Aging, mediocre programmer seeks wise fellow programmers/technical folks - <AUTHOR> Very soon ageism will catch up with me and I'll be unemployed. I'm smart enough to do most business related software development but mediocre  enough that I won't be hired by the likes of Google. As they say, most technical work or any work that requires deep focused thinking is a race to the bottom. I see great potential if programmers/technical folks  are willing to put aside their overly individualist and reclusive tendencies, and start realistically co-operating. I'll like to get in touch with fellow programmers who have realized this.  And want to hash out ideas for any mutual co-operation. I have nothing concrete in mind yet, but I can be reasonably sure that I'm not looking for software related ideas.<p>A starting point could be some online forum where ideas can be exchanged. <comment><USER2> I am 47 and on disability. I became disabled in 2003 and I get mentally ill in 2001. Had a hard time finding work after I became mentally ill. Also I was old, and ageism came into play as well. When I applied for jobs I was told I was overqualified. That is if they bothered to reply back at all.

I think when you get older in IT and you don't make it into management positions, it is harder to find work. Most companies want recent college graduates because they earn a lower salary and they have all of the latest theories still fresh in their minds.

<comment><USER3> Did you try to get into consulting? If yes, how did it go?

<comment><USER2> I could not find any clients who would take me. I ended up on disability because I could not find work. I had to in order to avoid going homeless with my family. Disability makes enough for a house payment and then live on what my wife earns.

The software consulting market is very hard to get into, and once into it hard to find clients. Esp if one is mentally ill and cannot hide it.

<comment><USER3> Try upwork.com. I don't think it's mandatory to disclose your mental illness there, is it?

<comment><USER2> Upwork.com and other sites are in favor of the client, who can refuse to pay or reverse the credit card charge. I'd read horror stories about those freelance sites on Reddit where most clients don't pay or use a refund to get free work.

Plus you have to compete with people in a third world nation who work for under minimum wage and can under bid you.

I tried some freelance sites and they even charge you fees to bid on projects.

<comment><USER3> Basically the idea is to get some recent work into your portfolio, and by the time you've completed the fifth React website of the year, upwork and good hourly rate be damned, you'd have a much easier time to find a good paying gig.

I worked my way up from $25 to $100 per hour in about a year doing this. Take up low quality gigs, and then use them as a springboard to jump onto less lower quality gigs. Rinse and repeat until you're doing the kind of gigs you'd like to do.

Life is full of horrors, we can live it or stay at home. It's our choice.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> I believe you're overestimating what it takes to get a job at Google (or Facebook or whatever other company you might be thinking of).

As someone who's approaching middle-age and has done a wide variety of interviews, it's my experience that large companies like Google have less age discrimination than trendy startups. If you don't want to work at Google because you don't think it's a good fit, I think that's a totally valid reason. But if you don't think you can get a job there because you're too mediocre at actual programming, I think you're simply wrong. For all I know, you actually are a mediocre programmer. That doesn't matter.

It's not possible to be too mediocre a developer to get a job at Google because the interview process doesn't measure how good a developer you are. It is possible to be too mediocre at whiteboarding algorithms and answering the brand of design questions they ask, but those are learnable skills.

</comment><comment><USER5> "most technical work or any work that requires deep focused thinking is a race to the bottom" \- how is this true?

<comment> J-dawg Developers being treated as a cost centre rather than an essential part of the business. To be streamlined and offshored wherever possible.

This attitude is widespread in the corporation I work for. Race to the bottom is an apt description, in my opinion. (I am not the OP)

<comment><USER6> I've seen this more and more (not that I've been /too/ many times around the block...): the engineering team viewed just as a machine that is turned on and off when required by sales and marketing.

Sales sold a new product that doesn't integrate in to billing/deployment/support processes? Just get Dev to make it work.

Marketing wants to redesign the corporate website? Fine, just jot down a todo item "talk to dev about changing a few things on website"

Perhaps twas ever thus though?

<comment> J-dawg This attitude is standard in the UK. The comment from dfraser992 in this thread explains it well, I think.

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10987237](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10987237)

I'm starting to realise that the only way to make decent money as a developer in the UK is through contracting.

<comment><USER6> Regarding dfraser992's comment, I think it's broadly true. I've worked at companies started by people with rich parents/family and every single day they work to keep that class divide between you and them. They're so crass about their wealth and rub it in your face daily.

HR will wax lyrical about professional development but in reality the owners want to keep people down and wages suppressed. It's infuriating. From my circle of friends, there seems to be a glass ceiling of about £60k ($5k/mo take home) in full time salary jobs, outside of management and London finance tech jobs.

<comment> J-dawg This is also why we get those bullshit articles about the "shortage" of web developers or STEM graduates or "coders" or whatever the media buzzword du jour is. The only shortage is of people willing to work for below-market rates.

It's also why the UK will never have a tech scene anything like the USA.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> I don't see this being the case in bigger companies in the uk e.g. government, health, utilities, finance. It will definitely help if you have some business specific knowledge too. Try to match this to where you live I'm in the Midlands and there are a lot of utilities and retail companies who can't get enough people, same with banking and finance in London.

</comment><comment><USER8> That's tough that you feel that technical work is a race to the bottom. Do you feel like you're falling behind?

</comment><comment><USER9> >As they say, most technical work or any work that requires deep focused thinking is a race to the bottom

Wtf is this? Are you trolling? Is this why folks are pulling in 250k or more as engineers?</comment>


Soviet books design - <AUTHOR> https://sovietbooks.wordpress.com/category/design/

<comment><USER2> This one reminds me of SkiFree [http://sovietbooks.files.wordpress.com/2009/11/baikal- meridi...](http://sovietbooks.files.wordpress.com/2009/11/baikal- meridian.jpg?w=449&h=696)

</comment><comment><USER3> I'm probably missing something obvious, but why are all the titles in English?

Edit-- It wasn't too obvious, but I've answered my own question: these are "Books published in the Soviet Union in English for export to the English speaking world."

</comment><comment><USER4> Does anyone know what the copyright status would be on these designs? Some of them would make excellent T-shirts

<comment><USER5> According to Wikipedia:

"With the accession of Russia to the Berne Convention, Soviet and Russian works that were copyrighted in Russia in 1995 became copyrighted outside of Russia.[147] By virtue of the retroactivity of the Russian copyright law of 1993, this also included many pre-1973 Soviet works.[173] In the United States, these works became copyrighted on January 1, 1996, the effective date of the U.S. Uruguay Round Agreements Act, if they were still copyrighted in Russia on that date.[174][175] In the countries that had bilateral treaties with the USSR, pre-1973 Soviet works (from any of the fifteen SSRs) were copyrighted even before.[126]"

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

As members of the Berne Convention, copyright term in Russia had to be at least 50 years. Russia's 1993 copyright law

"...specified a copyright term of fifty years, applicable to all kinds of works. Works of known authors were copyrighted until 50 years after the author's death (50 years p.m.a.).[83] Anonymous or pseudonymous works were copyrighted until fifty years after the first publication, unless the identity of the author became known during that time and the term of 50 years p.m.a. thus applied."

In 2004, Russia passed an extension, similar to the 1998 Copyright Extension Act in the US, lengthening the term of Russian copyright, for works still in copyright at the time, from 50 to 70 years.

For the most part, just given a quick look and using only the summary on the Wiki page, it looks like they are still under copyright.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> Crashes safari on my iPad

<comment><USER2> Apple's Bug Reporter: <https://bugreport.apple.com/>

iPad Support: <http://www.apple.com/support/ipad/>

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> Out of pure curiosity, how is this in any way related to start-ups or technology?

<comment><USER8> It gratifies my intellectual curiosity. See <http://ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html></comment></comment>


Script for getting the real content on posts page - <AUTHOR> http://getpagecontent.com/

<comment><AUTHOR> Sources [https://github.com/mihailShumilov/readability](https://github.com/mihailShumilov/readability)</comment>


The True Colors of America's Political Spectrum Are Gray and Green - <AUTHOR> https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2020/09/02/upshot/america-political-spectrum.html <comment><USER2> Correlation isn't causation.

This doesn't explain northern Arizona and New Mexico going Democrat, and nearby Nevada and Utah go Republican, but all are similarly colored desert. Forested New England votes Democrat, too, but this article asserts green landscapes vote Republican.</comment>


Rust bare metal on ARM microcontroller - <AUTHOR> http://antoinealb.net/programming/2015/05/01/rust-on-arm-microcontroller.html <comment><USER2> We've been actively working on stabilizing #![no_std], as well as making cross-compilation easier. In the future, ideally, you'll just need

        $ cargo build --target thumbv7em-none-eabi

instead of

        $ rustc -C opt-level=2 -Z no-landing-pads --target thumbv7em-none-eabi -g --emit obj -L libcore-thumbv7m -o runtime.o runtime.rs

or other shenanigans. You can run that Cargo command right now, but you still need to do a little bit of work first.

<comment><USER3> Nice! Any pointer to a documentation / wiki explaining how to use it ?

<comment><USER2> "it" being --target? [https://github.com/rust- lang/rfcs/blob/master/text/0131-targ...](https://github.com/rust- lang/rfcs/blob/master/text/0131-target-specification.md) is the original RFC. Off the top of my head, I think that's it for now. Since cross compilation is getting easier in the future, I haven't invested a lot of time into writing docs now.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Very nice. When this gets cleaned up, and Rust stabilizes a bit more, it should be promoted for the Arduino Due. The Due is a minimal ARM machine, a step up from the Atmel CPUs but well below the level required to run Linux.

