37signals Works Remotely [video] - <AUTHOR> https://37signals.com/svn/posts/3657-37signals-works-remotely <comment><USER3> I'm jealous. I have yearned for this type of work for years and I haven't been able to find it. I loathe the commute to an office. I don't want to pay the price of living in a "tech city". I'm even tired of wasting money on clothes for an office as I am a 41 year old jeans and t-shirt kind of guy. Some people just don't have the discipline of not being constantly supervised and have that "must be at the office to be productive" thought pattern. I am not a 9 to 5 person (and most companies have changed it to "you must be a 8 to 5 person"). There is just too much time and money wasted by going to someone's office if you don't need to. I was the only iOS developer at my previous employer. I barely had to collaborate with the business as much as you might think. Most of our communication was done via email, wikis and bug tracking tools. I couldn't understand why I had to be there. It was basically just an obstacle I had to overcome very damn day. I'm currently searching for new work and so many positions are downtown (Atlanta, in my case). I just won't deal with 1 hour commutes. Gridlock is just a horrible place to waste one's life.

<comment><USER4> I work in Atlanta for a multinational company with 20,000+ employees, almost daily I connect with people from the Midwest, West coast, India, and UK. We allow remote workers, have flex time (although 8-5 is considered the "norm"). Our dress code is relaxed (I prefer jeans + polo daily). I know that we are hiring because I am meeting new hires daily (along with new contractors). I just got hired in July.

Let me know if you would like to know more I saw you were in Atlanta (we are not downtown).

<comment><USER3> I live north of the city (Roswell). How does one communicate on hacker news? Is it poor form to throw out my email address?

<comment><USER5> Put an email address in your profile description.

<comment><USER3> Cool, already there. Thanks!

<comment><USER6> The email field in your account is not public information. You have to actually put it in the 'about' section. Your email is not there as of a few seconds ago.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> The merits of remote work aside, you have to hand it to 37signals for masterful marketing.

They have a set of beliefs that they tell powerful stories about, in various mediums, to people who already believe or want to believe these same beliefs.

And in this context they also offer products that make things like remote work collaboration easier. But you're not even bothered by that, because they are clearly experts at doing this well (they wrote a book about it and are doing it themselves) so it all just _fits_ together.

It's thought-leadership in a very practical way. A lot of good lessons to be learnt.

<comment><USER8> If the book goes into useful and functioning ways to come to such a . However, there could be some caveats to take into account relating to the type of people who'd be attracted to work on the products that 37signals follows. I'm curious if having a distributed / de-centralized team is possible. I can understand the values and would love to see if it's possible within my own scope of plans - though it's a lot of directed effort and wasteful if it ends up not working.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> In my experience remote work, works best when everyone is remote. That way all the remote worker issues have to be sorted out, or atleast thought of by day one.

When remote work starts to fall apart is when there is a dedicated office where 75% of the team works.

In these cases the remote workers miss the critical "Let's grab a room meetings" where decisions are made. I think the reason is that its much easier to make decisions with people when you can see them face to face rather than in group chat.

</comment><comment><USER10> I would love to hear more about how various companies handle this logistically. Like how they allow access to company data and resources. I'm assuming simply using VPNs is the standard? Where I work they make it so unbelievably painful and difficult to work remotely. You have to jump through a million hoops. It's a financial company, and generally "compliance" gets the blame for this. But I wonder how much of it is just plain paranoia. Do a lot of companies worry about things like leaking source code? Or client/customer data? Or do most companies put much more trust in their employees?

<comment><USER11> Don't most companies already anyway use web-based SaaS solutions, so no VPN's needed except for legacy systems?

<comment><USER12> Many large companies will not trust their data to an outside company under any circumstances. They will put the SaaS solution on their intranet only accessible locally or thru a VPN. If the SaaS company isn't willing to do this, then they won't sell to these companies. This can be a valid choice for the SaaS company as long as they can find enough other customers to make them profitable.

<comment><USER13> Or, the data is hosted externally, but you can only access it through your company's VPN.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> When it comes to finding the best way to organize a business, there is no one- size-fits-all solution. My own experience is that working remotely is a viable and even desirable option for many _but not all_ businesses -- it depends on the nature of the work, and on the kinds of interactions people must have with others inside and outside the company for the business to be successful.

For example, individuals engaged in highly creative _multi-disciplinary_ endeavors -- like the writers, artists, and technicians who together make a Pixar film -- seem to produce great results when they are regularly interacting with each other face-to-face. Steve Jobs, in fact, forced a redesign of Pixar's headquarters to promote face-to-face encounters and unplanned collaborations.[1]

\--

[1] [http://officesnapshots.com/2012/07/16/pixar-headquarters- and...](http://officesnapshots.com/2012/07/16/pixar-headquarters-and-the- legacy-of-steve-jobs/)

<comment><USER15> >>My own experience is that working remotely is a viable and even desirable option for many but not all businesses -- it depends on the nature of the work, and on the kinds of interactions people must have with others inside and outside the company for the business to be successful.

Of course. The problem is that many (most?) companies will not even consider the possibility that remote work would be suitable for their employees because they have a fundamental lack of trust for those employees. Furthermore, they are managed by baby boomers who still believe in outdated mantras like "show up early and leave late to show your dedication."

I'd say that 20 years from now remote work will have become the norm, at least in software.

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> I'm a remote worker at the moment. I love it.

I can take a break when I need to and be in my comfortable space. I don't have a commute. I can open my door and see my daughter when I go downstairs for a coffee. I can take a walk to the local coffee shop and sit down with the other freelancers and remote workers and catch up on local happenings. If I need a break or I'm done for the day I'm not just watching the clock and waiting for a few other people to leave first.

I contribute regularly to open source projects and so I know what it takes to collaborate remotely. We're experimenting with sqwiggle, screenhero, and use github and pivotal. We email each other constantly keeping the teams up to date. We have a VPN and use our ssh-keys for as much as we can. It works really well and I think the tools have come a long way.

It's good to see that the world we were promised in the 60's is finally coming to fruition.

<comment><USER17> I love it too! I think you hit on a really important point. Working from home drastically improves quality of life since you're able to interact more with people you care about. It also helps you develop more of a passion for your work when you're not being micromanaged. Helps you to feel more free and in control.

Great that you're trying out Sqwiggle. I'm actually one of the co-founders so please let me know if there's anything we can do to improve your experience. Also any feedback you have is super helpful!

<comment><USER16> I've already sent in a few suggestions! Sqwiggle is great. :)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> Thanks to Yahoo's crackdown, I think working at home has gotten a bum rap lately. I work at home, and so do my 4 employees. It can let you build a great a lifestyle, and help small businesses hire talent where ever they can find it.

In my case, I traded the city for a modest home on a beautiful lake in rural Minnesota. It also lets me be near my autistic son who attends online public school (school at home is another digression, but off topic).

Yes, there are challenges, like deciding if today is a shave day or not.

All kidding aside, working at home is tool that great companies with great employees can wield effectively to obtain excellent results and acquire talent they can't find locally. Companies, like Yahoo, that don't understand this are not great companies and probably never will be.

Long live working at home!

<comment><USER19> It comes with downsides as well in the sense that it's a very rare privilege. If your company decides one day to let you go , cancel work-at-home privileges or simply goes under, your life is going to suddenly become much, much harder, especially in the case of people who, like you, took this opportunity to move to a very isolated area.

<comment><USER20> I live in an area with pretty much 0 worthwhile tech jobs. I've been working remote for a while now and done so with 3 very different organizations doing very different types of work (plain old software dev to machine learning research), and I've personally found this not to be a "very rare privilege" at all. Currently about 9% of the jobs on Stack overflow careers are remote, and if you look carefully you can find a very wide range of work.

I find the remote space is rapidly advancing and expanding. The tools are getting much better, and the diversity of companies offering remote work is as well. It's definitely sustainable to choose to work only remotely, and even if I were to move to a city with better tech jobs I would have a hard time going back to full-time working in an office.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> In my experience, remote working is incredibly fulfilling and successful if you know and trust your co-workers. I ran a small software company for 8 years this way. We synced once a week, and performed seamless code merges because we respected API boundaries.

Once I entered Silicon Valley, I learned that the above is the exception rather than the rule. And I think that's where all the horror stories arise. For I no longer get to choose my co-workers, and there's all sorts of pointy- haired edicts that come down the pipe from various Peter Principals(tm) inflicting their view of reality upon the collective they oversee. Just forget trying to run a remote team this way - it's incurably broken - and from this perspective, I agree with Marissa Mayer's tough choice to eliminate telecommuting as an option. Sadly, this movement is wreaking havoc on the daily commutes of everyone here.

