What Happens When You Try to Sue Your Boss - <AUTHOR> https://www.bloomberg.com/features/2019-arbitration-hell/ <comment><USER3> Ok, so the reason we have arbitration at all is to save the courts time. This makes sense.

This seems like such an easy problem to solve too. Just don't let the company or the worker pick the arbitrator. Require by law that the arbitrator be picked by a judge, or be randomly assigned by the court system, who has presumably vetted the arbitrator.

The main problem with these things is that the arbitrator is picked by the company, so they have a strong incentive to favor the company. Arbitration wouldn't be so bad if the inherent bias is removed.

<comment><USER4> The problem is that companies favor arbitration because arbitration tends to favor companies. If arbitration were truly neutral, and it were easy to access with low costs to the consumer, companies would stop using them.

So even if companies don't pick the arbitrator, arbitrators still have an incentive to find in favor of companies.

Additionally, small claims court already basically works like what you're describing, no jury just one arbitrator not picked by either side--the judge.

<comment><USER5> Restructuring arbitration for neutrality and thus cannibalizing arbitration as an industry seems like a fine outcome to me. Feels a bit like the payday loan industry: I'm sure it does some people some good, but it's largely just predatory and throws people into a rigged game. We'd be better off with less of it.

<comment><USER6> An underappreciated facet of payday loans is that without them desperate people would borrow from unsavoury people - making them illegal drives the high risk loan business underground into the hands of the Mafia. And then the consequences for the desperate people for defaulting is no longer bankruptcy, but broken legs or worse.

I agree we should have less of it, but all legislation should be mindful of the consequences of certain types of restrictions.

<comment><USER7> Why not cap the maximumum interest rates?

Switzerland, not really a communist hell hole and quite liberal in economic matters, for example, caps annual interest rates at 15% annually.

You don't see more broken legs than anywhere else.

<comment><USER6> If you cap maximum interest rates then people who are deemed too 'high risk' will be refused credit. As a result, they will seek credit elsewhere.

Switzerland is a wealthy low-crime country to start with, the mafia do not have a strong hold. For example the homicide rate in Switzerland is 0.54 per 100,000 people, by comparison in the United States it is 5.35 per 100,000 people.

<comment><USER8> >>> An underappreciated facet of payday loans is that without them desperate people would borrow from unsavoury people - making them illegal drives the high risk loan business underground into the hands of the Mafia. And then the consequences for the desperate people for defaulting is no longer bankruptcy, but broken legs or worse.

> If you cap maximum interest rates then people who are deemed too 'high risk' > will be refused credit. As a result, they will seek credit elsewhere.

You could solve the loan shark problem _and_ cap the interest rate by socializing the rest of the risk through some mechanism -- say a regulation that requires TBTF banks to offer payday loans and make up for the loss through their other products. Obviously there are details to be worked out, but the burden of a policy to combat loan sharking does not have to fall on the most vulnerable.

<comment><USER9> >say a regulation that requires TBTF banks to offer payday loans and make up for the loss through their other products

but if banks are forced to make loans at a loss, aren't we effectively subsidizing people that don't repay loans? you might think this is a noble goal, but I'd doubt many people will be on board.

<comment><USER8> > but if banks are forced to make loans at a loss, aren't we effectively > subsidizing people that don't repay loans? you might think this is a noble > goal, but I'd doubt many people will be on board.

Perhaps, but I have little sympathy for the feelings of the better-off people who want to clutch every penny to the point that they are jealous of the help the needy might get. If they're able to block reforms, then I think efforts need to be made to change their attitudes.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> It's absurd that you can actually waive any of your legal rights... Seriously, this is bonkers.

 _After the #MeToo movement revealed that forced arbitration has been used to keep sexual harassment complaints quiet, a handful of companies, including Google and Facebook Inc., agreed to get rid of it for harassment claims_

Wow, how noble of them. How about getting rid of all of that BS?

<comment><USER11> > It's absurd that you can actually waive any of your legal rights..

"You have the right to remain silent. So, we're just gonna go home now. Bye."

A right that you cannot waive is more of an obligation, even if it's an obligation that in theory is to your own benefit.

<comment><USER12> > A right that you cannot waive is more of an obligation, even if it's an > obligation that in theory is to your own benefit.

This is one of the silliest sentences I've read today. An obligation is you had to do something. While a right is something you can choose to exercise or not. With the right to be silent, you never waive that right as in they can never force you not to be silent. What you do is you exercise your right to be silent or you don't. You can decide when and if you speak.

<comment><USER11> The distinction between waiving and not-exercising a right is a bit of a gradient, though. Most contracts entail at least one party incurring future obligations. Any of these obligations, by virtue of not existing in the first place, will waive one's pre-existing rights.

There are legal limits on which contracts are enforceable by law, and perhaps mandatory arbitration should be one of them. But there is always, in principle, the ability to waive one's rights, because there's no other logical way to voluntarily incur future obligations.

<comment><USER12> Waiving your rights is about removing future options. Since you're agreeing not to do something. That is not an obligation and the requirement do something. Not the inability to do something. One is an action the other is inaction.

If you say I agree to go to arbitration that is an obligation. If you say I will never sue and must always go to arbitration that is final. That is removing the option to sue and adding in an obligation.

<comment><USER11> > Waiving your rights is about removing future options. Since you're agreeing > not to do something.

 _Every_ contract entails waiving your rights and removing future options. And _tons_ of contracts include, as consideration, the agreement not to do something. Leases, for example. If you lease an apartment, you usually have an implied legal right to sublet; correspondingly, most landlords have a clause in the lease requiring you to waive that right, right next to the clauses requiring you not to get a pit bull or smoke cigarettes indoors or have somebody else living with you unbeknownst to the landlord.

Another example is exclusivity agreements: a shopping mall might sign a contract with Panera giving that Panera an exclusive right to sell sandwiches at that mall, which means the mall is agreeing _not_ to lease a different retail space to Subway or Quiznos. What if they lease it to Qdoba and Panera thinks a burrito is a sandwich? That was a real lawsuit, which Panera lost, not on the grounds that it's impossible to incur a negative obligation by contract, but on the grounds that a burrito is not a sandwich: [https://loweringthebar.net/2006/11/judge_rules_bur.html](https://loweringthebar.net/2006/11/judge_rules_bur.html)

There _are_ legal rights that are protected to the extent that you cannot waive them and that any contract that entails such a waiver is an illegal and unenforceable contract. It's just that these rights tend to be explicitly stated as such in law, and the right to go to a court of law is not currently one of them. Maybe it should be, but that's a policy argument, not a fundamental argument of legal and moral principle the way you're making it out to be.

<comment><USER12> > There are legal rights that are protected to the extent that you cannot > waive them

Yes. This is entirely about "legal rights". Why would you assume otherwise? And the right to go to court, the right for the law of the land to be applied, is a legal right, it may even be a human right. The US is lacking behind the world in legal and human rights, is the entire point of this thread.

<comment><USER11> > The US is lacking behind the world in legal and human rights, is the entire > point of this thread.

That is a ridiculous overgeneralization.

<comment><USER12> Ok, in the developed world. And it really isn't. The US might be the worlds richest Country but in many areas, it's like a developing nation.

<comment><USER11> > The US might be the worlds richest Country but in many areas, it's like a > developing nation.

Primarily in that it's still developing rather than stagnating.

> Ok, in the developed world. And it really isn't [a ridiculous > overgeneralization that "the US is lacking behind the world in legal and > human rights"].

Conveniently enough, I already have a list of counterexamples for Europe in particular:

* The United States also recognizes a constitutional right to same-sex marriage, which is not at all recognized in Italy, Greece, Czechia, Poland, Slovakia, Romania, Bulgaria, Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia, Switzerland, and Northern Ireland.

* In terms of civil liberties, the US is virtually unique in recognizing an absolute right against self-incrimination and an exclusionary rule of evidence, where evidence collected in contravention of anyone's civil rights is admissible in court.

* One of the biggest controversies in recent American politics is whether to overturn the constitutional standard of _jus soli_ birthright citizenship--the notion that any human being born on American soil is unconditionally an American citizen. No European country has this policy at all, let alone enshrined in a written constitution.

* The US does not have mandatory military service. However, Austria, Denmark, Finland, Greece, Norway, and Switzerland all do.

* Unlike many European countries, the US has a virtually complete lack of media censorship by the government.

* Austria, France, Belgium, Germany, and Bulgaria have all outlawed face coverings, while Switzerland has banned the construction of minarets. France prohibits the wearing or display of "conspicuous religious symbols" in schools, a law targeted at hijab-wearing Muslims. The United States has no equivalent laws, and any such laws would almost certainly be ruled unconstitutional.

If you're bringing in "the developed world", that might include countries with absolutely terrible human rights records like Qatar or UAE, as well as other undemocratic states like Singapore.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> Arbitration agreements are a massive, massive scam and the fact that they can be forced as part of your employment contract needs to go. It allows companies to sweep away shitty corporate behavior and avoid addressing the actual issues with their workplace in addition to overwhelmingly tilting the system against employees.

<comment><USER14> My rule of thumb is if I can't opt out of arbitration then I can't work for you. Most established orgs give you a grace period after start date to request opt-out to legal and I've run into no flack for doing just that. However I've learned from experience that it is critical to not be bound by it - <USER2> if your pay is tied to a metric or a quota and/or a portion of your package is options/RSUs.

<comment><USER15> so... serious question, and I'm asking you, 'cause it sounds like you are implying that you've sued your employer. is suing your employer a seriously career-impairing move? I mean, I think most court proceedings are public records, and it seems like if the fact that you sued your last employer for something came up in your background check, I personally assume that'd be as bad or worse than an old felony conviction, from the employer's perspective.

