Inverted totalitarianism - <AUTHOR> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inverted_totalitarianism <comment><USER2> > Whereas in Nazi Germany the state dominated economic actors, in inverted > totalitarianism, corporations through political contributions and lobbying, > dominate the United States, with the government acting as the servant of > large corporations. This is considered "normal" rather than corrupt

Indeed. As a non-American, I find it quite absurd that corporations can "donate money" to change a Congressman's opinion on a law, and then support them in Congress when passing new bills. As far as I know that's what bribing is pretty much anywhere else. So US has in effect legalized bribing, and almost everyone in US seems to think that's "normal" and okay, and that there's "little corruption" in US, when in fact the whole government wreaks of "legalized" corruption.

Does that happen in other countries, too? Sure. Bribing is everywhere. But at least we see it for what it is, and even if we don't catch them in the act, there can be investigations later, and have them arrested. Good luck doing that in US - ever.

<comment><USER3> > As a non-American, I find it quite absurd that corporations can "donate > money" to change a Congressman's opinion on a law, and then support them in > Congress when passing new bills.

Let's be clear: Under US law, a corporation cannot donate money to a candidate under any circumstance. They can, however, spend money independently of a candidate, for example, to produce newspaper or documentary, write and publish a book, hire a billboard, produce and air an ad, etc.

On the other hand, in Australia, Germany, the UK, corporations can make unlimited donations directly to politicians.

My, that does sound absurd.

(Really, I'm not sure what's worse: Your lack of understanding of how US law works, or your lack of understand of how non-US law works. You may understand how your local election laws work, but the world is a big place. Sweeping statements just make you look silly.)

<comment><USER4> What about Citizens United? The US Supreme Court Jesters declared corporations ARE people expressly so they could make unlimited political contributions, saying it is "free speech". We live in a super fucking corrupt nation.

<comment><USER5> The idea of corporate personhood was not new in Citizens United.

The question is not whether a corporation has rights similar to a natural person's -- in order to work at all, a corporation must have some of those rights. For example, it must have the right to own property, the right to enter into contracts, the right to bring cases in court, and so on.

The question is which set of rights corporations should have, and to what extent they can be regulated. Which is far from easy to sort out or solve with simple black-and-white rules.

<comment><USER6> To expand: SCOTUS has consistently ruled that corporations have some of the rights of a natural person _because_ _" corporations are merely associations of individuals united for a special purpose"_ [0]. If I get together with like-minded individuals in order to do something we each have the right to do individually, in most cases, we retain the right to do it as a group (key word "most" \-- as you say, which specific rights corporations should have is far from easy to sort out.)

In particular, free speech is a right of _" every ... association representing a segment of American life and taking an active part in our political campaigns and discussions"_ [1] -- unions, guilds, consumer groups, religious groups, newspapers, political parties, and so forth. Those groups are made up of individuals united for a purpose, and their choosing to unite should not penalize them by restricting their ability to speak. Justice Kennedy made a great comment to this effect: _" wealthy individuals and unincorporated associations can spend unlimited amounts .... Yet [under the Austin decision] certain disfavored associations of citizens — those that have taken on the corporate form — are penalized for engaging in the same political speech .... When Government seeks to use its full power, including the criminal law, to command where a person may get his or her information or what distrusted source he or she may not hear, it uses censorship to control thought. This is unlawful."_ [2]

[0] Pembina Consolidated Silver Mining Co. v. Pennsylvania, 1886. Yes, that's eighteen eighty six.

[1] US vs UAW, 1957

[2] Citizens United v FEC, 2010 - page 40 of Justice Kennedy's majority opinion

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> There are plenty of interesting things to be said about the United States and its similarities (and differences) to totalitarian regimes of the past. I don't think we should point to Wikipedia as the authority on this matter, but it is perfectly okay to go to the primary sources for insight in this. These are recent historical developments, and the questions are covered in so much controversy that it is difficult to find unbiased commentary.

As I have said before, there are plenty of _really_ worrying developments in the theory and execution of power in the United States. When I say worrying, I mean worrying in the sense that they remind closely of things that totalitarian regimes have done in the past. We shouldn't be distracted too much by history when analyzing contemporary events - "History does not repeat itself, but it does rhyme."

The list, which you can compile by simply reading the news, is quite long: Warrantless dragnet surveillance, world record incarceration rate, selective enforcement and prosecution of unclear and conflicting criminal law, lifetime incarceration for non-violent crimes, utilization of paramilitary forces (SWAT teams) against non-violent offenders, plea bargains as a tool for simplifying prosecution under the threat of lifetime sentencing, indefinite detainment and incarceration with no judicial oversight (Guantanamo), extrajudicial execution of citizens (drone strikes), limitations on free speech during peaceful protests, systematic prosecution of whistleblowers.

These are just _some_ issues which are interesting to discuss. I am an outsider, and I believe the things I have quoted are facts which have very small political bias in the interpretation. The United States' deadlocked political system and prosecutors' role in the execution of power is also worthy of discussion, although it is harder to discuss this without taking a particular political view.

<comment><USER8> >There are plenty of interesting things to be said about the United States and its similarities (and differences) to totalitarian regimes of the past.

While implying that the US is a totalitaian state will get you lots of up votes from insecure europeans, the word has no meaning if it encompasses the current state of affairs in America. Could that change? Sure. Pretending it is already the case is fine as long as you realize you are just pretending.

<comment><USER9> It certainly is for some. For example, the folks still indefinitely detained at Guantanamo would probably agree that it's a totalitarian state.

<comment><USER10> "Totalitarianism" loses all meaning if you apply it to states that imprison foreigners captured in war. What developed country doesn't do this?

Guantanamo is an example of improper treatment of POWs, not detainment of citizens in a totalitarian state.

<comment><USER11> The Taliban side didn't follow any kind of war laws. What legal protection does the POWs of Guantanamo really have?

For instance, afaik POWs from _lawful_ sides in conflicts can be kept until the conflicts are over. The Afghan war is still raging, arguably. And the Guantanamo conditions are hardly much worse than the horrid US prison system.

I have seen this subject discussed, but never in a serious way. E.g. please don't write that they should be treated as civilians or something, the point of the Geneva conventions etc was to give POWs some protection, it is just stupid to then argue that to ignore those laws would give _better_ protection.

(And I have no idea how many of the people at Guantanamo are innocent, as dragonwriter claims to know. The people making claims on that subject aren't exactly to be trusted if they really would know!)

Sigh, I guess I deserve downvotes for the stupidity of asking a tricky legal question on newsYC which doesn't have to do with startups. :-)

<comment><USER12> Two wrongs does not make one right ... arguments like "they started" may be heard in a kindergartens playground but I think it's reasonable to hold USA to higher standards than that.

And as for the conditions at Guantanamo, I hope that "enhanced interrogation techniques", water boarding and similar, isn't used all that frequently in the US penal system.

<comment><USER11> Not in a hurry now.

Your point is that democratic countries should behave better than _the international treaties they sign_ , even if it will result in dead citizens of those countries.

And you compare with children, to give "weight" to your argument? Sigh...

<comment><USER12> Feel free to call me an idealist, but I do think that the base foundation for a democracy such as a fair trail before imprisonment and non-use of torture should extend not only to citizens but to all people.

<comment><USER11> Where to start? :-(

The point with democracies is that they take input from their citizens, or the leadership will get kicked out. The point with terrorism is to scare people, mainly in democracies.

If the terrorists succeed in scaring voters enough, then the politicians will throw out the law book and all other concerns (see Germany, UK, Spain, Israel, USA, etc) because they want to get reelected above anything else... What you ask for go against the central interests of the involved parties.

I might also note that your moral world view is based on living inside a society with a state violence monopoly, in a democracy. If you go outside that, the attitude is ... well, read up on clan societies yourself. A typical example is when Israel did one sided peace gestures -- it was taken as signs of weakness and attacks increased (leaving south Libanon and Gaza).

tl;dr: You're not naive, you just don't think. This is HackerNews, please start.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> In the same vein, there's also anarcho-tyranny[1] coined by Samuel Francis

 _What we have in this country today, then, is both anarchy (the failure of the state to enforce the laws) and, at the same time, tyranny – the enforcement of laws by the state for oppressive purposes; the criminalization of the law-abiding and innocent through exorbitant taxation, bureaucratic regulation, the invasion of privacy, and the engineering of social institutions, such as the family and local schools; the imposition of thought control through "sensitivity training" and multiculturalist curricula, "hate crime" laws, gun-control laws that punish or disarm otherwise law-abiding citizens but have no impact on violent criminals who get guns illegally, and a vast labyrinth of other measures. In a word, anarcho-tyranny._

which is sort of inverted authoritarianism.

[1] [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Samuel_T._Francis#Anarcho- tyra...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Samuel_T._Francis#Anarcho-tyranny)

<comment><USER10> Sensitivity training as a totalitarian tool. I love it!

A lot of the people who complain about "totalitarianism" are simply ideological minorities who don't like the majoritarian consensus and seek to delegitimize it.

<comment><USER14> _...ideological minorities who don 't like the majoritarian consensus and seek to delegitimize it._

What's wrong with that?

<comment><USER10> There's a difference between disagreeing with the majoritarian consensus, and trying to paint it to be the result of illegitimate process just because you disagree with it.

<comment><USER15> And...

The system _should_ be viewed as illegitimate (read: as a system to be peacefully turned to dust or forever changed) by those who find deep ethical fault with it. You're alluding to conscientious objectors negatively. They are one of the few groups of people who have ever pushed progress through the ages on this planet. Of course, you're entitled to love the status quo to the point of making it legitimate in your mind every step it takes. Those who ethically disagree with the current _oligarchical model_ for issuing laws that govern the fate of the world do, indeed, disagree.