My own solution however has been to seek work where I'm an IC and I have someone immediately above me covering my back. That's hard to find, and you're going to be perceived as a job hopper during the hunt, but it's worth the temporary downside IMO.

Or even better, just start your own shop with people you trust...

<comment><USER22> > Or even better, just start your own shop with people you trust...

I really, really wish I could do this. I feel like there needs to be some sort of guild structure for programming that would enable this.

</comment></comment><comment><USER23> Hi guys, just wondering if anyone with remote work experience (either as employee or employer) can shed some light on these issues:

* How about same-time communication? E.g. I need to discuss things with my designer, oh wait, he's gardening at the moment, or he works at night.

* How do you know when to start/stop your day? E.g. In "normal" office, it's usually 9 to 5.

* How do you schedule projects? Fixed time simplifies scheduling ("This project is 5 man-days").

* Who pays for supporting equipments (desk, LCD, internet, nice coffee) if I work from home?

* Specific to 37signals: How did they make the video? Did the video guy traveled to each and every employee in the video to tape them?

<comment> jon-wood I've been working (semi-)remotely for the last couple of years. My current schedule has me at home most of the week, and in the office with the rest of the team two days, however that varies depending on other factors.

> How about same-time communication? E.g. I need to discuss things with my > designer, oh wait, he's gardening at the moment, or he works at night.

On the whole you avoid it. So much of what people think needs an immediate response really doesn't, and can be dealt with much more effectively with a well written email. If you really do need to speak to someone real time then you schedule a time which is convenient, rather than disrupting the other party by dropping by their desk.

> How do you know when to start/stop your day? E.g. In "normal" office, it's > usually 9 to 5.

This was the hardest thing for me when I stopped working in an office, but eventually you get into a rhythm, much as you would in a "normal" job. Sometimes it might vary a bit, but in the end we're creatures of habit.

> How do you schedule projects? Fixed time simplifies scheduling ("This > project is 5 man-days").

You still have an idea of how many productive hours you'll get in a typical day, you're just working in a different place. Knowing how much you _actually_ work is a big win for estimation, since you're not playing the game of pretending everyone gets 8 hours a day every day.

> Who pays for supporting equipments (desk, LCD, internet, nice coffee) if I > work from home?

In my case, I had it all set up from when I was contracting anyway, so the kit is mine, but it depends on the company. Any company worth their salt would pick up the tab for equipment you need for your job (although you may have to pay for your own coffee).

</comment></comment><comment><USER24> I find people doing remote work constantly missing big parts of information that is passed around verbally and doing extra work / being less efficient because of this.

We already use chat rooms, individual chats, tickets, video conferencing, email, dashboards, whatever.

But sometimes the bandwidth of just sitting with someone and looking at a problem together is so much higher that you can solve big issues in a very short time.

I think some psychologists could study this, it's right up their alley - <USER2> is lacking in remote co-operation devices. I personally think it's partly that you need to see what the other person is looking at and also you must be able to observe their body language. A way to do "Look here, this is important in about 0.1 seconds." But I have no evidence.

<comment><USER25> I can address first of the issues you have mentioned: I have worked both in situations when whole company is working remotely or only one/two people of out dozen were.

In the second case, those people were very often left out of the most communication that was happening in the office, and for them it must have been not very good situation to be in. There was no general plan for handling this situation and trying to include them in meetings and decision making process.

But when whole company is working remotely, the situation is completely different, everyone is at the same level, and you really can make it work.

</comment></comment><comment><USER26> I've worked entirely remotely for multiple years in 2 separate cases. I prefer loosely coupled teams and remote structure works well for this.

My main problem is when I need to interact with office culture. People in large conference rooms with a shitty speaker in the middle of it. When more than one person talks at once, it all becomes totally inaudible. Accents also become much harder to discern under the fuzzy sound quality that this kind of environment produces. I never have these problems with predominantly remote teams.

How to bridge that culture gap? Does the office world just need better speaker phones?

<comment><USER27> We're a team that's partially remote, and partially in an office. One tactic that's worked well is instead of forcing the co-located members of a team around a conference phone, we have everyone join a google hangout from their individual computers. It puts everyone on the same footing, and helps deal with sound quality. You just have to sometimes ask people to upgrade their mics so they don't pick up too much room noise and cause echoes.

</comment></comment><comment><USER28> I'm kind of interested in the meta story around this remote campaign. Assuming 37 signals is doing this book at least partially for money, they're making a play relating to a trend using themselves as the model of what works.

Is the target audience employees who work remote or want to, or is the target market managers who need to understand remote employees?

<comment><USER29> I suspect they have a yet to be announced product which is targeted to teams working remotely. They are slowly building authority for why and how working remotely works.

<comment><USER28> This is a very interesting take. If true, the book is not the product. They don't care how well the book sells. They care that you and I know they wrote a book on the topic and so therefore, they are the authority.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER30> I was impressed by the breadth of lovingly photographed coffee preparation methods. Chemex, standard pourovers, moka pots, espresso, the all-American drip machine.

</comment><comment><USER31> I went from working in an office, to working remotely for the same company.

While there were certainly benefits, I experienced a few downsides that also drove me crazy.

As a product manager, I was in the sticky situation of needing to coordinate with a bunch of different people, and hit certain deadlines that the rest of the company may or may not have aligned with. I felt like I lost much my day- to-day ability to get-shit-done, especially as I was competing for time & resources with other projects.

I also found it easier to stop caring as much, since the emotions & passion weren't as readily communicated remotely.

Definitely some personal shortcoming in there as well, but, there's definitely issues to watch for if working remotely.

</comment><comment><USER32> 37signals is a black swan for a lot of things.

To be noted, but not as the basis for a new world order.

Anecdotal evidence of my own:

\- Stop thinking about labor in a capital-intensive business

\- I can't do a damn thing with collaboration without a real whiteboard

\- I don't work well with too much technology.

\- Time zones make things tricky: half of "our" team is in Europe, but deals with a different group of companies. FTSE vs NYSE trading hours make things difficult.

\- The one work-from-home person on "our" team was let go due to inconsistent quality of output

\- Living in a city is a part of work/life balance for pretty much anyone under age 30

\--tslathrow

</comment><comment><USER33> Here's a link to a previous HN discussion [http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5145358](http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5145358) where I mentioned some of the research on the different efficiencies between co-located and distributed teams.

If anybody has links to research (rather than anecdote) around the topic I'd love to have additions Especially any that show distributed teams performing to the same levels (or better) than co-located ones. Thanks ;-)

</comment><comment><USER34> I think working from home at will would be the best of both worlds. Come in when you want to collaborate in person, stay at home when you need to work undisturbed.

<comment><USER35> For the last ten years I've been working from home two days a week and commuting to the office for the other three. Works well for me.

</comment></comment><comment><USER36> What I don't understand about the working remote discussion ist, that it only goes half way. It seems to be a discussion like: Lets work remote but keep everything else the same. Lets keep the company, lets keep bosses, lets collegues, lets keep meetings lets keep the chat at the coffee machine.

Working remotely, as I understand it, means, that you have to transform the company employer relationship in a way that it works using rather abstract or technical infrastructure or interface. The company has to know or to learn, and define, what kind of services or deliverable it can expect from its employees. Also the employee has to learn how to present his service or deliverables in a way that they get noticed and impress someone very far away.

It is sort of an bidirectional API that both have to serve and use.

My question now is, what is the reason for a company to have employees if the service they need is so well defined and could be offered by anyone capeable of serving that API? Why have employes if you can have contractors? The same question holds for the employees, if capable of offering that service in such a well defined way, why not turn into a company themselves and offer that service to anyone willing to pay?

</comment><comment><USER37> The effectiveness of remote working is directly connected to the office environment, company culture, and processes.

The initial transition to remote working is especially hard - you require infrastructural and organisational changes to accommodate remote workers, and there's an up-front cost (not just financial) to that that dissuades getting started.

I previously worked in an environment that had a culture of face-to-face meetings, informal chats and the like, and it really would have required a total change in culture to implement frequent remote working. By contrast, about 25% of my current engineering colleagues frequently work from home - we've got Google Hangouts and the appropriate equipment and infrastructure to pull it off.

There are real upsides and downsides though - obviously a remote worker saves on a commute, but they do tend to miss out on the more social aspects of an office. Like, "Let's go get lunch," or "It's Matt's birthday, let's all have some cake." Those are definitely some of the perks of working with pleasant colleagues.

</comment><comment><USER38> I used to 100% believe in this, but came to appreciate people interacting face-to-face. There is a reason that great artists, philosophical circles, mathematicians etc. come in clusters of excellence. People feed off of each other. This can benefit start-ups as well. Facebook, drop-box, etc. and many other startups worked & lived in the same house in early days. I'm not saying this is a balanced lifestyle - won't be able to do drip coffee bike ride gardening and whatever other hipster stuff 37signals does as much perhaps.

