Why Musicians are leaving Facebook - <AUTHOR> https://www.blog.gigdog.fm/dear-facebook-please-stop-killing-music/

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for the comment. Unfortunately what you expect is not the reality. With Facebook's current algorithm ,to reach the amount of people (who have already Liked your page) in the hopes that they see your post and convert is far more than a couple of bucks. At the moment, Facebook is showing an average of 2-4% of the people who have liked your page without a boost. A $5 boost will jump that up to around 400-500 people. That is per day! When you are getting maybe $100 bucks a gig, and if you are lucky you don't have to split that too many ways, it adds up fairly quickly. YOU may not want to see every post from that band, but if that band wants to grow and get their music heard they need to expand to people who haven't Liked their page yet. The numbers don't make sense for artists starting out and trying to grow a fan base.

<comment><USER2> Are you targeting your adverts? $5 (~£3) would get me a few thousand views rather than <500.

Everyone arguing against boosting seems to say "They liked our page, they want to see our content!" Nope. I liked a band. I don't care what drivel they're posting every 10 minutes in a hopes of it going viral for publicity.

Facebook would be unusable if it didn't pick and mix what it shows on my feed

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> "Then you suddenly changed the way Posts are seen by people who have already followed a musician's page to the net effect that an average post is seen by a tiny fraction of the people who have liked the musician."

As Facebook user and band-liker, I don't want to see every post from a band-- just the posts that are relevant to me.

I'd expect that Facebook's current post "boosting" mechanism should work excellently for self-managed, touring musicians: Make a post about a local show, then pay just a couple dollars to "boost" that post specifically to users who like your page and live in the area of the show. The UI for boosting and targeting posts is super easy already, and we should expect it will just keep getting better.

Is the author asking for automation of the posting/boosting for multiple tour dates?

<comment><USER4> "As Facebook user and band-liker, I don't want to see every post from a band-- just the posts that are relevant to me."

I think the frustration with music lovers is that relevance isn't really determined by ad spend or what's promoted (I already determined a band was relevant to me by liking them) and it shouldn't be difficult or require extra "boosting" for bands to just have a follower receive each update they have.

I have a friend who is very into music and uses facebook because artists and their fans haven't agreed on some other music centered social app (yet).

He wants the exact opposite of what you described i.e. see ALL updates from all bands I follow in a feed.

His feeling is "Facebook sucks for music because I don't even see the posts from the artists that I follow". I tend to agree. If you are following some niche group or organization and you want to be certain that you receive updates... well facebook isn't good for that anymore. Who knows what you have been algorithmically disqualified from viewing?

<comment><USER3> Yeah, getting the main feed right is a general issue for Facebook.

If someone really wants to know about a few bands in particular, liking some of their posts will cause more of their stuff to percolate up into the main feed. But they have to keep liking.

To see all posts from bands one can make an "Interest List" containing the bands. Posts from members of that list will show chronologically. But I don't think showing all posts is the solution to getting users the info they want.

What happens if a band page creates a Facebook event? Does the event get recommended to likers nearby the event? That could be an approach.

Author is probably correct in that Facebook needs clear guidance here.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> What I am asking for is a different pricing mechanism for bands and artist. This is not an unreasonable ask considering that Music on Facebook is one of their biggest draws and they happily use that fact to sell advertising. They can give a break to the people providing valuable content.

<comment><USER5> FYI, to reply directly to a comment, hit the "reply" link right below it, rather than typing into the "add comment" box at the top. It makes the thread more readable that way

</comment></comment><comment><USER2> Why readers are leaving this blog post

It's light text on light background, also if you click (Chrome) it puts some overlay of some sort over the page and stops it from scrolling

</comment><comment><USER6> Dear long web post, light grey on white hurts my eyes, thanks...

<comment><AUTHOR> Noted</comment></comment>


Why Go Was the Right Choice for CockroachDB (2015) - <AUTHOR> https://www.cockroachlabs.com/blog/why-go-was-the-right-choice-for-cockroachdb/ <comment><USER2> I would be interesting to do a comparison of bugs found / fixed in CDB vs TiKV [1] (written in Rust) to see how much of an impact thread & memory safety have.

[1] [https://github.com/tikv/tikv](https://github.com/tikv/tikv)

<comment><USER3> Thanks.. now I have another rabbit hole to dig into... ;-)

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> FYI, this was written in 2015. Can we update the title?

</comment><comment><USER5> Coming up next - why Go was a wrong choice and Rust is the right one

</comment><comment><USER6> Needs a (2015).</comment>


The Secret Service Entrance Exam Preparation Guide [pdf] - <AUTHOR> http://www.secretservice.gov/join/SAEE-StudyGuide.pdf <comment><USER2> It seems more than one HN user finds it amusing that this guide covers "rudimentary" things like predicate logic and word problems. Keep in mind that these are the skills the Secret Service wants their applicants to actively get better at before applying; it just so happens that already having these skills are common in the HN community.

I'm sure the community of Secret Service applicants finds the skills they are good at for which the HN community needs to actively get better at equally amusing. Social aptitude and physical fitness for example...

Maybe I'm getting old but my preference is to not cast stones at communities that are different than mine.

<comment><USER3> Oh shut up.

<eats french fry>

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Why is this surprising? The Secret Service is notoriously difficult to get into -- its acceptance rate is 1% compared to Harvard's 6% -- but the majority of the requirements are not assessed by a written test.

It's somewhat like trying to ascertain anything about MIT based on its swim test requirement.

<comment><USER5> Wait, you have to be able to pass a swim test to be admitted to MIT?

<comment><USER6> You have to pass to graduate. IIRC it is part of MIT's "sea grant" charter.

<comment><USER5> Wow, crazy. I had no idea.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> > you maybe removed or debarred from Federal Service (5 C.F.R. part 731)

One does not want to mess with organizations that have "part 731" of anything.

</comment><comment><USER8> "Example Statement: All Secret Service Special Agents are U.S. government employees.

Invalid conclusion: All government employees are Secret Service Special Agents.

Valid conclusion: Some U.S. government employees are Secret Service Special Agents."

<comment><USER9> The funny thing is, this example isn't even true. Knowing that all Secret Service Special Agents are US government employees does not allow you to logically conclude that some US government employees are Secret Service Special Agents -- you also need to know that at least one Secret Service Special Agent exists!

For example, it is true that all humans living on Mars are US government employees -- but not at all true that some US government employees are living on Mars.

<comment><USER5> If you take the question abstractly enough, with zero _a priori_ knowledge, then the example becomes valid again. There may not even be any US government employees at all, anywhere.

<comment><USER9> If there are no US government employees, then the statement "some US employees have property X" is false for all values of X.

<comment><USER5> Ever taken an IQ test? One reason for phrasing the questions in terms like "All gribs are freebles, and some freebles are blorts" is to avoid that kind of problem.

Obviously, the intent with all test questions of this nature is for you to treat all nouns as abstractions.

<comment><USER9> All humans living on Mars were born on Venus. <\-- True

Some humans living on Mars were born on Venus. <\-- False

<comment><USER5> That isn't how these questions work.

<comment><USER9> It is how logic works.

<comment><USER5> I'm sure the authors of the test are busy taking notes.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> It's sad that those photoshop skills in the cover really ruined my will to look at the document.

</comment><comment><USER11> It all seems rather rudimentary.

<comment><USER5> Those sample photograph questions sure weren't rudimentary. I think I got two of those questions right across both photos.</comment></comment>


PostgreSQL 9.0 High Performance: today's free (highly-rated) e-book - <AUTHOR> https://www.packtpub.com/packt/offers/free-learning <comment><AUTHOR> Hope this offer from PacktPub gets in front of a few more eyes; this is the only one of their books I've paid for! (Back when it was on sale for $5 - [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6933716](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6933716) )

 _one of the rare good PacktPub books_ [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10808912](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10808912)

 _bottom-up, structured approaches to benchmarking low-level system performance_ [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3797082](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3797082)

 _goes in depth [...] to make sure you 're making the most out of your machine's resources_ [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7730059](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7730059)

 _A great book on query plan stuff_ [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9823263](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9823263)

 _This book is phenomenal._ [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2597774](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2597774)

 _a few of the best I 'm aware of_ [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5699248](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5699248)

Amazon 4.7 stars with 13 reviews [http://amzn.com/dp/B0057G9RUG](http://amzn.com/dp/B0057G9RUG)</comment>


Steve Sasson describes building the first digital camera (2010) [video] - <AUTHOR> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2yDLEBsThvk <comment><USER2> Has anyone been able to find the full talk?

<comment><USER3> [https://youtu.be/YIMlLJQ_xiM](https://youtu.be/YIMlLJQ_xiM)</comment></comment>


Meet The People You Follow On Twitter With Conference Directory Lanyrd (YC W11) - <AUTHOR> http://techcrunch.com/2011/01/31/lanyrd/

<comment><USER2> We're pretty excited to be the first YC company to launch following the big funding announcement. It will be interesting to see if it affects the amount of attention we get from the launch.

<comment><USER3> This quote had me laughing:

"Founded by Django creator Simon Willison and his wife Downe after finding themselves stuck on their honeymoon in Casablanca with nothing else to do".

:) Congrats on the launch!

ps: the site is pretty slow right now, can you crank up some instances or something?