Safety at the Rust level is very valuable in embedded work. Debugging small embedded machines is not fun.

<comment><USER5> I agree. I wonder though - why all the rust projects go bare metal, instead of integrating a c based RTOS using rustbingen ? Seems like the fastest way to get cross-platform, which is key for many developers - and speed rust's adoption - making bare metal much easier.

<comment><USER6> A C based rtos inherits all the difficulties present in C. Ideally Rust is interesting, to me, as an ideal language to write the RTOS itself in. Once you get through the low level details, writing a (simple) schedule system is not hard and would be more flexible due to the better types safety in Rust. Also C is difficult for DSLs, Rust should be better. That's the dream at least.

<comment><USER5> >> A C based rtos inherits all the difficulties present in C.

Can you please expand on that, especially assuming(a big assumption) that the c code you're interfacing is high quality , with rare bugs ?

<comment><USER3> Even assuming the existing code is high quality, there is still a lot of problems with pointer ownership and type checking which Rust removes.

Personally I think the best way is to wrap existing C code into higher level, safer Rust APIs.

<comment><USER6> Exactly, even the most disciplined code base will have errors. Rust type system "automates" the process that many well designed C code bases will do by convention (e.g. borrowing and keeping ownership localised).

While wrapping C libraries in safer Rust APIs is useful for many application, having something as fundamental as time-sharing, task interruption, etc would be much better if written in Rust and care is taken to define simple semantics for the system (e.g. like the recent HN post regarding state-machine based asynchronous IO in Rust).

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Rust does look promising for embedded applications. Ideally, I'd like to be able to use it to program Pebble applications. I managed to get a simple executable written in rust to write to the screen a few months ago, but haven't been able to get even slightly more complex things to work. Hopefully the hard work of rust devs will make this easier in the future.

<comment><USER8> How would they make it easier?

<comment><USER7> Erm, see steveklabnik's comment on this story. It is sort of a complex process right now in that you have to build libcore yourself and then try to link everything together (for me, that mostly involves trying something and then crossing my fingers, because my knowledge of that level of tooling is limited). I've heard several times that rust devs are hoping to make cross compilation easier.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> This is going to be interesting. Rust on top of rumprun bare-metal unikernel [https://twitter.com/gandro23/status/645734117699624960](https://twitter.com/gandro23/status/645734117699624960)</comment>


Why don't people use enum in Python? - cool-RR http://blog.garlicsim.org/post/6388800336/why-dont-people-use-enum-in-python

<comment><AUTHOR> Declaring that you've never programmed in Java, then cherry-picking a type from the language and asking why Python doesn't have it, is quite ironic, given the vast differences in typing between the two languages.

<comment> cool-RR I really don't understand your point. I'm happy to learn things from Java and apply them in Python despite the fact that I never programmed Java.

Regarding the differences in typing between Java and Python: Despite of these differences, `flufl.enum` _does_ work in Python, so I don't see how these differences are relevant.

<comment><AUTHOR> flufl.enum attempts to _reject PEP 354, ... [and] defines an alternative syntax and semantics._

PEP 354 was a proposal to add enums to the language, stating:

 _The properties of an enumeration are useful for defining an immutable, related set of constant values that have a defined sequence but no inherent semantic meaning._

I'm sure someone raised this question while the PEP was being debated: If you are looking for an immutable, related set of (though not immutable or constant) values, you should look no further than the list object.

In fact, most of the PEP could be run through a find and replace, with enum being replaced by lists, or sets, or other types that have attributes from the Sequence abstract base class.

But anyway, that's just a few Python specific things I could think off the top of my head.

My central argument revolves around the differences between Java and Python, and how I've seen enums used. The Java programming language is statically typed, and it is useful to have a basic type that can contain a value, from a set of immutable values. It helps catch any obvious errors, at compile time. For example, using a value which is not part of the enum definition.

Python, being a dynamic language, doesn't have the notion of a compile-time type check.

>I'm happy to learn things from Java and apply them in Python despite the fact that I never programmed Java.

Well, that's a statement that is sure to cause a few eyebrows to be raised.</comment></comment></comment>


With single gene insertion, blind mice regain sight - <AUTHOR> https://medicalxpress.com/news/2019-03-gene-insertion-mice-regain-sight.html <comment><USER2> This is a pretty big deal. Vision has proved to be one of the more difficult areas to treat and affects a huge number of people. As developers, we're also more likely to have eye issues. Laser treatments have not been very helpful for macular degeneration and side effects are common and can be just as damaging, so ophthalmologists have stopped doing them except to halt the most aggressive cases.

I think we should fund more research like this, as well as technological solutions.

<comment><USER3> "As developers, we're also more likely to have eye issues."

What leads you to believe this?

<comment><USER2> [https://www.thevisioncouncil.org/content/digital-eye- strain](https://www.thevisioncouncil.org/content/digital-eye-strain)

[https://www.aoa.org/patients-and-public/eye-and-vision- probl...](https://www.aoa.org/patients-and-public/eye-and-vision- problems/glossary-of-eye-and-vision-conditions/myopia)

etc.

There have been several studies linking myopia and other eye issues to close work, digital eye strain, dry eyes, etc. I leave it to you to find them on your own via google.

<comment><USER4> Well, NIH posts some supporting evidence here ([https://nei.nih.gov/health/errors/myopia](https://nei.nih.gov/health/errors/myopia)), but they seem pretty constrained to people within a critical opthalmic development window.

> I leave it to you to find them on your own via google.

Considering you made the assertion, is it really a stretch to do the heavy lifting yourself? For all you know, the person who asked for your specific insight ("What leads you to believe this?") tried and failed to find anything within the software engineering realm which could account for an increase in eye issues.

The closest I could find among the links you provided are:

> People who do an excessive amount of near-vision work may experience a false > or "pseudo" myopia. Their blurred distance vision is caused by overuse of > the eyes' focusing mechanism. After long periods of near work, their eyes > are unable to refocus to see clearly in the distance. Clear distance vision > usually returns after resting the eyes. However, constant visual stress may > lead to a permanent reduction in distance vision over time.

But no studies are referenced. I'm unable to find anything specifically, and I'm the second person asking you. It'd be neat to know what you read which specifically substantiated the long-term effects of near-space work on the eyes.

<comment><USER5> Muscle strain is caused by keeping a static load on a muscle for a while without enough breaks to relax and recover.

Both focusing and convergence of the eyes require muscle contraction, and can lead to eye strain.

Moving work a bit further from the eyes and lower in the field of vision will reduce the amount of muscle contraction needed. Periodically focusing on more distant objects will help relax those muscles. For people working at a computer workstation, it is usually possible to arrange the computer display 3+ feet away from the eyes, and in the bottom half of the field of view. Periodically looking away from the display while thinking and remembering to get up and stretch/walk around every once in a while can make a big difference for anyone experiencing eye strain.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Well that ruins the nursery rhyme.

<comment><USER7> 3 blind mice. 3 blind mice. We went to school and studied real hard. We got some grants and worked even more. We did some research and spliced their genes now 2 blind mice, 2 blind mice.

Hey, its still catchy.

</comment></comment><comment> xkcd-sucks Yep, that's how a knockout rescue experiment works

<comment><USER8> Could you elaborate for a bio know-nothing like me? It comes across as a very dismissive comment when one of the scientists is quoted saying:

"You would inject this virus into a person's eye and, a couple months later, they'd be seeing something,"

Seems like a pretty big deal to me?

<comment><USER9> It's the bio-equivalent of saying "By restoring a single file, the webcam started working again!"

In this case the vector for restoring the knocked out gene happens to be a virus.

<comment><USER10> Incorrect. Please see my response to gus_massa above.

<comment><USER9> No, this is correct. They've identified 2 known corrupted 'files', and by restoring them from 'backup' they were able to restore functionality. What is cool/notable is that the restore method worked on a running device, and they didn't even need to 'reboot' for the fix to take effect.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


New zine: HTTP: Learn your browser's language - <AUTHOR> https://jvns.ca/blog/2019/09/12/new-zine-on-http/ <comment><USER2> I like this. I just wish it was available as a pdf instead of the dead tree version.

<comment><USER3> I think it's actually _only_ available as a PDF!

<comment><USER2> Oh yeah, you're right. I just looked at the pictures of her holding the printed out books and assumed that was what you got. My bad!

<comment><USER4> Yeah you can print it out as a small magazine, it's pretty nifty. Zachtronics games had a couple for the game Exapunks. It's pretty sweet! But yeah if that's not your thing she has a PDF computer-friendly version available.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> wow! this website looks so refreshingly ... 2010? somehow</comment>


Loopt Has Become a hook-up Application - <AUTHOR> http://dailytechtalk.com/2008/09/loopt-has-become-a-hookup-application/

<comment><USER2> So by JWZ's maxim they are really poised to succeed.

<http://www.jwz.org/doc/groupware.html>

</comment><comment><USER3> I'm surprised that the author didn't censor the faces of the Loopt users or at least the person who messaged him. People opt-in to the service but do they give away all their rights to privacy? Do people who opt-in agree not to publish the photos of other users?

<comment><USER4> If you push a piece of information into the public sphere, it's public information. The only way it would be private is if they made every Loopt user sign an NDA, or something similar, about never disclosing anything they see while using the service.

<comment><USER5> Sure, it's probably legal, but people need to make their own judgments on what should be kept private and what not. It's still a jerk thing to do.

<comment><USER6> And messaging complete strangers trying to get laid isn't?

<comment><USER7> Sorry axod, they're right.

