The one HR benefit every startup should add - <AUTHOR> http://42floors.com/blog/the-one-hr-benefit-every-startup-should-add/ <comment><USER3> I actually really rather prefer buying my own insurance, and by that I mean I buy only the minimum required by law. Insurance companies design their policies to get more out of you then you get out of them, and they've gotten very good at figuring out ways to deny benefits to people.

Just give me the money in my paycheck and let me do with it as I see fit. The money I would spend on insurance I put into a personal savings account. I insure myself.

I spent $1200 _total_ on health care costs in the last 3 years. Now that Obamacare requires I buy insurance or else get hit with a penalty, I'm going to be spending a lot more than that every year.

Why should it be cheaper to have group policies through employers? The entire freaking point of the insurance company is that they are pooling money from a bunch of people over time in the form of premiums to be able to distribute to a minority who need it in emergencies. It's already a paramutual arrangement, why do we have to obfuscate it with employer group policies?

Insurance, at least as it is done in the US, is a scam. It is an oligarchy designed to keep medical services prices high so they can justify outlandish premiums as merely just a small percentage margin.

<comment><USER4> Your story of spending $1200 on health care in three years could very well have been one of being completely bankrupted because you suffered a serious but not life-threatening injury. Unless you're a millionaire, you cannot self- insure when it comes to health care. It's not hard at all to rack up a couple of million dollars in hospital bills if you get unlucky, and you'd probably never be able to pay that back.

Of course, the hospital would still treat you, and the rest of us end up paying for your care through slightly higher insurance premiums.

In short, you're implicitly mooching off society, and apparently proud of it. You managed to get away without actually triggering it, so far, but you were pushing a lot of financial risk onto other people. (Ignore this if you are, in fact, a millionaire.)

You wonder why individual plans are so much more expensive than group plans. It's _because of people like you!_ Group plans include every employee, healthy or not, while millions of healthy individuals forego buying individual coverage because they think they don't need it. This gives the individual market a much riskier pool of customers.

I agree with the basic idea that the US health insurance market is completely messed up, but you're really doing it wrong, here.

<comment><USER3> In any risk assessment, you have to balance impact with likelihood. Yes, it _could_ have happened, but the likelihood is so rare that it's not worth the premium.

Once again, that's the entire point of the insurance company. They balance impact and likelihood.

Even if I had the insurance to cover me, you're _still_ going to get slightly higher insurance premiums. You're actually more likely to receive a higher delta because I _was_ covered than I wasn't, as the hospital will recoup its losses across all insurance providers, while the insurance company will recoup across only their own constituents.

The health insurance system is an oligopoly that allows insurance companies and health care providers to collude to set artificially high prices. Drug companies, hospitals, surgeons, medical schools--they all get their payday and the insurance company gets to make a "small" percentage margin on top of it. Which just so conveniently means that they're some of the most profitable companies in the world. Just look at the bottom dollar. If they weren't making out like bandits, they wouldn't be making out like bandits.

It's specifically _because_ of ubiquitous health insurance that health services prices are so high. If more people covered themselves, the price of services wouldn't be high, insurance payouts wouldn't be so high, and thus insurance premiums wouldn't be so high. I'm actually doing you a favor by sticking to my principles.

EDIT: and regardless of all of that, nobody has the right to mandate what others do with their lives. I could have chosen to be a burger flipper for the rest of my life and your argument would of social impact would still hold, even be worse because society would be out my higher tax revenue.

<comment><USER4> Yes, I'd be paying for your care either way. The difference is, the way you're doing it now, you contribute nothing while I still pay for your care. If _I_ get a million-dollar hospital bill, _you_ don't pay more, but the reverse is true.

If insurance weren't ubiquitous, service would be cheaper, sure. And people would die or be bankrupted by treatable medical conditions like crazy. This is why insurance is so common. People don't like that kind of thing.

Given the system that we're in, you're doing me no favors at all by refraining from obtaining health insurance as a healthy person. You've decided that the risk of bankruptcy is acceptable while externalizing a lot of that risk.

<comment><USER3> Your notions of my responsibilities for how and when to protect your financial security are of no concern to me. I will make my own contributions to society as I see fit.

<comment><USER5> Disclaimer: Am Indian, and have no detailed knowledge of US policies. From a summary of the replies to this one: I personally, would be willing to sign a forfeiture to the effect, if i am medically in a bad state and can't afford treatment, would be allowed to die. So it seems, there might be room for allowing people who don't want insurance, and neither penalty to sign a forfeiture.

Personally, my choice is dictated by an attempt to understand my body and live a fuller life and some of those attempts suggest to me that insurance is overrated in light of Bayesian reasoning _._ \-- not to suggest i actually sat down and calculated, just a guess.

<comment><USER6> It wouldn't be practical.

For example, consider what happens if, as is very likely, you change your mind. The doctor says, "It's cancer, but it's treatable." You say, "Oh, I didn't think this through, please save me."

Very few doctors could say, "Tough, here's some aspirin, GTFO." If they could, they wouldn't have chosen to become doctors.

Or consider the case where you're unconscious and dying. Do they save you, or not? They can't really know what it will ultimately cost, and the certainly can't know how much money you could raise.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> We didn't have this type of insurance at YC but now we're going to get it. So thanks for the tip Jason.

<comment><USER8> Group disability insurance is very often worthless and not worth even the paltry sum an employer pays for it.

 _Disability insurance is all about the definition of disability. Only a few people have a truly comprehensive disability policy through their employer. This is because the definition of disability for group policies usually requires that, when making a disability claim, you cannot work in your job "or any other job" (or something to that effect). As as a result, you usually must be completely and totally disabled on a permanent basis to collect long term disability from your employer._

[http://www.bogleheads.org/wiki/Disability_insurance](http://www.bogleheads.org/wiki/Disability_insurance)

Often, they don't kick in for 6 months and then because you're still able to sell pencils for 50 cents on the street corner they will not cover you.

The reason why individual policies are typically much more expensive is because their definition of disability is different. Many individual policies are "true own occupation" which means that if you're now a neurosurgeon they can't force you to work at a McDonald's drive through.

<comment><USER9> My LTD is 60% of my income, tax free (very important, always pay for any disability post-tax, if you don't your income from it is taxable), until I am able to make over 80% of my pre disability income.

It provides me benefits from 6 months after my disability (I decided not to pay for short term which starts at 2 weeks until 6), and will keep going until I am ~65 years old.

<comment><USER8> Is it an "own occupation" policy? If not you have to be a vegetable before you can collect the 60% you signed up for.

<comment><USER9> Just double checked. It's own occupation for 24 months, then it becomes reasonable occupation. I have a feeling that that term is something that when 24 months approach, you want a good lawyer for.

Still, considering I'm paying less than a coffee per month for LTD, and personally knowing someone who was once working as a top tier developer and got into a serious biking accident that left him with brain injuries, I'm going to buy into it. Next year I'm going to push HR about that 24 month clause.

<comment><USER10> >>It's own occupation for 24 months, then it becomes reasonable occupation.

Reasonable occupation is pretty vague and I think this kind of word-play is what helps insurance companies find reasons or even solid justifications to not pay up in the end.

As your parent comment implied, the insurance company can just argue selling lemonade or pencils is a 'reasonable occupation' and can even prove there are people surviving daily on such a business. And all that can become a base reason to just not pay up.

<comment><USER11> Does anyone sell "insurer not paying" insurance to cover lawyer fees?

<comment><USER12> This is actually what I thought OP was posting about when I was waiting for the page to load.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> > And one of the things my dad brought up with me is just how important it is > to have a good long term disability insurance plan in place. I had never > actually heard about it. Long term disability is a policy that can pay out > 60% of your salary for the rest of your life if you have an occupation- > ending injury.

This is surprising to me. I'm Canadian and I've worked my whole life here so maybe this is one of those Canadian vs US things, but I've never had a job that didn't have long term disability as part of its offering.

Most pay the standard 60% of your pay for the rest of your life if you are unable to work at that job any more.

As someone with a family, I'd say its probably the most important form of insurance to have, if you have someone else to take care of your kids in the event of both parents dieing.

<comment><USER14> Isn't this provided by the national health coverage in countries with a welfare state? AFAIK there are a lot of people on disability checks in the US as well, I'm not sure it pays well though.

<comment><USER15> In Quebec, there is a maximum insured by the state and it start 180 days after the event. So if you hand up breaking your ribs/hands and stop working for 4 months, you never get this. My private insurances cover from 60 days up to the 180 days at 80% and then goes down to 60%. The effect of the state insurances is to lower the cost of the private insurances.

<comment><USER14> Wait a second, this is if you do get fired for breaking your hand right? In most European countries I guess you'd just be on sick leave for 4 months.

<comment><USER16> What would happen if you were self-employed? Is there some sort of sick-leave state benefit then?

<comment><USER14> Yes this is what happens in Italy. You pay almost 30% of what you make in a compulsory fund for retirement and disability pension and when you need it, the state pays you.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> AFAIK there are two common types of long-term disability policy:

1\. You are covered if you can't do your current job. 2\. You are covered if you can't do any job.

