Growth Hacking Is Bull - <AUTHOR> http://marketingland.com/growth-hacking-is-bull-69635 <comment><USER2> The difference between "growth hacking" and "online marketing" as I understanding it is that the former involves dedicating engineering effort: building repeatable automated systems that operate at scales that are untenable with manual effort.

Marketing, as a business objective, has historically been underserved by engineering. "Marketing engineering" occupied approximately the same status level as internal IT. "Growth hacking", as I understand the term, involves increasing the status and priority of marketing-focused engineering to be lateral with product development.

<comment><USER3> I work in ad tech, and while this isn't the sort of position I'd take, I do fit the bill qualifications-wise in some ways (IMO). Someone who understands both the business and technology, involved in marketing/advertising. There's a slew of Professional Services positions in my industry that are basically outsourced growth hacking.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> I wrote this blogpost over a year ago now: [http://www.layeredthoughts.com/startups/growth-hacking-is- bs...](http://www.layeredthoughts.com/startups/growth-hacking-is-bsits-all- just-marketing)

Danny Sullivan's tweet last week (quoted in OP's link) is almost word for word my thesis in my blog post.

In fact, if you search for "Growth hacking is bull" in google, my post is right above this one now.

I don't really have a point to make here, other than there's quite a bit of overlap between this post and mine.

</comment><comment><USER5> Like any fashionable word, "growth hack" is being assigned to all sorts of things that it wasn't _meant_ to mean. This article attacks those other things, and not the core of what 'growth hacking' means.

A code hacker is doing things creatively and differently and coming up with a unique way to accomplish something that is difficult to accomplish following standard protocols like 'coder' would. A growth hacker is the same thing -- but for marketing and/or sales. By definition, once someone else shows the way, it's no longer hacking to do it; but the first one to do it, was a hacker.

I would argue that airBnb's cross-posting _was_ hacking. The first person to some up with "give away the razor and charge for the blades" was a growth hacker even though that term didn't exist for another 100 years. Plain and simple, new and innovative ways to build brand awareness or increase sales is growth hacking.

Call it marketing hacking if it makes you feel better.

Edit: to add to my point: why use the term hacker _at all_ if growth hacker is BS term for a certain kind of marketer, isn't 'hacker' a BS term for a certain kind of technologist? /rant

<comment><USER6> Exactly what I came here to say -- people are forgetting the 'hacking' part.

By definition, growth hacking is not established techniques, it's coming up with new clever ways to get people to spread the word about your product, which are often going to depend on your specific product or product category, and not be generally applicable. As soon as a technique is widely known/defined/used, it ceases to be growth hacking and is then just part of regular marketing.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> So, a marketer is upset that marketing wordplay has been applied to the act of marketing?

I've never seen growth hacking as anything other than marketing but with a focus on trying the unusual or the usual in a different way and measuring the results immediately. No big mystery but interesting in that novel approaches or surprising results come to light more often than traditional marketing.

</comment><comment><USER8> I use the title Growth Hacker in the sense that it is a hacker (programmer) focused on growth (marketing). In this sense, it is simply a term for a marketer that writes code. So then "growth hacking" should simply mean writing code to do marketing for you. This is indeed different than marketing alone.

<comment><USER9> Growth Engineer.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> If you use the word "hack" and "hacking" as synonym for "unprofessional" (ex: he is just a hack), then growth hacking makes sense that it's not good. (Also, when non pro's write code, that is a hacking)

<comment><USER11> That's not what hacking, in this sense, means.

Hacking is getting something done creatively. As in, hacking away at a problem.

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> I am largely to blame for the recent tirade against "growth hacking." I've let the term be bastardized and redefined a lot since my original blog post on it back in 2010 [http://www.startup-marketing.com/where-are-all-the-growth- ha...](http://www.startup-marketing.com/where-are-all-the-growth-hackers/) . I wrote that blog post primarily for _startups_ that had achieved product/market fit. The idea was not to replace marketing, but to create a category of marketing activities that have a direct attributable impact on growth. Startups are always on the brink of death. They don't have the luxury to focus on things like awareness building or to prepare 50 page slide decks on the demographics of the customer. I wrote that a startup's first marketing hire should have "growth as their true north." They shouldn't be outsourcing and managing vendors, the person should be a hands-on "builder" and optimizer of growth programs. In order to help make the concept stick, I put a name to it. On that day the term "growth hacker" was born.

I won't rehash why all this debate is actually a good thing. Read my comment here [http://www.growthhackers.com/dhh-growth-hacking-a-cool- sound...](http://www.growthhackers.com/dhh-growth-hacking-a-cool-sounding- euphemism-for-making-the-doer-feel-good-about-using-the-same-old-sleazy- marketing-tricks/) for my thoughts on that…

Since my original post in 2010, I've been happy with certain evolutions of the term. One is that I think large companies should have a group that is exclusively focused on managing the activities that are directly attributable to growth. Companies like Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter have had these groups for a long time. Bigger companies have the luxury of specialization so they can have research departments, PR departments and I think "growth" should be a focused discipline within larger organizations. Part of this group's objective should be to create a culture of growth across the entire organization and help each department evaluate and measure activities that have a direct impact on growth.

"Growth hacking" may or may not be the right word, but it's the one I used and it stuck.

Much as SEO is a categorization of marketing activities that improve a websites search ranking, you can think of growth hacking as a broader categorization of marketing activities that directly and measurably impact growth. In my original post, I suggested that the role should be easier to hire than a VP Marketing, since the scope of focus is actually smaller. I also suggested that some of the best growth people I've met have engineering backgrounds. It wasn't until Andrew Chen's post "Growth Hacker is the New VP Marketing" that people really began to focus in on engineering skills as a prerequisite for being an effective growth hacker. He also falsely positioned it as a replacement for VP Marketing. I both disagree that it is the new VP Marketing and I disagree that engineering is a prerequisite. A VP Marketing needs to have a broader understanding of all of the disciplines within the marketing function. Some growth hackers will be good for this and some won't.

Lastly, you could easily argue that SEO as a concept doesn't need to exist because marketing already exists. But SEO is a subset of marketing activities. Growth hacking (to me anyway) is a subset of marketing activities too. The most powerful online marketing tactics often involve exploiting the unique advantages of the internet, which generally require some engineering skills. It's easier to run these experiments if you don't need to beg an engineering department for help. So engineering skills are definitely an advantage, but results trump skills.

Apologize to all that the conversation will likely to shift to a "defense of growth hacking" for a while. But eventually we'll be back to the sharing of effective ways to grow the user bases for products that customers love.

<comment><USER13> > Growth hacking (to me anyway) is a subset of marketing activities too.

I've always thought that it was the other way around, i.e. marketing is one of the things you can do in growth hacking, but not everything. To me growth hacking means doing/focusing on things that help grow the business, and marketing is just one of the things you can do. Other things that you can do to help growth include actually improving the product and reduce friction, which are not marketing. Maybe I've misunderstood the term "growth hacking" then.

<comment><USER14> Its probably better represented as a venn diagram. Applies to potentially many disciplines within an operation.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> Few companies actually use growth hacking as I understand it: taking advantage of [social] networks to grow exposure exponentially

It's not SEO, and it's not SEM. It's making your product interesting and accessible to social networks, and allowing for organic growth.

BuzzFeed growth hacks (that's basically their entire business model), and while it may fall under the broader term known as marketing, it's not traditional marketing, and it absolutely deserves it's own name.

I think the bigger problem is that people who misuse growth hacking for their marketing department.

</comment><comment><USER16> Actually they're doing branding by distinguishing themselves from marketers who offer an unbranded growth hacking experience.

Sounds like someone is pissed they got out branded by a bunch of hacks. This is the marketing equivalent of every hacker post that Facebook and Twitter are just big CRUD databases.

</comment><comment><USER17> I view growth hacking as online marketing done by people who don't need permission or help to get things done.

Traditional online marketers are paralyzed by their lack of technical and design skills. The best they can do is brainstorm ideas and spend money on ads.

</comment><comment><USER18> The fact is, it doesn't really matter what was intended of the word when it was created. "Growth hacking" on its surface seems to imply beating systems for the sake of growth. Sean Ellis, who is happy to tell you he coined the phrase, considers most marketing for the sake of driving growth "growth hacking." But, despite the fact that what I do probably matches both of those definitions, I would still _never_ call myself a growth hacker.

The reason I don't call myself that is because calling yourself a "growth hacker" is akin to calling yourself a "social media guru" or a "rockstar programmer." It's a buzz-word that's been taken over by people who have no idea what they're talking about. And if you have to beat your chest and call yourself a growth hacker, chances are you're not.

Are there some incredible marketers out there who beat and create systems to cause growth? Absolutely. But I don't think many of them call themselves "growth hackers" either. Interestingly enough I find a few brilliant minds when I'm roaming amongst the blackhatters of the world. The seedy underbelly of the Internet has some really sharp people in it determined to continually out-engineer Google, beat other systems, or just brute force something. And sometimes what they do is pretty ingenious. You can actually learn a lot from them if you look at the principles they use, legitimize them, and use them for good instead of evil. There are a lot of script kiddies to be sure, but that caliber of brilliant marketer, whether it be a spammer who uses it for evil or some of the marketers causing explosive growth at young companies rarely beat their chests and assign themselves buzz-wordy titles. They don't have to.

Just like social media experts don't call themselves "gurus." No one of any high level of legitimacy has ever assigned themselves the term "Thought leader." In the same way, 99% of the people who call themselves "growth hackers" are at a marketing intern equivalent level.

It's just turned into another phrase people who don't know what they're doing throw around because it sounds cool.

</comment><comment><USER19> This is my response --[http://brandonpindulic.co/2014/01/10/growth-hacking- defined/](http://brandonpindulic.co/2014/01/10/growth-hacking-defined/)

Summary: This is simply an opinion piece that I wrote to try to get the point across that growth is everywhere, and constraining it to a definition is simply counterintuitive.

In short, if it grows your business, then by all means do that, whatever it is, and to keep learning, experimenting and testing new strategies.

