Good Culture, Bad Culture, or No Culture at All - <AUTHOR>

We try to spend a lot of time talking to startups and startup folks, and I've recently heard an increasing number of stories about "broken" company cultures. What experiences or resources can you share about working in a company with a great culture, a bad culture, or a lack of "culture" altogether? Books, articles & posts help, but I'd also love to hear any personal experiences and insights that you're willing to share.
It seems that one of the most dangerous times for companies is as they transition between growth phases - from 10 to 30 people, for example, or from 50 to 100. Have you left a job because you hated what had happened to your company? Have you been in a situation where growth was extremely well managed? Seen or been a part of a cultural turnaround?
So: what happened, and why? <comment><USER2> The transition that I went through was a team of 4 dev team + 4 leadership folks blow up into 18 tech + 5 leadership. It was more than 400% growth and happened in a matter of 20 days.

This was a team within a larger company but highly focused and close-knit, pretty much like an independent start-up. The 4 ppl team had existed pretty much from the beginning as long as 18 months and working 12-16 hrs and with a great attitude for a game changing concept within the company known for its culture.

When things had just started getting stable and these 4 ppl were looking for an advancement and not really keen on a more balanced life, the leadership decided to bring 18 more ppl into the team: few freshers and many managers/tech folks from another team whose business had just got shut down.

Worse the initial 4 ppl were made to report to these new ppl who had not even transitioned well into the business and team dynamics. Worse they turned out into bad managers - micro managing or may be we felt so as we knew more than them at that point of time.

3/4 of the initial team quit in a span of next 3 months. 50% of the new team too felt highly uncomfortable and moved on elsewhere. A huge code base, business knowledge and a great culture was taken down all in a span of 3-4 months. It took them many more months to get back in shape.

During my last week (the second one to quit, by now the team size too had come down to 10 tech + 4 leadership), the top leadership involved themselves to reason out:

\- Growth should never be sudden, it should give enough time and resources for the team to ramp up the new member and the new member to get into the skin of the team.

\- When people stop growing (not the growth in numbers), the organization stops growing. This was referring to the initial 4 people being bogged down by managers who were inserted into the ladder and who couldn't deliver. As much as possible grow your own people first.

\- Leadership team had stopped connecting with the initial team suddenly. This disconnect created a sense of distrust and pseudo-hatred against the management (and kiddish enough against few of the new team members too.) Essentially the team was not prepared mentally for this growth and leadership did little help.

edit: added another reason

</comment><comment><USER3> I recently read a book called "Tribal Leadership" by Dave Logan and John King. It talks about 5 stages of individual attitude and organizational culture, basically:

1 - Life sucks.

2 - My life sucks (but maybe there's something better).

3 - I'm in it for me.

4 - We're in it as a group with a core set of values; there is a higher purpose. We're great.

5 - Our values are everything. We're not fighting competition, we're fighting for a cause.

Admittedly, this list sounds pretty straightforward, possibly even obvious, but reading the examples in the book of the kind of thoughts people in each of the five stages think was eerily like having my mind read.

First they convince you that they know what they're talking about when they describe the possible cultures. Then they proceed to tell you how to elevate yourself or your group to the next stage. They give plenty of examples along the way, including what to do in situations of growth like you mention.

It's an excellent, well researched, book. It significantly changed the way I look at myself and my organizations culture.

You can get the audio version for free from here: <http://www.zappos.com/tribal.zhtml>

</comment><comment><USER4> I worked at a startup with an abusive, toxic culture. Insults were used in place of greetings, screaming was used in place of negotiation. The culture came from straight from the CEO. The 2-3 managers (total company size fluctuated between 12 and 60) were his old friends who he only rarely attacked, so they imitated or let his shit roll downhill. The CEO was an amazing salesman, though, so employees were hugely motivated for a few months before total disillusionment.

The company grew and shrank between 12 and 60 at the impulse of the CEO and that quarter's business model. To address your question, I wouldn't say that growth was extremely well-managed.

I can only think of one person besides mgt who stayed longer than a year, typical employment lasted 2-6 months. The company released a 1.0 that got limited traction but never was able to release 1.1 because they had a terrible codebase (due to demotivated coders) which no one could maintain (due to everyone leaving/quitting and no docs). I know of one employee whose loved ones staged an intervention to get them to quit, and one whose doctor ordered them to quit.

Last I heard they performed some kind of corporate shell game to get out of obligations to their initial investors (mostly employees) and started from scratch for 1.1. I can't expect anything to come of it.

I've never before or since seen such an extreme in culture, but it sold me on thinking of software as a product of the community and culture that created it. I've been blogging a bit about that recently in relation to open source and am consciously planning company culture of the business I'm soon starting.

</comment><comment><USER5> Mmm... in the military I got thrown into so many teams in real and artificial environments. Its amazing how much culture matters. Beware, if you're the dominant personality, the culture is going to reflect your personality. i.e. if you're quick to look for someone to blame when something goes wrong, be prepared to see a blame culture emerge at your company as others copy you.

Another thing that always stuck with me. Every team goes through this process of forming, storming, norming, and finally performing.

Forming is the stage when everyone comes together. Everyone is cordial and polite. This is the friendly but ineffective stage.

Storming is where personalities start to clash. Leadership is a social designation and at this point personalities are vying for who will lead the pack. Roles and responsibilities are informally sorted out at this time and everyone is sizing each other up.

Norming is when the storming starts to settle down. The team is coming together to get things done. Most of the important roles and informal rules of the team are sorted out. I say roles and rules but keep in mind its often a subconscious designation in a small org.

Performing is when the team is rocking and rolling. Everyone has a compatible mental model of what they can expect of others and what the others expect of them. There is no questioning of leadership... things are happening.

Bringing new people in, bringing people in fast, etc. can easily disrupt the performing or norming stage and take you right back to storming. Be aware of this.

</comment><comment><USER6> I used to work at a major financial institution that spent $300 million/year on IT projects. It had money to throw at every technical problem (until recently), but ultimately many of the challenges were never solved because of the mismatch between the finance areas and the IT organizations. Basically the "culture" of each side of the company was completely different: technology people didn't know finance and finance guys didn't understand the technology.

So it seems one of the biggest culture challenges is figuring out a way to meld together people with different occupational backgrounds. If the executives at the company knew that, they might have been able to find a way to get each side to respect the skills of their counterparts.