Every employer who has ever offered me this benefit offered the second version, which is great, but it certainly won't help replace my current income if I can't perform the job I have now.

<comment><USER18> I'm not sure how you prove that you are partially disabled for any job that is primarily mental rather than physical. For example I once worked with a guy that was a lead software engineer. Shortly after he was hired, he got into a car accident and sustained a serious concussion. He claimed that after the concussion he could write basic code, but he didn't have the ability to concentrate enough to solve difficult problems or architect complex systems. How is an insurance company supposed to determine his level of disability? They don't really have a baseline to determine how strong of an engineer he was before the accident. Are they obligated to pay the difference between the salary of a junior and senior level engineer if he gets fired?

<comment><USER19> I'm not a WC attorney but my brother is so take this with a grain of salt, but my understanding is that adjusters will work to evaluate you to determine the legitimacy of your claim. This goes for just about any kind of claim, but you can bet that if you are making a claim that can add up to hundreds of thousands to millions of dollars over your lifetime, they are going to expend some effort to make that determination. This would involve experts in the field evaluating you through tests and interviews.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> Dental coverage is a scam. I priced dental insurance for my startups for three years. The only plans available to companies with less than 50 employees have benefit caps that were less than the cost of the yearly premiums! You get "free" cleanings and x-rays but it still makes much, much, much more sense to take the cost of the premium and put it in a health savings account for your employee to spend on dental care (or any other qualified medical expense).

<comment><USER21> At least in my area (NYC) the value of dental insurance is also they negotiate very low prices with their providers. For a root canal the difference was 50%.

<comment><USER22> I don't have numbers, but back when I had no dental insurance, my dentist reduced the price without any prodding. I'd be surprised if this wasn't common.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> It just occurred to me that the more benefits jobs provide, the more dependent on those jobs people become, and the harder they fall when they lose those jobs.

This is NOT an argument against providing benefits, of course. But it does create a weird dynamic.

<comment><USER24> People might be unable to leave because they need their current employer's health insurance, but not leaving because of losing disability? That's a new one.

<comment><USER25> Potentially stupid question, but wouldn't they be covered under their new employers insurance?

<comment><USER26> Not a stupid question.

I am covered, during my time I am diagnosed with cancer. I get treatment, and am declared "free" of cancer. I remain that way for 5 years, and claim no more benefits. I am still covered.

I leave, and join a new company. To enter their health insurance, I have to declare any "pre-existing" conditions. They see that I am in remission from cancer, and offer my employer two choices: pay hugely inflated premiums, or get no cover. My new employer never expected to need to cover premiums 20 times that of their existing employees, and consequently I am now screwed.

<comment><USER27> Many times there is an exception for pre-existing conditions if you had continuous credible coverage.

<comment><USER24> The "P" in HIPAA stands for "Portability."

Group plans are limited in how long they can exclude someone for pre-existing conditions, and guarantees no waiting period if they already had qualifying insurance.

The private market doesn't have the same protections, for reasons both good and bad.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER28> We actually put Ltd in place this year. For our company (11 employees, almost everyone in their 30s) it added like $10 a month to our policy. We also pay 100 percent of the health care and it's our #1 expense after labor.

<comment><AUTHOR> OP here. I'm not an expert, but $10 per month sounds too low. Check the policy and make sure it covers your employees against disabilities that still allow them to work minimum-wage jobs.

Usually the income-parity clause costs extra.

<comment><USER28> I don't remember the actual number, but it's laughably low (maybe $10-20/employee, frankly it was a number of months ago).

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER29> Man, this really brings back bad memories of wrestling with health insurance, dental insurance, and the like in my previous USA startup. Now I'm in the UK and we don't have to worry about it!

<comment><USER30> Long-term disability benefit is still important even if you have free healthcare. It's fantastic that state healthcare will keep you alive should something terrible happen to you. But that's not going to fully help any of your dependents.

<comment><USER31> One of my UK employers was quite large and had particularly good disability benefits because a small number of staff worked in physically dangerous jobs, the union wanted those staff treated really well if something bad happened and so everyone in the entirely company was covered for 80-90% of their wage.

A new desk-bound sales guy started and had a stroke before lunch time on his first day and was going to be out of action for a good long while - <USER2> forever. A serious stroke is bad news, but he was sure lucky that it didn't happen a few hours earlier.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER32> Too Link-Baity; Didnt Read

"The one weird HR benefit every startup should add"

</comment><comment><USER33> Seems like many otherwise smart people think in terms of "how likely am I to need this?". Insurance should be thought of in terms of "how screwed would I or my family be if...?". If somebody depends upon your income, get life insurance and long term disability. If _you_ depend on your income, get long term disability. Everyone except for billionaires needs major medical insurance (USA). And stop insuring things that you can afford to replace (warranties generally).

</comment><comment><USER34> It baffles me how few people have disability insurance. What would you do if injured your hands and could never type again? What would your family do? Everyone should have disability insurance -- it should be a fundamental part of your financial life.

<comment><USER35> Isnt this what social security disability is supposed to cover? Obviously it won't give you as much money as a private plan, but it wouldnt be a total disaster.

<comment><USER36> Getting social security disability is a small nightmare and can take months. The majority of initial claims (60%+) are rejected and you'll have to appeal.

Which, you know, is no problem at all if you're actually so injured you can't work.

<comment><USER37> Months? Try years.

<comment><USER36> Heh.

I wanted to be truthful and didn't know off the top of my head what, say, the median time for a claim to be accepted was.

I remember it being something like 2-5 months to get a response, so multiply that by the number of appeals (up to 4, I think) and my ballpark estimate is that the median time-to-acceptance for all eventually-accepted claims is around 6-18 months.

So, I figured saying "could take months" was a more honest thing than saying "could take years." If the median time were greater than a year, after all, "it could take months" is still true, but the converse isn't true! If I had said "years" instead of "months" and was wrong, someone could easily have replied, saying, "You're exaggerating. The median time to acceptance is 9 months, not _years_. The claims that take years are exceptional cases."

In any case, I didn't know, so I wanted to err on the side of intellectual honesty. That'll teach me. :P

Also, I don't know if you (and the other person who replied with the same comment) have ever heard of Wiio's Laws: [http://www.cs.tut.fi/~jkorpela/wiio.html](http://www.cs.tut.fi/~jkorpela/wiio.html)

One corollary of those laws is this: "If nobody barks at you, your message did not get through." :)

<comment><USER37> Heh, sorry about my reply. I was just speaking from being on the end of having a parent who went through the process. I seem to remember it taking on the order of more than a year. Good news is it is retroactive from when you apply though. This was over 20 years ago, things might have changed since.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER38> I just left an employer who had 100% salary continuance insurance in place.

Maybe mine is the minority view, but I found it a horrendous waste. When I left the employer it offered to have my portion of the policy transferred to me personally so that I could "continue to enjoy the benefits". I didn't even bother responding (despite leaving on otherwise very good terms).

While I work, I expect to be remunerated. But I don't allow myself the hubris to expect that remuneration should continue in perpetuity. If I decide not to work, or am unable to work, I would prefer to adjust my circumstances to accommodate that fact, rather than continue to pretend otherwise.

<comment><USER4> Insurance is about distributing risk. Instead of e.g. 2% of people taking a 100% loss, 100% of people take a 2% loss. Since a guaranteed 2% loss is way more palatable to many people than a chance of a 100% loss, this works out well for many people.

It's not "hubris", it's simple economics. If you don't like it, you don't have to take it, of course. You're allowed to take the option of being forced to live on the streets if you suffer an injury that makes you unable to work for a living. But don't think that other people are somehow deranged for disagreeing.

<comment><USER38> I never said that I consider my view objectively correct or superior... and never intended to imply that a contrary view would be deranged! Far from it; I explicitly recognised that mine was probably a minority view.

However the submission implicitly assumes that this option is right for everyone ("The one HR benefit that every startup should add"). I recognise that some people see it as valuable. Hopefully those people can also recognise that other people don't!

I also think the strawman of "Take disability insurance or live on the streets" is rather hyperbolic. The actual alternative is relying on social security disability payments and my existing savings vs an insurance-funded pension. Maybe I'll have to let my chauffeur go, but I'm hardly going to be sleeping in gutters if I take the former option.

<comment><USER39> My wife's working through the social security disability process, and it's not something you can rely on for months if not years (assuming your appeal of the nearly guaranteed initial denial even works!). If she had been our family's single income we'd be destitute.

<comment><USER38> That sucks... sorry to hear it.

My country doesn't seem to have implemented the blanket-denial first stage of the process yet, however luckily I have savings which could tide me over until the payments get backdated in that eventuality.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER40> The difference in cost of benefits such as health, eye, dental, life and disability insurance, particularly if dependents are included can easily cost tens of thousands of dollars a year more for one employee than for another.

Do you want to haphazardly compensate your employees like that, without it even being bargained for during the hiring process? Wouldn't it be better to negotiate a total compensation number instead? You could potentially be looking at a whole different class of employees for the same total money.

Though maybe the (irrational) bad will generated would wipe out the gains.