</comment><comment><USER20> Almost every term in marketing/sales is imprecisely defined and most writing in the field seems to be around making things more complex and vague than they need to be. Kind of like the postmodernists, it's as if they want to convince you that there's some extra layer complexity which only they can understand.

<comment><USER16> And if you've watched nerds sell you'd agree that there's some extra layer of complexity which only marketers understand.

If you haven't read them you may enjoy Deschooling Society by Illich or The Spectacle of Society by Debord, though Debord gets a little postmodernist/heglian at points.

[http://www.arvindguptatoys.com/arvindgupta/DESCHOOLING.pdf](http://www.arvindguptatoys.com/arvindgupta/DESCHOOLING.pdf)

<comment><USER20> Nerds' general inability to sell isn't because they don't understand marketing lingo, but because they lack an intuitive sense of people/markets. Inconsistent and vague buzzwords do nothing to bridge that chasm.

<comment><USER21> Maybe its poor semantics, but I'm not really sure where this nerd/marketer divide is coming from.

One of them is a type of person/personality and the other is a job description.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> Similar thread/conversation happening at [http://growthhackers.com/growth- hacking-is-bullshit/](http://growthhackers.com/growth-hacking-is-bullshit/)

anyway I always felt Growth hacking is very generic term whose definition will always be different depending on the context.

</comment><comment><USER23> "the same year Jason Calacanis started his highly-publicized crusade against the online marketing industry and, in particular, against professionals specializing in SEO and social media."

The same year Calacanis decided to found Mahalo, designed specifically to profit from abusing SEO 'growth hacking.'

</comment><comment><USER24> Waaaahhh, somebody used a new term to describe tried and true marketing activities to make them sound new/sexy/novel.

People reapply the same concepts and ideas, but with new terminology all the time. It's good marketing :)

Now, I must get back to word sculpting...

</comment><comment><USER25> Saying what Airbnb isn't growth hacking doesn't mean it wasn't. There were no protocols into Craigslist for cross-posting and they had to hack them together to get growth - that's growth hacking.

</comment><comment><USER26> I really like the word Technical Marketing because it does a better job of encompassing a broader use of technology to enhance your marketing.

</comment><comment><USER27> growth != marketing because growth is marketing union ramping up operations, not sure if growth hacking tries to incorporate building scalable company structure and/or recruiting and/or incorporating software. Keeping a team that is growing super fast on track is a full time job. In my opinion growth is just such a broad term..

</comment><comment><USER28> "Growth hacking" is like an SUV: an attempt to take something stigmatized as effeminate (minivans) and masculinize it, to the point that it develops its own mancult.

<comment><USER29> I like the analogy, but I think SUVs were really a way to exploit a loophole in emissions regulations. Because of the technical definitions, SUVs count as trucks not cars for emissions standards.</comment></comment>


Fight Like You're Right, Listen Like You're Wrong - <AUTHOR> http://firstround.com/article/Fight-Like-Youre-Right-Listen-Like-Youre-Wrong-and-Other-Keys-to-Great-Management <comment><USER2> "Fight Like You're Right, Listen Like You're Wrong" seems like a catchier and clearer way to explain the concept of "strong opinions, weakly held".

<comment><USER3> I personally push that even further. If I finally convince someone, I usually take the other side to make sure we have the big picture and we didn't forget or misunderstood an argument.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> For those that want to learn more, the author also has a good book "Good boss, bad boss" on what to do and not to do as a manager of people: [http://www.amazon.com/Good-Boss-Bad-Learn-Worst](http://www.amazon.com/Good- Boss-Bad-Learn-Worst)

<comment><USER5> Working link: [http://www.amazon.com/Good-Boss-Bad-Learn- Worst/dp/044655608...](http://www.amazon.com/Good-Boss-Bad-Learn- Worst/dp/0446556084/ref=tmm_hrd_title_0)

<comment><USER6> Referer links are generally frowned upon.</comment></comment></comment>


ObjC is our generation's COBOL - <AUTHOR> http://sealedabstract.com/rants/objc-is-our-generations-cobol/ <comment><USER2> I thought Java was our generation's COBOL. For example, quoting from [http://www.infoworld.com/article/2628631/development- environ...](http://www.infoworld.com/article/2628631/development- environments/geriatric-java-struggles-to-stay-relevant.html) :

> "Java has evolved from a groundbreaking, revolutionary language platform to > something closer to a modern-day version of Cobol."

Or [http://c2.com/cgi/wiki?JavaIsTheNewCobol](http://c2.com/cgi/wiki?JavaIsTheNewCobol) :

> "Is Java the new Cobol? A good argument can be made that yes, it is."

One of the arguments given is '[The developers] learned ObjC moonlighting at their boring .NET job, and then you hired them. They're now moonlighting learning Swift, and now you're the boring ObjC job. See where this is going?'

That surely parallels the experience with Java - why isn't ObjC "our generation's" Java?

<comment><USER3> That's because COBOL is our generation's COBOL. And it'll be the next generation's too.

<comment><USER4> ^^ This is want the business guys don't understand. Any business application with a solid foothold will need to be maintained for years into the future. My alma mater has an entire program dedicated to minting mainframe developers because there is and will be a need that everyone else is ignoring.</comment></comment></comment>


Skype on your home phone - <AUTHOR> http://blogs.skype.com/en/2011/08/using_skype_from_your_home_phone.html

<comment><AUTHOR> Might be useful for Skype lovers. I personally just set up local numbers for my overseas friends on Jajah and call direct without any hardware.</comment>


The H-1B visa program is a scam - <AUTHOR> http://www.cringely.com/2015/06/15/the-h-1b-visa-program-is-a-scam/

<comment><USER2> No, the H-1B program is a useful tool for tens of thousands of immigrants to get established in the USA. Its structure lets it be abused by bottom feeding offshoring shops paying below market rates for onshore workers, who are enabled by their clients buying low-value IT services in bulk without any real thought as to what they are trying to achieve. You can't fix that without ending a comparatively low friction immigration channel for a very large number of people.

At one of my past employers we used H-1B visas to transfer Indian workers from our offices in Hyderabad to New York. The paperwork was much easier for us than trying to do L1s; the tradeoff being that, once here, they were free to seek employment elsewhere. None did: we treated and compensated them the same as our US citizen workers.

The visa is not the person.

</comment><comment><USER3> Complaining about domestic supply is a legitimate complaint. Clearly asking for permission to solve a supply problem by importing foreign labor would mean 1) that you would have to pay the same rates as domestic employees in that function are paid (thus excluding the imported labor from that calculation) and 2) Those employees should be able to switch jobs at will. Without this you're complaining about domestic cost and not supply.

That is, if you believe that these type of immigration schemes should be necessary at all.

<comment><USER4> "Complaining about domestic supply is a legitimate complaint."

The business community will complain about supply regardless if there's a problem or not.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> > If there are indeed exceptional jobs that can't be filled by ANY domestic > applicant, there's still the EB-2 visa program, which somehow doesn't max- > out every year like H-1B

I'm not sure this guy knows what he is talking about. EB-2 will take 1.5 years best case scenario. For people from some countries (India, China) it will take much more. Also you can't lowball h1b worker on a salary and pay him less than average, the h1b petition will likely be not approved.

</comment><comment><USER6> While visiting a Maker Faire in my area last week I happened upon a Cognizant booth staffed entirely by 30-something Indians. While they showed my daughter how to make a windsock out of duct-tape, one of their number told me about his background and their difficulty being separated from their family back home and why it is still a better choice than living in India.

As I listened the term "Digital Sharecroppers" came unbidden to mind. But this is worse than sharecropping because an H-1B worker can't switch employers.

What Cognizant and the rest of the H-1B abusers are doing is exploiting the promise/hope of US Citizenship while suppressing near-term wages (and the value of the citizenship they use as a lure), with indentured servants.

Cringely is right. The E2-B program is an appropriate alternative. Another good option would be the Entrepreneur Visa. I say trade an Entrepreneur Visa program which creates new jobs in exchange for killing the H-1B visa which only suppresses wages and supports corporate dinosaurs trying to cut their bottom line rather than actually innovating.

<comment><USER7> Cringely doesn't understand the difference between immigrant and non-immigrant visas if he recommends the EB-2 as an alternative to the H-1B. The EB-2 is a green card application for a foreign worker who wants to live in the US permanently; the H-1B is for people who just want to work in the US for some period of time. All countries have similar distinctions between workers and long-term residents, and confusing them is a strong indicator that the writer doesn't know what he is talking about.

Cringely is also wrong in at least one important respect about the EB-2 visa: its numbers do indeed fill up every year, just like for the H-1B, for Indian and Chinese applicants. So if you file an EB-2 based visa application this year, it will take you about 10 years to receive your EB-2 based green card if you are Indian, and 5 years if you are Chinese. The US Government was, as of February 2015, processing EB-2 applications received in September 2005 for Indian applicants, for example [1].

Is Cringely then suggesting that companies wait 5-10 years for new foreign employees to join them?

I've posted about this before on Hacker News, but it's a common misconception here that H-1B workers are somehow "indentured", or that they cannot switch employers. Under the AC-21 act of 2000 [2], H-1B employees can switch employers with a single H-1B transfer filing, and even start working at their new employer while their H-1B transfer application to their new employer is in process. Further, the H-1B transfer application is not subject to the yearly cap (which has been regularly reached in recent years), so there is almost no chance of it being denied. In practice, this means that H-1B workers have as much job mobility as native American workers.

The bad actors in the H-1B program are indeed the Indian outsourcing companies, which need to be investigated and punished for violations of the program, including paying below market wages. But there are many more good actors who use the H-1B program extensively -- Google, Facebook, and similar reputable American tech companies -- and they don't use it because they underpay their employees, but because they can't find enough qualified employees even given their high wages. There was a recent post on HN about the very high salaries paid by these companies to their H-1B employees, as disclosed in their H-1B visa applications.

Summary: For someone who claims to have written a long running series on the H-1B program, Cringely is disappointingly misinformed. The H-1B program has violations, which need to be properly investigated, but the EB-2 is not even close to a viable replacement for it. H-1B employees are not indentured labor and have high job mobility, except in the case of a few large outsourcing companies which do indeed deserve to be punished.

