning on and off those groups to see previous work. Or using Layer Comps. Still janky.

\- What I do in Illustrator (infinite canvas makes it easier than in Photoshop) - duplicating the artboard for each iteration, leaving a 'post-it note' to myself on the corner of each iteration. So I get the 'commit messages' and the ability quickly see all iterations at once. A recent example: <http://c.jongold.in/1z452Y402o3V3s2d0r2W>

I'd agree with the previous criticism about the video being too long - I'm sure you're aware of that though.

The pressing issue in versioning for me is being able to leave and view 'commit messages'/comments as simply as I can with Git - they're more meaningful to me that viewing solely by date. If you add that I think you'll have a great product.

<comment><USER4> We've toyed with the idea of doing commit messages, but we're holding off on them for now. A commit message is a way of explaining the behavior of the changes in (usually) code. When working with images though, the changes in design are readily visible. In a way, the commit message is contained within the image itself.

That being said, we may explore the options of a 2-up view in the future or a Github-style image diffing mechanism.

<comment><USER5> Agreed. We all end up naming our designs Index_01.psd, Index_01a.psd, .. anyway. I don't think commit messages are that important in design.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> I highly recommend you get a good noise-canceling headset, put up some towels or carpets in a small room, and re-record the video. The sound will be a hundred times better. Take the opportunity to cut the video's length to a minute and a half, and prepare a more complex demo file (i.e. more than a gray canvas).

That said, I'm glad there is more VCS for designers. I see the need every day teaching Git to designers (although it's much easier now with, say, gitx).

</comment><comment><USER7> Correct me if I'm wrong but this seems almost identical to the versions feature in os x lion. Won't this be somewhat obsolete when adobe starts supporting versions on lion?

<comment><AUTHOR> The short answer is that it is indeed very much like iCloud for Photoshop, though we're rolling out support for more filetypes over time. If we were to stop in our tracks and cease development, it might be something to be concerned with. There's so much in the pipeline that we're not too focused on it at the moment.

<comment><USER7> I've been wanting a nice version control system for my design projects for awhile. Looking forward to see what you guys come up with!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Cool idea, but I stopped watched the video after about 1 minute. I think you need to get to your sell faster. Like a newspaper article get to the point first, then fill in the details. Don't make me listen to you describe how to save a file in Photoshop for the first 1/3.

</comment><comment><USER9> Cool! Glad to see more people entering this space, it's really validating for us and for you I'm sure too. We just launched our service that is very similar, but uses Dropbox as a back end: <http://www.pixelstew.com>

Nice design, my only complaint is the blurry video.

Edit: Also, your video is WAY long. You need to make it more succinct. People aren't going to stay engaged for 4 minutes.

</comment><comment><USER10> <http://www.layervault.com>

This is awesome! Excited and signed up for beta :)

</comment><comment><USER11> I sent this to our art department, and this is what I was told: I don't really have time to look at this right now, but sounds interesting! Adobe creative suites have version control built in, but we have been investigating third party sources because it kind of sucks. Thanks for the heads up.

</comment><comment><USER12> Seems very similar to FileHamster (<http://www.filehamster.com>) except I guess LayerVault would be "cloud-based" and available online. I've been using FH for about 3 years for keeping track of all kinds of files .

</comment><comment><USER13> Benefit over using Dropbox (which many people have to use for other files anyways)?

<comment><USER14> At a glance, UI. Dropbox is horrible for restoring things - it's possible, but it's definitely not the primary use-case. Especially with something visual, you can go a lot further a lot faster if you can see what it was at each state without having to hit the back button a bazillion times.

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> Have you seen designSVN : <http://designsvn.com/>

Similar idea - maybe slightly better execution in terms of the site style.

</comment><comment><USER16> Should change the title to "Simple version control for Photoshop designers". The word Photoshop is not mentioned in your description too.

<comment><AUTHOR> It's not just for Photoshop, though it is what we're launching with.

<comment><USER16> Oh. But you can see why I got confused. :) A bit more clarity in your description would be great.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> This looks very promising. If you get your upcoming features right you could have something like Dropbox + proofHQ.

</comment><comment><USER18> Going back in time left-to-right feels wrong, though perhaps those who read text RTL may disagree :-)

</comment><comment><USER19> clickable: <http://www.layervault.com>

</comment><comment><USER20> I'm not a designer either but it does look interesting. Is it Mac only?

<comment><USER4> For now, yes, this is Mac only.

We made the executive decision to make the minimum viable product for designers and we think going exclusively with the Mac is a safe choice for now.