Are people who sued their employer a protected class in the USA, or is there some other reason why this isn't a career-ending event?

<comment><USER16> it probably won't impact you.

<comment><USER15> well, yes. For a lot of reasons, I'm not likely to sue my employer.

But, that doesn't mean I'm not curious.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> It's really sad corporate America owns workers, forced arbitration is such a handout. Now UBS gets to ax anybody they want a day before their bonuses are due and even if they go through with arbitration they've done the math and saved 50%.

</comment><comment><USER18> Just to put a word in for the other side. A friend of mine had some startup that had a huge contract for its product. One of the employees got let go and filed an employment suit. The lawyer he got was somewhat unethical and basically buried the company in legal fees. They went out of business before they could fulfill the big contract and tried to settle many times with the employee, but the lawyer kept egging him on and nobody got any money in the end except the lawyer. The end.

<comment><USER19> How can the lawyer of one party cause legal fees to the other party?

I genuinely do not understand, as each party is responsible for its own costs

<comment><USER20> Each time you file a motion or a brief, the other side has to review that brief and file a counter-motion or brief. And research has to go into those things and you might spend days trying to come up with the information being requested.

Every request you make from the other side, causes the other side more work and thus more expense.

Imagine I asked you to find a receipt for every restaurant you've eaten at in the last year, along with a list of who was there and what was discussed. How much work is that for you? Would answering that question be a significant amount of work?

<comment><USER21> >Each time you file a motion or a brief...

That doesn't sound like arbitration.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> I didn't know that it is legal to force someone to resign from being able to go to the court. I thought that right to use court to defend ones right is a right that cannot be revoked by some agreement. For me it looks as if someone would sign an agreement that company might kill employee if sales target is not met or enslave him and his family.

</comment><comment><USER23> I'm fairly against arbitration and I'm fairly certain it's much more limited here in Canada.

In this particular story, what strikes me is the _amounts_ being discussed. 1 million dollars isn't chump change to anyone. If we have to have arbitration, there should be a hard legal limit on how much they can arbitrate when a physical person is involved. Also it should be limited to financial matters, forcing any other matter (discrimination etc) to be settled privately seems... wrong.

<comment><USER21> >In this particular story, what strikes me is the amounts being discussed. 1 million dollars isn't chump change to anyone. If we have to have arbitration, there should be a hard legal limit on how much they can arbitrate when a physical person is involved.

Two points:

1\. 1 Million _is_ chump change to UBS.

2\. It was class-action. More parties = More money. He wasn't in it just for himself.

</comment></comment><comment><USER24> Arbitration contracts need to be illegal, period.

<comment><AUTHOR> I think they should be legal but both parties need to agree to it after a lawsuit is filed. The courts may approve or deny this request on the basis of public policy.

I wonder if a political party (Democrats) will take it up on them to restrict the ability of forced arbitrations between an employer and employee. I think it is just a question of time before someone like @AOC starts talking about it.

<comment><USER25> The CFPB tried to make a rule preventing forced arbitration in financial services agreements. You will be unsurprised to hear that Republicans in Congress struck that rule down.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> Arbitration is perfectly reasonable. I can imagine in the old days (even now in some regions) the elders would gather to settle /judge disputes so they'd be no fights, killings and so on.

But today, the fact that companies, with a lot more lawyer money than individual employees, push that, shows all we need to know.

</comment><comment><USER27> While we are all bemoaning this for employment, note that in the US, in many cases, you've also given up your right to court for your credit card disagreements, disagreements with your insurance company, and disagreements with most major service providers where you had to sign a contract (though many telcos still provide an out for Small Claims court).

This is not just an employment thing, this is individual vs. group power dynamics across many aspects of commerce. As consumers or creators, if we provide work to a group (employment) or pay a group for service (a contract), that group is often working to push us into arbitration instead of allowing the courts to decide.

It's all very disappointing.

</comment><comment><USER28> With arbitration, for the company, worst case the company pays the original amount. Without arbitration, in the court, worst case is the company pays the original amount + the clients lawyer fees.

</comment><comment><USER29> What would happen if you hired a lawyer and sued anyway? People agree to things all the time that wouldn't hold up in court.

<comment><USER30> The other party would then file Motion to Compel Arbitration. This will usually result in the dismissal of the lawsuit.

</comment></comment><comment><USER31> I have very little sympathy and connection with people who forfeit a 500k bonus to fight for a million instead, knowing they gonna have a hard time doing so.

They should have portrayed someone from the nurses they mentioned instead. Small amounts or problems someones life depends on make for a dramatic story, a rich guy and his fight for hundred thousands of extra compensation make me scoff.

<comment><USER32> If they do it to a rich person what do you think happens to the average worker. ie me and you

You cant in any sane country have a legal system that has one rule for "cute" nurses or any other group that the tabloids moon over and one for the average person.

</comment></comment><comment><USER33> "(the) firm Proskauer Rose LLP who specializes in defending finance companies" — I wonder what would happen if _their_own_ employees sue them, it would be hilarious.

Also:

Apparently, I can't select the text to copy/paste—and I've tried disabling JavaScript. I wonder what's the reason for this?

<comment><USER34> There exists a CSS property to disable highlighting, user-select: none; I believe, but in this case ( with JS enabled ) the highlight colour is simply not WCAG AA2 compliant and is nearly the same colour as the background

See the paragraph starting "After Chinn's rebuttal..." \- [https://i.imgur.com/M02ob3O.png](https://i.imgur.com/M02ob3O.png)

</comment></comment><comment><USER35> Why can't judicial systems just get more funding? Surely they aren't that expensive? You just have to rent the space, and pay the employees (all of which probably don't make that much money).

Surely some money from the military could pay for that?

<comment><USER36> > _pay the employees (all of which probably don't make that much money)._

Court are packed with lawyers. The only thing buttressing against the sky-high compensation a good lawyer can make in the private sector is the political opportunity clerking and working in a court can open up. These aren't people one goes cheap on.

<comment><USER35> According to google, public prosecutors make a median salary of $81,000. So maybe like two-thirds as much as an average software engineer? Doesn't sound that expensive.

Also, they get to cash in after working in the public sector for awhile, so in essence they get deferred comp from the private sector.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER37> Can a lawyer here explain how these arbitration clauses aren't unconscionable?

<comment><USER38> Not a lawyer, but the Supreme Court has ruled that they are Constitutional, and that's pretty much that.

<comment><USER39> That doesn't mean it's automatically how things should be. The Supreme Court doesn't rule on that. If the Supreme Court was the only measure of "correctness", then the US might as well wipe its statute book clean.

Another way of looking at it is that the Supreme Court has only ruled that they aren't _un_constitutional. It's then up to Congress to decide whether or not they should be illegal.

I read elsewhere on this page that apparently the Republicans blocked such things from becoming illegal.

In my view as a non-American, it feels like Americans attribute too much weight on things they don't like on the Supreme Court, which deflects from the reality that it is the major political parties (perhaps just one) supporting this status quo.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER28> With arbitration, for the company, worst case the company pays the original amount. In the court, worst case is the company pays the original amount + the clients lawyer fees.

</comment><comment><USER40> Not sure why people sign contracts like that; never sign non competes or this kind of thing. Never did never will. But then again, I am not in the US, maybe it is that different.

</comment><comment><USER41> Five top-to-bottom scrolls on my mouse just to get to the first line of the article.

</comment><comment><USER42> Physical access: game over

</comment><comment><USER43> Arbitration isn't necessarily bad for workers. Arbitrators tend to split the baby. So, if you have a weak case, you may come out ahead.

<comment><USER44> Employees only win some 20% of arbitration cases. It seems incredibly unlikely that 80% of cases are employees going through all this outlandish effort just for bogus claims.

And if 20% is considered splitting the baby, I tremble to imagine what part the employee ends up with.

<comment><USER45> 20% is far better than 1%

[https://www.fastcompany.com/40440310/employees-win-very- few-...](https://www.fastcompany.com/40440310/employees-win-very-few-civil- rights-lawsuits)

<comment><USER46> 1\. That is only "civil rights lawsuits", probably one of the hardest kinds of cases to win.

2\. You left out the 78% "likely settlement" category. Many of those are victories for the employee, just not the maximum possible victory.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Employers say more workers are leaving without giving two weeks' notice - <AUTHOR> http://www.wsj.com/articles/is-it-ever-ok-to-quit-on-the-spot-1466531589 <comment><USER2> A couple of jobs ago I didn't give any sort of notice when I quit. I waited until the CEO and CFO (a husband and wife duo) left for the day, said my goodbyes to my coworkers, and left a note with my office key under the door of the CEO informing him that I was quitting effective immediately and requesting that they do not contact me for any reason whatsoever. Frankly I'm inclined to think I was too polite. The way they treated their employees (not so much me, but the others) was cruel. A textbook example of psychopathic tryanny writ small. I wish them nothing but the worst.

My last job, however, I gave my employer three weeks notice. I cried when I had to tell my boss I had taken a job elsewhere. It wasn't the hardest thing I've ever done, but quitting that job definitely cracks the top five most emotional moments of my life. I'm happy where I am now, but I was happy there too, surrounded by good people and working under a manager I not only respected but admired as a person. I am keenly aware of how rare a thing that is. The only reason I left was because of the company policy that allows people to leave and then come back no questions asked if they left on good standing. I needed to take a personal risk and they actually encourage that.

The point of my anecdotes is: you reap what you sow. Treat people like shit, pay them poorly, humiliate them publicly and they will quit the moment they can with spite instead of hesitation. Show people kindness, pay them what they're worth, and give them chances to learn from their mistakes and you will routinely have people work for you for decades. If more people are quitting without notice then employers need only to look at how they treat people to see why.