<comment><USER4> hehe :)

It was a long term honeymoon - we gave up our flat in Brighton and just set off into the world with just our backpacks and laptops. We were also ill in Casablanca (and it was Ramadan so couldn't find any restaurants open) so we rented a flat for two weeks to cook for ourselves and built and launched the first version of Lanyrd.

<comment><USER5> Congrats on the site, didn't realise until now it was yc.

Out of curiosity (I was considering the same) where else did you travel to?. Being that my principle goals are to do a round the world trip and finish my startup, I figured the best way would be for me to do them both at the same time.

<comment><USER2> We spent six months travelling, starting in Europe (a proper honeymoon in Corsica, then through France and Spain) and then moving to North Africa: Morocco and Egypt.

We were travelling slowly - almost all overland without flying, and in no hurry to leave somewhere if we liked it. We ended up spending 7 weeks in Morocco because we were enjoying it so much (the original plan was just 2-3 weeks).

We would have kept going, but since the site was taking off we applied for YC from Egypt and ended up having to fly from Cairo to San Francisco for the interview - then back to Johannesburg for a pre-arranged road trip with friends.

Working on a startup while travelling actually worked surprisingly well for us. The two require different parts of your brain - startuping is very creative, while travel is very reactive. We'd go out and explore Marrakech for a few hours, talk about Lanyrd stuff, then head back to the Riad for a few hours to build things. It was actually pretty productive!

Hacking while travelling can be quite limiting though - you're carting around a lot of expensive gear, which makes some destinations / some cheap accommodation less of a good idea. We decided to put off our planned trip to Mali for a while for example.

I'm pretty glad we got out of Egypt before they turned off the internet though!

<comment><USER5> Wow, thanks so much for the insight. Are you guys from Brighton then? am based in Bournemouth.

I was looking at n.america / Asia and aus, the application to yc depends on my ability to stop procrastinating and actually get something ready!.

<comment><USER2> Yup, we lived in Brighton for two and a half years before we started travelling.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Cool! I have been following Lanyrd for a while but didn't realize they were with YC.

<comment><USER7> I guess a launch had to happen soon. What with photos of them (& others) at the YC Yuri event popping up on the web :-)

<comment><USER4> yeah I was so sure that someone would recognise me! I am the only girl in the front row in that photo, Simon is on my right

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Started on a honeymoon. Great story. They say a co-founder is like a spouse and a startup is like a marriage, but you two are bringing it to a whole new level.

</comment><comment><USER9> You've done a really great job with the site. Three things:

1) I reaaally hate the yellow buttons. Surely you can code or find some images that look better. :)

2) I'd love to be able to follow/track a person and the events s/he is arranging.

3) I'd also be interested to track events by some other measure - topic or location perhaps. A lot of things don't happen in my country outside the US, so I'd love to be able to monitor events in the capital without using RSS.

All in all a great job - there have been people before you to think of this, but none of them have made a site that was genuinely interesting and useful.

<comment><USER2> Thanks for the feedback.

1) I'm rather fond of our yellow buttons myself.

2) You can track a person's events by following them on Twitter - at the moment the Lanyrd social graph and the Twitter graph are the same thing. We're going to add "follow" buttons on Lanyrd to make it easier to follow someone without having to go to Twitter to do it.

3) That's definitely coming. For the moment, you can use our RSS feeds for that (on the place pages, topic pages and even the topic-in-place pages) but it won't be an RSS-only feature forever.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> Time to update the blog Simon :) <http://simonwillison.net/>

</comment><comment><USER10> Any ideas how to memorize that name? Does it have a meaning I don't get (non- native speaker)?

<comment><USER11> It's a "Web 2.0"-style dropped-vowel spelling of "lanyard". (Lanyards being commonly used at conferences to hold ID cards.)

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lanyard>

<comment><USER10> Thanks - lanyard was a word I didn't know yet.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> Is Lanyrd built using Django?

<comment><USER4> It is indeed, also uses all sorts of other exciting back-end moving parts - take a look at our colophon for more details: <http://lanyrd.com/colophon>

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> reimnds me of eventvue before it died.

<comment><USER2> We read the EventVue postmortem with interest: <http://blog.eventvue.com/post/372936164/post-mortem>

We're not really in the social-network-for-your-event market, though some of our functionality might address part of that problem space. Services like EventVue are limited in terms of growth because they need to convince conferences to sign up (and pay for the service) one at a time - it's a sales problem.

With Lanyrd, the event itself doesn't need to have anything to do with the site for a profile to be created - and the more events we have listed, the more valuable the service is to our users. We have over 5,000 events listed already, all entered by our community.

Thanks to Start Fund, we've got a healthy runway to figure out our business model. We have a bunch of options and we're confident we can find something that works for us.

<comment><USER13> it seemed that the pivot they were taking at the end was in a similar direction to what lanyrd is doing. just a thought, is all.</comment></comment></comment>


Grandpa's Photos - <AUTHOR> http://grandpas-photos.com/ <comment><USER2> Is this supposed to be a parody of "responsive" Javascript-intensive web design? Because as much as I know Hacker News likes to get off on ridiculously-large pictures and text with fancy scrolling and over-engineered Javascript preloaders for what could have been accomplished perfectly fine with plain HTML and CSS, this is a little much.

I like the idea. I really do. I think it's touching that you want to preserve these snippets of your grandfather's memory. That enjoyment is quickly overshadowed by this page demonstrating everything I _hate_ about the current "responsive" "disruptive" "Valley" "mobile" fetish:

* It shouldn't take 30 seconds or more to load some pictures and text in an HTML document. Additionally, I shouldn't be _sitting there the entire damn time watching some little animation spin around_ while it struggles to load.

* I really _don 't_ need an ugly 900pt font in order to read your homepage. While your grandpa might have poor vision that warrants that, I don't. I'd reckon the _vast_ majority of your site's viewers would be fine with your run-of-the-mill 12pt font; people with visual impairment typically have other accessibility tools at their disposal.

* I really _shouldn 't_ have to scroll down a whole page for _every single goddamn sentence_ on the homepage.

* The fancy "hover over this part to bring up a menu" is buggy because it overlaps with the "hover over this part to bring up an arrow" crap.

<comment><USER3> I disagree. I thought the website was very nice, easy to navigate and I found the full page photos very nostalgic looking (grainy, oversaturated ...). It evokes exactly the kind of atmosphere I would associate with a Grandpa from the 60s.

<comment><USER2> The full-page photos are fine. I have no issues with them. It's everything else that's annoying.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Such a sweet idea deserves a much better web site. A static web page with some pictures would be so much less tedious. Wanted to see if I could help but just didn't have the patience to go through the gymnastics needed to see the unobscured photos.

</comment><comment><USER5> That loading thing is very relaxing after 1/2 hour ...

</comment><comment><USER6> Loved the project. I do not think he is really showing his technical prowess here or the know-how of creating a responsive design. The idea is to help fine lost places in those photos. And that can only happen if one reaches a lot of people. HN is a good diverse group to do that.

Also, it really feels incredible to see how places have evolved over the times even when you have never really been to the place. Sometimes waiting isn't that bad. :)

</comment><comment><USER7> You know what? I think it's a beautiful site. It tugs the emotions the right way, and evokes a certain feel that is probably more effective at getting people to engage and help your Grandpa identify his old photos. It also doubles as a nice showcase of your grandpa's photography.

I'm not sure it would have achieved this effect with a simple static HTML + CSS page.

<comment><USER2> > It tugs the emotions the right way

Yes, if the intended emotions were frustration and despair.

> I'm not sure it would have achieved this effect with a simple static HTML + > CSS page.

Maybe not. It might require _some_ use of Javascript to make some fancier animations and such. It could really use some reworking, though, in the sense of using HTML with a side of Javascript and CSS, rather than Javascript with a side of HTML and CSS.

The "About" page[0] is much better than the homepage, and with some reworking probably _should_ have been used as the homepage instead. It looks so much cleaner and nicer. Incorporate some of the stuff from the homepage, and maybe one of the photos as a background, and it would be a _huge_ improvement.

[0]:[http://grandpas-photos.com/grandpas_about.html](http://grandpas- photos.com/grandpas_about.html)

<comment><USER7> Oh come on, IT isn't a perfect site but...despair? Really?

I disagree with you about the About page, the large picture format is so much more immersive and engaging than the tiny text on the About page, but I guess we will have to agree to disagree.

Usability is not always the only thing a website should optimize for. Sometimes beauty and a mood can be just as important, depending on the goals of the page.

<comment><USER2> > Usability is not always the only thing a website should optimize for.

Perhaps not, but completely throwing it out the window is generally not a good idea.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> white page with a loading animation and a number slowly incrementing in the corner.

</comment><comment><USER9> I dig that people found the exact location for all of these obscure photos (apart from NYC etc). Good work HN visitors.

</comment><comment><USER10> Most unusable site evar.

</comment><comment><USER11> I left after 2 seconds

</comment><comment><USER12> Beautiful site and photos</comment>


Ask HN: What do you use for HTML sanitization? - <AUTHOR>

There's some established HTML sanitization solutions like HTML Purifier in PHP, but I can't seem to find their counterparts in either Java or .Net.  Code samples in C# and Java are floating around, but I haven't seen anything like a project that's undergone serious testing and is being updated for new security threats on an ongoing basis.<p>Heck, I'd pay for a commercial component if it was well maintained.  Any suggestions?  Or, this being Hacker News - would someone want to create such a component as a mini-ISV startup? <comment><USER2> I don't do HTML sanitization. I escape everything except [A-Za-z0-9,. ].

