Ask HN: Why do managers get paid more than individual contributors? - <AUTHOR> A manager in this context is one that has direct reports and does not directly contribute to the work.<p>It is not to say that what managers do is not important. But, I am not yet convinced that as a manager you should get paid more because you have direct reports and have people management responsibilities. <comment><USER2> In good companies there are two career paths:

\- a management track

\- an IC (individual contributor) track

There are different levels on the different tracks, and each is paid for that level. A super experienced IC will be paid more than a junior manager, and vice versa. So it doesn't have to be true that a manager earns more than an IC, and for example many ICs at Google are paid millions of $$, much much more than the average manager (or average IC, of course).

But when managers are paid more, why is that? Sometimes, the experience needed to be a manager is higher. For example, an engineering manager that wasn't previously an engineer may struggle to manage their team. As such, an engineering manager might have 10 years of engineering behind them before making the leap over to other track, and we don't just start them at the bottom given their relevant experience.

Another reason is that managers are multipliers. A good manager can take a team of good ICs and turn them into amazing ICs working together as a team. A bad manager might multiply the team by 0.5, or 0.1, but no-one hires a manager expecting them to suck, so you pay them as if their multiplier is 2x (and hopefully fire them if they suck).

Of course, managers and ICs are different roles in the employment market. ICs often don't like management (which is a challenging, and often very different job from ICing). So they different have supply/demand curves.

If the above doesn't apply to your workplace, then the obvious thing is true: they pay managers more because they value managers more. Whether that is the right thing to do is clearly in the eye of the beholder.

<comment><AUTHOR> Good perspective, pbiggar.

Question for clarification: Do those ICs making "a lot" report to managers that make more, less or equal (generally speaking of course)?

<comment><USER2> Everything is highly situational. I couldn't tell you whether it's better to have your most valuable ICs managed by the best managers, or whether the most valuable ICs need only limited management and you should have your best managers focusing on improving more junior engineers.

(This assumes that the "managers" are strictly people managers. Often, managers might do some or all of managing teams, products, releases, people, or technical leadership. It certainly wouldn't be unheard of to have a manager's team include an engineer far senior to the manager.)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> This doesn't always happen but when it does, assuming economic efficiency and perfect information, there are some good reasons:

* Managers' actions take effect across the entire team, and therefore having a 1x manager vs a 1.1x manager on a 10 person team is like if any individual (assuming evenness in the team) goes from 1x to 2x.

* It is harder to find someone who can effectively manage human beings than someone who can effectively solve technical problems. Mildly supportive evidence is the percentage of people who complain about their managers vs. the percentage of people who complain about how hard the problems they have to solve are. Your maximum attainable compensation is the minimum of the value you provide and the cost to replace you, and good managers are rare.

* In practice, few people are pure managers - they also solve technical problems. Often, they will participate in architecture questions, but not implementation. If they do so, their technical contributions are also on a lever.

However, there are secondary factors too:

* Managers tend to have more experience. More experience, until a point, leads to higher compensation because successful experienced people are rarer

* The depth to which humans perceive contribution to success is limited. A CEO will see whether his engineering division is effectively delivering value and reward or punish its organizational leader. Likewise all the way down the chain. This is leverage in terms of responsibility and risk.

But the short form of my theory is that where it's true, it's often because they deliver comparatively higher value to the organization.

If it's true, a consequence would be that the organizations that have a culture of self-organization and alignment will have managers that command smaller multipliers solely on their management skills while those whose members require substantial management (for mediation, communication, or prioritization) will place a premium on managers.

<comment><AUTHOR> For the sake of conversation, let's loosely define a manager as someone who is responsible for enabling teams to succeed and assessing performance of their directs. Could you pay that manager equal or less than their direct individual contributors? How would the market respond?

<comment><USER3> Honestly, I don't know if it's not commonly the case. I have one direct report who is paid 10% more than I am and I had an IC candidate reject us in favour of Google last week who I offered both more stock and both more salary.

I don't honestly think this is very rare. Certainly word on the street is that Netflix comp is fairly close on Senior ICs and Senior Engineering Managers, if not slightly tilted towards the former, but I don't know for sure.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Well let's start by noting that there are exceptions to this rule. A principal engineer in a couple companies I've worked for was in a higher bracket than almost all the managerial levels.

Next let's explore the ideal case. An engineer is very good at using tools to accomplish work. A good manager should be very good at using/making/helping _humans_ accomplish work. Totally different skill set, but not easy, and potentially very profitable for the company. I think that there is a belief that if you assume responsibility for a team that you are now the primary locus of work getting done or not and thus your risk/reward levels are increased.

The reality is more along the lines of, "persuasive people end up in control of capital and then pay people like themselves more." Really effective leaders, through myriad strategies both good and bad, manage to take the potential work output of a group of individuals and focus it on _their_ goals preferentially. This is super powerful. They see this as their particular talent and power and, noting how powerful it is, want to compensate others who are doing something similar. This is an admittedly jaded and machiavellian take on management.

<comment><AUTHOR> Your machiavellian take holds water, in my opinion.

If managers were paid less than (or just as much as) their directs, what would change?

<comment><USER5> If one company did it they'd lose all their good managers. If all companies did it then all the engineering managers with IC experience would stay in IC roles, and the managers you'd end up with would be much much worse.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Cause handling people and their issues is about 5000 times harder than handling code. Your code doesn't get cancer, run away with a coworker, go bankrupt, have opinions, lie, steal, needs to be told how to use a restroom, needs protection when it's layoff season etc etc etc

<comment><USER7> You seem to have a problem hiring the right people ;-)

<comment><USER8> How many people have you hired and managed?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> They often don't.

But when they do, it's because of leveraged impact. If I'm a 10x engineer, then that's a huge individual contribution. However, if I'm a 2x manager with 12 reports, then my impact is greater than a 10x engineer. That is to say, if I can make my 12 reports twice as productive, then that's a huge benefit to the org. If I'm a 2x director with 4 managers reporting to me, then that 2x compounds through each level of the org.

Now, a 2x manager might seem far fetched, but so is a 10x engineer if we're being honest. Think about your productivity under your best boss vs your worst boss.

What is a bit of nonsense is bad managers. But that's a whole different issue, with tomes of academic research (see The Peter Principle) trying to figure out why incompetence is so pervasive in management.

<comment><USER10> It's hard to imagine a manager making people do 2x as much. But it's not so hard to imagine a manager making people work on something 2x as important.

<comment><USER11> Making your reports 2x as productive is far more expansive (and less visible) than just ensuring they're working on stuff 2x as important or doing 2x as much work.

Think of software for a moment. Has there every been a library, language, framework, etc that you absolutely love to use? The API is just right, the framework is the perfect level of opinionated vs. not opinionated, it just gets out of your way and lets you accomplish what you want, it's consistently reliable, it has fantastic backwards compatibility, it's error handling semantics are clear and the right level of verboseness, the internals are so well architected that it's also incredibly performant, etc.

 _It 's just such a pleasure to work with_. It's always just what you need, right when you need it, exactly how you needed it.

A company is a system, just like software. And a team is a submodule within that system. A 2x manager is the person that is able to make (and maintains) their team into the type of beloved system I mentioned above. How they do that is dependent on their expertise at comprehending, navigating, and influencing the larger system, and shaping their team to be precisely what that larger environment needs.

As hard as it is to do the above, it's really, really easy for a 0.1x manager to destroy that type of system/team. A few breaking API changes ("my team no longer handles those types of request you've been giving my team for years" vs "I've spoken with team x and it turns out they're more appropriately staffed to complete that work. Don't worry though, I've got a change management process in place and will ensure the handoff is seamless for you", refactoring some internal code that kills performance (i.e. losing important ICs without any risk mitigation/change management in place), etc can all tank the goodwill and community adoption of that once beloved system.

I switch between being an IC, a purely people manager, a functional manager (i.e. a team lead with people management and hiring/firing authority), and a "manager" (that's effectively an IC with a manager title so I have the organizational authority to execute the type of work I was doing). If you've never been a manager before, let me tell you: doing that shit right is exhausting. The biggest difference between being an IC and being a manager is that, as an IC, I'm able to ignore 90% of the bullshit around me and focus on my work. As a manager (whether doing IC work or purely people-managing), I can't _ever_ tune out that organizational noise/bullshit/dysfunction/needs, because the more in tune I am with that the more likely that I can position my team to support the company, and in doing so ensure the peace of my team.

It's hard to image what a 2x manager is, because there's no single way to define one. But as an IC, having (or losing) a 2x manager will have a noticeable impact on you and your team's productivity over time, in any of a dozen or so different ways.

<comment><USER12> Yeah, you nailed it.

I think of managing as keeping a bunch of freight trains from smashing into one another. The manager can't claim to be making things move twice as fast, and it's hard to recognize the absence of disaster as a contribution. But if the managing were going poorly, everyone would be far worse off.

<comment><USER11> Pretty much. A good manager is easy to spot by the how predictably their freight trains crash (if its not above company norms or team standards prior to their tenure). A bad manager is easy to spot, because you can see the disaster around them. But a 2x manager is like a blackhole - there's nothing to observe directly, and you can only spot one if you're carefully observing everything around it. But if a really good manager disappears and is replaced by just a good manager, you'll slowly see that blackhole-like influence disappear and their team metrics revert to company norms.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> To answer this question accurately you have to look at it from the perspective of the person who has the authority to make the hires (e.g., C-level, VP, people with financial control).

