Ask HN: My industry's becoming commoditised and I'm scared - <AUTHOR>

For the last 12 years I've worked as a web developer, first solo, then part of a couple of firms, then solo again. I've always prided myself on inquisitiveness and giving businesses what they want, but more and more the budgets - and industry expectation - is to roll out a piece of off-the-shelf software (Wordpress, Drupal, Magento), stick some Bootstrap code on it, apply a layer of design and push it out. I'm not getting job satisfaction and I don't feel I'm doing good work.
I've built large custom business systems (integrated sales/crm/accounting/order management), but the demand for these has dried up as SaaS integrated with other SaaS works out much cheaper.
I watched it happen to my uncle (a chartered accountant) - it's gone from a well-respected, well-paid profession to being data-entry using low-qualified staff and a few highly-qualified advisors.
Designers seem to have it even worse: no need to create, just assemble ready designed components and use off-the-shelf themes). I look at the 'enterprise software' firms that I've had as clients and their staff have become 'integrators', gluing together Oracle/Microsoft systems to give the client (something of) what they want.
I was aware of jobs becoming commoditised; naively I didn't expect it to happen to me. And I'm scared. I never wanted to be an assembler, to see all the fun stuff automated; I chose my career in the heady early days of the web, when there was so much to figure out.
What do you recommend, and are there any industries or services which aren't/aren't yet/can't be commoditised? <comment><USER2> I've seen reports that up to 70% of workers are in jobs that could eventually be automated. This is a pretty scary statistic when you think about it, which is why I'm also a huge proponent of the idea of a basic income guarantee. With numbers like that, pretty much every job is going to be overcome by competition for the position, no matter how intricate it is, as long as we have this notion that everyone HAS to work in order to earn the right to live—even if there's no work available.

But if you're looking for jobs where your likelihood of being outsourced is negligible, look for the ones that are hardest for machines to do. These, by the way, aren't necessarily those at the top of the knowledge spectrum. Doctors as a profession, for example, will eventually fall to machine learning systems like Watson, and medical school will become more a technician's school than anything else. Nurses, however, perform a wide variety of functions that are difficult to automate safely, nor can they be offshored. Its difficult to outsource sticking a needle in someone.

Last thing: I'd argue with the idea that web development is commoditized. At the lower end of the spectrum, sure—tons of wordpress themes out there, its easy to offshore something like that, basic development provided by good software. But higher up the food chain, where you're at the end of the market where you actually DO stuff like write original javascript, or develop some new server platform, or whatever it is on that end of the spectrum—those jobs aren't going anywhere for awhile.

<comment><USER3> Productivity increases (including robotization/automation) mean that the US economy can produce the same goods with less work or more goods with the same work. If we're in a situation where the prospect of being able to produce more goods or work less is "pretty scary", then we're doing something wrong as a society. These sorts of changes should be Pareto-efficient.

<comment><USER4> "Should be" is a pretty strong phrase in that last sentence. There's also a big difference between being _able_ to work less (when productivity gains translate into wage gains) and _having_ to work less (when productivity gains translate into shrinking labor demand).

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Technology will continue to commoditize and move fast. The trick is to operate in that spread between what is commoditized and what is custom.

If you want to stay with web/consumer-facing development, find the parts that are in demand but not commoditized yet. Right now that appears to be mobile development - responsive web, apps, etc. There is still no good development process for high quality responsive websites.

Computing has always grown towards abstraction - can't remember the last time I wrote a routine to manipulate video memory directly, but I can do things with graphics in 15 minutes that blows away anything I could do in hundreds of hours when that sort of work was required and profitable. Same will happen with web.

Alternatively, the business value of spreading a client's message has not changed and the technology landscape is becoming more complex. Maybe focus more on the strategy and value of the messaging than the technology used to transmit it.

</comment><comment><USER6> I have seen this happen in a couple different industries. I did web development from 96 to 06 and I felt the same forces at work over that time.

After that I spent 6 years in AAA game development. Again, many custom systems were replaced with middleware.

It's my opinion that these trends are driven by the needs of business, generally. Technology (and other disciplines) are a means to a business goal. Imagine a game designer with an idea (or anyone with an idea). They want to execute the idea with as little pain between conception and execution. They don't care about linear algebra or DMA. It's this force that leads to commoditization of tech.

IMHO you can't avoid this, and it is not necessarily bad. It's also been my experience that you can find places that do the work you want to do. But you might have to move.

Best of luck to you.

</comment><comment><USER7> The rush to build big desktop sites is largely over, and the stragglers / late adopters are the most likely to value lower-cost, lower-risk solutions than the early customers. None of that should be surprising.

There's another wave coming: although most top-tier web sites have already done it, a lot of these SMB web sites are going to need to adopt to a mobile- first world where more of their traffic is coming from phones.

I'd suggest that's the right place to look, but you should always expect that any industry so close to technology is going to evolve continually towards greater automation, because it's populated largely by software developers who are the exact group likely to implement that kind of automation.

If you want a job / industry that doesn't evolve quickly, you need to be somewhere with large amounts of physical implementation and low risk tolerance. Like bridge building, or oil drilling, or mining. People can go their whole careers in those industries in largely the same role, because they're more about repeating the same process exactly and dependably than attempting to quickly innovate.

</comment><comment><USER8> It's a good thing that some parts of design/development are being automated. We can now spin off new products increasingly faster and for a substantially lower cost.

That said, at a certain level of competency automation stops. While you can buy a design template to try something out, it won't give you the same tailored experience as something that was created by a professional. While you can download a jQuery plug and strap it to a html page, that won't give you the same power as code written by the best engineers...etc.

Instead of thinking of a different industry to join, think of ways that you could elevate yourself from the masses. If you're currently coding in PHP, learn Node and try Meteor - then go work with people who find these new methods attractive. If you currently design t-shirts and logos, understand iOS, learn Android, explore Google Glass, and then go work for projects that are in demand.

All said and done, commoditization of labor will weed out the under- performers, but it will give even greater power to those creatives that can go above and beyond.

</comment><comment><USER9> Technology will always march towards cheaper solutions. Either the technology itself will become cheaper, or you'll face competition from people that know the newer technology or are willing to work for less than you charge. Furthermore, technology has been successful because of its promise of automation and cost-savings.

I've seen a similar pricing-trend with client-work. It's encouraged me to pursue product development. You sound like a capable developer, so why not consider using your skills to build something that can generate its own revenue stream.

There are many industries that won't be commoditized ... healthcare being one of them ... but something like that probably isn't aligned with your expertise. Stick with what you know, and apply it towards building a product rather than a handful of products for other people.

</comment><comment><USER10> You're starting from the premise that there is a job that will not be commoditised for the remainder of your career. This is a faulty premise. It's up to you to learn the things you need to remain relevant, be that additional technical skills or "soft skills" like management.

<comment><AUTHOR> I disagree I can learn my way out of the problem and remain relevant. Additional technical skills only keep me another step ahead of the commoditisation, and if people don't want to pay money for these skills, it hasn't helped. Management skills I need to improve, but if the workforce reduces in size, there's less need for managers too...

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> Minister of Religion is the only job I can think of that is hard to commoditise...

Good luck!

</comment><comment><USER12> I don't fully agree. Take the chartered accountant thing. It means you can find an audit/internal audit job today and that's still something with status. I bet you are not considering other markets to apply your skills. Custom software for many company makes no sense no more, but then who is building the standard software? And can you outcompete them? I was looking yesterday for a small CRM for a company I am advising, the "cheapest" solution costs USD 24 monthly per agent. What about building something that costs USD 5 per agent? There have to be other ways for someone with your skillset.

</comment><comment><USER13> If you can't get over your competitors, join them! Start automatizing things... This could be a good start for a web developer: www.theclientrelationsfactory.com

But you are absolutly right. Things change fast, and the thing is changing fastest is the change itself.

</comment><comment><USER14> Things that require creativity won't be commoditised, hopefully. Art, music, research, game design, writing, etc.

<comment><USER15> But > 95% creativity "workers" (Art, music, game design, writing) get very little money

<comment><USER13> Dan Brown gets little money?</comment></comment></comment>


In India, TinyOwl Founder Detained for 2 Days by Laid-Off Employees and the Police - <AUTHOR> http://techcrunch.com/2015/11/05/in-india-tiny-owl-founder-reportedly-detained-for-two-days-by-laid-off-employees-and-the-police/ <comment><USER2> So, after "[announcing] $7.67 million in fresh funding... TinyOwl was reportedly offering post-dated checks to [the laid off employees], which concerned them as previously laid-off employees had yet to receive their payment." And we're supposed to feel bad for the guy?

<comment><USER3> Indian employees have a long history of being abused and taken advantage of to the point of actual slave labour, a lot of the time by other Indian people. If they're based in another country they frequently hold on to their employee's passports so that they become virtual prisoners.

This guy should lose his funding, at the least for following this pattern of behaviour and choosing to exploit the local economy by paying his workers well below what would be considered a reasonable wage anywhere else.

<comment><USER4> You must consider a few things. India didnt have a lot of private organizations to work for before the 80s. And most of the youth are second generation college educated. At least the ones you're reading about.

Post Independence in 1947, govt jobs have been held in very high regard and no one gets fired from those jobs. They're mostly patronage.

Getting fired is a concept is still a new concept for most. People don't get fired, they're asked to resign. Even labour laws haven't been updated with the times. You can hire, but can't fire.

Also, people feel entitled to job security here and have not experienced a single recession in the last 30 years.