Attempts to sanitize HTML (or SQL...) by eliminating a set of "dangerous" inputs inevitably end up as whack-a-mole processes as people keep discovering new evil things to throw at you. The only secure solution is to escape everything except a small set of "safe" inputs -- this is analogous to the situation with packet filtering firewalls, where "default deny all" is widely accepted as the right way to do things.

<comment><AUTHOR> Escaping is important for all text fields, and I never use user text to build SQL strings without using some kind of typed parameter API.

But I'd like to let the user submit formatted HTML via something like FCKEditor and have it checked against a limited whitelist.

I don't trust my own knowledge of browser-specific HTML rules to do this on my own. It's got to be a common enough scenario, right?

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> I use PeterBlum.com's controls for ASP.NET plus some hand-rolled stuff.</comment>


Car doesn't need a touchscreen in it - <AUTHOR> https://theoutline.com/post/8309/the-volkswagen-space-vizzion-and-ford-mustang-mach-e-have-taken-car-touchscreens-to-new-levels-of-unnecessary?zd=5&zi=c2pjkp5t <comment><USER2> The only touchscreen I need in my car is my phone mounted to the dashboard.</comment>


Ask HN: Freelancers, are you lowering your rates? - <AUTHOR> I'm curious to know if any freelancers out there are either lowering their rates and/or being asked to by clients?  If so, by what percentage? <comment><USER2> [random advice from the internet]

If you're considering lowering your rates as jobs become scarce, it makes sense to recognize that the best likely result is fewer jobs at lower rates with higher rates of cancellation and non-payment. The higher rates of cancellation and non-payment are in part due to the general economic situation and largely due to the inherent undercapitalization of projects requiring lower rates to move forward.

The opportunity is moving upmarket and chasing _better_ clients. Those with good capitalization structures. Or to put it another way, join the race to the bottom in better paying market segments. Doors open when everyone is shopping around.

</comment><comment><USER3> I haven't lowered my rates. In freelancing, it's normal for a lot of people to be charging less than you. I don't think that has changed.

Clients care about the value they're getting, so I focus on providing good service. Once a relationship with a client is established, the client's best move in a crisis won't be to replace the person they know and who knows their systems with a stranger who charges marginally less per hour. It's more likely that projects will be put on hold for some time.

</comment><comment><USER4> If your client/prospect asks you to lower your rate, have a conversation with them on why they request that. Do they need N% cost saving? Perhaps you can you work N% less than. Or negotiate longer contracts (or longer notice periods to stop the project) in return.

It could be that more professionals in your market (either freelance or employees) are becoming available, changing the demand-supply, which would normally lower the rater. Part of your rate is likely based on the scarcity of your craft. If that changes, don't be too proud to change your rate. But also don't just accept a lower rate without questions.

<comment><USER5> Or negotiate features of lowering your rate.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> No! As long as demand stays where it is (clearly, it may not), hold the line. My experience during 2000-2002 (the internet collapse) and 2008, it really depends on the niche. Much has changed and I fully expect big business to take advantage of the situation. Hopefully, a diversified skill-set will enable a more stable earnings picture.

</comment><comment><USER7> I have had a few clients ask to defer work. Normally the only way out is to draft a new SOW (and pay some penalty) or cancel and pay a penalty. I have made an exception and issued 90 day holds on our agreements at the end of witch they can either resume or pay termination costs.

I have a few clients who are now paying MORE (new contract) due to the change in the nature and scope of work. I have been doing a bit of "soft consuming" with folks adapting to working from home. Some non technical teams just don't have the know how or experience to work remote. The nature of remote work has shifted as well. Basics have become problematic as many are in transition.

</comment><comment><USER8> I'm not a freelancer, but what I'm seeing on corp finance side, I'd recommend that you do not take on significant AR. If you can, push for increased payment frequencies if you have the opportunity. Myself and my peers are turning off payment to vendors/contractors until further notice, even if they have not been notified yet. Lawyers are telling us most contracts can basically be thrown in the trash under the economic circumstances.

</comment><comment> q-base No absolutely not. As others have mentioned, there are also potential scenarios where this crisis ends up having positive impact on the freelance market. Short term contracts can be attractive for companies in turbulent times with unclear future.

</comment><comment><USER9> My contract ends in April. Indications before the crisis were that it would be prolonged, but I am not so sure now since their business will probably suffer.

The last week especially I have been getting a lot of messages with offers, so its really hard to say.

</comment><comment><USER10> With more companies switching to remote work, I'd expect the opposite.

</comment><comment><USER11> Nope, but I'm keeping a close eye on everything. We'll see what the situation is in June when my contract is up for extension...

</comment><comment><USER12> Not there yet, but I am getting indications that clients of large consultancies are activating the force majure clauses of their contracts to basically end them the same day.

This is going to be very messy.

</comment><comment><USER13> No, I get more than enough requests as it is.</comment>


Non-military federal agencies' purchases of guns, ammunition, etc (2016) - <AUTHOR> https://www.openthebooks.com/assets/1/7/Oversight_TheMilitarizationOfAmerica_06102016.pdf <comment><USER2> I feel like this is due to a peculiarity of how law enforcement works in the USA.

Every department and authority has their own law enforcement branch. You've got county sheriffs, state police, highway patrol, campus police, transport police etc. on a local authority level.

Then on a federal level, as the paper points out, everyone from the IRS to the Department of Education have their own law enforcement officers.

In the rest of the world, police is much more centralised.

Here in New Zealand (admittedly a small country), the Police are the only agency with general powers of arrest, and the only department outside the military with firearms.

The police don't have fancy equipment, if they need an APC, or helicopters or whatever (the police do have one), they'll borrow it from the Defence Force. It's not like they need to pay for and maintain their own stock to use once in a blue moon.

If an agency like the IRD (our tax department) need to raid or arrest someone, they'll get the police to do it.

I don't fully understand why the USA isn't like this. I understand why there's federal and local law enforcement, but if the FDA needs to raid and arrest people, why don't they second some FBI agents when they're needed?

<comment><USER3> > campus police

This one I've always found bizarre. What is it about American university students in particular that requires there to be an on-site police force?

<comment><USER4> Jurisdiction issues in America were already pointed out, but I'd also remind that in the Old World, universities and their campuses traditionally enjoyed certain kinds of autonomy. This could even extend to immunity from prosecution by regular authorities, with the university as its own jurisdiction handling at least some offences autonomically.

This is, I believe, now completely a thing of the past almost everywhere, but America being rather conservative, there could be echoes of it around.

<comment> wu-ikkyu >immunity from prosecution by regular authorities

This is still the case at many universities. Offenses which would be classified as criminal (i.e. public intoxication) are handled internally by the university. From one perspective, handling the mistakes of students like this is a way of protecting the university's revenue stream, as parents often withdraw their children from the university after a criminal offense.

<comment><USER5> I was going to reply and mention that protecting the revenue stream is a cynical outlook, given that campus PD can also protect students from graduating college and having a "criminal record" for public intoxication or other petty charges.

But then I recalled an article earlier this year about how "campus PD" have been intervening in sexual assault cases and trying to get them handled by the university instead of the justice system, where there's public record and of course publicity.

<comment><USER6> There's no doubt that the school I went wins over students and their 70K/year with a reputation of being a 'party school'.

And there's no doubt that it could not have this reputation with more lenient policing than you'll see anywhere else. Certainly moreso than the policing in the inner city ghetto a mile away.

I've seen campus police consistently do nothing over drug possession issues that would, without question get jail time anywhere else in the city.

The dissonance is disturbing to me.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Most of these agencies have some statutory responsibility to enforce law and investigate crimes under their purview. This includes enforcing court orders and arresting suspects in unknown and potentially dangerous situations. The report actually explains these things all the while sneering at the fact that these agencies need to employ investigative and enforcement personnel as part of their core mission.

Many of these agencies maintain large facilities to serve their core purposes and have to provide security for their facilities.

Little in this report is anywhere as alarming as the reports authors would like to make it out to be. OpenTheBooks.com seems to take the view that all government spending is wasteful, and by describing it out of context seeks to present it as abuse. For instance they present research grants to Ivy League schools as government subsidy of those schools [1] and The US Government employing a lot of lawyers as somehow suspect [2].

[1] [http://www.openthebooks.com/openthebooks_oversight_report_%E...](http://www.openthebooks.com/openthebooks_oversight_report_%E2%80%93_the_federal_subsidy_of_the_ivy_league_preliminary_findings/)

[2] [http://www.openthebooks.com/openthebooks_snapshot_oversight_...](http://www.openthebooks.com/openthebooks_snapshot_oversight_report_%E2%80%93_lawyered_up/)

<comment><USER8> >Most of these agencies have some statutory responsibility to enforce law and investigate crimes under their purview.

The report states spending jumped 106% from 55 million to 106 million over the period. I would like to know what benefit was garnered from doubling spending on arming these agencies with deadly weapons (and paintball guns, apparently).

<comment><USER9> > paintball guns,

Paintball guns are a less lethal weapon used by both border control agents and by animal control agencies.

2011: [http://bulletin.accurateshooter.com/2011/04/border-patrol- re...](http://bulletin.accurateshooter.com/2011/04/border-patrol-replaces- guns-with-nlaim-paint-markers/)

[http://www.nelsonpaintball.com/animal- control/](http://www.nelsonpaintball.com/animal-control/)

I'm not sure how many paintball guns you get for $300,000.