Aside from the multiplier effect of a good manager which is mentioned in a few other comments, a manager is someone to whom the employer can delegate responsibility. This is usually the most valued skill set an employee can possess -- if as the owner/CEO/VP/General Manager you can just take a certain area of the business, give it to that person, and sleep easy at night knowing that it's taken care of, that peace of mind is worth any price because you're now able to focus your energy on other areas of the business.

The same cannot generally be said about any IC (even though in come cases great ICs can have a remarkable impact on the business).

As you go deeper down a corporate hierarchy motivations may become distorted, but fundamentally this is how it works at the top.

<comment><USER14> yup i agree, find it weird that "delegate authority" is so far down the conversation here.

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> Like others, I'll start by questioning the assumption behind the question. I know I've made more than some of my managers, starting at least ten years ago. Many people get this idea very early in their careers, when it's true because they're just starting out and (obviously) their managers are not, but after only a few years of big raises and easy level advancements it needs to be re- evaluated.

When it is true that managers make more, there's no single reason. On the good side, the effect of a good manager compared to a bad one can be bigger than for an IC. On the bad side, managers get to whisper more in the ears of those who control the money. In between, and most often, let me ask you one simple question.

* Would you want to be a manager?

For me the answer is HELL NO. I got close to it once, and didn't care for it. Many other ICs feel the same way. You'd have to pay us extra to give up what we do now for management work ... and so that's exactly what often happens. Supply and demand, pure and simple.

<comment><USER5> This is true, over my career as my companies have grown I've naturally taken a tech lead and then manager role because it was the most effective way to help the team and it turns out I'm very good at it. But if it wasn't compensated better then I'd simply stay in my lane as an IC, and the companies would suffer due to having to bring in inferior management lacking technical skills.

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> Most engineering managers I've worked with were engineers with strong technical background who have good people or project management skills. I had managers who wrote or knew every line in the code base. When someone left they could take over on a pinch and cleanup the mess. These days I think it is more common in startups to promote engineers to management too early before they develop these skills.

</comment><comment><USER17> I left a company where I was the Dev Team lead for a company where I am "just" a Senior Developer. I happen to be getting paid slightly more:

My experience is that I was much more effective as a team lead than an individual contributor. I was able to do and guide research, do proof of concepts that other people productized and had far more accomplishments guiding a team of junior to mid level developers.

Now, trying to implement the same kind of changes as an individual contributor is taking far longer. I have more say so over the architectural direction of my team now just based on my expertise and relationships and no red tape (here I'm an AWS admin, at my prior company I had to go through multiple approvals to get anything done), but since I actually have to do the work instead of directing a team, my accomplishments are a lot slower.

I can see first hand the effectiveness of my manager and his ability to be a force multiplier over my ability to get things done as an individual contributor.

I'm not complaining, when I had a choice when I was looking for a job I could have been hired as an architect/Dev lead making slightly more than I make now using technology I was intimately familiar with but I wouldn't be able to grow my technical skills and I like development.

But the truth is, I could accomplish a lot more with a team of people reporting to me but I purposefully stay in my lane even though my manager and his manager are both pushing me to take a leadership position. I took this job to learn and improve technically, not to manage.

</comment><comment><USER18> First, this is not strictly true; many senior ICs get paid more than managers, and the comparison between manager-track job levels and IC-track job levels varies at different companies.

Part of it is that good managers act as an umbrella for their reports and keep unnecessarily distracting or stressful issues from taking up their time. But that means the manager is dealing with that stress instead.

Part of it is that managers often have a broader scope of responsibility. Senior managers and higher often have multiple projects under their belt and are held responsible for their continued success.

Part of it is that the success state of a manager's work depends on the success of other employees, which makes it more difficult for them to control whether they do well by their own effort. A really good manager could be paired up with a really bad employee who eventually has to be fired; did that manager do a bad job since their report got fired, or did they do a good job identifying that they needed to be fired? It's situational, and that ambiguity increases the risk of being fairly rewarded. Higher risk demands higher compensation.

Part of it is that demand for good managers is high enough that the market prices their salaries higher. Anecdotally, I can say that a bad manager hire has a much worse impact than a bad IC hire, so the stakes are higher, which raises prices.

<comment><AUTHOR> > First, this is not strictly true; many senior ICs get paid more than > managers, and the comparison between manager-track job levels and IC-track > job levels varies at different companies.

Are those ICs getting paid more than their immediate manager?

</comment></comment><comment><USER19> Tradition mostly, I think. The old idea that a boss should be paid more than the people they manage, because they won't be respected if they earn less.

</comment><comment><USER20> From experience, most managers suck, period. There are amazing managers but it's pretty rare. I won't get into too much details here as the OP asked for a specific question. But it comes from the fact that a 1st line manager's job is very close to babysitting, which is not the most rewarding job.

With that being said, why do managers get paid more? Think of it as parents versus kids. Who has the most responsibilities? Parents... who has collected the most data? Parents... who gets blammed when things go wrong? Parents... who pay the price when things go wrong? Parents.

That is why manager have a higher salary braket in general. Plus, they usually come from an IC path with a big hands-on experience. They've already nailed the IC salary range.

</comment><comment><USER21> Supply and demand. They spend all day in meetings gathering requirements, fighting to fund their staff, keeping their staff from being dragged off onto other projects. Few can do it well.

<comment><USER22> I'd also add while they may not be doing the work the direct manager should have general knowledge of what his people are doing and if they need assistance or guidance should be able to either supply it themselves or be able to summon the resources to make it happen. They may not be doing the work directly, but the indirect influence they have to ensure they are building their employees and having an effective team is what they are getting paid for.

</comment></comment><comment><USER23> Lets break it down a bit.

# Ideally you don't want managers to write code since that would set them on a path where they can get preoccupied with stuff which is not the big picture.

# Managers tend to see the big picture and direct the team on its course with good people management skills. This is one of the most significant role in the organization.

# Measuring the importance of an individual to an organization based on his/her pay package is not the right median.

# Most software engineers are pampered a lot unlike other profession so they tend to have an inflated ego to assume they are worth more than almost everyone. Just having an ability to hard labor a building construction never meant the person is the most significant!. Not an ideal comparison but hope it drives home the point.

In most cases people envisioning bigger picture can get paid more but that is in no way an unfair thing.

</comment><comment><USER24> Because it is the only incentive to make a IC want to change into a manager role. Most of my engineering friends that went from doing interesting things to being manager always reference the need for more money. Specially if they were getting gray hairs or getting their kids ready for college.

</comment><comment><USER25> I would expect anyone in a professional position to be receiving whatever the going market rate is.. which will likely not correlate to a chain of progressively higher pay as you go up the local hierarchy.

This, at least has been the case for each of the SMBs that I've worked in which managers are purely non-technical and hired for their ability to manage people and projects (can't afford to not have Engineers doing engineering).

At one place, my direct sup was expected to wear both the manager and Engineer hat (being technical). The next two layers up were middle managers who only managed. Neither layer made more than anyone in engineering.

</comment><comment><USER26> It depends greatly on which part of a company you're at.

At Microsoft, senior ICs (IC4 and above) make more than managers (typically M3s) in engineering teams but often the tables are reversed in services and sales teams, because managers in customer-facing teams have business targets with direct bearing on their unit/sub revenue.

I've been in both kinds of teams, and there is zero correlation between actual management skills and where HR rates them at, so YMMV.

</comment><comment><USER27> >does not directly contribute to the work.

This is, in my experience, generally not the case.

Setting aside all the implicit indirect contributions (support, development, coaching, personality management, etcetera), managers generally shape work by deciding what work is going to be done, how to mobilize resources, communicating the results outside the team's domain, and being accountable for it. Those are direct, tangible contributions.

</comment><comment><USER28> I've never heard of the term 'individual contributor.'

Can anyone clarify?

As I understand teams are built from managerial roles and "worker" or technical or engineering roles. If it has to be a three tier system instead of two, it (typically) consists of a manager, then one or more tech/team lead(s), then engineer(s). I'm not sure which one of these are individual contributors. (or aren't they all?)

<comment><AUTHOR> As per your description, engineers would be individual contributors.

</comment></comment><comment><USER29> The following is simplified.

Managers are people who enjoy being around groups of people more than they enjoy being around "things".

ICs tend to reserve more time thinking and working alone and enjoy talks with individuals more than navigating group-dynamics.

Enjoyment in groups leads to experience in group dynamics. Experience in group dynamics and having many relationships gets you more chances to climb up the salary ladder.

</comment><comment><USER30> That's not always true.

<comment><USER31> I work for a company where the CEO admitted to earning LESS than the top earner. The CEO is still worth more because of other assets, but the VP of Sales earns the most annual take-home in the company.

<comment><USER32> That's pretty typical for enterprise software. Sales people get zero equity-- their comp is purely a percentage of sales on top of a relatively low base.

This seems economically rational. You want your sales people focused on selling.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER33> In Europe, it's often not the case. Here, ICs are often hired as contractors and thus exempt from the pay grades introduced by HR (while managers are almost often employees). Plus, in many countries contractors pay less taxes than employees, so their take-home pay is higher.

</comment><comment><USER34> Here's a simple rule for you to know. As you rise in your career and the ladder, you get paid (more) for results, not actions or efforts.

