A town of about 200 people, almost all of whom live in the same building - <AUTHOR> https://stories.californiasunday.com/2015-01-04/begich-towers-whittier-alaska/ <comment><USER2> W00h! I grew up in Whittier, AK. Ask me Anything! Haha, seriously, I moved to Whittier at the age of 2 in 1974 and lived there until 1986.

The big change there since I left has been the tunnel. When I was there you had to drive your car up onto a railroad flatcar (and pay a steep ticket price) to get out. Anchorage is only 55 miles away, but really it's two mountains away. The railroad sold passenger service only as a requirement of the state and prioritized it behind freight. Between that, avalanches and assorted weather problems, you could wait hours and hours for a train. Winter service wasn't even daily, back then. We didn't even have cable. Just PBS and one channel that mixed shows from the three big networks. It was strange.

Yes, most residents live in one big 14 story high-rise in rural Alaska.

I most definitely do not miss it. I recommend this book if you want more info:

[http://www.amazon.com/dp/1578331919/](http://www.amazon.com/dp/1578331919/)

<comment><USER3> I will grasp this amazing opportunity and flood you with these questions:

1\. Why the town even exists? Article tells nothing about its purpose.

2\. What are the most jobs? Is there any production?

3\. How did it feel to live in such a small community?

<comment><USER2> > 1\. Why the town even exists?

OK, history/geography lesson... The Kenai peninsula hangs down into the Gulf of Alaska and sort of separates those two areas. The landscape around there is very mountainous. However, Whittier has a low mountain pass to "easily" travel between Passage Canal (not an actual canal) on the east side to Turnigan Arm and Anchorage (more of a muddy tentacle) on the West side. Portage Pass was where natives would portage their kayaks through there back in the day, and European explorers adopted the route. Fast forward to World War II, and the US Army developed the site into a town, building pretty much everything bigger than a shack that you see there today. The Japanese were taking US islands in the Aleutians, and we needed to be able to get war materiel up there. You can't take it directly to Anchorage because it's a horrible port, with huge tides. So the Army built two big docks and a tank farm for petrolium. They connected it to Anchorage with a railroad. Unforunately, the old native portage was over Portage Glacier, and impassable in the summer. So they built one of the longest tunnels in the world through the mountains (also a second quite long tunnel). After WWII built Whittier's big residential buildings, Beggich Towers pictured in the article and the abandoned, Buckner Building. The Army pulled out of Whittier in the 50s, only a few short years after the two big buildings were built. Whittier survives as a town today as a port, and on top of that Army infrastructure.

> 2\. What are the most jobs? Is there any production?

Most of the jobs are at the port, the railroad and the tank farm. In the summer, there's fishing and tourism. Everything else pretty much hangs off those.

> 3\. How did it feel to live in such a small community?

I hated it. Other people liked it. Imagine having 0-4 other kids in your grade. Those are all of your friends. Pick your best friend and your girl friend from that pool. The weather was shit. Summer was SHORT and muddy. Winter was long and DARK. Absolutely everyone is absolutely all up in your business all the time. The views were real nice when it wasn't raining or snowing. It was usually raining or snowing. Opportunities for doing anything beyond school or work were pretty narrow.

<comment><USER4> Is there a doctor in the town? A hospital? What happens if someone has a medical emergency - you said the only way to Anchorage in winter was by a train that often didn't come daily.

I just don't understand how these kinds of towns keep any residents. They seem downright dangerous to live in. In Russia, I can understand it, but these are US citizens who can get a flight down to a whole host of warm, easy towns and get any minimum wage job and still quite easily be better off than before.

<comment><USER2> Generally speaking, there are some EMTs around. Mostly the same crowd as the volunteer fire department. They get some minor training and they do what they can. For anything big, they just transport you to Anchorage.

Back in the day, when I lived there, there was no road, just the railroad. But we had an old Army ambulance that had train wheels that it could deploy to travel to Anchorage on the train tracks. My dad actually took that trip twice IIRC for a heart attack and a stroke (I was pretty young and don't really remember it).

These days there is a road. It closes at times, but the cop has the keys, so they can open it for emergencies.

But yeah, living in the bush, emergency medical care may be a ways away.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> I live in Alaska and have visited Whittier multiple times. Every time we go, my wife and I comment about how great of a setting it would be for a zombie apocalypse movie.

"Oh it's only accessible by water or the main tunnel, it's easy to secure" "oops we forgot about securing the old train tunnel" "oh no they're in the apartment building, let's go hide out in the creepy old abandoned building down the street"

... clearly I'm not going to be writing the screenplay, but the location has a lot of potential!

<comment><USER6> It would be a great place to hold out with a large group if you had a way to obtain and import supplies and you cleared the building first. You'd probably be able to spot anyone coming or going (living or undead), and it would be likely that very few zombies would be in the surrounding land.

Also, of course zombie fiction requires a major suspension of disbelief in this regard, but the damp/cold weather would cause the zombie bodies to freeze (at below zero) or decay faster (at above zero, though I suspect it is rarely if ever above zero)

<comment><USER7> The Whittier temperature averages [1] seem to indicate a 6-9 month period where highs are above freezing. That would make for some exciting daytime zombie interactions. By comparison, McMurdo Sound, Antarctica [2] does indeed appear to be below freezing on average the vast majority of the year.

To hide out from the zombie hordes behind an impenetrable wall of freezing air, you would just have to set up shop at some place like Amundsen Scott South Pole Station, Antarctica [3]. Once the jet fuel (what they use for power) runs out though, it will get unpleasantly cold, fast.

[1] [http://www.usclimatedata.com/climate/whittier/alaska/united-...](http://www.usclimatedata.com/climate/whittier/alaska/united- states/usak0266)

[2] [http://www.weatherbase.com/weather/weather.php3?s=46698](http://www.weatherbase.com/weather/weather.php3?s=46698)

[3] [http://www.foresthillweather.com/PHP/Metar2/AntarcticaAverag...](http://www.foresthillweather.com/PHP/Metar2/AntarcticaAverages.php)

<comment><USER8> Antarctica doesn't need zombies, it already has Aliens and Predators doing battle down there. A continent can only take so much!

(Apologies to those who missed the first AvP movie.)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> This arrangement looks a lot better than the norm in that area. The typical 200-person remote Alaskan town is more of a shantytown, a depressing collection of low-quality single-story shacks. This at least looks like solid construction, probably more weatherproof than the norm, and with some indoor community spaces. Seems like a decent solution for such a town, in the rare case where the capital to build such a building is available (in this case it was only because the U.S. military built it).

<comment><USER10> Whittier isn't anything like "remote" by Alaska standards.

It's on the rail system and (now) the road system.

Most Alaska towns and villages aren't.

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> Photographer has more photos here: [http://reedyoung.com/project/whittier- alaska/r-young-whittie...](http://reedyoung.com/project/whittier- alaska/r-young-whittier-location-02/)

Also the full version of the article in OP's link

<comment><USER12> There are some great images here: [http://www.wildnatureimages.com/Whittier.htm](http://www.wildnatureimages.com/Whittier.htm)

This one gives a great aerial view of the town: [http://www.wildnatureimages.com/Aerial_Photos_Whittier.htm](http://www.wildnatureimages.com/Aerial_Photos_Whittier.htm)

It is one huge parking lot.

<comment><USER13> Wow, it looks stunning in summer (not the town, but the surroundings).

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> It would be interesting if someone tried this in one of these larger cities with high rises like Singapore. You'd create a smaller groups with a sense of community while still giving members the benefits of living in a large city. The reason I thought of this is it reminded me of a strategy of using small bible study groups being employed in a large church that was part of my alma mater. The idea is that it was easier and more intimate in these small groups, so they'd have the ability to hold more personal sutdy sessions. Of course, they still belonged to the main body and had those advantages, such as a larger number of volunteers, etc.

Something like that could create the "small town atmosphere" many city dwellers seek without destroying the city.

<comment><USER15> This is essentially what college campuses do already, to some extent. My current apartment complex also hosts activities, movie nights, brings in nurses so residents can meet and ask about health problems. This is in addition to the playground, tennis/basketball court, computer room, gym, small theater, and other amenities that help to create a "community" atmosphere.

Also, I think a big reason this model is so "successful" is that people don't have much of an alternative. Really, would you _prefer_ to go to that sketchy- looking grocery store with the mayonnaise next to the cereal, if you had the choice of going a few blocks to a large supermarket? To be honest, I've never spent any time using my own apartment's amenities. I live in the city, because I want to be with people like me, not because I want forced socialization with people who just happen to live together.

<comment><USER16>
        I live in the city, because I want to be with people
        like me, not because I want forced socialization with
        people who just happen to live together.

That just sounds like a contradiction...

<comment><USER17> Only if you assume that physical proximity is the most significant attribute two people can have in common!

Aside from my housemates, I don't know so much as the first name of any other person on my block; but I live here because dozens of my friends live within a mile of my house.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> Whittier is also home to the Buckner Building. 250k square feet, abandoned after the 1964 earthquake and left to rot. In other words, a perfect place for indoor skiing. [http://vimeo.com/50860740](http://vimeo.com/50860740)

<comment><USER19> Why do they build such tall buildings in an earth quake area? Why is such an destroyed inhabited building still around 50 years later? In other parts of the world there would be many smaller buildings and inhabited ugly buildings would be removed.

I like the creative use of the building in the video, great work!

<comment><USER20> _Why do they build such tall buildings in an earth quake area?_

The basic answer is that they had no idea what kind of earthquake was possible there. That earthquake is #3 on the list at [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lists_of_earthquakes#Largest_ea...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lists_of_earthquakes#Largest_earthquakes_by_magnitude) and was the second megathrust earthquake recorded since the geological knowledge existed to figure out what they were. (The first being Chile in 1960.)

<comment><USER19> For the destroyed building yes.

But they built a newer taller building right next to it - that's the one in linked article.

<comment><USER21> > But they built a newer taller building right next to it - that's the one in > linked article.

I think that building also dates back to the war.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> This article makes it sound like some remote wilderness where you would freeze instantly when you go outside. The climate there (according to wikipedia) isn't that cold, right now it's -12c with a high of 3c over the next few days - there are plenty of European cities with colder climates.