[1] Monthly Visa Bulletin from the US Department of State: [http://travel.state.gov/content/visas/english/law-and- policy...](http://travel.state.gov/content/visas/english/law-and- policy/bulletin/2015/visa-bulletin-for-february-2015.html)

[2] H-1B Visa Transfer: [http://www.usavisanow.com/h-1b-visa/h1b-visa- resources/h-1b-...](http://www.usavisanow.com/h-1b-visa/h1b-visa- resources/h-1b-transfer/)

<comment><USER6> Cringely singles out the H-1B abusers to whom I and you refer, and that pay substandard wages, not Google, et al..

Also, switching employers is encumbered if there is any risk of deportation without continuous employment which "vosper" (see peer comment to yours) notes IS a growing risk as the H-1B ages. This is the "indenture" effect in question.

Lastly, H-1B workers working for the aforementioned abusing employers accept their lower wages and often poor conditions because of the hope that once in the USA they will find a Green Card sponsor. This makes the H-1B equivalent to the EB-2 when speaking of the abusing employers to which Cringely refers.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Another aspect is the accounting rules. When a company has direct employees working, they show up on a P+L statement in the labor section. When a company is "buying a service" from an outsourcer, staffed completely with H1B and offshore people, it gets treated differently and can be accounted for in a different section of the P+L. I believe this is enough for larger companies to see moving hundreds or thousands of jobs to this model for pure tax implications. Especially if they can "amortize" out the cost of building something by 3 years. This is in addition to the 1/3 to 1/4 cost.

Change the accounting rules to make companies track H1B and outsourcers as labor and it may make some companies second guess this model.

Nobody is mentioning quality either... since that doesn't show up in a spreadsheet or accounting system. The fact that your projects are taking longer and are buggier is more of a soft metric but definitely will impact the bottom line.

</comment><comment><USER9> Why not just raise the price and crackdown on companies actually abusing the system?

If it now costs you 1.25x the price of a US worker, and scamming the system means you can't get any more visas that would fix the problem.

</comment><comment><USER10> Where can I see the information about approved H-1B visas? They have these data in the article, but what I see in the internet it's only LCAs and their status.

</comment><comment><USER11> I think the biggest problem with H-1B visa program is that quota is for entire world. It would be better to have 10k places for Europe Union, 10k places for India, 10k places for China and so on for other big countries and then have another pool for small countries. This would diversify population of US and would yield much better results.

Because currently H-1B is mostly used by Chinese and Indian people.

</comment><comment><USER12> I'm not very good at maintaining an even tone on this issue, because it increasingly strikes me as an issue of fundamental human rights. So forgive my aggressively anti-border position, probably far out of the mainstream.

I'm not completely alone in my minority view though. The UN human development report put it this way, "mobility is a fundamental element of human freedom [and] entails the freedom to seek opportunities to improve living standards, and health and education outcomes, and/or to live in safer, more responsive communities."[1]

Doesn't that have at least some intuitive appeal? What if you've relocated to a city from a surrounding town, (as most people in America have been doing since at least 1950 [2]). Suppose someone took you out of your current home and returned you to the town you grew up in as a child. Would that be fair in any sense of the word?

If someone from Wyoming can move to Miami for a better opportunity, then why not someone from far closer, and likely even far more culturally similar? Someone from Haiti or Cuba?

More than anything, when people rebut the notion that everyone should be allowed to pursue a better life, regardless of the circumstances of their birth, it reminds me of Texas's argument against abolition. Its articles argued that abolitionists were foolishly "proclaiming the debasing doctrine of equality of all men, irrespective of race or color--a doctrine at war with nature, in opposition to the experience of mankind, and in violation of the plainest revelations of Divine Law."[3]

It seemed pretty horrible then, and it seems pretty horrible now.

Or as Caplan put it, Your fellow "Americans are not the master race." You wouldn't kill for them. Why condemn others to poverty for them? Why not have hearts that bleed, not only for your compatriots, but also for the hard working immigrant? [4]

Besides, computer science grads are fine anyway. I know it feels besieged if you're working in the field, but it's really not.[5-10] There are more pressing problems than protecting one of the safest bachelor-only disciplines available.

[1] [http://hdr.undp.org/sites/default/files/nhdr_migration_gn.pd...](http://hdr.undp.org/sites/default/files/nhdr_migration_gn.pdf)

[2] [http://ufdc.ufl.edu/UF00087158/00001/7j](http://ufdc.ufl.edu/UF00087158/00001/7j)

[3] [https://www.tsl.texas.gov/ref/abouttx/secession/2feb1861.htm...](https://www.tsl.texas.gov/ref/abouttx/secession/2feb1861.html)

[4] [http://econlog.econlib.org/archives/2006/03/are_lowskilled.h...](http://econlog.econlib.org/archives/2006/03/are_lowskilled.html)

[5] [http://www.bls.gov/ooh/computer-and-information- technology/h...](http://www.bls.gov/ooh/computer-and-information- technology/home.htm)

[6] [http://www.npr.org/sections/money/2013/09/10/219372252/the-m...](http://www.npr.org/sections/money/2013/09/10/219372252/the- most-and-least-lucrative-college-majors-in-1-graph)

[7] [http://www.theguardian.com/news/datablog/2010/jul/15/employm...](http://www.theguardian.com/news/datablog/2010/jul/15/employment- statistics-university-graduates)

[8] [http://www.bloomberg.com/bw/articles/2014-07-10/college- grad...](http://www.bloomberg.com/bw/articles/2014-07-10/college-graduates- who-majored-in-most-tech-fields-and-health-care-during-the-recession-had- better-outcomes-than-business-students)

[9] [http://www.studentsreview.com/unemployment_by_major.php3?sor...](http://www.studentsreview.com/unemployment_by_major.php3?sort=Rate)

[10] [http://www.bls.gov/ooh/computer-and-information- technology/s...](http://www.bls.gov/ooh/computer-and-information- technology/software-developers.htm)

</comment><comment><USER13> As someone who worked through the H1B system and is now a US Citizen, I can say that it's a decent program when executed properly.

H1Bs are temporary high-skilled workers who are hired when domestic workers are unavailable and can also get sponsored to become permanent US residents if the company is still unable to find domestic workers after a few years. In my case, I had to relocate to a small town in Kentucky for the job where (at the time) no American tech worker was willing to move to. I was essentially hired out of frustration on part of the hiring manager. I had other job offers but decided to go with that company because of it was a reputed (Fortune 500) company.

That said, numerous issues plague the program:

1\. I noticed my fellow H1B co-workers who were Indian were paid much lower than I was. (I'm not Indian and I was paid market-rate). I'm not sure why but it seems companies think Indian workers are more desperate and will take less money.

2\. H1B workers have absolutely no power. Your boss/company really does OWN you. You have little room for negotiating raises/work environment/responsibilities/schedule etc. If your boss doesn't like you, you might end up in legal limbo in a few years.

3\. H1B workers are constantly worried about the company's bottom line/future/decisions. It's very difficult to change jobs and a layoff/termination automatically invalidates the visa. Even if a H1B worker manages to switch jobs, the time limit on the visa doesn't reset and the new working conditions might actually be worse than previous company. This lack of mobility also has a dampening effect on the H1B worker's career. Six years is a long time in the tech industry and H1B workers usually end up stuck with old technological stacks because they were unable to move on to jobs with better opportunities.

4\. Many companies bring H1B workers on board with promises of sponsoring a green card knowing fully well that they have no intention of ever doing so. Some companies tell H1B workers that they have filed an LCA or are working on some other step without actually doing anything. Reason: It costs money.

5\. Some companies ONLY hire H1Bs even if domestic workers are available. This is because they can get away with paying SOME H1B workers lower wages and H1B workers are more easily controlled. Also, some unscrupulous managers use the H1B system to hire their friends and relatives who are absolutely unqualified for the job. I can't prove it, but I'm sure their is a shadow market where some managers demand BRIBES from H1B applicants in illegal pay-for-play hiring schemes.

6\. H1B workers have been brought in by companies (like the Disney case) to replace American workers. Sometimes, the domestic workers are forced to train their replacements before being laid off. This has caused a lot of resentment towards H1B workers.

7\. The Indian "Consultancy" companies: Tata, Wipro, Cognizant, etc. — Too much to talk about. These companies are the worst offenders and chronic abusers of the H1B system. I'd implore both American workers and H1B applicants to stay away from any company that has a large swath of H1B workers — read: INDIAN

<comment><USER14> I am confused by one thing here. If you and other person had similar jobs, why was the other H1B approved, considering legally they are required to pay comparably? I keep hearing Tata, Wipro, Cognizant as the main culprits, but being a Grad student in the US, I know quite a few Indian students(being one myself as well) and none of them aspires or even thinks about working for these companies.

<comment><USER13> The other H1B gets approved because:

1\. The government mostly rubber-stamps H1B applications.

2\. The company is required to pay "prevailing wage" which isn't necessarily market rate.

3\. Companies play fast and loose with titles. They can present "Computer Programmer" as the title in the application but in reality the worker is a Linux Kernel hacker.

<comment><USER14> That seems worse for the actual candidates. With the lottery being what it is, there is I think almost 50% chance of a candidate getting H1B.

Also for prevailing wage, I checked what a Computer Programmer should make in SF. I got these as results

Area Title:San Francisco-San Mateo-Redwood City, CA

Metropolitan Division

OES/SOC Code:15-1131

OES/SOC Title:Computer Programmers

GeoLevel:1

Level 1 Wage:$31.26 hour - $65,021 year

Level 2 Wage:$39.56 hour - $82,285 year

Level 3 Wage:$47.86 hour - $99,549 year

Level 4 Wage:$56.16 hour - $116,813 year

Mean Wage (H-2B):$47.86 hour - $99,549 year

That doesn't seem bad, so I am guessing these companies are doing some really "creative" fudging up to give low wages. For reference the url for finding this for other jobs and locations is [http://www.flcdatacenter.com/OESWizardStart.aspx](http://www.flcdatacenter.com/OESWizardStart.aspx)

EDIT: Formatting</comment></comment></comment></comment>


The Ecodrain: How a simple, non-moving part can reduce hot water consumption by 40% - <AUTHOR> http://www.inhabitat.com/2009/03/23/the-ecodrain-cuts-water-heater-use-by-40/

<comment><USER2> It doesn't reduce water consumption, it reduces energy consumption required to heat water.