I view "majoritarian consensus," which the US doesn't actually have, as only a small step above monarchy. It's a very low bar to set for laws of any serious consequence. To be so presumptuous and selfish as to give one small body the right to govern over vast regions of territory would have to, on an ethical level, require approaching systems models that use near full consensus.

Disagreement is the only necessary factor for a person wanting to delegitimize something mentally. In the mind of an objector, there is no more legitimacy in a dictator's brutality, or in an oligarchical republic's brutality (e.g. imprisonment for nonviolent crimes), other than the reality of the sword that backs the decree. Lest the world become lemmings, may people continue to find illegitimacy as they search their minds and hearts.

<comment><USER10> You're misunderstanding my use of "legitimate" in this context. I don't mean "legitimate" in some broad moral sense. I mean "legitimate" as in being consistent with the accepted rules of the system. Many people who decry the U.S. government don't express fundamental disagreement with the principles of the system. They instead claim that the consensus is inconsistent with those principles.

<comment><USER15> Fair enough. It'd be more explicit in context with the words "consistent" or "inconsistent." Legitimacy is generally a duality between claims and personal consent. I immediately associate legitimacy by legal frameworks as a whole rather than the laws produced.

No doubt, many people who object to certain laws believe the system is "broken" without appreciation that the system is fixed and 'well-oiled.'

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> "This article relies largely or entirely upon a single source. Relevant discussion may be found on the talk page. Please help improve this article by introducing citations to additional sources."

We may as well find some better-quality writing about the one author's idea, rather than using an article from the Encyclopedia That Any Point-of-View- Pusher Can Edit™ as a coatrack to open up a discussion on Hacker News. Hacker News can be a community in which people use much better sources than most Wikipedia articles (I am a Wikipedian, so I have seen the sausage made) if we let it be.

</comment><comment><USER17> I hate it when some people misuse Wikipedia like this. This reads like an opinion piece, and belongs to a blog.

edit: from the talk and history, the term was invented by Wolin, but has found little acceptance elsewhere. I am all for adding this to Wikipedia once it becomes generally accepted. But not as a means to get there.

<comment><USER18> It's not misuse - it's a political concept, described by Wolin, a well known and respected academic in the field most thoroughly in his book "Democracy Incorporated - Managed Inverted Totalitarianism": [http://www.amazon.com/Democracy-Incorporated-Managed- Inverte...](http://www.amazon.com/Democracy-Incorporated-Managed-Inverted- Totalitarianism/dp/0691135665/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1387021143&sr=1-1)

I mean, if this is misuse, you'd better nix nihilism, liberalism, socialism, and all the rest, as those are also just "opinions".

<comment><USER19> While all "isms" are ideas, the interesting ones are shared by enough people to enhance communication. Inventing new "isms" to market fringe ideas should be discouraged on this basis; it makes things harder to understand.

<comment><USER20> How should this political theory be presented, in your mind?

<comment><USER19> Let the author present it however he wants. Wait for it to get traction before using his personal vocabulary on Wikipedia.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> The US is also hardly a democracy, even if the politicians were perfect. The voting system of the US (and the UK too), is just horrendous.

The simple fact that in some cases less than 40 or 30% of the population can choose an election (if you don't believe me, look it up on youtube, CGP Grey made a video about it), show it's hard to take seriously the claim that the US is a democracy.

<comment><USER22> Yes, the US founders opposed democracy; naturally, if the country were run by its population, the vast majority of whom aren't wealthy, they'd abolish debts, redistribute land, etc. ([http://press- pubs.uchicago.edu/founders/documents/v1ch16s15....](http://press- pubs.uchicago.edu/founders/documents/v1ch16s15.html))

Then Andrew Jackson used the term democracy as political marketing (probably had the same impact as calling yourself "anarchist"), and the US system co- opted it and rebranded itself as a democracy. Because people naturally would like to govern their lives, rather than political and wealthy elites.

I recommend Graeber's _The Democracy Project_ for more on this; he's an anthropologist who helped found Occupy, and popularized the 99% slogan.

<comment><USER23> 'if the country were run by its population, the vast majority of whom aren't wealthy, they'd abolish debts, redistribute land'. A crass assumption if I may say so.

<comment><USER24> When the vast majority of farmers who work the land are generally held in debt they consider unfair, yeah, they're going to do that.

You're forgetting that the Free Silver movement was about exactly this - farmers trapped in debt due to a deflationary gold-backed dollar were agitating for the silver dollar which would be inflationary and thus allow them to escape it. Deny them that, and they're going to switch to something else - like taking a long hard look at what's considered "fair".

You might also note that the modern US has exactly this concept - bankruptcy. It has consequences, but debt can in fact just disappear.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> The US is indeed a superpower. The only superpower left after the Soviets collapsed. It's not a big leap to predict how it's going to turn out in the long term without checks and balanced imposed. This is the first step:

 _the Bush Doctrine that the United States has the right to launch preemptive wars_

Unless the American citizenry, along with the western allies, oppose this militant attitude, it's not going to end well - whatever new term you call it.

<comment><USER26> The George W. Bush administration was hardly the first to act according to that point of view. Just about every country that has held significant power has at some point fought wars of aggression.

<comment><USER9> In the name of self defense?

<comment><USER27> An argument which can be used by all sides. In the end, it's the civilians who get screwed.

<comment><USER28> Statistically it's the people in the military who have it worse.

<comment><USER29> Absolute bullshit, 50:1 is the ratio of civilians casualties in the Israeli conflict.

[http://www.theaugeanstables.com/2009/05/06/combatantcivilian...](http://www.theaugeanstables.com/2009/05/06/combatantcivilian- casualties-and-the-moral-hysteriahypocrisy-of-the-west/)

Your ignorance is middly acceptable because US media and other information reporters are biased or coerced into giving bad statistics about the issue:

[http://www.lawfareblog.com/wiki/the-lawfare-wiki-document- li...](http://www.lawfareblog.com/wiki/the-lawfare-wiki-document- library/targeted-killing/controversy/)

<comment><USER28> What I meant was that the death rate for soldiers was higher.

Total civilian deaths are higher because there are more civilians.

Israel-Palestine is a special case because it is so one sided. I'm not very sympathetic to Israel (did Nelson Mandela recognize the right of the Afrikaner people to exist, and affirm the existence of South Africa as an Afrikaner state? This is what the Israelis are always going on about right?) but that's not really relevant to whether being a soldier is in general more dangerous than being a civilian.

Maybe I am addressing a different point to everyone else, but I think it's important given that deaths of soldiers are sometimes considered on a completely different moral plane to deaths of civilians, even though from a utilitarian perspective they are equally important.

<comment><USER29> No they are not; military is more likely to kill civilians if they survive; so their "utilitarian value" can be considered a negative.

<comment><USER28> so you wish, for example, that more soldiers on both sides had died during WWII?

<comment><USER29> That's a way too-emotionally charged question for someone pretending to be "utilitarian".

But the answer is: No, I wish there weren't any soldiers to begin with. Dead being just the most common way they disappear, plus is always a political assertion the prime causative, so to avoid refilling wars with youngsters it's more effective to stop that.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Wolin essentially mistakes hegemony for totalitarianism. The U.S. is a global hegemon in the same vein as the Great Britain used to be. An open society internally that maintains global superiority using military power. Sometimes global or regional hegemons, like the Soviet Union, are totalitarian, but it's not necessarily the case. Great Britain clearly wasn't a totalitarian state.

Also problematic is Wolin's implied assumption that hegemony can only exist if democracy is compromised. But that's utterly absurd. Why would anyone expect that voters, given the free choice, wouldn't want the benefits that accrue from their country having global supremacy? Does anyone think that, deep down, Americans really want to be like Europe, just another player on the world stage who must modulate their foreign policy based on the consideration that they can't impose it unilaterally? Even people who believe the U.S. should act multilaterally when possible don't necessarily believe the U.S. should concede the option to act unilaterally when necessary.

<comment><USER30> > Why would anyone expect that voters, given the free choice, wouldn't want > the benefits that accrue from their country having global supremacy?

That has an easy answer if you look at treaties like TPP: The hegemon uses power over trading "partners" to work around the will of the people. Hegemony is no benefit to the majority of the people. It is a tool used against them.

</comment></comment><comment><USER31> Point 2, apathy:

"Nothing to hide" is an apathetic "Yes, Sir" to losing self control, letting the results machine analyze and respond to your life actions with all power of an authority you've amplified for yourself.

Apathy toward drone "signature strikes" is a "Yes, Sir" to striking and killing exactly where the results machine wishes.

The results machine does not have human well-being programmed as a core, infallible rule. That means that mistakes like collateral human damage are not seen as mistakes at all, they are part of getting results.

Trusting any machine we've built to probe and manipulate the earth to meet any end other than human growth and good is very scary and selfish.

Apathy is the new allegiance toward our scary and selfish state.

</comment><comment><USER32> So if you compare the U.S. and Nazis they are therefore foils of each other? While I agree that the U.S. falls short of being a true democracy for all of those three bullet points, I'm a little confused about Wolin's reasoning. His argument seems to be:

* In Nazi Germany, the state dominated economic factors, in the U.S. corporations do

* Nazis advocated political action, U.S. does not and does not advocate voting

* Nazis mocked democracy, U.S. made it its ideology

* Therefore Nazis and the U.S. are very similar

Doesn't anyone see why this is problematic reasoning? He just made three points that showed how the U.S. and Nazi Germany have flawed political models, but the connections seem to be few and far between. I get that he's saying that they are both nondemocratic systems under the guise of democracy, but it seems a little farfetched using this argument.