You should have a full expectation of nothing but the highest level of privacy when you are on a service that GPS tracks you wherever you go and allows you to publicly view everyone in a given radius. Not only that, but you should also expect these strangers to be absolutely discreet when you proceed to brashly proposition your entire radius for sex.

Let's also take this online example to a similar public gathering in a small radius -- a party, where you proceed to ask roughly half the people at the party to hook-up later that night. You would definitely expect every individual to maintain the highest level of confidentiality in that scenario.

<comment><USER8> Disagree. You might hope that those individuals maintain the highest level of confidentiality, but you've got to realize when you start asking that many people, some of them are bound to start talking.

<comment><USER9> Need to increase the sensitivity on your sarcasm detector just a tad.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> "Has become"?? When _wasn't_ it a hookup application?

It's as if the writer is surprised that a location-aware gender-specific social software (with pictures!) would be used to find dates.

Um. How long have you been with this species? You know "hook up" is like, most of what we _do_ , right? Humans make bunnies look prude by comparison.

<comment><USER11> It's maybe much of what men try to do anyway. Still I never would have expected that Loopt was mainly about gay hookups.

<comment><USER10> Well, maybe the author was just in a predominantly gay neighborhood.

My point is, if Loopt is about meeting local strangers... I mean... it seems like "hook-up application" is logically the most common use of that technology.

Can't you set Loopt to only show you your friends, though? (I don't use it because my phone doesnt' support it, and I'm too cheap to upgrade before I'm due for a discount, but I've seen it demoed a few times, looks interesting.)

<comment><USER11> I've never used Loopt. I thought it existed to tell you when people you knew were nearby.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> If only there were as many horny single straight women as there are horny single gay men.

<comment><USER11> Women are genetically predisposed to take hooking up a lot more seriously than we do. I'll spare you all the evolutionary psychology behind it, but suffice it to say that gay men operate just like straight men in that regard, but even if there were a million women on Loopt they wouldn't be doing that.

<comment><USER13> Matt, buddy.. If that's what you need to tell yourself ;-)

<comment><USER11> Ha, classic. I'm married though, so I need to tell myself a lot more than that.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> This almost makes me revise my deadpool opinion of Loopt. One of Zawinski's Laws was, "The secret to a successful social app: get people laid." They might have a slightly larger market if it was het, but they're well on their way...

<comment><USER15> You both can and can't control what your users decide to do with your application. After the community starts developing, though, your users can and most certainly do decide what YOU do with your application.

Hypothetically suppose, for the sake of argument, that the active Loopt community is currently gay men seeking companionship. If that is true, then Loopt is essentially doomed to use for any other purpose unless they excommunicate their current community and start over. If they try to rebrand themselves as, I don't know, Loopt: THE Place To Be For Tech-Savvy Entrepreneurs, then someone joining the non-existent "new" community will get contacted by the "old" community and, well, that's all she wrote for that user. Repeat for every user in the "new" community.

Similar examples of capture-by-community : Orkut _can't_ be a global social network. Youtube _can't_ have intelligent comments. Digg _can't_ ever appeal to an older, femaler audience. Star Wars Galaxy _can't_ be WoW, though they wanted to be (and promptly excommunicated both their old and new communities). etc, etc

<comment><USER5> Nah. Disco became mainstream, yet launched from gay clubs, which are in fact hookup-applications. There are quite a few other examples. Apparently these things do cross over.

<comment><USER15> "Have faith, Loopt, if your idea goes big somebody else will be around to capitalize on it!" does not strike me as something which would warm the heart of an investor.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> ... and Plenty of Fish is a Hookup site. This can't be bad.

<comment><USER14> FaceBook too, and HotOrNot. This seems to be a universally encouraging development...

<comment><USER17> Perhaps I've interpreted your comment incorrectly, but I would hardly consider the fact that a preponderance of social networks eventually devolve into "hook-up sites" to be "encouraging". It may be a reflection of society, but I imagine some of those places could have more productive uses. Certainly not HotOrNot, but Loopt?

<comment><USER14> Encouraging for Loopt. Not really for the rest of us, unless you're seeking a gay hookup on Boost, Verizon, or the iPhone...

<comment><USER17> I suppose, if they can find a way to monetize anonymous gay hook-ups.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Of course the other explanation is that these are simply "sexbots" - The same bots that IM every single person who ever logs on to Yahoo Messenger with something like "Hey wanna see my webcam? I'm free tonight _wink_ "

</comment><comment><USER18> so why doesn't loopt just tweak the code a little and give the user an option to ban all the m4m from showing up on your list? (I mean for those random messages, not your friend's list)

</comment><comment><USER19> Why the capital on "Hookup"? I only read the piece because I thought it was an acquisition or "Hookup" was a new framework Loopt had switched to :)</comment>


Ask HN: When was the last time you completely shutdown your laptop? - <AUTHOR> I just thought about it today, and realized I haven't actually shutdown my laptop for a very long time. I have a MacBook Pro and just close the screen; it's quicker, and I can get back to work in less time. I just wanted to see if I was the only one or if some of you do the same. <comment><USER2> Last night.

The boot time is usually 12 seconds maximum, and it doesn't take any longer than ~20 seconds for my work to load up (depending on what I'm doing, most of my work loads up pretty much instantly). I don't really miss the few extra seconds it takes.

</comment><comment><USER3> At night I suspend by closing the screen.

In the morning when I leave (the laptop stays home) I hibernate, which copies memory to disk, encrypts the whole disk and then shuts the power down. When I come home I power up, entering my long-ass encryption password, then wait half a minute and enter my shorter login password.

I hibernate so that if someone breaks in, all they get is the laptop, not the data. I don't worry about the NSA [hi guys], they already have the data, or they can beat it out of me if they care.

I think if I regularly carried my laptop during the day I'd hibernate rather than just suspend, because some day the laptop will walk away.

<comment><USER4> Windows I assume? I believe since Lion, OSX encrypts the disk encryption keys with your password whenever the screen is locked.

<comment><USER3> Ubuntu

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Every time I'm about to go through custom's X-ray machines. I'm not sure why, maybe just coincidence, twice my previous Dell XPS stopped working after going through airport xray while in sleep mode.

</comment><comment><USER6> I never shut it down. Sometimes it crashes, or it may happen the battery goes flat, and it has to reboot, but otherwise, it's always on or sleeping.

</comment><comment><USER7> In the several months I've owned my MBA, barring battery death and update- related reboots, never. Not once have I willingly shut my computer down without intent to immediately fire it back up. I just close it, for the same reasons as OP.

</comment><comment><USER8> My Dell Windows 7 laptop, every 2 - 3 days, grimacing as I do. I don't reboot my Macbook until I get nagged enough that an update requires a reboot, which seems to happen a lot more often on Mountain Lion than it did on Snow Leopard.

</comment><comment><USER9> Was having problems with the Postgres install from Homebrew. Finally kicked it away and rebooted to have more of a fresh start. So last week.

</comment><comment><USER10> Prolly a month or so ago when I went away for a weekend and didn't bring my laptop. I do the same, just close the screen to my MBP.

</comment><comment><USER11> A week. I probably average 2-3 weeks. I almost never shut it down though but it will crash or need a reboot for a patch.

</comment><comment><USER12> If some updates did not require a reboot, it would probably happen once a year when a hard crash occurs on my MBP.

</comment><comment><USER13> I don't remember. I reboot it once a while, but I seem to never shut it down.

</comment><comment><USER14> I shut it down every night.

<comment><USER15> Why?

<comment><USER14> It's right next to me in my dorm, and turning it off creates less light pollution when i'm trying to sleep.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> 1.5 months ago. MacBook Pro running osx,win 7 and linux simultaneously.</comment>


My experiences as a Recruiter on Hacker News  - <AUTHOR> http://voltsteve.blogspot.com/2011/07/my-experiences-as-recruiter-on-hacker.html?spref=tw <comment><USER2> _I don't want an apology on behalf of the very angry minority, not even close._

You may not want one, but you deserve one.

It's sad to see that even without the visibility of the mob amplifying itself in public, you still get a private lynching of sorts... Perhaps the same people who sent those emails can come out of the woodwork now and apologise. That'd be big of them.

<comment><AUTHOR> _You may not want one, but you deserve one._

Feel free to buy me a pint on behalf of the community at the next HN London meet-up. ;)

<comment><USER3> hopefully not a Peroni. Italian import piss ;-)

en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peroni_Brewery

<comment><AUTHOR> That's the one! Love the stuff. Trust me, I'm Irish.

<comment><USER4> If you're ever in Boston, i'll buy you a pint at the Cambridge Brewing Company. Way better than Peroni ;)

<comment><AUTHOR> Deal. I always wanted to go to Boston.

<comment><USER5> I actually tried Peroni beer today just because of this thread. I gotta say it's not bad at all. But if you're ever in LA, I'll match the beer offer :)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> How I deal with recruiters:

If they need understanding of the technology, I will gladly help them with that.

If they need understanding the domain knowledge, I will gladly help them with that.

If they need understanding of interpersonal, organizational, or "soft" issues, I will gladly help them with that.

If they want referrals, I will usually do what I can.

If they don't call back or follow up, I will eliminate them.

If they are ever dishonest in any way, shape, or form, I will eliminate them and tell everyone I know.

For a recruiter, brutal honesty can overcome any perceived weakness and enable others (even us hackers) to be on their side.

Steve, thanks for your brutal honesty here at hn. That's the best we could hope for and should be a model for any other recruiters lurking here. Respect.

<comment><USER7> I think that honesty is a two-way street, especially in this scenario, and too many developers wind up holding a recruiter over a fire for what the developer perceives as a dishonest/snake oil salesman approach when they themselves are often inflating the truth either on their resume or when talking about previous accomplishments (I was guilty of this early in my career as well).