Now, of course, the missing calculation is how much energy is required to make a stainless steel heat exchanger, install it, and perform maintenance. If that is more than 40% of the energy I spend on showers over the useful life of the device, then I'm not buying either a cost savings or an environmental improvement, I'm buying an image of myself as "environmentally conscious".

I'll have to admit, though, if I were the manager of the gym (which has 25 hot showers in the men's room kept between 34 and 40 degrees Celsius running for probably in excess of 1 hour per day each), this might be pretty interesting to me for economic reasons.

<comment><USER3> chances are the useful life time of a chunk of steel with a couple holes in it is as long as the rest of your plumbing

<comment><USER4> Being a heat exchanger I assume it uses small tubes with tight turns. Probably not great for hair.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> I'm skeptical. To get meaningful energy transfer in a heat exchanger, you need time for the two material streams to be in thermal contact with each other. This is done by either increasing the surface areas using some porous or tortuitous channel, or just making the channels really long. In either case, it means you have significant pressure drop.

Now, a significant pressure drop in the incoming flow is bad enough, as I like a strong shower. But more concerning, is the pressure drop in the drain, which is already only at atmospheric pressure.

I predict lots of plugged drains and showers that you're wading ankle deep in water. Or... more likely, they found all this out, reduced their pressure- drop, and ended up with a device that doesn't really save that much energy.

</comment><comment><USER6> This doesn't warm up the water to the heater, but rather the water going to the cold side of the mixing valve in the shower.

If it takes me 5 minutes to get the stupid thing at the right temperature now, imagine what will happen when the temperature of the incoming cold water depends on the temperature of the drain water - and it's a positive feedback - the hotter the water, the hotter the incoming cold water, making the output even hotter, etc.

This has the potential for using more water rather than less. Although I assume not all faucets are as sensitive as mine - in less than a degree or so of turning I go from freezing to boiling.

<comment><USER7> According to their actual website, you can set it up so that it feeds the warmed water back into the water heater, rather than straight back into the shower. Apparently there are thermostatic mixing valves that would probably help with your problem as well (although I just read that in their FAQ and really don't actually know what that even means).

<comment><USER6> Of course you _can_ feed it that way, but the plumbing would be very convoluted - up to the shower, through the machine, and back down to the heater. The loss in water pressure would be bad, and can you imagine having two showers? The plumbing would be nuts.

I know about thermostatic mixing valves, but I'd have to break the wall of the shower, and redo all the tile. But I guess if I'm putting in this device I could do it at the same time.

But all the thermostatic mixing values I know of actually work on water pressure - so if someone turns on a faucet it automatically adjusts to keep the temperature correct.

I don't know of any that actually measure the temperature of the water, which is what is needed to help this device.

If you want to do this properly you install a heat exchanger on your main sewer stack, and then route the incoming water line through it. They do exist, this concept is not new.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> This line didn't add up for me: "likely your most energy-intensive daily household activity". I think overall temperature control for my house is vastly more expensive than this, given that my gas bill drops to $45 in the summer but touches $300 in the winter. I also run the dishwasher every day and do an average of one load of laundry per day (kids!).

Not a bad idea for new construction, but dialing back your hot water heater to 120F from the 140F they list probably saves more energy overall.

<comment><USER7> While I pretty much agree with you, and the water heater advice is great, I suspect that a decent part of that $300 jump in the winter is because the temperature of the water entering your home during the winter is much colder than it is in the summer (a.k.a. it costs significantly more to heat the same amount of water in the winter than it does in the summer).

<comment><USER9> Probably not. Water entering the house comes in below the frost line so the pipes don't freeze in winter and the ground temperature below the frost line is pretty constant year-round. There is a small change, but the water coming out of my cold faucets is almost the same temperature whether is 100F or -25F outside.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> I've seen an even simpler non-moving device to reduce electricity use in supermarket freezers. Because the air in the freezer gains heat more quickly than the produce, the freezer switches on too often. A simple sleeve for the thermometer made in a material with heat capacity comparable to the produce makes the thermometer measure something closer to the temperature of the food. It got tested by the standards agency in the UK and is getting used in some supermarket chains (I'd post a link if I could find one!).

</comment><comment><USER11> I'm not sure whether I like this particular design but the idea is very good aand basic.

It is one of those things that are

\- rather orthogonal to the existing system (plumbing) \- helps a bit in each installation \- but cumulates large gains when scaled up over a threshold number of installations.

So far, such ideas for energy consumption haven't typically thriven largely because energy has been cheap but this will probably change. It would be a good idea for the government to subside installation of such devices.

In Finland (and other Nordic countries, I guess, and probably in any country with subzero seasons) we do the same in machinated ventilation systems in homes and buildings. The thermal energy of the warm indoors air (that is exiting the system) is transferred to the air intake where it's used to heat the cold outdoors air (that is entering the system).

</comment><comment><USER12> When I saw the title, I was expecting basically a low flow drain. I'd imagine you would take a shorter shower if the water was pooling up around your feet as you did it.

<comment><AUTHOR> As a previous commenter pointed out, the device purportedly saves up to 40% in hot water energy, not consumption. My bad on the incorrect title

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> Wastewater heat exchange is not a new concept. Here's a 1986 paper on it. <http://www.gfxtechnology.com/Pravda.pdf>

The GFX "falling-film counterflow" system is mounted vertically, in-line with the plumbing drain, and has a wide-bore drain pipe. It seems to me that this is inherently less prone to clogging than the horizontally mounted Ecodrain would be.

</comment><comment><USER14> Clever device, I'm not convinced it would save a lot of money for one person taking a quick shower every morning, but I do think it could benefit those households with three or four people all wanting a shower in the morning: by recovering part of the heat from the first showers, the last person has a better chance of getting a hot shower instead of a lukewarm or cold one.

</comment><comment><USER15> Pretty brilliant in it's simplicity. I'm not sure how it'll deal with all the crap that always works it way down the drain, though.

<comment><USER16> This is from the FAQ on the EcoDrain website:

        When my drain clogs, I use chemical and/or bacterial
        cleaners to unclog it. Is it safe to use these with the
        EcoDrain?

        The EcoDrain is corrosion resistant and it is as safe to
        use chemical and bacterial cleaners with the EcoDrain
        as it is for the rest of the piping.

The FAQ also says there is a non-stick coating to help prevent buildup inside the unit.

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> This doesn't add up. The drain water is, by definition, cooler than the boiler water. Looking at the diagram, cold water is heat exchanged with the drain water which means it will be heated but to less than what a boiler does.

This heated stream is then pumped directly to the shower to be mixed with the boiler water, which should cool it a bit. Anyone else find this odd?

Personally I'd redesign the system to put the exchanger upstream of the boiler water inlet which means that the boiler would need to expend less energy to heat the water going to the shower head.

<comment><USER18> The idea is that, instead of using cold water to mix with your boiler water, you use cold water that has been slightly heated by the heat-exchanger. This allows you to use less water from your boiler.</comment></comment>


Why Engineers/Programmers Suck at Selling - <AUTHOR> http://blogs.xobni.com/asmith/archives/39 <comment><USER2> Engineers can be great at selling, given one major caveat. They must learn to communicate with people who are less sophisticated then they are without being condescending.

I was (shockingly) successful at selling for 3 simple reasons.

1 - I know what I'm talking about. 2 - I tell the truth. 3 - I don't care what other people think of me.

If you can share ideas well, and have prior three traits, you'll stand out. The biggest issue I had was confusion about what selling is. Selling is not 3 martini lunches at strip clubs, or schmoozing with execs. Selling is about sharing a story about how you can (or even more important, cannot) help a person/company solve a problem.

Note, this is a rather different type of selling than so called cold-calling (I can't imagine a more perfect personal hell, than doing that).

</comment><comment><USER3> My suggestions to my engineer business partner is to talk about actually using our products not coding them.

1\. Please don't use the YOU word to the customer. e.g. You need, should, could use this to help you do this. Instead my suggestion: I build this to help me solve this would it help you.

2\. Please don't explain the tech functions. I don't want to build it, all I want is to push a button and have it work.

3\. Tell me how long you've been using it or been needing it, not what it takes to build it and write the code.

<comment><USER4> Thanks that's very helpful. I always seem to fall on number 2 and 3. The occasional 1 pops up every now and then..</comment></comment>


Facebook to use your address to confirm ad-driven purchases. - <AUTHOR> http://www.businessinsider.com/facebook-is-quietly-ramping-up-a-product-that-kills-us-says-yahoo-source-2012-11

<comment><USER2> I think this method will have a lot of false positives. Facebook will want to hope that they show the ads to people who will be buying the product anyway, so they can take credit for the sale. I don't see it accurately keeping track..</comment>


Hacker Claims Feds Indicted Him with 44 Felonies When He Refused to Help the FBI - <AUTHOR> http://www.tripwire.com/state-of-security/latest-security-news/hacker-claims-feds-indicted-him-with-44-felonies-when-he-refused-to-become-an-fbi-informant/

<comment><USER2> Perhaps bullies should be killed while still infant... at least until we can send them to the Mercury colony.</comment>


Apple selling a $79 MacBook Pro power adapter without a USB-C cable goes too far - <AUTHOR> https://9to5mac.com/2016/11/10/opinion-macbook-pro-power-adapter/ <comment><USER2> It seems obvious that Apple is trying to reach iPhone-like levels of gross margin in the Mac lineup. Prices of the new Macbook Pros are getting ridiculous.

I'm pretty sure that's why they are getting out of the display business; they wouldn't be able to sustain their ridiculous margins, so they leave that part to someone else.

<comment><USER3> I think you nailed it. Their 40% gross profit margin is quite infuriating. Particularly since they're just milking the franchise by now, rather than actually innovating.