</comment><comment><USER33> USA today is like Athena after the 2nd medic war: a Republic that claims to be a democracy. During Peloponese war, Athena the "democracy" had turned into a violent colonial power, and Sparta the totalitarian state turned oddly into the creation of an alliance for protecting the weakest.

Needless to say at the end, of these war neither Athena nor Sparta won, because they both lost.

Plato's Republic is a simple HOWTO turn a democracy ruled by citizens into a system claiming to be ruled in the best interest of the citizen by a minority of "Wise men" with an elite of watchmen that enforce the power.

Read Alan Moore's "Watchmen" for a criticize of the republic (Quis custodiet ipsos custodes?)

Pericles(or Solon (don't remember) before Athena became a Republic said the same thing as Eisenower: beware of the richs that want to get a grip on a state and extend their power through their influence and will use military power for expension.

Nothing new under the sun. The guy is reinventing the wheel

[http://classics.mit.edu/Thucydides/pelopwar.html](http://classics.mit.edu/Thucydides/pelopwar.html)

</comment><comment><USER19> Interesting. I'd question the "totalizing dynamics" part. In my view Wolin couples two arguments unnecessarily tightly:

* Today's govt. marketing makes it seem more legitimate than it is. Democracy is vulnerable to a panem-et-circenses strategy.

* If citizens' needs are not satisfied by a welfare state, they are rendered helpless enough to be managed by a veiled totalitarian regime.

The former is an interesting problem, expressed well. The latter is more concerning. Are opinions (votes) really worthless just because voters are exposed to economic realities?

I don't think democracy rests on voters being "secure" (in the welfare state sense) when they make their decision.

Classically the line is drawn at secret/anonymous voting. OP suggests voters also need to have their economy guaranteed, if their votes are to give the government any legitimacy. That's very different.

<comment><USER34> The second point does mesh quite well with my observations regarding the system. If you question a fairly randomly sampled member of the populace as to why they would choose to vote for one of the established political parties rather than a new or minor party that may represent their position on most issues much more closely, the answer you will get will invariably be some sort of invocation of a fear of economical downturn or collapse, as only "experienced" or, in a somewhat Kafkaesque turn, outright industry-coddling politicians are trusted to know what is good for the economy. The net effect is that anything that the established parties have a consensus on is effectively impossible to challenge in the political system (and no member of either established party has much of an incentive to break the consensus); it is hard to imagine that this would be the case to the same extent if the majority of voters did not consider their economical situation to be in some sense precarious or unsatisfactory.

<comment><USER24> This is a uniquely American view on the situation. In America, unless your favored major party holds overwhelming dominance, then voting for any third party is actively voting against your own interests.

Its easier to lobby within a party to change things then try and form a new one, given the way the first past the post voting system in the US works. In countries without one, new parties can form and gain some influence all the time.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER31> Scored below these, bumped from the front page, does not even have NSA in the name for NSA penalty. Is it because the submitter is green, or some other valid reason?

27\. DataStickies: USB drives as sticky notes (datastickies.com) 120 points by JeanSebTr 18 hours ago | 89 comments

28\. Best Firefox Add-ons of 2013 (mozilla.org) 106 points by yeukhon 21 hours ago | 50 comments

34\. Inverted totalitarianism (wikipedia.org) 211 points by pikachu_is_cool 10 hours ago | 124 comments

</comment><comment><USER35> On the surface this appears to be true. But, like all things in a constant flux, it's a lot more complicated than it seems. One observation though, I've always wondered if Orwell's novel would act as a warning to those who seek power. In other words, 1984 acted as a inventory of obvious psycho-social obstacles to avoid while attempting to control the masses.

</comment><comment><USER36> What's scary about reading articles like this is that if they are true, those "in power" don't care enough what people think to try and suppress these thoughts.

If the frog is boiling, where are we at on the scale of "didn't make tenure" to "jack booted swat team renditions you"?

</comment><comment><USER37> Here's an insightful reddit comment from /r/changemyview

Q: The United States is moving towards facism CMV (sic)

A: Does the US exhibit some fascist traits? Sure. But I'd contend that we are moving farther, rather than closer.

[http://np.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/1se6cr/the_unit...](http://np.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/1se6cr/the_united_states_is_moving_towards_facism_cmv/cdwpupt)

</comment><comment><USER38> So things are much more sinister than I had originally believed, and this does explain why the US is not genuinely worried about the national debt!

</comment><comment><USER39> Godwin's Law writ large.

Which is not to understate the scale of the problems alluded to, but the analogy isn't enlightening. It's just name-calling.

<comment><USER38> Correct me if I am wrong, but Godwin's law does not apply.

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Godwin's_law](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Godwin's_law)

"Godwin's law applies especially to inappropriate, inordinate, or hyperbolic comparisons of other situations (or one's opponent) with Nazis – often referred to as "playing the Hitler card". The law and its corollaries would not apply to discussions covering known mainstays of Nazi Germany such as genocide, eugenics, or racial superiority, nor, more debatably, to a discussion of other totalitarian regimes or ideologies,..."

<comment><USER39> You're right. The term doesn't quite fit. I'll have to invent a new one.

How does "Bottom Up Godwin's Law" sound to you?

;-)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER40> Congratulations, pikachu_is_cool, you are now a blip on the NSA radar.

</comment><comment><USER41> " in inverted totalitarianism, corporations through political contributions and lobbying, dominate the United States, with the government acting as the servant of large corporations. This is considered "normal" rather than corrupt.[6]"</comment>


Nixery: Transparently build and serve containers using Nix - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/google/nixery <comment><USER2> I have to say, this is pretty clever. Dealing with Docker image tags for dependencies is a real pain and doesn't make much sense. you get things like `[package semver]-[edition]-[distro][distro version]`.. and this in no way reflects any guarantee that tag has not been rebuilt since the last time you pulled it. which has horrible implications for security patches to the image itself, and so on.

I don't know where the community will land for a solution, but this is a clever method. I hope it builds traction

<comment><USER3> Currently when running a private Nixery instance you can actually specify a full git commit hash for the Nix repository that you're using.

If this repository is the upstream nixpkgs[1], or if your private repository follows the same rules about not importing anything without fully-pinned hashes, you can already get those guarantees about the image content with Nixery today!

The one exception is packages that are not in the binary cache, end up rebuilt and aren't reproducible (the binaries might differ) - but NixOS is ~98% reproducible already[2]!

[1]: [https://github.com/NixOS/nixpkgs/](https://github.com/NixOS/nixpkgs/)

[2]: [https://r13y.com](https://r13y.com)

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> Quick note on the layers:

The current layering strategy of the public instance is not the one linked to in the README (edit: fixed), it is the one described in this document:

[https://storage.googleapis.com/nixdoc/nixery- layers.html](https://storage.googleapis.com/nixdoc/nixery-layers.html)

This strategy optimises for reducing the amount of data transferred. I recommend reading both this and the original post on buildLayeredImage!

</comment><comment><USER4> I want to try building something like this, but using Tahoe-LAFS[1] to store the packages / images, so that you could get de-duplication for free, and capability based access control. I have no idea if it would be feasible in practice yet. How hard is it to build a custom docker registry? From a glance at this code it doesn't look terribly complex to get something simple going.

[https://tahoe-lafs.org/trac/tahoe-lafs](https://tahoe-lafs.org/trac/tahoe- lafs)

<comment><USER5> Sorry for the possibly lazy comment, but why TAHOE-LAFS instead of IPFS?

<comment><USER4> IPFS would be an interesting experiment too. Mainly I want to try it with Tahoe because of two features: convergent encryption (basically a way of deduplicating encrypted blobs) and capability based security (a way of doing access control at the file/blob level, rather than role-based).

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> When combining multiple packages, does the order matter? Does shell/git/htop give me the same thing as shell/htop/git?

<comment><USER2> since this is using Nix, I don't believe the order matters. each package installs its own isolated dependencies, there is no sharing between packages.

<comment><USER6> Order doesn't matter to Nix, but images have ordered layers.

After digging into the blog post, it sounds like the layers are sorted in a particular order, which suggests that the order in which you specify the packages doesn't matter.

That said, I went ahead and pulled nixery.dev/shell/git/htop, and then pulled nixery.dev/shell/htop/git, and I actually got different results. I ran `docker info` on both images and diffed the results, and the layer lists were slightly different. I filed this as [https://github.com/google/nixery/issues/38](https://github.com/google/nixery/issues/38).

<comment><USER3> This is now fixed - the issue was basically that image manifests and config layers contain the image name, so if the name changes those layers will be replaced.

The solution is to sort the packages in the name and return identical manifests. Docker doesn't seem to care about attaching names from registries that weren't in the config layer.

There's a separate issue where Docker will re-download layers it already has because it doesn't just use the content hash for caching, but those layers will be identical. Working on figuring this one out ...

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Neat. I like both Nix and containers.

Though I'm curious. Can someone explain

> This is not an officially supported Google project.

"20% time" I guess?

<comment><USER8> Google open source policy. Even if you work on something with your own equipment, on your own time, and it doesn't relate to your work, it probably still relates to something Google does. Therefore Google asserts ownership over all work their employees produce and thus they have these disclaimers.

<comment><USER9> It's possible sometimes to get Google to disclaim ownership of stuff that's genuinely unrelated. There is a process. (Or was when I left.)

On the other hand, if you _want_ to work on open source on company time or use the code at work (which may have been part of the point of writing it), being able to do so is nice.

<comment><USER10> The process still exists, but it's discouraged for open-source projects. On the other hand, most open-source projects don't care who owns the copyright.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> A little OT, but is that _broccoli_ in the Nixery logo? Anyone know _why_?

<comment><USER12> Why not? ;-)

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> Neat, focusing on containers as a way to replace systems while still doing most things within Nix is a good take over strategy.