Now I do my part to be honest, and I look for the same in any recruiter I come across. I'll echo Ed's sentiment in saying thanks and it's nice to read about recruiters who have a passion for the industry and the people in it and not just a passion for making the sale.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> 1\. Unfortunately, one of the consequences of anonymity is that it allows people to not be responsible for their actions. That's endemic to any anonymous forum; the only thing that varies is the level and amount of abuse. Anonymity has its advantages, but this is an inescapable disadvantage.

2\. People's reading comprehension aren't perfect, or even all that great. People -- myself included -- often seem to miss points being made in discussions and subsequently leap to conclusions that are usually a result of some combination of their own mood, biases, and prejudices.

3\. I personally don't see anything wrong with you doing recruiting work here -- _so long as you advertise it clearly as such and make it entirely opt-in_. i.e., there are monthly posts on HN for people looking for work (freelance and otherwise), and as long as you were clear and asked them ahead of time if they were interested, it shouldn't be a problem. That's just my take on it though, others here may have some strong aversion to recruiters or something.

You do have a lot of value to offer here, you just have to be careful about that line between offering value and taking advantage -- just as everyone else does here.

</comment><comment><USER9> Although I'm currently self-employed (and therefore neither trying to recruit or be recruited) I have dealt with recruiters before, both as a client and as a candidate.

I don't think recruiters are hated by their clients; they offer a service: an expensive service that they usually don't do very well, but they're willing to work hard, they can be called at any time, filter as many hundreds or thousands of CVs as needed, so it's not all bad.

The hate, I think, comes from the candidates. The reason is because recruiters treat candidates as meat, and it shows. It's not just a problem of domain expertise, it's a problem of human compassion.

I read a study a while ago that showed that people don't sue incompetent doctors more than others, even when faced with complications; they sue doctors who they think don't care about them.

Recruiters don't need PhDs, they need to be perceived as caring (and the most straight way to acheive that is to actually care).

<comment><AUTHOR> _Recruiters don't need PhDs, they need to be perceived as caring (and the most straight way to acheive that is to actually care)._

I agree although I do believe a lot of clients are jaded by their own experiences with poor recruiters. If I pick up the phone to speak to a candidate almost all will take my call and answer my questions however when I call a prospective client for the first time they are usually skeptical as some receive dozens of calls a day from recruiters all claiming to be the best in their respective field.

The key is differentiating yourself from the herd. Hopefully this blog will play a small part in doing that eventually.

<comment><USER10> In that vein, if you're aching for ways to distinguish yourself, I think there are few opportunities better than what you've got: right now, you're the most- loved recruiter on HN, and you're a (relative) expert on something most hackers are interested in, but not enough to become experts in. You could leverage that quite a bit with a series of blog posts on hiring negotiation, how to find a job using weird technology stack X (If I could find anyone to pay me to work remotely with clojure...wow), etc.

As a comparison, I'm sure Gabe Levine got the option for a lot of new business after the "Fuck You. Pay Me" presentation. He suddenly became the lawyer that freelancers... _liked._ <http://mylawyergabe.com/> Among HN users, sunchild is a "lawyer I know knows about software"...and there are worse positions in which to be.

All I'm saying is that I suspect it's worth quite a bit to be trusted by hackers as a recruiter who knows his stuff and won't screw them over.

<comment><AUTHOR> _you're the most-loved recruiter on HN_

Aw shucks.

But seriously, there have been some excellent suggestions for future blog posts that will be relevant to the people here on HN and I fully intend on writing some decent content over the next week or two so stay tuned.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> I know this wasn't a pity post, and that you're not looking for an apology, but I just have to say, I'm a bit disappointed that some portion of the community interpreted took time out of their busy day to give you flack for an act of kindness, when you specifically set things up in a way to show that your intentions were altruistic.

Your original post was classy, as was this follow-up. Well done, sir.

</comment><comment><USER12> @peroni - this is a little offtopic, but hopefully not too much, and I'd like your opinion.

Many other creative disciplines offer agents/managers/handlers for the 'creative' - think sports players, writers, actors, bands, etc. I've been wondering if a model like this would work in the tech industry for developers. I'm not sure _developers_ would go for it, since many tend to have a 'DIY' attitude about everything.

What I see in the agent model is that someone follows you and your career for the long haul, and finds you work that helps advance your careers (gets you better parts in projects, better gigs for the band, etc). I've never met a recruiter that has kept in touch with me for more than a month or so after a successful placement. They're only working for the employer, because that's who pays them.

Would developers be willing to fork over 10% of their pay to an agent who negotiated better pay and benefits for them, helped get better gigs, etc? As attractive as this model sounds on paper, I'm wondering if this has a snowball's chance of working.

Thoughts?

Oh, and thanks for your offer to the group, even if it was abused by a few people. I do this occasionally for members of our local php user group, and it's fun to help people understand how to promote themselves more positively. :) Never done it on the scale you did, and can't imagine the time/effort involved!

<comment><AUTHOR> It's a tricky one. Technically speaking it already works like this for contractors.

Example: Say I place you in a 6 month contract where you get paid £500 per day (I'm an optimist!) in such a deal my fee to the client, your employer, would be anywhere from £50 to £100 per day meaning I could place 4 good people and make £2k a week before costs. I work for an agency currently but if I was self-employed (and a lot of successful recruiters are) that would be £2k a week in my pocket.

Your next question will probably be 'Why aren't more recruiters doing exactly that?' and the answer is simple, it's the same as launching a start-up. You become self-emplyed and your income isn't secure. More importantly it is almost impossible to get traction as a self-employed recruiter unless you've been in the game for at least 5 or 6 years and have a littany of highly successful relationships with hiring managers that regularly recruit.

<comment><USER12> What's missing from that equation are two things:

Incentives for the recruiter to place someplace that's most beneficial to the developer. The person paying for the service is the employer. _YOU_ might not make an bad placement, but many other recruiters I've worked with don't know how to tell a good one from a bad one, and if the employer is initially happy, that's all that matters. If the placement doesn't work out, I've found employers tend to blame the employee more than the recruiting firm (maybe that's not always the case though?).

Long term relationship with the placed candidate. There's no incentive for a recruiter to keep moving someone from company to company every year because they'll get a bad rep with the hiring companies. If the person paying the recruiter is the employee/contractor, the focus would be more on making them happy vs making the employer happy. In an ideal world, all parties are happy, but if it comes down to making a decision, people will come down on the side of the money.

<comment><AUTHOR> The interesting element to this is taking the cost away from the employer and moving it to the candidate.

Pro's: Employers will be a lot more keen on dealing with an agent if they no they won't ever have to pay extra for their fees.

Cons: When the market changes (and it's already starting to), jobs will become plentiful and the need to use a professional to find you a new opportunity becomes less of a priority.

<comment><USER12> _Employers will be a lot more keen on dealing with an agent if they no they won't ever have to pay extra for their fees._

Maybe, but they may end up back in having to weed through hundreds of agents instead of hundreds of applicants. I suspect that won't be the case entirely, as an agent would have more incentive to be selective about placement opps - they don't want to waste their time either.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> The hate mail is weird. I made a similar offer two years ago ([http://blog.fairsoftware.net/2009/05/13/being-a-new-cs- grad-...](http://blog.fairsoftware.net/2009/05/13/being-a-new-cs-grad-in-this- economy-sucks/)), received a lot of resumes, and I can't remember receiving even one complaint.

<comment><AUTHOR> I think the key difference is that I am a Tech Recruiter. Your own background is a lot more credible and there is no reason why anyone would assume that you would take advantage of the info you received.

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> I am sorry that members of the community treated you shabbily.

<comment><AUTHOR> It was an incredibly small minority and the positive feedback far outweighed the negative. I did feel the need to highlight the hate as I think it's pretty indicative of the automatic assumption that we are all selfish, money grabbing salesmen.

<comment><USER15> Life is like that; minority ruins it all. Better to focus on the great feedback. Still, I'm surprised that HN users acted like that.. maybe there's something we don't know. But anyhow, I feel sorry for you as it was a great initiative. Good luck in your next startup :)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> _even if we aren't one of the 'cool crowd'_

Funny what a difference a couple of decades makes. Saying something like that in 1991 about programmers would have been obvious, biting sarcasm.

<comment><AUTHOR> Fair point! It was sincere though. I have a massive amount of respect for the level of talent and creativity among the users of HN and I think it's about time you got the level of respect you deserve.

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> I think we can safely say it's a tiny minority of HN users that would respond in that manner.

I'm glad to see you've come back to HN, and although you say you don't want an apology, I hope those responsible (especially the one who phoned your boss) do apologise to you.

I'd like to say its a shame recruiters have such a bad rep, but 99% of the ones I've dealt with have been a lot more interested in getting their commission than getting me the right job.

That said, I've met some genuinely awesome recruiters, and you seem like one of those, so keep fighting the good fight :)

<comment><AUTHOR> _but 99% of the ones I've dealt with have been a lot more interested in getting their commission than getting me the right job._

There's the rub. The vast majority are only focused on how much money they can make from you and how quickly.

</comment></comment><comment> mike-cardwell Every community has idiots. The ones who emailed you can be easily dismissed as fools, but the guy who phoned your company went too far and owes you an apology and explanation. Stuff like that can seriously affect peoples lives and is totally unnecessary.

</comment><comment><USER18> The problem with hate mail is that it's a lot more affecting than positive mail. The best way to deal with it is simply to smile and delete. Everyone is entitled to their opinion - but they are not entitled to change _your_ life.