Still an interesting place none the less. They have an official website with more details: [http://begichtowers.com/](http://begichtowers.com/) \- there is a unit for sale for $40k if anyone is interested :D

<comment><USER23> The coldest city in Europe is Helsinki. According to Wikipedia, the average high is 9 C and the average low is 2.9 C. For Whittier, the average high is 7.3 C and the low is 1.7 C.

Can you give some examples of these many European cities that are colder, on average?

<comment><USER22> Not sure where you got that Helsinki is the coldest city, I'm not even sure it's the coldest capital. There are plenty of colder cities, take a look at Kiruna as an example (which was also featured here a few weeks ago):

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kiruna#Climate](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kiruna#Climate)

Edit: Ah I think I understand, my original comment was referring to being cold in the depths of winter, not the average temperature. Right now I'm in Vilnius the capital of Lithuania, it get's colder than Whittier (and Helsinki) in the winter but a lot hotter in the summer, so the average isn't that bad:

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vilnius#Climate](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vilnius#Climate)

<comment><USER24> Just as a little fun fact Ulaanbaatar, the capital of Mongola is the coldest capital city in the world. Right now Accuweather says it's -18°F (0°C). It regularly dips below -40°F/C in the winter.

<comment><USER25> -18°F (0°C)

What?

-18F is -27C

0C is 32F

<comment><USER26> I think parent swapped F/C. -18°C is 0°F

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER27> This video is about a Teacher who lives in that building. It's really cool: [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=naPguX84Amg](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=naPguX84Amg)

</comment><comment><USER28> A good friend of mine just finished up a year and a half of living and photographing in Whittier. She has a few amazing photos here: [http://documentarystudies.duke.edu/uploads/media_items/city-...](http://documentarystudies.duke.edu/uploads/media_items/city- under-one-roof-by-jen-kinney.original.pdf)

The stories I've heard about this town are _wild_

<comment><USER29> That was pretty cool.

</comment></comment><comment><USER30> I wouldn't mind living there. I've been dreaming about moving somewhere remote and just do freelance work. The only requirement is a good internet connection which sadly excludes a lot of cool places.

<comment><USER31> The thing is, this town is not only remote, but during the winter you have to pretty much dug in and stay inside. No going anywhere. It's not the same as just being somewhere isolated and remote, and you have to take that into consideration. Some people might enjoy it anyway.

<comment><USER32> > _and stay inside_

Huh? Why would you stay inside when you live in such a beautiful place? I live in the Yukon - it's -37C today and it's absolutely beautiful outside. I rode to work today, and just did a 1 hour round trip walk to the library to drop off some books. I'll go for a ~2 hour snow shoe tonight in the dark with my headlamp. I saw the Northern Lights last night, so I'll take my camera tonight.

Winter is actually the most beautiful season - the snow is so clean and bright, and the sun shines off all the ice crystals so beautifully. It was cold this day - [http://theroadchoseme.com/mendenhall-glacier-juneau- alaska](http://theroadchoseme.com/mendenhall-glacier-juneau-alaska)

<comment><USER33> Just for my curiosity, how often are the winter weather good enough for you to venture outside?

<comment><USER32> > _how often are the winter weather good enough for you to venture outside?_

I've never had, or ever heard of the winter weather being bad enough to stop people going outside to do activities in Whitehorse, Yukon.

I was Caribou hunting last year near the Arctic Circle at -48C, my friends were back country skiing on the weekend when the wind was severe and likely the windchill was past -60C. I ride my bike or walk to work/town literally 365 days of the year. Friends were Bison hunting a few winters back below -55C - and they were sleeping in a wall tent :) They had to wake up every hour to stoke the stove, and it took them a full day to get their snowmobiles running so they could ride ~100km on them back to the world. Not the kind of place you want to make a mistake.

It doesn't snow much here (semi-arid) so we don't get whiteout conditions.

Our local community ski will close when it's past about -30C - so we can't go skiing on the chair lift then - on those days I go snowshoeing or ice fishing usually.

Friends up in the Arctic Circle in places like Iqaluit [1] have told me they have 20 or 30 days a winter where it's impossible to go outside - it's such severe whiteout and wind you would get lost and literally die if you went outside. Nobody leaves their house for any reason on those days.

That doesn't happen here - or at least I've never heard of it ever happening, and have not seen it in my 5 years.

[1] [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iqaluit](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iqaluit)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER34> This reminds me of Fermont[1], a remote Canadian city in northern Quebec that I visited when I was young. There is this 1.3 km long building shaped like a wall with all services, shops, restaurants and apartments in it. The wall protects the rest of the city from northern winds.

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

<comment><USER35> Also reminds me of some French ski resorts - I think Tignes Le Lac has one huge long building, one of the area of La Plagne as well.

<comment><USER36> I think you're referring to the Plagne Aime 2000 main building. It's nowhere near 1km long tough

[http://images.dunordausud.fr/HIVER/plagneaime/station/plagne...](http://images.dunordausud.fr/HIVER/plagneaime/station/plagneaime1.jpg)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER37> You can virtually drive through the infamous train tunnel in Google Street View: [http://goo.gl/g1p9Kj](http://goo.gl/g1p9Kj)

<comment><USER38> Here's a better link:

[https://www.google.com/maps/place/Portage+Glacier+Hwy,+Chuga...](https://www.google.com/maps/place/Portage+Glacier+Hwy,+Chugach+National+Forest,+firstname.lastname@example.com,-148.804294,3a,75y,112.63h,100.73t/data=!3m4!1e1!3m2!1sWUD- NRiFTmMrntA8gilTyA!2e0!4m2!3m1!1s0x56c80cabf53a711d:0x40c2084a18e3f6ba)

</comment></comment><comment><USER39> This article inspired me to browse Google Maps around the area. Surprisingly I found this US/Canada border crossing that is completely unguarded: [https://www.google.com/maps/place/Dawson,+YT,+firstname.lastname@example.com...](https://www.google.com/maps/place/Dawson,+YT,+firstname.lastname@example.com,-141.0008213,3a,75y,174.12h,75.89t/data=!3m4!1e1!3m2!1s421FPv4qhRXmE2YBKnq- DQ!2e0!4m2!3m1!1s0x5148e3cbd4f5b5b7:0x4a8d7ab95cad1ffd)

Literally just signs by the side of the road. Even the Top of the World Highway has a Customs inspection shack (which is farther north and seemingly more remote).

<comment><USER40> Imagine getting a flat tire in that spot and not having a spare..

<comment><USER41> Related: I worked as a geologist in the area and our helicopter ran out of fuel while doing some recon far from civilisation. Imagine our surprise when we spotted a 4x4 with a fuel tank below us, out in the middle of nowhere (more or less). We landed on the dirt road next to the truck, fuelled up enough to get back to the base and had a good laugh + beer to end the day.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER31> And I lived in a city with about 14 million people, where one building had about 3 thousand people living in it (it has its own zip code). So different it made me want to visit this town in Alaska.

</comment><comment><USER42> It would be interesting to see what these people do for a living. Why are they there? There are children, so there must be families who have decided to move there.

<comment><USER43> I imagine fishing, oil and gas, and Alaska's (edit) $2,000 stipend for residents is what keeps them there.

<comment><USER44> Are you referring to the Alaska Permanent Fund?

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alaska_Permanent_Fund#Annual_in...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alaska_Permanent_Fund#Annual_individual_payout)

If so, it's not a $2,000 stipend and it's only been $2,000 once since it's inception.

Or is there another stipend you're referring to?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER45> We took an Alaskan cruise last year on Princess. We left from Vancouver and our last port of call was in Whittier. Then we had to take our turn going through the train/car tunnel to Anchorage for our flight home. If you mistime your ride through the tunnel you can miss your flight. We had a really late flight so we had no problems.

</comment><comment><USER46> Zillow lists possibly 4 homes for sale. (It says 5 but I think one is a duplicate.) As well as the tower which others mentioned, apparently there also a condo called Whittier Manor.

[http://www.zillow.com/homes/whittier- ak_rb/](http://www.zillow.com/homes/whittier-ak_rb/)

</comment><comment><USER47> Funny how that works. I saw somebody mention this city in a thread on Reddit yesterday. He talked about visiting somebody there and having to wait 1.5 hours because the one-way-tunnel changes "direction" every 2 hours...

</comment><comment><USER48> Reminds me of Chungking Mansions in Hong Kong [http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chungking_Mansions](http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chungking_Mansions)

<comment><USER49> Beigich and Chungking are both perhaps proto-arcologies (although far less utopic than most arcologies are envisioned).

</comment></comment><comment><USER50> I googled the location, expecting it to be in the far north of Alaska, given the description. But it's just southeast of Anchorage. Is the weather really that much worse?

<comment><USER2> I grew up there! The weather is a lot different than Anchorage. Anchorage is colder. Whittier gets a TON more precipitation.

The Army actually built Whittier during WWII because it was a good deepwater port (ironically, Anchorage has huge tides that make it a horrible anchorage) that was always overcast, making it hard, they thought, for the Japanese to bomb.

</comment></comment><comment><USER51> Reminds me of the film Snowpiercer.

</comment><comment><USER52> And even then you could get home grown weed:

> A pot bust on the tenth floor led to the police donating hydroponic > equipment to Whittier's school for a vegetable garden, which Joey Lipscomb > oversaw through eighth grade.

Amazing.

</comment><comment><USER53> It sounds like emacs to me. Pure awesomeness.

</comment><comment><USER54> Bigger and utopic.

[http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00LS6MOZY](http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00LS6MOZY)

</comment><comment><USER55> There's a TV series in that for sure!

</comment><comment><USER56> Kind of reminds me of Peach Trees from the Judge Dredd movie - though more cheerful mind you.

</comment><comment><USER57> Beautiful photographs, would love to see a documentary about this!

</comment><comment><USER58> Wow, it's like a stationary Snowpiercer.

</comment><comment><USER59> Real-life fallout 3?

</comment><comment><USER60> Kowloon of the west :)

</comment><comment><USER61> Why is this on hackernews? Stick to tech.