<comment><USER4> Well all other vendors are selling for much less profit. If margin is really an issue others would end up having windfall.

<comment><USER3> But all the other vendors suck. We're all having this conversation because we hold Apple to a higher standard. And more pragramatically speaking, because we're tied to OS X, which is really the only desktop OS that does not suck immensely on a laptop.

<comment><USER5> and THATS why we pay the 40% margin.

the choices are: buy a desktop OS that sucks immensely from from a vendor who sucks, or pay a mere 40% extra.

feels cheap to me.

<comment><USER6> >> But all the other vendors suck.

...

> buy a desktop OS that sucks immensely from from a vendor who sucks

Come on guys! If you want to buy Apple, then buy Apple. No need to crap on EVERYONE ELSE like this to justify your choices.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Too far? Apple is a luxury good. You are buying the Prada, the Audi/BMW/Benz/etc of laptops - they position themselves at the high end market and will extract as much margin as they can from that market. These price increases follow suit with their aspirational positioning. There is no "too far", just what their target market with a lot of discretionary income will still purchase.

<comment><USER3> There is a "too far". When it slides from being an expensive good tool to a very expensive luxury item mostly used for show. It's a lot easier to be pretty than to solve (new) problems.

Of course, their watch foreshadowed all of this. They are not interested in solving problems; they want to turn into a Prada/Chanel/Hermes/LV style super luxury brand.

<comment><USER7> > they want to turn into a Prada/Chanel/Hermes/LV style super luxuary brand.

The Watch Edition showed that there's a step too far for them, but it's not the definition you used. Nobody bought the thing. We had to get into the five figures for that to happen, though, and it's because Apple didn't fully understand the luxury watch market isn't entirely driven by how expensive the thing is.

That said, Apple has been pushing the luxo market for quite some time, even before the watch. There has almost always been cheaper items than Apple products that fulfill roughly the same niche. iPhones are often a status symbol, and now having the _newest_ one is, now that they are ubiquitous.

The fact that they are somehow supremely useful sometimes falls out for the sake of design. Remember the little iPod shuffle that had absolutely no buttons that they marketed like jewelry? What about the headphone-less iPhone 7 or the Thunderbolt 3 / USB-C only new MBP? Going older, what about the 20th Anniversary Mac, the G4 Cube, or the iMac which didn't come with a floppy drive and nearly everyone bought that Bondi Blue SuperDrive thing?

<comment><USER3> I think you're missing the point. We all looked to Apple for technical, user- focused innovation.. now all we're getting is a good-looking and expensive things that's best sold in a jewelers shop.

I really can't see this working out for them in the long run. (In the short term, sure.)

<comment><USER7> I believe that you are taking too much stock in believing that you and your needs are Apple's primary market now. Software developers are but a small niche compared to Apple's worldwide consumer base, and they are developing for their market at large, that buys these products for the social signaling and never use 30% of their capabilities. They _want_ good looking and expensive things, and the capabilities of the devices Apple is producing is an improvement over the last iteration as well as still above the common consumer's resource consumption to start.

<comment><USER3> I'm not speaking as a software developer now. I think it's an established fact that "normal" people love (loved) Apple products because they "just work" (worked). The prettiness is a nice bonus, but they key thing was always the concept of "things just working".

I now see Apple moving their focus from "just working" to "pretty", while raising prices.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Is there a reason why the power adapter wouldn't include a USB-C cable? Can it be used without it? Does the power adapter work with older Macs using a different cable?

I'm not trying to forgive apple, I'm trying to understand why/how a decision like this could be made.

<comment><USER9> Perhaps most people who buy an adapter do it to replace an old one, so you can use the old cable.

I prefer things modular like this. It lets me re-use / buy the right length cable for the use-case. The only problem I see is the price here.

<comment><USER10> The prior generation of MBP didn't use USB-C for laptop charging, though, so nobody except Macbook Air users would be doing this.

(I don't know if all USB-C cables were required to be able to carry 87W, so I'd be slightly wary of reusing cables for that at the moment, too...)

edit: someone downthread pointed out that the laptop itself comes with the USB-C cable you'd use for this, so this makes more sense now.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> > _But I discovered that Apple did have one more hidden extra cost in store > for 2016 MacBook Pro buyers_

This seems like an extremely misguided article. The overwhelming majority of users don't buy extra power adaptors. I'd wager that most power adaptors that are purchased are to replace the old power adaptor (because it was damaged or lost). So no, this is not a hidden cost in store for MBP buyers, this is a "hidden cost" in store for the handful of people who like to buy 2 spare power adaptors to go with their brand new computer.

<comment><USER12> I have one for each of my desk setups at work and home. I don't think I'm the majority in any way but I don't think it's that uncommon either.

USB-C cables are cheap enough anyways as long as you find one that can handle the power and amperage

<comment><USER11> Everybody that I've ever worked with (that uses an MBP) has an external monitor at work, and external monitors provide power so you don't need a separate charging brick.

<comment><USER12> I think you might be referring to the thunderbolt display. I run 2 or 3 27" monitors. The thunderbolt displays have not interested me because they haven't been updated in so long. Many developers don't use the apple displays and instead a solid dell, asus, etc as most of their work is text based.

<comment><USER11> Everybody here at work uses Thunderbolt displays, but with the new MBP, if you're using a USB-C display, it should also provide the same functionality.

<comment><USER12> Good to know. I'm not sprinting towards the new MBP but look forward to the next gen hardware in that form-factor, not to mention hopefully some very polished and performant usb-c docks

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> One more time, this is greed. More than ever their North Star (to use an expression of T. Cook) seems to be greed. I'm lucky enough to have enough money to be able to buy their products but lately I seem to have reached a threshold where I think there is something really wrong with their behavior, I'm less and less inclined in enabling them by buying their stuff. First time in years I thought about switching back to Linux as my main system.

</comment><comment><USER14> The Macbook (2016) itself does come with a USB-C cable for the power adapter right...? Does it?

<comment><USER15> Yes - a fact that most people seem to be forgetting.

People will be less apt to complain when they realize they don't have to replace their entire adapter when they wear down the cable as is the case now.

<comment><USER16> Although there was no technical reason that the old chargers had to have a moulded-on DC cable. In fact it may have been better from a usability and durability perspective if the DC cable had had a Magsafe connector at each end, one for the PSU and one for the laptop.

And with that design they wouldn't have needed to introduce a new charger at all..

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> Two complete power supplies for a MacBook Pro cost more than the ThinkPad my dad is running Creative Cloud and Visual Studio and whatever else on.

With huge financial jump in the barrier of entry with these MacBook Pros, and with my Mac Mini no longer being supported with this release of mac OS why would I (and I suppose many others) still want to touch the Mac ecosystem with even a ten-foot pole?

I think Apple is purposely squeezing the line dry for what they can still wring out before they'll jump ship to what can only be called iOS "Pro".

<comment><USER11> I'm pretty sure ThinkPads cost more than $160.

<comment><USER17> A$266 for two complete power supplies.

I just hopped on eBay and surprisingly lightly used T- or X-series ThinkPads i5 and some i7 for under that price, shipped. Sure, they hold no candle to the MacBook's display. But when you could buy literally ten ThinkPads for a MacBook with effectively the same non-screen specs there's a bit of a gap there.

And I've had way more problems with Apple build quality over the years than ThinkPads.

<comment><USER11> Two power supplies is $160. The extension cable isn't necessary, and the USB-C cable is just a generic USB-C cable that you can get from anywhere (and in fact you don't even need to get one if you just keep your existing cable with your laptop) And you're also comparing brand new top-of-the-line Apple equipment with _used_ computers.

<comment><USER17> Alright, I guess I can only buy six or eight lightly used Core i7, 256GB SSD, 8GB upgradeable RAM ThinkPads for the cost of a MacBook Pro instead of 10.

And you're calling a laptop with a Core i5 with integrated graphics "top-of- the-line". I guess top-of-the-line is a distorted concept when the absolute top of the line for the company hasn't been touched in 3 years and that I could outclass by a factor of three in every way for a third of the price.

My point isn't that you can't afford it, good on you. My point is that the barrier of entry for your BRIC or even EU consumer or developer is going to be unreasonable.

And sure, they're going to get their USB-C cables elsewhere. But that guy in Rio is meant to be paying... $4100 for the cheapest device with an official mac OS touch bar for the time being.

<comment><USER11> Barrier of entry? What the hell are you talking about? You're literally talking about the most expensive laptop Apple has and pretending it has anything at all to do with _entry_. That's preposterous.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> According to around 1:50 of [https://youtu.be/zkOKtwiceVw](https://youtu.be/zkOKtwiceVw), Apple hid the extension cable inside the box underneath everything else.

<comment><USER11> Wrong cable. That video is showing where the extension cable is, not the USB-C cable. And that's talking about the MacBook Pro itself, not buying the power adaptor as a stand-alone product.

</comment></comment><comment><USER19> I don't really care that they're no longer bundling the 2 together. What I DO care about is having to pay $79 for a charger then another $20 for the cable. Those prices are just f __ked...

</comment><comment><USER20> Well, I'm at least excited that this cable is a separate piece. I'm tired of needing to get a new macbook charger every time the joint of the white thin wire and the brick gets bent out of shape.

<comment><USER21> That's not the problem. The problem is there isn't one included with the charger. It doesn't need to be sold only included or only separately.

<comment><USER20> I understand that problem, I was just pointing out the silver lining :)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> They should just rebrand to Apple Accessories co. at this point, because the level of greed is unprecedented.

</comment><comment><USER23> Author should read Thorstein Veblen's seminal work _The Theory of The Leisure Class_. There is no "too far" when it comes to conspicuous wealth.

</comment><comment><USER24> Won't there be third party vendors selling these adapters for much less? If it's just for travel I won't mind using one that's not from Apple.

</comment><comment><USER25> The gripe seems to be more with the price rather than the lack of a cable per se. Since they sell the cables too.

<comment><USER26> I suspect one purpose of the gripe is to embed lots of amazon links.