You must understand, Tiny Owl pays very well. Relatively. People with six months of managerial experience are getting paid $40,000. That's a lot here. It takes 8-10 years to get to that pay in regular large organizations.

But where they went wrong: 1\. Hiring one bad apple who encouraged others to gang up on the founder. This is no way to resolve a professional dispute.

2\. Not anticipating redundancy in positions well in advance, and communicating and disclosing the risks. Perhaps those jobs could have had a built in expiry and conditional renewal clause in their contracts.

But had they been growing as they did earlier this year, there would not have been any redundancy. The problem was credit dried up and competition became too fierce.

<comment><USER5> There's a lot of inconsistencies here in your comment and a lot of deliberate omissions.

> India didnt have a lot of private organizations to work for before the 80s.

A good chunk of our planet didn't have that prior to 80s, not just India.

> Post Independence in 1947, govt jobs have been held in very high regard and > no one gets fired from those jobs. They're mostly patronage.

Nothing changed in this regard.

And, no

> People with six months of managerial experience are getting paid $40,000

is an exception and not a norm. Your comment makes it look like, it's the norm here. I work in one of the blue eyes Indian startups (which translates to yes, it's burning money like most of the Indian startups but has more hope riding on it than the others) and I see these salary figures from up close.

What TinyOwl's founder(s) did is very simple - fraud! That's why they were held hostage knowing that being moneybags they would be untouchable once they are out and they (the employees) would probably never get their wages. You didn't even mention this issue in your comment. Or are you deliberately trying to spin the story? Is it a PR attempt, considering the age of your account? Anyway, that's another debate.

Also, the people holding the founder hostage were not at all those "management graduates" with that kind of salaries. They were the people who were kind of making ends meet, of course relatively speaking. They saw they were being cheated and took matters in their own hands, which, IMHO, even though illegal was/is the most effective way here.

What I have noticed in Indian startups (where I work included and maybe this is how it is worldwide), the founders wants quick numbers - by the hook, or by the crook. Well, the difference is in the west (US/EU) there's the law and the watchdogs who bring the crooks to the book, in India everything has a price and you can buy it if you can pay including the law and the courts. So that's there.

<comment><USER4> Haha. I agree, my previous answer doesn't come across as consistent. But I was typing from an app I recently started using and I didn't know where the edit button was. It might explain the age of my account too. I just discovered this site.

The central point I was trying to make in my reply was that getting fired (or being a college dropout or bankrupt) is a huge social stigma. It's a relic, in my opinion, of the pre-liberalization times.

"A good chunk of our planet didn't have that prior to 80s, not just India." This is plain wrong. It was hard to open new business because of lack of cheap credit and license permit system. Most of the developed world had systems in place for half a century before we had them. We didn't have banks, we relied on funds from friends and family, or the shadow banking system that is so prominent in Gujarati and Marwari communities. We didn't have the economic freedom to start large organizations, and those who could, were the elite families who had access, and stranglehold over the govt. They had the power and connections to use their levers in govt to acquire licenses and contracts. Which might explain why we have most number of inherited billionaires in the richest Indians list.

Ok, so why is this history relevant? Getting laid off as a concept hasn't seeped in the public psyche yet. Because it a huge social stigma and because for many working for corporate is recent experience. There weren't many to speak of. Add to that, there hasn't been a single recession.

".. they (the employees) would probably never get their wages." Do you really think the founders would not pay? In this age where the smallest stories can get wide attention, I don't think they can ever get away with something like this.

So what is the dispute about? 1\. On the surface, about timing of payment. For which they can work out a resolution, but ganging up on anyone is not a good way to resolve issues. Employees aren't that powerless, that they have to resort to physical means - it is not the most effective means. Internet and sites like Twitter has leveled the field a little for everyone. If ganging up is the most effective means to deal with this, then it is mostly a lack of imagination on the part of those employees.

2\. At the core, about getting fired. Their anger is about getting fired. Founders have handled it ineptly. If their jobs became redundant because of automation of orders, the firm should have set the expectations right from the start. They certainly shouldn't have laid them off in a sudden move.

Also, what I think, from a plain econ 101 pov, is that harder we make firing, slower hiring becomes - because vacancies won't open easily, and more difficult is it to get hired into good jobs. Hiring and firing should be easy - determined solely by economic rationalie. The more efficient labour market is, the better off everyone is.

My only point is that ganging up is no solution - which they did because of the emotive issue. In the long run, it clips the wings of the individual.

<comment><USER6> _" My only point is that ganging up is no solution - which they did because of the emotive issue. In the long run, it clips the wings of the individual."_

While "ganging up is no solution" might make sense if there were alternatives, in this case, it seems likely that "ganging up" was their _only_ chance of getting paid. It seems like the police in this case, saw the unfairness of it and sided with the workers.

<comment><USER4> Given the media attention startups are now getting in India, the contigency of not getting paid highly unlikely. If the company was insolvent, then perhaps. But in this case they secured $8mm. If the company defaults on their dues, the story of startups being mythical and not value creating entities would blow in the media.

As far as the police is concerned, they are highly inept, dysfunctional, and enjoy discretionary powers. Most people don't trust them or their judgment, and wish they never have to deal with the police.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Also [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10512417](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10512417).

</comment><comment><USER8> Food tech (if I may say so) is really facing the heat now.

On the other hand what piques my interest is the way VCs behave in India. Instead of carrying an insight they tend to "follow" the "trend" which by definition is not an optimal thing to do.

In just few months time they have gone from investing in all possible weird food startup to taking money away from even the promising ones.

The nature of VCs is very fickle, at least in India.

</comment><comment><USER9> Almost every single Indian movie goer agrees with the hero not following any rules and doing things according to what he feels as justified in the movie. Movies exaggerated the imperfection in the Indian law and encouraged everyone to judge everything based on their own limited view of the things. Herd mentality only got worse with all social connectivity made possible by technology - fueling more opionated and wrong views.

</comment><comment><USER10> So, is kidnapping not a crime in India?

<comment><USER11> Indian law and Indian in general do not understand the idea of law and individual liberty. Hence a lot of sensible things that you might expect from law enforcement in developed world does not work well in India.

In India police mostly see themselves as keepers of peace and would use arbitrary force to keep things from escalating. Indian laws are complex and hence cops can do whatever they want without impunity.

Check what happened to this Australian [1]. Not only he was harassed by people but the police made him write an apology letter to those people who manhandled him. (All because the guy had a tattoo that offended other people.)

There are some other crazy things in India for example "Right to Education" law which basically forces to shut schools down if they do not comply with arbitrary clauses but only if the school is run by a Hindu. If the school is run by a Christian or Muslim the school need not comply with the law.

[1] [http://bit.ly/1HiJdRo](http://bit.ly/1HiJdRo)

<comment><USER12> It doesn't matter who runs the school. However if the school identifies itself as a minority institution it doesn't have to comply with RTE guidelines as per the constitution bench of Supreme court. Here's an excerpt from a newspaper report.

       However, the constitution bench exempted minority
       schools, both aided and unaided, from the purview
       of the Act. It said minority schools could not be
       put under legal obligation to provide free and
       compulsory elementary education to children
       who were not members of the minority community
       which had established the school. It said,
       "In our view, if the Act is made applicable
       to minority schools, aided or unaided, the right
       of the minorities under Article 30(1) of the
       Constitution will be abrogated. Therefore,
       the (provision of the) 2009 Act, which made it
       applicable to minority schools is unconstitutional."
       [1]

So it's more about minority rights, than about religious discrimination which your post seemed to suggest. Quite mischievously too if I might add.

And so far as schools being shut for not complying with some "arbitrary clause", it is actually more about private schools refusing to fulfil 25% reservation for children from socially backward communities. You also left that out.

Jai Hind!

[1] [http://indianexpress.com/article/india/india-others/25-pc- re...](http://indianexpress.com/article/india/india-others/25-pc-reservation- for-minority-institutions-invalid-under-rte-act-sc/)

<comment><USER11> Use common sense instead of Supreme court's sophistry. Why should a one school which admits general students for general education should not be subject to a state regulation only because the management is Christian ? Education is a perfectly secular activity like running a taxi service. Having tight regulation to one regulation where as total exemption to another religion seems stupid.

It could have been a minority rights issue if this exemption was limited to say a church run institution for religious studies. But then why not give same exemption to Hindu school for religious studies ?

Another catch. Some Indian states like J&K and Kerala have Hindus as minorities. But Hindus can not run minority institutions despite this. Reason ? Any minority institution needs to get a N.O.C. from National Minority Education Council but by law only Christians and Muslims can be members of this council and are allowed to give permissions only to Christian and Muslims schools.

<comment><USER12> Because such institutions were explicitly founded to provide education to minorities, and it would be unfair to _force_ them to allocate their limited resources away from that goal. Most do so voluntarily anyways.

It's actually quite simple to understand I think, and the judgment says so in what is plain language, not some sophistry.

And Hindus are minorities in Kerala? Despite being 54% of total population? Citation please.

As far as J&K as concerned, I'm not too sure what you are saying is correct. Maybe it's true, but then J&K never merged with the India, so it's possible since laws enacted by parliament don't automatically apply to J&K. Citation please.

EDIT: Your point about NMEC is invalid as well [2].

Let me know if you want me to suggest some material/books so you can better understand this issue.