<comment><USER62> Because I, a hacker and the target audience of Hacker News, find it very, very interesting.

<comment><USER63> It's not one of Eric S. Raymond's talking points, but the backwoodsman aspect of hacker culture seems really important, and also, probably, fatal to its long-term spread.

<comment><USER64> How do you reconcile that with so much of hackerdom being in and around San Francisco (and a lot of the remainder being MIT)?

<comment><USER63> Well, first of all it's not a geographical description. The nature of "hacking", which is a self-reliant activity of producing provisional solutions, has a lot in common with the ethos of life in remote areas or on a frontier. Even the word hacking evokes chopping firewood or doing some other woodwork task in a rough, ad-hoc way. This is combined with a sense of mutual aid which is often present even in (maybe especially in) thinly-populated areas. Gabriella Coleman might be a good source for more insight into this. Just why hacker communities behave as if they are isolated even in an urban environment is not something I understand, but from personal experience they are self-selected groups of people with particular traits, who often have difficulty being accepted by mainstream culture, or who scorn the mainstream.

I haven't read Coleman's book, but it is available here: [http://gabriellacoleman.org/Coleman-Coding- Freedom.pdf](http://gabriellacoleman.org/Coleman-Coding-Freedom.pdf)

(When Dijkstra talked about "coding bums" in relation to APL, he didn't mean that they would be drinking and sleeping rough...)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER65> Hell most jails in the U.S dwarf this complex. Dear lord I hope an EMP never hits any of those towns. Sure hope the gov hasn't taken away the ability to protect yourself.

<comment><USER66> I think Alaskans would be able to defend themselves just fine. As far as I know they ride bears to work and eat raw fish.

My sources may not be perfectly accurate all the time, though.

<comment><USER67> They'd be even more formidable if they rode fish to work and ate raw bears.</comment></comment></comment>


WikiAudio $200 audio geek-out competition - <AUTHOR> http://wikiaudio.org/wiki/Special:AWCforum/?action=st%2Fid38%2F%24200_Audio_Geek-Out_Competition

<comment><USER2> I don't know. I find this "competition" a bit weird for several reasons. First off, from looking over the site it's not clear whether wikiaudio is a commercial venture or not. If it is a business, then populating your site with content by offering a $200 prize to the winner seems a bit pathetic. If it's a community site, offering prizes for creating the most content seems to go against the whole idea of "community" where people are contributing content based on shared interest rather than a monetary reward. And finally, most audio geeks I know have a fairly high disposable income. A chance to win $200 wouldn't seem to be a big motivator.

<comment><AUTHOR> You might be over thinking it. Maybe it's just something fun to do. :)</comment></comment>


Ask HN: Underemployed and anxious. What would you do? - <AUTHOR> After a brief career in publicity, I decided to make the switch into engineering. I enrolled in a bootcamp—knowing full well the laudations and condemnations of the bootcamp model—and graduated in November.
This maybe isn't the place for a full postmortem; suffice it to say that I came out of the program confident in my own enthusiasm for programming, and less confident in how hiring companies may interpret the presence of a bootcamp on my resumé.
In the months since, every day, I have: —Applied to two jobs here in NY, taking my time with cover letters, following up where appropriate, researching the companies, etc. These are overwhelmingly junior front-end or full stack positions.
—Studied compsci and new technologies so I'm a stronger candidate —Practiced whiteboarding-style questions so that I'm prepared for interviews
—Freelanced so that I can pay rent and continue surviving —In my spare time, worked on solo projects
I have gotten very little traction. I receive form rejections in response to almost every application. I've gotten far along in the process at a few places, but repeatedly hear some version of "You seem great...for a junior! Be in touch when you're mid-level." It feels like, as months go by and the hole on my resumé grows, my chances are only worsening.
I get it. I'm an unknown quantity, and the bootcamp on my resumé isn't a strong guarantor of quality. Still, I feel like I'm scrabbling for purchase. I had entertained fantasies of someday moving into games/simulation space, and that feels further and further away.
How do I get out of this hole? Do I drop the immense time suck of actively looking for work, live off my meager freelance work, and put my time into a project that makes employers take me a little more serious? Do I keep throwing good time after bad, keep my head down, keep applying to junior positions, and not ask any more questions? Do I need to go back to school? <comment><USER3> Recently I've been writing on the topic: [http://blog.envoice.in/ultimate- guide-land-freelance-gig-end...](http://blog.envoice.in/ultimate-guide-land- freelance-gig-end-end/)

\- Polish your freelancing portfolio

\- Learn more about the client you are going to pitch to

\- Prepare for the meeting

\- Learn how to create an estimate

\- Close the deal

</comment><comment><USER4> As a supplementary activity, I'd strongly suggest going to various meetups in the city that meet on a regular basis, either weekly or monthly.

Say you know Rails, go to a Rails meetup. Say you enjoy politics and tech, find a Civic Tech meetup. In NYC, I'm certain there are tons of excellent tech related meetups that provide opportunities to socialize with the community and get to know what's going on. The added benefit is that some of the hosts of the meetups are looking for employees, or some of the members belong to companies that are looking for people.

You might say, "I don't like networking." That's fine, not every tech event is a networking event. Civic Tech meetups for example focus on working on projects in your spare time that benefit citizens. During a meetup you can sit in on a project meeting and potentially contribute if you're interested. So it's a natural way to collaborate with others on a shared goal and to learn. Very different than going to a bar and having to strike up a conversation with another person.

I don't view going to meetups as a direct method to gaining a job, but rather, increasing the likelihood of serendipity. Maybe you'll go one day, and a employee of a company announces they are actively looking for someone. Or maybe you make friends with someone knows someone who is looking for someone. Or maybe you come up with an idea of an interesting side project that could be an excellent way of proving your chops to a potential employer. The idea is that you already know what you know, that applying is hard and hugely competitive, so why not try a bit more of a circuitous route by going through humans first?

And I say this having got my first job in NYC through a friend, my first co- founder through a friend, my first startup through a friend, my first YC interview because of exceptional co-founders who were way smarter than me but I met through friends.. basically it didn't matter that I didn't go to an Ivy League or prestigious program, all that mattered was putting in a ton of effort to build my skills (like yourself) alongside connecting directly with people.

<comment><USER5> Seconded, NYC is great for tech meetups, there are several everyday. And if you're unemployed it certainly doesn't hurt that they often are catered or at least provide pizza.

If you go to meetups and actually talk to other attendees you will certainly learn a lot, meet people in the industry and open new doors for yourself.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> The stigma around bootcamps definitely sucks, and I am sorry that you are falling victim to this.

I hired someone out of a bootcamp who turned out to be the best hire I have ever made in my entire 10 year career. Initially I wasn't even aware that this person had been in a bootcamp. I proceeded to interview purely on abilities and grilled 'em on some questions about DOM, JS, CSS etc... (the candidate was applying to be on our frontend team).

First, do not let this weigh you down. 50% of anything you get in life is not whether or not you have the qualifications for it -- but if you believe you're gonna get it. It applies to asking someone out on a date, telling a risky joke, or trying to find a job. It's great you're aware of the stigma associated with bootcamps, but don't let it define who you are.

Second, and this is primarily for the other people in this thread: don't judge a book by it's cover. The aforementioned best hire I've ever made in my life was an individual fresh out of a bootcamp who, prior to that, was essentially a jarhead in the Marine corps. If I was starting something new today and needed someone technical on my team they'd be the first person I would go to. This individual started as a frontend engineer and - almost overnight - <USER2> sharing 50% of the workload with myself at every level of the stack, all the way down to configuring kafka/cassandra clusters and building internal microservices.

Finally -- sell your narrative. Ignoring the obvious baseline qualifications a technical person needs, most people are not looking for a technical genius who went to Carnegie Mellon and aced every single class. They're looking for pragmatic engineers who are quick on their feet and can dive deep to the root of an issue to engineer a straightforward solution to the actual problem. Demonstrate this ability and it will go a long way. You say that you're making it pretty far down the path so your cover letters are working. You might just need to change your narrative to flip the minds of those who keep considering you a junior engineer. People want you to help them solve problems -- they want to work with people they can trust -- show them that.

Keep doing what you are doing -- also please send me your resume to firstname.lastname@example.com because you sound like a rad person.

<comment><USER7> thank you for one of the most positive and helpful posts I've read on HN

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> I suggest you change your strategy:

\- Build a MVP of an application you would find useful, try to cover it with unit tests and modern day practices. I think having something on the table will greatly improve your chances. \- Find a job somewhere else. I've never lived in the US but at least all my life I had to move to another city, and even to another continent to get the job I've wanted, that wanted me. The city I've lived most of my life I have no chances of getting a job: there are no jobs in my area there.

I know that NY is a great city for a developer, but the life cost and everything tells me that it's a "high level" city, the one you go after you had previous success. Places where life cost is low, there are many students and businesses at early stages are great.

I also suggest you to work for a startup. Perhaps one with many problems and issues at early stage which you would probably need to pull out more than 40h/week, because that will make you improve. I did that at the beginning of my career and it completely changed my life: I moved to a first world country, I've got married, I can make money etc. Those hard experiences make us way stronger. Of course, only do that if your current life allows you to do so: having kids or even trying to maintain a good relationship with others will be hard.

<comment><USER9> >I know that NY is a great city for a developer,

I don't want to be pedantic, especially considering you admitted you aren't American but...

NY is a state, not a city. :) Easy to get it confused. NY state is huuuuge while NYC is just on the lower east portion of it. NY is 47,126 sq mi, NYC is 304 sq mi.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> By "NY" I assume you mean "NYC"?

Have you considered applying for jobs in the boonies of NYC? NJ, Long Island, Upstate? If you are the sort of young person living in NYC I am imagining you to be, the prospect of commuting to the burbs is horror-inducing to you. It is to most of your peers, with whom you are competing; you will have a leg up if you are willing to commute to Poughkeepsie for a year.

<comment><USER11> As someone in that area, I can +1 this for sure. Every young person wants to work in FiDi or Midtown, but I see tons of junior job listings even in the close-in bits of NJ and Long Island that don't get touched because, "who wants to go to Jersey?".