</comment><comment><USER41> This is one area where health care insurance costs are pretty affordable. We are a web design company in the sunny state of Florida, so these are our rates based on 10 to 20 employees.

From my understanding the larger you are, the cheaper the rates. Since the article /comments asked for typical rates, here is where we are at to compare. Not sure how many employees 42floors.com has, but $2,500 per year would probably be around 5 to 10 employees if they were all male.

STD/LTD Group Policies - Our rates are typically $21 to $60 per male employee and $71 to $150 per female employee per month. So it could add about $250 to $1,800 per employee depending on their salary and gender.

Maternity Leave - The good news is that this covers maternity leave of 3 months for our lady employees. This is a nice benefit to offer. It also explains the higher rates based on gender.

Health Care Coverage - Most group health insurance policies are super high in monthly premiums ($200 to $600 per month for individuals and $1,000 to $1,500 for family coverage). We cover this in full right now for individuals. But it is a huge ongoing cost, especially as everyone gets older and starts families. STD/LTD policies are very cheap by comparison (obviously geared towards a different life event).

Other options - It would probably be cheaper if you just bought long-term, if the concern is catastrophic coverage. But we cover short term too and that increases the rates.

<comment><USER42>
      Our rates are typically $21 to $60 per male employee and
      $71 to $150 per female employee per month.

Did they mention why female employees cost so much more?

I thought (from car insurance prices etc) that men are more likely to get into accidents? I was under the impression female-only things like childbirth were fairly safe these days.

<comment><USER43> From the GP:

      Maternity Leave - The good news is that this covers maternity leave of 3 months
      for our lady employees. This is a nice benefit to offer.
      It also explains the higher rates based on gender.

Maternity leave is much more likely to be utilized than long term disability insurance.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER44> My aunt used to work at a school that did not have this policy in place. The principle had a debilitating head injury that put her in a coma; she is now unfit to work for the rest of her life. It was tremendously sad for everyone involved, but it has also severely strained the school financially. Under Massachusetts law, the school is required to pay a large percentage of her original salary now that she is disabled. Had they taken out an LTD insurance policy this wouldn't have been a problem.

</comment><comment><USER24> Important note:

If the company pays for your disability with pre-tax dollars, your disability payments are taxed as income.

If you pay for your disability with after-tax dollars, you are not taxed on the income.

Keep this in mind when designing the plan. If taxing the employees on their disability benefits makes the benefits tax-free, you should give your employees that option.

<comment><USER45> This is why many plans pay 60% of your salary in benefits. Since it is tax free.

</comment></comment><comment><USER46> Comparing this with my French life is astonishing.

I can go in and out of hospitals/any doctor for almost free, ambulance ride included if necessary. For ~30€ monthly above the basic care (paid by employers). I don't recall ever worrying about money when it comes to health. What you have in the US is archaic.

</comment><comment><USER47> I'm not completely following this whole healthcare reform. I do know that it's more cost effective for employeers of small businesses to use a SHOP exchange: [https://www.healthcare.gov/what-is-the-shop- marketplace/](https://www.healthcare.gov/what-is-the-shop-marketplace/)

According to my current employeer they wont be able to purchase 100% coverage using the health exchange. So personally this is going to start costing me significantly more...

Edit:Apparently - our benefits consultant commented that it would be cheaper for individuals to purchase their own health insurance. I guess I will deal with that when the time comes.

</comment><comment><USER48> One thing not mentioned here is the waiting period. I.e. after you are injured and stop working, you are typically required to use up all of your sick/vacation time, and/or wait for 180 days until you can receive benefits.

I've worked for companies that offer short-term disability insurance -- which will cover the gap -- but this is less common than LTD.

This is why it's important to have an emergency fund to cover your living expenses for at least the waiting period. Otherwise you could be looking at eviction before the money from your disability insurance comes in.

</comment><comment><USER49> At Huddle, in the UK, we don't even need this (NHS. No, I don't want to argue about this.) but we have both health insurance and death-in-service coverage for families.

It's made a big difference to our general peace-of-mind, and there are a bunch of other things that go along with it to encourage fitness. We're all a _lot_ fitter than we were before, and since the team is more family-oriented than we were when the company started, death-in-service coverage is very welcome.

</comment><comment><USER50> The obvious question is how is "occupation-ending" defined, in particular for knowledge workers who could quite possibly continue working with even severe physical disabilities?

</comment><comment><USER51> I'm not clear on what the argument is here other than "X is good, therefore X should be provided by one's employer."

<comment><USER52> No, the argument is, X is good, but incredibly expensive for individuals. X (interestingly) is cheap for employers. Therefore employers can provide this substantial benefit X to employees in a manner they would not be able to alone.

<comment><USER51> I bring it up because there are downsides to coupling essential services to whoever happens to be your employer at the time. The upsides are mostly a consequence of the market adapting to decades-long tax policy. There's nothing special about employers, but I guess sometimes it's easier to reinforce a problem than to fix it.

<comment><USER52> Yes, I absolutely agree. I wish the US had a single payer healthcare system.

But that's not the reality we live in (yet, hopefully). So if these sorts of opportunities exist, presumably we should consider them.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER53> It doesn't make sense, just put those 2.5K to upgrade your retirement plan.

</comment><comment><USER54> Happy to have a nanny state take care of this bother for me

</comment><comment><USER55> Given the cost and the impact upon what would be a very bad disaster, this indeed makes so much sense and also seems cheap in comparision to other benifits a company pays out for.

Few questions though on these types of policy:

        1) What limitations are needed to be observed - must a company have a defined standard of health and safty and as such a defined quantifiable level of risk.

        2) Are such policys only limited to accidents or directly measurable incidents that casue a disability in an employee or are outside area's like a bad skiing accident also covered.  The whole area of say parkinsons and somebody who has a family history of it would that also be covered as that would be a disability reducing career situation.

        3) The employers impact - loosing an employee is very costly and some more than others but whoever you lose will be a impact that is fiscaly measurable from cost of finding replacement and training time invested, down to extra overtime upon the others to pick up the slack until somebody else is upto speed.  This is factoring in every thing is documented to the if I fall under a bus will my colleges be able to pick up the slack.  So with that a little bit extra on the insurance policy to cover the Employer impact is also worth investing in if not already coevred.  Especialy given the rates based on policy costs too me appearing cheap and rasing flags given the odd's of somebody getting cancer or a road accident that could very well limit there ability to work.

        4) Quality of work, if somebody who was able to be very productive has an injury that whilst not preventing them from working, yet reduces there productivity in a measurable way - then how i that covered?  This is probably a situation when you have a employee contract and that employee is so good he does other area's of work that everybody accepts without his contract being updated.  I know many people in IT who have a contract saying that they are say a DBA and yet they do sys admin, backups and other tasks that build up that if they just worked to contract and did database work then other area's would fall apart.  Though is very much a area of managment limits and avoiding giving people pay rises that just seems to happen.  But in IT you would find your contract being very open in definition of your role or be updating that contract weekly (can you halp me move this printer - sure let me get that added to my contract so I'm allowed to move heavy objects) and could get silly.  But from an impact perspective, if they can do a 2 week holiday without them being missed beyond there defined role then your probably safe, though if you end up calling them during that period then in short your being unfair to that employee (or allowing him to be unfair to his or her self, more the case); Which could have a noticable impact - not just in situations of them unable to do there job, but if they leave (which is how most communicate that they feel undervalued instead of talking with you about it, least with many IT types who are good at the job).

But for an employee, this type of cost for the return is frankly a no brainer given the example costs and with that I still can't help feel that the prices are perhaps too cheap and some actuary has messed up. I hope that ain't so, and my be that every other type of insurance is so over priced that I'm conditioned that way. But having worked in reinsurance, I do feel the risk and as such the cost of claim do seem somewhat out of sync and could be an insurance industries asbestos waiting to happen. But were all IT geeks and we now know how contracts and courts work so again this type of insurance for the cost is really just a no brainer that it can actualy save you and your family money to the extent that it is cheaper to insure the whole company instead of just yourself for family peace of mind - crazy and yet that is the case. But do check all the contract clauses as it does seem too cheap.

</comment><comment><USER56> Very, a merry, centric.