I do a genomics start-up, with two offices, one in Europe, one on the East Coast. #1 wishlist item is only if there was a way the two offices could be physically together.

Remote works as well as a long-distance relationship. It may work in a mature environment, 5-10 years into your relationship. Not Day #1. Start-ups battle many odds, remote is not one you want to tackle from the get go.

</comment><comment><USER39> As someone who has worked remotely for most of their career (which isn't very long since I am young) I can definitely say that working from home has a lot of negatives as well.

I've ended up thinking that remote working is for people who are traveling a lot or people with a family they would like to stay at home and spend time with.

<comment><USER40> Not really. I'm glad I get to see my daughter grow up while working at home, but it's so much more than that. I don't have to deal with office politics or anything like that. Last office I worked at had a somewhat dress code, I'm glad I can now wear shorts. There is no impromptu meetings, and no annoying coworker stopping by my office at horrible times. I set my own schedule around when I'm most productive. I've worked at home for 4 years now and wouldn't go back to an office job without at least a $20k raise.

<comment><USER41> * Not really. I'm glad I get to see my daughter grow up while working at home *

Have you tried working with home without a family? I'm getting good gigs but they are all remote. It's has been a rough time since I socialize really little.

<comment><USER42> Are there any co-working spaces near you?

<comment><USER43> Co-working is an absolute godsend for remote work. It's like an office, but better! You can pop-in and out without the pressure that your actual coworkers put on you to be visible during "office hours". Even if you only spend an hour or two a day at your co-working desk, being able to get out and interact with humans (on your terms) is an amazing thing.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER44> I have a full-time day job but took an offer working part-time remotely for a Joomla Extensions Developer named Joomlatools late last year and did that for a few months in my spare time.

The only bummer for me was that I was a contracted employee so basically I was paid for the hours I worked (my full-time job is salaried so it's nice to know I'm going to expect X dollars each month) and since I was doing it in my free time it started to get difficult to balance the extra work time with family time since I ended up no longer having much free time.

If a company offered a $90,000+/yr salary + health and retirement benefits to work remotely then I think a lot more people might be interested, but in some cases (when you're working simply as a remote contractor) that's definitely not nearly as good.

</comment><comment><USER45> An overwhelming majority of the people in this thread seem to favor working from home. Does anybody miss face-to-face time? I work in an office, and not a day goes by without face-to-face discussions with my co-workers. I find these discussions really helpful, and often we end up drawing on a white-board.

I've worked with remote developers (via video) before, and it didn't come close to the interactions I have in-person with people at the office. Would be interesting to hear some comments from remote developers. Related (from a blog post of mine): [http://henrikwarne.com/2013/04/02/programmer-productivity- in...](http://henrikwarne.com/2013/04/02/programmer-productivity- interruptions-meetings-and-working-remotely/)

<comment><USER46> The correct amount of face time - both out of necessity and out of comfort - is a difficult problem. I worked for a while in a "Facebook style" office, where we were pair programming. No walls, no privacy, all of our desks faced forward except the lead, who faced us, like a schoolteacher. I found it extremely uncomfortable. And I'm a people person!

On the other hand, zero face time is problematic in other ways. Even 37signals has an all-employee get-together a couple of times a year (read back through svn, they describe this).

<comment><USER45> I've seen this about all-employee get-together too. But when only a couple of times a year it seems purely social, not for getting actual work done. For me, the in-person collaboration takes place pretty much every day.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER47> This is a bit of a meta comment, but: I find it interesting how DHH's Danish accent has faded significantly. I remember watching the "rails video" years ago wherein he's got a pretty pronounced accent. He could almost pass for American in this remote working video.

</comment><comment><USER48> I've never been able to find remote work. A lot of it might have to do with my various roles in engineering. But I think a lot of it is east-coast business culture.

But also, from talking to a lot of Silicon Valley friends, they don't have much work from home either....unless you're a sales rep, sales engineer, or a consultant who likely has to spend most of the time on-sight (away from corp office)...

One thing I'm hoping to accomplish at my new company is a culture of work- hard/play-hard remote workers. Those who want to live in say mountain towns, but who want a real career as they get older...I'd not even have a problem with the idea of a "Powder Day" and they don't login until noon. WIth the right happy workers...

</comment><comment><USER49> I love that 37signals is doing this.

The big question is how much does this scale? I hope this is addressed in the new book.

Having less than 50 employees allows the flexibility of doing many things differently. I would argue that this is one of them.

I don't know what the magical number is for size of a company where working remotely becomes a negative investment.

The bias with 37signals is very strong. They actively seek talent and find people that are not only able to work remotely but enjoy doing so. It also works well to have staff that can work 24 hours across time zones.

How relevant is this to a company with 1000 employees that is not technology related? I can't really answer that definitely but to say that based on my experience, not too much.

<comment><USER50> MySQL AB worked this way with and it worked quite well (very well, imho). 70% of the staff worked remotely. IRC and company meetings helped a lot. I met my boss after 5 months in the company and that was not the record :) Mårten Mickos' interview about this: [http://developers.slashdot.org/story/13/03/07/1826212/](http://developers.slashdot.org/story/13/03/07/1826212/)

BTW, if anoyone is looking for remote iOS/RoR developer drop me a line ;)

</comment></comment><comment><USER51> I might start working remotely full-time in a few months, so I would like to hear about some of its downsides. Can you share stories of remote working that didn't go as wonderfully as described in this (promotional) video?

<comment><USER52> I don't have any bad stories, but in retrospect (after three years remote) I do have some advice:

\- Give yourself a dedicated space (very preferably behind a door that closes if you don't live alone)

\- Give it a few weeks. It takes getting used to, so avoid entertaining "This just isn't working out" feelings for a while. Took me a bit to get used to the quiet for one thing!

\- Be social! Visit the office when you can, don't be afraid to talk about not-work in chat rooms, etc. Office chit-chat and lunches together have value, they enrich your relationship with colleagues and keep humanity levels high in work debates. I find I can find myself with shorter patience if I haven't been "hanging out" with coworkers for a while.

\- Work for a remote team. Being the one-remote-guy on a team is a challenge. Remote working works best when the team is committed to working asynchronously, when the chat-room _is_ the office, etc.

The last bit is key. Most of the stories I've heard about it not working out had a lot more to do with the team not actually being committed to remote working than some fundamental flaw in remoteness.

<comment><USER53> >Give yourself a dedicated space (very preferably behind a door that closes if you don't live alone)

IMO, this is one of the _best_ pieces of advice you can give. This is also one of the things that I got very wrong for a while.

Don't work where you decompress. Don't decompress where you work. Otherwise the two start blending together and both suffer.

If your living situation isn't suited for a dedicated workspace, don't fall in the trap of working from your couch or kitchen table every day. I've had days where I worked from a coffee shop in the morning, drove to a park and sat under a tree when I could work completely offline, and finished the evening at a pub typing over a pint or two. And I still accomplished more than the days I'd sit on my couch and "work" while marathoning Star Trek.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER54> I'm not sure I will play the absolute devil's advocate card here, but I _do_ think that there is a downside to this idea. I live in a mid-sized, industry- legacy Canadian city, where tech has become part of the new economy. And these new tech companies hire locally - and eat locally, and invest their time into building a local tech scene. If remote working were to become a common theme in tech, would this not fly in the face of _community building_ in its simplest terms? Would the Bay Area have the same community today if this brand of telecommuting were available in the 80s, 90s?

</comment><comment><USER55> In my case it's also about location. I am a Spaniard working in the Netherlands for a few years now, paying high rents and being far from family and friends. I could live in Greece (where my wife is from and where we have a fully paid house) but unfortunately there are almost no tech-related jobs there. As a web developer almost 100% of what I do on a daily basis could be done remotely. I wonder if remote work could be the solution for thousands of people like me who have to leave their countries just to find a job.

</comment><comment><USER56> How do you on-board new employees?

</comment><comment><USER57> If you work remotely we're building a real-time communication app just for you in Sqwiggle ([https://www.sqwiggle.com](https://www.sqwiggle.com)). Would love for anyone to try it and offer honest feedback, we'll listen to it all day long :)

If you're a developer and want to work remotely, we're backed by great investors and hiring! We also use the latest tech like WebRTC for our video conferencing.

</comment><comment><USER58> I honestly don't know how this works. I mean it's really very difficult to get someone to work remotely with the same dedication and passion. I find collaboration extremely difficult. I mean if there are 5 rockstars working on a project, then sure, remote working will do fine. But if we talk about a decent workforce, there is a lot of handholding required. I don't know how it's possible remotely.