</comment><comment><USER19> Being the son of a recruiter and a software developer myself I've had the pleasure of meeting many good recruiters and many bad ones. I've noticed that the key differentiator between the two is that good recruiters understand how to build solid relationships with people that are based on trust, honesty, and integrity with mutual financial gain being necessary but not the foundation of the relationship.

Bad recruiters build relationships based on mutual financial gain and little else.

In the short term the bad recruiters often come out on top since treating people as numbers leads to higher short-term throughput, but long term the solid relationships are what will make a recruiter a success. They are what lead to referrals both from managers and candidates, allow bad news to be communicated without hesitation or undue stress (as honesty is a basis of the relationship), and best of all move with the recruiter as they change firms and grow as a professional.

I very much look forward to seeing your post about how being a software developer gives you an edge over your peers in the recruiting industry.

</comment><comment><USER20> It always amazes me how people will actually take time out of their day to personally abuse someone. Great response post and best of luck with your recruiting!

<comment><AUTHOR> I agree and I was equally amazed by those who were offering to donate money to my paypal in exchange for what was a pretty run-of-the-mill offer of assistance.

</comment></comment><comment><USER21> I was one of the few guys who missed out. :( If you do ever get round to it, it would be greatly appreciated still.

I also appreciate this follow up post, I looked a couple of times at the previous user name and realised you'd stopped commenting. It did make me think at the time maybe it was a (rather elaborate)scam to harvest C.V's after all. I'm glad to know I was well and truly wrong.

<comment><AUTHOR> My email is in my profile. Send the CV on and I'll look at it immediately.

</comment></comment><comment><USER22> It's unfortunate a few knuckleheads decided to "teach you a lesson." You can't please everyone.

Thank you for wanting to contribute to the community and giving a gift to people who were not confident of their CVs and resumes. I'm sure you were able to help at least one person drastically change their CV for the better.

Can you elaborate on your "edge" when you worked as a recruiter with a tech background?

<comment><AUTHOR> Keep an eye out for future posts on what I think is drastically wrong with the recruitment industry.

In a nutshell, I worked as a developer for a number of years and two key factors seem to have made a drastic difference:

1\. Practical industry experience. I understand the full software development lifecycle. I know what it's like to work on boring, unchallenging projects and I like to think know what get's people excited about going to work in the morning.

2\. I'm self-aware. I know our industry is universally hated by clients and candidates alike. I understand exactly why our industry has a terrible reputation and I actively conduct my business in the opposite manner to what you may have come to expect from recruiters. I don't 'key word match', money is not my primary focus, I don't try and shoe-horn candidates into roles that won't interest them and when it comes to clients I find out everything I need to know at the beginning and I try to be as unintrusive as physically possible throughout the process.

<comment><USER23> Having worked with recruiters a few times, I would say you are most definitely an exception rather than the rule. Mostly it comes down to buzzword bingo. I had problems when trying to explain to a recruiter that we were looking for a junior Java developer, but they kept sending us CVs with people with 8-10 years experience. After all they had "Java" on their CV didn't they. Very frustrating.

A recruiter who understands, and has true experience in the domain is invaluable. I wish you all the best!

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks!

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> I spent a lot of years being all helpful in public and had the living shit kicked out of me over it. So I spent a lot of time working on how to make peace with my internal wiring (where I am sincerely just a helpful person...and often wish I could gnaw my left arm off and escape this trap) and the kind of reactions that gets when acted on publicly. So this is my personal opinion about why this kind of thing, which you would think would be well received, typically goes over so very badly:

When speaking in public, especially on the internet, you are speaking to a very diverse crowd. It is inevitable that some of the people "listening" will have serious personal issues: They had abusive childhoods, they were badly burned in some way by someone "like" you in some way, they got taken advantage of in some gruesome fashion by someone claiming to offer help, they are still suffering for it, they are currently in an abusive situation of some sort...etc.

Any time someone as an individual offers publicly to personally do something for a bunch of total strangers, well, you can't equally "love" everyone. And some people have a very hard time accepting "love"/help...whatever you want to call it. I've worked hard at trying to put info on websites, instead of making public personal offers, in part to make it less personal. People can read it and see if it makes sense to them or not and it punches fewer of those buttons because it is more "information" and less "a person/personal favor". And someone will always be left out. You had to close the offer and only got to 80% of what was sent to you. The folks who didn't get something for free will feel (somewhat irrationally) kind of screwed over. You can't do that kind of thing for everyone. So it's best to handle things more discreetly.

I try to not make "blanket" public offers I can't back up. There isn't enough time in the day to give away everything for free to every single individual in need. I try to find ways to make the world a better place without it being so personal, without it being so much about me helping lots of other people individually. Because one of the things I have found is that making a personal offer like that gets read by the crowd as "ego". People think I am attention- mongering or something and if someone else hasn't had enough ego strokes for the day or I am threatening to steal their thunder or something, watch out! There will be hell to pay.

The people in the world who are in a lot of pain, so much pain they would piss on you to that degree, they need a lot more love and assistance than reading their resume is going to provide. And they basically feel like it's just not fair that others are getting what they need and they are not. I know that in part because I was an abused child and I spent a lot of years feeling angry and jealous and invisibly left out and so on. And it often struck me as cruel when other people would try to talk to me about things in a well meaning way but still could not/would not meet my needs. So if I can't genuinely help someone who is living with some kind of enormous suffering, I try hard to not step in it, to not say anything that will sound like rubbing their face in their suffering and all that they don't have. It's part of why I have left some of the health lists I have left: I got myself well and I share my story in hopes of helping others get well but it mostly gets rage and abuse heaped on me. I actually understand their emotional reaction: They are doomed to a cruel fate and my presence just makes them all the more painfully aware of how unfair it is. I still don't know how to resolve the situation. I don't feel right about withdrawing entirely and leaving them to their dire fate when I know it's possible to get healthier. But what I have been doing hasn't been terribly effective and seems to just rub salt in a very, very, very bad wound.

Anyway, this is not about "me". I just tell my story as an example, because I am still compulsively helpful and public lynchings have yet to cure me of that.

Peace.

<comment><USER25> The trick to being helpful and not getting torn apart is being an 'opportunistic' or 'predatory' helper. That is to say, don't broadcast an offer help- selectively give it when you see it's needed.

The second trick is to help people who are vulnerable. People know when they are vulnerable, and when you help them they are usually very grateful.

The best one I've found: helping people on the side of the road with flat tires. If they don't know what to do, guide them or even do it yourself.

<comment><USER24> Thanks for the feedback. :-)

However, what I have found with regards to the health stuff is that the people who are most open to hearing are people who seek me out -- who found my website by googling for that type of information rather than running into me on an email list. I sometimes do okay with talking to people in person that I am on friendly terms with -- and sometimes bomb badly.

The issue I have with helping vulnerable people who know they are vulnerable is that this tends to lead to dependency. I was able to figure out how to get physically well after being appropriately diagnosed at age 35 in part because I had already mostly psychologically recovered from an abusive childhood. I have had to ditch quite a few "helpful" people who didn't know how to be real friends or accept an equitable relationship and desperately needed to be needed. I had to ditch them because they didn't really want me to stand on my own two feet. They wanted me get better but not really well and to continue to need a crutch so they could be needed and have my gratitude. I have no desire to turn around and do that to other people -- and I don't think it really works anyway (for one thing, I prefer having real friends to being surrounded by sycophants and I am prone to attracting sycophants, much to my irritation). This is part of why I have worked at finding a less personal way to share information: So no one has to be personally ingratiated/indebted/socially obligated. (Next step: Figure out how to monetize it.)

The other thing I have concluded is that society has two venues for the "wisdom" business: religion and arts/entertainment/comedy. So I am working towards doing something in the entertainment/humor space, where it is okay to say things you can't say in many other settings and get people thinking.

<comment><USER25> Oh, I know what you mean with the dependency bit et al. When I really feel the need to be helpful, I typically extend it to people I have never met before and will likely never see again.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> A nice article. It's a shame that people misunderstood your intentions regardless of how clear you were. I'd say you deserve an apology.

Just from reading this article my perceptions of recruiters has changed slightly, though I fear recruiters such as yourself are few and far between? Hope your start-up becomes what you want it to be. Good luck Peroni

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for the kind words.

I agree that decent recruiters are few and far between however I think there is a lot that can be done to help change the industry. I will be following up with another post in a week or so outlining exactly what I believe are the issues with my industry and what steps need to be taken to change things.

<comment><USER27> Let me guess - it will involve a lot of recruiters not understanding (and in some cases, not wanting to understand) the businesses and needs of the companies they recruit for?

Or in other words - they spend a lot of time recruiting people they don't have any clue of what they are good at, to jobs where they don't understand what the jobs involve.

<comment><AUTHOR> Pretty much spot on. There is a lot more to it than that but what you've just said is the fundamental issue.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER28> Wow. I'm no huge fan of recruiters, but I'd also never send anonymous hate mail to one. Sorry you had to deal with that, and I'm glad you're making the effort to stick around on HN.

If I can ask one question, though: Why do some recruiters seem keen on ignoring the phrase "I'm not interested in new opportunities at this time"? I have set my LinkedIn profile to say this, and it's the first thing out of my mouth when I get cold-called, but there are some who are not stopped by it. It'd go a long way in my view if recruiters would simply take it at face value when I tell them I'm not interested at the moment.

<comment><AUTHOR> No one pays any attention to your preferences on Linkedin. Every recruiter believes that the job they have for you is better than the one you've got. Few believe that you are 100% happy with your current career choice.