</comment><comment><USER57> Currently working for a company that doesn't offer LTD, and it scares me whenever I think about not having it, but not enough to buy it on my own. It's definitely a major plus.</comment>


And now it's global cooling. Record return of Arctic ice cap as it grows by 60% - <AUTHOR> http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2415191/Global-cooling-Arctic-ice-caps-grows-60-global-warming-predictions.html

<comment><USER2> Nope. It's not global cooling. The whole point of global warming and why people (fox news) are so stupid about it, it because it's not about the temperature that day or even that year. It about a slow and general tread. People are notoriously bad at probability and pattern over time, thus the existence of casinos and the lottery. So why would they get subtle movements in temperature over time, covered in erratic quick movements that appear as noise. (It's very cold today, therefore global warming is BS.) The entire media industry is guilty of this.</comment>


Graduate Programs in Programming Language Design - <AUTHOR>

I have a passion for Programming Language Design; designing compilers, languages and dreaming up functional code; I just finished undergraduate studies from Purdue University (BS: Computer Engineering) and would like to pursue the above for further studies...which schools and deptt. that humble readers of HN may know of, would you recommend? It doesn't have to be in US necessarily but that helps...just a bit more on myself; so far, I've not done anything ingenious; just followed standard compiler texts and replicated their code to understand what's going on...in this way, I've implemented compilers for very simple subsets of Java and C. There's obviously so much to do! PS: planning to start with graduate studies in Fall '10 (currently working as .NET developer with an IT Consultancy). Any help/advice greatly appreciated! HN rocks! (and "yes", I DO know what a y-combinator is! (yay!)). Shubham Harnal. <comment><USER2> Disclaimer: I dont have a graduate degree or even a CS degree, but I have done language design and implementation. I doubt that you will find a program in language design per se. You should already know the mechanics of language implementation: parsers, code generators, virtual machines, etc. I think the design of general purpose languages has converged on a few design schemes: static typing like Java, dynamic like Python, functional. Granted that it is possible to make huge improvements in Java and other mainstream languages, I think it might make sense to pick an area where most languages dont do it right, such as concurrency, and graft it on to an existing language. Even if your real interest is in the design of languages, I think you need to pick a goal for all this study. Given that, any good program with one or more professors that are working in your area of interest will work for you.

<comment><AUTHOR> Hey thanx Russell...yup, concurrency definitely seems to be one of the "hot" issue wrt language design; the thing is, I was hoping I could be in an environment(academic or otherwise) with like-minded people where I could be in the midst of good ideas and also position myself well for commercial work in the field; therefore, still looking out for academic programs...Thanks again though.

<comment><USER2> That was what I was suggesting. A few years ago I was very interested in language design from the perspective of generative programming and type system. I did an extensive literature search, reading the papers and all that. as a side effect I found out which university departments were actively exploring what I was interested in. Out popped Don Batory at U Texas, Krzystof Czarnecki, and work done at CMU and MIT. I recommend this as a way to focus in on what you are interested in and who to work with.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks again Russell...this looks like the way to go! I really appreciate your advice, Shubham Harnal.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> University of Saarbrucken in Saarland Germany seems to have a lot going on in this area. I'm probably spelling all that wrong. Also look for the LASER summer program that is in Italy each year. Finally, www.lambda-the- ultimate.org is a much better place to ask this question.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks!</comment></comment>


Rails Idioms + Django Templates + Erlang Power = Chicago Boss - <AUTHOR> http://www.chicagoboss.org/ <comment><USER3> Here's a few things I experienced when building an erlang webapp 4 years ago:

During dev, I had a server live for users to play with. The data structures were in flux, there was zero traditional data input protection. My users were domain experts, no tech background and would type in all sorts of odd inputs as there was no training or documentation on how to use the webapp. But I never once had data corruption issues and never once did the server crash. I was able to run this "test" server with no admin or headaches while I was doing dev.

The reasons are due to a few characteristics of erlang:

1 - you write concrete pattern matching, not abstract object containers. So a controller or model function would spec out a clear data structure that was expected as input. Anything else failed right at the point where the data didn't fit the patterns and guards.

2 - each request is handled by an isolated erlang process that fails gracefully and doesn't effect the rest of the system. So my early testers would get error dumps from the server for bad data inputs but they never corrupted the data or crashed things. I was able to take these error messages from test users to see how they were using the system incorrectly.

3 - Single assignment and functional programming were a big win in terms of writing once, testing once (not writing separate test code), and knowing that that piece of code was solid and I could move on.

The app was very responsive. All requests were ajax and this system felt like the server was running on the same box as the web browser. When we had errors, the erlang error message almost always showed the crash at exactly the point in the code that needed attention.

These characteristics speak to the power of the dev process, not scalability which is what you normally hear about erlang.

<comment><USER4> The language and development tools have exploded the last 4 years, both inside and outside Ericsson and especially after Armstrong's book and work on R12 started. I have a blog post brewing on all the improvements, here's an outline

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

string, regex handlers, faster file I/O:

\- "re" module replaces "regex"

\- faster iteration over large binaries, R13A

\- avoid io:get_line using raw access

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

metaprogramming/"DSL"

\- deep exploring parse_transform

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

frameworks, database, middleware

\- couchdb, nitrogen, mochiweb, erlyweb,and now the boss!

\- thrift, ejabberd, rabbitMQ,

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

debug, trace, static code analysis; verify program behavior

\- dialyzer, tidier (Sagonas and Avgerinos)

\- mcErlang model checker

\- quick check application vs. specification

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

data structures

\- destructive / mutable byte arrays (HiPE BIF)

\- shared immutable data structure

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

tail recursion

\- Ericsson expanding as fast as they can (e.g. "andalso",

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

SMP, run queues,

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

build systems, distribute your app

\- rake \- faxien, sinan (erlware)

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

Yah, this could be a _long_ post, take a while to draft too.

Dunno the state of scala, clojure and haskell /GHC docs these days, but to explore the dark corners of erlang dev, you ahve to do a lot of mailing list and google digging.

(and read Cesarini/Thompson book, which is equal to best software books ever, modulo fair number of typo's)

<comment><USER5> would you mind sharing your blog address ? i tried looking for it in your profile, but couldn't really find any pointers to it. thanks !

<comment><USER4> <http://isthiserlang.blogspot.com/>

nothing there yet, I've only been erlanging for a month or 2. But: i have been workiing on a better documentation database, you can email for details if interested:

base: genetanigmailcom; insert periods, after positions 4 and 13 and "at" you know where..gene

</comment></comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> This is by Evan Miller, whom this crowd may know from what was once titled the "Balls Out Guide to Nginx Module Development":

<http://www.evanmiller.org/nginx-modules-guide.html>

</comment><comment><USER6> I dunno, I'm pretty interested in playing with it. I'm a little cautious of trashing this based on the claims so far without seeing where it goes. Anyone remember the iPod thread on Slashdot that declared it as a useless product that would never take off? For all I know there was a similar one about Rails.

It does make some big claims, but I've been looking for a reason to mess with Erlang for a while and this seems pretty neat.

</comment><comment><USER7> Sounds like a good project! is the name an americanized version of "Tokyo Tyrant"?

<comment><USER8> It needs a "Chicago Closet" to go with it.

<comment><USER9> Capone's Vault.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Are Django Templates really that worthwhile to be compatible with? They seem quite annoying to me...

</comment><comment><USER11> "APIs will change, features may be broken, your car may explode when you turn the ignition, etc."

I think I'll wait awhile on this one...

<comment><USER12> Yeah, I'm with you. I haven't found a way to load my car into a test sandbox where failure doesn't result in the loss of the car.

<comment><USER13> I have yet to find a way to get my car in a test sandbox* where success doesn't result in the loss of the car.

*Note: for this to work, you will need a large sandbox. If it is too small, your car will be fine, but just try explaining what happened to the sandbox to your kid.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> This website's is a wreckage in IE8, just so you know.

<comment><USER15> With IE7, the site is basically empty. There's nothing after the line with the links to api, .... download on any of the pages.

<comment><USER16> Site wasn't made for IE users, it was made for developers.

<comment><USER15> I use IE and I'm pretty sure that I'm a developer.

What makes you so sure that I'm wrong about the latter?

My other open window is running emacs; it's where I've been writing Python code for App Engine for the past few weeks. If that doesn't qualify me as a developer, please describe the requirements, as I've been writing code since the late 70s.

<comment><USER17> I've been a lurker for a while but this comment has prompted me to create an account.

Of course the previous poster is making a generalization. If you're in the minority of developers using IE, good for you.

Developers are usually smarter than to use a browser with appalling performance and a plethora of bugs (that never get fixed) when much better choices are just a few clicks away.

This is probably a troll, but i'm hitting reply anyway...

<comment><USER15> > Developers are usually smarter than to use a browser with appalling > performance and a plethora of bugs (that never get fixed) when much better > choices are just a few clicks away.

So the problem is that I'm "not smart" (enough). Okay - so I'll ask a dumb question. Are those the only relevant criteria for choosing a browser? Or, are they merely always dominant?

> This is probably a troll, but i'm hitting reply anyway...

Not at all. I'm open to self-improvement.

<comment><USER16> To compare, I use a Mac and a FreeBSD box linked with synergy at work. Use uzbl on the FBSD box, safari on the Mac.

Frankly, I can't begin to fathom why you would willing use IE when the Chrome plugin, Firefox, Chrome itself, Safari, and various smaller webkit browsers are available to you.

I've never really seen the advantage of using Emacs unless you're a lisp hacker. Seriously. Also the keyboard shortcuts on Emacs are rather similar to a lot of the universal shortcuts on OS X, which you don't appear to use either.

So either potential mutual benefit you could derive from using Emacs is being left for dead.

Also, you're a _developer_ and you're using the very browser that's holding back our ability to build universal and standards compliant web sites/apps? Seriously?

You're just a part of the problem, regardless of vocation.

As for editing, I use Textmate/Gedit for code, vi for unixy stuff.

>> Developers are usually smarter than to use a browser with appalling performance and a plethora of bugs (that never get fixed) when much better choices are just a few clicks away.