</comment><comment><USER14> Neat! Maybe out of place but is there something similar where a virtual machine is spun up rather than docker?

<comment><USER3> That's actually something I've been discussing with a colleague - Nix is capable of building various other image types (netboot, qemu, etc.) and we could theoretically extend Nixery to provide such images in addition.

<comment><USER15> (I know almost nothing about Nix, so take this question loosely)

Do you know if there's an easy way to generate a Docker container from a Nix script? That could be a very nice alternative to a Dockerfile.

<comment><USER3> Yes, you can do that using for example `buildLayeredImage`:

      { pkgs ? import <nixpkgs> {} }:

      with pkgs; dockerTools.buildLayeredImage {
        name = "curl-bash";
        contents = [ curl bashInteractive coreutils ];
      }

Putting that in a file and calling `nix-build` on that file will give you a tarball that Docker will happily load using `docker load`.

Doing this has a lot of advantages over Dockerfiles, see this blog post for some of the others: [https://grahamc.com/blog/nix-and-layered-docker- images](https://grahamc.com/blog/nix-and-layered-docker-images)

<comment><USER15> Fantastic, thanks!</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


In a first, fossil dinosaur feathers found near the South Pole - <AUTHOR> https://www.nationalgeographic.com/science/2019/11/first-fossil-dinosaur-feathers-found-near-south-pole-cretaceous-australia/ <comment><USER2> "The newly described feathers were all found at a site called Koonwarra, about _90 miles southeast of Melbourne_ in the state of Victoria."</comment>


Show HN: Senior Remote Jobs via Telegram - <AUTHOR> http://NoiceJobs.com <comment><USER3> Why Telegram? You're instantly limiting your audience to those who use it, or who have the desire/energy/inclination to install it. Why not post this information somewhere where it's actually accessible?

And are you affiliated to these jobs in any way? Do you have a commercial interest in them?

<comment><USER4> I appreciate OP posting these jobs, but when I tried to install the Telegram app, it wants access to manage my phone app to verify my number. No thanks.

<comment><AUTHOR> Ah, I'm sorry. You can also receive the same jobs via email creating an alert at [https://findmegigs.com/?remote=true](https://findmegigs.com/?remote=true) (it shares the backend with the Telegram channels)

<comment><USER5> The findmegigs site is even more hostile than the original in terms of not being able to see jobs.

These sites may work for you, but I am annoyed I wasted my time even clicking the links.

No instant value means you'll miss a large segment of users.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for your feedback, I agree with you in that if you're not on Telegram it's hard to know what to expect. I'll try to improve that in the future.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Is there no way to browse this information in the browser?

Not saying I am anti-Telegram, but I have never used it, nor know how it works.

<comment><AUTHOR> Hi! Definitely, I'll consider doing this soon. I like Telegram because it lets me reach people directly without them having to come to my site. But it's true that a lot of people don't use it and I'm missing out on them. I'll probably create email newsletters soon for the people that are not on Telegram. Thanks!

<comment><USER7> > I'll probably create email newsletters soon for the people that are not on > Telegram.

Why not a website? It seems like that's what everyone is asking for.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Hey - I like the telegram choice for this. I know you are getting some questions about it but I prefer it actually. Not everything needs to be on the web, indexed, and archived forever.

<comment><USER9> >> Not everything needs to be on the web, indexed, and archived forever.

Any particular reason this shouldn't be the default state for information though? It would seem that any sort of task that benefits society as a whole is made significantly harder by not making things web-based, accessible and durable.

If this is "senrio jobs for telegram users" that's different. I'm not getting that message though.

</comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> Hey! OP here. It's one of my first posts here so wasn't quite sure about the title. This links to Telegram channels, so you need to be on Telegram - <USER2> tho you can also create an email alert at [https://findmegigs.com/?remote=true#basic- plan](https://findmegigs.com/?remote=true#basic-plan) to get the same jobs

Do you think that something like 'Show HN: Senior Remote Jobs on Telegram' would have been a better title?

Thanks!

<comment><USER10> What is Telegram and why should I use it?

I'm an unemployed senior developer; your exact target audience!

Pretty much 90% of the time someone wants me to install (or sign up for) some "thing," it's just some kind of gimmick or has no traction. This is especially the case as a senior developer, where part of my job is healthy skepticism for software I've never heard of.

So, IMO, the biggest challenge is communicating what Telegram is and convincing me that I should use it.

(That doesn't mean using Telegram is wrong; but when you're using something so new that no one's heard of it, you need to take ownership of promoting it.)

<comment><AUTHOR> Hi! Telegram has quite some traction with over 200M MAU, but you have a good point.

I've made over 50 channels for different roles, from C-Level stuff like CTO, CPO positions to very language-specific channels like Rust, Haskell or React.

What I like the most about how I've structured it is that (once you're on Telegram) it's very easy to explore the different channels because they're linked to each other and there's very little friction to join or leave a channel

</comment></comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> Hey HN!

Some months ago I made a bot to find remote jobs for myself. Now I made a product of it and it posts jobs to 50+ Telegram channels, with more than 1500 users in total

It's focused in getting high-quality, senior-only remote roles

If you're not on Telegram, you can also get the same jobs via email creating an alert at [https://findmegigs.com/?remote=true](https://findmegigs.com/?remote=true) (it shares the backend with the Telegram channels)

Would love to hear what you think!

Xoel

<comment><USER11> Curious how you decided to use Telegram for this. Seems like a neat idea.

Don't know if Telegram lets you edit old posts, but would be nice to see if a job has been filled.

<comment><USER12> Neat idea? I'm not sure. Why isn't it simply a web page?

<comment><AUTHOR> I like the possibility of reaching people directly, instead of them having to visit a web page.

If you're not on Telegram, I forgot to mention before that you can also get the same jobs creating an alert at [https://findmegigs.com/?remote=true](https://findmegigs.com/?remote=true) (it shares the backend with the Telegram channels)

<comment><USER12> Hmm, glancing at the screenshots at [https://findmegigs.com/?remote=true#plans](https://findmegigs.com/?remote=true#plans), it seems that it's not always very good at distinguishing jobs _offered_ from jobs _wanted_ in people's twitter posts.

<comment><AUTHOR> Ok, I uploaded a photo of how the mails look like now - much better than the old pics. You can see it at [https://findmegigs.com/assets/images/gallery01/d9a6787e_orig...](https://findmegigs.com/assets/images/gallery01/d9a6787e_original.jpg?v99211885891951)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> This might be a good idea. But telegram limits it. Others have said that too, just adding my voice.

<comment><AUTHOR> Fair point. I'll make free, open email newsletters in the futures. If you want to create an email alert to get the same jobs, I also created [https://findmegigs.com/?remote=true#basic- plan](https://findmegigs.com/?remote=true#basic-plan) and it's working already (230 subscribers as of now)

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> I'd suggest building a sign up flow that captures info about candidates.

The thing that's valuable here isn't your curation or the jobs, it's the candidates.

</comment><comment><USER15> > Don't have telegram?

I don't even have a smartphone, it's in the repair shop for 30+ days now :)

</comment><comment><USER16> This category of "niche job board" seems to be the new get-rich-fast (or rather, collect-emails-fast) scheme du jour.

Over the last few months there's been remote jobs, jobs that don't require a car degree, jobs for a specific tech... the space is quickly becoming inflated

<comment><AUTHOR> I'm not sure you can get and stay rich long-term without adding value to the world, but thanks for the comment

I agree with you that seems like there's a new remote jobs board every 2 days popping out. That's why I took a different approach with this, and it went from 0 unique subscribers 1 month ago to 1700+ today, over the 50+ different channels that I created within it. Hopefully they're getting something useful out of it!

<comment><USER16> Sorry if my comment sounded harsh, that wasn't my intention!

Good job finding a niche and running with it!

<comment><AUTHOR> No problem, thanks for saying that!

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> Is it "noice" (the colloquialism) or "no ICE" (ideological)?

<comment><USER18> Well seeing as the page title is NoiceJobs and the giant heading on the page says NoiceJobs, I'd assume it was the colloquialism, bcd ravens.

\- from mr speaker / mrs peaker.

<comment><AUTHOR> Haha yeah, noice ~ nice :)</comment></comment></comment>


Nvidia GPUs also affected by SPECTRE - <AUTHOR> https://www.engadget.com/2018/01/10/nvidia-gpu-meltdown-and-spectre-patches/ <comment><AUTHOR> What jumps out at me is this coming out so shortly after the change in Nvidia's licensing for datacenter usage [0][1]. I've seen discussions along the lines of "If you don't update drivers then the new terms don't apply" but now along comes what may be a fairly important reason to update... Or arguably depending on the speed impact and your usage, an even better reason to not update.

[0][https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16002068](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16002068)

[1][https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15983587](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15983587)</comment>


Service provides flash-embed of any file or other site in your site - <AUTHOR> http://blog.increosolutions.com/2008/12/a-new-thing-we-made-embeditin/

<comment><AUTHOR> The example pictured on this page shows tabbing within the flash gadget. Thought that was pretty cool.</comment>


Testing Huge PostgreSQL Backups for 37 Cents a Day - <AUTHOR> https://feedbin.com/blog/2017/05/05/testing-huge-postgresql-backups-for-37-cents-a-day/ <comment><USER2> Don't you need a sleep after mail to make sure it is sent before the shutdown kills network? Feels race conditiony

Nit 2: I would add some select counts or similar to ensure a few big tables are there. Would maybe include the counts in the email.