</comment></comment><comment><USER27> This video explains the rationale from apples point of view - [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-XSC_UG5_kU](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-XSC_UG5_kU)

<comment><USER28> I laughed my ass off :D

</comment></comment><comment><USER29> > the $69 (13-inch model) or $79 (15-inch model) power adapter

I wonder why they have two separate adapters and couldn't make one for both. Seems to add a bit of fragmentation.

<comment><USER30> I do not know if the prices were different in the past, but 13" laptops previously used a 60W power adapter, while the 15" used an 80W

<comment><USER29> Interesting. I figured it was the same, like how the iPhone and iPhone Plus is the same...

They should make a magic power adaptor. Since using USB C. If plugged in start charging it at like 60W and then once the computer is booted up it could use the data part of USB C to tell the adaptor to change if possible. Then when the cable is unplugged from the laptop or adaptor then go back to 60W...

I also wonder if its any bad if people plugged their iPhone's into these power bricks too hmm.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER31> It's just a USB Type C brick. I have several (from various vendors including Apple) and use them with different (non-Apple) cables, including those with Type C on one end and micro A on the other. No big deal.

Those adaptors should outlast your device and are hopefully relatively future proof.</comment>


Rethinking Robert's Rules of Order - <AUTHOR> https://blog.lareviewofbooks.org/essays/profits-order/ <comment><USER2> I'll be brutal here: Robert's Rules of Order are a severely outdated method that creates divisiveness and polarization through majoritarian voting -- the same types of problems we see in politics today. It made sense as a big improvement in the 1800's -- it doesn't in 2019. Key quote:

"Its arcane rituals of parliamentary procedure and majority rule usually produce a victorious majority and a very dissatisfied minority that expects to raise its concerns, again, at the next possible meeting."

Anyone considering Robert's Rules should read this first: "Breaking Robert's Rules: The New Way to Run Your Meeting, Build Consensus, and Get Results" [1] by Lawrence Susskind -- an MIT and Harvard professor. [2]

That book is a "popular" condensed version of the ideas behind practical consensus-building. If you want to implement it in your organization, see his full-length "The Consensus Building Handbook". [3] It's textbook-priced unfortunately (for organizations to purchase, not curious individuals), but many academic institutions will have direct access to it online. [4]

[1] [https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0195308360](https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0195308360)

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

[3] [https://www.amazon.com/Consensus-Building-Handbook- Comprehen...](https://www.amazon.com/Consensus-Building-Handbook- Comprehensive-Agreement-dp-0761908447/dp/0761908447)

[4] [http://sk.sagepub.com/reference/the-consensus-building- handb...](http://sk.sagepub.com/reference/the-consensus-building-handbook)

<comment><USER3> I don't disagree that many groups could get closer to consensus with better meeting management, but in practice building consensus is often an illusion. I've been in organizations where building consensus meant continuing to meet and rehash until the minority group got sick of meeting and stopped arguing. Then we voted and the majority ruled, but there was still no consensus. Massive waste of time. Make your case succinctly, vote, and move on. You win some and you lose some.

Problems arise when the minority opinion members can't recognize the possibility that they were perhaps wrong or perhaps not seeing the complete picture. No truly productive debate can ever occur unless both sides are willing to recognize the very real possibility that they are wrong or at least that there are often multiple reasonable ways to solve a problem.

<comment><USER4> Why is it only the minority that needs to recognize they might be wrong? Sometimes the majority is wrong.

<comment><USER5> Because the majority opinion is set to actually be implemented, so it will be obvious to everyone whether or not it is wrong.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> I'm a university professor, and I served on the Faculty Senate for several years. Our meetings were conducted by Robert's Rules.

I share the negative views expressed here by others. Following the rules amounted to a form of bikeshedding. For example:

"The Committee on Curriculum on Courses presents a list of 83 proposed changes to the Undergraduate Course Schedule. ... Is there a motion?"

And so we go through an elaborate procedure, to make sure that everything is discussed and voted on "correctly". In reality, usually nobody read any of the documents that were provided in advance, and there is neither any discussion nor any dissent. At most, someone from Department X will object to some proposal that their own department has "requested", and ask that it be stricken.

Occasionally the meetings get heated, in which case I agree that some sort of formal procedure is a good thing. But "following the rules" allows everyone in the room to believe that we've done our jobs. And when we've endured mysterious and unexplained budget cuts, at a time when tuition and enrollment are both at record highs, I'm not convinced we have.

<comment><USER7> You have the option to move to split the motion, so that that items 21 and 45 are voted on separately and all the noncontroversial items can be passed.

The rules are for a body that has the power to make binding decisions. That's sometimes time-consuming, but that's the nature of democracy.

<comment><USER8> The rules themselves on the subject:

> General Consent or Unanimous Vote. By general, or unanimous, or silent, > consent the assembly can do business with little regard for the rules of > procedure, as they are made for the protection of the minority, and when > there is no minority to protect, there is little use for the restraint of > the rules, except such as protect the rights of absent members, or the right > to a secret vote. [1915 edition]

Don't forget that key that if there isn't a minority to protect, you don't need all the rules. Split the things that people actually need to discuss out of the stuff that is unanimous, move that the unanimous stuff be won by acclimation, and move on to the stuff that actually needs to be discussed. Even Robert's Rules says to do it. People like processes, and following processes to their logical extremes, but at the end of the day the process exists for a goal ("give minorities a voice", in this case), and outside of that goal/need becomes silly and overbearing, and it knows it which is why it has always had escape valves.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> We hacked RRO recursively for a political campaign:

A wine company was importing wine from apartheid South Africa - under NZ law at the time any 100 shareholders could call a SGM every 6 weeks, we had 100 small shareholders ... we started with the AGM where the accounts had to be accepted by the shareholders for the company to continue to trade.

Simply the script went like this:

1) Someone moves a motion of no-confidence in the chair (under the "aged and infirm incompetence act 1897" which does not exist, he turns bright red in anger but is required to step down while the motion is dealt with)

2) a vote must be taken, someone demands a written ballot which is their right

3) the chair proposes scrutineers

4) someone challenges the scrutineers and proposes their own up their own

5) so we have to vote .... at this point you recurse back to step 2, if they ever agree to your scrutineers you have someone in the wings ready to challenge with their own slate of scrutineers ....

(it's important to keep track of how deep you are in recursion because the chair is bound to forget ....)

Of course in practice eventually someone breaks and declares the whole thing silly, restores the real chair and continues the meeting, adopts the accounts etc .... then you go to court because the chair wasn't valid and therefore the accounts weren't really adopted and the company can't trade ... (we never got that far, after one round of this ALL the other wine companies capitulated)

<comment><USER10> Why are you proud of this?

<comment><USER11> It sounds like he was trying to stop that company from doing business with South Africa during Apartheid, which is a morally praiseworthy stance.

<comment><USER10> The ends don't justify the means.

<comment><USER12> On the balance... these means appear to be quite harmless

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> The intentions behind the rules are noble but any organization I have been a part of which runs on them ends up being some group who have mastered the rules using them to torture some other subset who are there just trying to get something substantive achieved.

<comment><USER14> There is a certain personality type which seems attracted to Robert's Rules as a sort of diceless pen-and-paper roleplaying game. Bureaucracy and ritual become their own ends. If you get too many of this sort of person in a meeting, it is virtually impossible to accomplish anything.

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> I fully expected this article to discover/declare that Robert was a Bad Person and therefore we must abandon RRoO. My knee-jerk conclusion wasn't far off. Not Robert, but his heirs are the Bad People.

The premise of this article is the problem, not Roberts Rules themselves, regardless of edition: That if person A invented thing B, then no matter how useful thing B may or may not be, it is the character of person A, not the utility of thing B, that determines whether we can use it.

Enough of this crap. Enough of outrage farming. Enough of guilt-by-association ad absurdum. RRoO, like any other invention or discovery, stands or falls on its own merits.

I've seen RRoO used tyrannically to suppress debate, and I've seen them used wisely. No set of rules is going to perfectly fix contentious interactions or political underhandedness. Even consensus-based alternatives can be and are manipulated.

<comment><USER16> I don't think there's any guilt by association being assigned to anything. The article in my head amounted to the realization that the corporation behind Robert's Rules does not itself adhere to the book's teachings and has had problematic elements in the past. So instead they recommend other resources, one explicitly still about Robert's Rules itself.

>> I'm ready to advocate on my campus against all post-1915 editions (with apologies to Cleary) in part because of her politics and in part because there are plenty of alternatives. My new favorites are Nancy Sylvester's The Complete Idiot's Guide to Robert's Rules, and Alice Sturgis's The Standard Code of Parliamentary Procedure

The only outrage I felt came from your comment.

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> I'm not a certified parliamentarian, but I do have a decent amount of experience with Robert's Rules from extracurriculars in university, so I just wanted to make two points.

1) This quote ("Under Robert's Rules, silence equals consent") is incredibly untrue, and makes it hard for me to take the rest of the article seriously. Abstention does not mean that you agree with a motion, and there are protections (e.g. quorum) to prevent abuse by a small cadre of disingenuous voters.

2) In my experience, very few organizations actually take the time to understand and follow Robert's Rules. Most just rely on whatever rules some motivated members happened to cherry pick from the text, plus a smorgasbord of bylaws and policies drafted by the organization (see edit). There is an argument to be made that maybe Robert's Rules is too complex to be useful, but most organization members only need a passing understanding; as long as you have a chair or parliamentarian who is familiar with the ins and outs, they should be able to keep meetings running smoothly and shut down most attempts to lawyer the system.

Edit: For example: "the December 1964 late-evening vote by leaders of Students for a Democratic Society to focus on the Vietnam War and the December 1966 late evening SNCC vote to expel all white members (19-18, with 24 abstentions)". But Robert's Rules typically requires a 2/3 vote for disciplinary actions (such as the expulsion of a member). I don't have a copy of the 1951 edition to confirm, but I would be surprised if it allowed expulsion with a simple majority vote.

<comment><USER8> I had some similar thoughts.

Out of curiosity, the original 1876 edition [1] doesn't include membership votes as requiring 2/3rds, but also doesn't directly address membership votes of that sort (and leaves that to a body's rules).

It also uses the word "abstain" twice, but does not yet formalize abstentions.