That doesn't make it right or true, it's simply the way they work.

<comment><USER28> That's sad. I'd like to be treated as a person, not a "resource", and the zeroth step in that is respecting my wishes. When I want to make a career change, I will make said desire known.

Is there anything I can start saying to recruiters that could plant the seed of this idea in their minds? I know it's hard and that I have to compete with a $25,000 fee, but everyone has to start somewhere.

<comment><AUTHOR> The only thing I can think of is trying to make it a bit more obvious on your likedin profile that you are not interested in hearing about new roles.

That is one of the many issues with the recruitment industry, you could launch a national advertising campaign highlighting the fact that you DO NOT want a new job & I will bet good money you will _still_ get recruiters calling you.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER29> Honestly the one takeaway I got from this is that there are roughly 45 active HNers that I absolutely do not want to interact with.

While I know Peroni will never share those email addresses (he's much to polite) I somehow wish we could see which users are that rude/psycho to send this guy hate mail and stalk him (albeit online with the exception of the one nutcase who called his boss)

<comment><AUTHOR> I'm pretty confident that a lot of them were lurkers. The grammar and general literacy levels seemed to be well below your typical HN standard. ;)

</comment></comment><comment><USER30> A couple of things struck me about this post.

First, the hate mail. I'm happy that you're taking it in stride, but personally, I think all of the hate mail senders should be outed and their accounts removed from HackerNews. (Yes, I know they can just make a new one.) This community shouldn't tolerate this type of bullying - which is exactly what this is - and resetting karma to zero and forcing people to own up to their actions in public is the type of response I'd think appropriate.

Second, given the response, there is clearly a huge demand here. Perhaps a business opportunity is worth exploring in this context? People are clearly not getting the feedback they need from existing services. I wonder if there is some sort of "pay per submission" service that could be linked to reputation to facilitate CV/resume reviews... like linked in without the recruiters. Obviously needs more thought but there's definitely something there given the interest you received.

<comment><USER31> I completely agree. Hacker News is supposed to be an open, intelligent community and we really shouldn't tolerate that kind of bullying.

It's amazing how some people react to acts of public good.

</comment></comment><comment><USER32> Great post Steve! I guess much like some developers contribute to open source software projects, 1 recruiter wants to do the same in his field.

Looking forward to meeting you on the next HN London meetup.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks buddy. I owe you a pint I think. You were the one who encouraged me to inform the community about my experience in the first place.

<comment><USER32> I have just suggested you as a guest on Techzing.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER33> Good post. I spent 3 years in the Tech Recruiting industry. Did sales, recruiting for both direct-hire and contract. There are a lot of bad apples out there because it's a low-barrier career. But solid recruiters are a gem and take care of their candidates. Most good recruiters make more money than most developers out there and know their industry well. There are those that are idiots and don't know jack about IT (I'm an IT guy so I did well and understood candidates and clients).

Reason I got out of it was that my passion is in IT so I got back into that world. Now I get to listen to shoddy recruiters calling me and I usually laugh at them... :D

So ignore the bad candidates and focus on the good ones. They are the ones that will put food on your table.

<comment><USER34> A low barrier career? really?

It's different from developing, certainly, and different even from hiring people to work for you. But, as far as I can tell, it's quite difficult to actually get set up as a paid recruiter. I've gotten quite a few people jobs. Hell, I've gotten people who worked for me jobs elsewhere, and never once have I gotten a dime out of the deal.

</comment></comment><comment><USER35> You were smart to tell your boss ahead of time.

<comment><USER36> Welp, I might've accidentally down-voted you when meaning to upvote. As I have no way of telling, apologies if that happened!

</comment></comment><comment><USER37> People like you make HN worth visiting. Good luck with your startup!

</comment><comment><USER38> Thanks for coming back!

If there were any "common themes" in the resumes you reviewed or if you have any general advice for the HN crowd regarding resumes, I would love to hear them.

<comment><AUTHOR> Good idea. Rather than post my advice here and have it lost in the noise I will write a new post over the next day or two pointing out exactly what you suggested, common themes, common mistakes, general advice, etc.

Great shout.

</comment></comment><comment><USER39> I'm sorry to learn that you're were treated in a rather indecent manner by some; hopefully the immature response of those folks doesn't deter your noble initiative.

</comment><comment><USER40> I understand why those persons send you that email (not that I agree with it). Wild guess only one or two of the CVs had the personal details removed?

It would seem to be an excellent scam and since there are 80k visitors to HN, it isn't strange that a few tenths of a percent of the userbase should have encountered really unethical recruiters and be mad enough to do something about it.

Just the way things are, I guess.

<comment><USER41> Help me out, because I've never been in a position to be "recruited" for anything technical.

What does an unethical recruiter do that ends up screwing over the recruited?

<comment><AUTHOR> There are a couple of options.

I could phone your previous employers without your permission on the guise of taking a reference for you and use that opportunity to build credibility with the potential client.

I could contact you and find out where you are currently interviewing and approach those companies with stronger candidates.

<comment><USER42> Those are fortunately pretty rare behaviors. They call for a degree of sociopathy rather than merely buffoonish incompetence.

An unfortunately common story I hear from acquaintances who have used recruiters in my industry is that many recruiters will use a shotgun approach and feed lines of bullshit to prospective employee and employer alike. The recruiter might take your resume, massage it to hit all the right notes for a wide range of listed positions, and then submit it. That will probably garner a few phone interviews and on-site visits at the very least. Once the candidate gets on the phone or on site, he and the people he's interviewing with will soon realize he's being tested for an entirely inappropriate position for his skill set. Not only is this a waste of time for everyone involved, but it permanently damages the candidate's reputation with that company and the people involved in the interviewing.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER43> I think you're entirely within your right to post the abuser's email addresses / HN handles on your blog or elsewhere.

<comment><AUTHOR> No chance. That's one thing I love about HN. Even when you do encounter the odd troll, people here rise above it and don't play into their hands.

The guy was an idiot, my boss at the time thought it was hilarious and he was only one person. He didn't mention his HN handle (most of the people who emailed me didn't) but hopefully he spots this post.

<comment><USER43> Sure, and I guess it would be a net negative for you since most people would find it petty, but at some point someone needs to take a stand against idiots who think they can hide behind their keyboards and who feel they have the moral high ground and that that gives them the right to bully others into molding their behavior according to the bully's world view.

(not saying you have some moral responsibility to be a crusader against internet bullies here, just that 'trolling' isn't funny anymore when people start calling other people's jobs and families and that we shouldn't just shrug it off and accept it as a normal thing on the internet)

<comment><USER44> "Take a stand against idiots"? Really?

It's better to ignore idiots.

<comment><USER43> OK maybe not 'take a stand against idiots', but 'take a stand against bullies'. Harassing people is not somebody just being an idiot; it's not like we should ignore people who put a dog turd in somebody's mailbox every day.

People standing in the middle of the street holding signs about how Jezus saves, or posting online about being abducted by aliens: idiots, ignore; people picketing funerals with 'god hates fags' signs: bullies, punish. (not in the lynch mob sense, but in the 'recourse society takes against deviant subjects').

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER45> Hats off to you, OP for not having gotten discouraged by the hate. Rock on.

</comment><comment><USER46> 341 * 20 * 0.8 = 5456 minutes of reading CVs.

Looks like a lot of work.

</comment><comment><USER47> No good deed goes unpunished.

Also, stop calling me; I'm not interested in working with Flash/Flex, servlets and C# on a Tcl app for a Fortune 500 company within 200 miles of my local area.

<comment><USER47> why the downvotes? Do people not understand sarcasm?

<comment><USER48> My reason for down voting is it came across as mocking Peroni. I certainly understood it was sarcasm but I did not think it was funny.

Edit: well, Peroni found it funny (didn't see his post when I replied.)

<comment><USER47> > No good deed goes unpunished.

I never understood that to be a form of mockery, more of sympathy. So I looked it up and yes, I was apparently, and unintentionally, mocking Peroni. My apologies.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER46> 341 * 20 * 0.8 = 5456 minutes.

Looks like a lot of work.</comment>


Is There a Bot to Generate StackOverflow Answer from IRC Channel Logs? - <AUTHOR> I'm in a very small software community- we have a wiki, which is eternally outdated, because we are understaffed. We tryied to run a Answers page, and it failed due to maintenance- all we have is IRC, with someone who can answer- sometimes and the board. So is there a way to generate answers from IRC-ChatLogs and boards? <comment><AUTHOR> Nobody? Could you train a neural network to do that? Or should i try classic text parsing, looking for question answer queues? I'm quite willing to put in some work, if its a one time effort.</comment>


China to Shut Bitcoin Exchanges? - <AUTHOR> https://www.wsj.com/articles/china-to-shut-bitcoin-exchanges-sources-1505100862 <comment><USER2> The source for this news story is an anonymous government employee who told Caixin: [http://www.caixinglobal.com/2017-09-09/101142821.html](http://www.caixinglobal.com/2017-09-09/101142821.html)

</comment><comment><USER2> Speculation: It seems China is doing this to replace them all with a single government-run Bitcoin exchange:

[https://mobile.twitter.com/cnLedger/status/90709502238582374...](https://mobile.twitter.com/cnLedger/status/907095022385823744)

This would allow them to associate an identity behind most inbound and outbound Bitcoin transactions to/from the exchange...

"Perfect control, classic China" as a Twitter user said.