<comment><USER59> Dedication and passion are most definitely not tied to where you are. If you're unhappy with your job, you won't be passionate; you won't be dedicated. You'll be miserable, looking at the clock, regardless of where the clock is.

If you need handholding, you're hiring and working with B-players. Not everyone is going to be able to hold its own initially, but after a few weeks on a team, you should be independent enough that people don't need to look over your shoulder.

<comment><USER60> I disagree. Most new employees need some sort of on boarding. When you join a new project, you'll need some sort of on boarding. Usually there's one or maybe two tech leads, and then a handful of junior devs. It's part of the companies responsibility to train them up. This isn't to say they're not dedicated or passionate, but when you're putting in 60 hour weeks bug fixing or implementing small features here and there, you run out of time to go read some books about your development language of choice. New employees ask lots of questions their first 6 months or so. It's just the way it is.

<comment><USER59> I believe you need to re-read my comment.

And man, if your new employees need 6 months of hand-holding, you're hiring the wrong employees.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER61> Some people enjoy working remotely, others enjoy going into a specific workplace. Not sure why this is such a contentious argument every time.

<comment><USER62> Here's one reason we recently experienced:

Many people in our company like the flexibility of choosing to work remotely or in the office. However, when we on-boarded a new hire recently, he struggled with this level of flexibility. He took advantage of it in unprofessional ways. When confronted, he indicated that he might do better if he was always working in the office with the rest of the team.

Management suddenly made it a requirement for everyone to come into the office. This had severe and immediate impacts on morale and on employees' focus on the mission.

Some people _need_ to work in an office. Some people _need_ to work remotely. Some people can be flexible. The reason it's so contentious is because it is hard to accommodate all 3 of those types. So far, the solution is to alienate at least 1 of those 3 types. Hopefully the contention will result in progress.

</comment></comment><comment><USER63> They seem to flip back and forth about remote working. Less than 3 years ago: [http://37signals.com/svn/posts/2838-were-relocating- everyone...](http://37signals.com/svn/posts/2838-were-relocating-everyone-to- chicago)

<comment><USER64> Perhaps note the date and extreme sarcasm?

"Change is never easy. But we're willing to do whatever it takes to be the most efficient company we can be. Now please excuse us, we're off to get more productive. And secure. And dressed the same."

</comment></comment><comment><USER65> I work remotely most days a week (and sometimes for a week at a time). I love it. I agree with everything in that video - the only problem I deal with these days is the constant fear of it coming to and end at some point :)

</comment><comment><USER66> 37Signals nailed it. I have been working remote for FormAssembly for almost a year and it is amazing in many respects.

We're hiring strong PHP dev's. www.veerwest.com/jobs <\-- The Makers of FormAssembly.

</comment><comment><USER67> One thing I was surprised by, I like pair programming better when it's remote. You get the code right in front of you and you talk to the voice in your head (phones).

</comment><comment><USER68> Even when my fellow coworkers sitt next to me I skype with them instead of talking. Makes it much easier to not be interupted by talk all the time.

</comment><comment><USER69> Work remotely it's good when also the big percentage of company people works remotely. Anyway, I buy the book

<comment><USER70> Agreed. Having a big percentage of company working remotely sets up a workflow among all team members that is conducive to remote work. Whereas, when some parts of a team are working remotely, including where teams get created/dismantled for short projects every couple of months coming up with a workflow becomes difficult. That said, I work remotely and I have been productive as ever.

</comment></comment><comment><USER71> I like how 37signals promotes a solid work life balance. They also do a really good job of telling stories.

</comment><comment><USER72> Can we build a list of Companies that have more than 50% of their workforce working remotely ?

</comment><comment><USER73> Kobo link to pre-order is giving 404. =(

</comment><comment><USER74> look at you make me hate my job so much! :@</comment>


Stuxnet: A Breakthrough - <AUTHOR> http://www.symantec.com/connect/blogs/stuxnet-breakthrough

<comment><USER2> I like how even though it is pretty clear that the target is Iran's uranium enrichment complex with centrifuges running at 600Hz - 1200Hz, they explicitly avoid mentioning that. That shows considerable professionalism, as obviously there is no factual evidence of that (and most likely there won't be unless one of the authors decides to confess).

</comment><comment><USER3> It's fascinating to think about Symantec's motivations for creating that very well-produced, streamlined video. It basically plays like an ad for Stuxnet, the growth of which represents the creation of a new market for Symantec.

<comment><USER4> It would be an odd move in terms of the market though? ie how many windows machines/networks are there which are hooked up to PLCs (well, there are a lot, but many orders of magnitude less than consumer uses of windows and pcs).

Having said that - it could be VERY lucrative for them - just not in volume. Very much high end expensive product sales (which may be a direction they want to go in - now that MS and others are rolling out built in virus protection with the OS?).

<comment><USER2> It is all about bragging rights among the security specialists.

Symantec is basically deconstructing a worm that cost some government lots of money, time and talent to create. They want to be seen as playing in the same league as the security experts at NSA, CIA or the respective equivalents of another country.

<comment><USER5> more likely they don't want to be behind F-Secure who did the first widely- discussed Stuxnet write-up.

<comment><USER2> but then why did F-Secure bother with the write-up ?

<comment><USER5> certainly not because they want to be seen on par with CIA or NSA :)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Wow! I was guessing blindly and came pretty darn close! <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1746868>

<comment><USER7> That's a pretty impressive prediction.

For those of us who don't do industrial process control, what would that do to the plant?

Supposedly more than 30 programmers worked on Stuxnet. That seems like a big investment just to increase the wear rate on a few motors, however critical they might be.

<comment><USER8> Uranium enrichment centrifuges are _very_ finely balanced, _very_ high speed mechanical devices.

This is very likely to cause a centrifuge crash.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> We worked really hard to give Iran that complex bug, now a democracy loving free market company is going to cure them of it?

<comment><USER10> That's really funny on multiple levels.

First, the virus should have been less interesting.

Second, the _true_ goal of the virus might not be the actual attack but rather, like the scenes from the Bourne movies spying on Pamela Landy from the rooftop across the street, the realization that someone knows exactly what you're doing and they're more sophisticated than you. Further, it indicates there's a hole in your organization from which information is leaking or might be leaking (even worse if you can't find something that doesn't exist). I've followed enough of the Wikileaks controversy regarding their internal disputes to conclude the weakest link in many organizations is their structure and individual members. The true goal might be psychological.

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> I think that much was known for a little while already...

[http://spectrum.ieee.org/podcast/telecom/security/how- stuxne...](http://spectrum.ieee.org/podcast/telecom/security/how-stuxnet-is- rewriting-the-cyberterrorism-playbook)

<comment><USER12> Previous stories had not identified the specific devices under control, only speculated about the nuclear connection.

<comment><USER13> And honestly, bringing up the nuclear connection each time new information emerges is seriously privileging the hypothesis.

<comment><USER11> It would be a very sophisticated prank just to ruin a batch of cheese...

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> Fortunately, I don't see this particular type of cyber warfare existing for very long. Nobody with expensive industrial computers is going to mess around when it comes to security, and it should not be difficult at all to fully insulate SCADA systems from malware.

It worked this time because nobody was expecting it, but no target worth attacking in this way is going to let it happen again.

<comment><USER15> I think you are oversimplifying the situation.

With any plant of sufficient size, there will be a lot of people involved in commissioning, servicing and operating it. This makes "fully insulating" SCADA systems much harder.

Management people will demand to get data from the plant to manage utilization. Servicing personnel will want to connect their laptops to the automation systems to talk to their company's devices that are installed in the plant during maintenance. ... ...

So, for military projects where integrity/secrecy is a value for itself, I can imagine draconian regulations to be in place soon, or most likely they already are. But for "normal" industrial plants where there's a need for money to be made, there always will be a balance between IT security and pragmatism in running the damn thing.

And if diagnosing a failed motor controller in a stalled plant is delayed because IT security prohibits the technician from inserting his USB stick, I can tell you how the discussion with the plant manager will turn out in 99% of all cases.

<comment><USER14> _But for "normal" industrial plants where there's a need for money to be made, there always will be a balance between IT security and pragmatism in running the damn thing._

And those plants likely don't have enemies powerful or motivated enough to attack them in this way. Typical black hats these days are in it for the cash and I don't see how sabotaging a factory could be made into cost effective fraud.</comment></comment></comment>


Google Homepage Redesign - <AUTHOR> http://go.infinise.com/

<comment><USER2> Uh no.

Not everyone on the planet is die hard web two point oh bleeding edge geeeeeeeniusssses like us.