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> I've heard of startups (in particular) losing everyone from key technical architects to entire engineering teams to smart, great people in more average roles.

The most common answer I've heard for people leaving is that they don't feel like they're making a difference (or "being heard") anymore.

</comment><comment><USER7> When I hired on with my current company a couple of years ago it was like a dream come true. A dev shop so small there wasn't much room for politics, everyone in the office was really cool and very laid back, and the future was very bright. Even the building we worked in screamed hip: our offices where on the 2nd story of a refurbished textiles mill. Hardwood floors, track lighting, foozball in the break room, and arty pictures on every wall. It was like working in an art gallery or something.

Fast forward two years.After buying out a competitor and assimilating their assets, we've moved into a new building with the standard issue craptastic cubes and overhead florescents. Political infighting and turf wars among management has successfully torpedoed most of the company's attempts at innovation. Most of the cool people have bailed out of frustration, leaving a core of moderately disgruntled old-timers and a few vanilla lifers (you know the type).

</comment><comment><USER8> Tony Hsieh, CEO of Zappos, told me he sold his first company because he hated the culture. It wasn't just about his employees hating work, HE hated going in every day.

When he grew Zappos, he said he went out of his way to focus on its culture. There's a lot that goes into it. He pays people to quit because he wants everyone who comes to work to love it. He doesn't penalize his employees for staying on the phone with customers for a long time.

His people even recommend a competitor's site when they don't have the right size.

Does it work? Well they're doing $1 billion in sales. Plus their people love coming to work. Ever since I published my interview with him, his people have found a way to contact me to assure me it's all true.

He taught why/how/etc of culture on my interview on Mixergy.

</comment><comment><USER9> What's so special about 10 to 30 or 50 to 100 anyway? I ask because this is actually something that has been studied.

<http://www.fldp.org/2008/11/07/group-size/>

My best guess is that organizations will go through growing pains any time the toplevel group grows to a size that 12 people can't handle. This applies to subgroups in an organization as well, i.e. if you're on a team that is expanding, then it's going to be suck being the 13th person in.

By that logic, we should see growing pains at roughly magnitudes of 10 (10 is close enough to 12 right?). Whatever, maybe not, but you get the idea.

This is a crude level of understand; I am well aware of it. But it's a place to start, and you can get quite a bit of mileage from it.

I should note that neither of the two teams I've worked in professionally grew beyond 12 people in a peaceable manner. In the first case, the company simply fell apart.

</comment><comment><USER10> In a large enough company, you get subcultures.

Working at a national lab in California, I found that my group was very relaxed and informal. Several of us worked in a large 'Unix Room' area that was also the group's common area. We would frequently get together there to discuss programming problems, languages, and whatever else was of interest to us. The managers weren't overly strict about regulations (except important stuff) and were really good people to work with.

However, some other groups, for example the IT department, had terrible cultures. The IT department was full of combative people who fought against every other group tooth and nail over anything. Some groups were just extremely anal about hours, dress code, etc.

</comment><comment><USER11> I recommend <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maslow%27s_hierarchy_of_needs></comment>


Your friends are liars - <AUTHOR> http://blog.happystuffapp.com/your-friends-are-liars-aka-the-truth-doesnt-h

<comment><USER2> So: seek out feedback, don't dismiss it, and don't call the person giving feedback an idiot. Did anyone _really_ learn anything they didn't already know from this? I'm calling linkbait.

<comment><USER3> The post was culled from my current experiences starting Happy Stuff. So far friends, family and new people I meet are exceedingly enthusiastic about our project. I love hearing how great we are, but I want to hear the bad with the good, the side that too often overlooked.

For the part concerning feedback, I've seen a ton of douchy founders, and want to avoid being one of them.

Disclaimer: I'm the author of the post.

PS - I'm sure the interwebs are full of things you already know ;)

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> it's not just your friends - it's everyone that has an interest. Take all things said to you and ask "what's their angle". (and that 'angle' might that they love you dearly and don't want to upset you)

looking back I reckon an awful lot of good advice and focus on our part came from our repeated (and usually unsuccessful) attempts to get early funding. Investors tended to point at what they saw as holes which forced us to think about that - either to show to ourselves they were wrong or to see that they were right and sort it out.</comment>


The transgenic petunia carnage of 2017 - <AUTHOR> http://www.sciencemag.org/news/2017/05/how-transgenic-petunia-carnage-2017-began <comment><USER2> This may be the most click-baity article title ever and I absolutely love it. The actual article lived up to the hyped up title. So completely fascinating. I've sent the article to everybody in the family to see if they have orange petunias growing in their yards!

The one thing the article didn't cover is the patent violation implications of the GM plants growing (and probably being breed for seed-for-sale crops). I'd bet that these particular flowers have patents underlying GM modifications. I found a newer flower color patent with a single google search. [0] Somebody likely may be paying through the nose for this whoopsie under Monsanto vs. Bowman! [1]

[0] [https://www.google.com/patents/CA2930494A1?cl=en](https://www.google.com/patents/CA2930494A1?cl=en)

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

</comment><comment><USER3> If we react like this about transgenic flowers, imagine the reaction to transhumanism, when cybernetic implants, CRISPR genome editing and human cloning all converge.

<comment><USER4> Human genes don't spread by pollination. However, some might get introduced into retroviruses and spread that way.

<comment><USER5> >Human genes don't spread by pollination

Are you sure :D

<comment><USER6> It's called spermination, vulgo fucking.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Oh no, not again

<comment><USER8> aha!

I recant my: did nobody think of Agrajag[1] and the petunias[2] ?

[1] [http://hitchhikers.wikia.com/wiki/Agrajag](http://hitchhikers.wikia.com/wiki/Agrajag) [2] [https://www.goodreads.com/quotes/124539-curiously-enough- the...](https://www.goodreads.com/quotes/124539-curiously-enough-the-only- thing-that-went-through-the-mind)

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> Original paper: [http://biorxiv.org/content/biorxiv/early/2017/05/26/142810.f...](http://biorxiv.org/content/biorxiv/early/2017/05/26/142810.full.pdf)

</comment><comment><USER10> So what would be the effect on the ecosystem if a species with built-in insecticides got out?

<comment><USER11> Well, consider that plants as a group already produce endogenous insecticides by the boatload. Adding a strain that produces another one is just adding one more example to a pile that is already huge.