The benefit is hopefully fewer incidents like this where US border agents shot across the border, killing a Mexican child in Mexico. [http://www.foxnews.com/world/2012/10/12/us-border-patrol- age...](http://www.foxnews.com/world/2012/10/12/us-border-patrol-agent-shoots- kills-mexican-teen-insider-says.html) (Throwing rocks at people is obviously illegal and needs to be dealt with. I struggle to understand why extra judicial killing is an appropriate punishment for this crime.)

<comment><USER8> I grew up playing paintball. They're just liquid balls in a thin plastic. With a jacket on they won't bother you too much. At 50 ft the rental guns will start to stop breaking, especially on soft clothing. At 100ft the best guns you can buy will start to stop breaking even on bare skin. I have a hard time imagining them being effective outside of a very small set of circumstances.

<comment><USER10> You can shoot mace filled paintballs though. Releases a cloud of pepperspray on contact.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> Ingenious work around to the Posse Comitatus Act. Turn the police into the military!

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

The rampant expansion and use of SWAT is disgusting.

<comment><USER12> it's because they are scared we will try to overthrow them

they are justified in that fear these days

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> If you're familiar with the use and types of firearms, this budget doesn't seem so odd. The alarmist nature of the paper gives the authors away. If they divided the cost per officer or the assets or notional value they presumably are protecting, it'd look like a fair budget!

<comment><USER14> I am reasonable familiar (though admittedly not an expert) with the types and use of the items outlined here and I can't come to the same conclusion. Perhaps I am missing something. I don't want you to scrutinize the entire PDF but can you pick out one example and dive into the calculations?

<comment><USER15> " _What guns, ammunition and military-style equipment did the IRS purchase? FY2006-FY2014_ "

" _...Fire resistant safes..._ "

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> I read the entire report and I find nothing particular exceptional about it, except the HHS shouldn't be involved in DOD purchases and everything seems gold plated. And no I'm not a gun owner or NRA member.

There has been an increase, but most of it is essentially due to post 911 mindset that every facility needs armed guards. In other countries that would just be unarmed (possibly contracted) guards, who ring the police if there are any problems. But then, other countries have fewer guns. Also, the fragmentation of policing in the States almost requires having an agency force, because of jurisdiction and funding wars.

</comment><comment><USER17> Hmm, FDA stockpiling weapons... It looks like it fits actions of food corporations in "Daemon" and "Freedom" by Daniel Suarez.

</comment><comment><USER18> I think the title is a little misleading. The report states that the findings are from 2006-2014 and that is when the rapid militarization of police forces with DHS funds was widely reported.

I fear that HN attributes all these to the current political atmosphere and how the foundation laid by the previous administration.

</comment><comment><USER19> Sounded suspicious until I saw the list on page 5.

The Department of State, FBI, prison system, DEA, secret service, ICE, customs/border patrol, etc. are all on the top of the list, and I'd expect them to spend a lot of money on guns, ammo, and "military-style equipment".

A few of them are higher than I'd expect, but most of them seem reasonable. Any agency that uses armed security guards is going to spend some amount of money on guns, ammo, training, etc.

<comment><USER8> >The Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service spent $4.77 million purchasing shotguns, .308 caliber rifles, night vision goggles, propane cannons, liquid explosives, pyro supplies, buckshot, LP gas cannons, drones, remote controlled helicopters, thermal cameras, military waterproof thermal infrared scopes, and more.

<comment><USER2> In their defence, it would appear on first glance at the sample purchases that a lot of the weapons purchased are hunting rifles and shotguns, useful for pest destruction/culling and putting down sick animals.

LP gas cannons are used for scaring birds and making them take flight, night vision equipment is very useful for culling animals, same goes for thermal cameras/scopes.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> I thought the US Coast Guard was considered Military? If you want to have your mind blown by the shear number of federal law enforcement agencies check out the Wikipedia list below.

[https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Federal_law_enforcement_in_t...](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Federal_law_enforcement_in_the_United_States)

<comment><USER21> They're part of Homeland Security now.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> I don't have the energy to get angry about this stuff anymore. I need to pay my bills and put food on the table, which requires me to work.

<comment><USER22> > which requires me to work.

...which will feed the government via taxes to sustain the lavish spending you object to.

Just pointing out that you'd have more time to read articles on misspending if your government wouldn't misspend so much money.

<comment><USER8> I know. Sad set of circumstances.

I feel humanity will always be riddled with the 'lowest common denominator' problem. I don't know if that's the best name for it, maybe there's another. It's the reason for this CGP Grey video(1). Current events at the moment really bother me. I don't know if I'm being cynical or if things are really as bad as they seem.

1-[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rStL7niR7gs](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rStL7niR7gs)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> Looking at the Customs and Border Protection case, did the CBP change standard-issued handguns during the period? The P2000, which they bought a bunch of, was introduced in 2001, and changing the standard issue is going to involve buying a lot of new guns.

Likewise, did ICE switch from some other caliber to .40S&W?

<comment><USER23> I seem to remember an article some time ago about the feds standardizing handgun calibers to .40 to try to lower the unit cost of ammunition.

</comment></comment><comment><USER24> Also very interesting: ARtworks purchased by Veterans Affairs - [http://www.openthebooks.com/the_vas_luxury_art_obsession/](http://www.openthebooks.com/the_vas_luxury_art_obsession/)

</comment><comment><USER15> I'm as big an opponent of the militarization of police in the US as anyone, but I'm not sure consolidating police powers into one organization is going to immi the situation.

</comment><comment><USER25> > 6000: RAILROAD RETIREMENT BOARD $40,465.91

That's one way to 'retire' people. Take old Yeller out back...

</comment><comment><USER26> With every passing day, my decision to leave the United States looks more and more like a permanent one.

<comment><USER23> Where did you go? I'm very interested in this, but really where else do you have:

\- Nearly unrestricted freedom of speech

\- For the time being, no constant surveillance state

\- Comparatively low taxes for the services provided

<comment><USER26> America has none of those things, for what it's worth.

<comment><USER23> > > \- Nearly unrestricted freedom of speech

There's very little you can say in the US that has a legal penalty associated with it. Short of inciting violence or advocating for a government official's assassination, I can say whatever stupid thing(s) I want and the only repercussions will be that people think I'm an idiot.

Contrast to say, Germany, where saying something objectively wrong but still harmless like the Holocaust didn't happen will land you in prison.

> > \- For the time being, no constant surveillance state

Compared to the UK with cameras everywhere and your every move recorded? If being tracked is a legitimate concern of yours it's possible to live largely off the grid in the US.

> > \- Comparatively low taxes for the services provided

I'll concede some places have lower taxes but as a software developer I can't earn nearly what I can earn in the US (even in the middle of nowhere rural US where I am now) anywhere else. Any move, even with a lower marginal/effective tax rate, will leave me with less money in my pocket.

<comment><USER27> > Contrast to say, Germany, where saying something objectively wrong but still > harmless like the Holocaust didn't happen will land you in prison.

Is this a problem?

> I'll concede some places have lower taxes

I believe this won't help you, as you will have to pay the US rate at a minimum. It's hard to to say something sarcastic about that rule, because maybe other countries do it too?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER28> I would happily discuss the topic - if I could access the article :(

<comment><USER29> Strange, works here (and I don't think it is supposed to be paywalled or something). Archive.org has a copy, does that work for you? [https://web.archive.org/web/20170201035533/https://www.opent...](https://web.archive.org/web/20170201035533/https://www.openthebooks.com/assets/1/7/Oversight_TheMilitarizationOfAmerica_06102016.pdf)

<comment><USER28> it didn't work for me on phone, the popup close button was off-screen, and site was not properly zoomable. On PC i could read the article.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> >"2005 to present the US Geological Survey agency spent $1,333,202.85 on guns, ammo and other military style equipment."

Citizens, pick up that rock.</comment>


Using math to blend musical notes seamlessly: portamento by algorithm - <AUTHOR> https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2019/09/190927115605.htm <comment><USER2> [http://youtu.be/gHBhMGbJHe8](http://youtu.be/gHBhMGbJHe8) Link to actual demo at the bottom of the article. Interesting sound for the transition. Wish there was more to the demo.</comment>


NPM – Next Generation Package Management - <AUTHOR> https://blog.npmjs.org/post/178027064160/next-generation-package-management <comment><USER2> npm is trash, with horrible performance and a horrendous security track record. At this point there is zero reason to use npm over yarn. Now this? Why would I ever trust a _brand new_ (and thus full of undiscovered bugs) product from the same company behind npm?

</comment><comment><USER3> I prefer to have a package manager, that I control, rather than having a runtime that can randomly go out to the internet and download code, while I'm trying to run the application itself.

</comment><comment><USER4> In js world, the ideal solution for lack of security, poor uptime, no file/package integrity, bloated packages, and fragmentation hell... is to replace node.js runtime with something that can do background downloads and place the files in a global location? And it should include a template engine, a bundler, transplier, kitchen sink, etc. Does NPM have any engineering leadership?</comment>


EU strikes deal on data protection rules - <AUTHOR> http://www.politico.eu/article/deal-data-protection-laws-parliament-privacy-tech-digital/ <comment><USER3> _> "Companies that don't abide by the rules will face fines up to 4 percent of global sales."_

Ouch!

<comment><USER4> And, for the case of subsidaries, etc, "one company" is equal to "the entity that has access to the users data".