That being said, we will eventually be adding PC support.</comment></comment>


Show HN: Tuql – Automatically create a GraphQL server from a sqlite database - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/bradleyboy/tuql <comment><USER2> similar, but for postgres : [https://github.com/postgraphql/postgraphql](https://github.com/postgraphql/postgraphql)

</comment><comment><USER3> shameless plug (for MySql) : [https://github.com/o1lab/xmysql/](https://github.com/o1lab/xmysql/)

      supports where clause in intuitive way in queryinh
      provides 'many' apis for groups
      provides api for join</comment>


A cry for Europe - <AUTHOR> http://www.freddestin.com/blog/2010/03/a-cry-for-europe.html

<comment><USER2> I liked this post in the comments:

A couple of weeks ago I lectured in front of a classroom (in Belgium). I never prepare these things because I – naively – assume that the audience will want to know how it is to run a tech. start-up, like for instance Nomadesk.

So I asked: "What do you want to find out about staring up a business?"... no response! Ok, I reverted to my fallback question: "Who of you has thought about starting a business, sometime in the future?" Dead silence, absolutely no response!?

At that point I got concerned, because I would only be able to entertain this lot (during 90min.), if they'd provoke me with their questioning.

So, I finally asked why they were not interested in starting up a business. At that point a young lady raised her hand – she was not older than 18: "Because, you hardly get any retirement fee"…

I rest my case,

</comment><comment><USER3> This is straight scary. I've lived in Spain, UK and Germany (after being in the US for 4 years) and the contrast is ... astounding. Most young people here do want to be civil servants.</comment>


Show HN: Felt – Personal, handwritten cards mailed from your iPad - <AUTHOR> http://www.feltapp.com <comment><USER2> This is not true "handwriting," it is a printing of handwriting. This sort of practice is usually imperfect, and the fact that the note is not written at all is generally pretty conspicuous.

Frankly, I think that most people would view this as disingenuous. The whole point of handwritten cards is that their supposed to be, uhhh, handwritten. A printout of something written seems sort of perfunctory, and isn't really better than simply sending a typed note. Indeed, the fact that one is attempting to forgo the work of writing a real card and instead using something like this will just dilute the sentiment of the gesture and appear lazy.

<comment><USER3> I see your point, but isn't this part of the gradual change of customs? Should I be offended that your thank you note was written with the _convenience_ of a ballpoint pen instead of quill and ink? What about the fact that your _modern_ envelop was secured with nothing more than a quick lick to the factory-applied adhesive instead of a lovingly-applied wax seal?

<comment><USER4> People should also be upset by the lack of Elizabethan English. What is this LULZ you speak of???

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> I remember when I ordered my mom flowers for Mother's Day (only a diplomatic gesture, since I hate the whole commercial logic of it), and she was quite upset that I had done something so impersonal as to order flowers for her online to have them delivered on the day.

I had still picked out the size and combination, mind, but something about it felt insincere to her.

Personally, I don't see a problem, but just a word of warning that some feel differently about the concept.

Perhaps a safe way to go about it is to send it to people under a certain age.

<comment><USER6> Seems like there's a difference here, though?

You made your choice from a set of predetermined options. Handwriting (and not handwriting-like fonts) communicates more than just words, but attitude, character, and mood as well. That level of personalization might just translate through this digital -> analog experience.

<comment><USER7> > Handwriting communicates more than just words, but attitude, character, and > mood as well.

Actually, I think signaling theory strongly suggests that the preference for handwritten notes is rooted in its difficult and time-consuming nature (i.e. a costly signal) rather than the emotional fidelity of the communication.

<comment><USER8> Yes, that's what I also felt. I think in that case, it actually works? Because you are putting the effort of hand-writing the card - just not on the actual paper that is sent out.

<comment><USER7> I think it's probably somewhere in between. It's more work then sending an e-card, but not as much as finding paper, funding an envelope, filling everything out by hand, and mailing it.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Ok, I was figuring the handwriting would be fake, or produced by some third party. The idea of capturing your own handwriting, and printing it on the card, is pretty ingenious.

</comment><comment><USER10> Aren't there already a million of these apps? I know that Postcard on the Run gives you the option to scribble in your own signature, and the results are as expected: crappy.

I was hoping that this would be a service that provides _real_ handwriting, as in, hire some professionals with beautiful handwriting and streamline the postal service. I'd use it all the time.

Also, kudos for making it iPad only :[

</comment><comment><USER11> Is there a "send on [date]" feature? It would be nice to pre-write birthday greetings, etc.