<comment><USER3> reminds me of scene in Mr. Robot where E-Corp exec is proposing a deal to a govt official: "With eCoin we control the ledger… and the mining servers. We are the authority! I will make sure you have visibility into every single wallet that's open, every loan, every transaction…"

<comment><USER4> a single entity controlling a cryptocurrency defeats the purpose of cryptocurrency. just issue something like amazon credit or whatever.

just one example of how weak the writing is on mr. robot. the basis of everything must be "Lol hackers bro amirite?"

<comment><USER5> Eh, there have been plenty of "blockchain, but controlled by one entity" projects proposed. The fact they make no sense and have negative benefits doesn't stop them from being deployed. Also see zCash's trusted setup which possibly allows them to mint unlimited money.

<comment><USER2> The Zcash trusted setup was decentralized: multiple persons/entities/third- parties participated, including Peter Todd who generated his part of the parameters while driving across Canada with a laptop that was destroyed after the process... [http://spectrum.ieee.org/tech-talk/computing/networks/the- cr...](http://spectrum.ieee.org/tech-talk/computing/networks/the-crazy- security-behind-the-birth-of-zcash)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> My gut feeling is there's some truth to the rumour. Related resources:

• Original Caixin Report that sparked all this: [http://finance.caixin.com/2017-09-08/101142797.html](http://finance.caixin.com/2017-09-08/101142797.html)

• ( _RECOMMENDED_ ) Good English translation of above article: [https://docs.google.com/document/d/1sNYGpwj3EKkRhlejoycytZLq...](https://docs.google.com/document/d/1sNYGpwj3EKkRhlejoycytZLq1OpFpl0bqOtCev0HexY/edit)

• Shorter English announcement from Caixin: [http://www.caixinglobal.com/2017-09-09/101142821.html](http://www.caixinglobal.com/2017-09-09/101142821.html)

• Coindesk article pointing out Caixin has been spot-on in the past (re their Sep 2 leak regarding ICO fundraising): [https://www.coindesk.com/report-casts- doubt-future-chinas-bi...](https://www.coindesk.com/report-casts-doubt-future- chinas-bitcoin-exchanges/)

• Related official news out of China regarding ICO ban: [https://www.reddit.com/r/ethtrader/comments/6ywtkt/the_actua...](https://www.reddit.com/r/ethtrader/comments/6ywtkt/the_actual_pboc_news_released_today_pertains_to/)

• Tweet from CEO of ViaBTC saying "China will shut down all exchanges": [https://www.cryptocoinsnews.com/viabtc-ceo-china-will-ban- bi...](https://www.cryptocoinsnews.com/viabtc-ceo-china-will-ban-bitcoin- exchanges/)

It's not the first time China's cracked down on virtual currency <\--> fiat trading, but if true this could be more intense than their prior efforts.

(Note this is a repost of my comment made to a previous HackerNews article on the topic)

<comment><USER7> People are acting exactly like people that participate in pyramid schemes. Denied, saying it is fake, searching for stupid reasons. That is just pathetic and horrible for the future of cryptocurrency.

Things like this will happen and need to be discussed. It appears that the ban will be for the trade of fiat for Bitcoin. Everything else, including p2p trade, will be allowed. So, the price of Bitcoin will fall a little more, but, eventually, they will find ways to get crypto currency.

Maybe a new coin, maybe more regulations or maybe people2people trades will be the future. There are already several great products emerging that do not need exchanges to trade crypto like 0x, Kyber.Network and even Ethertrade.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> Given the history of strong government control of economy in China, I am kind of surprised this didn't happen sooner. Personally, I think the recent ICO fever is likely the final straw.

In Chinese society, the citizens expect the government to protect them from harm, whether the government is responsible for them or not. On the other hand, the government values stability above everything else, in order to maintain their regime. Now, there's this ICO thing, which has the potential to scam millions of Chinese (and trust me, it will happen), who will inevitably protest until their money is returned, you wonder what's gonna happen…

People have received DEATH SENTENCE before for scamming investors[1]. Let that sink in.

edit: someone mentioned capital control. While I agree this is probably one of the reasons, I doubt it's the biggest. Sure, having money flowing out of the country gives the government headache, compared to having thousands of people on the street holding signs, it seems like a rather minor one. Plus, if you want to move millions of dollars, you probably won't trust whatever-coin to do the job. There are tons of ways of doing that, and the government has bigger fish to fry.

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

<comment><USER9> > In Chinese society, the citizens expect the government to protect them from > harm

Mao would disagree.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> I would take this with a huge grain of salt. This appears to be a rehashing of news from last week that China planed to ban trading of ICO tokens. The news was thinly sourced and it seems like people misconstrued the rumored ICO ban to mean a general crypto-currency trading ban.

Historically there have been more stories like this than I can count where some random source claims the PBOC is going to "ban Bitcoin" and it has always proven to be false. The worst that has happened is the tightening of regulations on Bitcoin exchange providers. There is even a common meme that has been going around for years.[0]

[0] [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ry6PpRXk0dQ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ry6PpRXk0dQ)

<comment><USER11> > some random source

Sorry, Caixin and WSJ and Bloomberg are not "some random source". I know "China bans Bitcoin" has been a joke meme in the community for years, but this time it's the real deal.

<comment><USER10> Pretty sure this is just a reprint of the same rumors reported in Caixin last week.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> One of my favorite questions to ask about this topic is:

"Given what you know today (and how blockchain, cryptocurrencies, and decentralized networks work), would you still design the financial system and other systems (ex. identity, currencies, etc) the same way they are designed today?"

My answer is no, and that's why I'm still bullish on decentralized technology and systems winning in the long-term. In that case, investments in Bitcoin and Ethereum are merely call options for an entirely new financial world and a risk still worth betting on.

<comment><USER13> Bitcoin isn't decentralized.

<comment><USER14> This is going to need a lot more text to justify.

<comment><USER15> There's only 3 mining pools, and the dev team has acted anything but democratic.

The reason for the fork to cash was because the dev team wanted to keep the network inefficent to benefit miner rewards at the expense of users, along with justifying the lightning network, with Blockstream having 9+ bitcoin core developers on their payroll.

<comment><USER16> > the dev team has acted anything but democratic

And? You retain control because you can exit, this is the point of having cryptocurrency. It is a voluntary process. And for "democratic" development process... I'm amazed that this point is being brought up. Show me successful software project that is being "democratically" controlled.

<comment><USER15> The the dev team intensionally cripples their product's service efficiency when the user base adamantly calls them out for doing so, and meanwhile several of the core devs are being paid by a company which is developing it's own fix for the crippled transaction speeds of bitcoin.

<comment><USER16> This is exactly what I was talking about. Ultimately their technical vision is different from opinions of large group of outsiders, such as you. Allowing you to input your opinion into the dev process would effectively block it. Fortunately there is a solution. Bitcoin Core is their software. You, however, are free to use Bitcoin Cash (exactly that everyone wanted, am I right?). You are free to contribute to Bitcoin Cash. You are free to start your own cryptocurrency. Don't like it? Exit.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> How is something defined as distributed and decentralized when it is regulated by each country? If China tanks the value of the major cryptocurrencies by 20% with just 2 regulations is a week, isn't the rest just academic?

As everyone saw one day the founder of Ethereum was meeting with Putin and sending out press releases of potential partnership, the next Putin is putting out his own press releases questioning why he would ever embrace any foreign blockchain/crypto, that Russia will launch its own.

If cryptocurrency can be regulated by individual countries like we saw with china this last week, then I expect the underlying blockchain technology can be regulated too, and we will begin seeing countries picking winners, basically who can be a node on the blockchain and who can mine.

People think/thought blockchain equivalent to an automated unregulatable technology, but once you are talking about billions you impact people with power, they will raise and lower price at their will and take the people's technology from them through regulation.

<comment><USER18> Some government actions drive it up (like what happened in Cyprus for instance). It seems market participants have got rather attached to this whole ICO thing as a way to make a quick buck and have lost sight of the original vision. The wall street-ization of the blockchain.

</comment></comment><comment><USER19> I don't follow BTC news often but it seems like anytime the price goes up or down it is somehow tied to an event in China. Makes me wonder how much of bitcoin's skyrocketing value is actually based on China's market rather than natural growth. I guess we'll find out soon. In more positive news, it looks like Russia is on path to legalize Bitcoin [1]

[1] [https://cointelegraph.com/news/russia-is-working-on- legalizi...](https://cointelegraph.com/news/russia-is-working-on-legalizing- status-of-bitcoin-other-cryptocurrencies-rt)

<comment><USER14> Eh, people were saying the same thing about silk road. Surprise: silk road got shut down and BTC's price didn't drop at all.

I believe BTC's price is inherently a weighted random walk driven by speculation rather than rational reasons. Not everyone shares this belief, and it's human nature to look for explanations when there aren't any.

(An unknowable explanation is still unknowable.)

<comment><USER20> > silk road got shut down and BTC's price didn't drop at all

Yes it did: (though I assume you mean over the longer term, but I don't think that's how most would read that comment)

[https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2013/oct/03/bitcoin-p...](https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2013/oct/03/bitcoin- price-silk-road-ulbricht-value)

<comment><USER14> It did not. I was there, and I watched specifically for this. These articles always get published in response to what people want to believe. If you look at the data, there was a temporary drop followed by an immediate recovery.

The article even says this:

 _On Wednesday afternoon the price of one Bitcoin (BTC) was $145.70 on Mt Gox, one of the largest exchanges for the currency.

After the news that Ross Ulbricht had been arrested and the Silk Road site seized, the exchange rate plummeted to a low of $109.76, before recovering to $124.00 late on Thursday._

Translation: "BTC went from $145 to $124 and then continued to go up."