</comment><comment><USER3> Slavery has been illegal in the US for about a century and a half. The answer is, of course, "yes." If an employer doesn't like that, then they should make sure their people are motivated to stay. Warning: this may involve paying them more.

Certainly you _shouldn 't_ unless you have a really good reason. If you just can't agree about the new product name, you should definitely give notice. If they handed you a gun and ordered you to kill a customer, quit on the spot.

A lot of employees are loyal to companies, not so much the other way around. They're both quite similar: when a loyal employee thinks about quitting, they worry about the impact it'll have on the company. When the company sees someone quit (or fires them), they too worry about the impact it'll have on the company.

<comment><USER4> 'A lot of employees are loyal to companies, not so much the other way around.'

Recognising and then losing this mindset is so important. Many of my younger friends who have only been employed a few years appear to have fierce loyalty to their employers. So many have sacrificed salary for essentially worthless options. They appear less likely to ask for a raise, assert their rights to reasonable work hours, dissent to a bad work environment.

The best way I have found for avoiding this is reducing the idea of your job into a very simple transaction, taking the view of a consultant. You have problems that need solving and will pay. I will solve those problems for pay. When seen as purely transactional, I believe the individual feels more empowered and avoids the loyalty trap.

<comment><USER5> I lost jobs as a teenager because I had that "transaction" mentality.

<comment><USER6> Most of the jobs I've lost as a teenager were because of normal teenage things like SAT/ACT/AP exams. Like they really wanted me to value the job more than my future.

Another thing they liked to do was change the schedule after publishing it. But it's my fault for not checking the schedule everyday.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> I've always given notice, but over time its been much more acceptable for employers to lay people off without notice/let people go without notice/walk people who give notice - in that environment, I feel no loyalty, nor obligation to give notice myself. It's also perfectly acceptable to quit without notice in the first two weeks of work. Quitting because of severe malfeasance on the part of the employer is also somewhat obviously OK.

<comment><USER8> You should give two weeks notice, but be financially prepared to have to leave immediately. However, if a company does ask you to walk instead of notice, they've pretty much given up on ever getting any notice from any of their other employees.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> If you flipped this and asked all these people arguing that it's never ok to quit on the spot if it's fine to fire someone on the spot, do you think a single one would say no? Of course not. Employers wanted right-to-work laws to make it easier for them to fire workers at will; workers should feel free to return the favor and leave when and if they want.

<comment><USER10> I do think that it matters how someone is fired on the spot though. I'd say firing someone on the spot is about the same as giving them a few weeks notice if you also give them full pay for those weeks and also officially end the employment after that period. I'd rather take a few days off and get extra time to look for a new job instead of coming into work at a company who is letting me go in a few weeks.

<comment><USER11> It's also usually in the company's best interest to _not_ have you continue coming in for two weeks. Too much risk of sabotage.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> > "Well, good for you," Mr. Tremblay says he thought at the time. He could > understand wanting a vacation, but felt "you're also screwing our business," > leaving the company short-staffed at a busy time.

Turned around that becomes "You're laying me off, in exchange for higher corporate profits, when I have bills due".

<comment><USER13> Any decent company would give you a severance payment of at least two weeks when laying you off.

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> Given the total lack of loyalty given to employees by employers, combined with an unwillingness to give references (limiting the impact on professional reputation), why would anyone be surprised by this?

</comment><comment><USER15> What's interesting about this article is I saw only two parts where it mentioned critical, employer behavior. That behavior is treating people like disposable objects with no concern for their pay or well-being. Also, reinforcing it by pushing for "at-will" employment where they can even drop good workers without cause. Lots of layoffs of loyal employees at the big firms over the past decade just reinforce this issue.

So, after all that crap, they want to say a person is doing a disservice to the company to quit without two weeks of extra benefit to the company? Funny stuff. They keep forgetting that capitalism says that _everyone_ , not just business owners, should act in their self interest. Truth told, unless it's a stakeholder-oriented business, then everyone should be giving the company as little as possible. Like the company does them.

Companies that want loyal employees that will make sacrifices for them know what to do. They can go back to old IBM Watson or current, Publix Crenshaw approach of taking care of workers along with incentives for them to improve bottom line. Then, the workers will take care of them and much less likely to disappear in a day. That simple. My money says they won't do it, though. So, ditch them the second you get a better offer much like the CEO or board members would.

</comment><comment><USER4> It appears from across the pond that the US heavily favours employers when it comes to workers rights. I could be wrong, but I believe in most states you can be fired even without a reasonable cause. This is extremely different from the UK, at least for full time workers 1-year+ at the company.

As this is the case, I don't think quitting on the spot is an unfair use of the system.

<comment><USER16> In the UK it's usually only after 2 years at a company can you go to an employment tribunal for unfair dismissal. (You can go to a tribunal however claiming discriminatory dismissal/whistleblowing/H&S (and a few more categories) under 2 years.). AFAIK there is nothing special about 1 year (and probationary periods ending are merely contractual. What usually changes is benefit entitlement, notice periods etc)

Also, tribunal fees are also quite expensive: £390 for unpaid wages, £1,200 for unfair dismissal.

Further, employers can just make you quit through a series of changes in your job. Constructive dismissal I imagine is quite difficult for the employee to prove.

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> Giving notice is a courtesy. I think it's the 'right' thing when you think you and your employer have mutual respect for each other.

However, if you feel you are being underpaid, under-appreciated, or asked to do unethical things, why do you owe them anything? Just get out! Maybe if it stings a bit, they'll treat their remaining/future employees a bit better (or go out of business).

</comment><comment><USER18> "Others cite an increased tendency among employers to rescind job offers"

I was under the impression an employer could get in litigation trouble for rescinding a formal job offer that costs the employee significantly (ie moving across country, losing their old job, etc).

At the very least I'd imagine they would get one hell of a glassdoor black mark pulling a stunt like that.

<comment><USER19> Depends on intent, if you gave two people offers for one position just to see which one would accept the fastest you'd have a lawsuit. If there was a genuine reason then it's fine. Just like how a company can't sue you if you recind after signing a contract, even if the company stopped hiring and had monetary damages as a result.

<comment><USER20> >Just like how a company can't sue you if you recind after signing a contract

How would that work? Wouldn't that be a breach of a binding contract, or is there usually some kind of exit clause to account for specific circumstances?

<comment><USER18> Well it is "at will" employment, so you're more or less quitting the new job immediately. Most people would of course not turn down a job immediately _after_ signing a job offer. They just wouldn't sign the job offer.

What I was getting at, is I had heard somewhere that companies can be liable if they extend a job offer then rescind it causing the employee considerable harm. Sounds like it is a "it depends" type of situation.

<comment><USER21> Sometimes, while interviewing for multiple jobs, the window to accept an offer for job A ends before you receive an offer for (preferable) job B. So you accept job A as a hedge, and then immediately rescind job A if you get the offer for job B.

<comment><USER22> And there's nothing wrong with that, since if you view A and B as actors, they're both (because they're inhuman corporations) psychopathic monsters who will fuck you over in an instant

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> I think many of us have probably felt the temptation, but please do realize, you are building a reputation over time, and it is probably best to be remembered as someone who acts like a professional. If you work in the Bay Area, it is really common to reconnect with past co-workers years later at a different company.

<comment><USER24> Assuming there is a justifiable reason behind it, quitting on the spot is not at all unprofessional, and may even be the most professional thing you can do in a given circumstance.

When I meet people who have quit on the spot, I always assume it was for a reasonable, professional reason. Unless I am somehow presented with evidence suggesting otherwise, there is no reason for that to have a generic stigma of unprofessionalism. It's just a normal part of business life.

The same is largely also true with employment gaps. Too often people make unreasonable assumptions about why someone has a gap. For example, in my own case I have had a big unemployment gap due to a severe family problem that was truly unavoidable and required full-time effort from me for around 8 months. I'll never know how many hiring managers saw the gap on my resume and elected to reject me solely based on that, assuming it was a negative mark regarding my skill or job performance, without ever asking me to find out. I definitely don't want to make that same mistake by unfairly making premature assumptions about other people I meet who have gaps on their resume.

</comment></comment><comment><USER22> Good. You know what? In a world where overzealous HR departments can fire valuable contributors out of the blue for infractions only HR is responsible enough to know, fuck a two week notice. If HR is going to make employment adversarial, let them reap what they fucking sow.

</comment><comment><USER25> Totally fine with this.

Put it this way, if a manager has this happen more than twice, fire him.

</comment><comment><USER26> This is one of those 'it depends' questions (like most important ones are!).

I've quit on the spot once and I think it was ok. I was consulting (paid hourly), had multiple disagreements with my 'boss' (CEO) about major work behaviors (wanted to literally sit behind me while working and watch, critiqued my work despite not being technical and tried to control everything). No loss, had plenty of work elsewhere, wasn't going to use him as a reference.

Other times I've quit from places I've worked at for > 6 months I gave at least 2 weeks notice.

So, use your judgment :)

</comment><comment><USER27> A lot of people are approaching this as an employer/employee relationship, which is fair, but I think it's more important to understand how quitting on the spot affects the employee - employee relationship.

If someone I work with quits day-of, and there's no obvious signs that it was over an ethical no-go, I'm going to conclude that it's someone I don't want to collaborate with in the future.

If you can't make the effort to spend a week cleaning up loose ends, document your projects, and pass on knowledge to the rest of the team, you are certainly not someone I want to work with in the future -- much less ever consider having as a co-founder. It's just basic professionalism.

Obviously not the case if the employer asked you to do something unethical, but you need to make that clear to the rest of your team if it happened, in order to reasonably retain their respect.

<comment><USER28> > If you can't make the effort to spend a week cleaning up loose ends, > document your projects, and pass on knowledge to the rest of the team, you > are certainly not someone I want to work with in the future -- much less > ever consider having as a co-founder. It's just basic professionalism.