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

[2] [http://ncmei.gov.in/writereaddata/filelinks/c296efcb_Guideli...](http://ncmei.gov.in/writereaddata/filelinks/c296efcb_Guidelines.pdf)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> Screw that guy; love that the "disgruntled" workers took action.</comment>


Copyright Industry Madness Takes 6 Years To Catch Up With The Worst Satire Of It - <AUTHOR> http://falkvinge.net/2012/11/10/copyright-industry-reality-takes-six-years-to-catch-up-with-the-worst-satire-of-it/ <comment><USER2> Sorry but this actually isn't as bad the article wants you to believe. First off, they base the whole thing off a Mashable article which is just a hyperbolic paraphrasing of the patent filing meant to attract eyeballs and enrage those who are blindly and without question ant-copyright no matter what. And this author took the bait.

This technology may be used for this purpose but I doubt it will be any time soon. Patent filings are incredibly vague often times and a system that detects how many people are in front of a box doesn't necessarily have to be used to prevent people from watching movies with their friends even if it can.

This article just seems like catnip for people who want go off about how dumb the copyright industry is and how much they hate copyright in general. The copyright system may be fucked and it'd be hard to argue otherwise but in this case, in the context of this article let's just take off the tinfoil hats and slow down here.

<comment><USER3> Good comment! Although it seems like it MAY have that application, the facts seem to be conveniently parsed.

That being said, after trying to watch some football on the internet today and being told I need a cable subscription, it seems like the more people try to prevent piracy, or in this case just legally not paying subscription fees, the more it pushes people towards it. Or worse yet (for medial companies), people decide that it's not worth the effort or even pirating it, and decide to just do something else, as I did. Sure, some people would be encouraged to buy cable, but some it certainly just hardens their resolve not to pay for the crap they put on TV.

I like sports, but I'm not paying for 90% Honey Boo Boo and America's Top Model to watch the 10% football and other worthwhile content that they have on!

<comment><USER4> Yes! "decide to just do something else"

Write software, play a musical instrument, have your kids act out a scene from Shakespeare after dinner. Seriously...unending consumption of entertainment, even when it is infotainment (and maybe that's actually worse) is not beneficial to culture, or to you.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Hmm. Sounds like great technology - but how exactly are they going to tell that your Kinect is pointing at the same room in which people are watching video, as opposed to, say:

1) A towel draped over the aforementioned Kinect? 2) The wall? 3) The hallway outside the room where the movie is being played? 4) Exactly _half_ of the room, with the people who would bring your movie to an Unauthorised Number Of Viewers sat in the other half?

<comment><AUTHOR> My dog isn't going to like being called a pirate.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> I get tired of these screeds. If you're so upset by restrictions, etc, stop consuming Big Content. Otherwise admit the basic fact in play: those companies have such a captive audience because everyone wants their content so bad that they can get away with sorts of crap and people will put up with it. Copyright isn't to blame here. You see the same thing in other industries where branding is paramount (think LV bags).

<comment><USER7> That means opting out of a large portion of modern culture.

<comment><USER8> I've often wondered if there ought to be some kind of access to culture defense for copyright infringement.

The creators of copyrighted works reap the benefits of their work becoming integral parts of popular culture; their status as culturally significant works afford them a wide range of pecuniary and non-pecuniary benefits.

At the same time, there is a negative externality associated with a copyrighted work becoming part of popular culture; insofar as one must stay abreast of developments in popular culture to continue having meaningful discussions with friends, to understand the terminology other people use, and indeed to make their own original contributions to popular culture.

<comment><USER9> There definitely is. That's a large part of the essence of fair use -- which allows commentary, parody, and reporting on copyrighted works without any say by the copyright holder, as well as use in education and research (and, with the first sale doctrine, allows libraries to lend books, music and movies to the public for (more or less) free).

<comment><USER9> Too late to edit, but it's also the point of having all works eventually enter into the public domain (and a powerful argument for shorter copyright lengths).

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> This kind of copyright stuff is not new.

People have created view once video tapes that cannot be rewound. People have created limited life DVDs that begin to self-destruct when they come into contact with air.

Disney[1] used to oppose video for this very reason - you couldn't tell how many people were watching and so you couldn't charge them each a fee.

[1] I used to be able to find references to this. I can't now. There's a bunch of stuff that happened in the 1980s which feels harder to find than it should.

<comment><USER11> _There's a bunch of stuff that happened in the 1980s which feels harder to find than it should._

Amen, brother. For a long time, Ed Greer ([http://articles.latimes.com/1989-02-03/news/mn-1871_1_ed- gre...](http://articles.latimes.com/1989-02-03/news/mn-1871_1_ed-greer)) was not mentioned on the internet. He's finally arrived, and his message is: "Never become too good at something you hate. They'll make you do it the rest of your life."

I used to have that article pinned to my bulletin board, but it finally disappeared. No Ed Greer for years. But hey, he's back!

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> Sorry, the industry still hasn't caught up with my 'worst satire' of it from 10 years ago:

"DRM Helmets: An Idea Whose Time Has Come"

<http://www.oreillynet.com/1540.html>

I must admit, though, that the Kinect-viewer-surveillance patent is an encouraging step. (Could a future Kinect add a visible-spectrum laser to temporarily blind unauthorized audience members?)

</comment><comment><USER13> Related HN thread: <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4762303>

An early version of the joke email (suggesting they actually took about 11 years): [http://lists.sucs.org/pipermail/jokes/2001-November/001176.h...](http://lists.sucs.org/pipermail/jokes/2001-November/001176.html)

</comment><comment><USER14> Time to redecorate if you have a living room with mirrored walls

</comment><comment><USER15> Here in Norway, the norwegian version of RIAA are trying to get radio playing in rental cars acknowledged as "playing of music in a public space".

[http://translate.google.com/translate?sl=auto&tl=en&...](http://translate.google.com/translate?sl=auto&tl=en&js=n&prev=_t&hl=no&ie=UTF-8&layout=2&eotf=1&u=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.aftenposten.no%2Fdigital%2FRadiolytting- kan-gi-dyrere-leiebil-7032053.html&act=url)

</comment><comment><USER16> If only there were a way to obscure the Kinect's ability to measure the room.

</comment><comment><USER17> So if M$ patented this technology, does it mean that other companies can not use this kind of shit to limit their users? If so this would be a good thing.

<comment><USER18> The odd thing here is that the satire description predates the patent monopoly by six years, and may count as prior art.

<comment><USER16> That's ridiculous. Saying "wouldn't it be cool" isn't prior art. Describing a working system is.

<comment><USER19> Maybe the law has changed but I heard that a patent for a waterbed was once refused because Robert Heinlein had described one in a novel.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Swift 3 - <AUTHOR> https://developer.apple.com/swift/ <comment><AUTHOR> It looks like the 3.0 preview [1] was committed ~11 minutes ago.

[1] [https://github.com/apple/swift/releases/tag/swift-3.0-PREVIE...](https://github.com/apple/swift/releases/tag/swift-3.0-PREVIEW-1)

<comment><AUTHOR> Here is the blog entry on the developer preview: [1].

[1] [https://swift.org/blog/swift-3-0-preview-1-released/](https://swift.org/blog/swift-3-0-preview-1-released/)

</comment></comment><comment><USER2> Details:

[https://github.com/apple/swift-evolution#implemented- proposa...](https://github.com/apple/swift-evolution#implemented-proposals- for-swift-3)

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> I don't see anything on GitHub [1] yet, but it is on apple.com. An announcement coming soon?

[1] [https://github.com/apple/swift/releases](https://github.com/apple/swift/releases)

Edit: added GitHub link.

<comment><USER3> It's not uncommon for Apple to have private branches that are merged back to their OSS projects after features/changes/devices have been announced -- it's been occurring a few times in LLVM and Clang-land. Taking a quick glance over the git history seems to point to commits referencing 3.0 though?

<comment><AUTHOR> Just to clarify ... I meant I hadn't seen a commit tagged as a 3.0 release yet.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Curious are people using Swift only for iOS apps or are people using it also as a server language?

<comment><USER5> As long as Swift continues to have strong reliance on Apple, Swift on server- side will run the risk of being a second-class citizen. It's unlikely to have a well-established ecosystem of external developers either because Swift currently attracts primarily iOS developers. So, till Apple makes some moves to show that it considers server-side a first-class citizen, or you see a very obvious external developer ecosystem building for server-side Swift, I'd recommend not using it there.

<comment><USER6> Isn't swift-in-the-cloud backed by IBM?</comment></comment></comment>


Evan Williams's Advice to Start-Ups: Don't Be Too Data-Driven  - <AUTHOR> http://allthingsd.com/20121221/evan-williamss-advice-to-start-ups-dont-be-too-data-driven/?mod=atdtweet

<comment><USER2> Good point but depends on why you are creating something. If it's primarily to make money then pivoting might get you there sooner. If it's too birth and nurture something that makes the world better than data could obscure the progress you are making that doesn't show up in the metrics.</comment>


Ask HN: What "seeds" can I plant early and reap the benefits later? - <AUTHOR> Recently, I was pleasantly surprised by a small investment portfolio I created years ago (and forgot about), which has grown nicely over the years. It got me thinking, this is one of the things that, simply by knowing it and putting just a bit of an effort, one can reap the benefits in the years to come.
What other things should I start on early and let them grow "for free"? A few things come to mind:
Planting a tree
Investing early and properly
Learning a language
What else do you recommend? <comment><USER2> Books that introduce one to the rigorous mathematical way of thinking. There are free and leisurely ones like Book of Proof by Richard Hammack.

[https://www.people.vcu.edu/~rhammack/BookOfProof/](https://www.people.vcu.edu/~rhammack/BookOfProof/)

</comment><comment><USER3> If you're willing to put in a medium amount of effort and be consistent over the course of a few years, few things have better ROI at the moment than learning Chinese I'd say.