>So the problem is that I'm "not smart" (enough). Okay - so I'll ask a dumb question. Are those the only relevant criteria for choosing a browser? Or, are they merely always dominant?

 _rubs face_ Okay.

You're knowingly using a browser that is buggy, slow, insecure, and is holding back the entirety of the web app dev community.

Relevant criteria? That's all there is to the matter! Unless you're being __paid __to use that abhorrent bucket of bile I can't fathom a legitimate reason to utilize it as a developer. Standards compliance, stability, performance, security...yeah...uh, what else factors into your choice of browsers, the phase of the bloody moon?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> >>>Chicago Boss is fully asynchronous, using one single process to handle hundreds or thousands of simultaneous requests<<<

>>>All other web frameworks will break down and cry if you ask them to process more than a few dozen simultaneous requests on a single machine.<<<<

Isn't this what facebook Tornado, Orbited and all the other servers using select()/epoll() solves?

<comment><USER19> Erlang's whole I/O and scheduling model is optimized for this design in a way that Python's simply isn't.

</comment></comment><comment><USER20> Having worked on several Rails projects and now working on a large erlang application, I'm not sure that bringing Rails idioms to erlang is a good or desirable thing.

I also find it somewhat funny that it includes an ActiveRecord port - <USER2> object-relational mapper in a functional language to talk to a non-relational backend (tokyo tyrant).

</comment><comment><USER21> blocked at work for potentially unsafe content? wow, this must be powerful

<comment><USER22> _How is Chicago Boss different from Rails/Django/Mason/CakePHP/My Favorite MVC Framework?_

Chicago Boss is fully asynchronous, using one single process to handle hundreds or thousands of simultaneous requests, and thus it solves the classic c10k problem. All other web frameworks will break down and cry if you ask them to process more than a few dozen simultaneous requests on a single machine. Chicago Boss is built with Erlang, the same platform used by banks and telecoms to achieve unprecendented scalability and (no exaggeration) 99.9999999% reliability.

 _Oh my_

<comment><USER23> _it solves the classic c10k problem._

Of course, this is the problem you get once you've _solved_ the hard problems already, which is how to get that many visitors in the first place. At this point you have the money to buy a bunch of servers, typically, so this is aimed at people who are really great at getting incredible numbers of hits, but really poor at monetizing them.

<comment><USER24> But isn't it true that scaling is not linear with dollars/development effort spent?

<comment><USER23> Depends on the application domain and design.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> Buzz + Buzz + Buzz = Boss

Looks interesting, though.

<comment><USER26> A little bombastic, but I got a chuckle out of this line:

All other web frameworks will break down and cry if you ask them to process more than a few dozen simultaneous requests on a single machine.

<comment><USER27> The most basic cause for bad technical decisions are wrong assumptions about technology.

If you believe every other web framework will get crushed with a few dozen simultaneous requests, you will be absolutely sure this is the solution you have been waiting for.

I am curious to try Erlang out, but I know exactly how many dozen requests my current tools can handle. And it's a lot more than a couple.

<comment><USER12> I'd be interested in some numbers. Is it "a few"? "some"? Give us some vague quantifiers here!

<comment><USER27> Before I roll-out apps to the folks who will really torture them in production-like servers, I play with about 100 simultaneous connections.

<comment><USER28> 100 is really only a few dozen :)

<comment><USER29> but it's close to 10 dozen...which is almost a dozen dozen...

I dunno. Vagueries. :)

<comment><USER30> Gross.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER31> I'd like trying this to fine-grain my Erlang skills.

</comment><comment><USER32> a.k.a. Al Capone

</comment><comment><USER33> Such a great pitch for a web framework.

</comment><comment><USER34> Geographically: The University of Chicago

[edit]: Hey down-modder: It's the last entry on his website. What's the -1 for? Are you saying those of us from Chicago shouldn't be proud of our institutions? Asshat.

<comment><USER35> My guess is that saying "Geographically: University of Chicago" doesn't really add anything to the conversation. Also, it wasn't in the linked page when I went there, so maybe there was some confusion.

Although, I just downmodded you because it seems like you've got a tough time being civil.

<comment><USER36> The server's IP is definitely not a UofC IP.</comment></comment></comment>


Django on Python 3 almost there - <AUTHOR> https://groups.google.com/d/msg/django-developers/T30bCR8WO7A/reeGuAWYOVIJ

<comment><USER2> I've stopped caring about Python 3... PyPy seems like a much more viable platform.

Even though we all hate Java for it, Java has never had any of these "deprecation" issues and language "jumps"

<comment><USER3> Even if you've "stopped caring about Python 3" and favor PyPy, _the PyPy developers themselves_ care about Python 3 support and are working to get there. Language != implementation. _Everyone_ , including the PyPy developers, view Python 3 (the language, if not CPython the implementation) as the future of Python.

Also, I'm not sure why Java is related, but what's your point?

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Projects like this are necessary before any sort of critical mass can be reached. It's got to get to the point where the costs of moving over the python3 are minimal.

Even when I'm not building a web app - I'll often work in the django environment because of the many handy libraries it has built in. This has meant that Python3 has been a complete non-starter for me.

So props to Vinay for the work.</comment>


Problems with Social Media - <AUTHOR> http://dailyprog.org/~tacixat/blog/posts/Problems%20With%20Social%20Media.html <comment><USER2> I believe the biggest problem with social media is that it seems to impact people that don't even use social media. I haven't had a facebook account since 2012 yet I still feel like I'm somehow wrapped up in this social media dragnet bullshit.

It was interesting watching Zuck choke and stutter when he was practically forced into answering to the EU about shadow profiles:

He is asked about it here: [https://youtu.be/x66fB7CM-- Q?t=1h21m36s](https://youtu.be/x66fB7CM--Q?t=1h21m36s)

But he chokes and stutters here [https://youtu.be/x66fB7CM-- Q?t=1h22m48s](https://youtu.be/x66fB7CM--Q?t=1h22m48s)

basically saying they collect data on you whether or not you have a FB account in order to "prevent bad activity".

Give me a break... this guy is so delusional it make me sick. The audacity of him to just glaze over this stuff is just some next level BS.

</comment><comment><USER3> _> I would happily pay 20 dollars a year for a social media site that > does not track or advertise if anyone is up for building it._

The problem is that your willingness to pay puts you in a tiny minority.

A smartphone survey found that 70% of users won't even pay _$1 a year_ to avoid ads.[1] That's just 8 cents a month. Since surveys always overestimate actual money spent, one should round up that 70% to ~90%.

A _general purpose_ social website requires most everybody to be on it. (Six degrees of separation and all that.) Therefore, any payment of even 8 cents is a huge barrier to adoption.

[1] [https://www.tune.com/blog/mobile-ads-70-of-smartphone- owners...](https://www.tune.com/blog/mobile-ads-70-of-smartphone-owners-wont- pay-even-1-to-avoid-ads/)

<comment><USER4> > A general purpose social website requires most everybody to be on it.

Who said it has to be general purpose? Part of the attraction of a paid social media site for me would be the fact that most people aren't on it. Isn't that why we're currently discussing the matter on HN rather than FB?

That said though, I'd be much more excited about paying $20/yr for the VPS where I host my node in a (hypothetical) FOSS distributed social media app than about paying $20/yr for a login to a closed source and proprietary one.

<comment><USER3> _> Who said it has to be general purpose? _

The author did and that's the context. The blog post was talking about sharing photos etc with "friends and family" so I took it be general purpose so it is adopted by a general audience.

Yes, there are things like Mastadon instances run by volunteers that are funded by donations for topics like anime but _niche_ social networks doesn't seem to be what the author is talking about.

 _> Isn't that why we're currently discussing the matter on HN rather than FB?_

I think the plea was submitted to a technical site like HN instead of FB because it's trying to drum up interest from _programmers_ who can _build_ the $20/year a general purpose replacement for Facebook/Twitter.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> To TACIXAT,

I tried to find your contact info in your about page [http://dailyprog.org/~tacixat/about.html](http://dailyprog.org/~tacixat/about.html)

I wanted to point out what I believe is a typo in your about page:

> I really like piracy

I am guessing that what you intended to say is:

"I really like privacy"

;-)

By the way, I am working on a solution to the social media problem that you described. Please let me know if you would like me to contact you when I am ready to launch. Also, feel free to email me at dustfinger[@]nauci[dot]org

Cheers!

<comment><USER6> Hey, I shot you an email and added mine to the about page [1] on dailyprog, also I'm on here.

I laughed about the typo, I do actually really love piracy.

1\. [http://dailyprog.org/~tacixat/about.html](http://dailyprog.org/~tacixat/about.html)

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> > I would happily pay 20 dollars a year for a social media site that > does > not track or advertise if anyone is up for building it.

It costs me $20/mo to run a Mastodon instance. Might cost me less if I spent the time to seriously optimize it. Someday I should get a Patreon up so some of the other people using my instance can kick in a few bucks and bring the cost to me down. No ads, no tracking, I just run it because I want to help actually make "social media" actually be about talking to my friends instead of being fed Popular Tweets From Celebrities.

You could also just start running your own blog. Host it yourself, use WordPress Blogger Medium Tumblr, whatever.