Why would you accept the same case from a company? ("at will employment")

<comment><USER29> Why would I wanna work for free for a "for profit" company (or any organization for that matter that doesn't at least value my time I may spend with them to at least compensate for such labor to the extent I feel its worth), esp when they couldn't even give the time of day to ask for that stuff while one is still being compensated by them (or make a better offer than leaving cold turkey, "at will employment" remember)?

Fuck whatever kind of "professionalism" that is lol I'll keep it movin. Plenty of other people want to work with me :D

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER30> i agree with one of the points the article made - in any company where employees are routinely fired/laid off without notice, quitting without notice is implicitly acceptable.

</comment><comment><USER31> Why is it that there is a cultural meme and expectation for an Employee to give notice to an Employer but, none the other way around?

In fact, it largely happens only because it's mandated by law.

If I have loyalty to an organization and I don't want to hurt the people who keeping that organization running, then yeah, I'll give notice but, that is a gift.

No one has ever told me that the company is going to be downsizing in two weeks; an exit interview and an escort out of the building is the only thing I've gotten.

</comment><comment><USER32> I usually try to provide the courtesy of a 2 week notice. I've even stayed 3 weeks at a previous employer's request and found them a suitable replacement.

However, at one of my jobs a COO yelled at me in front of everyone over an issue he could've resolved himself by sending out a well written email like I had done.

He thought I should just start tearing code apart to "find" a solution until 12am if that's what it took. I told him that I was not doing anything until I spoke with our vendor and that he will just have to wait until the vendor responds as 24 hours had not even passed since I sent the email. The CTO didn't even defend me. Well the next day it turns out that I had done the write thing and that the COO and friends had changed the admin settings and broke the system. No code needed to be changed like I suspected. They just needed to use the admin settings correctly.

The COO did not even apologize for yelling at me in front of everyone. On top of that he still owes me $400. So yea... Three weeks later I had an offer in hand and a vacation starting the next day that I had already paid for the month prior. What do you think I did? I gave my two weeks notice and hopped on the plane.

I can think of a time when I probably should've quit on the first day. It was right after they told me they use SVN and half of their code base was located in their content management system which was comprised of some messy jsp files some html css and a mountain of horribly written javascript (This javascript had one letter variable names everywhere that were not the result of a build tool and not simply located in for loops). I hated every second of it. Yet, I still managed to work there for a year and I gave a two week notice.

</comment><comment><USER33> _" Is It Ever OK to Quit on the Spot?"_

The title reminds me of Bill Burr's sketch about "You should never hit a women".

I though the default was to quit using email the evening you found a better job ?

Maybe its just the Millennial in me talking.

<comment><USER34> The Millennial angle is interesting. The comments and to a lesser degree the article itself imply that millennials are the ones quitting without notice. However in my personal experience, I have only ever seen boomers quit on the spot, whereas millennials and genXers have gone above and beyond by giving 3 or more weeks. Younger workers seem much more afraid of the potential damage a negative reputation can do to their future careers.

</comment></comment><comment><USER35> About 30 years ago I had a boss (who I liked) ask me for 7 weeks more work, after I gave notice. I gave him the 7 weeks (new company was OK with that; I had worked for them before), even though it was a personal hassle. Fast forward to 5 years ago: same ex-boss and his wife visited my wife and I when they were traveling through Arizona, and we had a great time.

That said, now in most cases, everything is at-will and neither side really owes the other anything, although it is good to be polite and not burn bridges.

</comment><comment><USER36> from a game theory standpoint, giving two weeks notice should be considered from the perspective of managing your reputation with your peers in your industry, not about whether we 'owe' something or not to our employer. teamwork, communication, cooperation (see Stephen Covey) are as important as technical competency.

it's a bit like the mark twain quote: "never argue with a fool, onlookers may not be able to tell the difference."

</comment><comment><USER37> The huge down-side risk when giving notice is that the company can take advantage and fire you as soon as you give notice, cutting your paycheck, health insurance, etc. that day. I've seen this happen on more than one occasion, and have since been extremely wary of following the "tradition" of giving notice. When you're living paycheck to paycheck or close, you don't need that kind of risk.

</comment><comment><USER38> I quit my only professional 'full-time' job on the spot. It was a very emotional decision. However, even then I gave two weeks notice. After a week off, they hired me back as a consultant [which was a bit rocky; but at least I got sent home after 8 hours]. Since then they've hired me as a consultant multiple times and I'm glad I didn't burn that bridge.

</comment><comment><USER39> You can walk out on the spot and should if you really have to, but it's been my personal experience that if you do then the employer just doesn't pay you what they owe!

</comment><comment><USER40> To those who have quit on spot, Bravo and i envy you really. Not many have the luxury to do it.

</comment><comment><USER41> We changed the title to the subtitle, which is more substantive.</comment>


Happy Birthday Nikola Tesla: Strange Genius - <AUTHOR> http://www.studio360.org/episodes/2008/01/25

<comment><USER2> Years ago I read about Tesla that he would visualize a machine in his head, start a simulation of it running, then come back later and inspect the screws for wear - all of this in his imagination. Does anyone know whether that story is true? or where it came from?

<comment><USER3> Tesla told his story to the author of "Prodigal Genius" (1944), who wrote: "What Tesla had discovered was a means of creating a rotating magnetic field, a magnetic whirlwind in space which possessed fantastically new and intriguing properties...It was not necessary for him to construct models of copper and iron: in his mental workshop he constructed them in wide variety...The mental constructs were built with meticulous care as concerned size, strength, design and material; and they were tested mentally, he maintained, by having them run for weeks-after which time he would examine them thoroughly for signs of wear."

<comment><USER2> You nailed it. Yay! Thanks.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> The full text of "Prodigal Genius", a somewhat hagiographic but still fascinating biography of Tesla, is online at <http://www.rastko.rs/istorija/tesla/oniell-tesla.html>.

</comment><comment><USER4> Here's a cool documentary on Tesla:

 _Tesla: Master of Lightning_ <http://www.pbs.org/tesla>

<http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m1LqxG49DLk>

</comment><comment><USER5> And a vampire! He is probably reading this! :-D</comment>


Ask HN: Why doesn't Amazon manufacture an MP3 player? - <AUTHOR>

I would love to have a low-cost, no frills MP3 player that easily integrates with the Amazon MP3 marketplace.<p>It appears that the Kindle has limited MP3 capabilities, but I don't own one so I can't speak to it directly. <comment><USER2> In another comment, the poster (rsbrown) makes the excellent clarification:

"What I am suggesting is a low-cost, high-quality device (like the Flip camcorder)."

Here is my guess as to why Amazon does not rush into that:

a) Kindle, as you'll recall, was very early to the market for book readers. As a consequence, Amazon was able to negotiate sweet deals for _content_. With MP3s, that opportunity to take an early lead in available content is gone.

b) Consumer mobile is very tricky and there are lots of very large guerrillas crowding that room. Why don't Flip camcorders come with MP3 players? Why doesn't Cisco make a cheap, high-quality MP3 stand-alone player? etc. Amazon doesn't appear to be "tooled up" for that - it doesn't have the in-house expertise (yet?!?) to justify too many risks in that space.

c) Ok, Amazon comes out with a player, let's say. It has to be pretty darn low per unit margins or else it can't compete. That means R&D and start-up costs will take a very long time to recoup (if they ever can be). All of that is OK if somehow this increases Amazon's sell of digital audio files.... so, how do you see that happening? (I don't.)

d) Why don't you make that sweet-spot MP3 player and offer Amazon exclusive right to sell it based on a wholesale price that gives you a comfy profit (or at your costs but with some kick-back on music sales). If you can't do that (given financing) - then neither can they.

<comment><AUTHOR> Amazon has a really nice MP3 market that is well-suited to compete with Apple/iTunes. I contend that my hypothetical MP3 player would be designed primarily to drive content sales in that marketplace. Therefore, they don't need early mover advantage, because they already have the marketable content in place.

"Why don't you make that sweet-spot MP3 player and offer Amazon exclusive right to sell it"

You just had to throw down the gauntlet, didn't you? :)

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> The MP3 player market is mostly over; it's being subsumed by phones.

Also, see [http://techcrunch.com/2009/10/06/doubletwist-unveils-an- alte...](http://techcrunch.com/2009/10/06/doubletwist-unveils-an-alternative- to-the-itunes-music-store-powered-by-amazon-mp3/)

</comment><comment><USER4> They sell blades, not razors. Well, they _do_ sell razors when there isn't a good enough one to sell blades for, but it isn't their primary concern.

For MP3s, there's already great players to sell music for.

<comment><AUTHOR> I hear you, but it seems to me that the market for MP3 players consists of two groups:

1) High-priced, high-quality devices (iPod, Zune)

2) Low-priced, low-quality devices

What I am suggesting is a low-cost, high-quality device (like the Flip camcorder).</comment></comment>


How to build a contact form with react and php - <AUTHOR> http://blog.malith.pro/how-to-create-a-contact-form-with-react-js-and-php/ <comment><AUTHOR> You can download code from github : [https://github.com/malithmcr/react-php- contact-form](https://github.com/malithmcr/react-php-contact-form)</comment>


How do you "produce pulses of light as short as a femtosecond"? - <AUTHOR> The Wikipedia article on "Laser" states: "Temporal coherence can be used to produce pulses of light as short as a femtosecond." There is no reference. Is this true and if so what is the physical method used to switch this fast? <comment><USER2> There is no switching in that sense, at least not necessarily: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mode- locking](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mode-locking)</comment>


Ask HN: Looking for a committed team to partner up with our startup - <AUTHOR>

Hi HN!
Disclaimer: this is a throw away account for privacy reasons.
We are a two-person team that have been running a bootstrapped startup, a photo-sharing social site, during the past 7 years.
Some numbers:
* Last month stats: ~2 million page views; ~ 750k uniques.
* Community with ~210k signed up users (all organically, no paid marketing) and ~7 million pictures in db.
* Expenses ~$400 (hosting and outsourcing).
* Making ~$2k/mo profit (advertising and affiliates)
* Lots of SEO potential and very poorly monetized (we're tech guys, that has been our big limitation).
Site is up and running but has been in maintenance for a while, meaning no active development has been done from our side. We have moved to different projects looking for new challenges, but we still think the site has a lot of potential on it (used to make 5x in profits).
That's why we want to find a fully-dedicated team of people that will run the site and own the majority of the company, while maintaining us as passive partners with partial ownership. Of course, we'd have to find the right entrepreneur/team with the right experience and enough financing to make it work.
If it looks appealing to you and your team, let's talk!
firstname.lastname@example.com <comment><USER2> Can you link to the site?