Which is not to say that there aren't any risks at all. But plants and insects are already locked in a millions of years long battle/cooperation. And look how quickly insects have developed resistances to our modern pesticides. Adaption to something new appears to take years to decades, not centuries or longer.

<comment><USER10> 'insects have developed resistances'

 _Some_ insects. And you're very correct that the insect-insecticide battle has been going on for a while - that doesn't mean giving one side a huge leg- up won't have consequences. Genetic engineering can accomplish millennia of evolution in a single generation - the two are not the same.

<comment><USER6> Some insects? What about nicotine? That insecticid kills them all, humans included

<comment><USER12> >In 1997, the last year for which global data was available, over 5.5 million pounds of the pesticide fumigant methyl bromide were applied to tobacco fields worldwide.

A few tobacco plants in isolation are going to be protected from insects easily developing a resistance to their natural defenses. We've been growing tobacco plants in massively concentrated fields for 400 years in this country. Nicotine is still a useful insecticide, just as Penicillin is still useful antibiotic.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> From Echopraxia by Peter Watts:

> Even DNA computers, custom-built for a specific task and then tramped > carelessly into wild genotypes like muddy footprints on a pristine floor. > Nowadays it seemed like half the technical data on the planet were being > stored genetically. Try sequencing a lung fluke and it was even money > whether the base pairs you read would code for protein or the technical > specs on the Denver sewer system.</comment>


Designing Resilient Systems: Circuit Breakers or Retries? - <AUTHOR> https://engineering.grab.com/designing-resilient-systems-part-1 <comment><USER2> I'm struggling to see why this should be an or. Use circuit breakers to prevent overloading or abusing individual instances and use retries, or backup requests to prevent customer impacts.

</comment><comment><USER3> I've found that the best practice tends to be retry with exponential back off then ultimately log a failure (raising a warning with airbrake, rollbar, etc) and fail hard.

<comment><USER4> Exponential backoff with jitter and a maximum, and a fixed number of retries at maximum, but log alerts with each one.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> The post uses the term "bulwark" - this is the first time I've heard of that. Is it any different than a mutex or semaphore?

<comment><USER6> It's pretty much a semaphore, except that the author seems to tie it in with a Request Volume Threshold that prevents a number of attempts per time as well as a total number here, which is interesting to me where I have an application that will go from phone app to server and hadn't considered the difference.

That 10 connections is different from 10 instant connections.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> Good discussion. My only critique is that a discussion of what is the best kind of failure should always start by discussing how different situations mean different preferences on the kind of failure you get.

</comment><comment><USER8> A good basic intro. A "circuit breaker" is discussed as independent of the load balancer. Often those functions are combined. How does the load balancer detect when one of its resources has gone down? Or is overloaded and just slow. And how do you keep the load balancer from being a single point of failure?

Not much mention of whether requests are idempotent. Some things you don't want to retry, like payments.

Are you retrying to use different resources? Or in hopes the same resource will come back up? Those imply different strategies. Older telephony systems tried one retry with different resources, then gave up. If a call had failed twice, it probably wasn't a transient problem.

</comment><comment><USER9> Title should just be Circuit Breakers. Alternatively put back the (part 1).

</comment><comment><USER10> s/or/and

<comment><USER11> Question: how relevant is this with the serverless? Don't cloud providers provide also these kind of tools?

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> Deadline based pipeline seems to work best for our cast.

<comment><USER13> Especially in async msg-based systems. ActiveMQ (and the JMS API) has built in support for setting a message expiration upon sending, but you can also configure all of these policies on the broker itself.</comment></comment>


The Philosophy of Computer Science (2013) - <AUTHOR> http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/computer-science/ <comment><USER2> _" Who is the most original and the most versatile intellect that the Americas have so far produced? The answer "Charles S. Peirce" is uncontested, because any second would be so far behind as not to be worth nominating. Mathematician, astronomer, chemist, geodesist, surveyor, cartographer, metrologist, spectroscopist, engineer, inventor; psychologist, philologist, lexicographer, historian of science, mathematical economist, lifelong student of medicine; book reviewer, dramatist, actor, short story writer; phenomenologist, semiotician, logician, rhetorician and metaphysician.

He was, for a few examples, the first modern experimental psychologist in the Americas, the first metrologist to use a wave-length of light as a unit of measure, the inventor of the quincuncial projection of the sphere, the first known conceiver of the design and theory of an electric switching-circuit computer, and the founder of "the economy of research." He is the only system- building philosopher in the Americas who has been both competent and productive in logic, in mathematics, and in a wide range of sciences. If he has had any equals in that respect in the entire history of philosophy, they do not number more than two."_

\--Max H. Fisch in Sebeok, The Play of Musement

[http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/peirce/](http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/peirce/)

<comment><USER3> Reading through the background materials, some of the claims they make seem a bit suspect. Many of the "discoveries" are that he suggested something might be possible without actually giving any evidence or construction besides his own philosophical musings. This is in re: cardinals, information theory, and computers. And then because someone did it later he is cited as a genius before his time.

But if he wrote over 10,000 pages of publications and articles, how many of his claims and ideas were false, misleading, or inaccurate? Is genius measured by the number of ideas that don't come to fruition, or by lasting successes? We don't cite Darwin as a politician despite his writings about the politics of his time. Nor do we particularly praise Turing as an athlete despite his running hobby.

<comment><USER2> > _how many of his claims and ideas were false, misleading, or inaccurate?_

A century has passed and his work has been analyzed by a variety of academics. Pointers to capable critiques would be welcome.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> I'm considering several undergrad degree programs in computer science through university philosophy departments. Has anyone had a similar experience who could share their feedback? I've really enjoyed reading the basic philosophy I've covered so far and things like decision and game theory also fascinate me. I think it could also be a good track to AI research, though probably not the modern machine learning style?

Also considering combining one of these majors with a more traditional CS or EECS degree.

<comment><USER5> I have an undergraduate degree in engineering, a PhD in physics and some post- graduate education in philosophy, and have worked closely with philosophers on real problems in epistemology and metaphysics, mostly around identity theory.

On the basis of that experience, I would recommend focusing on a traditional CS or EECS degree, and take philosophy on the side.

By taking a traditional degree you will provide yourself with a deep, broad foundation from which to evaluate various philosophical mutterings, and will be well-positioned to realize just how imbecilic most of them are.