Managers and leaders get paid more for that singular reason. Shepherding a team to achieve a desired result is harder than it seems.

Of course there are bad managers...

</comment><comment><USER35> Responsibility, managers are expected to keep the project on track and held accountable it its not

<comment><USER36> Yes - as with all things, higher reward is for higher risk.

</comment></comment><comment><USER37> Take a good developer, someone who is motivated and enjoys their job and who has charisma and inter-personal skills.

Now tell them that they will not be able to code anymore and, intead, that they will have to deal with other developers' problems.

You need to offer a good raise for that.

</comment><comment><USER38> In terms of skillset I agree they shouldn't be paid, but what you are paying them for is risk and responsibilities on their head. They are the first to go if something goes wrong as they made the decisions so you paid them for that risk.

</comment><comment><USER39> Manager jobs are significantly more stressful and harder to train for than individual contributors. And my personal opinion is that good managers are much rarer than individual contributors.

<comment><USER40> It really depends on how much the manager throws themselves into their work. I've had a few really good ones that I felt were actually helpful and the vast majority that just go to meetings and completely fail to isolate their team from chaos.

<comment><USER39> Yes absolutely. Managing a manager is hard. Objectives and accountability are easy to get muddled because their tasks are all people based. I am still looking for a practical and resource-efficient way to manage.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER41> Not in every case, but if a manager previously did the work their direct reports now do, and this is a needed role, higher pay is how you incentivize someone to make that move.

</comment><comment><USER42> Why do waiters make more than cooks? There's your answer

</comment><comment><USER43> Two reasons:

1) they know how much everybody gets paid 2) they can keep secrets

</comment><comment><USER44> One of the great secrets that should not be:

Top-notch technicians (programmers) often get paid more than their managers.

True story.

</comment><comment><USER45> Nepotism.

<comment><USER41> Except that many managers are hired externally.

<comment><USER45> In that case, I would guess either still nepotism or just incompetence.

A lot of people will hire people from their college networks or whatever it may be. If they're hiring managers blindly based on some alleged track record, then they're just downright incompetent or taking a risk that has low odds of working well for the team :)</comment></comment></comment>


FBI wants access to Internet browser history without a warrant - <AUTHOR> https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/fbi-wants-access-to-internet-browser-history-without-a-warrant-in-terrorism-and-spy-cases/2016/06/06/2d257328-2c0d-11e6-9de3-6e6e7a14000c_story.html?postshare=6161465253213235&tid=ss_tw <comment><USER2> Dupe of [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11854848](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11854848)

</comment><comment><USER3> > The FBI's Office of General Counsel, however, has argued that electronic > communication transactional records are the functional equivalent of > telephone billing records. To eliminate any uncertainty, the FBI wants the > law to explicitly cover such data

As we spend more of our lives online, the old-world laws are going to be increasingly invasive. Especially with companies who are eager to store every tidbit of information into cold storage forever.

</comment><comment><USER4> It isn't clear from the article whether 'browser history' is being sought or only IP addresses (not that I think that's okay). The only link in the article working for me was to the dishonorable Sen. Cornyn's amendment which would allow warrantless collection of IP addresses in addition to other so-called metadata.

<comment><USER2> It's clear from both the amendment and the linked letter from companies opposing it that it doesn't actually mean 'browser history'.</comment></comment>


6 Popular Ideas That Fail - <AUTHOR> http://www.digitaltonto.com/2011/6-popular-ideas-that-fail/

<comment><USER2> _"Nobody ever gets fired for buying IBM" was once a popular belief that seems quaint now. It's hard to imagine that people used to buy IBM products simply because they were so dominant._

People still do the equivalent of this all the time ... that mindset is hardly a thing of the past.

</comment><comment><USER3> I can't speak for the rest of the points, but the point about Experts and Experience is too general to the point of being useless. Ok, don't blindly follow the advice of so-called "experts"? I shouldn't blindly follow the advice in this article?

<comment><USER4> No, you shouldn't, which is why research is linked in.</comment></comment>


Ask HN: Good Example of Back Up File to Pitch Deck? - <AUTHOR>

Hi HN - my co-founder and I have been trying to agree on the content of, not only the pitch deck, but the back up business plan & file that would accompany it should an investor ask.
Does anyone have good links or examples of the content & format to the back up file / business plan that would accompany the summarized pitch deck?
Thanks in advance,<AUTHOR> <comment><USER2> Could you clarify your question? What would be the purpose of the file? Truly just a backup, or supplemental information not found in the deck?

<comment><AUTHOR> Hi Malcolm... thanks for the response.

We were thinking the pitch deck is the summary / presentation of a "business plan." We want to have a comprehensive back-up file that contains all our findings in the pitch deck and the corresponding support for those findings plus supplemental findings should investors want it..

Does that make sense?

<comment><USER2> Sure, I think it'd be fairly common to make your business-plan available to investors upon-request. (These are a big topic, I'd recommend grabbing a "how to write a business plan" book from your local bookstore...the kind with lots of examples inside). Besides that, I don't think you need to go too far outside the box here; typical stuff like cap-tables and earnings reports should do fine. You just want to document anything important that has changed since the business-plan phase.

I would shy away from writing a "dissertation" though, I think most investors would prefer the majority of your time and effort go towards the product instead. They're going to conduct their own market research and such independently regardless. Also...people don't read. So the shorter your message, the more likely they are to actually ingest it.

<comment><AUTHOR> Awesome and very helpful to hear it from an independent 3rd party... thanks!</comment></comment></comment></comment>


In Chatlogs, Celebrated Hacker and Activist Confesses Countless Sexual Assaults - <AUTHOR> https://www.theverge.com/2017/11/19/16675704/morgan-marquis-boire-hacker-sexual-assault <comment><USER2> Several comments in this thread seem to purport that we shouldn't say or assume anything about the truth of the matter until he is proven guilty in a court of law.

That's a really ridiculous standard, for a few reasons:

\- The standard of proof in a criminal trial is "beyond a reasonable doubt", which is a very high bar to meet. (FWIW, I think it meets it in this case). We made it that high because _we would rather a guilty person walk free_ than put an innocent person in jail. The costs of you and I incorrectly choosing not to associate with someone are far lower. There are other standards for guilt in other cases, such as "more probable than not" in civil trials.

\- A prosecutor may believe a crime has occurred but decline to bring a case for a number of reasons (limited budget, jurisdiction, statute of limitations, difficulty or unreliability of evidence, because they think they don't have a good chance to win)

\- We make decisions all the time about who we'll partner with, who we hire, who we fire, based on standards far lower than this. In general it's not a crime to be an asshole but you'd never say I should wait until it's proven in court before deciding not to hire one.

There's more than enough evidence about this person specifically, and in most cases, for me/you to feel fine never associating with this person, or working with an organization he's involved with, ever again, even if a court of law never gets involved.

<comment><USER3> That is reasonable for individuals. But it's on here, in Google, lots of other sites -- millions of people who had never heard of him now form an opinion of him based on this article (or just the comments, or the headline). It's probably career destroying.

That's in effect more like jail time than like some individuals shunning him.

<comment><USER4> A career is not a right. The ability to access food, water, and shelter—life, liberty, property, and the pursuit of happiness—are rights. I hope he gets a job and a roof over his head. I don't hope he gets any more glowing profiles in the media.

There are plenty of careers I'm more worried about than his, starting with those of his victims, and probably continuing to those who could have been famous hackers were it not for the accidents of their birth.

<comment><USER5> the right for a fair trial with a Presumption of innocence IS A RIGHT. trial by media does not honor that right.

<comment><USER4> No, there is no right to a fair "trial by media". Quite the opposite in fact: restricting the media to a government-defined standard of "fair" would infringe upon a free press. In general, the free press is most important when it is reporting on a legal situation that opposes the government's narrative.

The right about trials is about a fair trial _by the government_ , and is a check on the government's power to punish.

<comment><USER5> NO, I disagree the right of a fair trial holds regardless of the system. it's about the accused not the system. otherwise lynch mobs would be justified.

<comment><USER4> A lynch mob is not justified because a lynch mob goes on to _enact punishment_ , usually via hanging, which is murder.

If you are using the word "lynch mob" in a rhetorical way to refer to people who are not depriving you of life, liberty, or property, arguments about actual lynch mobs do not apply. A so-called "lynch mob" that merely has opinions about you and does not do anything to you is not unjust any more than a high school mock trial club is unjust. A so-called "lynch mob" that has opinions about you and goes on to do entirely legal things, like exert their free speech rights to publish their opinions about you, is not unjust, either.

<comment><USER5> responding now might be inappropriate but for the record: one of the main premises of my response is that public ostracization is used as a form of punishment. ( I stated if in one of the previous comments).

historical data support my claim as wikipedia points: "Public humiliation is the dishonoring showcase of a person, usually an offender or a prisoner, especially in a public place. It was regularly used as a form of punishment in former times, and is still practiced by different means in the modern era."

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Something that gives me hope in the recent wave of sexual assault revelations is that I think we are getting closer to a point where victims are getting more comfortable reporting what has happened. As long as this trend continues this will allow opportunity for the justice system to actually work as intended because victims might feel comfortable enough to report what has happened before the statute of limitations has expired.