There is no context. I don't know what I am supposed to do. Why is there no submit button? I'm supposed to magically realize that enter = submit? Not everyone knows what google is. It is quite absurdly annoying to assume our "above average" knowledge of the internet is a common trait.

Please someone add a link list of all the funny, outrageous, sad, and outright weird stories about how real people _actually_ use the internet.

Google is a service that people in the "real world" use. Please keep that in mind.

<comment><USER3> Yes.

In the real world, 8% surveyed (by Google) in Times Square knew what a browser was.

[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o4MwTvtyrUQ&feature=playe...](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o4MwTvtyrUQ&feature=player_embedded)

Now try explaining difference between URL bar and Search bar in Safari, Firefox, etc... Give up yet?

I wonder if that survey relates to why Google decided the OS should be the browser, so people might actually use Chrome. ;-)

Best mantra for web design isn't "Web 2.0", it's "Don't Make Me Think."

<comment><USER4> >> Now try explaining difference between URL bar and Search bar in Safari, Firefox, etc.

Exactly.

My mom, who is in her early sixties and is considered to be very proficient in how to use the Internet among her peer group, can't seem to get that there's a difference between the Google search box and the address bar - she just searches for "cnn.com", clicks on the first result, and gets there. And when you think about it, this is a fine process for her - she doesn't understand/care about the way the internet actually works, but she has a routine (punching it all into google) that always gets her near where she's trying to be.

She also can't get her head around that hitting Enter submits a form - she'll type it in, and then click on the search button. 100% of the time.

<comment><USER5> I've heard that roughly 30% of Google search are searches for domains, just like this cnn.com example.

<comment><USER6> heck I do that sometimes when I just get lazy and hit the wrong bar or I'm not exactly sure of the domain.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Are you sure this is just a Google homepage redesign? Click the little _i_ icon in the bottom right corner.

Click the Google icon to turn it into a Wikipedia, YouTube or Twitter search engine. Try the ^2 and ^3 keyboard shortcuts too.

<comment><USER8> well there's a usability failrue right there - I didnt notice it at first :)

<comment><USER9> Classic mystery meat navigation.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> I do not go to google.com and then search all that often nowadays. Most of the search takes place right from the search box (Firefox) or directly from Chrome..

<comment><USER11> I use the address bar in Firefox thanks to its handy-dandy I'm-feeling-lucky submission (and neatly tuned confidence -- it will take you to Google.com if unsure). Try typing "paul graham's homepage" in your address bar and see where it takes you.

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> Some usability flaws:

\- There are no back buttons when cycling through domains (or any indication on what number of domain you're on - perhaps an iPhone style page counter would do?)

\- For Google, there are much more than 3 options. A "..." item would probably be most logical.

\- I would have absolutely no idea whether to click the contextual button to cycle through domains, perhaps it should just be faded rather than invisible.

\- No submit button. I havn't used one in years, but it doesn't mean my mum hasn't either.

<comment><USER13> I agree Taitems.

I also think that the images should be pre-loaded to avoid a short blank spot on the page when you first start flicking through the search options.

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> Ctrl + 1, 2, etc are shortcuts to switch tabs in Firefox and hence jumps tabs after hitting the shortcuts. Adding e.preventDefault() in "KEYBOARD SHORTCUTS" should help.

<comment><USER15> They also switch tabs in chrome. Did they only test this in IE?

<comment><USER16> Safari, I think..

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> Well... this is actually an okay redesign. A rare creature. Most designers do far worse, e.g. <http://www.andyrutledge.com/google-redux.php> . Also, it reminded me of Duck Duck Go <http://duckduckgo.com/> created by HN user epi0Bauqu.

</comment><comment><USER18> Any time you post a redesign of a major Google page, isn't the burden of proof really hard? I'm under the impression that there's an avalanche of data backing up every pixel on those pages. If Google starts setting search results in Comic Sans, you're still going to have to start by assuming that Comic Sans is making them a shit-ton of money.

<comment><USER19> Google's extensive testing does not preclude the possibility that their design sucks. The original "simplicity" of their service was entirely accidental; if I'm not mistaken Sergei either didn't know enough html or didn't care enough to bother making it any more complicated.

Religiously testing will only lead to a local maximum and ignores the possibility that the design may have not been great to begin with.

Google's homepage is not even remotely close to the standard a highly competent minimalist designer would offer. Little attention to detail, remedial typographical choices, a 90's looking poorly executed Logo, random UI elements with no clear purpose. It's very much like an engineers interpretation of what a minimalist designer would do.. which is exactly what it is.

All of their products are on the utilitarian end of minimalist design and could stand to be improved significantly from an aesthetic perspective without actually changing the interface noticeably.

<comment><USER18> Or, Google has spent the 0.00038% of its gross profits that it would take create an optimally aesthetic version of its home page, A/B tested it against www.google.com, and found the aesthetic version less effective.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> The design looks great, but I had to think to use it, so that's where it fails. Although it does raise the idea that Google homepage could do with redesign. On that who uses the I'm feeling lucky button? Google probably have some stats saying its really popular, but I reckon its just from people clicking on it by accident.

<comment><USER8> > Although it does raise the idea that Google homepage could do with redesign

Bear in mind Google religiously maintains it's home page for speed and usability and brand awareness. It's an icon.

Changing it would be an awful move for them.

</comment></comment><comment><USER21> Bearing in mind consideration likes search button, you don't know you can cycle domains until hover, can't go back, can't see how many domains there are etc...

I'm quite impressed with this surprisingly, it looks nice and clean. Maybe a little less border on the textbox but otherwise very nice.

</comment><comment><USER22> As some already pointed out, this isn't really a "google homepage redesign," but just a clean, simple startpage for a variety of search engines. I know you've got to figure it out at first, but once you do it works I think.

</comment><comment><USER23> I don't see this as an actual suggestion for Google as much as a really cool version; especially since the source is offered. (I'm tweaking it and making it my homepage, now. :D)

Great job!

</comment><comment><USER24> Nifty but indeed relying a lot of user awareness

</comment><comment><USER25> Info button, at the right bottom of the page! I found it looking at the source before noticing it was on the screen. usability--

</comment><comment><USER26> eh...

You don't have to use the keyboard shortcuts, you can hover over the logo and will see an arrow appear... You can cycle through search engines that way as well.

<comment><USER27> Is it just me, or is that arrow barely visible?

The colors are sorta nice, but I shouldn't have to be told there is an arrow to realize it.

<comment><USER26> I agree... It took me a while to notice it too before I clicked it and the logo changed.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER28> Simply too much space between the logo and the search box.

</comment><comment><USER29> That looks awesome.

</comment><comment> onreact-com As I almost never actually look at their homepage using Google from toolbars or browsers directly this is of marginal interest.</comment>


Host Websites on Android - <AUTHOR> Content publishers now have the ability to host full-featured websites directly from their Android devices, develop their content offline and publish it live to the Web with E2E encryption.<p>https://after-dark.habd.as <comment><USER2> That's a scary looking URL. Not seen .as before, habd - what does that mean? And the word "dark". I'd recommend hosting something on Github for the feint at heart.

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> Habdas is my last name. If the URL looks scary it's probably not for you.</comment>


Invited Technical Co-Founder: the role you don't want to be in - <AUTHOR> https://medium.com/@Dima/invited-technical-co-founder-79ee1713ff25 <comment><USER2> before I would work on anything I would get with potential customers.</comment>


Staying Healthy and Sane At a Startup - <AUTHOR> http://al3x.net/2010/09/07/startup-health.html <comment><USER2> I ride my bicycle just about everywhere: to the office, grocery store, restaurants, everywhere. It's a great way to get exercise and doesn't cut into your schedule all that much, because due to traffic lights you can often get to where you are going on a bike only slightly slower than in a car.

Also starting the day after my 7 mile commute is fantastic, my brain is rocking and ready.

<comment><USER3> My problem with riding my bike to the office is that I arrive all sweaty. I can change my T-shirt (I don't have to wear a suit), but I'll still smell afterwards.

<comment><USER4> The more you use your bike, the less tired you will be after your commute. It took me ~6 months to go from really sweaty after 7km to barely breaking a sweat. Just keep in mind that you have to take off some of your clothes on the way once you warm up.

<comment><USER5> Some more tips:

\- Proper clothing (e.g. dry fit) which helps sweat evaporate faster

\- Using a more efficient road bike if you're currently riding a mountain/hybrid bike

\- Pedaling at a lower gear, and higher cadence

\- Properly inflated tires

\- A bag with mesh back support, so your back doesn't get all sweaty.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> One tip I'd add to the diet section is to drink enough water. I find that always having cold water at arm's reach helps keep my mind fresh and alert.