There is a mathematician's joke that be successful in math you need a pencil, a paper, and a garbage can, while to be successful in philosophy you only need a pencil and paper (philosophers publish their mistakes, and sometimes build careers on them.)

Philosophy does have uses. It encourages a certain kind of rigour in thinking, but the content of the subject is mostly philosopher's imaginations, and three hundred years of science has taught us that the human imagination is almost completely useless for understanding reality. What we can or cannot imagine is utterly unrelated to what actually is.

AJ Ayer, for example, could not imagine the kind of empirical test of metaphysical propositions that Bell showed we could actually perform. A willful ignorance of the poverty of imagination as a tool for understanding reality was the basis for the entire Positivist program, which was, unsurprisingly, a failure.

So stick with the core subject and extend your reach to philosophy. You'll be far better served that way, and when you do philosophize it will have a far higher chance of being insightful and useful rather than obvious nonsense to anyone actually in the field you are philosophizing about.

<comment><USER6> What is the difference between EECS vs Computer Engineering? I want to major in engineering while also gaining experience in Computer Science.

<comment><USER7> More pertinent is what the program actually does (depends on school) rather than the surface level label.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> Considering that computer science these days is almost all about complexity and not computability, this article seems to be lacking. And moreover, where are all of the great minds from the last thirty years? Certainly the Turing award winners after Knuth have said interesting things.</comment>


Ask HN: How to give myself a raise? - <AUTHOR>

Longtime HN'er posting anonymously.  I run a growing, buzz-worthy web startup.  We've raised a few million from a combo of angels and VCs.
I'm paying myself well below market rates ($55k in nyc).  I realize that this is standard, but I'm having trouble living reasonably (it's nyc, after all) and would very much like to give myself a $10k raise.
The thing is, I feel bad asking my board for this.  I've been putting in insane hours (they know this) and we've been getting good traction, but haven't hit any grand slams yet.  And I feel like when I raised money from them my salary was an implicit part of the 'offer' of the company.
So, my question: what's the protocol regarding a founder CEO asking for a raise?  Do most not get one till a liquidity event?  Or is a certain % per year standard?  Is this something I should push the board on, or is the normal protocol for the board to suggest it to me when the deem appropriate?  Any wise words would be appreciated... <comment><USER2> With the proviso that I know very little about dealing with boards: if you have millions, and you're growing quickly, and there is a problem which is consuming the CEO's time which can be killed dead by signing a check for $15,000, what would your board tell you to do? (Would you even talk to the board about that? Would they expect you to?)

I'm thinking the conversation goes something like this: you summon your inner hedge fund trader, and tell the board "Listen, this city is effing expensive. My salary is effing ludicrous. The wife/kids/potted plants are complaining and this is hurting my performance. I'm giving myself a raise from 'ludicrously underpaid' to 'severely underpaid', so that I can focus on making us all rich rather than deal with the household budget. Any objections? Good, next order of business..."

</comment><comment><USER3> You gave up a big chunk of your company (I am assuming). One of the reasons that you did so was to ease the pain of bootstrapping. Now I am not saying that you should be paying yourself 200K a year out of the gate, but I do not think anything under 100K is unreasonable. In NYC 100k developer jobs are a dime a dozen. Personally, that is what I would be pushing the board for, you gave up a piece of your company to not have to rough it, you should not feel guilty about feeling that way, you sold some of your company for money. On the flip side, don't expect the board to come to you about it, they are not going to initiate conversations about giving you more money. You will have to do that.

<comment><USER4> "but I do not think anything under 100K is unreasonable."

I wish I had something else to contribute, but I think you misused a double- negative there.

<comment><USER3> I don't see where but I will give you that grammar, writing and English where not my strong suits when I was in school. I have dyslexia, so I will assume that it is an error on my part.

In saying that, what I do have a mastery of is logic. and if I break it out logically, I do not see how it becomes a double negative.

So for example, if I say: I do not think x is unreasonable.

(I do not think) flips the meaning of (x is unreasonable) and makes it !(x is unreasonable) or (x is reasonable) so conditional:

if (x < 100,000 !(x is unreasonable)) else (x is unreasonable).

it can be also be expressed as:

if (x < 100,000 (x is reasonable)) else !(x is reasonable)

Works for me! even if it is incorrect English, it is correct logic.

<comment><USER5> Your logic is impeccable. The problem is that most idiomatic English usage is very peccable. Many people will misunderstand you, even if you are logically unassailable.

You meant that anything under 100K seems reasonable to you. I would recommend that where possible you should stick to the positive form, as it is less likely to be misunderstood.

I think that's a shame, but it's my experience.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Take more than 10K.

1\. If you ask for 10K, your investors may think that's just not much, you can probably do without.

2\. If you ask for 10K, you'll have to ask again in 6 months.

In other words, go from 55k to 85k. Remember that, if things keep going ok/good, you'll want to go to 100+k in another 6 months/1 year.

<comment><USER7> This is silly. Go to your board, and tell them that you're raising your salary to $100k. Have a good list of reasons ready, but don't offer, and for bob's sake, don't ask. If you're the CEO and founder, walk in like you own the place and set your own terms, because you do own the place.</comment></comment>


The Humble THQ Bundle - <AUTHOR> https://www.humblebundle.com/?thq

<comment><USER2> This seems to be completely against the spirit of the Humble Bundles. They are normally creative games from independent publishers, available cross platform and DRM free. These are some generic mass-market games from a failing major publisher, available only on Windows, and delivered via Steam rather than DRM- free.

The excessive numbers of "Humble X Bundles" that have been coming out recently have been kind of killing my interest in them. When it was an occasional thing with some really good games in the bundle, and I was able to support cross- platform DRM-free game development, I would buy pretty much every one, even if I didn't play many of the games. Now that they've diluted the brand so much, I'm a lot less likely to look when they announce a new bundle.

<comment><USER3> I thought the point of humble bundles was supporting charities, not giving away games for cheap.

<comment><USER4> By letting you, the purchaser, decide where your dollars go, the point of a Humble /.?*/ Bundle is exactly what you make of it.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Not exactly an "independent" publisher, only available for Steam, only for Windows, no contributions to the EFF? But when you add in that there is no DRM-free version, it's just not "Humble Bundle" anymore.

<comment><AUTHOR> Maybe they should have dropped "Humble" from the name and replaced it with "Save"

<comment><USER6> It's certainly a bundle.