<comment><USER8> It feels like everyone just wants to log back into the internet of 1999. That ship has sailed though. But if you look at Web 3.0 and social networks like Peepeth, I see hope – on a site that puts everything irreversibly and forever on the blockchain and you actually need to perform, albeit micro, payments to act on this network, I expect spammers and troll farms to be unable to manage their evil operations economically. But who knows where we end up...

<comment><USER6> I like the idea of micro transactions for user interactions, I just don't love the idea of it being via a cryptocurrency. Cryptocurrencies convert electricity to currency, which is great for energy companies, but I would much rather use fractions of a cent than jump through the middlemen and waste to use a satoshi.

<comment><USER5> not all crypo currencies require excessive electricity. Also, a micro transaction is not needed for every interaction.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Ask HN: What to do about dogma in a company culture? - <AUTHOR> The million dollar question. This is no doubt a problem that almost every developer has, that they've somewhat come to accept as normal. I'm just curious to see if anybody has any answers.
For example, the company I'm employed at now is all over React Native as being the savior of everything. While I think that it's a good platform, I'm also cautious of investing all of our energy into it, instead of diversifying, and ignoring advances made in platforms more conducive to AR, ML, and WebAssembly.
I know that favoring CRUD apps over missing the boat in AR, ML, and WebAssembly, is in the company's best interest. But it's neither going to be in mine or the company's best interest if we invest all of our energy into 1 platform and 2 years from now have an "oh crap" moment where we realize we're too far behind. Dogma is extremely dangerous for this reason. What is the most diplomatic yet assertive way to combat it? <comment><USER2> It's tough. I experienced that at a previous job, at a consulting firm, which prized Excel expertise over everything else (eg over data science skills with Python).

I just left, as I knew there was no easy way to argue.

I think you're in a tough spot. Unless you're very senior, and have buy-in from all the higher-ups, it's going to be almost impossible to change the course of the company. Unless you have a specific reason to stay, I'd move on. It'll be a huge battle that you're most likely going to lose, and even if you win, you'll be blamed for all the downsides of the solution you propose. That was my experience.

<comment><AUTHOR> This has been my experience too, unfortunately, and I'd like to try something different to leaving. I work with amazing people, very smart, and very approachable. I'm questioning whether I should leave whenever I'm in this situation or if there's a more tactical approach I could take to guide them into a more diverse & adoptive mindset.

<comment><USER2> I agree, it sucks. I definitely would rather have worked with the rest of the team rather than leave as the core idea behind the company was pretty awesome.

Are you in this position currently? Are you trying anything different?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> My company is investing heavily in ML capabilities despite having no strategy whatsoever on what to do with it.

The fundamental problem is a lack of customer focus. Technologists get so far up their own butts that they think technology choices are more important than solving customer problems.

<comment><USER4> This is the correct answer. Whenever someone argues for a certain technology (e.g. for rewriting in a different language or framework), ask for the benefit to the customer.

<comment><AUTHOR> I absolutely agree. What is a tactful way to convince others of that benefit?

<comment><USER4> It's not an argument per se, it's a value system. A rewrite may be warranted if it allows you to deliver more features and improvements to customers afterwards. It's not warranted if it means you'll just stop delivering features and improvements for a year without accelerating the rate of improvements after the rewrite.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> You haven't articulated why those other technology categories are important to your company's technical strategy outside of "don't wanna miss the boat" (which in itself is rather dogmatic). Start there.

<comment><USER6> Indeed. What does the company do? It's entirely possible they don't need to be on any hype train.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> Is it dogma if it is correct?

You didn't really say why your company shouldn't go all in on React Native. Maybe they're small and they would benefit from being focused on React Native for now?

I'm kinda confused on why ML and AR need to be focused on instead of or along with React Native.... kinda different things and not mutually exclusive. There's certainly some dogma out there about jumping into a laundry list of hot topics too, even when they don't fit.

<comment><AUTHOR> It's not about ML, AR, or react native, these are just examples you're getting distracted by. There are a ton of other examples anyone could give, but it's a distraction to focus on a specific example when the premise is ignored.

<comment><USER5> I'll be honest: Based on the way you snipe at the replier for _your_ lack of clarity and the tone of your original post you might be in that category of engineers who think they're some kind of super genius but are actually just assholes.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> If you're at a startup (guessing so since it's HN) it's almost always better to commit hard to one approach, have that fail, and just pivot to something else. In any case, you'll be competing with teams who have chosen to commit hard to one thing, so diversifying is likely to win only if there are true synergies in doing these other things.

Dogma is it's own thing, and it's easy to spot because the argument in support of a dogmatic position will stop far short of making the point in terms of net revenue (future and present) or proxies like development latency. That's bad, but putting all your eggs in one basket isn't dogma necessarily. Diversification needs justification.

<comment><AUTHOR> You bring up some good points.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> It depends on your company but for most companies investing in the latest platform is not useful. The danger of "missing the boat" is often less than chasing the latest tech while not providing customer value.

If you want to expand the company's tech portfolio you should look at where there is a gap right now. Provide examples how ML or whatever could provide more value to the customer than there is right now.

</comment><comment><USER10> Why do you care if "your" company is behind in two years? Unless you have equity in the company, you have no interests in the long term viability of the company more than doing the best work you can while you are there.

As long as you are using marketable technologies (and you are), if that company folds tomorrow, you go out and get another job - more than likely making more money - and call it a day.

</comment><comment><USER11> It depends on the size of the organization. Most places will have the bulk of people working on a solid safe solution/product that gets tweeks and improvements. The cash cow. As well as this they will usually have a few skunkworks/blue sky people exploring new ideas.

It's all about risk. Keep the money coming in only until one of the research efforts proves it's case or the risk/reward allows more funding.

If you want to do something usual then get into one of the research efforts or do the hard yards (probably in your own time) and actually make a business case for some other tech.

</comment><comment><USER12> I think there are many problems with this question:

\- Building an application that features Augmented reality on React Native is possible. What prevents you from adding AR to react native application? Project requirements, not technology.

\- Machine learning is subset of computer science. What exactly in React native prevents you from applying machine learning concepts? Project requirements, not technology.

\- WebAssembly interoperates with JavaScript. I don't see the problem here.

</comment><comment><USER13> Collect data, make it available. If data contradicts dogma then there is awareness.

On futureproofing emphasize X year plans with same stack will use X years old methodology product; and will not integrate business value until placed into production. Product launches should have conservative ballance of feature set and time to market.

</comment><comment><USER14> The reason why work weeks are capped at 40 hours is so you have some time left over for yourself to explore other technologies.

However, if you can't get the team lead's or the CTO's ear, quit.

<comment><USER15> I don't think that's the reason :)

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> Start a project in your free time inside your office hours to show them they are wrong.

<comment><USER17> Is it right to invest so much time and energy in a company that isn't even yours?

I can't see the point of doing work demos dressed as pet projects unless you have a performance bonus or significant equity at stake.

Even then following blindly their "dogma" will make you look better, at least in the short and medium term.

Besides, they may even sue you for IP violation if you use any of their data/code/business rules for your datasets/program.

*

 _Edit_

I haven't read well the "inside" bit in _inside your office hours_ in parent's post so my first point is moot and scarface74's remarks are on point. Sorry for the misunderstanding.

<comment><USER10> _Is it right to invest so much time and energy in a company that isn 't even yours? I can't see the point of doing work demos dressed as pet projects unless you have a performance bonus or significant equity at stake._

Yes it is right. A few different things will happen.

\- They will see the error of thier ways, change direction, invest in your side project and give you a nice little raise/promotion/bonus for it (not likely)

\- They will see the value of your idea, use it in thier business and give you a nice little pat on the head. You can use that on your resume and get another job making more money.

\- They will not like your idea, but you still learned a lot and you can still leverage that to make more money somewhere else based on what you have learned.

Unless I have some great way of monetizing a side project (which I never do), I'd much rather do a side project for my employer. I get to see it out in the wild, I have a defined goal based on a real world use case, and it keeps me more disciplined from taking shortcuts because I know it will be reviewed by others and I can get thier opinions - even my managers.</comment></comment></comment>


Are you proud of your achievements in last N years at your job? - <AUTHOR> http://www.tarkeshwar.com/are-you-proud-of-your-achievements-in-last-n

<comment><USER2> Overall I would have to say no. Much of the code (or more specifically the design/architecture of that code) that I wrote X years ago is horrible. At least I feel good in the sense that I have made a measured improvement in that department so it is not really what I dislike.

The problem is with doing corporate programming where you end up working on projects which you basically _know_ are bad ideas from day 1. The amount of code I have written which has ended up being unused or underused is staggering.

Plus whenever policy on something changes I end up having to rewrite a bunch of stuff just to accommodate some sort of arbitrary change which I will then end up changing back some months down the line.