<comment><AUTHOR> Goo idea! Not as of yet though, but it'll come for sure!

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> I tested this app back in December and was blown away at how realistic the "handwritten" cards looked. Selling a Felt subscription to businesses with the value-add that their sales team could quickly and easily write cards to their customers could prove very lucrative.

</comment><comment><USER13> This is genius - great job! Also props for having the discipline to code it up from a ski resort!

For those of us who don't have ipads I would love the ability to custom send hand written cards from the web. I'd be fine with even somebody else writing them.

</comment><comment><USER14> I love the idea, and great execution too! Just one thing - the domain, feltapp.com, sorta sounds like "felt up." I think that's pretty funny.

</comment><comment><USER15> I was skeptical of the idea until I watched the video. Great execution!

<comment><AUTHOR> thank you!

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> Awesome app.

Small thing, though - on the homepage, kind of think that when I click play on the video, it should play. Right now, it just sends me to the video, and I have to click play on the bottom left again.

Should be pretty easy to change the embed settings on the Vimeo. I had that on my website too.

</comment><comment><USER17> Just out of curiosity, how did you get around Apple forcing you to include their payment system in everything? It looks like you need to enter your CC info through the app itself, which Apple usually gets pretty pissy about (the whole in-app purchases.)

<comment><USER18> Apple doesn't support physical goods in their payment system. Their focus is strictly on in-app tokens and DLC. My guess is that physical goods have too much potential for mistakes and require things like returns and shipping tracking.

</comment></comment><comment><USER19> I saw an art show here in Boston at the MFA on post cards, which were a big deal from 1890s - about the 1920s (or whenever radio came in to play): <http://www.mfa.org/exhibitions/postcard-age>

It's inspired me to try sending hand-written, everyday postcards to friends. Not just post cards from vacation, but home made ones that would normally be photos shared to social networking. I still appreciate how great it feels to receive a handwritten piece of mail every now and then that isn't a bill. And not just reading someone's impersonal FB update.

</comment><comment><USER20> There's nothing more irritating than receiving junk mail that has been printed to look as though it was written by hand. It's always immediately obvious and I always find it more offensive than normal junk mail because of the lame attempt to trick me into thinking someone took the time to write the letter by hand.

So in that respect, I'm pretty sure I would be just as annoyed receiving a fake hand-written card from a friend. It's not the aesthetic of handwriting that people appreciate, it's the fact that it takes time to do.

<comment><USER21> > There's nothing more irritating....

There are lots of things way more irritating than that.

<comment><USER20> You're right; there's nothing more irritating than people taking figures of speech literally.

<comment><USER21> That is not a figure of speech, just something silly to say, which adds nothing.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> Nice idea and implementation. One tiny criticism (and an easy fix): The big red button that you tap to send your card looks _way_ too much like a cancel button.

</comment><comment><USER23> Currently taking a long time to respond for me. Might just go find the app in the appstore as your site is getting hammered :)

<comment><AUTHOR> yeah; we're working on it. lol

<comment><USER23> It's a great problem to have! Loved what I saw and I think I am going to drop a card for Mothers Day!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> The idea is great, but you should probably change that writing tool UI.

<http://www.fiftythree.com/assets/images/paper-header-bg.jpg> vs. <http://www.feltapp.com/assets/images/step2_ipad.jpg>

<comment><USER25> They really don't look that similar. Is no one supposed to use toolbars of pens now?

<comment><USER26> I think he was implying that the functionality of Paper is far greater, not the visual similarity -- Freudian slip on your part I suppose ;)

<comment><USER24> No, I was definitely implying that it looks unnecessarily similar.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Looks pretty neat!

Do you do international posting?

Sine you haven't mentioned any separate pricing, I guess the answer is 'no' ?

Would be nice if this was mentioned somewhere.

<comment><AUTHOR> We don't right now. And, agreed! We're adding it to our FAQ.

</comment></comment><comment><USER27> I built a postcard app a little while back but this definitely looks better :-)

How are you doing the fulfillment of the cards?

</comment><comment><USER28> I really like this application and the idea. What I'd really love is if I could write the note using some kind of stylus on the iPad. Then it would truly handwritten.

My "claw" is illegible enough for people to know whether or not I really wrote something by hand or generated it on a computer.

<comment><USER29> Did you watch the video? That's exactly what it does.

<comment><USER30> I'd say the major issue is that the iPad doesn't "quite" do stylus work well - if you watch the video, the woman doesn't rest her palms on the device when using the stylus. If that actually is supported, I'd be thrilled.