<comment><USER12> Exactly, do the grunt work. Get a job in the Midwest if you need to, grind it out and get to be mid-level, then be the jobs will be calling you.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> Switching to a new industry can be tough... and often landing your first job is the hardest part. As such, I would NOT be choosy at this stage. There's a ton of companies out there that don't have customer-facing software, but desperately need developers. These positions may not be exciting (e.g. improve intranet app, clean up reports, etc) but they're always there, the competition for them is generally lower, and they serve as fantastic proving-grounds for newcomers.

</comment><comment> et-al Sorry if these are obvious and you've already gone over them:

\- have you tried reaching out to your alumni network or the career development person at the bootcamp?

\- what has feedback been about your interviews? if it's "we're looking for someone more senior", ask them what are the traits of a senior person and work towards that

\- if you're focused on Javascript, do you know the latest frameworks kids are discussing? Angular/React/Vue? And while it's awesome you picked up Haskell, can you write RxJS?

\- in terms of interview prep, you've know the answers to explaining .this, closures, class instantiation, async right? And how are your "tell me about yourself", "time when things were difficult" stories? Confident? Engaging?

I don't think you need to go back to school. Perhaps the market is flooded with bootcamp grads and now it's how do you differentiate yourself. Better portfolio site, stronger Github presence with good readmes. And like thegandhi says, sometimes it's out of your control. Some companies really just want fresh grads with 3.8 GPAs.

Also, take a week off from job hunting or even thinking about the internet. Go out camping, be out in nature, and reset.

<comment><AUTHOR> I've been in regular communication with a couple career development people via Slack, and saw one during an on-campus event recently. They're supportive, but their advice is mostly "Keep going!"

I should ask what the traits of senior people are—I've had some really nice conversations with interviewers by asking, "If you were in my position, what would you be doing?" Sometimes it seems like they just want me out of their hair after the rejection, which I understand.

Yeah, my bootcamp taught Angular and I taught myself React and built a couple apps with it. Haven't looked at Vue, I should do that. And no, haven't used RxJS—I'll look into that, thanks!

My technical answers have been solid so far. My "time when things were difficult" stories were a little clumsy out the gate—I'm coming from a field where I never, ever got asked questions like that—but I'm getting them together now.

I appreciate your words of advice and support! The advice to take a week off is especially good, and something I should probably put an effort toward. I've been in go-mode unremittingly since June of last year, and keep putting relaxation off because I don't want to miss an opportunity.

<comment> et-al > _I 've been in go-mode unremittingly since June of last year, and keep > putting relaxation off because I don't want to miss an opportunity._

That's really admirable! But yeah, take care of your mental health too.

When I mentioned Angular/React/Vue, I'd pick one and specialise, but be aware of the others, too. And yes, work on the "behavioral" questions. In another recent interview thread [0], jonasvp and ryandrake had some good insight worth reading.

"These are standard interview questions that you just have to have a prepared, rehearsed answer for that you can rattle off without thinking. There are tons of these types of "behavioral" questions. Tell me about a project that you worked on that failed. Tell me about a time you had to deal with team conflict. Talk about a struggling project that you had to help turn around. You can get a book full of them. Be ready with canned answers for as many as you can and practice them in front of a mirror." [1]

Ultimately, if you've landed an interview, you're pretty much 80% of the way to getting the job. The rest is just showing you're proficient in what you've written about and that you're a likeable person I'd want to work with day in and day out (the dreaded culture fit).

[0] [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13874026](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13874026)

[1] [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13876602](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13876602) (specific comment in above thread)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> It sounds like your approach is already very proactive and productive. Don't underestimate the value of persistence. I spent a year teaching myself to code. I was able to get a foot in the door through an internship at a NYC agency. This came after several months of fruitless applications and one freelance gig that ended because I didn't know enough about WordPress. I was dog walking in the meantime. Now I am a software engineer. Truly entry-level positions are (in my experience) hard to find for a new web developer. Once you have your first professional experience, internship or junior position, you will receive more interest from prospective employers. Unfortunately, the lack of entry level positions means that you have to have patience and persistence in the beginning. Believe in yourself. Trust that you made the right commitment. Keep at it. I did little things like buying clothes that I was going to wear when I finally had my first web dev job. I didn't wear those clothes until the first day of my internship. By investing in that future, even in silly, little ways, it helped me to believe that future would be a reality.

If you're in NYC, check out the BoroughJS meetups. I don't know if this will help you find a job but I think it will help you to feel part of the JavaScript community. You _are_ part of that community if you choose to be, even if you don't have a job. People there will (in my experience) take you seriously regardless.

Finally, a word on bootcamps. I've interviewed several candidates who graduated from bootcamps. Some are great. Others are not. I think the attitude generally is that a bootcamp listed on a resume isn't an indication of anything. If this is one of the primary ways you define yourself, I would deemphasize it. Instead, emphasize code you've written (in the form of Github repos, Gists, CodePens, live sites, etc.) and communicate that you think like a programmer, even if you don't have a lot of experience. These are the two things I focus on when interviewing junior candidates.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for the thoughtful response! I've heard—and believe—that it'll get much easier to move forward after this next big step, but it's hard to feel like I'm just treading water.

I'll definitely check out the BoroughJS meetups, thanks for that.

Also, very much agree that a bootcamp on a resumé isn't an indicator of much—there were a very broad range of attitudes and skill sets at mine, and I think it's getting broader with every incoming cohort.

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> Most of the junior roles,in tech companies, are filled with new grads or rather resumes from colleges. I would suggest going to career fairs and conferences/meetups. Many recruiters scout here for junior positions. Also, do not be disappointed with rejection. You just need one acceptance :). There are many companies out there. Apply like a bit. Good luck.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for the advice and the words of support—much appreciated!

edit: To everyone else—thanks for the replies, I really appreciate everyone's feedback. I want to be replying faster, but HN isn't letting me add any more comments. I'll respond as I can!

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> >Applied to two jobs here in NY, taking my time with cover letters, following up where appropriate, researching the companies, etc.

That's the wrong approach, IMO. The goal of job applications isn't to make the best impression possible, but rather to find companies that are interested in talking to junior engineers.

The right approach is something like make/find a spreadsheet with 500+ tech companies in NY and send out something like 20 applications per day. If you're efficient about things, you can totally send out an application in <3 minutes, so it'll take no more than an hour of grinding per day.

Save the research and application quality for when you've got a warm lead.

>the bootcamp on my resumé isn't a strong guarantor of quality

Drop it from the resume and just put in your freelance work and independent projects, IMO.

</comment><comment><USER17> As a side note: I almost never hire mid-level.

I hire seniors and high-potential juniors. Many mid-levels are mid-level because they don't have what it takes to become a senior. Those high-potential junior might or might not have it, but this doesn't really matter. If they don't have it, they become the war horses that are very familiar with the stack, and that do most of the implementation work, while the seniors do more the architectural kind of work, and take care of the juniors.

Not hiring juniors that have little experience, but seem to be very intelligent and eager to work, is one of the biggest mistakes you can do in tech hiring.

</comment><comment><USER18> I would suggest building something small,a website that integrates with Google Maps Api, Twilio, Lob whatever so you can at least show something on your resume when applying.

I was in your position 3 years ago, although not from a bootcamp but came from another country without any plausible experience / projects to show for, so I built a website and its administrative area and talked a lot about it on the interview, how I built it, the problems I encountered and so on. That might help a little bit, asking for NYC salary ( I guess around $60-$70k) withouth anything to show for is a hard decision to take for any employer out there.

</comment><comment><USER19> The first thing that comes to my mind when I see a resume like yours is that do you have any real experience or just a line claiming your did the bootcamp? Depending in what you learned, do you have a portfolio of released apps and software that you can proudly list? Also have a blog. Not everyone needs these, but given you're starting out new, you need to do all you can to get more credibility and these two things can put you a notch above most other people applying for the same job and at least get you interviews. Once you get there, then it's all you and not so much your portfolio or blog.

</comment><comment><USER20> Think about the job hunt as an funnel to be optimized. You want more stuff (jobs) out the end of the funnel. To do that, you can:

A) Get more things into the top of the funnel -- fill out more applications.

B) Fix the leaks parts of the funnel -- It sounds like you get stuck at the resume screen. I don't see any quick wins here.

C) Find a new way past the leaky part of the funnel -- Have you tried contacting hiring managers or engineers directly (cold emails, networking events, ...)?

</comment><comment><USER21> What programing language did you learn? You could contribute to some open source projects to gain a bit of exposure.

<comment><AUTHOR> The bootcamp focused on JS; I've been dabbling with Python, C#, Elm, and Haskell. That's a great idea; I actually poked into it a bit a couple months ago, but had trouble finding projects with issues that were approachable. Is there a resource for looking up suitable projects, or am I best off going to projects I know about and bouncing from there?

<comment><USER22> Don't explicitly go looking for open source projects to contribute to. That never worked for me at least.

Instead, let them come to you. Just do whatever coding you'd otherwise do, for fun or pay, and focus on that. But, while doing it, see if you notice something that annoys you about some library.

Any behavior you have to work around, or just a nice to have feature. Or even any time you wonder how a feature of a library you use is implemented (maybe the documentation is vague), jump in and read the source. And now you have an open source project to contribute to, almost as if by accident.

(You could do this for any tool or platform you use too, but libraries are nice for this IMHO because sometimes they're small, and they're in the same programming language you're already used to. Jumping into, say, your operating system can be much more intimidating than into a library you already use in a language you already know that really just does one small specialized thing)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> One time, instead of a cover letter, I built a feature I thought should exist for a product the company I was applying for made. It made a big impression on one of the engineers who eventually voted up or down on my getting hired and I got the job. This was my first full-time tech job.

</comment><comment><USER24> Just a though - if you want to eventually move to games/simulation anyway, why not teach yourself C and program some not entirely trivial 3D graphics demo using OpenGL/Direct3D? This is not easy (both C and the APIs are fairly difficult and obscure) and would give me a lot of confidence in you having chops to be a professional coder. One of the advantages of this task as a "rite of passage" is that it cannot be winged by just copying snippets from tutorials/stackoverflow until stuff works. Plus, for a move to games you'd probably need to do this eventually away.