<comment><USER3> Also - can this last part be written different? Feels monolithic

sudo -u postgres bash -c "cat > /var/lib/postgresql/9.2/main/recovery.conf <<\- _EOF_ restore_command = 'env ......blahblah"

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> _Critically, no matter what your bid is, you never pay more than the spot price which is "The current market price of a Spot instance per hour." With this in mind you don't have to guess what to bid and since your bid matches the on-demand price, your instance will never be terminated early due to the price exceeding your bid._

This isn't accurate, the spot price can absolutely be higher than on demand pricing and isn't a reliable method to prevent your instance from being terminated.</comment>


Why Conservatives are Happier Than Liberals - <AUTHOR> http://www.nytimes.com/2012/07/08/opinion/sunday/conservatives-are-happier-and-extremists-are-happiest-of-all.html?_r=1

<comment><USER2> How do these studies identify conservatives vs. liberals?

Surely your political ideology is a mish mash of lots of different views, often conflicting? People may identify as one vs. the other, but that doesn't honestly mean anything because those people haven't exactly evaluated every belief they have then compared it to the master list.

I just don't understand this two slot approach to politics.</comment>


Microsoft Visual Studio 2015 Supports Targeting Linux - <AUTHOR> http://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=news_item&px=Visual-Studio-2015-Linux-Suppor

<comment><USER2> The ad covers the article with no obvious way to close it (on my tablet).</comment>


USPS accidentally issues Vegas Statue of Liberty stamp - <AUTHOR> http://www.boingboing.net/2011/04/15/usps-accidentally-is.html

<comment><USER2> The shape of the hair and face are different between the statues, too.

</comment><comment><USER3> facelift and in Las Vegas. Reflection of the modern reality.</comment>


Ask HN: Why not use variable-width fonts for programming? - <AUTHOR>

Should all the programmers agree that they will not tabulate code and indentation interval will be fixed (i.e. one tab or n spaces no matter what, no alignments), would there still be a merit to prefer monospaced typeface over variable-width?<p>I've been programming for a long while, and all that time have I used monospace fonts.  I haven't approached the subject empirically, and neither have thought deeply, but as is scratches my mind, I thought I'd ask this to people who are more experienced and knowledgeable than me on the subject via HN. <comment><USER2> I've tried it and didn't like it. You often have successive similar lines with slightly different identifiers, and if they don't quite line up it's visually jarring. A graphics example:

          var p0X = lo.convWeekToX(0);
          var p0Y = lo.convFlowToY(m.rev0);
          var p1X = lo.convWeekToX(0);
          var p1Y = lo.convFlowToY(m.exp0);
          var p2X = lo.convWeekToX(m.breakevenWeek);
          var p2Y = lo.convFlowToY(m.breakevenFlow);
          ctx.moveTo(p0X, p0Y);
          ctx.lineTo(p1X, p1Y);
          ctx.lineTo(p2X, p2Y);

That, rendered in a font where X, Y and Z aren't the exact same width, makes you want to scratch your eyeballs out:

. var p0X = lo.convWeekToX(0);

. var p0Y = lo.convFlowToY(m.rev0);

. var p1X = lo.convWeekToX(0);

. var p1Y = lo.convFlowToY(m.exp0);

. var p2X = lo.convWeekToX(m.breakevenWeek);

. var p2Y = lo.convFlowToY(m.breakevenFlow);

. ctx.moveTo(p0X, p0Y);

. ctx.lineTo(p1X, p1Y);

. ctx.lineTo(p2X, p2Y);

</comment><comment><USER3> Where indentation is present/relevant, monospaced fonts are critical for interpreting a program's logical structure at a glance. And in more than trivial programming, indentation is always present/relevant.

> Should all the programmers agree that they will not tabulate code and > indentation interval will be fixed (i.e. one tab or n spaces no matter what, > no alignments) ...

In indentation, never use tabs. Always use spaces. Tabs are open to reinterpretation as you change editing environments, spaces aren't. I can't tell you how many times I've heard from novice Python programmers whose programs appeared to be structurally correct but failed to run as expected, after which a more experienced programmer suggested that the embedded tabs be removed and the code reviewed and manually re-indented.

More here: [https://www.google.com/search?q=python+tabs](https://www.google.com/search?q=python+tabs)

<comment><AUTHOR> I write Python, but it is only _among_ the languages I use and the languages there are. Here is some Python displayed with Raleway font: <[http://cadadr.tumblr.com/post/75836598049/here-is-some- pytho...](http://cadadr.tumblr.com/post/75836598049/here-is-some-python- displayed-with-the-raleway>). The code is indented with 4 spaces. I cannot see any problems with the left outline of the code (I am not arguing it is _good_ though, I am only arguing that it _functions_ ).

Also, if each interval of indentation is _n_ spaces, won't the indentation look aligned anyway, as the width of a space character is constant?

> In indentation, never use tabs. Always use spaces. Tabs are open to > reinterpretation [...]

I take this as a good property of tabs, given that spaces aren't used for micro-alignment, that indentation is formed only of tabs. This enables different people with different tastes to easily collaborate: I personally like wide indentation, so I keep my tab width as wide as 8 space characters. But, say, if you were to read my code and liked smaller intervals of indentation, you can set your tab width to, say, two spaces, and view the code as you like it, whereas with hard spaces, this is impossible without actually changing the file.

<comment><USER3> Fair enough. But try this (or any of its many equivalents) with a proportional font or tabs:

          #!/usr/bin/env python
          # -*- coding: utf-8 -*-

          s = ''

          for y in range(1,13):
            for x in range(1,13):
              s += '%4d' % (x*y)
            s += '\n'

          print(s)

             1   2   3   4   5   6   7   8   9  10  11  12
             2   4   6   8  10  12  14  16  18  20  22  24
             3   6   9  12  15  18  21  24  27  30  33  36
             4   8  12  16  20  24  28  32  36  40  44  48
             5  10  15  20  25  30  35  40  45  50  55  60
             6  12  18  24  30  36  42  48  54  60  66  72
             7  14  21  28  35  42  49  56  63  70  77  84
             8  16  24  32  40  48  56  64  72  80  88  96
             9  18  27  36  45  54  63  72  81  90  99 108
            10  20  30  40  50  60  70  80  90 100 110 120
            11  22  33  44  55  66  77  88  99 110 121 132
            12  24  36  48  60  72  84  96 108 120 132 144

Or this:

            #!/usr/bin/env python
            # -*- coding: utf-8 -*-

            from numpy import arange

            # dimensional parameters for the set

            yl = -1.2
            yh = 1.2
            ys = .05

            xl = -2.05
            xh = 0.55
            xs = 0.03

            def mandelbrot(c):
              z = 0
              for n in range(10):
                z = z*z + c
                if(abs(z) > 2):
                  return '.'
              return '*'

            s = ''
            for y in arange(yl,yh,ys):
              for x in arange(xl,xh,xs):
                s += mandelbrot(complex(x,y))
              s += '\n'

            print(s)

            .......................................................................................
            .......................................................................................
            ..............................................................**.......................
            ...............................................................*.......................
            ................................................................*..**..................
            ................................................................***....................
            ...............................................................****....................
            ...........................................................***********.................
            ............................................................**********.................
            ...........................................................***********.................
            ...................................................*.......***********..........*......
            .................................................****..********************.....*......
            ................................................***********************************....
            .................................................********************************......
            ...............................................**********************************......
            .............................................************************************......
            .............................................*************************************.....
            ..........................**......*.........*****************************************..
            ............................***********.....***************************************....
            ............................********************************************************...
            ..........................*********************************************************....
            .....................*....*********************************************************....
            ......................************************************************************.....
            .....................***********************************************************.......
            ..*****************************************************************************........
            .....................***********************************************************.......
            ......................************************************************************.....
            .....................*....*********************************************************....
            ..........................*********************************************************....
            ............................********************************************************...
            ............................***********.....***************************************....
            ..........................**......*.........*****************************************..
            .............................................*************************************.....
            .............................................************************************......
            ...............................................**********************************......
            .................................................********************************......
            ................................................***********************************....
            .................................................****..********************.....*......
            ...................................................*.......***********..........*......
            ...........................................................***********.................
            ............................................................**********.................
            ...........................................................***********.................
            ...............................................................****....................
            ................................................................***....................
            ................................................................*..**..................
            ...............................................................*.......................
            ..............................................................**.......................
            .......................................................................................

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> To me it's really a matter of symmetry. Having lines of code that do similar things look aligned is readable and beautiful.

Hence in Ruby, for example, I love how the "case" statement makes it easy for several conditions to be aligned:

      case
      when a == 0
      when b == 0
      end

In C++, "a == 0" and "b == 0" don't align:

      if (a == 0)
      {
      }
      else if (b == 0)
      {
      }

Now imagine that on a much wider scale. With variable-width fonts the only thing that would ever align would be the beginning of lines. A visual nightmare that affects readability.

</comment><comment><USER5> There's a long tradition of using fixed width fonts. As a result, some of the 'infrastructure' is built with that assumption.

For example, people will draw ASCII pictures for simple diagrams in the code and comments. In some of my code (I work with chemistry) I listed the element symbols laid out as a periodic table-like grid. This only works with fixed width fields.

And of course multi-line parameters are usually continued inside of the leading '(', as in this forward declaration:

        int reorder(int num_results, search_result *results,
                    const char *ordering);

Not surprisingly, there is a StackOverflow question on this topic, at [http://stackoverflow.com/questions/218623/why-use- monospace-...](http://stackoverflow.com/questions/218623/why-use-monospace- fonts-in-your-ide) .

Equally not surprisingly, and sadly, it's marked "closed as not constructive".