</comment><comment><USER4> "learn to code" Paul Graham

</comment><comment><USER5> Excerise

Meditation</comment>


Great Tool for Understanding Dilution when Raising Money - <AUTHOR> http://www.ownyourventure.com/equitySim.html

<comment><USER2> Tried checking "convertible debts" with 20% conversion premium. In that scenario, it doubles the founders' value at round 3. Is that typical?

</comment><comment><USER3> Great tool, thanks !!!

</comment><comment><USER4> wouldn't a spreadsheet be easier?</comment>


Ask HN: What business software app do you hate the most? Why? - <AUTHOR> <comment><USER2> I don't particularly dislike PowerPoint, but I can't resolve the fact that in 30 years of development and massively increased software footprint, the presentations look the same now as they did in the 90's. The only thing differentiating the age of a presentation is the choice of default font.

OTOH I have a friend who would argue this is a sign of perfect design, and the amount of hard drive space a software package takes doesn't matter so much these days anyway. Six of one, half a dozen of the other.

</comment><comment><USER3> SharePoint. Mostly because we use it improperly (as a backend for web apps)

<comment><USER4> I've always found that approach fairly insane. The Enterprise shops where I've done Sharepoint work and consulting always followed a strategy that SharePoint is good at its built-in features, but if you even think about writing .NET code to enhance it, just walk away from SharePoint and go write an app.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> Jira. So slow these days.

<comment><USER6> Not to mention the inconsistent interfaces. You like Markdown? Sorry, won't work in that view. But in the other one, for sure.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> \- WYSIWYG editors (confluence, google docs, word, etc.): never does what I want, pasting markdown or HTML always fails and at some point I get bugs with nested lists...

\- MS exchange: forces you to use outlook and is buggy

\- Linux: Bluetooth headsets stuck to 8bit (instead of 16bit) when using them with mic, external sound card not fully supported, encryption not coupled with user login (and using suspend to ram makes it useless)

\- Windows: Backups suck (built in can silently fail, no user folder etc), pushing Edge hard, not unix

\- macOS: the dock, can't switch between windows of the same app efficiently, hard on exotic keyboard layouts, bad font rendering on non-retina screens

<comment><USER8> On macOS, use ⌘~ to switch between windows in the same app. Between that shortcut and ⌘-space to open spotlight, the only use I have for the dock is to empty the trash.

<comment><USER7> thanks, just ditched macOS though and not looking back :)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Probably Workday. It takes more clicks to get where you want to go than older, less flashy software. Rendering and response times are slow too. It might just be how my company set it up.

</comment><comment><USER10> MS Teams is pretty terrible, probably worse than SharePoint for me.

<comment><USER11> Ever tried Lync? I'd take Teams over that shit any day

<comment><USER12> Lync / Skype for Business will not exist anymore in less than 12 months. So maybe not a good idea to onboard there [1] .

[1] [https://redmondmag.com/articles/2019/07/30/microsoft- ending-...](https://redmondmag.com/articles/2019/07/30/microsoft-ending-skype- for-business-online-service.aspx)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> Lync for sure. Or Skype for Business as they call it these days even though it's got absolutely nothing in common with Skype. Worst communications app ever created.

</comment><comment><USER13> Slack - horrible search

</comment><comment><USER14> Any shipping software by DHL, FedEX or UPS. This stuff is horrible, clunky, error prone, ignores productive software conventions, transfers data at a snails pace etc

</comment><comment> m-p-3 Dell KACE, what a piece of utter garbage.

</comment><comment><USER15> Cyberark

Very slow and un-intuitive/convoluted UX.

</comment><comment><USER16> Any CRM app.

<comment><AUTHOR> Everybody hates typing meeting notes into predefined fields. Can you peel the onion a bit?</comment></comment>


The baby tackling bullying at school - <AUTHOR> http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p05vpw3f <comment><AUTHOR> More information here: [http://www.rootsofempathy.org/roots-of- empathy/](http://www.rootsofempathy.org/roots-of-empathy/)</comment>


Show HN: Myfinancelist, a directory of investment banking, PE, HE, and VC firms - <AUTHOR> http://myfinancelist.com <comment><USER2> Where do you get the data from?

<comment><AUTHOR> Hey, thanks for checking the website out! For the investment banking firms, I just took firms from google and manually assembled the list and for the other lists, I did a mix of googling and pulling from established databases such as Capital IQ, Thomas one, etc.</comment></comment>


Interviews with Fibonacci - <AUTHOR> http://davedash.com/2011/01/28/interviews-with-fibonacci/

<comment><USER3> The last time I was looking for a job, the subject of Fibonacci as a "Fizzbuzz" or coding screen came up in discussions with colleagues. On a whim, I decided to write the most unlikely implementation possible and blog about it so that when someone asked about Fibonacci in an interview, I could say "Oh yes, I blogged my answer to your question in advance."

[https://github.com/raganwald/homoiconic/blob/master/2008-12-...](https://github.com/raganwald/homoiconic/blob/master/2008-12-12/fibonacci.md#readme)

As it happens, I have never been asked to code Fibonacci. But if I ever am asked... I'll be ready!

</comment><comment><USER4> This is more of a meta question/comment, but so far in my entire professional programming career (10+ years), I've never been interviewed in a way that required any programming tests or proof of ability. Instead I've always been hired by reputation or referrals and thus skipped past such things. Is that common or unusual?

<comment><USER5> Most of the interviews I've been to involved coding. The only one that didn't was my first - but they required a code submission.

My reputation/referrals have allowed me to skip parts of the process but never the whole thing (I've skipped phone screenings, for example). I haven't been in the industry as long as you (~6 years) which might have something to do it. Also, you may be well known whereas I am not.

</comment></comment><comment> brown9-2 _I don't care too much about efficiency._

As a corollary to this, I often ask this same question as my opening question when interviewing candidates, and I find that asking what the big-O runtime of their proposed solution is is also a good indicator of talent/knowledge.

For example, if they answer with a recursive solution (return fib(n-1) + fib(n-2)) but are unable to figure out why it's performance will be worst than linear, then this is a red-flag on the topic of being able to analyze and compare different algorithms. If they answer with recursive and say "oh yeah the performance of this stinks but the code is elegant, I can re-write this to be linear" then it's a good sign.

<comment><USER6> I recently wrote an interpreter in C for a made up language. As a test of its performance, I coded up a powmod function, powmod(a, e, n) = a^e mod n (where ^ is power not xor). The program contained the lines:

       if (n % 2 == 0) return (powmod(a, n/2, p) * powmod(a, n/2, p)) % p;
       else return (powmod(a, n/2, p) * powmod(a, (n+1)/2, p)) % p;

The embarrassing thing is that even after having spent years writing mathematical code, it took me ages before I figured out it was not my interpreter, but this algorithm that was so ridiculously slow. Fortunately the interpreter is now _really_ fast!

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> "I don't ask this problem, because I'm dying to know the 12th digit of the fibonacci sequence. I already know that's 144."

That was certainly news to me. Who would have thought that the 12th _digit_ of the Fibonacci sequence is 144.

<comment><USER6> Interesting problem: for what base (if any) is this actually true. Now there's an actual interview question!

<comment><USER8> Your problem is either ill-specified or trivial. The trivial answer is any base greater than 144, allowing all numbers up to that point to be one-digit each. Since to have a 144 "digit" we must already be in base > 144, as chosen by what appears to be your problem, there's no other possible solution. (I'm assuming integral bases to keep things well-enough contained for a simple HN post here.)

"Ill-specified" is if you're still playing fast-and-loose with the meaning of "digit"; I've tried to adopt the closest meaning I can come up with where 144 can be a "digit" but in conventional terms the "digit" refers not to the number, but the encoding, in which case 144 can't be a "digit". It may be the ordinal identifier of some digit, but it is not itself a digit, which by definition is a single atomic unit in your number digitization scheme. (That is, your atomic glyph may itself be encoded by multiple glyphs in another scheme, I could imagine representing base 1296 numbers (36 times 36) by definition as two base36 numbers with the obvious English encoding, but in the base1296 encoding a "digit" would be two alphanums in the English encoding. Gotta make sure to keep all the layers straight; there's the abstract number, there's the digit breakdown in a given base, and there's the serialization of those digits in some concrete format.)

<comment><USER6> The trick with such questions is finding an interpretation which is neither over nor underspecified and for which the answer is not obvious.

The question only supposes that 144 is a digit in the base.

We might also write the fibonacci sequence in whatever base is chosen, i.e. the fibonnaci sequence is no longer

1, 1, 2, 3, 5, 8, ....

but may be

31, 31, 32, 33, 39, ....

To keep the problem simple, let's suppose that our digits are represented by glyphs which just happen to be composed of ordered sequences of decimal digits and that the glyph m corresponds to a lesser digit than the glyph n only if m < n when considered as decimal numbers. Thus we could have 37 < 144 but not 144 < 37 for glyphs 37 and 144.

This already places some hard restrictions, e.g. as 144 is a digit, 1 and 4 cannot both be digits.

Now I think the problem is neither trivial, nor overspecified (though I didn't actually check the latter). I certainly agree it was underspecified.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> I applied for a company where a significant portion of the first phone screen was devoted to basically making sure I knew what modulus was.

After the screen, I asked them about what percentage of applicants failed - <USER2> turned out it was something like half. Sad.

</comment><comment><USER7> I guess the OP does not realize that a correct solution to his ill-defined "question"

> Print n digits of the Fibonacci sequence

is (in Python): print "1"*n

<comment><USER3> I find this surprising. Can you please explain?