<comment><USER7> A bundle of SOMETHING alright!

I'm really disappointed. I know the site has been doing very well monetarily with their format but stuff like this discredits them to me.

For most people I think Humble Bundle was about doing good while also building awareness of indie developers. I've tried so many games I would never have heard of let alone purchased because of the site.

Hopefully their next release won't be Disappointing Bundle 2.

<comment><USER8> So you'd rather them sell NOTHING than THQ games? These games are stellar. Company of Heroes is one of the best tactical RTS games of all time. Red Faction Armageddon is very good. Metro 2033 is very good. Saints Row and Darksiders are very good. These are not crap mainstream games thrown together with a Humble Bundle tag, these are brilliant pieces of software.

And anyway, you don't have to worry about this for long, there's not a lot of mainstream publishers out there that are going to give you a bunch of triple A titles to sell for donations. The money is still going where it used to go. I see no problem with this.

<comment><USER9> Yeah, I would rather they abstain from doing things that all other platforms can do. That's part of keeping your focus on your core values. This is NOTHING like the previous bundles and this is a clear regression to me.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Not crossplatform, no EFF donation, not indie and DRM all at once?

That's a large shift.

I generally liked supporting humble bundles on principle. Seems hard to keep feeling good about that now.

<comment><USER11> This seems more like helping THQ get back on their feet.

<comment><USER10> I don't mean to be mean or thoughtless, but why should a community originally formed to support DRM free cross platform indie games support a failing corporation (that needs a lot more help than a humble bundle sale could ever do for it) which isn't _any_ of those things?

Do they intend to be any of those things if they do get back on their feet?

Aren't they publishers themselves? Why can't they just run a sale? It seems like using the humble bundle is purely a marketing thing.

I didn't support the previous humble bundles as a marketing tactic, I supported them because of their _goals_.

<comment><USER12> > I didn't support the previous humble bundles as a marketing tactic, I > supported them because of their goals.

Couldn't you just give your money to the EFF, then ?

My first reason for buying Humble Bundles is the very low price. The goal is the nice side effect.

<comment><USER10> I _do_ give money to the EFF directly as well.

If I was after low prices there'd be no reason for me to pay more than a dollar or two for a bundle. I pay what I pay because I want to support good art, good code and a good platform for that with good goals.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> There's so much sanctimony in this thread. "Ohh, I support the Humble team on principle!! This bundle destroys the Humble spirit!!"

Do you support open, DRM-free software? Skip this release and wait for Humble Indie Bundle 7, like they suggest on the landing page.

Are you worried Humble is losing their platform-agnostic magic? Well, they've released two Android-only bundles before.

Do you want to hook up indie devs? Their games are still available on Steam, XBLA, or Kickstarter.

If you're against these releases, why not sit this one out? There will be another indie bundle soon enough.

EDIT: forgot one. Are you really concerned about the social good? Well, the EFF and Child's Play always accept donations on their websites:

<http://www.childsplaycharity.org/>

<http://www.eff.org/>

<comment><USER14> Not that I particularly mind this bundle, but note that the two previous "Android" bundles were also available on other platforms. It's just that they were also available on Android and they focused on that.

<comment><USER13> Those Android bundles netted you Android games, if I recall correctly--they didn't get you the Linux/Mac/Win versions too. Is that right?

<comment><USER15> You got all four (OS X/Linux/Android/Windows) platforms where they were available (might be for all games; I haven't checked). This is my purchase page: <http://i.imgur.com/IN58e.png>

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> Very disappointed this isn't about THQ making some of these games available for Linux, also "Requires Steam to Play". I still have half a mind to purchase it as the Company of Heroes games are excellent, but I really dislike buying games that I have to use wine to play.

<comment><USER17> Don't expect them to anytime soon, they are on the verge of bankruptcy. Negative equity and they technically defaulted on a 50m loan. <http://www.google.com/finance?q=NASDAQ%3ATHQI>

<comment><USER16> I wonder where the good studios in THQ will wind up. I hope Relic doesn't end up in the hands of EA like so many other promising Studios have.

<comment><USER18> Unlikely. Much of the game industry in Vancouver is staffed by ex-EA refugees (hey, I guess EA is good for something after all) - it's unlikely any one of them would ever willingly sell themselves back to the company they fled.

And if they did, their staff won't keep.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> If Humble Bundles are not DRM free anymore I will not bother anymore. This is a disgrace to the brand they created.

<comment><USER20> Between compromising on DRM free and multiplatform I'm pretty ticked, especially because Humble Bundle has told indie devs I know to take a hike _specifically_ because of not having a Linux port. The double standard is kind of offensive given that this money will likely get entirely devoured by THQ- the-publisher instead of the worthy studios that built the games being sold.

<comment><USER21> This bundle doesn't have "indie" in the name. I'm pretty sure they've done similar bundles in the past. I think it's a good thing that they are introducing more traditional publishers to this pricing model, and I hope the experiment is a success.

<comment><USER22> They haven't done similar bundles in the past, hence the surprise everyone is expressing.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> It was never about principles, or being cross-platform, or even for charity for me. Personally, I just wanted cool games for a low price. And this particular Humble Bundle delivers.

Three of the four games are ones that I very nearly purchased in the past, so I'm thrilled. This is a great deal for me!

</comment><comment><USER24> Interesting note. If you change the custom value to under $1 you get the following message:

"Warning! Please note that orders under $1.00 will ONLY receive the soundtracks and will NOT receive the games! "

This seems to go against the spirit of "pay what you want"? Not that $1.00 is really different from $0.01, but I'm pretty sure that for indy bundles before you could go as low as you wanted? I didn't think to try before though, I guess. Can anybody confirm?

<comment><USER25> You have _always_ had to pay at least a dollar to get Steam keys, no matter the bundle. I think it has something to do with Steam's requirements, but I don't know that.

<comment><AUTHOR> No, the first few bundles gave away keys for any price. They changed it during a bundle where this was a big problem with a contest that Steam was holding at the same time.

</comment></comment></comment><comment> brown9-2 The text says "Windows-only" but after I added the Steam keys on my Mac client, it seems to be downloading the games to my Mac just fine.

edit: After downloading the 9GB game the Mac Steam client just tells me that I cannot play it on my platform.

<comment><USER26> That's by design of Steam. You can still download games that are not supported on your platform that is running Steam. It's actually convenient as you can utilize faster connection other than where you play the game, and then export and haul the data on your thumb drive to be installed on the machine you play the game.