<comment><AUTHOR> > For example, people will draw ASCII pictures for simple diagrams in the code > and comments. In some of my code (I work with chemistry) I listed the > element symbols laid out as a periodic table-like grid. This only works with > fixed width fields. > And of course multi-line parameters are usually > continued inside of the leading '(', as in this forward declaration:

Thus did I express in the initial post, that I assume we do not do this kind of alignments, and the interval of indentation is fixed, i.e. is always a multiple of a given number of spaces, or exactly one tab character.

<comment><USER5> I gave that example for two reasons. One is that it's not possible to assume the world can change. There's a big installed base.

The second is that your solution - fixed indentation levels, etc - doesn't work for this case. Or as a challenge, what's your better way of writing this yacc-style BNF in a proportional font?

        atom_symbols ::=
         'H' |                                                                                'He'
        |'Li'|'Be'|                                                  'B' |'C' |'N' |'O' |'F' |'Ne'
        |'Na'|'Mg'|                                                  'Al'|'Si'|'P' |'S' |'Cl'|'Ar'
        |'K' |'Ca'|'Sc'|'Ti'|'V' |'Cr'|'Mn'|'Fe'|'Co'|'Ni'|'Cu'|'Zn'|'Ga'|'Ge'|'As'|'Se'|'Br'|'Kr'
        |'Rb'|'Sr'|'Y' |'Zr'|'Nb'|'Mo'|'Tc'|'Ru'|'Rh'|'Pd'|'Ag'|'Cd'|'In'|'Sn'|'Sb'|'Te'|'I' |'Xe'
        |'Cs'|'Ba'|     'Hf'|'Ta'|'W' |'Re'|'Os'|'Ir'|'Pt'|'Au'|'Hg'|'Tl'|'Pb'|'Bi'|'Po'|'At'|'Rn'
        |'Fr'|'Ra'|     'Rf'|'Db'|'Sg'|'Bh'|'Hs'|'Mt'|'Ds'|'Rg'

        |'La'|'Ce'|'Pr'|'Nd'|'Pm'|'Sm'|'Eu'|'Gd'|'Tb'|'Dy'|'Ho'|'Er'|'Tm'|'Yb'|'Lu'
        |'Ac'|'Th'|'Pa'|'U' |'Np'|'Pu'|'Am'|'Cm'|'Bk'|'Cf'|'Es'|'Fm'|'Md'|'No'|'Lr';

Every example I can think of is uglier, and harder to understand. The only solution is that everyone switches to a source code encoding which includes enough presentation capabilities that it supports embedded tables. I don't see that happening any time soon.

Do you have a better suggestion of how to lay this out in some alternative environment?

<comment><AUTHOR> I do not have a counter-example, and think that in this case, a monospaced font is necessary for good presentation. However, I'd not format this code in this shape in the first place, instead list them linearly with line breaks where due:

      atom_symbols ::=
        'H' | 'He' ... 'Na' |
        'Be' ...;

This way it is easier to edit, automatically wrap (not meaning that the periodic table will change drastically soon, but this might have been a table of sth. else) and read the snippet. This is more of a matter of personal delight though.

<comment><USER5> Now you're throwing away data in preference of your own beliefs. That's a dangerous path.

Of course if this is a table of something else then it _might_ be okay to use a different formatting. But that I could easily give a counter-example, suggests that there are plenty of counter-examples.

You argue that a linear list, without spacing, has advantages. My assertion is that you don't have the experience to make that judgement. Anyone using this layout will have chemistry experience, and often decades of practice of looking at the periodic table in standard form. When I consider at your suggested layout, I find it a bit jarring.

For one, the symbols you wrote are out-of-order, which means it's hard to infer some information from the table.

For example, what is the age of the this instance of the table? A chemist knows, from experience with the standard periodic table layout, and my use of that layout, that Rg is the newest element on the list. This immediately places it as a pre-2009 table, which means I should update it.

Here's an example from Python heapq.py implementation, rewritten slightly to work in HN (I switched from triple-quoted strings to '#' comments):

        # The strange invariant above is meant to be an efficient memory
        # representation for a tournament.  The numbers below are `k', not a[k]:
        #
        #                                0
        #
        #               1                                 2
        #
        #       3               4                5               6
        #
        #   7       8       9       10      11      12      13      14
        #
        # 15 16   17 18   19 20   21 22   23 24   25 26   27 28   29 30
        #
        #
        # In the tree above, each cell `k' is topping `2*k+1' and `2*k+2'.

This is a tree structure layout in ASCII. It's useful information, and it can't easily be structured or represented in a proportional font.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> BTW, I haven't changed my editor's font to a variable-width font and am not telling that we _should_ go this way; just wanted to start a discussion on the topic.</comment>


Ask news.yc: Is Mark Zuckerberg Shawn Fanning 2.0? - <AUTHOR>

<comment><USER2> in what sense?

(young entrepreneurs... popular companies... what in particular?)

</comment><comment><USER3> I don't know what that means.</comment>


Dear Old Media, You've Been Replaced By the Internet - <AUTHOR> http://blog.anideo.com/95138460

<comment><USER2> Haha I like "it just reminded us of the new album or movie we wanted to download when we got back to our room".</comment>


Valve's Design Process For Creating Half-Life (1999) - <AUTHOR> http://www.gamasutra.com/view/feature/3408/the_cabal_valves_design_process_.php

<comment><USER2> From Ken Birdwell - the author - linkedin summary [1]:

 _Valve is the place to go as the culmination of a career. It 's filled with 90% senior people, people who have run their own companies, not just projects or products. It's not uncommon to meet people here who have been here "only" 10 years. We lose fewer than 1 person every 2 years, and that's been true over the entire history of the company. Once you're here, you'll stay forever, there's no reason to ever leave. We're also a family oriented company. You're expected to work 40 hours or so a week. Maybe a 3-4 weeks of crunch time a year, but it's all voluntary. We'll actually send you home if we think you're spending too much time away from your real life. Vacation time isn't tracked. If you need to take time off, take time off. We don't care, it's up to you. Your colleagues are keeping track of your contribution anyway, we don't need some stupid accounting trick to know if you're valuable. On top of that, our schedule is our own. We have no outside investors. We own all of our IP. We have no "publisher". We do work with external folks to make and ship retail boxes for us, and they do a great job, but they have zero influence over what we do or when it's done. It's totally up to us. We're in control of our own success or failure. It's ours to make. Why anyone would want to work anywhere else is a mystery to me._

[1] [http://www.linkedin.com/pub/ken- birdwell/3/997/95a](http://www.linkedin.com/pub/ken-birdwell/3/997/95a)

</comment><comment><USER3> The Valve employee handbook [0] is an interesting read. Very unique company structure, even considering the relative penchant for anarchy in the tech field. The motivating factor seems to be preserving independent thinking and creativity. It's also worth noting that Valve is not publically traded, it seems to resemble a worker cooperative.

[0][http://assets.sbnation.com/assets/1074301/Valve_Handbook_Low...](http://assets.sbnation.com/assets/1074301/Valve_Handbook_LowRes.pdf)

<comment><USER4> Not sure why you were downvoted. The handbook is an interesting read indeed.

You _could_ maybe interpret it as shameless advertising on the part of the company (which it is!), and you could question their famous flat structure (classical point of critique towards these kinds of structures is: if there is no formal power structure, _informal_ power structures emerge; and they can sometimes be more ominous.)

<comment><USER5> Jerri Ellsworth doesn't sound like a fan of Valve's structure based on her time there.

[http://www.wired.com/2013/07/wireduk-valve-jeri- ellsworth/](http://www.wired.com/2013/07/wireduk-valve-jeri-ellsworth/)

A lot of the time employee handbooks preach one thing, but reality is often quite different. Another good example of this is "Netflix's Culture" slides. They are often lauded as cutting edge ways of thinking about company culture, but are actually a load of bull that no one at Netflix really adheres to, and the benefits touted do not even apply to all employees.

<comment><USER6> I do believe her section of Valve was probably shut down based on the success of Oculus, at the time this article was posted on HN this did not seem obvious to most people. I'm sure it was a difficult decision for everyone involved.

<comment><USER5> The article mentions day-to-day operational concerns, and her project being cancelled doesn't detract from those critiques.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> This part is true for any software developer:

"Nothing is quite so humbling as being forced to watch in silence as some poor play-tester stumbles around your level for 20 minutes, unable to figure out the "obvious" answer that you now realize is completely arbitrary and impossible to figure out."

If you want to build software that is easy to use, you need to watch people use your software.

</comment><comment> andrey-p It's really interesting to compare and contrast the Cabal method and the idea of design by committee[1]. This must be one of the very few stories I've heard of where a committee with a rigidly defined structure actually succeeds at pulling off something creative.

The bits that really struck me were this:

 _During Cabal sessions, everyone contributed but we found that not everyone contributed everyday. The meetings were grueling, and we came to almost expect that about half of the group would find themselves sitting through two or three meetings with no ideas at all, then suddenly see a direction that no one else saw and be the main contributor for the remainder of the week._

and this:

 _The Cabal consisted only of people that had actual shipping components in the game; there were no dedicated designers. Every member of the Cabal was someone with the responsibility of actually doing the work that their design specified, or at least had the ability to do it if need be._

So, focusing on the quality rather than quantity of contributions makes sure that people don't just chip in ideas for the sake of chipping in. Also, making sure that the people on the committee are those who personally have to implement these ideas makes sure that everything is actually achievable.

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

</comment><comment><USER8> Got the game world right:

* Half-Life series

* Deus Ex 1+2

* No One Lives Forever 1+2

* GTA San Andreas, GTA IV

* Mafia 1+2

* System Shock 2

* Thief 1-3

* Black & White 1

* Far Cry 3

* Tomb Raider (2013)

Player can interact with the game world, destroy things (many small items), the environment remembers your action (e.g. opposite-sex bathrooms in Deus Ex 1 and No One Lives Forever 1), some funny moments, ...