<comment><AUTHOR> Sorry, site is not linked for privacy reasons.</comment></comment>


Dave McClure apologizes - <AUTHOR> https://techcrunch.com/2017/07/01/500-startups-dave-mcclure-apologizes-for-multiple-advances-toward-women-and-being-a-creep/ <comment><AUTHOR> In my very few interactyeith him, he can be quite blunt. But it's refreshing to see his commitment to a No BS approach to life go further than his comments on startups and investors only. It takes a strong person to make introspection such as his very public. But kudos, for coming clean.</comment>


Homemade CPU – from scratch - <AUTHOR> http://3.14.by/en/read/homemade-cpus

<comment><USER2> Magic-1

"Made of ~200 low-scale chips, clock rate is up to 4Mhz. Have working Minux port, homebrewcpu.com site is served by this computer."

Man that is the very _definition_ of coolness. Awesome. I wish I could build my own CPU, port *nix to it and serve a site about building it from it.

<comment><AUTHOR> If you do so, you would eventually be invited to huge corp :-)

<comment><USER3> Is that advice or a warning? :)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> I have probably linked to this before on HN, but hey, love is blind: <http://www.kilian-leonhardt.de/relaiscomputer/kurz6.htm>

It's a 4-bit computer made out of 171 relays. It's got different 8 commands, an input register and 2 CPU registers, one of which is the accumulator. There's memory for 16 instructions (dip switches!). As output it uses LEDs on the registers, so you can for example program it to multiply 2 4-bit numbers, and read out the accumulator at the end. It clicks away at 10 instructions per second.

The guy who built it also made a 1500 relais computer which is much more capable. You truly don't need much to build a computer - just a basic building block and enough ingenuity.

</comment><comment><USER5> Had to build a CPU from "scratch" at CMU. Of course, we were allowed to use 290x bit-slice parts. And PALs or FPGAs (we didn't use FPGAs; if you were sufficiently clever you could get the whole thing in one FPGA.) Designed our own ISA though. Had to be able to do a 16 bit multiply. Looked like a multicolor explosion of wire-wrap.

One of the other groups built a fully asynchronous machine. Ours was a single board, but theirs had a backplane (using an 80 SCSI cable.) Each unit had a value line and a ready line, so the system advanced to the next state as the parts were ready.

Happy days.

</comment><comment><USER6> These guys are like vintage car nuts. Its like they are reliving the glory days of simple and understandable CPUs. Those days have gone! Building your own CPU is cool, but its a bit of a waste of talent; it does nothing to _advance technology_ is you see what I mean.

Give me a Tesla Roadster.

<comment><USER7> It may not advance today's hardware technology, but understanding these sorts of things means you have a _deep_ understanding of many, many principles.

It's common when writing threaded software for multi-core systems to have an ""edge-race," where correct behavior can depend on exact ordering of earlier processing. Most of the people I know who have never had a software edge-race are people with significant hardware knowledge. They know what it's like to have many things going on simultaneously, and have the experience to reason about it more easily than those with a pure software background

With aggressively multi-core systems becoming more common (we are routinely using systems with 32 cores, and then we use 30 or more of them) material like this is becoming more relevant.

<comment><USER8> As part of the computer science/engineering program I went to at university, we had courses spanning the entire stack. Intro courses were in Scheme and C, and later courses went on to higher-level OO and relational databases and other paradigms. But we also had a short course in analogue electronics, followed by one in digital electronics, both of which were extremely hands-on, requiring us to construct simple circuits in the analogue course, but eventually progressing up to making our own simple CPU in the digital one, including making the microcode for it, and programming it in our own machine code.

That was a real eye-opening moment for me when I realized I had actually been all over the stack and had some sort of understanding of how a high-level program gets compiled and executed and what actually happens at the lowest level, and that that was useful for understanding the high level better.

<comment><USER9> I second this. One of the most eye opening and impactful classes I took in my undergrad was the digital circuits class. It finally made it click. Breadboarding a simple ALU at a workbench out of simple logic components, making them work off of a clock (seeing how the clock was just a final input that forced the operation to occur blew my mind), etc. etc. then doing it again in an FPGA was awesome. Suddenly all of the stack made sense, my compiler class made sense (when we wrote an emulator for a fictional target system to compile to, I kept thinking about how that system would work as a logic diagram), the OS class made sense (thinking about how the contents of an instruction could be swapped out for context switches in a multi-tasking system)...

I wish that the curriculum at my school had started with that class. It would have been a much better foundation to start off of than C++ and Prolog.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Direct link to homebrewcpu: <http://homebrewcpu.com/>

<comment><USER11> Link to previous discussion on homebrewcpu:

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=743583>

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> I'd like to build an Apple II from scratch, I think I would learn a lot from it. Do you guys know if it is possible? Are there any "blueprints" or guides to do it? Are the parts still around?

<comment><USER13> You can build an Apple I from a kit: <http://www.brielcomputers.com/replica1.html>

<comment><USER5> Not at all the same thing.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> This is l33t beyond all words.</comment>


Apple's Trade-In Program Just Got So Much Better - <AUTHOR> http://techcrunch.com/2011/08/09/apples-trade-in-program-just-got-so-much-better/

<comment><USER2> Just for kicks, they showed my 17" MBP SR C2D 2.4GHz at $492.

Hahahahaha.</comment>


The most awkward 404 not found page on the internet - <AUTHOR> http://visitsteve.com/404.html

<comment><USER2> It would be great if after it is done, the video could be replaced with a still image of the same scene, so that it is not clear if the video is actually over or not. You could stay there for hours waiting to see if something cool is going to happen.

</comment><comment><USER3> I bet you never spent 5 minutes watching a 404 page. Well I have now. I am probably going to get even by passing it on, like a chain letter. You know, bad karma if you don watch it and pass it on.

</comment><comment><USER4> I can't believe that I just spent 5 minutes watching that. Yet I couldn't turn it off.

<comment><USER5> And now I cannot un-see it either. Five minutes. Train Wreck principle?

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> Epic hipster beard :o</comment>


Why Elon Musk's $420 tweet could signal gloom for the stock market - <AUTHOR> https://www.marketwatch.com/amp/story/guid/F1A50DD8-9E3B-11E8-A2C7-6852023B596E <comment><USER2> I just assumed it had something to do with weed.</comment>


European Parliament votes to end roaming charges - <AUTHOR> http://europa.eu/rapid/press-release_IP-14-373_en.htm

<comment><USER2> "This vote is the EU delivering for citizens. This is what the EU is all about – getting rid of barriers to make life easier and less expensive." At least something positive made from our Parlament! If we want a strong Europe we have to unite and share more between countries.

PS: I hope i didn't sound too patriotic :)</comment>


Wikipedia has a Google search monopoly and this must STOP - <AUTHOR> Why is it that if I search for World War II for example the first hits are always Wikipedia?
Google pushes Wikipedia systematically on top without merit I would argue. I also suspect that Google does not run Wikipedia through their ranking algorithm.
Any opinions and insights would be welcome. <comment><USER2> Bro first hits are always ads. I want ads to be removed and wikipedia to be first.

I don't want to have 7 search bars for each website, I want to write "dementia" and have a wikipedia link to dementia explanation come up as the first result.

We can have lengthy discussions about what Google _should_ do but they don't really care about the outcome.

<comment><USER3> > I want to write "dementia" and have a wikipedia link to dementia explanation > come up as the first result.

        dementia wikipedia

...will work. If you're using DDG you can type

        !w dementia

...and it'll take you direct to the Wikipedia page.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Wikipedia has a pagerank of 8, which means a lot of people link back to it. Google only has a PR of 9 (as does reddit). Almost no site has a PR of 10. So wikipedia is considered pretty authoritative on a lot of stuff.

<comment><AUTHOR> Wikipedia was teleported to Google first page results from its inception. This helped a lot in building its PR.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> If I'm looking for general information about a subject, I want Wikipedia to be first

<comment><AUTHOR> What you want is a different matter than what Google should list first in the search results.

<comment><USER2> OP can you elaborate on what _" should"_ be the first in the search result ?

<comment><AUTHOR> wikipedia was given special treatment by google and this should have never happened. the first search result should be the one that scores highest in the ranking algorithm without partiality.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> On the other hand many people expect Wikipedia to be the first hit on lots of topics.

<comment><AUTHOR> Google should provide the relevant results not what people expect.

<comment><USER7> Wikipedia is a fairly reliable, even handed source on most subjects. A general search engine will always rank it highly...

<comment><AUTHOR> Why not then list britannica.com or encyclopedia.com first? Britannica must be by all standards more reliable than Wikipedia. You cannot get around the fact that Wikipedia gets special treatment from Google.