<comment><AUTHOR> This is a great idea! Definitely feels outside my current skill set—which has mostly come from working with Unity and C#—but seems like a good, attainable, challenging way to put some work in toward that end. Thanks for the advice!

</comment></comment><comment><USER25> In addition to old school networking at meet-ups & conferences-- Suggest looking for Bootcamp Alumni on Linkedin.

Give them a ping, ask for a friendly 'fellow alumnus' referral. Would they be open to quick 7-10 minute phone call? Do they know any local companies amenable to Bootcamp talent?

The shared connection of the Bootcamp might yield some interesting opportunities.

</comment><comment><USER26> talk to a recruiter like teksystems. find out who works for the NY office and send them an introductory email. I had the exact same issue a while ago and this was the solution, I had a job < 2 weeks after first contact. take a short contract gig to beef up your resume. be selective with the opportunities the recruiter brings you, learn your market value

</comment><comment><USER27> >> bootcamp on my resumé

Remove bootcamp from your resume. Its not for resumes, its primarily for gaining skills. No one will be impressed by Bootcamp. Give list of your projects but don't mention where you developed them. Just say, Self starter/learner. Bootcamp is a negative indicator, imho.

</comment><comment><USER28> Put your work experience (freelance) on your resume. Use your social network to do a good word for you. Keep going or practice acting, anxiety always give off a negative signal. Don't limit yourself geographically (NY). If nothing works, apply for internship or move to northern europe.

<comment><USER29> I am not posing the following question in a critical manor, I am genuinely curious. How can moving to Northern Europe from the US benefit one's career? Is it feasible to immediately compete for work against locals as a junior dev? What about senior?

<comment> et-al Yeah, I feel Europe cares about the degree more than America does. We're the land of self-reinvention here, whereas Europe generally requires some sort of training/schooling to switch careers.

<comment><USER28> In tech they're often less strict. Degree is more important here, but it's not impossible to land a job in tech with another background. Also, university education is nearly free in Germany (less than 1000$ a year)

<comment> et-al True, tech in general seems much more accepting of different educational backgrounds. And affordable education is a really good point.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER30> >> After a brief career in publicity

Any notable achievements from your publicity career you can mention in your resume?

Are there are a lot of people with a similar background to yours (publicity + coding skills)? If not, can you somehow use your publicity career to your advantage?

</comment><comment><USER31> When not submitting resumes, try contributing to some widely used github projects that interest you. There are recruiters out there that specifically look at commit history for potential applicants, plus it'll help up your skill level.

</comment><comment><USER32> This may not be financially feasible for you but offer to be an intern for a few months and if accepted, then prove to the potential employers that you are indispensable and then they could hire you on as a full time employee.

</comment><comment><USER33> How long have you been applying? It's a marathon. Instead of blindly applying to jobs, try to meet people who can introduce you to employers. Warm-calls are always better than cold-calls.

<comment><AUTHOR> It's been about four months. I've been going through friends and connections too, but they've mostly fizzled out.

</comment></comment><comment><USER34> How about blogging about things. It is a great way to market yourself. You can post your blog entries on LinkedIn, Google+, Twitter, Facebook etc. Use relevant hash tags.

<comment><USER35> I'll second this. When I'm looking at applications, especially at someone without a lot of dev experience, just having a little blog explaining your side projects, even if they aren't super original/complex goes a long way. It lets me see that you're proactive, an independent learner, you can communicate, potentially your sense of humor. A simple web site and/or blog can go a long way.

</comment></comment><comment><USER36> Edit : wrong page. --'

<comment><AUTHOR> I totally agree.

</comment></comment><comment><USER37> The economy never recovered from 2008 but you are likely also competing with low cost remote talent there just are not that many openings compared to the sheer scale of the numbers of people uncounted and pushed out of the economy.

</comment><comment><USER38> How many jobs have you applied to in total? You mention applying to two jobs in NY, but does that number encapsulate every single company you've reached out to?

</comment><comment><USER39> You've only applied to two positions?

<comment><AUTHOR> Two positions a day.

</comment></comment><comment><USER40> I think you're doing so much right, and I'm sorry you haven't yet achieved the results you're after. In the long run, you will. In the meantime, focus on the process and not the results. Be mindful of the results, but focus on what you can control - the process (your time and your actions). Interviewing is a set of many skills - you get better over time. You're better at it than when you started because you have more experience interviewing.

You need some information on what's not working. There's a kind of funnel:

Phone screen -> at home task/project -> onsite -> offer

Sometimes there are 2 or more phone screens. Sometimes the take home project is after the onsite. Sometimes there are multiple onsite interview. But write out a general funnel in a spreadsheet and track how you do with each company. Each company will be a row. You want to see how far to the right you are getting. You have lots of data at this point - populate the spreadsheet with it.

Why? To see where you're dropping off, and to see how you do with different kinds of roles, industries, and companies in terms of size. Are you applying to the right jobs? Are you applying within 1-4 weeks after the job is posted (rather than being 1 of 100+ applications in the pile because the posting is 4 months old)? If you aren't getting many phone screens, work on your resume format and wording, cover letters, and your digital persona (LinkedIn, blog, etc). Get honest feedback from people you know, and if you still get the same results, hire someone to improve your resume and help you write a cover letter or two that you can mimic for future applications. If you aren't getting many call backs after a phone screen, work on how you're answering questions (your narrative, behavioral answers, technical answers, describing previous work experience, your tone, etc.). Do practice interviews, and practice your answer to questions. If the process seems to stop after the take home project, practice these types of projects on your own. If you aren't getting offers after onsites, that's where you need to focus.

Especially on the phone screen and in person, when people ask if you have any questions, ask them "Do you have any concerns about my abilities or qualifications that would prevent you from selecting me for this position?" Patterns will emerge. You can address their concerns, but only if you know about them. Help communicate to your interviewer who you are and why you're hirable and will do well at the role. With this knowledge, you'll be able to anticipate these concerns and soften them with other interviewers in the future.

Apply to 5-10 jobs a day. Pick 5 if that's more realistic. 5 a day will get you a lot more feedback on what's working and what isn't than 2 a day. Put a little less work into each one if you have to - they should be personalized and good, but they don't have to be perfect.

Reach out to people who gave you a "not now" answer 4-6 months after that happens. Their needs change all the time, and your skills are constantly improving, so at some point it might work out with one.

Start a technical blog. Talk about your side projects, freelance work (if your client is ok with it), algorithms, useful dev tools - anything technical. Posts don't have to be that long or groundbreaking, but this will help you get a job. Put it on your resume, Github profile, LinkedIn, so people know it exists.

Focus on what's most likely to get you what you want, a full time job. C#, Elm, and Haskell are awesome. Focus on one for a day or two if the company you're interviewing for uses them. If you want to, dabble a little for your own learning and enjoyment, but focus your energy on things that will help lead to a full-time job in the short term. You have a lifetime to explore and learn.

Apply to gaming companies if that's what you're passionate about. Especially ones that need the skills you have most strongly now - web development. Possibly for their marketing teams (because of your former experience with publicity).

1\. Map the interview process funnel. Figure out where you're dropping off, and focus on improving that area. 2. Ask people what concerns they have with you, and address them. 3. Apply to 5-10 jobs a day. Whatever the number, pick it and do it. You'll get more data which is essential to improve. 4. Reach out to employers who said "Not now" 4-6 months after because their needs may have changed and your skills have increased. 5. Start a technical blog. 6. Dabble a little less in a wide variety of technologies that aren't as applicable to the roles full time jobs you're applying to. Study them once you have it. 7. Make sure to apply to gaming companies if that's what you're passionate about.

You got this. Best of luck!

<comment><AUTHOR> Thank you so much for this thoughtful post—this is enormously helpful and encouraging.

</comment></comment><comment><USER41> Try applying for ~100 jobs a day instead of 2.

<comment><AUTHOR> I've done some mass-applying with things like AngelList, but generally I like to take the time to research a company, write a thoughtful cover letter, etc. It'd be hard to do that 100 times a day, especially if I'm going to do anything else with my day. Do you think quantity is more important than quality?

<comment><USER41> I don't think you can judge quality until you're actually employed. The best looking jobs on the surface turned out to be some of the worst jobs I've ever worked. There's a lot of similarities between dating and finding a job, heh.</comment></comment></comment>


Killer at 70,000 Feet - <AUTHOR> http://www.airspacemag.com/military-aviation/Killer-at-70000-Feet.html

<comment><USER2> Single page link for those who prefer not to read the article chopped up into five separate pages:

[http://www.printthis.clickability.com/pt/cpt?expire=&tit...](http://www.printthis.clickability.com/pt/cpt?expire=&title=Killer+at+70%2C000+Feet+|+Military+Aviation+|+Air+%26+Space+Magazine&urlID=473477465&action=cpt&partnerID=285322&cid=141914903&fb=Y&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.airspacemag.com%2Fmilitary- aviation%2FKiller-at-70000-Feet.html)</comment>


David Blaine Electrified, Live - <AUTHOR> http://www.youtube.com/ultrabookexperience

<comment><USER2> Any reason why I'm being linked to adds for an ultrabook?

<comment><AUTHOR> Intel & Ultrabook are sponsors for the feed</comment></comment>


How Ning Plans To Justify Its $750 Million Valuation - <AUTHOR> http://www.businessinsider.com/how-ning-plans-to-justify-its-750-million-valuation-2009-7

<comment><USER3> Ning could be huge. They've got the potential to own the majority of niches online.

Remember that the _size_ of the niche is irrelevant - if you own 100% of the 100 Trek cyclists in the world, thats really valuable.

<comment><USER4> Why would I spend my time and money building a valuable social network for some other company? - if I did per chance get something going on ning - <USER2> would immediately find investors and get it out of their hands,

\- Boon pickens spent millions promoting his pickensplan - then built a network on ning with over million members - all for not?. .</comment></comment>


The HN frontpage of the 2nd day - <AUTHOR> https://news.ycombinator.com/front?day=2007-02-20 <comment><USER2> Just for grins and giggles, I clicked on a few of the posts to see which ones were still valid links -- I found two. One from Techcrunch.