IMHO bad examples are Deus Ex 3 with its very static game world, Assassin's Creed with its limited interaction options, many role playing games like Gothic series, Elder Scroll series (Morrowind, Oblivion, etc) were you can steal from all NPCs and their chests and no one asks/follows you, Call of Duty series with their unlimited AI enemies(if you stay and wait), etc.

</comment><comment><USER9> The Cabal reminds me of the "Brain Trust" described in Ed Catmull's new book.

[http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/18077903-creativity- inc](http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/18077903-creativity-inc)

The Cabal made the decisions as a group but the Brain Trust simply offered suggestions. Both leveraged group creativity effectively.

<comment><USER10> One important point highlighted in the article is that there's very little if at all "group creativity". A single good idea is like an atom, it's concieved induvidually, from someone's previous experience, from a single person's background.

What this remarkable structure does is create a way of consistently filtering ideas, and generating many of them consistently -- all while integrating them towards a bigger picture. The group seems to be just large enough so that someone is being creative all the time while not too many are generating noise.

In other words, it highlights every creator not as a cog generating an enormous structure but it identifies individuals with pieces of work, with full responsibility. Every piece of art or tech is someone's pet and it gives people the opportunity to nurture them and see it succeed.

(Although I wish I worked at Valve to be able speak from experience...)

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> _The Cabal met four days a week, six hours a day for five months straight, and then on and off until the end of the project. The meetings were only six hours a day, because after six hours everyone was emotionally and physically drained. The people involved weren't really able to do any other work during that time, other than read e-mail and write up their daily notes._

I find this a staggering amount of work for the planning stage of a game. Is there anything like this amount of planning at games outside of Valve?

</comment><comment><USER12> The bit about them deciding to take all the cool elements they liked from v1 and fit them coherently into v2 was interesting ("Oddly enough, when trying to match these artificial constants, we would often create our best work"). It's funny how constraints often inspire the greatest creativity.

<comment><USER13> "The more constraints one imposes, the more one frees oneself of the chains that shackle the spirit... the arbitrariness of the constraint only serves to obtain precision of execution." \- Igor Stravinsky

<comment><USER10> Nice quote; here's my attempt to put it in a less of a "hazy 19th century philosophy" kind of way: "The more constraints one imposes, the narrower the decision tree and smaller the design space, a focus which enables quick enumeration detailed search of such design space... making it therein less costly to obtain good results instead of aimless exploration of a space of "infinite" possibilities"

<comment><USER14> How about 'Convention over configuration'?

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> If you like this type of content, check out the Reddit subforum [http://www.reddit.com/r/TheMakingOfGames/](http://www.reddit.com/r/TheMakingOfGames/) , which covers behind the scenes footage and 'making of' material for video games. There's an alphabetical listing of all submissions that you can use to search for a particular title.

[http://www.reddit.com/r/TheMakingOfGames/comments/1vo7sc/alp...](http://www.reddit.com/r/TheMakingOfGames/comments/1vo7sc/alphabetical_index_of_all_submissions/)

Press CTRL-F on that page and try searching for your favorite game. Searching for 'Valve' will lead you to the numerous developer commentaries that Valve has included in their games, similar to cast commentaries on DVDs.

Valve founder Gabe Newell gave a talk about productivity, economics and corporations that you might find of interest:

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t8QEOBgLBQU](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t8QEOBgLBQU)

A good article during the final hours of Half-Life 2 development is this one written by Geoff Keighley:

[http://www.gamespot.com/articles/the-final-hours-of-half- lif...](http://www.gamespot.com/articles/the-final-hours-of-half- life-2/1100-6112889/)

</comment><comment><USER16> Kojima used the same sort of stuff to make metal gear solid 2, they gathered sketches around and debated what ideas were good or not.

I still strongly believe ideas should be gathered around and discussed. There was a voting website about gaming ideas once, it's gone now but this was exactly what made half life not only a very interesting gamedev platform, but a pillar of how successful games should be made.

Of course it's not easy to make people work in those conditions, because it's always asking people to make compromises, but if you can make it work it's obviously a recipe for success.

My only wish for a game company is to do that on a game with a long term cycle, like blizzard game usually are. That was a game can be constantly improved and worked on.

The article says at the end

> Engineers are really slow.

That's why I think that sometimes, a game engine need to freeze its hardware requirements for a while, and let developper improve the game as time pass. 3D engines are hard, and most of the time, when a 3D engine upgrade is planned, all previous work is dumped, and engineers start from scratch, again. It's tricky for a game business model, but I wish game were developed like google release new products in an endless beta stage.

<comment><USER17> You're essentially describing a console: a system with fixed hardware requirements that will last for several years. That's the ultimate advantage of being a console dev - you have no variation in hardware whatsoever* and if your game works in the studio, you can be 99% sure it will work on any identical console in the field.

And generally throughout the lifespan of the hardware, the games get progressively more advanced as the developers learn how to fiddle the hardware to do what they want.]

*not totally true, but ignoring things like disc space and peripheral availability (like the SNES coprocessors - even then they were in-cart!) all consoles can be considered equal.

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> Great article but it does not explain why HL2 was so boring vs HL1 if they used the same process.

<comment><USER19> There are a lot of reasons and I think it's time to write them up, but I think HL2 was actually over-polished. They didn't follow their own rules, either, leading to a lot of "Uncanny Valley" situations.

<comment><USER18> I wonder if we will ever see Valve recognize that HL2 was not so great, since it won the "best game of the millenia" awards all over the place when it was out (and it was way over-hyped even at the time).

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> What I'd really like to see is a sample of how they managed minutes for their brainstorming sessions, and the same for the final design document, because I always on the look for how people can capture this kind of complex information in a way that is also useful to share with others (that weren't present during the discussion of the features).

Anyone knows where/if this is available somewhere online?

</comment><comment><USER21> It really takes a lot of honesty to look at what you've created and say, "this sucks." It takes an open mind to truly sit down and try something new.</comment>


Facebook To Launch Foursquare Competitor In April - <AUTHOR> http://www.businessinsider.com/confirmed-facebook-to-launch-foursquare-killer-2010-3 <comment><USER2> I like the idea of consolidating services and it will be a real enhancement for users of Facebook who are mobile.

However, part of me is saddened for Foursquare. Many start-ups hope to grow large enough to be bought out by a big dog, not knocked over by its tail.</comment>


Show HN: Create GIFs and PDF e-books from video files - <AUTHOR> http://markolson.github.com/storyboard/

<comment><USER2> That's a really cool idea! I've used a similar program called subs2srs (<http://subs2srs.sourceforge.net/>). It's made specifically for converting subtitled movies into flash cards for language learning.

I'll have to give this a shot over the weekend.</comment>


The Dawn of the Context Engine - <AUTHOR> http://blog.pugmarks.me/2013/02/21/the-dawn-of-the-context-engine/ <comment><USER2> Looks like this is also the topic of Robert Scoble's new book. "The age of context". [http://www.forbes.com/sites/shelisrael/2012/07/17/announcing...](http://www.forbes.com/sites/shelisrael/2012/07/17/announcing- age-of-context-a-new-book-with-robert-scoble/)</comment>


Keeping your email address private - <AUTHOR> https://help.github.com/articles/keeping-your-email-address-private <comment><USER2> >Enter the fake email (e.g. "email@example.com") and click "Add"

Rather than a fake email, you could set it to " _your_username_ @users.noreply.github.com" \-- That's the email address used when you make edits from the web.

<comment><USER3> This seems like the best solution (why the hell didn't GitHub suggest it?!). Being able to contact a dev about their code through their GitHub account is much better than fake addresses that leave you incommunicado.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> With the advent of new gTLDs, .fake could be registered. So, use .invalid, a reserved TLD.

</comment><comment><USER5> I have high(er) profile project on github. It started as opensource and latter turned to full-time job. Every week I get about 50 viagra emails, but also some job offers.

I would recommend everyone to use multiple emails. One personal for friends, one for open-source (perhaps commercial) activities and third provided by your employer. Hiding your email is not really long term solution.</comment>


The Death of the Level Designer: Procedural Content Generation in Games - <AUTHOR> http://roguelikedeveloper.blogspot.com/2008/01/death-of-level-designer-procedural.html

<comment><USER2> Look at part three of this series: [http://roguelikedeveloper.blogspot.com/2008/01/death-of- leve...](http://roguelikedeveloper.blogspot.com/2008/01/death-of-level- designer-procedural_2464.html)

Considering this article is four years old, a lot of this didn't pan out. Spore failed to come remotely close to its hype, Borderlands' gun system turned out to be unpopular (too many guns were completely useless). Diablo 3 uses procedural dungeon generation, just as 1 and 2 did, but with plenty of predesigned set pieces scattered throughout.

The problem still seems to be that the set of things that you can generate on the fly and all result in something fun is fairly small. The other interesting thing is that we're seeing the opposite trend in terms of the growth of user- created content as a central game component (thanks Minecraft).

Procedural generation will certainly be used to keep games replayable (D3's dungeon and loot generation, L4D's director AI, etc), but to claim that it will replace designers in any way is silly.

<comment><USER3> I think the higher you go in the level of production (like the AAA games you mentioned) the harder it gets.

But how about Minecraft, Dwarf Fortress or DCSS?

<comment><USER4> The effect you're noticing is that it is a lot easier to get variety into random content when you don't have to provide graphics for it. It's also easier to make a world feel real (w.r.t. the baseline the game is establishing via its interface).

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> As a matter of fact, I'm in the process of writing an exploration and combat based space game, with an astronomical number of locations. (Much, much greater than billions) These locations will also contain procedurally generated alien technologies that can be incorporated into ship designs, resulting in emergent ship capabilities and gameplay.