<comment><USER7> Sure.

A digit is "a symbol (a number symbol, e.g. "3" or "7") used in numerals (combinations of symbols, e.g. "37"), to represent numbers (integers or real numbers) in positional numeral systems." (Source: Wikipedia)

For example, the number 17 consists of the digits 1 and 7.

So n digits of the Fibonacci sequence is ill-defined. Maybe a reasonable interpretation could be: n digits if you concatenate Fibonacci numbers. (At least, that was my working interpretation while reading the post until I realized that the OP had no idea what a digit is.) Since the question does not ask for the first n digits, you can choose any digit. I assume the Fibonacci sequence has n "1"s (actually I have no proof for that, but since the Fibonacci numbers are infinite it is reasonable assumption IMHO). Hence: print "1"*n

<comment><USER10> Huh. I'm thinking I might very well not want to be hired by someone who doesn't know the difference between a digit and a number. What an odd thing...

<comment><USER3> Are you sure he doesn't know the difference? He may have banged out the post in a hurry. English may not be his first language. He may know the concepts very well but be unclear on the terms.

If I were interviewing someone and they seemed to get the terms wrong, I would simply ask them "Do you mean number instead of digit?" If they sheepishly say, "Oh yeah!" I would carry on and forget about it. No big deal.

You may have a different view, of course. But for me, getting this wrong is like getting the terms "pass by reference" and "pass reference by value" mixed up. It's worth clarifying, but hardly a sign someone is irredeemable :-)

<comment><USER10> Sure, it all depends on context. If I'm talking with someone and he's obviously knows what he's doing, then I'd certainly make allowances.

At the same time, you'd certainly hope that an interviewer had the basic English-language terms down pat for one of his standard interview questions. (Presuming he's giving interviews in English, of course!) It's not a single mistake here, it's jumbled throughout the article in a fashion that makes the simple question sound much more complicated than it is.

For what it's worth:

        my @fib := 0, 1, *+* ... *;
        my @fib-digits := @fib.map(*.comb).flat;

Okay, I guess given an adequately expressive language, the problem still isn't very interesting even if you're really asking about the digits. :)</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


PayPal CEO calls out employees  - <AUTHOR> http://venturebeat.com/2014/02/12/paypal-marcus-memo/

<comment><USER2> I remember Yahoo recently having similar problems with employees dog-fooding their products. I don't remember them getting the hate, however.</comment>


Death To Innovation - <AUTHOR> http://russelldavies.typepad.com/planning/2013/10/death-to-innovation.html

<comment><AUTHOR> I don't agree with all of this by any means ("take money from marketing" \- NO!), but it's an interesting read.</comment>


A peek inside Exist, our quantifed self app close to launch - <AUTHOR> http://exist.io/blog/post/sneak-peek/

<comment><AUTHOR> We actually applied to the last round of YC a few months ago with Exist but didn't make it. We've since taken a look at our approach, which was too broad, and decided to focus on health and fitness first before we gradually scale up to integrating with everything we can and tracking every aspect of your life. Gotta start small. We're also resigned to bootstrapping for the moment and will probably introduce pro accounts soon after launch too.

<comment><USER2> Nice work. I like that you included the correlations with confidence score in the MVP.

1) What about adding RescueTime? 2) Where can I sign up?

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks! If you click through to the home page via the header link, there's a sign up form at the bottom.

Rescue Time and some productivity trackers are coming once we're happy we've done a decent job on our initial focus of health and fitness. Which is hopefully not too far off.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> I don't quite see the problem this app is solving (beyond initial curiosity). Some wild ideas, not necessarily good ones:

* Everybody knows enough sleep is a good thing, but not everybody has a productivity chart to make its importance visceral.

* Provide early warning signs to rest before you get migraine. Common triggers are stress, hunger, fatigue, hormone levels (medication), indoor air quality and lighting. A common early warning sign is an unusual appetite. The facts are known, but their importance varies and not everybody is sufficiently self-aware.

* Automatic goal tracking for Beeminder, because that increases the chance you achieve your goals.

* Prevent procrastination: Is it possible to infer mood from your data, e.g. movement patterns, after some initial training? (The food industry can measure feelings amazingly well in their food design labs.) I know I'm much more likely to procrastinate when I'm low on energy. Right now, I'm trying to notice that earlier and take a break or fix the underlying problem.

</comment><comment><USER4> Thanks for posting.

I'm keen to adopt Quantified Self strategies. It's more important, valuable as you get older.

I bought an Omron 10 blood pressure cuff. It has a USB port and some Windows software. I'm a Mac user. Figuring out how to slurp the measurements is on my to do list. I hope you're considering supporting home health monitors. Glucose monitors, BP, weight, etc.

I've been looking for a passive sleep monitor. The FitBit I own requires me to start and stop the timer. Meh. I've tried the SleepCycle app. Haven't embraced it yet.

Anyway. Good luck. You're doing important work.

<comment><USER5> Withings has a wireless blood pressure cuff, and makes the data available through a Web API for services like exist.io.

BodyMedia's FIT detects when you lie down and get up (so no need to push any buttons), and you don't need to transfer the device into an awkward wrist strap (since you're wearing it on your upper arm).

</comment></comment><comment> k-mcgrady Looks nice. I'd definitely use this (just signed up for the beta) but I'd be interested in hearing how you intend to use this data and how my privacy will be protected.

</comment><comment><USER6> Nice looking application, but you are collecting a ton of personal data without any indication of your intent. You really need a terms of use somewhere, especially if you plan is to collect all of this data and sell it (which could be very valuable). Even if you aren't sure, a good policy will give you that ability without the risk of bad PR and a knock on your door from some regulator.

</comment><comment><USER7> Now pardon me, but what's the value of _any_ of those measures?

Holy moly! This month I've slept 285 hours. So what?

Heck! You took a hell of a lot of steps lately, you should pace yourself man, you don't wanna wear out those heels, now, do you?

Is that what you had in mind when you decided this was really the best way to spend your precious time?

<comment><USER8> Sort of a blunt way to put it - but I agree.

The biggest problem with all these QS apps & wearables is it gives me TONS of really beautiful, _useless_ data.

There's no action steps:

\- no "you sleep optimally when going to bed at X and waking up at Y"

\- no "you need to walk 15,000 steps for the next two months to hit your weight loss goal.

QS is a start - but there needs to be some sort of data interpretation for this stuff to be useful.

<comment><USER5> The problem isn't the data, it's the services, which for the most part are geared towards motivating and entertaining you, not helping you interpret your data.

One reason for this is that the human body is too complex (and the data too incomplete) for simplistic advice like "walk x steps per day to reach weight y".

You're also unlikely to discover a novel correlation that can be used to lose weight (and write a book and get rich)... But what you can do is use your data to determine which _known_ solutions are working for you, and which are not (e.g. do I really sleep better when going to bed before midnight, all else being equal?).

I'm eager to see how exist.io handles all of this! (I run another service in this space, zenobase.com)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> High level RescueTime integration would be nice, even with a health focus. Knowing how many hours I spend in front of a computer is a big thing.

<comment><AUTHOR> Hey, you're the guy who founded RescueTime! Sure, that makes sense. We'll probably prioritise it for integration after launch. Love to chat about it if you have an interest.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> Will I be able to get an export/backup of all my aggregated data (as files)? I'd pay for that service alone. Something like CloudPull for my QS data.

</comment><comment><USER11> Bad. Fucking. Idea. They need to pay users for using this. Our data is FAR too valuable.

</comment><comment><USER12> reminds me of MoodStats [http://www.cubancouncil.com/work/project/moodstats](http://www.cubancouncil.com/work/project/moodstats)</comment>


Dealing with Anxiety - <AUTHOR> Hi all, I recently wrote this post (https://psiloveyou.xyz/married-to-someone-with-anxiety-d5bab822ba2d) that prompted a really good discussion on HN - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13037164
After speaking with my wife, and reading comments people we had, we thought we'd try and write a follow up that is aimed at looking at more practical advice. Specifically we have looked at what helped us.
Hope it is of some use and feel free to add comments so I can update the article with other people's suggestion.
The article is here - http://www.getinspired365.com/articles/taking-back-control-of-your-mental-health
thanks <comment><AUTHOR> My article - [http://www.getinspired365.com/articles/taking-back- control-o...](http://www.getinspired365.com/articles/taking-back-control-of- your-mental-health)

Previous discussion - [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13037164](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13037164)

<comment><USER2> My wife also struggles with anxiety, so I appreciate an article with things that _I_ can do to be more involved, as I often feel helpless and it sucks not being able to help. Thanks!