<comment><USER2> Britannica is not free and not a non-profit. Wikipedia is completely free and is a non-profit. Also I got 3 popups 10 seconds after arriving to the page, no thanks !

I would argue that google got more popular thanks to Wikipedia and Wikipedia became widely used thanks to Google.

<comment><AUTHOR> so, not free websites or non-profit should count in the search ranking? This is an outrageous argument and I hope you can see how bad of an argument that is.

[https://www.britannica.com/event/World-War- II](https://www.britannica.com/event/World-War-II) has one pop-up (can be easily blocked) and quality content.

I agree with "I would argue that google got more popular thanks to Wikipedia and Wikipedia became widely used thanks to Google."

<comment><USER2> _> so, not free websites or non-profit should count in the search ranking?_

No. Free websites are generally more relevant since you don't have to pay any money to view content.

Also it is evident that you know of britannica existence if you have purchased a membership. Why use google to search for articles on a site you subscribe to ?

I still don't understand why you posted this thread ? Whom should do what to fix this ?

<comment><AUTHOR> I know of Britannica from two decades now. Britannica has free quality content online besides the paid premium. Google should rank that content accordingly.

It seems you don't see the big picture here. Google artificially positioned Wikipedia in the top just because they liked the project and resonated with their values.

<comment><USER2> _> It seems you don't see the big picture here._

I see and I agree with you 100% on that statement. What I don't see is what was the expectations behind submitting your post. Do you want us to stop using wikipedia now ? Or stop using google ? Should we sign a petition to google to change this ?

<comment><AUTHOR> Now I get you. My expectation would be that this post would be heard by Google and Google would make the appropriate changes: first and foremost, position Wikipedia on its proper place in the search results and give other websites a fair game.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Developers Survey Results 2018 - <AUTHOR> https://stackoverflow.com/insights/survey/2018 <comment><USER2> I get a page-not-found. [https://insights.stackoverflow.com/survey/2018/](https://insights.stackoverflow.com/survey/2018/) works.</comment>


Could we be outgrowing the scientific method? - <AUTHOR> https://futurism.com/2-managing-science-can-we-rely-on-scientific-theories-that-have-no-basis-on-evidence <comment><USER2> No.</comment>


Wolff 2 released: Ridiculously small framework for building web apps - <AUTHOR> http://getwolff.com/ <comment><USER2> Did you build this framework yourself?</comment>


Dragonegg Successfully Self-Hosts - <AUTHOR> http://blog.llvm.org/2010/02/dragonegg-successfully-self-hosts.html <comment><USER2> You know, I keep reading this stuff on self-hosting, and it gave me an idea that has nothing to do with this original post. I think you'll like the idea, though.

Imagine an AI kind of program that:

\- determines the cheapest, most capable hosting provider \- determines the top 20 trending niches and randomly picks one \- determines the best available domain name for that trending niche \- uses a credit card and sets itself up with hosting \- finds trending content and through synonymizers writes short summaries about it and links to it \- signs up for and uses multiple ad networks until it can find the most lucrative top three for the content it serves and rotates these three \- every week, broadcasts a link about itself to other social bookmarking and social networking sites \- automatically uses whitehat SEO techniques to try and increase its page rank \- within three months, reproduces itself to build yet another site like that \- after 12 months, sells that copy on flippa.com automatically

The only thing it needs is a credit card and someone to respond to captchas or click the Submit on a form it suggests.

Each new owner merely sits back and collects the profit. It's a self-aware affiliate marketing system.

Pretty funny, eh? However, it also would be pretty interesting to watch.

<comment><USER3> In other words, Artificial Intelligence will be the inadvertent result of Google's war with search spammers. Google will get better and better at detecting non-human generated content until robots are generating such high- quality content that we won't be able to tell -- or care -- that it's generated by robots.

P.S. I am that robot.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> For those who don't know what dragonegg is; it's a rewrite of llvm-gcc as a plugin for gcc 4.5 (which is the first gcc to support plugins) so that you can pass the _-fplugin=./dragonegg.so_ switch to gcc and generate llvm IR.

</comment><comment><USER5> i've just googled around trying to find some performance numbers, but failed to find anything. does anyone know how this compares to gcc? (more intersting would be an article that explains what optimisations gcc is doing that llvm doesn't do yet).

ps congrats to dragon egg ;o)

<comment><USER6> Ugliest powerpoint ever, but it does have some benchmarks about halfway through. It's a bit out of date.

<http://llvm.org/devmtg/2009-10/Sands_LLVMGCCPlugin.pdf>

<comment><USER5> thanks!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> I have to wonder whether these people are really prepared, trained and equipped for the self-incubation, not to mention hatching and beyond.</comment>


Announcing Yeoman 1.0 - <AUTHOR> http://yeoman.io/blog/hello-1.0.html

<comment><USER2> Yeoman is:

A web app workflow management tool. Package manager for javascript libraries, compiler for css / js, optimizer for html, development webserver, sekeleton generator. It basically is another level of process abstraction after bootstrap + downloading & installing jquery plugins & compiling the project with yuicompressor.

I've never used it yet, whenever I embark on a new simple html website, I forgot yeoman exists, and later on I'm sad that I again didn't use it. I'll keep the tab open now :)

Lightning-fast scaffolding — Easily scaffold new projects with customizable templates (e.g HTML5 Boilerplate, Twitter Bootstrap), RequireJS and more.

Great build process — Not only do you get minification and concatenation; I also optimize all your image files, HTML, compile your CoffeeScript and Compass files, if you're using AMD, I will pass those modules through r.js so you don't have to.

Automatically compile CoffeeScript & Compass — Our LiveReload watch process automatically compiles source files and refreshes your browser whenever a change is made so you don't have to.

Automatically lint your scripts — All your scripts are automatically run against JSHint to ensure they're following language best-practices.

Built-in preview server — No more having to fire up your own HTTP Server. My built-in one can be fired with just one command.

Awesome Image Optimization — I optimize all your images using OptiPNG and JPEGTran so your users can spend less time downloading assets and more time using your app.

Killer package management — Need a dependency? It's just a keystroke away. I allow you to easily search for new packages via the command-line (e.g. `bower search jquery`), install them and keep them updated without needing to open your browser.

PhantomJS Unit Testing — Easily run your unit tests in headless WebKit via PhantomJS. When you create a new application, I also include some test scaffolding for your app.

<comment><USER3> Has image spriting gone out of style? That's one of the most fiddly bits, but I don't see it on your list.

<comment><USER4> That's a feature of Compass: [http://compass- style.org/help/tutorials/spriting/](http://compass- style.org/help/tutorials/spriting/)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> I'm using Yeoman to develop one of my web applications, which is a Single Page Application on a MEAN stack. My client side application is just HTML5 & AngularJS which uses a node.js/express powered REST API. The Yeoman workflow, along with the Angular Generator, is a great fit for this type of development.

</comment><comment><USER6> Does WebStorm IDE offer any added value over yeoman/bower/grunt? Or better just to stick to editor like Sublime?

So, if one use WebStorm with yeoman-based workflow, he basically use IDE as editor?

What confuses me, that many good FEDs I met, use WebStorm.

</comment><comment><USER7> All of the about pages 404. What the hell is it?

<comment><USER8> It's a series of tools codifying an opinionated position on web dev workflows. There's a decent description on their homepage at [http://yeoman.io/](http://yeoman.io/)

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> No information about what it is or what it's for. Very clever, that.

<comment><USER10> Hey, have't you read the tutorial on how to make a website for an open source project?

[http://linuxhaters.blogspot.pt/2012/07/your-free-software- we...](http://linuxhaters.blogspot.pt/2012/07/your-free-software-website-for- dummies.html)

:)</comment></comment>


HashCache needs much less RAM/electricity - <AUTHOR> http://www.technologyreview.com/web/22119/

<comment><USER2> Sounds like it's using the whole HD as a hash table with open addressing.

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Open_addressing></comment>


Ask HN: best language for hiring? - <AUTHOR>

I'm thinking about spending 6 months learning another programming language. I'm good at PHP, and nothing against it, but I think it'll limit me if I want to do a startup, in terms of hiring smart people.
So:
What language (Ruby, Python, ...) should I learn?
Requirements: it should be well webby (ie. have libraries for all the usual web stuff you want to do), and be exciting/easy to hire smart people for. <comment><USER2> I'm going to make a bold statement that might not be well received around here.

There is no smart people in what you think "webby" is.

Smart people tend to be the master of their domain: data mining, capacity planning, operations, specific business domains, embedded magicians, security experts (the real ones, not the fake ones), OS masters, programming language linguist.

Most people can write RoR, Django, CodeIgniter apps (or, known as the CRUD app). Very few people can do Business Analysis, Data Analytic, understand (and fix, improve, innovate) Healthcare, or bend Oracle as they wish so it worth for their bucks (surprisingly not a lot people can do this).

You can hire a $100k Ruby developer that know Ruby inside out, but what are you going to do with that knowledge except to build a company around Ruby language? (improve VM, sell enterprise supports, etc). I don't think you'd hire this fellow to write a crud app. That would be a non optimal business decision.

Node.js is the new hotness. Alpha-programmers will flock there for a while just like they did with RoR. So you're going to hire these programmers for 2-3 years, 4 max before they jump out. What are you going to do with Node.js other than to re-write pretty much almost everything that exist in another platforms already.

New language/platform becomes popular, people (early adopters) flock to it, then the notable ones (the next early adopters) flock to it as well, then the rest. I don't mean to disrespect the people who improve new platforms but most problems have been solved. All they do is to re-implement that in another language. MVC, ORM, Caching, Routes are still what they are in other platforms.

<comment><USER3> > I'm going to make a bold statement that might not be well received around > here. There is no smart people in what you think "webby" is

A large number of web programmers I've met do not have a degree, they know very little theory, and often do not understand the most fundamental concepts like memory allocation or semaphores.