Want to share userdata with some subsidary? Then you also share responsibility with them.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> If the United States passed a "data protection" law like this at the federal level, how would state governments react? What rights do states have to enact their own regulations on data protection?

I expect we will see pushback from state governments against federal regulators over the next few years in regards to "cyberspace" legislation. States will enact different laws to attract businesses to their own jurisdictions.

Perhaps we will see the emergence of some "preferred states" for datacenter development and incorporation, just like we already see with, e.g. Delaware C-Corp regulations.

<comment><USER6> > Perhaps we will see the emergence of some "preferred states" for datacenter > development and incorporation, just like we already see with, e.g. Delaware > C-Corp regulations.

Seems quite likely. Unless Europe wants to create its own version of the Great Firewall of China, it'll get the same Internet as everyone else, with all the same services available for people to choose from. Companies that actually have offices in Europe might have to deal with these restrictions, but companies that don't can continue to ignore them the same way they ignore what any random country's Ministry of Misinformation might want censored.

If this escalates too much, it's possible that shipments of physical goods might be impacted, but anything deliverable electronically can safely ignore this.

<comment><USER7> Said while a Brazilian judge is about to have telcos nuke WhatsApp's access to the country for 48 hours.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> > _" This directive, the regulation and the recently agreed passenger name > records directive were effectively bundled together as a package of laws."_

With one hand they give, with the other they take.

To be fair, I'm happy that outsourcers will feel a bit of heat - <USER2> practices are mostly terrible. On the other hand, it's more red tape for an IT sector recently saddled with VATMOSS and cookie law.

And of course, securinazis always get what they want, because terrorism.

<comment><USER9> _On the other hand, it 's more red tape for an IT sector recently saddled with VATMOSS and cookie law._

It's not just red tape. It is proper consumer protection:

 _Consumers will have the right to stop a firm using data when they close an account, for example, or they can stop marketing companies from building a data profile of them._

This sounds terrific to me and is long overdue. It's terrible that companies can just track individuals across the Internet and build up profiles without their consent. Or as bad, companies that don't allow you to close an account or that keep your data after closing an account.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> "Ensuring that individuals don't receive direct marketing messages any more can only be done if the marketer can retain data in a suppression file," said Sébastien Houzé, secretary general of the Federation of European Directive and Interactive Marketing.

Isn't that a pretty little md5(lie)?

<comment><USER11> If only ads were an opt-in kinda deal (which with a blocker they of course are). I'd be happy to give you a short list of things I might be interested in if you'd stop tracking me.

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> I find it kind of ironic that this announcement comes the same week that EU leaders have been discussing better mechanisms to track suspects between EU countries.

<comment><USER13> The rules will likely not affect governments.</comment></comment>


RubyMonk - Interactive Ruby tutorials - <AUTHOR> http://rubymonk.com/

<comment><USER2> I didn't realise HN expires links, allowing them to be reposted after enough time has passed (we'd posted RubyMonk to HN several months ago).

Any idea what that time-period is?

<comment><USER3> Weird, the earlier discussion is still around: <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3127635></comment></comment>


The UX of mobile settings (iOS, Android and Windows compared) - chestnut-tree http://setentaydos.com/the-ux-of-mobile-settings/

<comment> chestnut-tree I think this is an informative and well-written review. I'm a Windows phone user and although Windows phone doesn't fare too well in the author's analysis, I still much prefer it over Android and iOS.

In the very first row of screens in the article, the Windows phone layout stands out as cleaner and simpler to me. The large type is an easy tap target, so the screen layout doesn't need row after row of horizontal lines to separate each setting (as in the iOS and Android screens).

The horizontal lines give iOS and Android the advantage of displaying controls directly on the settings screen (without having to take you to a separate page). Windows phone, in contrast, requires you to tap each setting to go to separate screen. In practice, I don't find this annoying since settings are not something I access on a regular basis. A separate screen for each setting can also provide a bit of explanatory text (which Windows phone generally provides).

However, I agree with the author that Windows phone settings could be better organised with section headings. The iOS settings are grouped, but seem a bit odd without headings.

I'm sure Apple, Google and Microsoft all study each other's mobile designs. I only hope that Microsoft _doesn 't_ end up steering Windows phone closer to the interaction behaviour of iOS or Android. For me, both the visual and interaction design for Windows phone is a refreshing change from iOS and Android (I realise I'm in the minority here).</comment>


The world that could have been - <AUTHOR> http://jacquesmattheij.com/the-world-that-could-have-been <comment><USER2> I seen the free books here

[http://www.springeropen.com/books](http://www.springeropen.com/books)

</comment><comment><USER3> The article includes a link to post it blindly to HN? I hope _that_ doesn't become a trend.

</comment><comment><USER2> I am not sure of the premise of the article... Is springer going bankrupt?</comment>


Thanks, Gutenberg - but we're too pressed for time to read - <AUTHOR> http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2008/jan/27/internet.pressandpublishing

<comment><USER2> Silly. Why would anyone think that people's behavior while doing research on the web would be any different from their interaction with a library card catalog?

Should we have concluded that people didn't have time to read because we observed them thumb through index cards, write things down and then scuttle over to a different drawer?

</comment><comment><USER3> It's interesting to see that learning to read was responsible for increasing the age of entering adulthood from 7 to 14. It seems in developed countries this is being pushed up to the early 20's, after graduation from higher education. Will the web have an effect on this trend?</comment>


Ask HN: Do you have problems finding stuff across logging/monitoring systems? - <AUTHOR> I constantly find myself struggling to answer questions that require me to correlate data across multiple logging and monitoring products (Splunk, Pingdom, Elasticsearch, Icinga, Prometheus, etc., etc.).
For example, I'm often asked to get NFR figures, do SLA reporting or trace events across stacks for root cause analysis. It is not easy in a big shop. More and more I'm noticing that no matter how well thought out these tools are, they can act as data silos pretty darn quickly.
Do you face this issue? Do you easily solve it? If so, what tools do you use?
I'm asking 'cause I have an idea for a new side project, but I don't want to build something that only me will find useful (sadly, I've done THAT before).
I would be VERY grateful for any comments or PMs on this topic. <comment><USER2> I've designed a logging system designed to address some of these issues ([https://eliot.readthedocs.io/en/1.2.0/](https://eliot.readthedocs.io/en/1.2.0/)) and I know people have e.g. used the trace ID it provides to correlate Sentry errors with logging traces. Not a full solution, obviously, but if you do go this route do borrow some ideas if it's helpful.

As far as a business goes: it's a real problem. Whether people will pay for it, that's something else. You may wish to spend some time reading up on questions real people ask about these systems (e.g. on relevant forums) to see what patterns you notice. [https://stackingthebricks.com/vintage-sales-safari- in-action...](https://stackingthebricks.com/vintage-sales-safari-in-action/) and other articles there have some examples of doing this sort of research.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks alot for the pointer; you are right, some very interesting ideas in that.

Having already tried a few products in the whole logging and monitoring space, I do find it is pretty challenging to operate here. I realise having paid solution can be a barrier ... unless there are compelling benefits, which is what I'm trying to define.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> The solution space for a cross logging/monitoring systems tool has a non- polynomial number of permutations. The permutations of _(Splunk, Pingdom, Elasticsearch, Icinga, Prometheus, etc., etc.)_ is at least 6! or 720.

Each is a snowflake. Each will change independently over time as each product changes. Each user will have different configurations and use cases. There is a combinatorial explosion.

It is an interesting problem. But there isn't likely to be a general solution.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for the comment. It is true there is the possibility of too many permutations. I suppose the other way of approaching this is to let the tools do what they do, but export or forward on specific data that such a cross- logging/monitoring system could deal with for very specific use cases, like those I mentioned. It is these use cases I'm looking to validate.

<comment><USER4> Check out [https://bigpanda.io](https://bigpanda.io) \-- it might be in line with what you are thinking.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Practical Monitoring, just released by OReilly discusses this same problem. If you have a Safari Books subscription, it's definitely worth a read

</comment><comment><USER6> I am building stock trading robots and regularly go trough the logs to make sure they are working as designed and in the begging it was a lot of wasted time, because I was logging everything I could think off... Begin lazy, I soon decided to log only the critical stuff, so now it takes me only couple of minutes per week, so the moral of the story is simply KISS :-)

</comment><comment><USER4> You might find it useful to take a look at [http://opentracing.io](http://opentracing.io).

<comment><AUTHOR> Hey, that's quite cool ... I'm checking it out. Thanks!</comment></comment>


Depression. - <AUTHOR> http://blog.jonathan.sh/depression

<comment><USER2> Thought about letting you know a good book which should just clear things up a bit. [http://www.amazon.com/The-Wisdom-Insecurity-Message- Anxiety/...](http://www.amazon.com/The-Wisdom-Insecurity-Message- Anxiety/dp/0307741206)

</comment><comment><USER3> Cheer up sir, depression is a feeling that serves a purpose. It's there to force you to evaluate your circumstances and resolve whatever is making you glum.

Use it don't lose it.

</comment><comment><USER4> I didn't even know this was posted here.

@leonroy: I agree and thanks for the tip! @nam: Thank you! I'm gonna check it out now!</comment>


Hard decisions for a sustainable platform - <AUTHOR> https://blog.twitter.com/2015/hard-decisions-for-a-sustainable-platform <comment><USER2> It's pretty hard to accept that this is just a technical problem.</comment>


Traversal Networks (YC S15) Wants to Be Your Company's Cyber Security Department - <AUTHOR> http://techcrunch.com/2015/08/18/traversal-networks-wants-to-be-your-companys-cyber-security-department/

<comment><USER2> Founder here; happy to answer questions about how this works. Reach out to email@example.com if you want to chat privately.