<comment><AUTHOR> Great! I am pleased that the article is of some use. Wish you and your wife all the best.</comment></comment></comment>


Ask HN: How can I get more clients? - <AUTHOR>

(This is a throwaway account.)
I run a small, niche, software company.  We do mostly contract work.  We have some of our own products, but nothing that will pay the bills just yet.
We're not going to starve or anything, but it would be nice to get some new clients.  Until now we've gotten by with AdWords as a sales lead strategy, but competition is heating up, and I predict that may no longer work for us in the near future.
I really need to be doing more in-person networking, but in typical programmer fashion I have no idea how to actually go about this.  Most of my contacts are other developers or current clients.  Networking events here are mostly cleaning companies or computer repair services, which don't make good clients for custom software in general.
I guess what I'm looking for is a book or guide to b2b sales from a hacker point of view.  Most of the resources out there are targeted at selling mass-market products and are mostly obvious platitudes ("Set Yourself Apart From Your Competition").   What I'm looking for is more of a set of actionable steps:  1) Find networking events by doing X Y and Z, 2) Attend said networking events in business casual attire, 3) Listen to customers and focus on them and their problems, 4) Follow up after X time by tailoring one of these e-mail templates, etc.  If Amazon carries this book, I cannot find it.
What can I do today (or this week) to get better at selling and get more clients? <comment><USER2> I could tell you bet then you might start poaching my clients. ;)</comment>


Show HN: Mystery Internet Theater 3000 - <AUTHOR>

http://mit3k.com/
It's a simple site I built yesterday.  The idea is to get people watching the same movie and allow them to comment on it in realtime.  Each movie is a $0.99 iTunes movie in the spirit of the B-movies in Mystery Science Theater 3000.
I wanted to play with realtime push, so I used the realtime comments in MIT3K as an excuse to do it! <comment><AUTHOR> Clickable link: <http://mit3k.com/>

BTW, I used Pusher to implement the realtime comments, and it was ridiculously easy to integrate: <http://pusherapp.com/></comment>


Top 3 Web Traffic Refferers: Facebook, YouTube and StumbleUpon - <AUTHOR> http://www.noobpreneur.com/2010/07/31/facebook-stumbleupon-and-youtube-are-top-sources-for-referral-web-traffic/ Here's one analysis result you might want to follow: According to Woopra that monitors over 100,000 websites, the Top 3 for referral traffic is Facebook, StumbleUpon and YouTube. <comment><USER2> I'm a little surprised to see StumbleUpon so high! I remember using it when it came out, and I never really got hooked. Now that I think about it, it makes a little bit of sense. I hypothesize that the target market is different than sites like Hacker News, Reddit, and even Digg- StumbleUpon requires less effort and less contribution to a "geeky" community. I'm not saying this is necessarily a good thing, but they have found a way to get user submissions from people who would never get themselves involved in other social sites, so it's working for them.

Anyone have thoughts on this theory?</comment>


Ask HN: How to negotiate fewer hours as a project manager? - <AUTHOR> I've joined a great team where the most overworked people were the two founders (agency; 1 other PM). They have over a dozen projects going on at once, and more in the pipeline.
I don't like to micromanage, but one of their goals was driving efficiency, so less slacking off. As such, since joining I am always completely on-point all day, hold scrum standups every morning to maintain focus (by the way, this is something anyone can benefit from, ask anyone who's worked for themselves and had nobody to boast to.) Likewise we do cooperative planning and review meetings around sprints, to maintain motivation high, keep delivering, keep client satisfaction high.
I appreciate the recurring paycheck, but one of my personal (outside work) goals is to continue to plough ahead on more risky projects on my own (allowed). The pay I joined on is below-ave., but I really like working with this team.
Given that a lot of my work is client communication, does it sound like I would be in a position to negotiate even fewer hours in the office? Specficially, to suggest coming in in the morning for the scrum motivational meeting and to learn about roadblocks (as an equal), to hold planning and review meetings and meet with the owners; but to do some/a lot of the client contact from my home office? I'm very closeby.
I'd really like to tie this somehow to my performance landing new clients and projects, and how well I PM them, as opposed to tying it with just hours.
At this office, there is a very productive 1 day in office, 4 days remote worker (down from 3 days in the office in the past) and this makes me think that a solution like this might work. slack is used heavily. Of course, if there are any late afternoon meetings (bunch of time zones are involved) I can stick around.
What do you guys think? Is this a reasonable thing for a manager to do? Or should I just suck it up and sit in the office all day, keeping everyone tense? <comment><USER2> It sounds like, if you can, you need to have an honest conversation with your boss. Ideally you can find a balance where your boss feel like you are getting an appropriate amount of work done and you feel like you have a good work/life balance. That's probably the only way you will last at this job long term. To answer you question: No I don't think it's unreasonable for you to be happy at work. Just understand that you boss also needs to be happy with your work. Good luck.</comment>


Is Vancouver Silicon Valley North? - <AUTHOR> http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/british-columbia/story/2013/08/02/bc-vancouver-hootsuite-high-tech.html

<comment><USER2> There is one Silicon Valley on the continent already, why would anyone go to the BC?

</comment><comment><USER3> No? I get that the tech scene is growing, but this is extreme hyperbole. Vancouverites need to go to the actual Silicon Valley to see just how wide the gap is.

When your best-known tech employer is an infamous code sweatshop, and the bulk of your job market is heavy enterprise-Java code, you cannot make a realistic claim to being Silicon Valley.

</comment><comment><USER4> Can we stop with this already? One minute Waterloo is "Silicon Valley North" the next minute it is Vancouver. Who cares? Just build your ecosystem the way your community wants it.

</comment><comment><USER5> What was that "law" stating every news headline ending with a question mark can always be answered "No"?</comment>


If two people start a company are they founders or co-founders? - <AUTHOR>

Is the word founder used only if there is one person starting a company?  If you have two or more, are you automatically labeled as co-founders?
I see a lot of people use co-founder when there are more than one starting team members, but the founders of our country weren't called the "Founding Co-Founders".
Also, if you type and/or say the word founder ten times, it starts to lose all meaning. <comment><USER2> This just an artifact of english usage.

Joe and Jim start a company making widgetry for social networks.

Joe is a founder. Jim is a founder. Joe and Jim are the founders of the social network widgetry company.

Jim is Joe's co-founder. Joe is Jim's co-founder.

The "co-" prefix should really only be used where it removes confusion and makes it clear that there is more than one founder.

</comment><comment><USER3> _Also, if you type and/or say the word founder ten times, it starts to lose all meaning._

Hahaha, I overhead some baked high school kids in Starbucks today have exactly that conversation. (But I think the word was "snickerdoodle".)

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

From a linguistic perspective, the phenomenon that a word after frequent repetition seems to lose its meaning is connected with the very nature of words. A word as a unit of language has three characteristics:

* It has form, i.e. it is shaped out of sounds or, in the case of written language, out of letters (characters).

* It has function, which (among other things) means that it operates in a meaningful sentence.

* It has meaning, which implies that it refers to a certain unit of thought (a concept or an idea) within a context.

However, when a word is repeated over and over again, it is in fact only the form which is repeated. There is no sentence, so the function of the word is eliminated. Its meaning, too, is effectively eliminated, because there is no context. A few repetitions will leave the language user's memory and expectation intact: he remembers the meaning and expects a meaningful reference. Continued repetition, however, will more and more foreground the word form to the exclusion of function and meaning, until the word literally "makes no sense". It is not the word that is being repeated, but only one of its aspects: the word form.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> If I type and/or say the word founder ten times, it starts to mean "to fail or utterly collapse".

</comment><comment><USER6> I don't think it matters.

What I do find odd is where startups use the CxO titles... Can you really be CEO of a two person startup? Seems a bit ludicrous.

<comment><USER7> You can be a founder and also a position such as CTO and CEO, based on what you are contributing work-wise.

<comment><USER6> Shrug - Yeah, I know - I'm probably just being a grump, but it seems ostentatious to me.

<comment><USER8> It's critical for dealing with business people outside the startup world. It's hard to get them to take you seriously unless you're the CxO of something. That's why we use the titles at jtv anyway.

<comment><USER6> Ok - Probably just my experience - might just be a nomenclature difference between the US and UK/Aus/etc.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Titles are meaningless. Especially the difference between minor variations of the same effective title.

In the end, both of those are the same thing.

</comment><comment><USER10> doesn't really matter, but I'd say that the co-founder label is more appropriate since it tells the person that you didn't do the whole thing all by yourself.

your other thing doesn't really make sense, they were called the founding fathers...which by itself means that there was more than 1.

</comment><comment><USER11> At GitHub we call ourselves co-founders.

</comment><comment><USER12> What is the Plural of 'Prius'? Pri-i? Prium? Priuseses?</comment>


Show HN: geo-info – A simple reverse geocoding API - <AUTHOR> https://geo-info.co/# <comment><USER2> is it rude to ask where it get the data from?

<comment><USER3> Page says "The dataset currently used is provided by GeoNames." GeoNames is [https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/](https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) so it would be better to add the attribution to each result as well.</comment></comment>


The Magician of Meat: How Pat LaFrieda Reinvented the Burger - <AUTHOR> http://nymag.com/restaurants/features/65124/ <comment><USER2> I actually can't tell, is this article an advertisement?

<comment><USER3> It's a PR fluff piece.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> >There was a time when the idea of turning a piece of dry-aged beef into a burger would be considered an act of blasphemy, not unlike shredding a Chanel gown to make a bandanna.

There still is a time: right now. I could wipe my butt with a $100 bill to see if it would make a good artisan toilet paper, but even the most ardent toilet paper enthusiast is going to have limits.

Edit: there is a winner in this story, it's Shake Shack and their patrons.

<comment><USER5> Yeah, the idea of using prime beef in a burger is... weird.

The point of prime is it's better marbled. You can get that same effect in a burger by just adjusting the fat/meat mix. I grind mine to about 20% fat, but you can pick pretty much any proportion.

<comment><USER6> > The point of prime is it's better marbled. You can get that same effect in a > burger by just adjusting the fat/meat mix. I grind mine to about 20% fat, > but you can pick pretty much any proportion.

You can adjust the meat to fat ratio but you can't get the >100% beef flavor that comes with dry aging. If you add non-prime beef jerky to the equation I think it could be done but with just chuck and fat you can't create the same set of combinations as you're limited by the maximum "meatiness" of your initial meat.

<comment><USER5> Dry-aging is a different thing entirely. Prime meat isn't necessarily dry- aged, and you can dry-age choice meat too.