</comment></comment><comment><USER27> I thought the point of these bundles was to support indie game studios? Still, money goes to charity, decent set of games.. it just feels a bit incongruous.

<comment><AUTHOR> I have the feeling it's a last ditch effort from THQ to gain some goodwill. They are doing pretty bad financially and they probably hope this might help them going forward.

</comment></comment><comment><USER28> It's interesting that THQ stock is +20% since the bundle went live, in addition to about +20% earlier today, before the bundle. It's climbing sharply now.

<http://www.google.com/finance?q=NASDAQ%3ATHQI>

<comment><USER29> The reason for the stock climb is rumors of a buyout, not this bundle.

<comment><USER30> Wow 37%! Yeah I can't see that much share price increase coming from a "choose your own price" when the games have already been out for a while. Buyouts are typically the cause for ~10%+ increases I suppose?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER31> Warning about Metro 2033. It's actually a pretty good game with great atmosphere despite it's faults but there is a part quite near they end that is almost guaranteed to make you rage-quit even on easy skill settings.

Edit: Requires Steam and Windows. I though the biggest point of the bundle was proving the market for DRM free cross platform games? They may as well have just made this a steam sale.

<comment><USER32> _Warning about Metro 2033. It's actually a pretty good game with great atmosphere despite it's faults but there is a part quite near they end that is almost guaranteed to make you rage-quit even on easy skill settings._

Huh? I played Metro from start to finish over the space of about a week during the summer of last year and its a fantastic game. While it was quite difficult at times, I didn't find it so difficult that I would rage quit at any point.

<comment><USER31> I was referring to this part: <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X0BSa75Cw_s>

At about 1:40 in.

YMMV of course, I'm certainly not the best FPS player but I found this significantly more frustrating than any other point in the game by a large margin mainly because I kept losing because of a dumb NPC.

When I was googling around I found a lot of people frustrated by this part. I did most of the game on hard but struggled with this part on easy.

<comment><USER32> Ok, yeah, that bit was HARD

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> I have to admit, while desperate by THQ, this isn't a dumb move. Notice how they give away three games with sequels out or coming out and Saints Row 3 which has a ton of dlc. It seems like they are betting the bank on the new titles that are coming out. I hope this works for them because I like the titles produced by this company.

</comment><comment><USER33> Instead of complaining about the man and DRM, customize your purchase to give it all to charity. Have a nice day.

<comment><USER34> Your comment seems to presume that complaints are meant for venting dissatisfaction rather than encouraging HiB not to do this again.

<comment><USER33> With the amount of money being raised, I hope this encourages them to do it all the time.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER35> Well - look from the point of THQ - they are fighting for their life. Maybe they really don't have the resources for stripping DRM, let alone porting. So they are throwing steam keys around for promo purposes. But I would really like for the both companies to better communicate the reasons for the breaking of the bundle rules. And the bundle is amazing value anyway.

</comment><comment><USER36> This is in no way against the spirit of the bundles. The spirit of the bundles is that you pay however much you please, allocating how you choose between charities, devs and the humble crew.

Unfortunately the games THQ offers are only available on Steam, but that's the way it shakes. However you look at it, they are still sharing a high-quality selection of games that you don't have to pay them ANYTHING for. You can put 100% of your payment toward charity and THQ still happily gives you the games.

I don't see how that's against the spirit of the bundles.

</comment><comment><USER8> Why is THQ failing so hard? Is it simply because of how poorly the company was run for decades beginning with the Nintendo era where they foisted tons of licensed crap games on kids? I know I still kind of have negative associations with the THQ brand, even though I know for a fact that they've been releasing very good games for more than a decade now.

Is it just a matter of spending too much money on games like Saints Row that are huge money losers?

<comment><USER36> It's a shame if Saint's Row is losing them money. The Third one is actually pretty great. I thought it was a lot more fun than Grand Theft Auto 4.

</comment></comment><comment><USER28> With the bundle already at $1M, it could go up to $10M, which is the current THQ market capitalisation.

<http://www.google.com/finance?q=NASDAQ%3ATHQI>

So instead of purchasing some games, gamers could've purchased THQ, and released the games for free and without DRM.

<comment><USER37> what how god how do you think corporations work? do they have magic money trees?

we, in conglomerate, purchase THQ, give their games away for free and then what, fire all their developers, close all their studios and sell all the buildings, revelling in our destruction of the future of gaming so everyone can gave some games today for free?

there was much better discussion on this topic on reddit.

</comment></comment><comment><USER38> even if you give 100% to THQ, you're pretty much giving it all to charity, since they're not exactly business at the moment.

</comment><comment><USER39> Thq is getting desperate it seems. Really hoping they're able get their next wave of games out before they go under.

</comment><comment><USER40> Be aware that the key for saints row does not work when you are in Germany. Luckily, the humble bundle support is good and will help you out if you have problems, at least they helped me very fast :) It would be even nicer though if they would mention this on the official page.

<comment><USER41> support, which kind?

<comment><USER42> The Humble Bundle support:

[http://support.humblebundle.com/customer/portal/articles/867...](http://support.humblebundle.com/customer/portal/articles/867217-germany ---saints-row-the-third)

>We are aware of the issue going on with Saints Row: The Third Steam keys for German customers who purchased the bundle prior to 23:00 CET on November 29th.

>Please email us at email@example.com with your Transaction ID and the subject "Saints Row Steam Key", and we can get you a Steam key for the German version of Saint's Row: The Third.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER30> Interesting seeing the different comments in this thread and reddit: [http://www.reddit.com/r/gaming/comments/1405fo/the_humble_th...](http://www.reddit.com/r/gaming/comments/1405fo/the_humble_thq_bundle/)

</comment><comment><USER43> Shame I already own all but one of these games via three years of isolating any game purchases to Steam sales.

Still, I bought into this one for the soundtracks and put the majority to charity.

</comment><comment><USER44> They should call this the THQ bankruptcy bundle

</comment><comment><USER45> This really rubbed me the wrong way. It feels like they're taking advantage of my generosity.

<comment><USER8> Oh please, don't buy it then. I'm sure you can find another charity online you can send $5 to.