The 1915 edition, however definitely includes Vote to Expel Members as requiring a 2/3rds vote [2]. (It also doesn't seem to codify abstentions, other than generally allow for them [blank ballots in a balloted vote].)

I'm also wondering if that "24 abstentions", which seems wildly high, if accurate. That's a lot of people not to care which way the vote went. Keep in mind that absentee ballots, and absent members, are very different from abstentions (and absent members do not count as abstentions, because they were not even present for the vote).

[1] [http://www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/9097/pg9097-images.html](http://www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/9097/pg9097-images.html)

[2] [https://www.bartleby.com/176/48.html](https://www.bartleby.com/176/48.html)

<comment><USER18> I speculate that many, if not most, of the abstentions were whites who were there to help, but in light of the organization's goal of increasing black power, wanted on this occasion to cede power to black members. I highly doubt that they "didn't care".

<comment><USER8> An abstention intentionally says that either outcome pass/fail is fine, whichever the remaining majority decides. While "didn't care" may be harsh descriptor for that, it's also not factually inaccurate. But you are correct that it _can_ also represent "I'm not capable of making this choice" or "I should not be culpable in making this choice", which often is far from "didn't care" in emotional intent, even if the recorded vote was "did not lend explicit support to either outcome".

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> Why hasn't anyone re-written Robert's Rules in a manner that minimizes the rule exploitation/manipulation, but builds-in consensus-seeking activities?

Now that we've had 100+ years of game film on Robert's rules, you'd think we could find ways to rework the incentive structures, rules, and game theoretical elements so they're less likely to result in gridlock and procedural exploits.

<comment><USER20> Because any system that lets you modify the rules is inherently broken. There's some apocrypha involving Kurt Gödel and a loophole in the US Constitution that gets at this point [1]. But it's really not the system's fault, it's the users' fault. Any rule-making system worth writing home about is exploitable, because that's the only way it's useful.

[1] [https://jeffreykegler.github.io/personal/morgenstern.html](https://jeffreykegler.github.io/personal/morgenstern.html)

</comment></comment><comment><USER21> I think Robert's Rules should be treated like our dev team treats Batsov's Ruby Style guide (1): Use them as a starting point but forked and modified as appropriate for our use case. And then maybe another teams likes ours better, and uses it as a starting point and forks it to make changes. Recurse as needed.

Too bad it wasn't published initially on github in 1876. What were they thinking.

(1) [https://github.com/rubocop-hq/ruby-style- guide](https://github.com/rubocop-hq/ruby-style-guide)

<comment><USER22> I'd be a Patreon supporter of someone who maintained an open-source version of RONR on github!

</comment></comment><comment><USER23> I love that I can walk into any caucus and know the parliamentary protocol and act effectively within it. Sometimes I wish "all hands" were conducted in this manner.

<comment><USER20> 95% of what all hands meetings need are: a clear agenda, time limits, and someone to actually enforce time limits. Come to think of it, all meetings need that. What kind of business are you conducting at your all hands meetings such that RRoR would be helpful? Even Robert's Rules itself says that the rules shouldn't just be used for their own sake, because it's all too possible for rule-making and procedure to get in the way of actually being productive.</comment></comment>


Plentyoffish.com is looking for a PhD to build a referral engine - <AUTHOR> http://plentyoffish.wordpress.com/2009/08/08/looking-for-phds-and-a-senior-controller/

<comment><USER2> Didn't chemistry.com start as a referral engine test by a PhD? (This may be heresy.)

</comment><comment><USER3> The fact that you have PhD at the top of your list, rather than as a footnote, tells me that you don't know what you need in a designer/developer, aren't entirely sure that your concept is viable or even doable, and are likely to wind up with some mediocre corporate programmer with little experience, and even less creativity, rather than someone who truly knows what he's doing and could have turned your idea into a real product; and as is usually the case, your poor selection in a designer/developer will result in a poor company with mediocre products that probably don't work like they were originally meant to, but not before you burn all of your venture capital on his salary and numerous wasted expenses on infrastructure and partner products to give your non- working solution an overcomplicated and underrated backend.

Good luck!

<comment><USER4> <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plentyoffish>

They aren't a new company. They have 11 million users.</comment></comment>


Show HN: A habit tracking app for Android - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/blaztriglav/did-i

<comment><AUTHOR> I started coding slightly more than a year ago, in large part because of HN and the mentality of creating things for yourself, so I thought I'd share my first true weekend project (okay, it was 3 Saturdays, part of a Tuesday, and a Sunday). It's nothing special, but I still wanted to put something out there for display. I'll gladly answer all questions! :)

<comment><USER2> Can you add an "Installation Instructions" section to the README?

<comment><USER3> There is a link to the app on Google play, otherwise just import it as an android project and build it yourself I would guess.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> I'd like to congratulate you, not only for your app (that is pretty nice) but for being open to criticism and help a lot of new developers making your app open.

Thanks!

<comment><AUTHOR> Thank you! I wouldn't have gotten anywhere in coding without open source and the communities around it, so it would be poor form not to try and give something back. Hopefully I'll contribute slightly more elegant code in the future :).

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> Nice.

Use ActionBarSherlock to make the UI compatible to older versions. Really use to use.

I'm about to launch a site for Android developers. It might be useful to you. Hit me up if you're interested.

</comment><comment><USER6> Nice! For those without Android, dayscore.net has similar functionality, (no daily reports though)

</comment><comment><USER3> I love the simplicity of the app.</comment>


Anders Hejlsberg, Steve Lucco, and Luke Hoban: Inside TypeScript - <AUTHOR> http://channel9.msdn.com/posts/Anders-Hejlsberg-Steve-Lucco-and-Luke-Hoban-Inside-TypeScript <comment><USER2> This looks very interesting indeed. I particularly like the fact that they're not trying to replace JS by using it as a compiler for a higher level language (as with Coffee Script, Dart etc.), and also I like how they've retrofitted the interfaces for the DOM, node.js, MongoDB etc. That's a nice touch.

The lambda syntax from C# is also nice to see, and something I miss when writing JS.

I think the solo presentation is better here: [http://channel9.msdn.com/posts/Anders-Hejlsberg- Introducing-...](http://channel9.msdn.com/posts/Anders-Hejlsberg-Introducing- TypeScript)

<comment><USER3> What happens when one of the APIs for node or Mongo adds a function? Would we have to wait for TypeScript to add the function to the interface, otherwise there will always be compilation errors? This sounds a little delicate.

<comment><USER2> You could just go and change it manually, it's just a source file. It also sounds like they're open sourcing the lot...

<comment><USER3> Yeah, I agree with that, but when I upgrade Node I also don't want to spend an hour or two fixing out-of-date interface definitions (although that would be a great way to get familiarized with Node changes).

<comment><USER4> I suspect that if TypeScript takes off that this will probably be crowd sourced, i.e. expect to see a ts-node project on github.

That said, I think they've done a reasonably good job of making it painless. Even if it weren't required, I quite like the idea of explicitly listing the 'global' dependencies a particular script has. I think it's going to make unit testing it more pleasant, i.e. because you declare the dependencies your script has, it's obvious what you need to mock out from the environment to unit test it.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Does anyone have a transcript? I'd love to spend five minutes reading rather than thirty five minutes watching.

<comment><USER6> Here is a summary : <http://api.tldr.io/tldrs/506aee4ec8f814a2370004fa>

We are a new startup working on making content more accessible through summaries, here is the HN discussion : <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4602377></comment></comment>


Embedded C driver for ESP8266 WIFI module to communicate with a cloud server - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/iammangod96/ESP8266-driver <comment><USER2> So can I directly include this driver program to my main firmware project and get features of it ?

<comment><AUTHOR> Yes. If you are using Keil microvision 4 for your embedded systems project then you just need to include this driver and the functions you need to call and other things are there on github. And I am also making a detailed documentation so that even a beginner would be able to use and contribute to it.</comment></comment>


My Life Listed is a simple & fun way to list, count & share your life - <AUTHOR> http://startupli.st/2011/02/02/961/

<comment><USER2> I'm confused. The link leads to a page that actually links to My Life Listed (<http://mylifelisted.com/coming-soon>), but it's not even up and running... and there isn't really any information about what it is or how to use it. A bit early to start spreading the word?</comment>


Vim vs. Emacs; is it really a competition? - <AUTHOR> http://chrispenner.ca/post/vim-vs-emacs

<comment><USER2> Agree with the author's sentiment. Sometimes I get people trying to start up a little holy war over editors and IDEs and my reply to them has always been, if you are sure you can't go faster in the editor/IDE you've chosen, then you've probably picked the right one for you.

Personally I've never understood the war over features.Especially in the case where we there is really just one clear metric needed which is "how fast can you get the job done"

Some people need intelisense and others can move as fast with just you- complete-me.vim. And that's all they need. End of story</comment>


Show HN: Let's Learn Reinforcement Learning for Flappy Bird in JavaScript (2018) - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/nileshsah/reinforcement-learning-flappybird <comment><AUTHOR> A tutorial on using reinforcement learning for the game of flappy bird</comment>


First Circuit Panel: There's a Clear Constitutional Right To Openly Record Cops - Suraj-Sun http://www.theagitator.com/2011/08/26/first-circuit-panel-says-theres-a-clear-constitutional-right-to-record-cops/

<comment><AUTHOR> Well duh, the TV show Cops has been filming cops for 20 years.

<comment><USER2> I believe those cops agree to be filmed.</comment></comment>


Ask HN: What should I name my newsletter? - <AUTHOR> I'm starting a newsletter to give career advice to developers. Any ideas for what I should call it? <comment><USER2> Developing Your Future (or FutureDev if you want something shorter).

<comment><AUTHOR> I like it. What you think of Developer to CTO

<comment><USER2> That's good too.</comment></comment></comment>


Online university granting certificates launched by Hasso Plattner Institute - <AUTHOR> https://openhpi.de/

<comment><AUTHOR> The news itself is not that interesting, since you can watch most of their courses on iTunes U anyway, BUT: they will actually give you a certificate after passing the course.</comment>


How to write a simple TCP Server in Haskell - <AUTHOR> http://catonmat.net/blog/simple-haskell-tcp-server

<comment><USER2> And this can run on all your cores (I don't know if it does as shown but it would be a command-line param to ghc if not), and is "async" without requiring the commandProcessor function to be broken into two or three separate functions by hand; instead it just says what it does and does what it says and you don't have to worry about it.