<comment><USER3> So, is the primary model here to be an IDS / IPS vendor? It seems like that? [http://traversalnetworks.com/product](http://traversalnetworks.com/product)

What kinda tech are you using?

<comment><USER2> We're starting out with something that resembles a managed IDS/IPS but built with the things I wanted after building an IPS product @symantec. Better search, cloud managed, and tuned / triaged / and alayzed by our analysts.

Right now its built on-top of Bro and using tech from Gravitational (www.gravitational.com)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> There are thousands of startups, large companies and product vendors doing this type of work, what is the specific differentiation that would make someone choose this over others?

Having worked in the managed security space, and both created products that did exactly what this is professing to do and working with others, I don't see how this is very different.</comment>


CSS Houdini Experiments - <AUTHOR> https://css-houdini.rocks/ <comment><USER2> CSS Houdini is a set of low-level web browser APIs that provide access to the browser's CSS engine.

\- [https://developer.mozilla.org/en- US/docs/Web/Houdini](https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/Houdini)

\- [https://drafts.css-houdini.org/](https://drafts.css-houdini.org/)

It's not yet widely implemented: [https://ishoudinireadyyet.com/](https://ishoudinireadyyet.com/)

</comment><comment><USER3> For anyone who was suddenly terrified that there's a vast array of very specific and weirdly-named CSS properties on the horizon, fear not - this is something entirely different. This is actually a low-level API for drawing things with CSS, and the funny property names are just what the developers have chosen for these experiments. Check out the link at the bottom of each experiment to see the real code, eg. this one for the "avatar polygons": [https://css-houdini.rocks/posts/avatar-polygons/paint.js](https://css- houdini.rocks/posts/avatar-polygons/paint.js)

</comment><comment><USER4> > You'll need the latest Chrome

Well that explains why this seemed pretty underwhelming on Firefox

<comment><USER5> See [https://ishoudinireadyyet.com/](https://ishoudinireadyyet.com/) for info on browser support

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> I've seen a good intro on this topic by Jeremy Wagner at CSSConf Budapest

[https://youtu.be/VccJldua8tc](https://youtu.be/VccJldua8tc)

</comment><comment><USER7> I am not a front end developer. Can someone explain the benefit of these low level APIs in a web development context? Is the purpose to eventually have complete GUI toolkits with even the underlying window managers all contained in the browser window? Or is it primarily a performance thing, to get 2d and 3d client side animation? Or something else all together?

Edit: Another possibility -- prettier widgets. I just wonder what need is addressed by making these low level APIs available. (again, not a front end developer, so relatively naive about the whole field, especially state-of-the- art)

<comment><USER8> It's more like: a lot of web developers have a lot of funky requests we can't possibly all fit in the standard. So instead let's give them the tools to extend CSS themselves.

<comment><USER7> Ah. That makes a lot more sense. Thank you.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Holy moly, the JS-in-CSS one is wild! Thank you for sharing, a lot of these are really cool.

[https://css-houdini.rocks/js-in-css](https://css-houdini.rocks/js-in-css)

</comment><comment><USER10> I'd just like other browsers to show an inkling of support. I'm tired of chro[me/nium] being so far ahead I can't risk the learning.

<comment><USER11> Being far ahead does not necessarily mean going in the right direction. Considering the implications of some of the web standards I think having a considered and thoughtful approach is probably not wrong.

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> Did not know about Houdini. This is awesome!

</comment><comment><USER13> While these experiments are super neat, JS in CSS makes me a little worried. Will we soon need JS enabled to even see basic page styling as well?

<comment><USER14> To quote

> "Don't get me wrong with the title: Houdini is JS-in-CSS (allow JS scripts > to be called from CSS). Here, it is more like JS-inside-CSS. You can write > the registerPaint's paint function, directly from CSS. You have access to:"</comment></comment>


Ask HN: Save my dying company. Android dev team for hire. - <AUTHOR>

I've shared a bit of my story and I really appreciate all the kind words I've received so far (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7809766)
At this point a project of mere $20K would buy me several months to fix up the issues due to my faulty financial planning. If you know anyone who needs Android dev, I'd be happy to help. Our main area is Android, but we can do general Java dev, Haskell, Ruby, and web dev (not as experienced as in Android).
I myself can join your team on a full-time basis for some period too (and that way I can pay my employees using my pay cheques). I can send you my resume if you leave your email address in the comments.
I'm in BC Canada so remote is ideal if you are not close-by.  but I can come to your office for meetings if you are on the west coast. <comment><USER2> Hi, I am also in BC and am currently vetting some freelancers for a web dev project. My email is in my HN profile.

It wouldn't be a 20k project but up to possibly half that (is the offers I am getting so far).

Talk soon, GH

<comment><AUTHOR> Hey Thanks a lot for replying. I tried to send you a message via the contact form on your page, but it kept saying "message NOT sent". Not sure if you have received it..

<comment><USER2> I didn't receive it. greg at gregharrison.ca

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> From another thread:

 _I'm posting on a new account as I still want the company to look good in public._

Why?

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks. I've replied in that thread, but just in case: this is because I don't want the company to have a public, "almost-broken" tag and I still have high hope in what we are doing.

Does that make sense?</comment></comment>


Why Small Businesses Are Starting to Win Again - <AUTHOR> http://www.newyorker.com/business/currency/small-bountiful-small-business-craft-beer <comment><USER2> If anyone is interested in a start-up[1] that works with beer, shoot me an email[2]! My company builds flavor profiling and quality control tools for craft beverage producers using machine learning, sensory science, and analytical chemistry.

[1] www.gastrograph.com

[2] JasonCEC [at] gastrograph [dot] com

\</comment><comment>-- edit / follow-up </comment><comment>-

I believe that the growth in artisan firms is part of the trend towards affordable luxury goods, where individuals who find products that better match their preferences at nearly the same cost (not price _^_ ), become brand or product loyalists - they'll continue purchasing and consuming that product until it fails them (quality control) or their preferences change (which happens quite often, usually as a result of experience - we build flavor profiling tools to track and re-target these individuals).

 _^_ example: the average craft beer may cost ~2x as much as Bud or Natural Light, but contains >2x alcohol by volume.

<comment><USER3> Minor nitpick that doesn't dispute your point: Bud is 5% abv and Natural Light is 4.2. Most craft beers aren't rocking 8+% alcohol, unless you're a big fan of imperial stouts and skullsplitter =).

<comment><USER4> Those alcohol contents are quite reasonable for the NZ craft beer scene. If you look at Garage project, recently named NZ's best brewery in certain circles(and I can attest they are fantastic), the 7-8% range is well represented: [http://garageproject.co.nz/](http://garageproject.co.nz/) .

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> "Small" businesses win when transaction costs between corps get smaller, when supply chains get more efficient, when more available capital is fills out choices in the supply chain, and when more corps can focus more on competitive advantage. A "small" business (with some exception to service-based businesses) is a just a "head" of a long, long supply chain. And, it only looks small if you look at the head.

I have been hoping for years that this type of economy would emerge. This type of transformation will allow for more small entrepreneurs to survive and thrive. Large corporations tend to focus on optimization, and that optimization narrows the types of products that they can produce. With small businesses, customers can get more tailored products, more individualization, more personalized service.

Although it's easier than ever to start a small business, I don't think we're quite there yet. Large corporations still have economies of scale to their advantage. But, I'm hopeful that we're trending in the right direction. I'm hopeful that soon, small entrepreneurs with a good business ideas can make reasonable profits staying small and fitting in somewhere in that massive, global supply chain. In that type of world, we all benefit.

</comment><comment><USER6> This was a frustrating article, because I think it's almost right, but not quite.

It's not that mass-production kills quality or "intangibles". We don't have to assume boutique products have a quality advantage. It's just that scale is most effective on price, and price sensitivity is not linear. Once products are cheap enough, price discrimination stops being decisive.

> The true-differentiation strategy seems to work best when scale, despite its > efficiencies, also introduces blind spots in areas such as ... intangibles > not entirely consistent with mass production and standardization.

That isn't really what's going on. Even if the big business is good, and scale is quite useful, there are many, many small competitors. All of the competitors are making products, and some of them are likely to be exceptional. So for the big business to stay on top, scale has to be helping a lot.

If there are 100 beers on the shelf, and one of them is a mass-produced, and the mass produced one is not #1 in quality, you don't have to assume mass- production hurts quality. It just that it didn't help enough.

<comment><USER4> Craft beers are "mass produced", just not in the quantities of Budweiser. They still use huge kettles, precisely controlled quantities of ingredients, etc. They also tend to use higher quantities of good, natural ingredients and the like. SO yes, mass production in and of itself doesn't necessarily drive quality.

BUT. The size of the company can. Very large companies, particularly public but not limited to such, start drifting toward the cheapest product they can get away with while maximizing profit. That's their obligation to share holders after all. I think the food industry(including beer) is particularly sensitive to this from a quality standpoint.

<comment><USER7> > Very large companies, particularly public but not limited to such, start > drifting toward the cheapest product they can get away with while maximizing > profit. That's their obligation to share holders after all.