</comment><comment><USER7> Innocent until proven guilty (in a court of law) has been put to the test and found lacking in the current wave of revelations. The main reason for this seems to be that too many appeal institutions have been protecting perps, out of some notion that such abuse is not important enough (or something!). Complaints have not been taken sufficiently seriously to start serious investigations leading to serious consequences. This is the situation which actually legitimizes public shaming of the perps, and which will allow victims (women mostly) to get a fairer hearing moving forwards, and not continue to be told to keep quiet and endure, or worse. And so we can hopefully expect to return to upholding 'innocent until proven guilty' once these (seemingly new) moral standards have taken hold even in places of authority. Because that is one of the hallmarks of a civilized society.

<comment><USER4> It's also important to remember that innocent until proven guilty is a check on the otherwise unchecked, absolute, and final power of _the state_ depriving a citizen of their fundamental rights by imprisoning them. If you are not a state, it may well still be a good ideal, but it's not nearly as binding on you—in much the same way that e.g. free speech is also a good ideal for individuals and companies but you are not obligated to avoid having opinions on the content of speech the way the state is.

<comment><USER8> Obviously, but the idea that we can only have one standard or the other seems like a false dichotomy. Maybe we should be looking at how to take a more Bayesian approach to legal decision-making.

<comment><USER4> Sure. The legal system does sort of support that - the standard of evidence in a criminal trial is a lot higher than in a civil suit. It's quite possible to be in a situation where for some reason the government cannot punish you for a crime (maybe failure to prove beyond a reasonable doubt, maybe expiry of the statute of limitations, which is also a check on the government's power), but someone can publish that you have committed a crime, and another suit will decide that what they've said is true enough to avoid them having libeled you. Or they can find you in breach of a contract where you said you wouldn't do what you did, etc.

(My understanding is that this is basically why you sometimes see contracts banning illegal behavior. It's hard to prove illegal behavior to the extent required to throw you in prison, and that's a good thing, but it's easier to find you in breach of contract.)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> That person being 'Marquis-Boire', a name I have never heard before.

</comment><comment><USER10> I am hoping more of those involved in technology come forward. I've heard horrible stories from others, and tech isn't immune to this national cleaning house that is long overdue.

#metoo isn't just for the entertainment industry.

</comment><comment><USER11> Whatever became of Jacob Appelbaum? Plenty of people have accused him of sexual assault, but it's been months since I've heard anything.

</comment><comment><USER12> Corndoge below has been downvoted so badly that I can no longer reply, but he does have a point: the proper place to solve this is through the courts, not through the press.

<comment><USER13> > the proper place to solve this is through the courts

Solve what? The question of whether he should be imprisoned or face other legal penalties, yes. But it's a mistake to conflate that with dealings with Marquis-Boire in general.</comment></comment>


Teaching Machines to Draw - <AUTHOR> http://research.googleblog.com/2017/04/teaching-machines-to-draw.html <comment><USER3> I've read through all comments and referred docs, but no one seemed to offer much reason why we'd want machines to draw sketches. An incomplete list:

      * It's a different way to represent drawings. Alternative to pixels
      * Perhaps making it easier to render old-school animation at one point?

It's a fun rabbit hole though, the many sub-perfect bicycle sketches reminded me to this project, when someone created 3D renders from bicycle sketches: [https://www.behance.net/gallery/35437979/Velocipedia?ilo0=1](https://www.behance.net/gallery/35437979/Velocipedia?ilo0=1)

<comment><USER4> Frankly, I think there are many reasons not to do this.

1\. It's not computer art. I believe in the possibility of artificial intelligence, and when we encounter it it will be so different from human intelligence that asking it to make imitations of human art will seem like an insult. We probably won't understand its art very well either at first.

2\. I'm getting really tired of people racing to automate every damn thing. even if we establish an economic utopia and nobody has to work any more what are people supposed to do all day if every human activity can be performed 'better' by a machine?

3\. It won't really be 'better' though, it will just be more popular because so many programmers are trapped in a quantitative mindset and thus treat every problem they encounter like a nail to be hammered in. Imitative digital technologies will always be correlated with popularity, limiting creative innovation because developers can't think of a reason to optimize for or nurture anything that is initially unpopular.

Creative prostheses that all require the same amount of effort to deploy (ie none) will be hailed as 'allowing everyone to be an artist' without requiring them to in best any meaningful time or effort in ideas that don't pay off or that fail. The result, which we are already seeing, is a plethora of new material created with little effort that is as superficial as it is ephemeral, whose volume and variety will obscure its stultifying conventionality.

This is no more art than Cheese Whiz is food. It's Art-flavored mechanical product that functions to do no more than alleviate the masses' thirst for self-actualization without any adjustment of power structures and is thus fundamentally limited to reproduction of the cultural conditions from which it originates.

<comment><USER5> I think this is an anti-intellectual argument. Why would you argue against someone pursuing an idea? I don't see this as any threat to the distinction between art and mechanical reproduction.

Art has always been "ineffable" and will remain so, as long as humans have thoughts and feelings. Bad art, or lazy productions will be as ignored as ever.

<comment><USER4> I've already given you my reasons. Why not think about them for a while?

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Hi, I'm the author of this work. Happy to take any questions.

<comment><USER7> It seems that you use children development stages as inspiration for AI development. Can you explicit your approach?

You can also see my question as a rebuttal to the "it is useless" argument.

<comment><USER6> As a researcher, I was more interested in studying the doodles produced by children, compared to studying the drawings produced by professional artists or designers who may have been taught to draw a certain way, since perhaps the doodles are more closely aligned with the way we naturally think.

I was also fascinated at trying to understand how we are able to translate a vague concept in our minds, into a sequence of motor actors that doodles out this concept onto a piece of paper. We also take into account some feedback information during the doodling process. For example, I compare what I already doodled with what I actually want to draw, and decide I'll doodle next based on this information.

So we thought one way to study this ability of going from concept -> sketch, is to construct a very simple model of this doodling process, and try to train the model to doodle. We model this "vague concept" as a vector of floating point numbers. To model this "vagueness", we add noise to this vector. This way the model must learn to work with noisy concepts. The model takes this floating point vector as an input and (randomly) samples an output sequence of simple motor actions that doodles out an object. The sampling process is random (the model's outputs are the parameters of a pdf at each timestep), so the model can produce many different outputs given the same input. During the sampling process, the model feeds back into its input what it has just drawn, and process this information to decide what to draw next.

We show that our simplified model of the doodling process is also able to go from concept -> sketch, and also from sketch -> concept, and show that the concepts can be augmented, to alter the sketch the model produces in a meaningful way. We tried to make this model simple and robust enough so that in the future, we can incorporate it into more complicated models that try to do more than just doodling a simple object.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> The article fails to explain where the human inputs came from

The input sketches look a lot like the doodles that people sketched in quick draw (o)

If true that they reused this data I commend their resourcefulness and their clever way of turning data entry into an unaware fun game

(o) [https://quickdraw.withgoogle.com](https://quickdraw.withgoogle.com)

</comment><comment> Ono-Sendai Plug of vaguely related work of mine: [http://www.forwardscattering.org/post/42](http://www.forwardscattering.org/post/42) [http://www.forwardscattering.org/post/44](http://www.forwardscattering.org/post/44)

One thing interesting about this kind of automatic/AI-generated art is that it forces us to examine preconceptions about human creativeness. What does art mean when an algorithm can paint or draw as well?

<comment><USER9> Human creativity is related to process and the experience of creating from nothing.

The process is more important than the end result.

<comment><USER10> > "The process is more important than the end result."

said no one ever about their favorite record, movie, painting, or book.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> You are teaching the computer to produce simple pictures of things that _you_ find meaningful in response to prompts. You _draw_ something from your imagination into the real world. You won't have built a machine that can draw until it produces a picture that it made on its own initiative without your prompt.

<comment><USER11> How is this different from a human? As humans grow, they receive input from their environment. The world around them is what feeds their imagination. Even advanced professional artists are still just using their memories and life experience to create works of art. The only difference here is that the machine has been provided a much smaller, more focused environment.

<comment><USER12> Yeah the whole notion about genius pulling ideas from thin air is frankly laughable. We are simply not aware of what they have read or observed in the past. Even old Archimedes was inspired by observing the rising water.

<comment><USER4> I hope you're not ascribing that notion to me, as I am unsure why you chose to introduce it to the discussion.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> Teaching the Ape to Write Poems James Tate, 1943 - <USER2>

        They didn't have much trouble
        teaching the ape to write poems:
        first they strapped him into the chair,
        then tied the pencil around his hand
        (the paper had already been nailed down).
        Then Dr. Bluespire leaned over his shoulder
        and whispered into his ear:
        "You look like a god sitting there.
        Why don't you try writing something?"

My interpretation is, while we entertain these ideas of "teaching" animals or machines as something we control and decide to do, a long chain of events (evolution, causality, space jesus, technobabble simulation magic or ancient astronauts all the way back) behind us placed us here as well.

        We look like gods sitting here.

<comment><USER14> Free will is one of humanity's most persistent and enduring delusions. When AI wakes up, it will be the culmination of the entirety of the history of the universe, a place which we actually happen to occupy at this very moment...

Interesting thought, how would a super-intelligence deal with the philosophical question of free will?

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> Welp those first images are terrifying. Gets much better as it goes on. :)

<comment><USER16> The quote made me laugh, although I don't know how serious they were being:

> "For example, these models sometimes produce amusing images of cats with > three or more eyes, or dogs with multiple heads."