Also, making the switch from coffee to tea can have innumerable benefits to one's energy level and overall health.

<comment><USER7> A thousand times yes. Having water at hand and always sipping is a really great way to tame hunger and oral fixations, and is great for your body to be flushing itself out.

I find that tea doesn't give me as much of a high as coffee, but it lasts longer without any come-down. Awesome.

<comment><USER8> Tea puts me to sleep. I can drink the most caffeinated tea on the market, and I'll be nodding off in an hour. It's a real pain because I have difficulty digesting coffee, and I'm looking for alternatives. Appreciate any suggestions.

<comment><USER9> Try some Yerba Mate. Tea is made from the roots of that plant and has enough caffeine to give you a nice kick when you need it.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> One more I'd add: Pick a time after which you will not check your email.

For me it's 10pm. Too many times I'd be winding down the day, getting ready for sleep, and decided (more like, was subconsciously compelled) to check my email one last time. Every so often, some nagging issue would come up that, in hindsight, definitely could have waited till the next morning, but once I started thinking about it, there was no way I could rest until it was resolved. This obviously cut into my sleep time (not good for the long term) and also often left me in an agitated state that made it harder to get good sleep.

Maybe it's 6pm, maybe it's 2am, but I recommend drawing the line somewhere, so that you can preserve the quality of your downtime.

<comment><USER11> I'd go further than that. Leave work at work. Don't check work email out of the office. Don't take work home: stay late if you must.

This is harder to manage if "the office" is actually your home but it's important to make it work.

You can't really help where your brain wanders in your downtime, but there's no need to encourage it by doing work in your downtime.

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> A lot of this applies to working for yourself, or for a big company. Startups exaggerate the extremes of stress and crunch, but I pretty much do all these things (and have done for the last 18 months or so, so ~8 months of BigCo and ~10 months of CEO) and they work equally well in both contexts. As long as you're working somewhere that you can go and take a walk when your wheels are spinning.

Things that I've found helpful: Vegetarian diet (currently trying vegan out to break my fro-yo addiction), yoga, running with a goal in mind, running without a goal in mind, massages, a long commute without a laptop. All except the former help me let my thoughts just drift and it's surprising what pops out.

<comment><USER13> I probably should have put massage in there. I don't get massages regularly, but man do I ever feel better when I do. Good suggestion.

<comment><USER14> When it all gets to be too much, I like to go the Imperial Day Spa (on Geary & Fillmore) and just soak for a while. Then, the acupressure. Highly recommended.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> This could have easily been titled "Staying Healthy and Sane." Useful ideas all around.

In particular, business on meditation is interesting to me. I do all my best thinking in the shower. I suspect this is because without meaning to be, I'm in a meditative state there. Every time I have a really hard problem to ponder, I find a shower has the power to jolt me in the direction of the solution.

I'd like to find a way to harness this in a more convenient way that doesn't require soap, water or nudity, so I'm going to check out the NSR site Alex recommends.

<comment><USER16> Try thinking about the issue before you go to sleep. This has worked great for me, often I'll awake to a keen sense of understanding what I was thinking of, although a few times it has resulted in keeping me up for hours frustrasted with neither sleep or understanding!

<comment><USER15> Every time the challenge du jour pops into my head before sleep I just end up thinking about it for hours. And not sleeping. It's tough.

<comment><USER17> Me too. For a little while it feels productive and nice because I often have good ideas, but then after half an hour or so, I want my brain to shut up so I can sleep.

A friend of mine told me she has a similar issue and has a special meditation that she does in bed to wind her brain down. I should email her, but if anyone has ways they deal with this issue, I'd love to hear them.

<comment><USER12> I absolutely do not think about stuff like that before I sleep - I try to spend at least an hour winding down with a book and peppermint tea or something similar.

I do however think about tough issues when I'm half asleep in the morning, reaching for the snooze button. (Sometimes it's counterproductive, making me want to snooze more to make the world go away, but I reach some surprising insights here - and then crystallise them in the shower, of course!)

<comment><USER18> I too use the book trick :) so to speak . Just 30 minutes of reading some SF before I go to sleep helps a lot. I then tend to think about the characters in the book or I imagine being on another planet :) . It really helps when I do that.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> I'm having trouble putting this all together. Let's figure 9 hours at work, 1 hour of commute, 1.5 hours eating, 1.5 hours exercising, .75 hours meditating, and 7.5 hours sleeping. That leaves less than three hours for showering, changing clothes, and a little downtime. When do you do chores around the house, run errands, visit family, and hang out with friends?

<comment><USER20> Crossfit never takes longer than 30 minutes. Some workouts can be as short as 3 minutes.

<comment><USER21> ^^ this. if you're pressed for time, crossfit is amazing (well it's amazing anyway).

my cf gym is full of professional people-- doctors, lawyers, and engineers and by looking at them you'd think they were gym rats.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> The advantage of Hacker News exposure: I bought the meditation package that Alex mentioned and the company that sells it just emailed me asking if I knew why they had just received a large number of orders in a very short time period. I let them know.

</comment><comment><USER23> 90 minutes gym sessions? That's ridiculous. 45 and you should be out of there! You're on the way to over train which will lead to negative results on your body. 45 max and you will feel so much more energized. Not to mention that there is no way a geek can keep up with 90 minutes of gym 3 or 4 times a week without loosing his mind and dropping the idea.

Also dropping carbs is a very bad idea, reducing it is good. But dropping them in the long term is going to affect your bone structure, the muscles will eat themselves for energy and you might land some heavy calcium supplementation in 20 years.

Also the fact that you're german/english does not explain a slow metabolism. Com'on. Have you seen europeans? Do they look fat to you? Generations of cold weather does not dictate your endomorphism. It's the food you eat, with bad habits and a high sugar intake that results in turning into a fat slob. Sure we all have genetic predispositions but it can be kept in the balance. Our bodies were never designed to eat what the american market has to offer.

<comment><USER13> Here's where I get 90 minutes: stretches, about 30 minutes on an elliptical, another 25 on an exercise bike, then weights, then crunches, then stretches. I mean 90 minutes for the entire gym-going process, not like 90 minutes of flat- out cardio or heavy-duty lifting. That would indeed be ridiculous for someone who isn't a professional athlete. Like I said, that routine works for me; it's what I need to feel like I got a good workout. But I also want to try other techniques. Part of the appeal of CrossFit is that you get a "better" workout in a shorter period of time.

You can find sources that say dropping carbs is bad idea, and you can find sources that say dropping carbs is a great idea. Again: it's what works for me. I'll still eat some whole grains and other "good" carbs.

If you noticed, the bit about the German/English heritage ended in a joke, suggesting that I was exaggerating a bit there. But since you bring it up: yes, I've seen plenty of portly English and German folks, and also some quite fit ones. Like you say, it's all about diet, and that's why I'm being careful about mine.

<comment><USER24> First, numerous studies have shown that combining aerobic and anaerobic exercise is less efficient than just doing anaerobic excercise. Combining the two makes the exercise worse, not better.

Second, assuming you can do at least 20-30 crunches in one set, (normal) crunches are basically a waste of time as the resistance is too small.

Third, that you feel you've had a good workout at the time you're doing it doesn't mean it is. For instance, sweat, tiredness, or an elevated heart rate isn't even an _indication_ that you've actually had a good workout.

Just lift heavy weights. That's the most efficient use of your time and effort. Everything else you do in a gym can be good for the purpose of keeping you motivated, or whatever, but it's all quite a bit less efficient than just lifting weights. Keep it under 60 minutes, followed by intake of protein and carbs. The science behind this is well established.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> For me, spending time with my kids (ages: 0, 2, 4) produces a similar results as exercise and meditation do for Alex:

      - "combats stress"
      - "always feel calmer than when I started"
      - "feel like I've got my head screwed on straight"
      - "makes my work time more productive"

YMMV, but this is what works for me.

<comment><USER26> When they hit 2/4/6 or 4/6/8 I'll be curious if you'll say the same thing. :) I know there are many parents who, after having to put up with kids and their behavior/mindsets long enough, without break, feel like they are starting to go crazy from the stress, headaches and heartaches they cause. Plus the guilt from having those negative feelings and reactions from their own children, so it snowballs and yo-yos even.

</comment></comment><comment><USER27> Just a small tip: don't stretch before strength training. You want the blood to remain in your muscles for the duration of your workout. Warm up by doing some cardio instead.

<comment><USER28> whoa this seems a bit dangerous and flies in the face of what we get drilled into us since children about weightlifting. Do you have any authoritative source for this?