There is also the issue of having to work with other developers who don't really understand things like thread safety or O(n) vs O(n^2) or even how to use basic features in a DBMS.</comment>


Google Has a Plan to Disrupt the College Degree - <AUTHOR> https://www.inc.com/justin-bariso/google-plan-disrupt-college-degree-university-higher-education-certificate-project-management-data-analyst.html <comment><USER2> _" We need new, accessible job-training solutions--from enhanced vocational programs to online education--to help America recover and rebuild."_

Call me a cynic but part of me feels like this is really about helping Google lubricate the gears of their own recruiting pipeline.

<comment><USER3> Perhaps university curriculum is "more geared" towards academician?

Yes yes I'm aware the aim of CS department is not to create practical software developers, though. Hmm...

<comment><USER4> I think they generally do OK in regard to practical training in the US. Assuming the student doesn't cheat their way past programming assignments.

Universities tend toward teaching long term fundamentals though, as opposed to hot technologies that just appeared and will be mostly gone or outsourced after the next bubble is over.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> The world hasn't been the same since Google disrupted video games with Stadia.

<comment><USER6> In what way?

<comment><USER7> I think the OP meant it as sarcasm.

<comment><USER6> Oh I see lol.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> I understand the idea behind having a fast track, but when it's only 6 months long, it feels like you're not meant to learn much other than about your tiny niche and then be stuck at Google [0]. I'm sure you can streamline college degrees to only focus on industry relevant topics, but I would be surprised if you could make a meaningful training program that is shorter than 2 years.

[0] Google has a lot of internal tools so it is entirely possible that once these people leave Google, they have to catch up on what the rest of the industry uses.

</comment><comment><USER9> You're probably much better off taking one of the more established bootcamps. Many of them have direct connections to companies.

Google frequently cancels products like this so there is decent likelihood that you will be left high and dry if you go the Google route.

</comment><comment><USER6> I don't think the job market at large are willing to absorb the graduates. Maybe Google's own pipeline but not the rest.

It's also too narrow of fields that are represented there.

</comment><comment><USER10> They had a plan to disrupt the optical fiber scenario too not so long ago, IIRC. What happened to that?

<comment><USER11> Mixed success. For google it has been somewhat a failure but the business model for disrutpion was exported and a few companies have been able to take root.

A few weed like companies (resiliant but too small) have popped up to cover how the landscape never really changed.

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> Hope this plan comes true. Will close the gap in education inequalities. Colleges are mostly fluff classes anyway so with this plan, you get exactly what you pay for, not wasting money on pointless classes that won't get you a career.

</comment><comment><USER13> lol was that udacity? If so, I don't think colleges will have to worry about competing with them.

The problem is not 'job training' but that there are actual jobs available. If google really wanted to lower unemployment they would use their capital to invest in new industries and their spread. Obviously it's not what they are talking about here and that's not their goal.

</comment><comment><USER14> This sounds fascinating. Why didn't we have Google much earlier to teach us all how to replace a 3-4 year degree with 6 months of online course work.

Oh and they accept it for their own hiring. That's really good, except that Google, like many other big companies never gave a damn about education anyways. And that's a good thing, to be sure. But they still care about technical skill. So unless they are aiming the shotgun at their feet and teach people how to game their own interview process (which at least in case of Google is doubtful, since their process was quite elaborate a few years back), I just hope they offer these courses for free, because you ain't gonna get hired at Google with this. Seems more like a marketing stunt.

<comment><USER15> Tens of millions of people lack the financial means to afford four years of college. Unfortunately, a college degree (or at least a certain amount of university experience) is the de facto gateway to professional jobs in today's world. A means to help people bootstrap themselves into an entry level position in a real career has to be seen as a positive.</comment></comment>


Twitter and What Might Have Been - <AUTHOR> http://stratechery.com/2015/twitter-might/

<comment><USER2> Guh, I'm so frustrated by seeing this type of comment over and over again:

> Datasift falls squarely in the [business and analytics] bracket, which means > Twitter's decision is a complete reversal of their previous stated stance, a > stance that led to investments worth hundreds of millions of dollars. It's > an ugly move.

It's not. Datasift _resold_ Twitter data. They added their own metadata to Tweets, like sentiment, but they didn't do any direct analytics themselves.

In fact, if Datasift really were in the analytics business, they'd be free to sit on top of their customers' Twitter streams and provide analytics.

EDIT: full disclosure, I'm the vp of product for a company that does do social media analytics and measurement, so I've got a particular perspective on this subject. We get our data from Gnip directly, for what it's worth.

[http://synthesio.com/corporate/en/2015/synthesio- news/twitte...](http://synthesio.com/corporate/en/2015/synthesio-news/twitter- data/)

</comment><comment><USER3> I have decided to make a small list of posts out that talk about Twitter in recent times. Some are more cogent and authoritative than others.

\- [http://www.mathewingram.com/work/2015/04/30/twitters- multi-b...](http://www.mathewingram.com/work/2015/04/30/twitters-multi- billion-dollar-mistake-happened-five-years-ago/)

\- [http://john.do/twitter-quit/](http://john.do/twitter-quit/)

\- [http://techcrunch.com/2015/02/22/twitters- dilemma](http://techcrunch.com/2015/02/22/twitters-dilemma)

\- [https://alexgaynor.net/2014/oct/30/i-hope-twitter-goes- away/](https://alexgaynor.net/2014/oct/30/i-hope-twitter-goes-away/)

\- [http://www.novaspivack.com/uncategorized/why-twitters- engage...](http://www.novaspivack.com/uncategorized/why-twitters-engagement- has-fallen)

\- [http://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2014/04/a-eulo...](http://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2014/04/a-eulogy- for-twitter/361339/)

</comment><comment><USER4> I think that Twitter as a highly targeted ad platform would have been a disaster - if it truly lived up to that potential it would be a creepy place to visit: where the entire environment is intimately tailored to you in an effort to sell you something. I prefer it as a communication platform, myself.

How can Twitter make money? Personally, I'd say they should monetize the "whales" who use it as an advertising platform. Charge the celebrities who use it to promote films. Charge the corporations who use it to market to their followers. Charge for commercial use of the API.

I don't know if this is realistic, but it seems better than what is happening now.</comment>


Rural Indian Girls Chase Big-City Dreams - <AUTHOR> http://www.nytimes.com/2016/09/25/world/asia/bangalore-india-women-factories.html <comment><USER2> Fascinating article.

This bit jumped out as extreme - is this usual, or a rarity? :

"Each morning, before she is allowed to eat, the daughter-in-law must wash the feet of her husband's parents and then drink the water she has used to wash them."

<comment><USER3> Sure, we also go and poop out in the fields every day. NyT like most occidental publications intend to shock and awe their customers under a guise of enlightenment. Much as does the colonial crowd here. This dance has been going on for two hundred years you see.

I'd be very wary of the native "mantric" repetitions which are often the source of such articles, [http://www.hipkapi.com/2011/03/26/indian-way-of- westernizati...](http://www.hipkapi.com/2011/03/26/indian-way-of- westernization/)

In any case, it's so damn boring. You can read some old British book from the 30s and get done with this whole charade at once!

(Source: I've spent enough time in Indian villages)

<comment><USER4> Most Indians do in fact go out and poop in the fields every day. Most Indian commenters here are from the urban middle class and have literally never spent a minute thinking about the vast and miserable rural lower classes around them, and get incredibly offended when a westerner does in fact notice and write about them.

<comment><USER3> 1\. You don't know that ("most").

2\. Water is fairly scarce in certain regions. Considering how unhygienic such toilets end up in such far off places, I probably would too.

It's not like they can't afford it (most folk carry a smartphone these days, while earning <$200 a month).

3\. Rural India is generally way more hygienic than Urban India; apparently has a more even sex-ratio too.

4\. I've spent time in villages from my childhood. I know why toilets were kept separated in the backyard, and why they've now moved closer home.

Please don't give me the old "white saviour" line. Chomsky and his starlings may use this line with gusto, but the vacuity of it is readily apparent for those not afraid of not being fashionable.

I also understand how the stupid policies of the state driven by such sentences of native courtiers, led to widespread agricultural failures, ridiculous price fluctuations and rural depopulation.

Do you care ? No.

5\. I've also seen homeless Americans poop on the streets.

6\. I'm not a fan of the whole post-colonial affair of "white guilt" milking. If you do indeed care, please tell me something that's not religious. Your experience is not divine.

<comment><USER4> Let me address your points:

1\. See the latest numbers heres: [http://www.thehindu.com/data/most-of-rural- india-still-opts-...](http://www.thehindu.com/data/most-of-rural-india-still- opts-for-open-defecation-nss-report/article8503947.ece)

I should have qualified "most" as "most of rural", sorry. Of course rural India is 70% of the population.

2, & 4, it is indeed true that people are choosing to poop in the fields out of choice and it "feels" more hygienic to people. But it is a misguided choice - likely a major cause of disease and childhood stunting - [http://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371%2Fjourna...](http://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371%2Fjournal.pone.0073784).

btw, I am an urban middle class Indian too. Not white by any stretch of the imagination. And where I did I say the white man is the saviour? I just said that the plight of rural Indians is completely ignored by those who complain loudly about western media views of India.

In fact I give full credit to the current government for raising awareness about toilets and trying to fix the issue.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Absolute racist/hinduphobic garbage from NYT and that is how it is so often.