Yeah..."amusing".

</comment></comment><comment> kyle-rb >Exploring the latent space of generated chair-cats.

How is that not the title of the blog post?

</comment><comment><USER17> Oh my God. This is the first time I've seen anything related to AI research that's given me a visceral reaction of terror.

This is more than just making pretty pictures, the machine understands cats and pigs in a human way. It knows how many legs and eyes they're supposed to have, and where they go. And this isn't some human made algorithm, it learned that on its own.

The language of the paper even implies that the researchers don't quite know how the machine can do it. If this is a prequel to research on strong AI humanity is completely fucked.

<comment><USER18> > Oh my God. This is the first time I've seen anything related to AI research > that's given me a visceral reaction of terror.

I love DL but on the topic of visceral reactions of terror (or fear) to AI research, for me it was the recognition of the hot research on facial recognition(age, gender, ethnicity) with CNN's. Immediately, I had this vision of a dystopian future (informed by WW2) where some dictatorship had cameras that looked for people of a particular ethnicity and alerted soldiers of the targets position.

</comment></comment><comment><USER19> For some historical perspective, compare this to Harold Cohen's AARON generative rule-based system:

[http://www.aaronshome.com/aaron/aaron/index.html](http://www.aaronshome.com/aaron/aaron/index.html)

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

Pamela McCorduck's book about Cohen's work, _Aaron 's Code_, is also a good read.

</comment><comment><USER20> Good work! Training on vector pictures instead of rasterised images seems such a good way to go. With some related data, I imagine this can also be colored.

</comment><comment><USER21> Honestly, it's cute but this is somewhat like what you'd expect to come out of a student project at a university, in which case -- the student is getting valuable research experience, student and advisors are advancing their careers, and any IP produced becomes owned by student and advisor.

In this case, Google has spent shareholder resources on a project that really, could be done at any university, on a product that does not put the user first, and Google owns the IP. In fact, wake up -- you the public should view this product as a mechanism for Google to simply collect more data from people. The more people use this, the better Google's algorithms get at drawing. That's all there is to it. Thankfully, this product is not even fun.

There is a dangerous creed currently executed by Google leadership. Consider the Verily Study Watch: [https://blog.verily.com/2017/04/introducing-verily- study-wat...](https://blog.verily.com/2017/04/introducing-verily-study- watch.html) . The watch shows to the wearer only one thing: the time. However, it collects all kinds of data, ostensibly for medical research (at least to start). Forget about putting the user first, the Verily blog post literally talks about "user compliance".

Of any project that comes out of Google, you should ask: Does this project even put the user first? Does this project even put Google's shareholders first? And if you are a current Google shareholder (as many of their current and former employees are, if they haven't sold), you should agitate that Google start accepting and focusing on becoming a value company, if all the further growth opportunities they are able to execute is just further user exploitation.

</comment><comment><USER22> the author created an animation using vector drawings generated frame-by-frame using this method, by slowly adjusting the latent variable:

[https://twitter.com/hardmaru/status/852312400481079296](https://twitter.com/hardmaru/status/852312400481079296)

</comment><comment><USER23> Everyone I know who tried it drew a somewhat small repertoire of naughty sketches. Yet the service militantly refuses to recognize even the most basic of naughty sketches. :)

<comment><USER4> I heard about that I and I want an answer on it. Why is one subject deemed off-limits?

<comment><USER24> Because if it were able to recognize dick-pics, or whatever other manifestation of that "one subject" you might have in mind, then it would sometimes recognize them _wrongly_ and respond to a picture of a toothbrush as if it were a picture of a penis. If the person who drew the toothbrush were of a sensitive disposition, they might get Very Upset at this and make a big fuss. Public attitudes to that One Subject being what they are, this might well blow up into a big public highly-visible fuss, at which point Google might start losing advertisers keen to sell things to people of a sensitive disposition.

Google would prefer not to risk losing a shedload of money just so that their sketch-processing neural network can amuse people by correctly recognizing penises.

It's just this one subject because few others get people so upset.

(And contemplating others that might suggests that actually it's _not_ strictly just this one subject. False positives for "decapitated corpse" or "big pile of excrement", say, might be just as problematic. Want to guess whether the system is good at recognizing decapitated corpses and piles of excrement?)

<comment><USER4> Oh I understand the PR reasons. But given the importance of sex as a motivating factor in art (not least if you want to count the entire activity as a variety of reproductive signaling) I am very troubled by the notion of making a tool which restricts the scope of acceptable subject matter.

I know this is just an experiment right now but I want to put sex/nudity on the table as a subject of debate because it is central to artistic endeavor because arbitrary standards can become almost universal and institutionalized through path dependence (such as the QWERTY keyboard you are probably using right now). Imagine a not-too-distant future with a Magic Brush that easily allows you to paint the colors and shapes of your choice with the aid of some technological wizardry, but prevents the creation of nude or sexualized figures. That would not be a healthy development.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> Why is this above topics that are many times higher than the current topic rating (17 points vs other topics with 40-50 points)

<comment><USER26> Since day one HN has used an algorithm that takes the article age into account when determining what to show on the homepage.

</comment></comment><comment><USER27> We already have plenty of machines that draw, they're called printers. That aside, I don't see the novelty in a machine drawing, other than a nice display of programing.

<comment><USER28> Classification is the central paradigm in machine learning. It maps complex input signals into a limited number of classes. But now we have algorithms that do the opposite process as well - we can generate from latent representations images, video, text and drawings.

Having both ways to encode and decode is useful for interfacing with models and visualizing their internal states. It also leads to unsupervised learning of representations. Instead of generating simple labels, now we can generate very complex data.</comment></comment>


Android is almost fully supported with Linux kernel 3.3 - <AUTHOR> http://www.androidcentral.com/linux-kernel-33-released-android-support-almost-complete

<comment><USER2> Don't be too hopeful- Binder is still a big sticking point, and nothing is going to work without it. The two schools of thought on it are:

* It is a terrible, terrible interface that doesn't belong in the kernel

* Linux supports SysV IPC because other Unices do, Binder is at least as popular

Before you pile in and declare your reasonableness by endorsing the latter position, please understand that the former is not exactly on thin ice.

<comment><USER3> Binder was merged. But yes, both of the above are true.

<comment><USER2> I thought it was just merged into staging?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Someone else said that full support will come with kernel 3.5. But does that mean Linux apps will be able to work on Android then?

<comment><USER5> Linux apps generally expect a full software stack. Android's userspace is radically different (and for good reason). There's no GNU libc or GNU coreutils or GTK/Qt or X. There's a minimal libc implementation, busybox, and an Android-specific framebuffer-based GUI framework. From the source it appears that Google have tried hard to exclude GPL'd code as much as possible, too.

Getting Linux apps to (natively) run on Android isn't really affected by this news. The kernel was already as close as it needed to be. It's userspace that's the issue.

<comment><USER3> No busybox in android; that too is GPL software that Andy Rubin and the pre- Google Android people didn't want to ship. They actually hacked up a minimal "toolbox" to avoid shipping it. Sad, really.

<comment><USER4> Why did they remove it? What is GPL stopping them from doing?

<comment><USER3> It's just the standard fear. Shipping GPL code you didn't write means that you need to honor a license in ways you might not forsee. Some people view that as a scary risk and some don't. Rubin is firmly in the "GNU is for commies" camp. Shrug.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Yay, hopefully I can soon run Android parallel to a x-server on my netbook</comment>


Led Astray: Online Lead Generation and Payday Loans - <AUTHOR> https://www.teamupturn.com/reports/2015/led-astray <comment><USER2> Payday loans are a major target for identity theft. This kind of fraud is insidious, it can screw up your credit for years.

From the article: "Almost a third of online payday borrowers surveyed by Pew reported that their personal or financial data was sold without their consent.78 Nearly as many reported unauthorized bank withdrawals in connection with an online payday loan.79"

Payday loans have to register new accounts in national databases. My company monitors for payday loans taken in your name: [https://qidreports.com](https://qidreports.com)

</comment><comment><USER3> Very informative overview of an industry I knew nothing about. Thanks for finding/linking it!

</comment><comment><USER4> Pretty accurate from my experience.</comment>


$8-a-gallon gas - Eight reasons higher prices will do us a world of good - <AUTHOR> http://www.marketwatch.com/news/story/eight-reasons-youll-rejoice-we/story.aspx?guid=%7B82FCE1B0%2D1889%2D43B0%2DA465%2DE29BFEE95576%7D&dist=TNMostRead

<comment><AUTHOR> For one of the nastiest substances on earth, crude oil has an amazing grip on the globe. We all know the stuff's poison, yet we're as dependent on it as our air and water supplies -- which, of course, is what oil is poisoning.