<comment><USER20> I was there as well. People were freaking out on r/bitcoin and elsewhere. There was an immediate response. The price recovered, but a drop from $145 to $110 (a 25% drop) shouldn't be hand waved away.

<comment><USER14> It wasn't a 25% drop, it was a 15% drop which isn't uncommon. This is Bitcoin. It was followed by an immediate recovery.

<comment><USER20> Sure, if you pick the price point of $124. I agree, Bitcoin is filled with tons of swings and volatility. I was merely addressing your comment "silk road got shut down and BTC's price didn't drop at all" which is quite inaccurate. I'm a big Bitcoin proponent myself, and don't think we do anyone any favors by painting a false picture. (or to be more generous, keep moving the goal posts)

<comment><USER14> The price dropped for one day. That does not count as a drop. Pull up the data and show that it dropped longer than a day and then I'll agree that it dropped.

How far are we going to zoom in to say that BTC dropped? An hour? A minute? A day is not a useful time interval.

Using the lowest point of the day also isn't useful. Traders typically use a moving average. Neither the lowest nor the highest peak is a useful way to compute the price of bitcoin for the day.

If you're going to wag your finger and say "Nu uh" and trot out data saying that it went down to X price, well, yes, you're _technically_ correct. But I think most people would agree that the price over the next week is a far more useful way to know whether the price truly dropped or not.

In other words, if China's ban results in BTC dropping for a day, who cares? No one.

<comment><USER20> I think you'll agree there's a huge bias in Bitcoin dialog. Peaks are indelible truths, but dips always have asterisks. Let's flip your comments around:

"The price went over $5000 for one day. That does not count as a peak." "Using the hightest point of the day also isn't useful. Traders typically use a moving average. Neither the lowest nor the highest peak is a useful way to compute the price of bitcoin for the day." "If you're going to wag your finger and say "Nu uh" and trot out data saying that it went up to X price, well, yes, you're technically correct. But I think most people would agree that the price over the next week is a far more useful way to know whether the price truly went over $4900 or not." "In other words, if BTC went over $4900 for a day, who cares? No one."

Yet in any conversation of price, that $5000+ ATH is the watermark.

<comment><USER14> Peaks have never been a useful benchmark of Bitcoin health, and I don't know where you're getting that from. Your thoughts on Bitcoin are basically being driven by popular media, and popular media is a terrible way to judge anything.

I've already responded to your points, but let's rehash it again: Silk road closed, and everyone expected BTC to completely fucking fail. It did not. In fact, it barely went down. It also recovered swiftly.

If you want to call that a drop, go ahead! Personally, I'd save that classification for when BTC dropped from $1100 to $300, for example. But sure, a 15% decrease for one day followed by a recovery over the following week could count, I guess.

<comment><USER20> > Peaks have never been a useful benchmark of Bitcoin health, and I don't know > where you're getting that from. Your thoughts on Bitcoin are basically being > driven by popular media, and popular media is a terrible way to judge > anything.

Most of my thoughts are driven by what passes for dialog at r/bitcoin and elsewhere in the community. To the moon! This is gentlemen! rollercoaster.gif! I would definitely agree that listening to hyperbole, wherever it comes from, is foolish.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> For anyone wondering how BTC is used as a way to evade Chinese currency controls, I just came to this realization today: people aren't buying bitcoin locally to send it out of the country: they're buying cheap coal electricity, using it to mine bitcoin, and then liquidating that in foreign exchanges.

<comment><USER22> This realization is incorrect. The amount of BTC generated globally[1] per day is minuscule compared to CNY/BTC volume[2]. Besides, they're selling the BTC they mine for more yuan.

[1] $7M [2] OKCoin.cn alone does $100M a day on the BTC/CNY pair.

<comment><USER21> That CNY traded in China remains stuck in China. Whoever sold the BTC for CNY now has to deal with the restricted currency

Presumably most of that BTC/CNY trading is being traded for capital gains, not as a way to try to evade currency controls.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> "The country's central bank has led a draft of instructions that would ban Chinese platforms from providing virtual currency trading services, according to people familiar with the matter. The move comes after months of scrutiny by Beijing, including a ban last week in China on initial coin offerings, a kind of fundraising via virtual currencies.

Regulators in China have been investigating the domestic market for bitcoin and other virtual currencies since the beginning of the year. For a while, officials considered enacting antimoney-laundering rules on exchanges, even circulating a draft of such rules for them to follow."

OkCoin prices are still going up. The only "important" person that has said this would happen was the VIABTC CEO on twitter. Nobody believes, but now, I think is true

</comment><comment><USER23> >>To Read the Full Story Subscribe or Sign In.

Forcing users to Subscribe or Sign In to read the content while allowing the search engine crawlers without any barriers should be considered as malpractice. This was exactly the kind of stuff Quora was doing but at least they had the decency of doing this on users coming from internal links.

<comment><USER11> They don't let the crawlers in either. Do a search. You'll see the snippet only contains the same part of the article you see before the paywall.

</comment></comment><comment><USER24> Good luck banning or controlling Bitcoin - especially when there is a satellite streaming down blockchain. I understand their motive though. Large sums of money can be used for anything. Including regime change or coup.

<comment><USER25> > especially when there is a satellite streaming down blockchain

If a satellite link can bypass government controls, why has it not been used by Google, FB, New York Times and numerous others banned in China?

<comment><USER26> Do you really think comparing interactive web apps, which require a bunch of complex di-directional traffic, with a blockchain, which just needs to be routinely copied from a uni-directional source, is fair?

<comment><USER25> Fair enough on Google and Facebook, but my traffic with NYT is pretty uni- directional.

<comment><USER26> That's what you think. ;-)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER27> One of the touted benefits of bitcoin and related cryptocurrencies is the fact that transactions on such networks cannot be easily censored, even though not many people experience this kind of thing directly with classic currencies. Therefore, I find it amusing that a prime example of why we need non- censurable currencies is provided by the difficulty of exchanging them in the first place.

<comment><USER28> _Analysts say more activity is moving underground, where individuals can send virtual currencies to each other using private addresses, which serve like safe-deposit boxes._

 _Regulators will likely to have to tolerate noncommercial trading of virtual currencies. "The government also doesn't have the power to control" that._

\---

Centralized exchanges have always been the achilles heel of cryptocurrency ecosystem.

Better to keep it distributed with (a) smart contracts and (b) lightning network.

</comment></comment><comment><USER29> It would be interesting to see how this unravels from a game theory perspective. Right now the crypto coin market cap is at around 150 billion USD (up from 15-18 bn in january this year). Not a huge amount by any means when compared to a big country's GDP. The daily traded volume is about 5-10 billions.

If China bans the exchanges now, they basically opt-out from the value created by the flow of some of these billions. Sure, the prices and daily volumes would drop on the short/medium term, but this would only give one last chance to people left out to join and buy crypto at low prices. When the market cap and prices would grow back, China would be left out. Who would trust them anymore to start a blockchain business there?

<comment><USER30> It is also possible that a component of Bitcoin's value is transferring money out of China, in which case prices may start to reflect this decrease in utility.

</comment></comment><comment><USER31> Since BTC is an efficient way to pump money out of China, this will happen sooner or later.

</comment><comment><USER32> What we need is a fully decentralised and uncontrollable Internet. It can't be wireless, that's too slow (limits of physics), and jamming it too easy. We need to actually dig our own cables, those are untraceable, and they'd have to cut one by one. OR we could probably leverage power lines, as much as I hate introducing noise into those. There is no 100% foolproof software solution given the current state of the net.

</comment><comment><USER33> That's why we need decentralized exchanges like www.ether.bid based on 0x protocol

<comment><USER20> This would only let you exchange for tokens, right? 95% of the trading public won't give anything a look if you can't trade for fiat.

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> No paywall: [http://archive.is/i0PFc](http://archive.is/i0PFc)

</comment><comment><USER6> Looks like there's a brand new article, behind a Caixin paywall. Does anyone here have access to it? [http://www.caixinglobal.com/2017-09-11/101143673.html](http://www.caixinglobal.com/2017-09-11/101143673.html)

</comment><comment><USER34> Sell! Sell! Sell!

</comment><comment><USER35> time for a BTC crash.

<comment><USER20> I think much of what the WSJ is reporting was reported over 24 hours ago, and there was a bit of a dip at that time. Most movements in BTC happen before MSM reports on it.

</comment></comment><comment><USER36> One-party communist state opposed to free-market financial innovation.

In other news, water is wet.</comment>


There is always a process - <AUTHOR> https://medium.com/@piotrjakubowski/there-is-always-a-process-9817a72ace03 <comment><USER2> I think you mean a "rogue" train rather than a "rouge" train.

<comment><AUTHOR> Oh, thanks.</comment></comment>


SWIM: Synthesizing What I Mean - <AUTHOR> http://arxiv.org/abs/1511.08497 <comment><USER2> Great stuff from MSR! This particular "synthesizer" translates simple queries such as "generate md5 hash" into C# API calls. Wondering if there are any analagous projects targeting NLP code snippet generation for bash shell scripts?

</comment><comment><USER3> An automated way to pull possible API calls from web/search engine resources.

The acronym in the title doesn't do it much service, since its the phrase that is popular in drug forums to make statements that aren't direct admittances of a crime (Someone Who Isn't Me, E.G: "SWIM just picked up an 8th of weed today").

<comment><AUTHOR> I agree that the title isn't useful, but I decided not to paraphrase or editorialize myself per HN guidelines.

EDIT: not that the HN guidelines are entirely inflexible, but I don't think that the title is misleading enough to justify changing it.</comment></comment>