> "Each morning, before she is allowed to eat, the daughter-in-law must wash > the feet of her husband's parents and then drink the water she has used to > wash them."

Grew up in a very conservative rural area in India. Have not heard any of this sort of crap.

<comment><USER6> Yup. Never happens these days. Probably never happened in last 5 generations in my family (it never happened in my grandmother's memory)

<comment><USER5> I doubt if it ever happened. Washing feet is a ritual that is considered a great honor and mostly reserved for super special occasions. For a brahmin during certain types of Puja, Groom during marriage, Bride when entering the new home etc.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> The problem with a lot of culture articles on developing countries from global media is the singular focus on one aspect over decades. Every journalist somehow end up gravitating to the same thing which skews perspectives.

Its like only writing about deep south US by the global media for decades on end so there is no coverage of NYC, LA, SFO and all the other bits that make up the whole US.

So no exposure to Hollywood, to technology, to financial systems, to modern cities, imagine the kind of distorted perspective readers will form of USA. While the deep south is US the other bits are also US and you need both or you end with an deeply unbalanced and distorted perspective.

All cultures and traditions originating from thousands of years ago, be it islam, christianity or hinduism are going to be regressive in infinite ways. It takes balanced development and wealth to get people into the modern world both in mind and body so they have the perspective and freedom to accept and reject parts.

According the to the UN development indices 70% of Indian's are poor, that's a mind boggling 700-800 million people (that's more than the combined population of the US and Europe) just trying to survive and like all people who find themselves in these cirumstances they will cling desperately to their traditions.

Even the most committed system will have a multi-generational problem pulling these many people out of poverty, most developing countries, infact most countries do not have the luxury of a committed leadership over these time frames.

</comment><comment><USER8> 150 years ago this sounds like NewYork City or London.

</comment><comment><USER9> Different context, but relevant quote by Christopher Hitchens:

"The cure for poverty has a name, in fact: it's called the empowerment of women. If you give women some control over the rate at which they reproduce, if you give them some say, take them off the animal cycle of reproduction to which nature and some doctrine—religious doctrine condemns them, and then if you'll throw in a handful of seeds perhaps and some credit, the floor of everything in that village, not just poverty, but education, health, and optimism will increase. It doesn't matter; try it in Bangladesh, try it in Bolivia, it works—works all the time. Name me one religion that stands for that, or ever has."

<comment><USER10> I greatly respect Christopher Hitchens but this statement is provably wrong.

There was no control over reproduction by women before the birth control pill reached the market in 1960. Therefore it would follow that every society before 1960 was poor, which isn't true.

Also why do we experience today rising poverty while further expanding womens rights at the same time? Shouldn't we all get richer?

My conclusion is that these two issues are unrelated. Societies get rich by either creating value (that's the one that I like) or capturing value by the use of force, period.

<comment><USER9> > There was no control over reproduction by women before the birth control > pill reached the market in 1960. Therefore it would follow that every > society before 1960 was poor, which isn't true.

No, it wouldn't. The argument here is that birth control is a factor that correlates to rising women's empowerment, which in turn can lead to a reduction in poverty. The reverse (societies without birth control are poor) does not follow.

> why do we experience today rising poverty while further expanding womens > rights at the same time?

because women's rights are a factor, but not the only one. The argument is that, in the context of developing countries, it makes sense to empower women. It is not that any increase in women's rights automatically leads to more wealth.

<comment><USER10> > The argument here is that birth control is a factor that correlates to > rising women's empowerment

It logically follows that women are empowered if you give them the right to control their reproduction but that's not the argument here.

The argument is whether women's empowerment leads to prosperity in a society and nothing else.

You yourself state this:

> The reverse (societies without birth control are poor) does not follow.

This is what I wrote before myself. What is missing is that someone shows that empowering women is a factor (and if so to what degree) that will lead to prosperity.

Just saying it isn't sufficient. I get that people have their values and goals and in this case I agree that women should not be second class citizens in any regard.

But I'm sceptical of statements where people connect arbitrary things to something everyone wants (prosperity) just to promote their values and causes. That's usually what politicians do and I'm not one of them.

By the way it is also not helpful to tell poor countries do X (where X is accept our values in some regard) and you'll be prosperous and rich, when we cannot prove that indeed they'll be more prosperous if they do this.

That'll create resentment or they will stop taking us serious. In fact I'm frequently reading news and comment sections in many languages and I can tell you that this has already happened. They ridicule the West for our stupidity and our values that we try to foist on them.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> I've decided to flag this article.

Usually I won't flat out say something is racist, because it is about points of view and such; however, these are clearly identifiable biases that stem from British colonialism, and either no longer exist, or never did in any relevant time frame.

Yes, India has a weird culture, by western standards (or several, really). Yes, they have insane amounts of poverty that make even our poorest look positively middle class. Yes, India has cultural roots in sexist practices.

However, this? This ain't journalism, and this is insulting to the memory of what the New York Times once was. This is fear mongering, this is a shock an awe campaign. This has little roots in reality.

<comment><USER10> So if I say that the Saudi government and their practices which stem from their culture are bad because they kill gays, kill non believers and enslave women then I'm being racist?

Well then I guess I don't have to care if I'm being called a racists because you've made it into a good thing.

<comment><USER11> Not all. What you said is verifiably true.

However, the failure of the Saudi state has come from within, when the House of Saud was infected by the expansion of Wahhabism in the Islamic world, where two previous states lead by the House of Saud failed, and a third, today's Saudi Arabia (formed in 1932) is also heading towards ruin, but doing so entirely under their own power and leadership.

The failure of the Indian state is due to British rule for over 100 years in which India's own culture was heavily distorted through the lens of colonialism efforts; in addition, Pakistan leaving and declaring its own Islamic government has also not helped India heal from this. The current state of India is due to outside influences.

Bad things happen due to the extreme poverty in India all the time, but the very specific things said in the article are all distortions of Indian culture that are no longer practiced, even in the most backwards towns.

What the NYT did is no different than if today's Saudi Arabia had stopped it's anti-humanitarian efforts and chose to transition into a modern government instead, and you claimed they still killed gays, non-muslims, and whoever else for non-crimes.

India obviously has only taken the first steps in becoming a modern nation, but what the NYT did is not helping India at all.

In short, the NYT is going to have to prove it. Photos, videos, whatever. This is no different than any other editorial hearsay otherwise. If they had actually found human rights violations in the scale and severity implied in the article, the NYT would be running this as front page news, and world governments would be pressuring India to fix this.

<comment><USER10> Look I agree that some of that stuff in this article is complete and utter nonsense.

For example where it is explained that women wash mens feet and then have to drink the water. Whoever believes this must be either stupid or ignorant.

And that's exactly how I would comment on this. The person who wrote this article is clearly either not well enough educated to have any business writing articles about this for the NY Times or that person is simply ignorant.

But I very much doubt that there is some racism involved here. People sometimes write hurtful or stupid things and I did so myself occasionally but when I did it's not because I hate some specific culture but because of incomplete information or knowledge. (though I'm not a journalist or a politician, so it's not that bad if I get things wrong occasionally)

<comment><USER11> Normally I'd agree with you, and almost passed it off as such, but then I remembered this would have had to pass through an editor at the NYT.

That editor should have known better.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> You'd be surprised at the sheer amount of idiotic and degrading customs in Indian culture. Parts of it are beautiful and the culture as a whole is steeped in tradition, but the majority of the social customs are absolutely despicable.

<comment><USER13> Like other people have said, in a billion people you can find anything you want to, but the described custom is _extremly_ unusual. I am an Indian, raised in semi-rural area, and I have never heard of this happening. NYT is just pushing its narrative.

<comment><USER12> And yet it's a common occurrence to read in the news of women who were assaulted and not infrequently killed for e.g. wrinkling their husband's clothes. Of course I don't purport that everyone in a country of over a billion people behaves this way but it's far more common than it should be.

<comment><USER14> Really? Can you point me to 4 or 5 cases where women were killed for such trivial things?

As a counter example, it's really common to read about dowry-related killings. [http://indianexpress.com/article/india/india- others/24771-do...](http://indianexpress.com/article/india/india- others/24771-dowry-deaths-reported-in-last-3-years-govt/)</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Crypto Pioneer David Chaum Says He's Built a Better Bitcoin - <AUTHOR> https://www.wsj.com/articles/crypto-pioneer-david-chaum-says-hes-built-a-better-bitcoin-1537405201 <comment><USER2> There's a whitepaper at [https://www.elixxir.io/](https://www.elixxir.io/)

Article by "@Elixxir_io" [https://medium.com/@elixxir_io/welcome-to-elixxir- eea7bb9357...](https://medium.com/@elixxir_io/welcome-to-elixxir-eea7bb9357e6)</comment>


Google Expected to Partner With Audi to Put Android in New Cars - <AUTHOR> http://abcnews.go.com/Technology/google-expected-partner-audi-put-android-cars/story?id=21374570

<comment><USER2> Can I install cyanogenrod? I'd probably need some sort of adapter to connect my car to my computer.

But then, will police start checking cars for Android-modding?

Also, I am willing to void my warranty, but not my car insurance.</comment>