<comment><USER27> Well, this is a bit of a fools' errand. I went ahead and searched google and found support for any conceivable position on the whole stretching situation. Anyways, this is what I was taught:

[http://www.bodybuildingforyou.com/articles-submit/tanja- gard...](http://www.bodybuildingforyou.com/articles-submit/tanja- gardner/stretching.htm)

 _For strength training, there's evidence that stretching before a workout is counter-productive. Strength training requires muscles to contract tightly against a heavy weight, and loosening the muscle fibres by stretching them first reduces their ability to do this. This doesn't mean you shouldn't warm your muscles up before strength training – just avoid stretching them first. If you want to include stretching in the same workout as strength training, it's better to wait until after you've finished your weights work._

I typically warm up on the elliptical machine for 5 minutes and then for each muscle group I'm doing that day I start with a set of low weight/high reps to warm it up. After the workout I do stretch my hamstrings because I sit on my ass all day.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER29> Exercise is basic necessary maintenance required by the human body. You either do it and have a happy/healthy body, or you don't. Eating healthy is just as important, separated into two categories: overall caloric intake, and nutritional content.

Car analogies are a dime a dozen in computing, but they apply here as well. Not exercising is like changing the oil in your car every 10,000-15,000 miles, instead of every 3,000 - 6,000. Your car is still going to last years, but its lifespan will be shortened, and it's going to run poorly towards the end of it. The nice thing about a car is you can repair it, or buy a new one. Repairing a human is tricky, and you definitely can't buy a new one.

I'm absolutely baffled by those who put their careers or money at a higher priority than their own physical health. You really want to be rich and famous with a crappy body? Is type 2 diabetes, along with likely amputations, blindness, and erectile dysfunction, your thing? Looking forward to clogged arteries and heart disease? What about stroke, wiping away your ability to control your own body, or even being able to think or speak? Etc, etc...

I don't intend to be mean, but many American's simply don't prioritize their health high enough. People seem to have every excuse in the world not to do it, except for a good one.

\</comment><comment></comment><comment></comment><comment>--

True story. My brother is enrolled for his doctoral in physical therapy. He dissected cadavers (donated human corpses) during one of his classes. My family and I went out to visit, and he was able to let us look at one.

My father, who is about 30 pounds overweight in his late-50's, hasn't really cared about his health. He eats too much high-saturated-fat ice cream, puts cream in his coffee, likes cookies with lots of butter in them, etc... I've been trying to get him to eat healthier and exercise for years to no avail.

Well, my brother was having me hold/feel the heart from the cadaver (it was already cut out of the dissected body). I was squishing some of the arteries with gloves on, and my brother said "Try squishing this Coronary Artery. Sometimes it might be crunchy from heart disease."

So I did, and WOW! It was ROCK SOLID! So much calcium and plaque had built up inside this persons heart that it completely clogged the artery. It was as if there was a pebble-sized rock inside of it.

Of course, I forced my father to put some gloves on and feel it for himself. Well, that scared the SHIT out of him! These last few weeks since, he's made a decision to stay away from high-fat foods (and has been doing so - non-fat ice cream now, skim milk in coffee, etc...). He's also putting together an exercise room.

It looks like he's in the right mindset now, which is a very good thing! Sometimes the dagger of death hanging over your head is the best motivator. :)

<comment><USER30> I don't exercise for one simple reason - its a temporary solution to a permanent problem and as a geek I hate, hate, hate those with a passion.

I don't mind things that are hard, or things that are difficult or things that take a long time or even things that are all three; what I hate is things that doesn't last - once you learned to drive, you can drive, etc.

Combine that with the fact that it sucks doing exercise and you have the reason I don't do it.

<comment><USER29> Step back 50,000 years. Human civilization was extremely primitive and unlike anything in our world today. What was your day like? What did you do? What did you think about?

Most of your existance was dominated by finding food and eating it. Your job was walk/run around all day long, trying to find as much to eat, expending as little energy as possible. You might climb a tree to pick fruit, swim across a river towards a good fishing spot, run after and try to spear an animal, fight with other people and steal their food/have food stolen from you, etc...

Our bodies evolved for this type of work. Fast-forward 50,000 years to the present day, and you'll find we don't do anything like that anymore. My brother put it best:

"You wake up in the morning and get out of your bed couch, stumbling over to your toilet couch. After you get into your car couch and drive to work. Then you arrive at work and sit in your chair couch all day long. After work is done it's back to your car couch. Once you're home, it's off to your couch couch to watch some TV. When you're done with that, go to sleep in your bed couch. The cycle repeats."

So the permanent solution for our bodies is, simply, to be more active! Our advanced society has introduced the permanent problem, not our bodies. We're genetically designed to be active.

\</comment></comment></comment><comment></comment><comment></comment><comment>--

When I started exercising about 10 years ago, I picked running specifically because I hated it more than just about anything. In a few more months I estimate that I would have run approximately 15,000 miles since starting, which is about 3/5th's around the Earth.

How does one learn to enjoy something that one hates? You find the little things that excite you and focus on that. Eventually that snowballs into bigger and better things, and before you know it, you love something you use to hate. :)

If you ever decide to try exercising, I'd recommend finding a personal trainer to teach you the basics. There are TONS of different things to do. If you don't like going to the gym, try rock climbing, or mountain biking, or swimming, or anything that floats your boat! I "guarantee" that you'll find something that you'll like. The best part of all is after you start, it becomes addictive, and you'll wonder how you ever survived without it!

</comment><comment><USER7> This is a great article, very useful ideas.

I think that the last point he makes is probably the most valuable and one that I only just learned, that is to not worry if you miss a workout or two, or if you have that cake on the weekend every once in a while. I always used to set myself a very strict plan for whatever I was trying to do, and inevitably whenever I fell off I would feel like I failed and wouldn't be able to get back to it. I've recently started taking a more relaxed approach to my 'goals' and I feel like I've made much more progress, as long as the trend is in the right direction you're good to go.

</comment><comment><USER31> It amazes me how stress can have physical, not just mental, effects. At the peaks of the stressful times I would get these really weird vague aches and pains. I saw my doctor (in the valley) and when I told her I was founding a startup she told me these were very common symptoms among our kind...

(granted my company was probably nowhere near as stressful as Twitter circa 2008-2009)

</comment><comment><USER32> No mention of getting an adequate amount of sleep? Exercise makes me feel even worse if I'm not getting enough sleep.

</comment><comment><USER33> I've spent the past two weeks working on-site at a client where I walk about a half mile each way to/from the office and another half mile to/from dinner, which is a stark change from my normal "get in the car and drive to work" routine.

Even this small change (which is paired with eating out and having a few beers each night) has allowed me to sleep less than I normally do, while staying just as alert throughout the day and craving caffeine less than usual.

I'll be going back home this weekend and I need to figure out a way to push myself to do some walking even though I'm not forced to. Hopefully my experience these past two weeks will be enough.

</comment><comment><USER34> Radiolab's "Stress" episode (<http://www.radiolab.org/2007/apr/09/>) mentions rat studies in which experimenters made rats sick by subjecting them to extreme physical stressors (cold, treadmills, forcing them to swim for hours until exhaustion, etc.). Other rats merely had their food put out and taken away at the last minute a couple of times. Amazingly, the researchers could make the rats equally sick by simply _frustrating_ them. I thought that was a powerful reminder of the real physical effects of stress.

</comment><comment><USER35> You are so right. I have been in the space for 15 years. Started my career at Netscape and kept going to smaller and more edgy startups since. The most stressful episodes happened at dead-in-the-water memories like RealNames and OpenHarbor. Let's put it this way though, I have learned and I am proud to say that I am now a sustainable contributor. I can keep going for a long time but there will always be something crazy about working in any entrepreneurial setting that is both my engine and a best that has to be tamed or else...

</comment><comment><USER36> One other thing that has helped me keep my sanity: wash and fold laundry service. You take your dirty laundry, put it in a bag, and they'll clean and fold it for a modest fee (the place around the corner from me is around $1.10 a pound). In urban areas you can find services that will pickup and deliver.

It's a luxury, but it isn't _that_ expensive (especially if you typically rely on coin-op laundromats anyway) and it's one less thing to worry about.

<comment><USER37> _the place around the corner from me is around $1.10 a pound_

The pricing is based on weight? It seems to me that the time it takes to fold a pound of clothing varies dramatically based on the type of clothing...

<comment><USER12> But is it quicker to charge every customer the same rate per lb of laundry than to spend time analysing the laundry or ask your customers to pre-sort? I'd say yes.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER38> Getting out for a 10-15 minute walk can work wonders for body and mind. I try to do that in the mid-morning and mid-afternoon to break things up and re- energize.

</comment><comment><USER39> I go every day at lunch and workout for an hour. At first people viewed it as wasted time. Now about half my team leaves for an hour at some point during the day to workout. As soon as people feel low energy they leave. The change in their output has been remarkable. What we found was that people have low energy at some point and the change in energy level after causes them to be more productive and clear headed.