Such a large universe also means that there will always be a frontier for someone to strike-out into and establish their own industrial infrastructure/empire. (Once certain thresholds are reached, such factions become visible in "Hyperspace" to other large factions.)

<comment><USER6> Sounds great.. please tell me more.

Any ETA on a beta?

<comment><USER7> Would also be interested in more information.

<comment><USER8> Me too.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Programmers tend to argue in favor of procedural generation, artists and designers against it. But the truth is, it benefits everyone, and does not necessarily replace anyone. I hate to break it to anyone, but almost _every single game_ uses procedurally generation, either at runtime or pre-compile time. Did you use a filter in photoshop to produce that texture? Procedural generation. Did you perform a lathe operation on that curve? Procedural generation. Anything that takes a simple user action and produces a new (potentially complex) result via code is procedural generation. The more you empower artists and designers, the more they can do. Even if a game is completely procedurally generated, you need someone to tweak all of the parameters (material colors, building styles, character attributes, etc).

That bit aside, I am still waiting for a game to do more on the AI/plot/puzzle side of things in terms of procedural generation. As I have mentioned a few times before, emergent gameplay is key. Still, there is not one game with strong mechanics that has successfully employed emergent gameplay (aside from very basic puzzle/board games).

</comment><comment><USER10> I was playing games with "procedural content generation" back in the 80's. Heck I was making computer games that did it. Sigh. One of the joys/annoyances of ignorance and new generations is that everything old is suddenly new again.

<comment><USER11> Given that the entire website this article lives on is about roguelikes, and the author is also the developer of a roguelike (Unangband), I imagine he is likely aware of the history of randomly generated levels.

</comment></comment><comment><USER12>
      It is interesting that more games have not used this in re-release of older games. I can think off the top of my head 3 games that I want more content to extend the replay-ability.
      -Mario-Kart with procedural generated race tracks after you beat all the levels and gain all the trophies.
      -Multi-Player Halo.  An option for one of the random games to have a procedural generated map.  With a player vote at the end of the game.  Top maps added to the rotation.
      -Burnout paradise- Use the city generator to create random games.  Again players vote at the end of the game.  Top maps added to the rotation.
      Bonus-Left for Dead and make it through the random city.

</comment><comment><USER13> I never saw the point of procedural generation in games like Diablo. Seems to me something only programmers would be interested in. What would have been wrong with getting a level designer to do it? Then gamers could talk more about shared experiences.

<comment><USER14> It adds to replayability by preventing players from memorizing the shortcuts without making it feel like grinding. Many classic RPG's have a shortest path that's somewhere between 1/4 and 1/40th the average play-though and once you get close to it the game becomes a platformer vs. an RPG. But, randomize locations and you get to relive the hunt the hunt on the next play though. It also tends to make a wider range of things useful, vs letting people optimize the effort of finding stuff vs it's usefulness.

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> In other news the set of "The Death of {X}: {Article Topic}" is infinite.

<comment><USER16> Notice the publishing date: Monday, 14 January 2008

Getting rid of designers sounds great from the point of view of the guy footing the development cost of a game. But it doesn't work. It makes for a very generic gaming experience.

The focus on nowadays is making a designer's job easier so they can be more productive.</comment></comment>


Ask HN: What's your email design/development workflow like? - <AUTHOR>

Most designers/developers have a different way of approaching email design. Some write CSS inline, some use an automated tool, some use a WYSIWYG tool, some write their own HTML, some integrate it into the code base themselves, some hand it off to other team members.<p>I recently shared my own email design workflow [1]. How does this compare to yours? <comment><AUTHOR> [1] [http://www.leemunroe.com/email-design- workflow/](http://www.leemunroe.com/email-design-workflow/)</comment>


Ask HN: How to deal with recurring layoffs affecting your career? - <AUTHOR> I realized that I have a recurring problem in my career as a programmer, which is that I almost always get laid off from my jobs without time to prepare for it. And then I am constantly picking up the pieces in life as I return to job searches and spending my bank account, as I do not have a solid plan B to back myself up.
Since graduating, I've always been going back and forth between working as a contractor for small-ish companies (and also low paying at that) for about a year or two, and applying for jobs for another year or two. And going back to being broke in the process. There's no way for me to manage a stable career or lifestyle like this.
I understand that layoffs happen even in the largest of companies. But I just wish I could stop spinning my wheels for so long.
So how do I get myself out of this vicious cycle? Recruiters aren't working out very well for me, and I do not have friends or colleagues that can refer me to suitable jobs. I don't want to play the long game anymore. Going though 4 job layoffs over the span of about 10 years tends to form this attitude, I guess.
Some more details about me: Chicago resident, mid 30s male, most experience is in web development, from agencies and consulting work to a few early startups. I apply to companies big or small, but incidentally the only offers I get are low-pay contract jobs from small companies. <comment><USER2> Are you working as a contractor for an unspecified time at each company? One possible change could be to either engage with them on a set timeline (so you know to start looking for something new N months before the end), the other option is to continuously look for something, so that you can jump ship when you want to (for example be ready after a year).

<comment><AUTHOR> For almost every company, yes I was working for an unspecified time. Continuously looking for work, keeping my ears to the ground sounds like a habit I should be getting into, right? I never thought about doing this prior to working as a programmer.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> It's hard to say what to improve without more details, but contract work should be high paying because of the uncertainty. Could be issues with your resume and/or interviewing skills. For the latter, you could try interviewing.io. Almost everyone underestimates the amount of practice required to get good, and they procrastinate until it's too late (just like with networking). Also sounds like you're a generalist, which will work against you.

I have a career course that should give you a ton of ideas to help, see my profile for details. If it's taking you that long to find a job, there are some fundamental issues with your strategy and tactics.

</comment><comment><USER4> How are you finding job openings? Classifieds? Recruiters? Networking?

I for one have never gotten anything beyond an entry level job from a classified ad.

Recruiters have a bad rep (some for good reason), but a _good_ recruiter is your in to a lot of good jobs that aren't advertised.

But the best jobs come from networking. Every time I've gotten a salary bump of more than 10%, it's been an unsolicited offer from my network.

<comment><AUTHOR> I mostly get jobs through the job boards, cold applying. I've used StackOverflow, Indeed, BuiltInChicago, Craigslist, LinkedIn, etc.

Third party recruiters usually don't work out for me, either. They contact me about a job, then put me in a loop of calling several places and sendind resumes to them. Might get a few interviews but no offers. Then the recruiters stay silent for a few months.

My personal network is fairly disappointing. I can count a total of two times that I have gotten job interviews through a colleague or friend. Most of the time, they don't have what I'm looking for, and tell me they'll keep an eye out for something. But it never pans out.

I don't do many social activities. I won't be motivated enough till I get my life on track. Not really big into social media either, but that's always been the case with me.

So right now, job listings have been the most effective way for me to convert to job offers. There's no shortage of mid-level to senior developer jobs in Chicago.

<comment><USER4> Instead of waiting for recruiters to contact you (the ones who do are usually the spammy and ineffective ones), try asking around and see if you can get a referral to a recruiter that someone you know has worked with (from either end) and found effective. You might even get some recommendations from HN.

It also sounds like you might have room to improve your interviewing skills - your description seems to suggest that that's the bottleneck in your funnel. That's something else a recruiter can help you improve your skills for; so can some job centers, or even a friend who's a hiring manager and willing to spend a little time mock-interviewing.

Good luck!

<comment><AUTHOR> Are there any sources for sample video interviews that I can watch and review? Just as there are websites that show sample resumes for different professions?

Right now I have used Pramp and went on one mock interview so far, to work on my technical skills. Got anywhere between 2/7 and 3/7 in the qualities I was reviewed for, but I can still take more interviews to improve there.

The most insightful interview has been with Triplebyte, though. They went into great detail telling. In general, I code well, but I code slow. Also, they said I wasn't really showing much depth in any particular area, although I have showcased a variety of skills.

I'm gonna try finding a professional who has time to do a mock interview with me. Setting up time for one may be the only tricky thing.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> You need to find a way to get your FY money, maybe use the time between jobs...</comment>


3-Person Embryos May Fail to Vanquish Mutant Mitochondria - <AUTHOR> http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/3-person-embryos-may-fail-to-vanquish-mutant-mitochondria/ <comment><AUTHOR> Based on the article from May 19th in Nature

[http://www.nature.com/news/three-person-embryos-may-fail- to-...](http://www.nature.com/news/three-person-embryos-may-fail-to-vanquish- mutant-mitochondria-1.19948)</comment>


What Is the Difference Between a CTO and a VP or Head of Engineering? - <AUTHOR> http://code.dblock.org/2015/05/07/what-is-the-difference-between-cto-and-vp-or-head-of-engineering.html

<comment><USER2> _Precise quantification is tricky as so much of the value depends on potential, but it's easy to see orders of magnitudes of difference between the founder-engineer putting in weekends, and employee-engineer doing the same with maybe 1 /100th the equity and maybe an additional $10,000 in salary._

Yeah, the difference is that the engineer who isn't working on the weekends probably knows how to manage their time better.

Hell, look at the numbers--those extra weekends? No fucking way a 40% increase in working time is worth only an extra 10K.

Just because founders are short-sighted and willing to undervalue their own work and sabotage their own engineering doesn't mean we should celebrate their "sacrifice" any more than a professional and timely engineer.</comment>


Hacking your neighbour's Wi-Fi - <AUTHOR> https://mango.pdf.zone/hacking-your-neighbours-wifi <comment><USER2> This yeah cool bruh exercise will fail in most of Europe for typical internet boxes where the WPA2 key is annoyingly long and never changed by normal users.</comment>