This is largely a myth. Corporate executives have an obligation to shareholders, but that obligation is not to maximize quarterly profits. Short term profit maximization at all costs is generally _not_ in the interests of shareholders. If you have a reputation for selling a quality product you can capitalize on it in the short term by selling a junk product at quality prices and huge profit margins, but in any kind of a competitive market that opens you up to exactly what you would expect. Someone else comes in with a real quality product at the same price and you lose all your business to them.

The reason corporate executives do things like that isn't because they're satisfying their obligation to the shareholders -- they're doing quite the opposite. But they do it anyway because of how they're _compensated_. Big bonus at the end of the year if profits are up; no repercussions if it tanks the company by the end of the decade because by then you're working somewhere else.

It's important to make the distinction because the shareholders are the ones who have the power to do something about it. "Obligation to the shareholders" makes it sound like the shareholders are the beneficiaries, but they're just as much victims as the customers. Making that mistake is how they become the victims.

<comment><USER8> I wonder why they are so common though.

<comment><USER7> My theory is that we have too much diffusion of ownership. When Foo Corp is majority owned by four dozen mutual funds which are in turn owned by ten million different people, there is nobody minding the store. The mutual fund managers are picking a stock to make up ~1% of their fund, and they have the same perverse incentives as the executives. The individuals who are the real parties in interest don't even know what companies their money is invested in.

<comment><USER8> Does the mutual funds actually push for such people or is it caused by the culture or something like that?

<comment><USER7> Don't think of it as a problem with specific people. It's systemic. You tell a CEO that he gets paid primarily based on how much profit the company makes this quarter and he's going to start slashing long-term R&D and burning the office furniture for heat.

But you're asking why funds invest in companies like that or prefer that method of compensation. Part of it is just laziness. Investing in a company or rewarding a CEO who posts big profits seems intuitively sensible and is easy to measure. It's a lot more work to do the investigation it takes to realize they're going to crash and burn and you could be the one holding the bag.

Another factor is that fund managers are often compensated using the same methods. If the fund does well in the short term then they're rewarded. The companies dedicated to short-term profits do exactly that, as long as the market doesn't factor in the long-term value before you divest. But the bonus if it works goes to the fund manager whereas the risk is to other peoples' money.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> I attribute the change to the influx and return of a strong middle class in cities. It's easier to create "mom and pop" shops when you have affluent buyers who live a block away.

Suburban lifestyle meant your nearest supermarket became the obvious decision when the 5 mile drive was no shorter than a 45 minute drive.

It will be interesting when services such as Postmates, Curbside, and Instacart evolve to extend these small businesses' reach.

<comment><USER10> >return of a strong middle class in cities

Where are these cities where a strong middle class has returned? Surely not in SF, where one of the area's highest paid professions (software engineer) cannot afford family housing? Certainly not elsewhere in California, where incomes among middle class Californian households fell by nearly 7% between 2009 and 2013, while income among the state's top 20% earners grew by 1.3% [1].

Certainly not small cities in the Midwest or South. Having traveled through those extensively the past few years, I can assure you there is no middle class returning to those cities. Quite the opposite.

I'm not one of those who gloats about SV "privilege" and scolds people for making the money they deserve to get paid, but the extent to which the typical educated SVer is getting out of touch with the economic reality of this country does have me concerned.

If software really is eating the world, and the industry's best and brightest are blithely unaware of the dire condition of the country's middle class, then we are good and truly fucked.

1\. [http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2015/01/24/states-middle- class...](http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2015/01/24/states-middle- class_n_6538148.html) (not usually one to cite the Huffington Post, but this article clearly outlines the data sources and methods at the bottom, and they seem solid)

<comment><USER11> I think they meant the return of the middle class to city centres. That doesn't mean there's more middle class people in a metro area, just that they now live downtown rather than spread out in suburbs.

Basically, anywhere with gentrification. The unaffordability of housing in city centers is a sign it's now "in" to live there. Businesses follow.

I do agree with you about how out of touch people on here are about North American economic reality.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> It is argued that one implication of Coase's Theorem[1] is that firm size is inversely proportional to transaction costs. If transaction costs are falling due to Internet enabled communication, this may contribute to reversing the tide of centralization.

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

</comment><comment><USER13> One overlooked factor is the modern consumer being desensitized to advertising. This created huge advantages in the last 50 years but modern consumers see so much advertising that they are largely immune to it.

<comment><USER14> Good point! Having been exposed to a bombardment of advertisements since early in life, personally I don't think I'm influenced very much by them now (although that's up for debate).

Also, the TV is largely being replaced by Netflix and such, so the exposure to TV advertising is also falling in absolute numbers.

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> Part of this might be because of social media and consumer-oriented websites (such as Yelp, Beer Advocate, Urban Spoon).

A big problem trying a new product or restaurant is fearing a possible bad experience. With McDonald's you know what you're getting. It might not be great, but it's consistent. Rating systems and recommendations from peers help give confidence to consumers trying new things.

</comment><comment><USER16> I think some of it also comes from a lower barrier to entry in many cases - the cost of supplying a small business (such as a coffee shop) has been lowered dramatically in recent years by technological advances in the supply chain, i.e. better tracking of coffee beans, more efficient delivery, etc.

<comment><USER17> I think it is this, precisely. And I think legislatively we should clear the way for small business by reducing the burden of regulation and oppressive bureaucracy.

<comment><USER18> I hear people talk about the "burden of regulation" a lot, but outside of breweries and distilleries, what are the regulations that are so burdensome? Things like building codes and inspections or are you think of things at the federal level?

<comment><USER19> Voting this up. Too often this is political code for "handouts to big business" by the way of environmental sundry exemptions, tax exemptions, immigration exemptions (hello H1B issue) and the like, none of which actual small business can take any advantage of (and which the people running said businesses would probably be close enough to the immediate effects of to find distasteful in a lot of cases).

I would like to hear some concrete examples of what people think needs to be changed.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> Ironically in the paragraph about "true differentiation" the author mentioned Lamborghini cars, a brand of the ninth biggest company on earth with 600k employees. Other niche brands they own are Bentley, Bugatti, and Ducati.

I would argue that these are indeed differentiated. It does not matter whether production processes or internals are unified or not as long as the consumer experience of the end product is.

Small businesses profit from mass production as they can build a consumer ending frontend around standard technologies and products they can leverage for all their internals.

</comment><comment><USER21> I think small business is difficult to start in current competitive market,as too many people try to start their businesses, and most of the survived businesses have their difficitation products or services comparing with others. I admit that big giants have their adventages, such as resrouces and capital. But small businesses are more flexible, and they could keep more focus on consumers, and provide better services to customs. In this approach, small businesses would aviod blind spot.

</comment><comment><USER22> And small businesses will continue to do well. Small businesses have the advantage of agility - they can react to market changes quicker, they have more freedom to experiment, and they can tailor the experience of whatever they're offering to local markets.

Small businesses are also important for job creation: [http://www.ic.gc.ca/eic/site/061.nsf/eng/02806.html](http://www.ic.gc.ca/eic/site/061.nsf/eng/02806.html)

</comment><comment><USER23> Perhaps small scale production is becoming cheaper and more feasible. The cost of equipment continues to drop, as even expensive things are made by someone looking to increase their market.

What if the additive manufacturing fans are right? What if 3d printers that can actually make good stuff get cheap but remain slow? Fused titanium parts are awesome, but I don't expect that in my living room any time soon.</comment>


The Miracle Fruit, a Tease for the Taste Buds - <AUTHOR> http://www.nytimes.com/2008/05/28/dining/28flavor.html?em&ex=1212120000&en=274b68f24762bf52&ei=5070 <comment><USER2> <http://miraclefruitman.com/>

Buy it here, would love to hear reports from people who try it...

<comment><USER3> Whoa... thats $90 for 30 berries. I would pay for a couple but I really don't need $90 of miracle fruit that is probably hazardous considering:

1\. I dont know this guy 2\. I dont trust this guy 3\. I dont trust his shipping either

<comment><USER2> Well, he's named in the NYT article and this is something that needs to be shipped frozen overnight. I believe he is the only person that grows miracle fruit in the USA. So if you don't trust him, no miracle fruit for you.</comment></comment></comment>


Your PC/Mac doesn't keep passwords secure. Rec: buy software to fill gap - <AUTHOR> http://gadgetwise.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/06/24/how-to-securely-manage-all-your-passwords/?ref=technology <comment><USER2> Yes, I've often wondered why PC & Mac operating systems consider password management to be optional... and leave it to 3rd party developers to fill in this gaping gap (for the small percentage of general public that know enough / care enough to go that needed extra mile)</comment>


Google Chrome Releases: Stable Channel Update - <AUTHOR> http://googlechromereleases.blogspot.com/2011/08/stable-channel-update.html <comment><USER2> The important news from this update (for me at least), is a much smarter Omnibox that actually attempts to fetch matches from anywhere in the string of histories (middle of a url or word, etc). It's getting much closer to Firefox's Awesomebar in that regards.

<comment><USER3> That's definitely something that's kept me from adopting Chrome full time. A lot of people grouse about the AwesomeBar, but the Omnibox has taken a very long time to achieve feature parity, and still isn't there yet. Using the AwesomeBar is my preferred mode of searching through my history for things I half-remember reading, and it usually more convenient than either the Omnibox or Safari's history full text search.

That said, even the dev channel release of Chrome still doesn't get this right. If I want to go to the ESPN NFC East blog (<http://espn.go.com/blog/nfceast>), I usually type "nfcea" into the AwesomeBar and it pops up as the first result. The Omnibox suggests searching for "nfc east blog" but doesn't show the appropriate URL from my history.