<comment><USER7> But the meat in the article is Dry-Aged Prime beef. To make a statement solely about the fact that LaFrieda was using Prime beef without also bringing up that it was Dry Aged removes important information about the product he was using.

<comment><USER5> Right, and I'm saying that dry-aging _prime_ beef to use for burgers is weird. If you want the dry-aged taste and it's gonna be going in a burger, you might as well dry-age some choice meat and add a little more fat.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Food porn. Love it!</comment>


Ask YC: Learning an Editor - <AUTHOR>

I've been an avid Vim user for about a year and a half, or maybe even two now. I'd like to learn Emacs, first of all because it seems (from an outside viewpoint) to be slightly more powerful, but also because it has a few features I'd like to be able to use.
I started trying to learn Emacs yesterday, but I find that everything I do doesn't get anything done, and beating my head against it doesn't help.
Does anyone have any suggestions or tips on how to get up to speed on usage of Emacs as fast as possible? Maybe a like to a "N00B Guide" or something?
Thanks. <comment><USER2> Good advice from both mechanical_fish and pivo. The GNU Emacs book is a tad old, considering that emacs is now v.22 but it certainly will help you get from nowhere to a slow jog ;-). Considering I too am trying to learn Emacs, here's one thing that I try and do. Learn one new command everyday, and practice that all day. I mean literally - for e.g. Ctrl-T swaps two characters (I learned that one today). I essentially just started typing random letters into emacs and hitting ctrl-t every now and then (amongst some other commands I learned over the last few days).

A good editor has to be an extension of your fingers. Emacs can do that for you, once you accept that the learning curve is extremely steep. Another thing I learned, don't try and bite off more than you can chew. Emacs has several modes and hundreds of extensions that you can install, each with their own commands, and key-board shortcuts (not to mention the initial set up and configuration). Take it one step at a time, figure out the basic commands from the tutorial, and take it from there. Once you have established mastery of moving around within emacs, basic editing, searching etc you will not only be ready, but be much more comfortable with the "zen of emacs".

Here is another discussion (of several more, I am sure) that I came across on HN today. Some good advice there...

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=230639>

Good luck.

</comment><comment><USER3> I learned emacs from an O'Reilly book: _Learning GNU Emacs_

[http://books.google.com/books?id=a_lea3-w-1kC&printsec=f...](http://books.google.com/books?id=a_lea3-w-1kC&printsec=frontcover&dq=learning+gnu+emacs&sig=ACfU3U0R9HW920MS1ANHyyfKvGz96QrSjA)

If that and/or the tutorial doesn't do it for you, google "emacswiki" and see what else you can find. Also, "steve yegge emacs" (but maybe not on your _first_ day, unless you need further inspiration).

</comment><comment><USER4> Have you tried reading the EMacs tutorial (C-h t)? That's how I started. And as far as I remember, it was pretty good at getting me up to speed. I also found it useful to write out my own cheat sheet as I went along.

After that I kinda got lost until I discovered "The Info Directory" (C-h i). I just went through each item step by step and read most of it. Kinda painful but it gave me a really good feel for the entire system.

IMHO, though, there's not much point in switching from Vi to EMacs unless you do ELisp. Vi is a beautiful environment to work in but, with EMacs, you can make your environment behave practically in any way you want.

</comment><comment><USER5> I started using Emacs a few months back and I found that having a keybinding reference next to your computer is super handy. So long as you know what you're trying to do, you can just look it up and do it. After a while the commands will become second nature. Muscle memory baby!

I found this really nice visual cheat-sheet by Stephen Chan and it helped me a ton. There are a few text references out there but I think this is by far the best.

<http://www.scribd.com/doc/264676/NotesheetEmacs>

PS: Look around for information on modes, they're worth mastering.

</comment><comment><USER6> The reason why there is so much Emacs/vi debate is because both editors are quite powerful! From what I have seen, both are very good editors. If you already know vim really well, then you won't benefit editor-wise from learning Emacs. If you want a portable operating system/programming environment within an OS, then Emacs offers a lot more than vi does.

<comment><USER7> Emacs and Vi debates go on and on but usually have two categories. Some people like total control over their environment (emacs) and some people usually find enough power to get most things done fast (vi).

Often, people who use vi don't realize they're actually emacs people and versa vice. Considering that control over your editor _is_ the source of your productivity it's worth it to check both out. _Then_ get busy!

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> Did you try the tutorial? Load it with Ctrl-h t

It would help to be more specific about what you'd like to learn about emacs.

</comment><comment><USER9> use emacs' viper-mode to leverage your previous experfence with vim</comment>


'tab', a new command-line utility for processing tabular text files seriously - <AUTHOR>

It's actually a statically-typed, type-inferred declarative non-Turing-complete language for querying tabular text files. (Such csv/tsv or webserver logs.)
It's designed to fill the niche between SQL and traditional UNIX utilities like cut/sort/uniq/awk.
The source and documentation is here: http://bitbucket.org/tkatchev/tab <comment><USER2> Great tool. A small tip for fellow dyslexic users. Create an alias named bat.</comment>


Millions of abandoned oil wells are leaking methane, a climate menace - <AUTHOR> https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-drilling-abandoned-specialreport/special-report-millions-of-abandoned-oil-wells-are-leaking-methane-a-climate-menace-idUSKBN23N1NL <comment><USER2> > A school district in Beverly Hills, California, was saddled with a bill of > at least $11 million to plug 19 oil wells on the property of its high > school, after a judge in 2017 absolved Venoco LLC - the bankrupt company > that had been operating the wells - of any responsibility for clean-up > because other creditors took priority. The city of Beverly Hills is > contributing another $11 million to the job.

> "This is an incredible amount of money" siphoned away from education, said > Michael Bregy, superintendent of the Beverly Hills Unified School District.

> State and federal regulations normally require drillers to pay an up-front > bond to cover future cleanups if they go belly-up. But the rules are a > patchwork, with wildly differing requirements, and they seldom leave > governments adequately funded. In Pennsylvania, for example, it would take > several thousand years to plug its estimated backlog of 200,000 abandoned > oil wells at the current rate of spending, according to data from the state > regulator.

> Oil-industry lobbyists have been fighting state and federal efforts to > increase the bonding, arguing it would hurt jobs and economic growth during > an already tough time for the industry.

> "States and the federal government have many sources of funding available to > reclaim and plug abandoned wells," said Reid Porter, a spokesman for the > American Petroleum Institute, the country's largest oil and gas trade group.

Corporate pork, plain and simple. We can't kill these jobs and this energy source fast enough.

<comment><USER3> Once again, the American tradition of privatizing gains and socializing losses lives on.

<comment><USER4> Why wouldn't we socialize the losses here? It's not a handful of elites that just swooped in and took a bunch of money then stuck us with the bill for their garbage. We're all the consumers here. We create the problem with our demand for their product.

<comment><USER5> Then why are the profits privatized?

<comment><USER6> Because sufficient voters like to think they will be part of the group who are or one day will benefit from the privatized profits, and therefore imagine themselves enjoying the spoils it would afford.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> I found borehole inspection videos very instructive.

\- 'Several oil and gas wells': [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O9gpowN3k0M](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O9gpowN3k0M)

\- 'Methane bubbling in water well': [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BTZp1e0uc0c](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BTZp1e0uc0c)

\- 'Sample Oil Well Video Inspection': [https://youtu.be/Ei2xI4_IhbQ?t=173](https://youtu.be/Ei2xI4_IhbQ?t=173) (shows perforations)

That last video has multiple scenarios that I think help illustrate how wells work (water wells too) and what happens in their lifecycles. Worth watching from the beginning - it's a pinch more complicated than meets the eye.

<comment><USER3> That third video is very trippy, you could put a lot of those short clips on loop in an art museum and they wouldn't be out of place.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> Alberta has a fund for this exact purpose: to remediate & reclaim wells that may be 50+ years old where the owner no longer exists. Companies fund it on the front-end.

Even after recognizing the potential problem of abandonned wells the fund is massively underfunded; I can't imagine what land owners must be going through that don't have any protection. One difference: in our jurisidiction they usually only own the land rights (vs. subsurface mineral) so the leases paid are for access and generally pretty small. this article doesn't get into the weeds but I wonder if the US owners have mineral rights (based on the mention of royalty share) and thus the responsibility for Rec & Rem is more complicated.

<comment><USER9> Other provinces have funds as well, and the federal government just allocated a couple billion to the programs in Alberta, BC, and Saskatchewan, as part of the COVID response. My employer's already gotten some extra subcontracting work out of those programs.

Yay for jobs programs, I guess.

<comment><USER10> as far as jobs programs go, that's actually a good one.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> As doom-and-gloom as this article is, there is a very positive interpretation of this.

The climate change effects we have been documenting and experiencing implicitly include all of the methane from these leaks. It's not like discovering these means climate change is _worse_ than we realized. We've already been measuring the consquences of climate change -- the total sum of everything harming the environment -- so discovering a new component doesn't change that total sum, it just changes the relative proportion of _other_ factors that go into the sum.

So what this is really saying is that a major contributor to climate change is a methane leaks that _no one is using_. That's good news. It means we can fix these without having to make any sacrifices other than the (admittedly very large) cost to plug the wells.

That's a lot easier than stopping CO2 production caused by _useful_ things like energy production and transportation. To reduce those causes, you have to actually take away real benefits from people.

But these leaks are just going into the air. No one benefits from them, so no one will be harmed by their absence. We can just fix them.

<comment><USER12> as a counter argument, incurring costs to plug the wells will make _useful_ things more expensive and will take them away from some people.