</comment><comment><USER2> "7. Restoration of financial discipline"

Of all the great points here, I think that was the one that applied to me personally, and I appreciated it the most.</comment>


Ask HN: Why can't a startup sell saline to hospitals? - <AUTHOR> So saline is 98 USD a litre in the US. What are the barriers to entry in this market? Why isn't someone else making purified saltwater and charging 49 USD a litre instead, halving the price and still getting an insane margin?<p>Pardon my naivety about the US hospital system, I'm not in the US. But for all the discussion around health care in the US, I haven't seen anyone address the lack of competition here. <comment><USER2> It's explained here: [https://www.nytimes.com/2013/08/27/health/exploring- salines-...](https://www.nytimes.com/2013/08/27/health/exploring-salines- secret-costs.html)

<comment><USER3> I think that article leaves it still unanswered.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Most likely you're missing its a transfer pricing technique (to move profits to different entities). The actual cost of the saline from the initial supplier isn't as high.</comment>


If you are reading this you are not working on your startup. - <AUTHOR>

<comment><USER2> For a founder reading programming.reddit.com or ycnews IS to work. It's just a matter to manage to read a bit to relax and _earn_ interesting information and then back to work instead to burn the whole day in news sites.

<comment><USER3> Agreed. If you're in a startup, it's good to spend a little effort now and then looking at this sort of news since occasionally you'll learn something relevent to what you're doing.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> How do you know I haven't found a way to monetize reading news.yc all day?

<comment><USER5> I do it too.. sitting and reading news.yc all day... and my day job takes care of the monetization..

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> Hmm.. let's try some reasoning.

Building a startup correctly takes research and knowledge (out of many things), which, if tallied as part of the building process, amounts to work. The various resources and the affluent discourse presented by news.YC presents knowledge in a host of fields, but is primarily focused on the subject of startups, as hinted by the title of the aforementioned site. Thus, we can deduce that by being on this site and reading this topic, in an attempt to further our startup knowledge through means of discourse, is in fact 'work.'

In theory, I am working on my startup by being on this site, possibly by even reading this thread.

Of course, when all is said and done you could have probably been working on your startup instead of reading all of the above BS. :)

</comment><comment><USER7> Any reason why you can't downvote news entries?

</comment><comment><USER8> Hmmm...

Read news.yc or work on boring enterprise apps at work?

That's a tough one :)

</comment><comment><USER9> "Another trait, it took me a while to notice. I noticed the following facts about people who work with the door open or the door closed. I notice that if you have the door to your office closed, you get more work done today and tomorrow, and you are more productive than most. But 10 years later somehow you don't know quite know what problems are worth working on; all the hard work you do is sort of tangential in importance. He who works with the door open gets all kinds of interruptions, but he also occasionally gets clues as to what the world is and what might be important. Now I cannot prove the cause and effect sequence because you might say, ``The closed door is symbolic of a closed mind.'' I don't know. But I can say there is a pretty good correlation between those who work with the doors open and those who ultimately do important things, although people who work with doors closed often work harder. Somehow they seem to work on slightly the wrong thing - not much, but enough that they miss fame."

\-- Richard Hamming, "You and Your Research" (<http://paulgraham.com/hamming.html>)

<comment><AUTHOR> Well, you know which one you are.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> How many times do you visit yc news in a day? I'm averaging 2 to 4.

<comment><USER11> Probably 6 at the moment. Too much.

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> If I'm writing this, I'm not working on my startup.

</comment><comment><USER13> Who says? I'm just waiting for my VM to boot. ;-)

</comment><comment><USER14> or taking a break

<comment><USER15> It's just not obvious how many breaks you should take though so as to maximize overall productivity.

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> news.YC = talking about intending to work on one's startup. ;)

<comment><USER17> news.YC = down-modding ALL of juwo's posts.

<comment><USER16> so, it was _you_!

(Dont worry, I did not downmod your post here).

<comment><USER18> > (Dont worry, I did not downmod your post here).

Because it's a reply to your comment and you can't? :-)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> I wonder how many people think this then spend countless hours playing games/watching TV and other mindless forms of entertainment.

</comment><comment><USER19> Hah best post title ever :)

<comment><USER20> don't you tell me what to do. i'm a reble.

</comment></comment><comment> daniel-cussen Could not agree more; this has become a way to slack off.

</comment><comment><USER21> lol, you're right! back to work!

</comment><comment><USER22> /sigh</comment>


Python Alternative to Docker - <AUTHOR> https://www.mattlayman.com/blog/2019/python-alternative-docker/ <comment><USER2> Shiv does not solve for what containers and Docker/Podman/Buildah/Containerd solve for: re-launching processes at boot and failure, launching processes in chroots or cgroups (with least privileges), limiting access to network ports, limiting access to the host filesystem, building chroots / images, [...]

You can run build tools like shiv with a RUN instruction in a Dockerfile and get _some_ caching.

You can build a zipapp with shiv (in a build container) and run the zipapp in a container.

Should the zipapp contain the test suite(s) and test_requires so that the tests can be run in an environment most similar to production?

It's much easier to develop with code on the filesystem (instead of in a zipapp).

It's definitely faster to read the whole zipapp into RAM than to stat and read each imported module from the filesystem once at startup.

There may be a better post title than the current "Python Alternative to Docker"? Shiv is a packaging utility for building Python zipapps. Shiv is not an alternative to process isolation with containers (or VMs)</comment>


San Francisco's Epidemic of Car Break-Ins - <AUTHOR> http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2016/04/san-francisco-crime-policy/479880/?single_page=true <comment><USER2> There's a simple way to attack this: bait cars.

But ultimately, SF doesn't _want_ to stop auto burglary. It's seen as a form of _local stimulus_. Auto glass replacement companies profit, retailers of typically stolen goods profit (both off sales of replacements _and_ resale of stolen property if it leaks back into tax-collecting retailers), burglary ring members get spending money to spend locally, etc.

The strategy only breaks down if tourists and new residents stop coming altogether, and they are assuming that won't happen.</comment>


Planned Espionage Act could jail journos and whistleblowers as spies - <AUTHOR> http://www.theregister.co.uk/2017/02/10/espionage_law_jail_journalists_as_spies/ <comment><USER2> Looks like press freedom has got progressively worse over the last 10 years in this country: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Press_Freedom_Index](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Press_Freedom_Index)</comment>


AI and Unreliable Electronics (*batteries not included) - <AUTHOR> https://petewarden.com/2016/12/29/ai-and-unreliable-electronics-batteries-not-included/ <comment><AUTHOR> "our only hope for long-lived smart sensors is driving down the energy used by local compute to the point at which harvesting gives enough power to run useful applications. The good news is that existing hardware like DSPs can perform a multiply-add for just low double-digit picojoules, and can access local SRAM to avoid the costs of DRAM. If you do the back of the envelope calculations, a small image network like Inception V1 takes about 1.5 billion multiply-adds, so 20 picojoules * 1.5 billion gives a rough energy cost of 30 millijoules per prediction (or 30 milliwatts at 1 prediction per second). This is already an order of magnitude less energy than the equivalent work done on a general-purpose CPU, so it's a good proof that it's possible to dramatically reduce computational costs, even though it's still too high for energy harvesting to work."</comment>


LetterCrap – generate dynamic ascii art - <AUTHOR> https://nate-parrott.github.io/lettercrap/ <comment><USER2> Had to inspect source to notice it was sprinkling words into the animation (interesting list of words too)</comment>


HP Spectre 15 x360 2019 review: Carving a niche in a crowded space - <AUTHOR> https://arstechnica.com/?p=1474677 <comment><USER2> The 15 suffers similar issues as the 13 inch 2019 spectre and other whiskey lake hp laptops - many USB-C devices, including perfectly compliant chargers, cause it to hard lock (firmware/bios bug, not blue screen). In my case, compliant devices (such as phones), EGPU docks, caused the hard lock.

You can test this by bringing an official apple charger and cable to Best Buy. When I bought mine, I was sure it was a hardware issue until I demonstrated it on every floor model laptop by plugging in an official apple charger and my pixel 3, crashing each one instantly.

HP said that they would release a firmware update that fixed this but I don't know if it's out yet. I returned my spectre and bought a razer - this kind of bug is 100% inexcusable.

TLDR: If you purchase one of these, make sure to do it from a place that doesn't do restocking fees, apply the most recent BIOS update, and then test the laptop with multiple USB-C devices (and cables). A shame - I really liked the hardware.

<comment><USER3> I experienced the same, but have had little luck finding more data about it. Got any details on where they've indicated that firmware update is coming?

In my case, I set up dual-boot on my 13" Spectre. The Macbook USB-C charger has never once locked up the machine when I'm running Linux, but 100% when I'm in Windows, which makes me suspect a Windows driver issue.

<comment><USER4> I have a google pixelbook which only has usb-c for everything, including power. I have used many different usb-c chargers, including an apple usb-c that I'm charging right now. My android essential also seems to charge on any usb-c charger.

Do you think this problem is found on other laptops outside these hp laptops?

<comment><USER2> I tested the Dell XPS13 9380, the new thinkpad x390, and the razer stealth 13 - all based on almost identical chipsets.

None of them had the same issue, although Dell did ship a bad TB3 driver which needed to be manually fixed.

I have other USB-C devices, including phone, that charge just fine on any charger.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Is there anyone else that cannot stand the numpad being put onto a laptop keyboard? The laptop looks good enough but the keyboard layout means I would never get one.

<comment><USER6> Definitely. It ruins the aesthetics and is completely unnecessary . If I really, really need one, i'd rather just use an externally dongle'd numpad.

<comment><USER7> A choice between aesthetics and usability.