<comment><USER4> There are always a few experiments related to the omnibox in about:flags that you can try out to see where things may be headed.

<comment><USER3> Thanks, I enabled _'shortcuts' in the omnibox_. We'll see if that improves my results.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> The Instant Page feature sounds interesting. Has Google released any findings on bandwidth usage during typical browsing scenarios with this feature? How severe is this going to be for users with restrictive data plans?

I don't see an obvious way to turn this feature off. There is an option to uncheck "Predict network actions to improve page load performance" but this says it is only doing dns lookups and then navigating based on IP address.

I'm also curious how this will affect analytics. As a website owner, I now have to use their PageViews API to accurately track my hits from Google? Can websites opt-out of this service?

<comment><USER6> The "predict network actions" option you mention is indeed the option to disable prerendering. [0]

If you use a third-party client-side analytics package, they've probably added support for the Page Visibility API [1] already, and you don't need to do anything. Server-side analytics will have problems, both with this and with HTML5 prefetching in recent versions of Firefox. I'd like to see opt-out available through an HTTP header (or even just a header to let the server know the page is being prefetched), but that's not anywhere in the spec right now.

[0]: <http://code.google.com/chrome/whitepapers/prerender.html> [1]: [http://code.google.com/chrome/whitepapers/pagevisibility.htm...](http://code.google.com/chrome/whitepapers/pagevisibility.html)

<comment><USER7> A problem with a header solution would be the user does frequently then see the requested content. Google's pre-fetching only kicks in if it believes you're going to visit, so most of the time it does end up getting shown to the user.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Is it my imagination or are the navigation buttons now a bit paler? The arrows, home, wrench, etc.. All seem a paler shade of gray to my eyes.

I could be imagining it, though.

<comment><USER9> Nope, you're right. It's particularly noticeable if you have something like the 1Password extension installed, whose icon used to perfectly match the shade of the wrench menu. That's no longer the case.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> They still haven't fixed that ugly icon. I'll never get used to it.</comment>


Reading List: Life After Google - <AUTHOR> https://www.fourmilab.ch/fourmilog/archives/2018-10/001787.html <comment><USER2> article starts so well, outlining the lack of true decentralization of today internet and how connection providers control everything as consequece.

then it mentions block chain, failing to realize that miners can monopolize it just like amazon monopolized the current servers ("sorry, you cant run this fork version on our for-rent servers")

don't waste your reading after blockchain is mentioned.

</comment><comment><USER3> This is a review of the new book by George Gilder, "Life after Google", which came out in July.</comment>


Product advice from jwz - <AUTHOR> http://www.jwz.org/doc/groupware.html <comment><USER2> The quote about getting your users laid has been one of my AIM away messages for the last two years. I believe the phrase may have also showed up in a business plan or two :-)

</comment><comment><USER3> Overheard outside a former boss's office:

"We're not talking customer service, we're talking cunnilingus! Are they happy? I want you to make them happy!"</comment>


LazyMeter Helps You Focus on Today's Tasks, Tracks Your Productivity - <AUTHOR> http://lifehacker.com/5827907/lazymeter-helps-you-focus-on-todays-tasks-tracks-your-productivity

<comment><USER2> Looks cool, but I'm more impressed that I've finally seen someone using the same theme that I use for <http://BugMuncher.com>

I figured it would happen eventually, as it's had nearly 700 sales on themeforest

<comment><AUTHOR> haha we knew this would happen as well. Minimum viable product = wordpress theme for content, and there is a surprising lack of SaaS themes.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> Cool - looks kinda nifty. The priority list approach to task management is something we've done for our software as well. <https://mijura.com/>

The idea of fixed priority isn't very flexible or realistic anymore. Having a list of tasks to complete in the order you have to complete them really make it easier to focus and prioritise.

</comment><comment><USER4> Really nice design. I like the simplicity.

I hope the Android app is coming soon - that's kind of a must-have feature for me. Currently using Astrid, but that feels a bit bloated.

<comment><AUTHOR> Glad you like it. Android app is in development, along with some other must- have features like recurring tasks. Current version is just the beginning.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> I love everything but the name.

</comment><comment><USER6> Congrats Aaron!</comment>


Hacking status (linked from an interesting HN discussion) - <AUTHOR> http://greenlightwiki.com/improv/Status

<comment><USER2> Unfortunately, I have seen these status-hacking methods work outside the improv/acting world. In a large company, the smarter but quiet and submissive employee will lose out to the obnoxious, high-sounding more social one. In social circles, the loud person A who pokes fun at B gains the attention and admiration of the crowd. Pick up artists often use the technique of lowering their target's self-esteem as a method of gaining alpha-status, respect and ultimately winning over their target.

I find it disturbing and often battle with the fact that these superficial methods actually work and can affect a person's ability to get ahead. At one of the previous startup schools, I think I remember that the theme around PG's talk was "be good". It's disturbing because using some of these methods to raise one's status feels "anti-good" and counter-intuitive.

<comment><USER3> It's probably leftover from some stage of human evolution where it minimized physical violence. Most people are vulnerable (including hackers); exploiting it can be a direct or indirect reproductive advantage, and so it may never evolve away. "good" vs "bad" is irrelevant if it's successful.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Penalty for failure should also be considered. If you play a game like this and someone notices what you are doing, that person will lose all respect for you. I had a boss once that had read some article on <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mirroring_(psychology)> and how it makes people more comfortable with you. Similarly with people who try to live by the "rules of power" and all this other nonsense. How about not playing games and focusing on achieving something? If I am working for someone I acknowledge this gives them a certain authority, but I really want to see reason prevail and progress made towards a common goal - I just would really rather not interact with people who play games with me unless I have to.

<comment><USER5> Actually, status (as described on that page) is something you _play_ , moment to moment. You are giving off a signal of "don't come near me, I bite" or "don't bite me, I'm not worth the trouble" or something somewhere in between, every second that you interact in person with someone else. Unlike stupid tricks like "mirroring", giving off status signals is not something you can stop doing. What you can do, though, is become more aware of it, better able to modulate it. Socially adept people are _very_ good at varying their status moment by moment. For many of them, it's probably not even conscious.

The main reason an actor needs to learn about status is to be able to make scenes _realistic_. When the characters don't have a status relationship, a scene looks wooden and fake.

BTW, playing high status is not necessarily better. People who relentlessly play high status in every situation are commonly called "assholes". (Usually behind their backs.)

<comment><USER4> It's not something you have to play. Some of the dominant behaviors such as disinterest etc. are a result of your current state - I'm preoccupied with an important problem and not interested in other people, for example. Mirroring also happens naturally under certain circumstances. There are certainly subconscious things like this that come out- but the minute you decide to "play" status and deliberately take an action because of your status game and you get caught, whoever you are playing loses absolutely all respect for you. You've also got a much higher chance for failure with the people you really need (as they will be competent). I don't care to be manipulated whatsoever and I don't care about hierarchical power structures or power games that dominate many lives. All I (and many other people) care about is advancing our goals - if I work for someone, I am going to behave differently because I am working towards their goals, not mine - but I expect all my professional interactions to be goal oriented or problem oriented.

<comment><USER5> I wonder if we're having a Violent Agreement.

I'm not saying that you have to consciously play status ("decide to play"). I'm saying that when you interact with someone else, you _are_ playing a certain level of status in relation to them, whether you are aware of it or not.

Engaging in some phony behavior will, of course, make people perceive you as a phony, with all the loss of respect that that entails. Respect, of course, is a big part of status. When you don't respect someone, you tend to play higher status toward them.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> It's interesting to notice that the page comes from a wiki about improvisational theater. Those are tips for a comedian or someone who acts on some sort of stage. I guess that's the reason they can so easily applied to everyday life.

</comment><comment><USER7> high status behavior involves feeling good without concern for the other

low status behavior involves feeling bad in order to make another feel good

raising another's status involves making another feel good without concern for yourself

lowering another's status involves making another feel bad in order to feel good

\-- keep away from bosses that expect status raising behaviors from their employees to themselves, especially when the reverse is warranted.

<comment><AUTHOR> Good managers spend a lot of time raising the status of their wards.

<comment><USER7> It's an interesting way to look at the world, and workplaces function a lot like the animal kingdom, but as humans we should be able to see through status with our spirituality.

<comment><USER8> How?

<comment><USER7> You work it out on your quest.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Wow, so this is where this new influx of traffic to my wiki came from!

</comment><comment><USER8> Although these are useful tips and perhaps quite accurate, I don't know if you can truly hack status. I'm not sure what causes status - something reptilian, I guess - and I think that there's only so long that you can micromanage it before its true nature manifests. (Whether you are low-status and pretending to be high status, or high status and pretending to be low-status.)

How to fundamentally change your status identity is a more difficult question and one that I don't have the answer to.

<comment><USER9> Don't underestimate how much of social status really _is_ nothing but behavior, by which I loosely mean everything that can be "faked". In other words, pretend long enough and you'll become the role you're playing.

How much status you can grab that way depends on the extent to which status in a given group depends on objective, un-fakeable traits. If you want to assert status in a wealthy crowd, you need some amount of money to be credible. In a crowd of programmers, knowing something about coding is required. Among athletes you need to be able to keep up physically.

Otherwise, it's pretty much all hackable.</comment></comment>