<comment><USER13> It's not useful if its true cost isn't being reflected

<comment><USER12> I totally agree. I am not saying we shouldn't plug the wells. I am saying it's not necessarily easier than _stopping CO2 production_.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> There's absolutely no way these oil wells are leaking as much methane as Siberian plain slowly melting. I did a calculation a while ago and it ended up being equivalent to 125 years of 2019 CO2 emissions.

Once these natural stores of gas start getting into atmosphere due to 2nd-3rd- nth order effects these little gas leaks from human made oil wells are nothing.

<comment><USER15> Their relative insignificance doesn't mean we should not clean up after ourselves.

<comment><USER16> Always a good idea to clean up after ourselves, but limited resources are limited, certainly inadequate to the big picture requirements (i.e. turn the planet's temperature down slightly and hold it there), and so prioritization is necessary if the goal is to be reached.

<comment><USER17> hi

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> It's amazing to me that from the local to (inter)national level there is no real requirement for companies to price this cost into production.

Insurance? No. Bankruptcy priority? No. Posting of bonds? No. Reservation of funds? No. Everyone involved knew this and still they sign off.

<comment><USER19> It's almost as if those in charge of the law and those in charge of business don't want it that way.

<comment><USER18> One of the examples they list is a school district. If I were the commissioner (or whatever) for that district (which is now out $10m), I'd never have signed off on this without some cast iron insurance. How does that guy still have a job? How hasn't he been run out of town? That's what confuses me.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> Used to be in the oil and gas space. One of the biggest issues with orphaned wells is that local enforcement is so comically lax.

[https://www.politico.com/news/2020/05/11/orphaned-oil- wells-...](https://www.politico.com/news/2020/05/11/orphaned-oil-wells-to- squeeze-state-coffers-249138)

For example, the article says PA has 200k abandoned wells, but the number is likely 500k-750k, according to Mary Kang's work. [https://www.pnas.org/content/113/48/13636](https://www.pnas.org/content/113/48/13636)

Why you ask? There is NO required security for unconventional wells (most wells on the Marcellus) and only $25k required as a blanket security. You bet that that's going to be factored into the P/L. Abandoned wells are defined by the fact that there is no existing LLC left on the title.

[http://iogcc.ok.gov/Websites/iogcc/images/Publications/2019%...](http://iogcc.ok.gov/Websites/iogcc/images/Publications/2019%2012%2031%20Idle%20and%20Orphan%20oil%20and%20gas%20wells%20-%20state%20and%20provincial%20regulatory%20strategies%20\(2019\).pdf)

>"The average cost per well ranged from $3,700 to $101,000, with most in the $10,000 to $80,000 range. The overall average for the states is $18,940."

What if you own a bunch of stripper wells like in PA? Well when they only produce <15bbl a day each for a short life time, why bother when you can dissolve eventually and start anew? If the PA DEP's permit surcharge is only $50-200, do you really think they'll make any progress?

<comment><USER21> I've heard some stories about abandoned PA wells too. One version claimed that tens (hundreds?) of thousands were from the late 1800s to early 1900s, with old records lost. That means people do NOT know where they are. That always struck me as an opportunity for some enterprising remote sensing co. (even one formed by HN readers, hint hint!) to step into the breach and _find_ them. You can't remediate it, if you don't know where it is.

</comment></comment><comment><USER22> I'm in the IoT space and interestingly had a lot of contact in the last 6 months with firms doing contract work for the oil companies, or providing private services to monitor methane for working wells. The regulatory structures have been changing a lot lately, and now the old methods like flying over a field of wells and measuring aggregate methane levels is no longer sufficient. There now is a lot of interest and energy behind doing per- well monitoring.

I'm hoping that this means wells 50 years from now will be safer, but unfortunately it doesn't address a lot of the old wells that are a problem today...

</comment><comment><USER12> The scariest thing about climate change is not the climate change itself, but the realisation that nobody is really trying to fix it. Nobody is in charge. There is no any remotely adequate agenda to deal with it.

</comment><comment><USER23> This is something I always worried about after buying my house in SoCal. When I purchased the house it came up in the closing disclosures that there was a "capped" oil well within 500 feet of our house. I search every where for it. Asked neighbors and everyone was clueless to it's where being. Needless to say I never found it but did have the air in our house checked for methane as well as radon which were at normal levels.

The LA basin had a lot wells especially in the South Bay [1]. I could totally see this being a problem especially since they were capped so long ago.

1.) [http://blogs.dailybreeze.com/history/2014/10/18/torrance- bec...](http://blogs.dailybreeze.com/history/2014/10/18/torrance-becomes-an- oil-boom-town-in-the-1920s/)

</comment><comment><USER24> A tax should be paid in advance for the cost of plugging the hole before they drill. If they go bankrupt is paid already.

<comment><USER25> More directly - they could be told to cap a few wells before they drill a new one. I assume you'd want them to cap more than one.

</comment></comment><comment><USER26> I'm a big global warming person but I still have to ask this.

If there's way more methane in the atmosphere than we thought doesn't that mean co2 is contributing less warming?

<comment><USER27> There is not "more methane in the atmosphere than we thought," we've been measuring it directly for some time. [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atmospheric_methane](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atmospheric_methane)

</comment></comment><comment><USER28> A climate menace... and also the main component of natural gas. And we're moving away from coal to natural gas for things like power plants. That's _money_ that they are leaking.

(Of course, it may not be _enough_ money to make it economically worthwhile to collect the methane...)

<comment><USER8> gas is far more efficient but very challenging to transport and store. Often it's far more economic to flare or release vs. try and get to some sort of consumption market.

<comment><USER29> That's what they do in Nigeria, but it causes environmental problems as well as health problems like asthma.

<comment><USER30> Not only in Nigeria. [https://www.worldoil.com/news/2020/4/7/permian-gas- flaring-d...](https://www.worldoil.com/news/2020/4/7/permian-gas-flaring- declines-as-production-slows)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER31> Keep in mind, the Obama EPA removed the tax reimbursement for maintaining dry holes and other "Intangible Drilling Costs" This was done as a measure to encourage divestment in oil based resources, but it of course backfired.

</comment><comment><USER32> The Canadian government's Covid19 economy stimulus program focused on cleaning up abandoned oil wells rather than bailing out the oil industry directly. Puts people to work and fixes an environmental nightmare. It would be nice to see companies forced to contribute to some sort of fund that caps these wells at the end of life so environmental liability doesn't get kicked to the public when the driller goes bankrupt.

</comment><comment><USER33> Yet another problem our generation will have to fix. It's okay with me though. I would rather go down in history as the generation that fixed all the problems than the one which created them.

<comment><USER34> A generation is "all of the people born and living at about the same time, regarded collectively." Seems to me lots of the problems are from "our generation". Microplastic and CO2 for example.

<comment><USER33> You are confusing the definition. You should read on in the wikki for some context. A generation is usually about 30 years. In this case, I am referring to Millennial's.</comment></comment></comment>


How did 100,000,000 women disappear? - <AUTHOR> http://www.thestar.com/Insight/article/645832 <comment><USER2> The most important bit is hidden several paragraphs in:

 __Anderson asked villagers about selective abortions and found them open about the fact that they use ultrasound to determine the baby's gender and help them decide whether or not to keep it. __

I'm pro-life. I realize that not everyone is. I think that everyone, though, can be concerned that large segments of humanity are testing unborn children for "undesirable" traits and aborting them. We're facing a demographic timebomb.

Societies with more men than women are violent, and start wars.

<comment><USER3> I've heard that in China the situation is changing. Women are relatively scarce, so the groom's family often has to pony up a substantial "bride price" (reverse dowry?). This is helping to balance out the "value" of boys and girls.

<comment><USER4> I'm having trouble finding the source (it was in the NYTimes a few months ago), but China has also undertaken a pretty sizable PR campaign encouraging people to have daughters to try and address the ridiculously skewed gender ratios, especially in rural areas (sometimes as high as 2:1 for males).

<comment><USER3> Probably this article in the WSJ: <http://online.wsj.com/article/SB124415971813687173.html>

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> _Contrary to what you might expect, Anderson says, dowry prices have not dropped off with improvements in education in India. Instead, they have gotten worse, with educated brides and their families willing to pay even more for high-quality grooms._

Wasn't there a story here from a couple of days ago, on how expensive it is for the _groom's_ family to get a bride in China these days?

<comment><USER6> China has bride-price, while India has dowry (payments in the other direction). It has been that way for a long time.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> I find it appalling that they dare present this as news. This has been known for at least two decades. If they want to draw attention to it, they should at least be honest about their own failure to do so earlier and not try to pat themselves on the back for reporting it. Bah.

</comment><comment><USER8> Its very sad to see these kinds of things happening.</comment>


How did the MPAA/RIAA become so horrible in the first place? - <AUTHOR> http://www.quora.com/How-did-the-MPAA-RIAA-become-so-horrible-in-the-first-place?share=1

<comment><USER2> MBAs, Lawyers, and plenty of money to buy lesgilation?

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> Notice I just answered my own question.</comment>


Show HN: Sungru - Hack things better - <AUTHOR> http://sugru.com/about

<comment><USER2> It's "Sugru" and I think you should probably remove the "Show HN"... I think it's reserved for when you are showing the HN community something you've built. Sugru is a cool product.</comment>


Show HN: Building an Hacker News clone in less than 30 minutes - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/Stamplay/stamplay-hackernews

<comment><AUTHOR> Wondering if someone could check on this, I'd love to have some candid feedback on the approach</comment>