<comment><USER8> I find an off-centre keyboard to be a bigger usability problem than not having a numpad.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> The specs look great except for a maximum of 16GB of RAM. Unfortunately higher-RAM options have been going away, particularly as manufacturers have moved to soldered RAM. The same has been happening with Thinkpads. I have a T460s with 20GB of RAM (4 soldered and 16 added). I could easily get a 32GB DIMM and have 36GB (it's been confirmed to work) and maybe 68GB in the future if 64GB DIMMS show up and work. And yet a few generations later the higher end X1 Carbon is limited to 16GB. I've seen the argument that soldered RAM can be lower-power so maybe that's where the market went. It's a pity because now that CPUs aren't getting faster at a high pace a RAM and SSD upgrade is a great way to keep older laptops working great.

<comment><USER10> Soldered RAM is default option on lightweight laptops, but there are 'mobile workstations' like Thinkpad P72 (up to 128 GB non-ECC or 64 GB ECC RAM, 4 sockets 2400MHz DDR4 SO-DIMM).

<comment><USER9> Unfortunately that has happened, but it's not for space or weight really. The T4x0s line has a very similar form factor to the X1 Carbon and used to have only half the RAM soldered. My ideal laptop would use that same form factor and have 2 RAM slots and 3 or even 4 SSD slots. There's plenty of room.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> I have the 2018 15" Spectre as my work laptop. It's running linux really well. No 10-key number pad, which I'm happy with. I don't understand this article's complaint about the "small" touchpad. It's fine. You also have the entire touch screen if you like. It's really too big to use in tablet mode, but occasionally I try it just for fun. Overall 15" feels bigger than I'd like to lug around, but it's pretty thin so it's not too bad.

My biggest complaint is that the power button is right next to the USB and headphone jack on the left side, opposite the USB-C ports on the right side. More than once I've pushed the power button on the left while stabilizing the laptop as I push in a USB-C cable on the right side, and then linux does something I don't want it to do in response to that power button push (I know, I should be able to fix that). Putting it on that corner spot for this 2019 model will help with that, but I'd still prefer it near the keyboard like most other laptops I've used.

<comment><USER12> Just opened the article and saw the display is as reflective as a mirror[1]. Holy cow, how can you even work like that?!

[1] [https://cdn.arstechnica.net/wp- content/uploads/2019/04/HP-x3...](https://cdn.arstechnica.net/wp- content/uploads/2019/04/HP-x360-Spectre-15-open-1440x1036.jpeg)

<comment><USER2> Having used the 13 in with the same display - it's really bright. Like, way brighter at the same power consumption than any other laptop I've used. It's actually pretty incredible.

But then, I don't make a habit of computing outdoors. Also, I mostly work with a large, external monitor. So I guess it's not as big of a deal for me.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> How common are 15" laptops at your workplace?

I had to fight IT to get one. For some reason they really really wanted me to have something smaller.

<comment><USER14> In my past few companies, 15" Macbooks were standard for engineers. 13" for the rest of the staff.

<comment><USER15> I think this was more to do w/ the internals than the screen real estate.

I'd prefer a hot 13" something over a 15

<comment><USER14> I used to, but I got addicted to the extra screen real estate. The usually beefier configurations (the new 6-core, 32 gig machine is _very_ comfortable).

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> I still have an older (2016) x360 I've used as a dev machine running linux (various flavors) since I bought it. Initially there were wi-fi issues on Ubuntu distros, but those have since been sorted out. I've had absurdly good luck with HP laptops lasting much longer than they should.

For reference, have the smaller intel Core i3 model with 6GB of RAM. It is capable of running Dota 2 at 50-60 fps (using vulkan). I use a drop-down terminal with nvim, peppering in vs-code, to develop software in all sorts of languages. You will notice the resource limits with heavier IDEs and bigger compiles though. Good affordable option for people.

</comment><comment><USER17> I ordered a Spectre x360 in 2018 and the screen had dead lines on it. I RMA'd it and the second unit had screen blotches and dead pixels.

I assune this was because I got the 1080p instead of 4k screen. I wanted 50% more battery life, less fan noise, and not deal with linux HDPI issues. The graphics card was integrated. It was spec'd for 12-16hr battery life. It was a linux laptop of the gods, but I couldn't risk being stuck with 3rd bad unit.

I'm back on my early-2013 macbook for the time being.

</comment><comment><USER18> But why only 16Gb RAM max?

</comment><comment><USER19> And I guess it comes with the specter vulnerability?</comment>


Sweden's tradition of watching Donald Duck cartoons on Christmas Eve (2009) - <AUTHOR> http://www.slate.com/articles/arts/culturebox/2009/12/nordic_quack.html <comment><USER2> My wife and I are in Barcelona at the moment, and yesterday we learned about Caga tió, or "Shitting log", Catalan's version of Santa Claus. It's literally a log with a smiley face.

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ti%C3%B3_de_Nadal](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ti%C3%B3_de_Nadal)

Each family buys or makes their log and covers the rear with a blanket. Children then hit the log with sticks until it poos presents, often while singing one of several songs.

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dB_N7-HXTlI](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dB_N7-HXTlI)

Certainly one of the highlights of our trip.

<comment><USER3> [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caganer](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caganer)

Spain seems to have multiple poop based Christmas traditions.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> In Japan, they eat KFC:

[http://www.fastcompany.com/3040263/its-not-christmas-in- japa...](http://www.fastcompany.com/3040263/its-not-christmas-in-japan- without-kfc)

</comment><comment><USER5> I was walking down "Christmas Tree Lane" in Alameda a couple days ago and remarking to my mates on how popular culture turns into "Christmas Tradition". Many "Christmas Standards" are merely popular music from days past.

There was a very impressive "Nightmare Before Christmas" display synced to music. (The song "What's This?") Some smart alec walking by commented "someone sure loves their arduino."

If anything should become a new Christmas tradition, I think it should be this David Sedaris essay:

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NYdpte1W0vk](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NYdpte1W0vk)

It's also a nice commentary on how traditions change and can become bizarre.

EDIT: I sometimes ask people, "You know that way you feel when you do the Donald Duck voice? Do you think ducks feel like that all the time?" I'm pretty convinced that most people who can do that voice can't do it without a smile in their eyes. When I looked up the definition of "ducky," I found that one of the meanings was, "charming; delightful."

</comment><comment><USER6> Alright, so now it's time for weird Christmas things and things about weird Christmas traditions from Scandinavia, here's a (joke? yeah probably) video about some from Norway:

[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j50fA_7TbSI](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j50fA_7TbSI)

I won't spoil it by saying anything more... enjoy

</comment><comment><USER7> It's also interesting that the segment has become a point of heavy discussion of political correctness and genderification and at this point has been censored in many parts

<comment><USER8> Yes, indeed.

Last year a bl*ck doll was cut, as the stereotype was frowned upon (the airhead blonde doll was kept, and the fat white men) [http://www.thelocal.se/20121214/45080](http://www.thelocal.se/20121214/45080)

and this year a feminist gender consulting agency counted 293 male vs 22 female characters in the cartoon, and the twitterati went through the roof.

[http://svenska.yle.fi/artikel/2014/12/24/hejdlos- mansdominan...](http://svenska.yle.fi/artikel/2014/12/24/hejdlos-mansdominans- da-kalle-anka-firar-jul)

<comment><USER7> They cut the blonde this year too, and the jewish stereotype. But that particular scene is so full of political incorrectness, besides being a big sweat shop, I think if they cut all of it there would be nothing left :)

How many years until the chinese dolls go?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> The most bizarre thing is cutting down trees

<comment><USER10> Reminds me of one of my favorite Xmas vids: Treevenge.

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kicdSI_- XpE](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kicdSI_-XpE)

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> If we are talking about holiday traditions, I should point out Germany's "Dinner for one" sketch. Although that's for New year, not Christmas.

en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dinner_for_One

<comment><USER12> Bernd das Brot did a parody called "Dinner für Brot", also worth a watch.

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> I prefer this swedish christmas cartoon: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KnM4hswopgs](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KnM4hswopgs)

<comment><USER14> This is a longer version and has better quality: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_c96LBI4enk](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_c96LBI4enk)

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> I find it no more bizarre than A Charlie Brown Christmas.

<comment><USER16> The content isn't what's bizarre to me, it's the synchronicity. Everyone watches it together at the same time all around the country. Sort of like a cross between the Macy's parade and A Charle Brown Christmas.

That said, it's a lot of fun.

Source: Lived in Sweden for a few years, watched Kalle Anka with Swedish friends every year.

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> And for Iceland, via NPR...

Iceland publishes more books per capita than any other country in the world, with five titles published for every 1,000 Icelanders. But what's really unusual is the timing: Historically, a majority of books in Iceland are sold from late September to early November. It's a national tradition, and it has a name: Jolabokaflod, or the "Christmas Book Flood."

"The culture of giving books as presents is very deeply rooted in how families perceive Christmas as a holiday," says Kristjan B. Jonasson, president of the Iceland Publishers Association. "Normally, we give the presents on the night of the 24th and people spend the night reading. In many ways, it's the backbone of the publishing sector here in Iceland."

[http://www.npr.org/2012/12/25/167537939/literary-iceland- rev...](http://www.npr.org/2012/12/25/167537939/literary-iceland-revels-in- its-annual-christmas-book-flood)

</comment><comment><USER7> Don't forget the fine Swedish tradition of setting the christmas bock on fire. So many gems in its rich history

[http://dynamic.hs.fi/arkku/tiedostot/236485051591abb0d7c0235...](http://dynamic.hs.fi/arkku/tiedostot/236485051591abb0d7c02352f6_Gavle%20Goat%20Timeline%20UPDATED%20%281%29.jpg)

</comment><comment><USER18> Kalle Anka provides a excellent time where the parents can take a break after eating the Christmas dinner, drink coffee, and prepare for the event of delivering and opening presents with the children. A break, where everyone is expected lean back, to sit still and be calm.