<comment><AUTHOR> Maybe then the 3rd day is more for you, with a Internet Archive link instead, where it seems more links are working: [https://web.archive.org/web/20070221033032/http://news.ycomb...](https://web.archive.org/web/20070221033032/http://news.ycombinator.com/)

Edit: Man, Internet Archive is really saving things out there, consider donating if you can (not affiliated but I like what they do) [https://archive.org/donate/](https://archive.org/donate/)</comment></comment>


Tinder Online – new web version of the dating app - <AUTHOR> https://blog.gotinder.com/introducing-tinder-online/ <comment><USER2> busted? Getting privacy warnings and 403 forbidden errors.</comment>


MS-DOS Viruses in Action - <AUTHOR> http://www.wired.com/design/2013/10/15-awesome-looking-viruses-from-the-ms-dos-era/

<comment><USER2> 40Hex was an ezine about viruses. People might be interested in reading documents from back then. [http://www.textfiles.com/magazines/40HEX/](http://www.textfiles.com/magazines/40HEX/)

<comment><USER3> I still have the "Little Black book of computer viruses". I just got my first AT computer then (a 486DX). Very entertaining stuff that was...

[http://home.swipnet.se/smaffy/asm/info/vir.pdf](http://home.swipnet.se/smaffy/asm/info/vir.pdf)

<comment><USER4> swipnet is still alive :-)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> The difference between viruses then (most did little real harm, left your computer in perfectly working state, and were meant to show off the skills of the writer) and now (network zombies used to make people money, or replace web content with ads) is kind of depressing.

<comment><USER6> To be honest, back then most computers didn't have a direct connection to the online world.. and even if they did, it was rarely always-on.

But it's not all sunshine and roses, do you remember the scourge of toll- dialer viruses (that made your dial-up modem call a toll number that bills by the minute, money going to the attacker) from back in the day? There were a rare few that could even figure out ways to silence your dial-up tone so you wouldn't be guaranteed to instantly find out you'd been infected..

<comment><USER7> That was just an AT command:

      ATM0

<comment><USER6> That's assuming DOS had the right drivers for your card loaded, and that your card respected that option... I came across many that didn't, esp. the "cheap" knockoffs of the leading brands.

<comment><USER8> Drivers? Do you mean software-modems? Majority of the modems AFAIK were hardware modems which just connect over the COM ports, and you can echo any command there.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> INT 13(CD13) - feel the power to format the hard drive in less than 8 bytes of code. Good old days :)

</comment><comment><USER10> No reference to the stoned virus? I remember that being extremely widespread, despite not having the Internet to easily propagate it.

</comment><comment><USER11> I wonder how many of these run in DOSBOX

<comment><USER12> You may be able to get them working in a FreeDOS virtual machine.

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> Awesome how much creativity these hackers had. The graphics are surprisingly pretty amazing for some of this stuff.

</comment><comment><USER14> The awkward moment when I clicked on a web page with MS virus in action, while browsing the awesome gifs, the site decided to play ad suddenly like this ( [http://i.imgur.com/6I3WTUX.png](http://i.imgur.com/6I3WTUX.png))...

</comment><comment><USER15> I remember this. All these 'viruses' are from a book about virus. I still have it somewhere in my hometown. It had a floppy with demo programs.

Wired has really run out of content to post :)</comment>


Sal Khan's TED talk from last week is now available - <AUTHOR> http://www.ted.com/talks/salman_khan_let_s_use_video_to_reinvent_education.html?awesm=on.ted.com_8z4Y&utm_campaign=salman_khan_let_s_use_video_to_reinvent_education&utm_content=ted.com-talkpage&utm_medium=on.ted.com-twitter&utm_source=twitter.com

<comment><USER2> <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2307532></comment>


Apple's First Revolutionary and Magical Device at an Incredible Price - <AUTHOR> http://technologizer.com/2011/04/08/41148/

<comment><USER2> Good article, good insight into how the company started. Well deserved success for Apple</comment>


Runnable – jsfiddle for everything - <AUTHOR> http://runnable.com/ <comment><USER2> It's pretty strange to get root access to a server, even though it's just a Docker VM. We can install anything we want, compile any C code we want, DDoS and spam anyone we want... The machine is also crazy loaded right now, with 100% load on all cores (according to htop that I installed from the package repo), almost run out of RAM and disk space decreasing fast.

<comment><USER3> We are a bit overwhelmed by the load right now, didn't expect to get hit by HackerNews today :) We are spinning up more servers

<comment><USER4> This is a good problem :)

You guys have a very nice looking product.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> I've always liked [http://ideone.com/](http://ideone.com/) for testing snippets. Bewildering array of supported languages including esoterics.

<comment><AUTHOR> I've just ran a full rails application. It creates the database etc and then allows you to browse the site.

They provide company accounts. Seems kind of nice to have a full working piece of code working within a few seconds.

I can think of stripe, facbeook or any other company that provides an api.

The only problem with a full working application is that it's easier to miss what steps should be taken.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> What's the monetization model? This looks awesome, but it needs a way to pay the bills if its going to survive.

<comment><USER7> I too wonder this. I assume runnable, jsfiddle, plnkr, etc. make money somehow, but I've always been curious as to how? I love the services and really appreciate them, but I don't get it.

Any ideas?

<comment><USER3> We are bringing down the unit economics of running the site to keep it up affordably. Apart from that, Runnable will continue to operate as a free service for developers.

We need the help of the community to maintain the site/content. If you'd like to help, feel free to drop me an email - yash [@] runnable.com

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Best not to advertise compatibility with _everything_ unless you are sure that it really is compatible with everything. Otherwise it is too easy to mislead people (who will load the site, check for their favorite language, not see it and never come back)

<comment><USER9> Losing those people is probably a support win.

<comment><USER8> Yes, it is always difficult to provide support to people trying to use languages that you do not support.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Where are they running the code? I could easily write malicious code that would crash the machine on which the code would be running on.

<comment><USER11> My guess, something like Docker. It only matters if you can break out of the Linux container.

<comment><USER12> It used to be trivial to break out of docker containers, if you had root within them. I suspect that is still the case.

<comment><USER13> Is this serious or just some spreading some FUD? Can you show me an example? Honest question

<comment><USER14> FUD

<comment><USER12> Example here: [http://blog.bofh.it/debian/id_413](http://blog.bofh.it/debian/id_413)

* Got root in the countainer.

* You "know" where that is mapped to on the host, because it is based on the UID of the container which is set as the hostname.

* You configure a trigger to run a script, using that knowledge.

* Code happens on the host, outside the container.

<comment><USER14> The above example is about LXC and sysfs. We are talking docker which uses aufs.

<comment><USER12> Indeed, this is an LXC attack, rather than docker-specific.

But, that said, the attack works as specified against docker 0.11.0. Largely because guests do have sysfs mounted at /sys.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> It seems to be a mix of languages and frameworks. For example, it doesn't list Python, but it does list Django. No Javascript, but jQuery and Node.js (Angular programmers are out of luck).

<comment><USER16> It has Node.js, which I guess is JavaScript. Or do you want direct access to V8?

Edit: If you expand the list of supported languages, it shows Python too.

<comment><USER15> Yeah, but node.js is a framework, not pure js, and I suspect it doesn't do DOM-related stuff. jQuery is probably better suited for general in-browser javascript.

<comment><USER17> This reasoning seems fundamentally confused, so I feel like clarifying some concepts:

On Runnable you can create basic client-side JavaScript files to be run in the browser (without jQuery) and do window and DOM manipulations.

Node.js isn't a framework for the browser (like jQuery), but a server application platform (with a bunch of objects and functions).

"Pure js" doesn't exist as an environment. It runs within a parent environment (e.g. a browser or a server) and manipulates the global objects in that environment.

JavaScript is just a language specification, and can be implemented in any environment. (For instance, it's implemented in Adobe Illustrator.)

<comment><USER15> Yes, but jQuery is not the only way to use javascript in the browser. Why that restriction?

<comment><USER17> Ok, got you. If you use the "Create New" button in the top right corner, you get the option to create a "JS" project.

The project template comes with jQuery pre-installed. However, it can easily be removed.

I guess the people behind Runnable assumes that it's more convenient to have to remove jQuery than having to add it for each new JS project, and personally I agree with that assumption.

Hope this helps!

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> I noticed that the terminal supports vim and nano. Wish it supported emacs, but I'm still impressed.

<comment><USER2> apt-get install emacs24-nox

</comment></comment><comment><USER19> This is cool. I'd love to have some sort of GitHub (or just Git) integration. That would be powerful.

<comment><USER20> It would be awesome to just open a project on github & run it without downloading / installing. Great tool to tinker & learn. Add some profiling tools to the mix while you are at it. Imagine you are trying to decide between 2 different libraries or frameworks. You could just fire them up in Github & try out for a bit before making up your mind. Would be nice to generate compile & generate binaries on the fly too instead of downloading them from 3rd party sources.

<comment><USER21> Runnable is a great example of a product that really understands their core use case and does it very well. They use Docker as the recipe-structure on the runner image.

For your use case, we have been rewriting Codenvy for the past three years, both the IDE and the underlying infrastructure. The new system now also uses Docker as a tool for recipe construction of builder images and runner images. We then layer on an endpoint structure that we call Factories, which allows for automatic environment provisioning inclusive of code (from git or svn), the builder type (mvn, gcc, etc) and the runner environment which can be a pre-packaged solution (managed by Codenvy) or a custom environment as defined by a specialized docker recipe in your project space. The factories are just URL formats to make embedding or sharing entire environments (for cloning) easier.

If you'd like early access to the next gen system, people can write me tyler at codenvy, and we'll get you hooked up. We've been in alpha since early Jan and will go public beta in another month or so. We are just cleaning up some remaining items.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> As cool as this is, I am honestly curious how you could monetize such a service? When I have some ideas I am trying to implement, I always try to see how you can get at least the cost of running a service back in. I don't like the thought of taking seed money from some investors without having a plan for making money. So how would you monetize this?

Edit: Please don't say advertising, that would be probably the most obvious choice, however still... Are there other ways?