Though, I'm not sure I'd go as far as saying that that means there are no _smart_ people. I've met a lot of smart people who fit the description I just laid out. Their problem is they just don't have the training or experience to make good technical decisions.

<comment><USER2> Perhaps I should revise my remark.

Web Developers are the new "average".

This is what people will be judged upon as the entry point.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> I'll actually answer your question.

Ruby and Python are now _too_ good at doing webby stuff in that there are not enough Ruby devs to meet the demand of companies without skyrocketing salaries. It is easy to hire good Ruby devs, provided you have $400k to spend per year, but that isn't your _real_ question.

Your real question is what languages will people really, really want to work for my company to use because nobody else is using them. I can only think of a couple: Common Lisp, Closure, Scheme, Smalltalk. There are others that are happy-fun languages but not necessarily _I love you_ languages that few startups are using: Scala, server side CoffeeScript, Io, F#.

But the problem you run into there is that many of these languages don't have as many webby aspects to them which is why fewer startups use them in the first place.

I'd probably recommend Scheme because it has the best book of all time: [http://www.amazon.com/How-Design-Programs-Introduction- Progr...](http://www.amazon.com/How-Design-Programs-Introduction- Programming/dp/0262062186) That book can teach _anyone_ how to code Scheme. Although all the languages I listed are awesome.

<comment><USER3> Oh, that's what he's asking?

To the OP: do your startup in Java. Then at least you'll be hiring devs who give a damn about building _your_ product, rather than ones who just want to screw around in whatever's shiny and new.

<comment><USER2> I don't know why you guys downvote cppsnob (unless if he's being sarcastic).

Some of the Java startups look more solid than the rest. Zimbra, SpringPad, LinkedIN.

<comment><USER3> Thanks hello_moto. I wasn't being sarcastic -- I mean what I said earnestly.

Put another way: find developers who want to work for you because they want to build what you want to build, not ones who will only work for you because you chose "technology X" to build it. One way to guarantee that is to choose a tech that you're positive can do the job and is boring... Java is that tech.

<comment><USER5> _find developers who want to work for you because they want to build what you want to build, not ones who will only work for you because you chose "technology X" to build it_

Some people will be perfectly content to build anything just as long as it's written in <their choice obscure language>. For other people it might be really important that you use agile, or that they are given a greater level of control over the development process, or that they can work from home, or whatever it is that they care about.

So really I'm saying is that you should generalize your advice here: find people who care about what you care about. Don't try to guess what that is. And to do that, go away and figure out what exactly _you_ care about, ask other people to do the same and compare notes.

<comment><USER2> This is the way to go: people that are in the same page with you. Leading such group is definitely far easier.

Ask yourself who you are and find the same people.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> If you see the language as the 'barrier' that people have to jump over in order to be accepted as smart then maybe go for something exotic. Clojure or Haskell?

I'm not sure if a test like that is meaningful or not, you can narrow down the field of applicants substantially but you may end up with people that have more theoretical than practical knowledge.

<comment><USER7> Speaking as someone who has dabbled in both Haskell and Clojure (emphasis "dabbled"), I'd have to currently recommend Clojure over Haskell, for a couple reasons:

        * The Clojure community has a strong focus on web stuff, while
        the Haskell community has (to date) been primarily concerned with
        more math-centric fields.

        * Haskell's web stack is still very much a work-in-progress. It
        severely lacks when it comes to documentation of even "simple"
        stuff necessary for the web, like shuffling data into a database.
        Unless you're looking for a type signature. The Haskell community
        loves to provide documentation in the form of type signatures.

        * Learning curve. While both are functional languages, it was my
        experience that Clojure's emphasis on simplicity and ease-of-use
        made it very easy to pick up and start tackling real things.
        There is some ramp up time if you're getting used to the tools,
        such as Emacs or the Java ecosystem, but you don't have to worry
        about things like monads slowing you down.

        * It's a LISP! LISP is cool.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> Instead of looking for fashionable languages, why not look for a history of creativity and a passion for learning? And you can never, ever underestimate the value of good communication skills.

</comment><comment><USER9> It's never easy to hire smart people.

<comment><USER10> This is the real issue, not languages. Anyone who is smart and has a solid conceptual background in software development can pick up a new language quickly.

Rather than picking a language to attract smart developers, attract the smart developers by presenting them with an interesting challenge and let them pick the language.

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> This dataists post of the popularity of programming languages is relavant, though the data may be a but outdated.

[http://www.dataists.com/2010/12/ranking-the-popularity-of- pr...](http://www.dataists.com/2010/12/ranking-the-popularity-of-programming- langauges/)

Thankfully, the good folks at Redmonk revisited this analysis recently.

[http://redmonk.com/sogrady/2011/09/06/dataists-anguage- ranki...](http://redmonk.com/sogrady/2011/09/06/dataists-anguage-rankings/)

</comment><comment><USER12> Your product vision and company culture is what will draw good talent in. Work on building out those principles and learn how to communicate them efficiently to prospective talent.

Smart people tend to adapt (in much the same way you're trying to right now) and they will ultimately follow passion and vision over the convenience of knowing the same tools as you.

</comment><comment><USER3> C.

Understand the foundation and everything else becomes a lot easier to learn. And yes, you can do the web with it. Many still do.

</comment><comment><USER13> Probably Clojure - It's cool, has a webby angle, you can cherry-pick the good Java libraries and to quote Eric Raymond: "Lisp is worth learning for the profound enlightenment experience you will have when you finally get it; that experience will make you a better programmer for the rest of your days, even if you never actually use Lisp itself a lot."

</comment><comment><USER14> If you want to work for a small startup, Ruby seems to be what most people are looking for. If you really want to show off your programming chops, learn something lower level like C++. Of course you said it should be "webby" so another option is something like C#, as long as you don't mind Windows.

</comment><comment><USER15> Why do you suppose it is difficult to hire smart PHP developers? Facebook seems to be doing just fine, and as far as I know, most of their codebase is still straight up PHP. Bottom line, build something that customers want. The customer cares that the solution solves their problem, not that your technology stack is bright and shiny.

This is worth reading: [http://pud.com/post/9582597828/why-must-you-laugh-at- my-back...](http://pud.com/post/9582597828/why-must-you-laugh-at-my-back-end)

</comment><comment><USER16> Pick a startup first.

Make sure you'd like to work for this startup with these people for years.

Then pick development language that's most suitable for that startup.

</comment><comment><USER17> Focusing on being a better coder and communicator is your best bet. It'd be more interesting to solve advanced problems and only know PHP than to pick up another language and never have really solves problems anyone cares about.

If you still want pick up a new language, in my work as a recruiter in San Francisco I see a shortage of web developers who are good with Ruby.

</comment><comment><USER18> The problem with this strategy is that your potential hires are more experienced in whatever language you choose so gauging their skill solely on this particular aspect is hard.

If you really want to learn a new language I would go for one that fits your problem domain or what your friend use.

</comment><comment><USER19> Python is versatile, easy to learn and has lots of nice libraries. Check out Paul Graham's article about python and hiring smart people <http://www.paulgraham.com/pypar.html>

<comment><USER20> +1 for Python + Django combo

</comment></comment><comment><USER21> Instead of answering OP's question, most posters seem to be saying "learn language X because it is my favorite language and the best programming language ever!" Completely unhelpful, although not entirely unexpected.

If you want to learn a language with a strong developer community and is well suited to building web applications, either Ruby or Python would be good. Personally, I prefer Python because I find the syntax to be clearer and easier to understand, but that's just my preference.

For the most part, the specific language isn't that much of a problem. Good programmers generally know more than one language and can learn a new one fairly quickly. Therefore, you shouldn't limit your hiring to people who are highly experienced with one particular language.

</comment><comment><USER22> Do you want to do a startup to make money or win a IQ competition?

</comment><comment><USER23> ruby/python shd be relatively easy, I recommend immersing in Java ecosystem, including scala, JRuby, groovy, clojure.

</comment><comment><USER24> node.js, google closure library

</comment><comment><USER25> I don't think there's "one" language for this purpose.

Don't pick C++ or Java. If you need the Java libraries, consider Clojure or Scala. Don't pick C: it's a fine language, but too low-level for what you want to do. Javascript literacy is a must in web development. So learn it, but not only it.

What's more important is that you choose a language that _you_ are comfortable with. You can learn basic Python in a couple of weeks. Is Python a perfect language? No. Is it "good enough"? Generally, yes. (Switch to Scala if it's too slow or if you find dynamic typing doesn't suit your needs.) Then build a great demo. You're going to get more leverage, in terms of hiring smart people, out of having a great demo than having picked the right language.

<comment><USER26> Wait for Dart.

<comment><USER27> There is no language that's so good that it's better to wait for it to be released than to write working code today.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER28> scientific Python!</comment>


Entrepreneur or Unemployed? - <AUTHOR> http://www.teamsters952.org/Entrepreneurs_Actually_the_Unemployed_-_N.PDF

<comment><USER2> "most of the growth in startups was propelled by 35- to 44-year-olds, followed by people 55 to 64."

Well, since those people need money too, and the industry is hesitant to hire them, what else should have happened?</comment>


Season of Docs - <AUTHOR> https://developers.google.com/season-of-docs/ <comment><USER2> So there are lot of developers who write open source because they love writing code, feel passionately about open source, and want to increase their employment prospects.

But is there a similar community of technical writers? I've only known a few but if I asked if their idea of a good time on a Saturday was banging out some technical documentation they would look at me like I'm crazy.

<comment><USER3> I think technical writing can be fun.

Not the kind of mundane technical writing where one is merely documenting APIs, but where one is explaining stuff in a tutorial-like fashion or writing about cool new features.