</comment></comment><comment><USER46> bought in less than a second, thanks to paypal

</comment><comment><USER47> Shit, they got me with the rick roll (short link end of video)</comment>


The π Filesystem for FUSE: Store Your Data in π - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/philipl/pifs <comment><AUTHOR> I found this really cool. I thought of this idea in college about 15 years ago, but more for compression, thinking that we could compress a file as tuples of Pi "coordinates"; and even did some tests, but of course with PIII and PIV processors it was unpractical.

As the processing power is increasing, at some point this might become a practical form of compression.</comment>


Internet Issues in the US - Possible Backbone Issue - <AUTHOR>

There seems to be an issue with Level 3 at the moment which is causing all sorts of sites to be unreachable for some people but not others.  Rackspace (mail, hosting, cloud, etc), Facebook, Hotmail, Github, Digital Ocean, etc.<p>For those experiencing connectivity issues, try a different ISP/network. For example, I can't connect to any of the above networks via my regular Time Warner cable connection or via my T-Mobile hotspot. But I can connect via my Verizon hotspot. <comment><USER2> We can confirm that there are large issues on Level3's network we've had to pull them from the routing mix until they get everything resolved and stabilized.

Thanks, Moisey cofounder DigitalOcean

</comment><comment><USER3> Too funny -- I diagnosed this to L3 on my home net this morning and I found myself saying "I wonder if anyone else has this issue?". When it comes to the backbone providers there is no Twitter account or status.level3.net or status.theinternet. Hard to do when everything is decentralized. I usually go hit NANOG when stuff like this happens but you're not guaranteed to find something real time there.

<comment><USER4> Out of curiosity, what do you do to diagnose something like this? What tools and commands?

<comment><USER5> [http://www.internetpulse.net/](http://www.internetpulse.net/) and [http://traceroute.org/](http://traceroute.org/) are two sites I used in addition to the usual unix tools like traceroute.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> According to Internet Pulse, the Level 3 issues seem to be solved as of 11:03am. Still showing a slow connection between AT&T to Cogent and AT&T to SBC. [http://www.internetpulse.net/](http://www.internetpulse.net/)

I am still unable to reach any of the above sites/networks via my Time Warner Cable connection, though.

</comment><comment><USER6> Usually the looking glass for each tier 1 provider will give you a good idea I can see [http://lookingglass.level3.net/](http://lookingglass.level3.net/) is down now.

[http://www.bgp4.as/looking-glasses](http://www.bgp4.as/looking-glasses)

</comment><comment><USER7> While most of these services have now been rerouted via Above Net etc, some ISPs such as Time Warner (in NY at least) still seem to be routing via Level3 and unable to get to a lot of destinations.

<comment><AUTHOR> Time Warner always seems slow to re-route. T-Mobile is having the same issue.

<comment><USER8> Because Time Warner sucks.

<comment><USER9> Confirm. Woke up this morning to limited connectivity, realised I was getting to some sites and not others. While on hold with TWC (where they said there was an 'outage affecting service in your area'), loaded HN to see if, well, HN would load, and this was the #3 story. Thanks HN, GFY TWC!

<comment><USER10> You just described my morning. Opened HN right after this:

      Tracing route to debian.org [184.108.40.206]
      over a maximum of 30 hops:

      1     2 ms     1 ms     1 ms  192.168.1.1
      2    42 ms    28 ms    28 ms  cpe-74-73-128-1.nyc.res.rr.com [188.8.131.52]
      3    14 ms    13 ms    12 ms  gig-0-2-0-3-nycmnya-rtr1.nyc.rr.com [188.8.131.52]
      4    12 ms    15 ms    15 ms  184.108.40.206
      5    17 ms    15 ms    15 ms  ae-3-0.cr0.nyc20.tbone.rr.com [22.214.171.124]
      6    13 ms    12 ms    15 ms  188.8.131.52
      7    15 ms    12 ms    13 ms  xe-4-2-0.edge4.frankfurt1.level3.net [188.8.131.52]
      8     *        *        *     Request timed out.
      9     *        *        *     Request timed out.
     10     *        *        *     Request timed out.

<comment><USER8> Time Warner asked me to give them the milliseconds of a working website traceroute, instead of the broken link to a non-working website! It's hilarious (and quite sad) how incompetent Time Warner is.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> I thought this is only associated with my routers "DNS Amplified DDoS vulnerability" on Asus RT-N56U router when using Level3 DNS "220.127.116.11 and 18.104.22.168" but after upgrading my firmware the issue continued. So I've changed my DNS to "126.96.36.199 and 184.108.40.206" google dns and everything started working normal for me. Good to know that this is not just me ^_^

</comment><comment><USER12> These issues have been around for at least a couple of weeks now. I too have been monitoring Internet Pulse and what I see is not only Level 3 puking on a regular basis but several of the other backbones also. Quite honestly, it's either a gross lack of competence or the feds are beginning to condition the net as they are in the military. ~Ginn

<comment><USER13> We lost telecom for almost all of Thursday and our provider told us there was a major metro fiber cut somewhere. Related?

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> I have to remember to check HN before driving in to work when a bunch of people call me about outages.

</comment><comment><USER15> Isn't there a website that shows a giant table of all the Tier 1 providers and the current ping latency and packet loss between them? I've been unable to find this again... does anyone have a link?

<comment><USER16> [http://www.internetpulse.net/](http://www.internetpulse.net/)

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> Level3 is in the midst of grooming/updating/changing some of their fiber connections.

One Level3 DC I have servers in, was served out of Baltimore, MD ; but in the last few weeks they changed it to be served out of NYC. By "served" I mean that the actual huge-Cisco that the fiber terminated to, was in Baltimore.

Very glad to have moved out of Level3, actually :)

</comment><comment><USER18> This [http://www.internetpulse.net/](http://www.internetpulse.net/) is always a handy tool to get an internet-wide picture.

</comment><comment><USER19> My dedicated server went on to serving data as dialup modem speed and provider said it was optic fiber issues on their end. That seemed to be fixed later on.

</comment><comment><USER20> what is a level 3?

<comment><USER21> [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Level_3_Communications](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Level_3_Communications)

</comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> As of 1pm EDT, I can now reach Rackspace, Facebook, Hotmail, Github, Digital Ocean, etc.

</comment><comment><USER22> We're beginning to see sites come back up on our TWC connection.

</comment><comment><USER23> Maybe NSA filter overload?

<comment><USER24> NSA updating firmwares.

</comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> 11 out of 37 routers down as of 11am EDT. [http://www.internettrafficreport.com/namerica.htm](http://www.internettrafficreport.com/namerica.htm)

<comment><USER25> Are they typically all up?

<comment><AUTHOR> Nope. But that seemed like a few more than normal to me. I might be wrong about that, though.</comment></comment></comment>


In unexpected discovery, comet contains alcohol, sugar - <AUTHOR> http://phys.org/news/2015-10-unexpected-discovery-comet-alcohol-sugar.html <comment><USER2> The factor that the Comet Lovejoy contains ethyl alcohol and a simple saccharide is not unexpected; this paper does however mark the first identification of these organic molecules in a comet. Astronomers have previously detected both of these, along with plenty of other complex organic molecules, in other regions of the Milky Way (e.g., [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_interstellar_and_circu...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_interstellar_and_circumstellar_molecules)).

</comment><comment><USER3> This could be a real shot in the arm for the Russian space program

<comment><USER4> What do you mean?

<comment><USER5> It's a joke at Russians' expense, due to association of Russia and vodka in popular stereotypes. :/

<comment><USER6> Alas, Russians really do drink themselves to death. See [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alcohol_consumption_in_Russia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alcohol_consumption_in_Russia)

<comment><USER4> Yep, the dissolution of the Soviet Union and the "democratic" chaos that followed was indeed a catastrophe.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> If anyone is familiar with the X game series (space flight simulators ala Elite), they had an illegal alcoholic substance called "Space Fuel" that you could make a lot of money running as a smuggler. This reminded me of that.

</comment><comment><USER8> So candy and booze, sounds like a wild ride. ;-)

</comment><comment><USER9> Sweet, now I can get drunk while I clean my toilet

</comment><comment><USER10> I can't take this site seriously with the ad content.

<comment><USER11> [https://github.com/gorhill/uBlock](https://github.com/gorhill/uBlock)

<comment><USER12> I hope anyone blocking ads decides to register, or unblock ads. They have a helpful banner that pops up when you visit the site using an ad blocker, that directs you to a page[1] that very nicely explains that while they appreciate your cjoice, they use ads to fund the site, and provide a couple alternative ways to help them. One of those is to register, which they say allows browsing with less ads (I'm not sure if the implication is you'll register and then turn off the ad-blocker, but it seems to me to be clearly offered as an _alternative_ ).

In any case, they've very clearly set expectations.

1: [http://phys.org/help/adblock/](http://phys.org/help/adblock/)

<comment><USER13> > a helpful banner that pops up

said no one ever

<comment><USER12> Well _I_ said it. They put a 35 pixel notice at the top saying that you appear to be using an ad-blocker if you are, and give you the option to click to see what they think about it. I fail to see how they could make their thoughts obvious to those using ad-blocking in a less obtrusive manner.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> The first thing that came to mind when I read that headline was we could maybe save a couple bucks making homemade toilet cleaner.

<comment><USER15> I thought ice cream.

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> Woo-hoo! Party at Comet Lovejoy tonight!!! Who's with me? (Go to the Alley Door on the Comet, you'll see the bouncers at the top of the stairs. Dress warm, it's chilly inside)</comment>


How Hard Could It Be?: Good System, Bad System - <AUTHOR> http://www.inc.com/magazine/20080801/how-hard-could-it-be-good-system-bad-system.html

<comment><USER2> Whatever Joel (and the Starbucks employees mentioned) might think, the "expediters" do actually speed things up. Asking people what they want BEFORE they get to the head of the line means that by the time they arrive they've figured out what they want -- rather than weighing their options at the one point when they are in the critical path.

<comment><USER3> This is the sort of intersting thing I come to HN to read.

(Although "We can't give it to you here" still seems kinda dickish)

<comment><USER4> Process trolls can infect any organization...

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> "Personally, I was so offended by that expediter that I'm now getting my coffee at the Starbucks on 60th Street. The 58th Street branch can take a flying leap for all I care."

Hum... "Fuck you Starbucks, I'm so offended I'll go at ANOTHER of your branches! That will teach you."

<comment><USER6> Yeah, sarcasm is cool.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> I wonder if it wouldn't be better to simply have a pre-ordering system, especially during peak times. (That is, before you enter the store)

<comment><USER8> I really like the system at Wawa: there are many touch screens. You enter your order and then take a printed receipt to the register, pay, get stamped, and get a copy. Then you trade your "PAID" stamped receipt for your sandwich when they call your number. Super fast and easy, never a line for the screens, and you can browse the rest of the store while you wait.</comment></comment>


The Fallacy of the Free Market (Book Review by James Kwak) - <AUTHOR> https://washingtonmonthly.com/2018/04/05/the-fallacy-of-the-free-market/ <comment><USER2> I think there's too much talk about regulation and not enough about market structure. We can find examples of central planned economies that were succesful and ones that were abject failures, ditto for laisez-faire. There's different metrics that are almost never touched upon in these discussions. For example bio-diversity of companies, cross-sector cooperation and integration, logistics networks, culture of knowledge sharing and innovation, geographical clustering, political stability, how the financial layer is constructed and integrated, worker satisfaction, ecological footprint, etc... All those things can be self-organized or directed, but most discussions seem to be ideological boxing matches between the superiority of the method rather than the virtues of the structural makeup they're supposed to achieve.</comment>


What do you do while it compiles? - <AUTHOR> You're working on your project and iterating on, for instance, UI fixes. Compiling and launching your project takes 20 seconds. What do you do during these 20 seconds? (eg. read the news, Twitter, …) Do you feel it affects your focus? <comment><USER2> 20-40 seconds? That's not enough time for a full context switch.

Take an eye break (look at something more than 20 feet away). Stand and stretch your back. Do a few desk-friendly stretches or exercises (curls, squats). Go to the kitchen for a beverage refill.

Somewhere around the 5 min mark for a wait it becomes time to check email, etc.

<comment><AUTHOR> It's not enough for a full context switch but if you start opening your email, you might stay there longer than the 20-40 seconds and become a full context switch.

Eye break is a great idea.

<comment><USER2> Exactly

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> I like to use Focus ([https://heyfocus.com/](https://heyfocus.com/)) on the Mac to prevent myself from actually doing these context switches.

</comment><comment><USER4> Wow, old days, working with clipper, it took between 15 and 40 minutes. We went to the bar and hoped the compiler didnt break the moment we entered the bar.</comment>