</comment><comment><USER23> This really is an awesome site, and I was really impressed when I first discovered it. It's like having a nitrous.io box provisioned on the spot in whatever stack you want, for something as simple as a 3 line snippet of code to a full on project (although probably not the best place for that). I hope more people start using it and contributing to the examples, it's really nice to be able to walk through full-stack snippets

</comment><comment><USER4> Here's some system specs they are running your code in:

<comment><comment>~

Executing Build Command: javac /root/HelloWorld.java

Executing Run Command: java -classpath /root HelloWorld

Cores: 4

CPU Arch: amd64

Total Mem (Bytes JVM sees): 236257280

Max Mem (Bytes JVM sees): 3506438144

Free Mem (Bytes JVM sees): 235023784

Root Dirs: /

Get OS (direct output): Linux

Get OS (sanitized output): Unix/Linux

OS Arch: 64

Process exited successfully

<comment><comment>~~

[http://runnable.com/U4zos2qEWoJSgH4Z/sys-info-example-for- ja...](http://runnable.com/U4zos2qEWoJSgH4Z/sys-info-example-for-java)

<comment><USER24> to be specific it is an Amazon EC2 m3.xlarge instance running with magic inside

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> You should hack in Swift. Would bring extreme amounts of traffic as Swift only runs on OSX and behind paywall.

</comment><comment><USER26> Awesome, I love the multiple file approach. This is what I've started to realize holds backs a lot of similar services. (Especially jsfiddle). I'm glad someone was able to capture something I've been looking for.

And of course I'm going to have to bug you for TypeScript support!

</comment><comment><USER27> If anyone is looking for a similar system but more focused on collaboration and working on code in real-time, check out: [https://coderpad.io](https://coderpad.io)

The target use case is interviews, but it works well for a wide variety of use cases as well.

<comment><USER28> codepad.io $50 a month. runnable appears to be free atm.

<comment><USER27> I think you're paying for the latency in this case

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER29> It looks very nice indeed but I wonder why there is .net and not just c#. It might actually be better because this way you can have all the web functions too but might take a bit more for simple things.

<comment><USER30> Heh, I had the same thought and was able to hack it pretty fast: [http://runnable.com/U4x1Dioc6NMZvMy0/linear-scales-in-c- like...](http://runnable.com/U4x1Dioc6NMZvMy0/linear-scales-in-c- like-d3-scale-linear-for-d3-js)

Enjoy!

</comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> I found a full working rails app, which does everything from creating the database to running the webserver.

What I'm actually interested in is how they suddenly got on nr 2 in google :-)

</comment><comment><USER31> The service looks great, I just wanted to comment: when I opened the page, my immediate thought was "is this done by Heroku? This page looks a lot like heroku"

</comment><comment><USER32> Cool! If this had python 2 + pygtk .. python 3, gobject introspection + gtk3 it would be awesome, since it's a pain to set people up with these.

</comment><comment><USER33> Does anyone know which tools this would use? Eg. Apache Thrift can compile definition files to different languages. But i don't think that is used.

</comment><comment><USER34> Very nice! This is actually better than a "jsfiddle for everything", as it has tagged and searchable snippets.

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> I suddenly came across this on google (pos 2) when searching for a simple cropping example with jquery + carrierwave.

Looks pretty cool!

</comment><comment><USER35> I like it. Any way to get third-party python libraries (e.g. numpy, scipy) to work with it too, in a python project?

<comment><USER36> pip install scipy in the terminal should work

</comment></comment><comment><USER37> Quite choppy at the moment so it's hard to play with, but how does this differ with ideone.com ?

</comment><comment> zupa-hu I must say I'm impressed. And its response time is not bad either. But.. how will it scale?!

</comment><comment><USER38> Similar to [http://codecube.io/](http://codecube.io/)

</comment><comment><USER39> I'm missing plain old C? You could use the C++ one but an extra one for C would be nice.

</comment><comment><USER40> For some crazy reason I thought Objective C would be included. Still awesome though.

</comment><comment><USER41> This might just be the Hacker News effect, but it currently seems unacceptably slow.

</comment><comment><USER42> Didn't know about this one... Looks cool for sharing snippets at StackOverflow

</comment><comment><USER43> Congrats to Yash and the gang, great to see some GT grads doing exciting things!

</comment><comment><USER44> Would be nice if UI takes complete screen, particularly the code editor.

</comment><comment><USER45> I'd really like CLisp or Scheme. Other than that, it looks good.

</comment><comment><USER46> This is going to be great for stackoverflow answers!

</comment><comment><USER47> Python 3 please...

<comment><USER36> python3 works (3.3.1 by default but you can install anything) see this example : [http://runnable.com/U4yefk00JdINRGsH/python3](http://runnable.com/U4yefk00JdINRGsH/python3)

</comment></comment><comment><USER48> What's added value compared to ideone.com?

<comment><USER23> It's really not even comparable to ideone.com. You get a full VM provisioned for your snippet/project and you choose what stack you want

</comment></comment><comment><USER49> I'm sad theres no scala support

<comment><USER50> Here's a Hello World example in Scala: [http://runnable.com/Uw_ujq9LvIEQywP8/hello-world-in- scala](http://runnable.com/Uw_ujq9LvIEQywP8/hello-world-in-scala)

</comment></comment><comment><USER51> No perl? Really? Sheesh.

</comment><comment><USER52> no go?

<comment><USER50> Here are some examples in Go: [http://runnable.com/go](http://runnable.com/go)

</comment></comment><comment><USER53> Hmm am guessing this site is getting a lot of traffic at the moment.

<comment><USER54> Just tried selecting Flask and got: Oh no, there's a problem with Runnable!

</comment></comment><comment><USER55> "Everything"? Where's Erlang? Where's Lua?

<comment><USER24> You can actually create your own example with Erlang or Lua :) We provide a person VM for you to use and share. Simply start with a base example like (runnable.com/new/bash) install the compilers you need and click publish!

<comment><USER55> Thanks! It would be nice to see support for real languages.

<comment><USER56> How do you define that?</comment></comment></comment></comment>


My Startup Made 200k in Its First 2 Months. And I'm Embarassed - <AUTHOR> https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/20141118152523-205984021-my-start-up-made-200k-in-it-s-first-two-months-and-i-m-embarrassed

<comment><USER2> Great read.</comment>


A Scientific Approach to... Gaining Twitter Followers? - <AUTHOR> http://themetricsystem.rjmetrics.com/2009/07/21/how-to-get-twitter-followers-the-definitive-guide/ A study of ten separate follower acquisition techniques, complete with "cost per follower" metrics and a discussion of how follower value varies across each technique <comment><USER2> Interesting experiment. I'm a purist at heart, though, and all this talk of accreting followers as a business process makes me ache a little. I still think this is the best way to go: <http://increaseyourtwitterfollowers.com/>

</comment><comment><USER3> Excuse my naivete (I'm not a Twitter user), but what is the purpose of artificially inflating your number of followers without tweeting anything interesting? Are there straightforward ways to monetize this solely based on your number of followers?

<comment><USER4> The only apparent win is that if you inflate your follower count to something beyond 1000, you may be incrementally more likely to pick up followers because of the credibility win of having lots of followers.

Other than that, it's probably a completely retarded strategy.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> The article started with a good premise, but then the initial results were abysmal (7 followers for 20 minutes of work).

So the article switched to reviewing pay-to-follow services, which bring 0 value to your twitter account.

I would have been more interested in a scientific study of the growth curve, using famous and well-established accounts, rather than anecdotal experiments.

</comment><comment><USER6> Anybody that uses any website where people can 'friend' you (facebook, twitter, etc) to maximize their number of 'friends' really doesn't get it.

</comment><comment><USER7> Honestly, I think if you need to "Try" to get more twitter followers you are: 1) not interesting enough for people to follow you on their own accord. 2) doing it wrong.</comment>


Spanish schedules are downright weird (2016) - <AUTHOR> https://english.elpais.com/elpais/2016/03/28/inenglish/1459165488_731020.html <comment><USER2> Skip breakfast, intermittent fasting eating window between 2 pm and 8 pm, fun lifestyle, and lots of sun, No wonder they are expected to be the top life expectancy country! [https://www.theguardian.com/world/2018/oct/16/spain-to- beat-...](https://www.theguardian.com/world/2018/oct/16/spain-to-beat- japan-2040-world-life-expectancy-league-table)

<comment><USER3> You got the eating pattern a bit wrong; 9-10pm they are just leaving home to eat out; at least in Andalusia

<comment><USER4> I saw the same thing in Asturias and Galicia when we visited there last year. Very late dinners indeed - even families with young children out eating dinner that late.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> I'm Swedish, living in Singapore and the spanish time table looks like the one I've followed all my life (both in Sweden and in Singapore).

I'd argue that it's most of the other countries' schedules that are way too early. They're mostly based on 19'th century farming schedules which most people don't follow anymore.

<comment><USER6> The Swedish one doesn't include fika, so it's obviously wrong.

Singapore is interesting because afternoons are pretty hot, so people take advantage of evenings more.

<comment><USER7> True. Every evening here is practically perfect, anyway.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Relevant:

 _How much is time wrong around the world?_

[http://blog.poormansmath.net/how-much-is-time-wrong- around-t...](http://blog.poormansmath.net/how-much-is-time-wrong-around-the- world/)

or, if you just want to see the map:

[http://blog.poormansmath.net/images/SolarTimeVsStandardTimeV...](http://blog.poormansmath.net/images/SolarTimeVsStandardTimeV2.png)

</comment><comment><USER9> > "Around 46% of Spaniards are still at work at 6pm, and 10% are still there > at 9pm," says Berbel. "So they are not having a good time, they are > working."

Reminds me when I moved from the UK to Germany (and later Switzerland) and was blown away, in the German office I worked in, how they worked less hours (most people strictly 8am to 4pm) and were at least a factor of 5 times more productive than anything I'd experienced in the UK.

The typical "average working day" I witnessed in a number of UK companies in London (I was an IT freelancer back in the mid-to-late 90's) went like...

\- Arrive 9am-ish (depending on the Tube)

\- Drink coffee, talk about football, what was on TV last night and whatever funny thing happened at the pub last night and basically almost no work until...