Most people who write computer books must surely enjoy technical writing to some extent. (Would love to hear what motivates O'Reilly authors, if there are any here)

For me there's something satisfying about writing something in Sphinx and seeing the beautiful final product on readthedocs.org.

I'm also the sort of person who feels a sense of satisfaction seeing my writing end up in the form of aesthetically pleasing LaTeX output. Aesthetics is unrelated to the writing process, but oddly it does seem to provide motivation for it in my experience. Also, producing a piece of writing makes me feel like I've made a creative contribution to the world, however small.

<comment><USER4> > Not the kind of mundane technical writing where one is merely documenting > APIs, but where one is explaining stuff in a tutorial-like fashion or > writing about cool new features.

API documentation is one area that really, REALLY needs the latter kind of writing. There is far too much Doxygen-generated "documentation" which says things like "int foo(int power): Does 'foo' with power set to 'power' and returns the result."

<comment><USER3> I normally write API documentation as reStructuredText directly in Python docstrings which are then auto generated via Sphinx.

Because I tend to write numerical algorithms, I also embed math via LaTeX tags. Sphinx converts them to MathJax which renders the math quite nicely.

The final output from Sphinx is beautiful (I use the Solar theme [1] for Sphinx). As long as I keep my docstrings up to date, the API documentation generates itself and does so beautifully.

I'm sure something similar exists for other languages but I would agree with you that most Doxygen docs are mechanical and devoid of the human touch (most only contain method signatures and non descriptive comments if they exist at all). They are also aesthetically unpleasant which affects their usability, which in turn dampens devs' motivation to document their code ("why document if the final output is ugly and no one looks at it?"). I wonder if a better theme would help.

[1] theme preview here [https://vimalkvn.github.io/solar- theme/](https://vimalkvn.github.io/solar-theme/)

<comment><USER5> Mosra has put a lot of nice work into what is roughly a Doxygen theme (I'm not certain, but AFAIR it technically builds from the XML output and isn't a true drop-in replacement for the default theme), m.css, which you can see in action at [https://doc.magnum.graphics/magnum/](https://doc.magnum.graphics/magnum/) and [https://mcss.mosra.cz/doxygen/](https://mcss.mosra.cz/doxygen/)

These demonstrate, I think, that Doxygen isn't irredeemable--but the exception does also highlight that the ecosystem has some tendencies that aren't great :)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> If someone from the program is reading the comments here, the mentor program rules is 404:

[https://developers.google.com/season-of-docs/docs/program- ru...](https://developers.google.com/season-of-docs/docs/program-rules)

That broken link is on the FAQ:

[https://developers.google.com/season-of- docs/docs/faq](https://developers.google.com/season-of-docs/docs/faq)

That broken link might be intended to point to the mentor "terms":

[https://developers.google.com/season-of-docs/terms/mentor- te...](https://developers.google.com/season-of-docs/terms/mentor-terms)

<comment><USER7> Thanks! Working on a fix right now.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> Looks like this was rushed to publish. On my phone, some of the text overflows to the right.

<comment><USER9> Thanks for pointing that out, I sent a screenshot & message to the team working on this.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> Seems like more work to apply and mentor a technical writer than just writing the docs...

<comment><USER5> Maybe. If your goal is just, like being able to say you "have documentation."

Or if you are already a lucid, efficient writer.

But if you aren't, or if quality and usefulness are more important than ticking a box... It's probably time well spent.

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> I'm sure one of these already exists. I kind of like writing docs or rather tutorials. I often wonder if there is a startup there, docs as a service. Hire us, we'll make your docs site and write all the docs.

<comment><USER12> Isn't this what tech writers do? [https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Technical_writer](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Technical_writer)

<comment><USER4> Sure is. Where do you get one, though? Like, not full time, just for a few weeks.

I think this idea has legs.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> Seems like it's not clear how much time involvement they're expecting? Mentors get a stipend of $500, and writers get $6000 for three months of work?

<comment><USER14> I believe that's only for the Google Summer of Code if you live in the US. IIRC, GSoD participants do not receive a stipend.

<comment><USER15> You do get a stipend: [https://developers.google.com/season-of-docs/docs/tech- write...](https://developers.google.com/season-of-docs/docs/tech-writer- stipends)

It's not much, particularly as this seems to be out of the holiday season (Sep-Nov) which makes it hard for students. That said, in much of the world $2k a month (ie $24k pro rata) is a reasonable salary for writing documentation. There are worse paying graduate jobs.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> is it just me or do you all see "Mr. Burns doing the finger thing in simpsons" everytime google puts out something new?

</comment><comment><USER17> I don't think I trust the whole idea of "technical writers". Software is a complex thing. Is was recently pouring through docs of Kubernetes and Spinnaker, and with the minutia of one-off, OS specific warnings and use- cases, strange naming conventions, gotchas, and conceptual jargon, I find it really terrifying that somone who's only a "technical writer" would be writing the published documentation of such things. How do they know they're correct? Have they run the tests? Docs are hard enough to read as they are, and often, you're reading them over and over again because there's some detail that you've missed for your use case, and these are generally details possibly known only by the issue reporter or someone who actually implemented the thing. Docs aren't hard to write, and if you have to, you should just copy paste them from your comments and/or unit tests (unless you haven't written any of course). Making docs pretty and easy to write by someone else because you're too lazy too is an even bigger sin IMO. That's all I have to say about that.

<comment><USER18>
      How do they know they're correct?

That's the whole point of having project team members (R&D, QA if a distinct organization, product management, and, ideally, Support) participate in the review process.

You need someone who can write, follow (or _prepare_ ) a style guide for a consistent motif across products, and understand what the _customer_ needs in a document. It's not their job to understand all the minutiae in a product -- that's what the broader team is for.

A great tech writer is a treasure, and that person will treasure diligent reviewers. One I worked with later became a published author of historical novels.

<comment><USER5> I think this is the big thing the previous poster is missing. The technical writer isn't going to go out in the wilderness with a copy of the source, assume they understand it after reading it once, write the documentation, and hit publish.

Broadly, good writing (even poetry, fiction, and creative non-fiction) has a deceptive amount of research involved. One of the subtle skills of a good writer is knowing what they don't know, and knowing how to fill the gap.

Whether they're flagging things they don't understand as they go and resolving them in bulk, or regularly checking their understanding with maintainers as they encounter problems, a good technical writer isn't going to just pretend they understand.</comment></comment></comment>


Show HN: Sqreen API, a security toolbox for developers - <AUTHOR> https://www.sqreen.io/developers.html <comment><AUTHOR> We're excited to be launching the Sqreen API, which allows you to tap into our extensive database of malicious actors and activity to make your apps more secure and safer for your users.

The two endpoints we are releasing today allow you to tap into Sqreen's extensive database of bad actors and malicious behavior to discover whether an email or IP address poses a risk to your app. These endpoints can answer questions like: • Does that email address originate with an email anonymizer? • Is that IP address a Tor exit node? • Where is this user on the map? • Has this user ever been implicated in a known attack in the past?

Use this information to flag or screen signups to your service, to detect if unusual activity is originating from a suspicious address, and to generally arm yourself with additional risk assessment when you need it.

You can get started by creating an account if you don't have one, and either creating a new Developer Sandbox or using the API key assigned to your existing apps in Sqreen. [https://my.sqreen.io/new- application](https://my.sqreen.io/new-application)

Once you've got an API key, head over to the documentation to see how to get started quickly. [https://doc.sqreen.io/reference](https://doc.sqreen.io/reference)

Of course, we'll be watching here for your feedback and comments!

<comment><USER2> Curious about how the database was filled with data.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> How are you curating this information?

How do you separate yourself from the existing hundreds of threat intelligence feeds already out there? (VirusTotal, PassiveTotal, Facebook ThreatExchange, Anomali, Taxii Stix, etc.)

<comment><USER4> We decided to open our dataset of attacks gathered by the apps protected by sqreen. The data set is AppSec oriented: security scans, tentatives of injections/XSS/..., or user account related (account enumeration, passwd bruteforce, etc) VirusTotal is about malware, ThreatExchange is about phishing.</comment></comment>


Ask HN: I can't host at home reliably, where and how can I get a remote server? - <AUTHOR>

Due to a number of factors it's not quite possible for me to host a server at home reliably. I'm looking for some sort of solution that gives me a decent amount of privacy and security on a small server that I'm not sharing with others for hosting stuff like email and a small web site. Is this possible? How would I go about getting this? <comment><USER2> Just get a cheap VPS (Virtual Private Server) and install your choice of linux on it. A good VPS host is <http://www.linode.com/>.

I'm a college student, so I move every six months, so I'm in a similar position as you. A VPS allows me to have my own server without having to maintain the physical box.

</comment><comment><USER3> Get a VPS.

Depending on your bandwidth vs. cpu requirements, the following should all be interesting to you: linode.com ; vpslink.com ; rackspace cloud .

prgmr.com has good reputation and is run by an HN regular. However, every time I wanted to get a VPS there, they had no room left at the time ..

</comment><comment><USER4> <http://www.lowendbox.com> has good deals on cheap VPS's.

</comment><comment><USER5> Good discussion back at <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1658161>

</comment><comment><USER6> Amazon micro instances might be a good fit. Can always scale up if required.</comment>


More than honey: the movie - <AUTHOR> http://www.ciber.science.uwa.edu.au/blog/?page_id=20

<comment><AUTHOR> It is a feature-length documentary about hacks on top of hacks. Farmer and beekeeper hacks, to the extreme of just pollinating trees by hand, flower by flower, as a workaround against bees not doing the job.

I see it criticised for its lack of focus, but not for its perhaps misleading special effects (or not? the colony infection scenes are simply amazing) or its science.</comment>