<comment><USER19> >where everyone is expected lean back, to sit still and be calm.

Now that's Christmas magic

</comment></comment><comment><USER20> We have the same tradition in Denmark. We exchange presents on December 24th in the evening and during that morning and day the tv is filled with the same cartoons every year. We also have "Disneys Store Juleshow" (Disneys grand Christmas show) with lots of old short cartoons (Donald and his nephews in the snowball fight) and some new clips from Disneys movies. (Cinderellas dress creation, lady and the tramp spaghetti scene, snow white and the party in the hut, and this year; let it go from frozen). That's usually the thing that gets me in the Christmas mood on the 24th :)

</comment><comment><USER21> In Poland for every Christmas we're watching "Home Alone". People were filling online petitions when one of main TV stations threatened to drop it last year.

<comment><USER22> Does it have that horrible Lector dubbing?

<comment><USER21> Of course. Like almost all of the films in tv. But almost everyone is already used to this, we don't even notice it.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> While the article is mostly true, the commitment to this tradition is very exaggerated. Few of the people I know gather around the TV show.

Source: Being a swede.

</comment><comment><USER24> This is the traditional movie shown before noon here in Norway: [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/T%C5%99i_o%C5%99%C3%AD%C5%A1ky_...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/T%C5%99i_o%C5%99%C3%AD%C5%A1ky_pro_Popelku) (voices are dubbed to Norwegian). I think it has been shown every christmas eve since the 70s.

</comment><comment><USER25> My favorite part of the show is at Santa, where they paint a chess board using chess-board-patterned paint.

<comment><USER26> Now thats efficiency.

</comment></comment><comment><USER27> In Russia and most of the former Soviet Union (even in Ukraine, Georgia and Baltics), they watch one and the same film for 25 years, now.

Here's the film: [http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0073179/](http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0073179/)

<comment><USER28> I watch this every New Year's eve, do Russians watch it on Christmas Eve?

<comment><USER29> Good point, it's New Year's Eve, not Christmas.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER30> In the UK 'The Snowman' has become a bit of an institution.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Snowman#Animated_film](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Snowman#Animated_film)

<comment><USER31> Which is one reason why I particularly love this Irn Bru advert (soft drink, popular in Scotland):

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

</comment></comment><comment><USER32> for some unexpicable reasons, in italy we get 80's movies (Trading Places (1983) is the top) and asterix cartoons. I used to wait eagerly for those, to be frank.

<comment> ezequiel-garzon I recently read [1, in Spanish] that you guys were into a different 1983 movie: Vacanze di Natale. Is it indeed popular as well?

[1] [http://elpais.com/elpais/2014/11/20/icon/1416504630_403302.h...](http://elpais.com/elpais/2014/11/20/icon/1416504630_403302.html)

<comment><USER33> Those films in Italy are like Justin Bieber in the music world: almost everyone loves to hate them, I never perused neither of the two (nor I know anyone who does), and they evidently have captured a certain market segment.

Trading Places otoh is broadcasted every single year, so given how it's hard to grow up without a television at home I definitely agree how that's a staple for italian broadcast programming that's part of popculture

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER34> I prefer the simple pleasures of Daffy Dook:

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GTJdmmSTvw8](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GTJdmmSTvw8)

</comment><comment><USER35> My tradition is watching "The Muppet Christmas Carol" every Christmas

</comment><comment><USER36> Same procedure every year. Europeans love their traditions and customs.

<comment><USER22> Not only Europeans.

</comment></comment><comment><USER37> I live in Finland and we do the same thing here.

<comment><USER38> You happen to speak Swedish? My mother tongue is Finnish, and I had never heard of the Kalle Anka thing, but all my Swedish speaking friends said they have always watched it (and still do).

<comment><USER23> Perhaps Swedish speaking finns used to watch Swedish TV? I suppose that would have a very strong cultural influence.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER39> [2009] Corrected [2011]</comment>


Michel Lallement: "At Noisebridge, he who does is legit" - <AUTHOR> http://www.makery.info/2015/05/04/michel-lallement-a-noisebridge-est-legitime-celui-qui-fait/?lang=en <comment><USER2> One possible confusion: "libertarian" clearly here means "anarchist", which is different from the common US meaning. (Most of the world uses anarchist in its historic meaning, which predates the US right wing coopting the term.)

> _" One young guy who made a big mistake had been expelled from the space. To > keep him from returning, there was a poster with a big photo of him : "If > you see him come back, throw him out." It's extremely violent. From planet > France, we tell ourselves that we would never do that in organizations or > associations. Bay Area hackers are unflexible about certain rules, such as > sexual harassment, for example."_

I hope I misunderstand this. His version of "French" culture sounds like savagery. I'll pass this to my French friends for their insights.

<comment><USER3> Being a French sociologist he would probably find the U.S.'s definitions of anarchism and libertarianism a bit quaint :)

It sounds like his version of French culture is less savage? He was saying he found the American hackerspace to be extremely violent. It's no surprise he feels this way, some radical lefties feel it's important to make examples of people for breaking social norms to the extent of running people out of town. I've also seen social punishments for not participating in ostracizing the wrongdoer, like if you don't help shame them maybe you don't value your place in the community.

<comment><USER4> "radical lefties"? Sure, I'm sure there are some "radical lefties" that feel "it's important to make examples of people for breaking social norms."

But that's definitely more characteristic of the (far) right. Being more conservative, those conservative ideals are enforced through social norms (i.e. excluding those who don't fit their views of what's normal -- think of LGBT kids kicked out to the street, for example.)

<comment><USER3> Not everything has to be a "but the conservatives are worse!" Even if they are, it's no excuse.

I don't know the individuals from the article but I've witnessed what he's talking about and I think he described it accurately.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> "Noisebridge is one of the first, which spread its ideals and inspired the other Bay Area hackerspaces."

It's worth remembering the cDc/l0pht affiliated "New Hack City", circa 2000-2002.

Hard to believe, but it was a hackerspace right in the city center / financial district of SF ... "just down Market street under the "We Buy Diamonds" awning, only evidenced by a buzzer button labelled "SETEC Astronomy"."

</comment><comment><USER6> Hooray for healthy communities. I've been to Noisebridge a couple of times, and it reminded me of the workshops in Discworld...

</comment><comment><USER7> I visited Noisebridge back in 2013, and I thought it was nasty and dirty (maybe to get that authentic urban vibe?).

I'd much prefer HackerDojo, at least there you can go pee and not have to worry about leaving your stuff.

Also, I read enough about their problems with drug use and the homeless who lived there, that I'd rather just not go back.

<comment><USER8> I was an active member of Hacker Dojo for the first several years. When it was still open to the public 24/7, we had a lot of the same problems. People do what they have to do to survive, and passing up a free roof wouldn't make a ton of sense. Figuring out respectful disincentives to that (or locking the doors, take your pick) goes with the territory.

And stuff did get stolen. We even had a rule that if you left things at the Dojo and they weren't obviously part of the facilities they were fair game to use, hack with, destroy, take home, whatever, just to set the expectation that there was no security (and to limit the whole "not sure if I can hack this thing" mentality). The high point on that was when some dude had a pretty nice position-tracking VR setup running on Windows staged in one of our large meeting rooms (he was one of the exceptions allowed since it was really, really neat) and the local BSD user group helpfully reformatted his boxes to FreeBSD for him. He was kind of pissed.

I don't think the Dojo was ever particularly comparable to Noisebridge, though, for better or for worse. I guess the Dojo was closer to a hackerspace than most other things you could call it, so it was as good a name as any. But the Dojo was more like a community center that had, as one of its facets, a hackerspace. Most of the people there were self-incubating startups or coworkers, not really people doing the kind of open, collaborative work that typifies other spaces. We had a community of people who were more like that, but it was a subset, not the place itself. Nowadays, the balance has tipped even more, and the coworking aspect is even stronger. At the point I left, at least, most of the classic hackerspace aspect had taken a real back seat.

Noisebridge, for all its warts, is something pretty special IMO.

<comment><USER9> He's right, and it's sad. Hacker Dojo today is a big room with bright industrial lighting in which people slave on laptops in silence. Under the new management, the lounge has been converted to a more upscale room with office cubicles for rent. Parking is now restricted to paid members during the day.

They have a shop workspace of sorts, but it's not used much any more.

The article doesn't mention TechShop at all. TechShop is still around, with three Bay Area locations. San Jose is in great shape, SF is in good shape, and the mid-peninsula location moved twice and lost members due to downtime. TechShop runs corporate team-building exercises for big companies; I've seen Google, Facebook, and Singularity University take over the space, pushing the paying members out. The big tools (laser cutters, water jets, CNC milling machines) are great, and I've used almost all of them. Not much social activity any more. There used to be Friday night events, but that died out.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Looking at the hacker community in San Francisco from the perspective of someone immersed in the tiny technology community in Hollywood it still looks like a bunch of terrified little brothers afraid to face the real world, the entertainment industry.</comment>