\- 12 noon... time to get something done for an hour before lunch

\- Lunch for 1 - 1.5 hours... some people already drinking their first beer

\- Get back from lunch, pretend to work while being half asleep from a large lunch

\- 4pm something's on fire... big crisis! Gotta be fixed NOW

\- 8-9pm... fire now extinguished. Leave to the pub with colleagues

That's slanted toward an IT department but from what was basically 12 hours of being at work in some work, there was probably only 4-5 hours of productivity.

The key difference I witnessed in Germany was people went to work to work, not to socialise, and were actually getting more done in less time. There was also a bias towards being pro-active over being re-active, which meant less fire- fighting, which in turn meant time could be better managed.

<comment><USER10> Huh, funny enough, a guy I worked with in Germany had a similar experience but felt very different about it.

He disliked the strict 8 hours/day(or more during crunch time) butt-in-chair concentrated German work ethic that left him(and me) mentally spent and tired by the end of the day and moved to the UK where, despite the usual putting out fires before a release was due, he gets paid more and can come at work close to 10AM and leave before 4PM while not doing much work most of the time leaving him plenty of energy for fun in the evening and saying he'll never go back to working in Germany.

Can't say I don't envy him. I mean, is life about being as productive as you can for someone else or for enjoying it yourself? Maybe the Brits have it right.

<comment><USER11> It depends on the individual office. 10am to 4pm is rare. I would say the average is 9:30am til 5:30 - 6pm.

If the office is mostly middle aged people with families or it's a bigger company you see more early starts early finishes 9am - 5:30pm of for some people with kids 8am - 4:30pm.

In an office of mostly younger people you see the 9:30am til 7pm+ marathons when actual work needs to get done. Because so much time is spent recovering from lunch, recovering from the hangover, waiting for coffee the long hours become necessary.

A 10am start is quite uncommon, everywhere I've worked (5 different places so far) no one would look at you funny as long as you're in _before_ 10am and put in your hours but after 10am is a stretch.

I also personally dislike the alcohol and coffee culture because overall it just makes you tired. It was fun in the beginning but when the real work starts to kick it is exhausting. I quit both for a month and felt a lot better for it.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> Now we need to seen the programmer schedule around the world! I don't think I start before 10am.

<comment><USER13> The natural programmer's schedule is around 30 hours so it constantly slips relative to the day cycle.

<comment><USER14> Nothing has ever rung truer for me than this comment. I've battled against this almost my entire life. Now that I'm working from home I still keep a basic schedule that involves waking up in the morning and not totally drifting. But having the slack to drift around a little has massively improved my quality of life.

I had no idea this was common for programmers. Is there any evidence to back up your claim, other than our two points of anecdata?

<comment><USER15> I worked with a guy who lived on a 28-hour schedule; 6 days to the week. He swore this suited his natural body clock.

It was quite difficult to figure out when you'd see him in work next.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> Solar noon in Madrid is around 1 hour and 10 minutes later than in Berlin, yet they both use the same time zone.

This is how it would look if you gave Spain a time zone where solar noon would be around 12 (winter time) just like Berlin and Spanish people would keep their rhythm relative to actual daylight: [https://i.imgur.com/u01l47S.png](https://i.imgur.com/u01l47S.png) (I've shifted Spain up by a bit more than one hour).

</comment><comment><USER17> If you think Spain schedules are weird, you should see Argentina's.

You go to a restaurant at 9:30pm and you're one of the early birds.

<comment><USER18> Chile is even worse, at least in terms of clock time, since, like Argentina, we are on UTC-3 most of the year, when geographically we should be on -5.

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> Since it took me a while to find the original article: [https://verne.elpais.com/verne/2016/03/18/articulo/145830979...](https://verne.elpais.com/verne/2016/03/18/articulo/1458309794_132930.html)

</comment><comment><USER19> Italian here, from Rome.

Those "weird" Spanish Schedules are my schedules.

I rarely have breakfast before 9:30, I rarely have lunch before 14:00 and dinner before 20:30.

Except for breakfast (I am not a morning person, never been) I learned my schedules from my family, a normal working class family, with regular schedules, same as many other families around us.

I guess we are weird too.

</comment><comment><USER20> Interesting that so many people eat lunch late. I skip breakfast, each lunch at 11 AM, and then dinner is normally around 6 PM.

<comment><USER19> that's a kid schedule where I come from, they love their snacks, but hate having "grown ups" meal schedules.

I'm saying it without any kind of judgement.

<comment><USER20> There's two reasons why I eat this way. The first is that I think intermittent fasting is probably beneficial in terms of preventing too many calories, and I also seem to focus much better when I'm slightly hungry. The morning is when I get the bulk of my work that requires deep focus completed, and the few times I have eaten breakfast I've felt lethargic and unfocused afterward. The second reason is that I've really gotten into cooking, and dinner can take 3 hours (sometimes more) to prepare. Three meals a day is too much when one of them takes so much time.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> I've always eaten at 2pm lunch and 8pm dinner.

No snacks, no tea, no coffee. Only water to quench thrist.

Having said that most of my work is technical in nature and I am a partime machinist. Basically, after completing my development work at 5pm - I work in my machine shop for an hour or two everyday.

</comment><comment><USER22> I live in the western end of the Eastern Time Zone in the US and I know this phenomenon well. The sun rises later and everyone has a harder time getting up in the morning. Compared to New England, where they naturally arise earlier because the sun rises much earlier.

</comment><comment><USER23> The French schedule is only half the population, the one at 35 hours/week, but many have more hours:

\- Lunch is often 2 hours for "white collar" workers \- Plenty of people start at around 9~9:30AM and finish work at 7:30PM~8PM

Also regarding dinner it starts at 8 for many.

</comment><comment><USER24> Any correlation between life expectancy and levels of depression across those countries?

<comment><USER25> Too many confounders.

</comment></comment><comment><USER26> 0 min commute? 0 min shower? There must be something wrong here.

</comment><comment><USER27> the timetable shown in the article looks very similar to my experience in Argentina. And in the inner part of the country, there is even nap (siesta) after lunch.

</comment><comment><USER28> Do all levels of school also start late in the morning?

<comment><USER29> No, I did all my education in Spain and starting time was 8-9am with a 1-3pm lunch break. About half of the kids going home for lunch and back to school.

<comment><USER30> 2 hours?

<comment><USER22> Spain is somewhat famous for the Siesta, a long lunch and nap break.

<comment><USER31> It's normal in France too (12-2pm).

<comment><USER32> Chile as well.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Ask HN: When will the music stop? - <AUTHOR> What do you think HN? Will the tech bubble burst and the music stop? What will happen to tech and startups when low interest money is not in abundance? <comment><USER2> Right? I was just listening to ray dalios YouTube clip on the economy and it sounds like it's high time for some deleveraging.

<comment><AUTHOR> I fear it's an inevitability. Is anyone here old enough to have lived through the last credit cycle that can speak to what happened in tech as a result?</comment></comment>


What's the catch? - <AUTHOR> http://www.i6networks.co

<comment><AUTHOR> I'm not trying to spam or anything but in looking for hosting for a friend, I found this. There has to be a catch. How/why are they doing this? I mean I was willing to give him cPanel but I don't go around calling out that I do it.

</comment><comment><USER2> Requirements: You must have an established site 30 days (1 month) or older to join.

</comment><comment><USER3> I can't get the signup process to work... I get a server error when I enter my domain name (older than 2 months) into the secure signup page.

Also link is missing the 'm' in .com</comment>


Miguel de Icaza's answer to "Does Windows cost Microsoft opportunities?" - <AUTHOR> http://tirania.org/blog/archive/2010/Mar-25.html

<comment><USER2> I wish this had come earlier in the article:

"Microsoft has new management, new employees that know open source, fresh new ideas, is becoming more open and is working actively on interoperability with third parties. They even launched the CodePlex Foundation"

It would have spared me reading it.

The only reason Microsoft wants to know open-source is to more effectively kill it. They have realized that just bad-mouthing it, calling it a virus, wouldn't do the trick. Now they use a far more sophisticated approach, precise wording (using "non-commercial" instead of "free" or "open-source") and passing a confusing message regarding patents (the "community promise" while announcing patent deals - whose terms are secret - with companies using Linux in their devices).

No. They haven't changed. Not a bit.

<comment><USER3> Exactly. I still can't understand why somebody as smart as Miguel doesn't get this. Any free software strategy that depends on the goodwill and good conduct of MS is doomed from the start.

<comment><USER4> Miguel never ceases to amaze me on that front. Given he's not a stupid person I have reduced it down to a psychological explanation regarding his early days - getting denied after an MS interview and it turning into an obsession to prove his worth to them or something. But even that feels weak to me even if it is plausible. But weak is better than nothing, because there seems to be no other reason to be so credulous about their good intentions.

<comment><USER5> So someone smart does something you don't understand, and you decide it must be a psychological problem?

<comment><USER4> I said he wasn't stupid, I didn't say he was smart. I do think he is smart in the technical domain. I am not so sure about elsewhere. And "psychological problem" isn't what I said either, I just implied the explanation perhaps lay in his inability to get to Microsoft and then desiring their approval. Tons of people have long lost dreams that they romanticize. For example a lot of programmers, despite the horrific stories that come out of the games industry, still regret not going in that direction. You can see how someone who built up MS in their youth and didn't get there might also have such a longing and ignore the bad stories that come out. I hope I have clarified the not stupid/smart and the psychological explanation/problem differences between the wording of my post and yours for you.

<comment><USER6> Miguel de Icaza is the foremost expert in the CLR that doesn't work for Microsoft. If he wanted to work for Microsoft in any capacity, I would bet anything that they would roll out the red carpet for him. You're either projecting or you don't know what you're talking about.

<comment><USER7> He wanted to work for Microsoft, but they didn't employ him (to be fair, he was not US citizen and he didn't fulfil the H1-B requirements).

After that, he started Gnome (complete with the CORBA-fiasco) and later Mono.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> > I still believe that Microsoft lost a great opportunity of having .NET > become the universal runtime of the net

Phew, I'm sure glad we dodged that bullet. Imagine that !</comment>