I'm pretty good just signing and writing with my finger on a touch surface regardless - I'll have to try it out - I'd love to be able to send something through an app with such an authentic look.

<comment><USER31> People have always spoken about why 'palm rejection' is important, and I never understood why. I didn't rest my hand on my iPad when I wrote. Then, it came to me. Being left-handed, I could never rest my hand on a page as I would get ink/graphite all over it.

Maybe those of us who were less fortunate in the 'handedness' area actually write better on electronic surfaces with styluses.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER32> This is a great idea, I really like it. I wish I had come up with it.

Also, your page needs a <meta charset=utf-8>. You have mojibake here: <http://www.feltapp.com/faq.php>

</comment><comment><USER33> This looks like something I could use! When does the Android version come out?

<comment><AUTHOR> We'll know once we get a bit further down the road. Thanks for the shout out!

</comment></comment><comment><USER34> It would be great available from outside the US. Instead of going through the trouble of international shipping, one could use this service to send to US residents.

At least that's what I use iCards for now.

</comment><comment><USER35> Can multiple people sign the same card like a yearbook page from separate ipads? I think that would really add value since it replaces the need for everyone to be in the same room.

</comment><comment><USER36> Quick question: Are the cards at the bottom good examples of how your printer will render the handwriting (and were they made with or without a stylus)?

If so, bravo -- they look great!

<comment><USER36> Follow-up: And how are you sourcing your card designs? I know a few artists who I'm sure would love to talk to you.

<comment><AUTHOR> Yes, all card images are photos of actual Felt cards written using the app. So, thanks! Some are written using a finger and some are written using a stylus. We found that it comes down to personal preference. A stylus is easier for most people, but some prefer to interact using their finger.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER37> Nothing replaces a real handwritten thank you note but for a business person who has to write a lot of them... It looks like the next best alternative

</comment><comment><USER38> Nice. What is your hardware setup? Is it some fancy automatic machine, or do you fold the card, seal the envelope and add the stamp per hand?

</comment><comment><USER39> "MEH going to be expensive ... wait, $3.99? Nice."

<comment><USER18> I had the same reaction. I think the last time I purchased a card in the store it was about $4 before postage. So not only is this cheaper than the way I used to do it, it looks better (better envelope) and is more convenient.

Now if the had an Android version I would be happy. :)

</comment></comment><comment><USER40> Could you please elaborate on what technologies you've used to create the app?

Very nice movie! Is this professionally made or just home made?

</comment><comment><USER41> wow, beautiful app! i had a similar idea with a different slant as a side project, centered around the idea of writing a letter to your future self. am currently testing whether or not people would pay to get letters printed and mailed to them.

take a look here: <http://www.tymdrop.com>

<comment><USER2> $9 seems quite excessive to mail a sheet of paper. I'm not sure whether or not people will be able to justify the inordinate price, and I'm of the opinion that it's simply too hight to be tenable.

As an aside, the site crashed upon closing the "learn more" dialog.

<comment><USER41> ah yes i agree $9 is not low, but i think we need to communicate more of what you'll receive in by mail.

we won't send just a sheet of paper, but rather a neatly printed letter on high quality paper (diploma quality stock) with maybe letter pressed adornments.

all in all, this a lean startup test of the idea. i'm not married to the price point, and thanks for the feedback!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER42> The smoothing and variable stroke width look pretty good there, a lot like Paper. Care to share what you're doing?

</comment><comment><USER37> Great idea. Hope everyone uses FELT. Much much better than a non-personal email but almost as easy.

</comment><comment><USER43> Great idea, but I think you should get a different domain name... "Felt a pp".

<comment><USER44> Y'know, I disagree that it's an issue, and I'm usually one of the more immature people around!

Feltapp.com works IMO.

</comment></comment><comment><USER45> Nice! Would also be cool to connect with Facebook for birthdays etc.

</comment><comment><USER46> Looks really cool and well developed. I'd use it but then I noticed I don't know home addresses of most people as an immigrant here. Most people I know are either my friends or colleagues whom I don't have home addresses of and thus I cannot use this.

</comment><comment><USER47> Neat! I would use this if:

1\. I didn't need an iPad.

2\. you would mail them internationally.

3\. you would seal them with a custom wax seal. (This would, of course, be a premium feature.)

<comment><USER48> Wax seal won't survive the mail system.

</comment></comment><comment><USER49> I loved everything about this app.

</comment><comment><USER50> Does it work internationally?

<comment><AUTHOR> Not yet, but definitely something we're planning on.

</comment></comment><comment><USER51> Great idea and execution!</comment>