<comment><USER3> I understand how Haskell can use the cores automatically, but can you point a lower being like myself at some documentation or even terms to figure out how this becomes async for free?

<comment><USER2> You've basically been lied to about "async" in the past few months, or at least led on by ignorant people; the word used to mean something but there has been a concerted effort to screw up its meaning. When you write in Haskell

        line1 <- hGetLine handle
        line2 <- hGetLine handle
        line3 <- hGetLine handle

(Which is not quite the exact same thing shown, I'm showing an example here.)

This will get three lines. These lines may not come right away; someone could be using Telnet to send them for debugging purposes, for instance. The Haskell scheduler automatically notices the socket is blocked and puts the thread away until there is enough input to finish the line. It may even end up reading the line from many packets. Once it is ready, control returns to your code, then it may do it again for line two. At no point will the main OS process be "blocked"; you can have a ton of these running simultaneously, all waiting at different points. The language and runtime simply take it in stride.

That you may have to manually chop code up into a series of callbacks because of the limitations of various technology stacks is one thing. I've had to do that too. The way this has been promoted in some circles as the _only right way to do it_ is absolutely bizarre. No, it's not right. You should be able to just write your code and not be responsible for manually scheduling it. Compilers and the runtime can do that for you, and it's actually easier for them.

The lie I referred to is that the source code I show _must_ be synchronous because you don't see the points where it is chopped into little bits. The _truth_ is that this is perfectly possible to do automatically in any number of ways, and that code is at least as "asynchronous" as Node.js code (and possibly more so, depending on the implementation of "get one line"). This isn't a special Haskell feature, either, numerous other good languages can do this, Erlang, Go (I'm pretty sure), Stackless Python, Lua (I think), and that's not even a complete list.

Furthermore, it's not only asynchronous, it's a _superior_ type of asynchronous. This code maintains execution context way better than any manually chopped up "asynchronous" code could. If the code I showed was in the local equivalent of a "try" block, the exception would actually work as you expect; whether the first, second, or third call fails, they could all be handled by the same try block, exactly as the source code would show. If I got a stack trace (in one of the other languages I mentioned where "stack trace" means something, in Haskell it's a bit... trickier), it would be completely sensible. The composability of code written this way is far, _far_ superior to manually-chopped up "asynchronous" code, because functions can simply take other functions as arguments without having to care whether those functions themselves may have asynchronous components to them.

Fun task, try converting the following psuedocode into Node.js losslessly, with only one "try" and no duplication:

        function readTwoLines():
            return [readLine(), readLine()]
        function readLineAndDie():
            readLine()
            throw NoLines("No more lines, I think")

        function doThings([functionList]):
            # 'call' just applies the function
            try:
                return map(callFunc, functionList)
            catch NoLines:
                return null

        function main():
            a = doThings([readTwoLines, readTwoLines])
            b = doThings([readTwoLines, readLineAndDie])
            print a, b

That's should consume 7 lines, and print a list containing a list of the first two lines, then a list of the third and forth lines, then print a null. It may be possible, but you won't like it.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Are there similar productions of this, for other languages? It'd make a great point of reference./

<comment><USER5> Racket has a similar sort of tutorial in its official documentation.

<http://docs.racket-lang.org/more/>

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> if your interested in event-driven programing you should try sxe <http://simonhf.wordpress.com/2010/10/09/what-is-sxe/> <http://github.com/jimbelton/sxe>

</comment><comment><USER7> It's all imperative code. Would someone who really knew Haskell write it differently?

<comment><USER8> Haskell works well for both declarative and imperative styles. I would make some small changes ('forever' instead of explicit recursion, less duplicate code in handlers), but it would be basically the same.</comment></comment>


GOV.UK: new government site built with open source software, £70 million cheaper - <AUTHOR> http://digital.cabinetoffice.gov.uk/2012/10/16/gov-uk-the-start/

<comment><USER2> Great to see.

But the headline is misleading. There's some cost savings from software licensing, but it appears that the real savings is the transition from in- person services to web services. The article below cites how the "Digital by Default" initiative (which kicked off gov.uk), is partially responsible for the DVLA cutting 1,213 jobs. These are regional offices where people stand in line to get licenses and renew registrations.

[http://www.computing.co.uk/ctg/news/2189527/dvla- cut-213-job...](http://www.computing.co.uk/ctg/news/2189527/dvla-cut-213-jobs- embraces-digital-default-agenda)

</comment><comment><USER3> Awesome.

Except for loading in google analytics. I'd really rather that my interactions with my government were not reported to a US based megacorp.

<comment><USER4> This is pretty important point IMO.

Why couldn't they use a local analytics system? Perhaps partner with one of the OS analytics like Piwik?

Edit: Um, I just looked, they don't appear to be using GA but a local system already?

<comment><USER3> Err... Still there when I look at the page source for the front page at <https://www.gov.uk>

<comment><USER5> Edit: Ignore this, its wrong. I was looking in the wrong place. Should have been <http://gov.uk>.

I've just (17:10 utc) at the source for <http://digital.cabinetoffice.gov.uk/> and [http://digital.cabinetoffice.gov.uk/2012/10/16/gov-uk-the- st...](http://digital.cabinetoffice.gov.uk/2012/10/16/gov-uk-the-start/) there is only one occurrence of the string "google" in the page, and that is is link to a font called 'cabin':

<link rel='stylesheet' id='linen-accent-font-style-css' href='<http://fonts.googleapis.com/css?family=Cabin:bold> type='text/css' media='all' />

Doesn't look like they are using google analytics to me, at least not now.

<comment><USER6> "We track usage of the site with Google Analytics, using their API heavily to build dashboards"

<http://digital.cabinetoffice.gov.uk/govuk-launch-colophon/>

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> For the curious, here is the tech stack: <http://digital.cabinetoffice.gov.uk/govuk-launch-colophon/>

<comment><USER8> > The majority of our applications are written in ruby, based on either Ruby > on Rails or Sinatra.

> A few components are written in Scala and built on top of Play 2.0

> We're running Mapit from MySociety which is built on top of Django

Thank god it is not another Drupal based government site!

<comment><USER9> To be fair, Drupal et al. are great for throwing at non-technical users and letting them create their own content.

<comment><USER8> Absolutely agree. But for an entity like the UK govt having plentiful resources, it would be sheer laziness to go with a solution like Drupal due to ease in initial setup. Besides, most Drupal sites look sort of kludgy in appearance.

<comment><USER10> You do realize the "appearance" of a site has nothing to do with the underlying stack, right? A Django site can appear like a Rails site can appear like a Drupal site can appear like a ...

You can argue for differences in behaviour, sure; but appearance?

<comment><USER11> I disagree. Drupal makes it hard to do easy things, creates a lot of unnecessary HTML, and makes it very hard to do things not The Drupal Way.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> (Reposting a comment from yesterday for background)

This is part of a larger government initiative to curb outsourcing of IT projects. Traditionally these sorts of things would be built by large software companies at enormous expense to the taxpayer. Gov.uk has been built by a (relatively) small in-house team, by people who genuinely care about what they are building. They embrace the fact that they are building tools for the good of society rather than just satisfying a contract.

Also as a citizen, I love that I can open a pull request on my government's website ( <https://github.com/alphagov/calendars/pull/1> ). We've got the ball rolling in opening up government data on the internet, but this is a great example of how technology can enable citizens to get involved in government.

</comment><comment><USER12> Great, where's that money gonna go now..

<comment><USER13> reducing the deficit?

<comment><USER14> Inconceivable.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> This is great... except it looks like an empty domain page. The design is horrible.

<comment><USER16> I liked the old design with search first and foremost. They should bring that back.

<comment><USER17> It didn't test well:

[http://digital.cabinetoffice.gov.uk/2012/10/03/why-weve- chan...](http://digital.cabinetoffice.gov.uk/2012/10/03/why-weve-changed-the- homepage/)</comment></comment></comment>


Steve Ballmer gives advice at Oxford - <AUTHOR> http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=amc-rwsQXrA

<comment><AUTHOR> A lot of really fantastic points from Steve Ballmer that go counter to a lot traditional startup advice - e.g. fail fast, time to success, what brands mean. Hope others find this useful.</comment>


The $30,000-A-Night Jet That Flies Empty - <AUTHOR> http://www.forbes.com/sites/andrewcave/2016/08/29/the-30000-a-night-jet-that-flies-empty/#4accc7677995 <comment><USER2> > Across the U.S., more than 95% of packages ordered over the internet are > delivered by three organizations: FedEx, UPS and the U.S. Postal Service. A > similar percentage of the logistics operation to get these packages to their > destinations happens before the last mile.

So... 95% of US internet purchases get delivered by one of three organizations... and 95% of the logistics of delivering a package occurs before the last leg of the delivery.

I don't get what's going on in the article here. These aren't comparable things. It's like saying "men are under 50% of the population, and vowels are under 50% of the alphabet".

<comment><AUTHOR> They are saying the majority (95%) of the logistics and complexity occurs before the package arrives at the local distribution center (local Fed Ex, UPS, Post Office).

You are correct though, it is strange that they intertwine that in; it just makes it confusing. "These two unrelated things have similar percentages so lets make that point."

</comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> One of the commentators on the story says: "An empty plane flying every night – an excellent example of the value of spare capacity. But I wonder how many organisations would have taken a narrow view, classified this as "waste" and cancelled it?" is so on point. Reminds me of Tom DeMarco's Slack: Getting Past Burnout, Busywork, and the Myth of Total Efficiency ( [http://amzn.to/1H4qRld](http://amzn.to/1H4qRld) ) which is all about having slack (spare capacity, which means not having 100% efficiency) in order to deal with unplanned issues. Failing to have slack results in a slow grinding process when issues arise and has enormous opportunity costs.</comment>