</comment><comment><USER40> "I've found that time management has little to do with "lifehacks" and how you manage your email inbox and more to do with prioritization, saying "no" to people, and clearly communicating the expectations you have for yourself and others."

Well said.

For those interested in similar ideas regarding diet and exercise, you might enjoy <http://www.marksdailyapple.com>

</comment><comment><USER41> Since he mentioned Krav Maga:

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1156838>

</comment><comment><USER42> I'd add that it's a good idea to take it easy because it's never going to be less work, as DHH suggested at Startup School <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0CDXJ6bMkMY>

</comment><comment><USER43> Been shopping for a martial arts school for the exact same reason - seems like a great way to add variety to what would otherwise become a dull workout routine.

</comment><comment><USER44> _"Taking in a brainy podcast at the gym combats that feeling."_

Similarly, I find watching TED videos while lifting weights (at home) is a nice combination.

</comment><comment><USER45> Great advice, although it could just as easily have been titled "Staying Healthy and Sane Under Emotional Stress".

</comment><comment><USER46> Exercise (physical work) + diet (same organic food each day) + meditation + regime (the same routines each day) = monastery or village life in Asia. Why 174 up-votes for a turning back to the basics?

<comment><USER46> Stupid fucking down voters, you never have seen a Nepaly mountaineering guide, who are going to claim an above six thousand meters peak twice a week just as a routine, or Tibetan yakmen and horsemen, who just going several thousand meters up and down with their caravan, but you're so fast in pushing a buttons. _The eagle never lost so much time as when he submitted to learn from the crow._ ^_^

</comment></comment><comment><USER47> And don't forget to use streak.ly for all those habits you want to do daily ;)

<comment><USER48> "Streak.ly is coming soon."

Maybe you should promote it after it launches.

<comment><USER47> Oh, it's not mine. But in any case, I think there's a special invite link:

<http://streak.ly/auth/twitter/start?secret=showhn>

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER49> Why is HN so obsessed with exercise?

I'm quite happy as a lazy slob. I ran track and x country in high school, but I didn't like exercise then and I still don't.

I'm sure it would probably make me healthier, but it just isn't worth the discomfort to me. Stop making me look bad, guys.

<comment><USER50> I have never liked exercise, and I have never liked dieting, but I had a rude wakeup call about the wages of "curry and a fried porkchop" four days a week plus a sedentary lifestyle a few years ago. My physician said that, at that rate, I would be lucky to make it to 30, despite the fact that I was skinny like a beanpole.

So I started going to the gym. I _despise_ actually being at the gym and exercising. But it makes me feel _drastically_ better: I have more energy now, I get sick less, and my general comportment no longer suggests illness to friends and family. I even get more work done on days I go to the gym, since it refreshes my mental batteries and contributes more than a minute of marginal thinking time for every minute I spend there.

But even if the energy/health/acuity benefits don't do it for you, take a look around you at the people who would miss you if you were gone, and go to the gym for them. Aside from quitting smoking (don't smoke, but quit if you do!) it is the cheapest way to buy extra time with your loved ones.

<comment><USER30> If you where thin, why would you die before you where 30? I mean, heart attacks, etc are all correlated with fat.

<comment><USER51> Not fat, clogged arteries. Skinny-looking people can have thinned arteries. This is mostly attributed to fats in your diet but also to your genes.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


We need standardized privacy policies. It's too much to read. - <AUTHOR> http://www.ftc.gov/speeches/anthony/standardppf.shtm

<comment><AUTHOR> I wanted to sign a petition with StopWatching.US but then I saw that I had to agree to Mozilla's privacy statement. Privacy statements are long and they suck up a lot of time. If they were standardized, with labels, then you could read it once and then just agree to the type/label of privacy policy provided. This is hugely more efficient then having to read the privacy policy everytime.

</comment><comment><USER2> My product (a password and secret manager) comes with a privacy GUARANTEE, not a policy.

Polices are "what we want to most of the time" and are too weak.</comment>


Exposure to weed killing products increases risk of cancer by 41% – study - <AUTHOR> https://www.theguardian.com/business/2019/feb/14/weed-killing-products-increase-cancer-risk-of-cancer <comment><USER2> So, assuming the study is at all accurate (and that's probably very debatable), if your lifetime baseline chance of getting X cancer was 1 in 1500, it's now 1.41 in 1500.. And that if you expose yourself to a sufficient degree to these substances. Pretty mild stuff for using things that can dramatically improve how much crop food we save from damage. These headlines are designed to scare people who are just bad at calculating percentages in different contexts.

<comment><USER3> > that can dramatically improve how much crop food we save from damage

We already have tons and tons of food rotting in storage all the time. Lack of food is not a problem in the western world. It is not a useful argument.

<comment><USER2> Very true on the first point. distribution, allocation and use problems with existing food production for all sorts of reasons (political, economic etc) are the much more immediate issue but as to your second point, the above doesn't disqualify the usefulness of even better crop yields or a need to give the technologies behind them a nuanced defense.These things are a long term investment in human development, and they always have been.</comment></comment></comment>


Jail time in Thailand Part 1 - <AUTHOR> http://conscious-life.org/jail-time-thailand-part-1/ <comment><USER2> If you buy illegal drugs in a country with a government like Thailand's, you're asking for a bad time. I've spent over 5 months around TH with no problems at all, as have many of my friends. On top of that, Phuket is a terrible cesspool of scammers and partying tourists and should be avoided at all costs. Try a nearby smaller town if you're going for the nature. He gets no sympathy from me, but thanks for the story.

<comment><USER3> I'm planning to visit Thailand and I'm mainly interested in the scenery and nature. Since you had the experience what would be a good town to visit?

<comment><USER4> I recommend steering clear of Phuket as well but there are some nice places down around that area. You can grab a ferry over to Ko Phi Phi for a day trip, there are a few nice islands around there. And if you want to stay somewhere nice and quiet grab a ferry across to Ko Lanta for a few days. Awesome wee island, nice and relaxed with bugger all to do, grab a scooter for a few days. You can do a lap in an hour or two.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> You should read up on the law differences on everyday things in countries you are visiting before going there. Avoid breaking the law at all costs as a foreigner, cause even in more 'civilised' places going through the legal system isn't pleasant.

This guy broke the law, maybe he got scammed by corrupt police but he wouldn't have been in the first place if he abided by the law.

</comment><comment><USER5> Besides the read being about an interesting experience that not many people will have, I hated the typos and the bottom social-chaos-bar.

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> Part two with more burocracy details: [http://conscious-life.org/jail-time- thailand-part-2/](http://conscious-life.org/jail-time-thailand-part-2/)

</comment><comment><USER6> Obviously s complete idiot breaking the law in a foreign land.

<comment><AUTHOR> Yes, not easy when you see your friend doing it as a standard thing</comment></comment>


Largest Early World Map – Monte's 10 Ft. Planisphere of 1587 (2017) - <AUTHOR> https://www.davidrumsey.com/blog/2017/11/26/largest-early-world-map-monte-s-10-ft-planisphere-of-1587 <comment><USER2> See [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19518292](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19518292) in progress also.

<comment><USER3> Thanks! We've moved the comments there.</comment></comment>


Hoodle - A lovely PDF annotator/note taking program written in Haskell - <AUTHOR> http://ianwookim.org/hoodle/ <comment><USER2> I immediately installed it on Ubuntu 12.04 on a ThinkPad X200T. Before this article I did not know that there exist such note taking apps for Linux. Now I know that there is xsource. I like it definitely. And I hope this program will evolve.</comment>


Parents of HN: Videogame programming summer camp in Oakland - <AUTHOR> http://www.themade.org/node/115

<comment><USER2> You realize this has already started, right?

<comment><USER3> I just spoke with the guys there last week, and they are still looking very actively to sign kids up for the coming weeks.

<comment><AUTHOR> Indeed. It's a week long camp, and every week is a different session. But it's structured so kids can work on the same projects between weeks if they keep coming back.

<comment><USER2> Oh, cool!

<comment><AUTHOR> I'll even give you a hacker news discount if you email and setup a week asap. $25 off for anyone who mentions HN.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Show HN: MortgageROI – Calculate home ownership ROI and its drivers - <AUTHOR> https://www.mortgageroi.com <comment><AUTHOR> Online rent v. buy calculators never impressed me -- they were always light on details. So I put together this project at [https://www.mortgageroi.com](https://www.mortgageroi.com).

You can also find the Github here: [https://github.com/edelgm6/mortgage- calc](https://github.com/edelgm6/mortgage-calc)

Would love any feedback!</comment>