Cloudant on Google's Spanner - <AUTHOR> https://cloudant.com/blog/cloudant-labs-on-google-spanner/

<comment><USER2> Here's an excellent talk on Spanner by one of the developers, Alex Lloyd: <http://vimeo.com/43759726>

</comment><comment><USER3> Spanner is quite impressive and I remember wondering if any of the cloud hosting companies would attempt to match it. The problem of synchronizing atomic clocks and GPS is itself not trivial (remember the faster-than-light photons at CERN?), but there are plenty of other challenges too.

<comment><USER4> Well the CERN clocks were operating at a much lower error tolerance than Spanner's 5ms.

<comment><USER5> It seems this becomes another tune-able parameter. The concurrent transactional behavior just depends on the characteristics of the time synchronization.

This also, unfortunately introduces a new failure mode ("bird pooped on GPS antenna" exception) that has to be handled. At worst it would revert to using plain NTP servers. But is just something new that possibly didn't have to be considered previously.

<comment><USER6> If GPS is unavailable, it reverts to using atomic clocks. As those gradually drift out of sync, the system slows down until the problem is fixed. NTP is not used, at least in Spanner.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> I don't know that deploying precise timing is as big of a blocker as one might think[1]. Precise timing is commonly deployed in telecom networks for TDM & RF signal synchronization. There is even a standard for distributing time sync over a ethernet network (IEEE 1588). This has become a big deal as cell site backhaul transitions from SONET to ethernet. On the Wireless ISP side there are companies that make low cost (sub $200) timing devices to synchronize wireless transmission to reduce self-interference, although that is based around 1PPS edge triggering instead of time of day clocking.

[1] Of course this assumes you have control over the physical environment and can install a GPS antenna in your datacenter. This rules out 3rd party clouds.

<comment><USER8> I thought about this too. But the timing plane is not typically available at the application level in telecom systems, nor would it be distributed to millions of different hosts, so it's not quite the same thing.

<comment><USER7> True. So if I wanted to do it, how would I do it?

a) Adopt NICs / order servers with proper chipset to support it: <http://www.oreganosystems.at/?page_id=71>

b) Broadcom has IEEE 1588 support in their reference designs so it wouldn't be too hard to bake into custom switches & server mobos: <http://www.broadcom.com/press/release.php?id=s535919> Interesting thing about that press release is in 2010 they mention uses as "service provider, data center and smart grid power control networks". Service provider & smart grid are the usual suspects as far as users of timing go. Who other than Google would need that kind of timing setup in a datacenter? Financial trading?

<comment><AUTHOR> I think that Finance is indeed the obvious candidate. In neutrino experiments we've gotten pretty good at synchronized clocks with nanosecond resolution. Although (to be fair) we cheat and get some very useful information out of the beam itself, and neutrinos luckily don't travel on optical fibers. I'd be interested to research what it would actually take to provide nanosecond synchronization of clocks in at least a dozen data centers globally, distributed to millions of servers.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Spanner appears to raise the bar on globally distributed DB's, in the process making it desirable to a number of application developers.

Which raises the question of whether Google will make Spanner available to 3rd parties... (hope so!)

</comment><comment><USER10> The difference between NoSql and RDBMS is getting thinner and thinner with each progressive development. For most of the businesses Spanner is already covering all their needs. Going forward I'm anticipating db management systems to just have a switch "prefer consistency" or "favour partitioning" with the core functionality be the same.

</comment><comment><USER11> I find it interesting that several groups are converging on similar decisions. CouchDB, Spanner and Datomic have versioned data, with all versions immutable. All support some manner of offline operations. They do have different ways to resolve conflicts: manually, time-based and explicitly, respectively.

</comment><comment><USER12> Clearly Spanner is of interest, as every single NoSQL and DB startup has been blogging and making statements about it.</comment>


How e-commerce sites manipulate people into buying things - <AUTHOR> https://www.nytimes.com/2019/06/24/technology/e-commerce-dark-patterns-psychology.html <comment><USER2> > About 30 sites made it easy to sign up for services but particularly hard to > cancel, requiring phone calls or other procedures. The Times requires people > to talk with a representative online or by phone to cancel subscriptions, > but the researchers did not study it or other publishing sites.

Nice that the editor was at least allowed to point out that their own employer employs many of these "dark patterns".

<comment><USER3> Also, I'd actually been considering a Times subscription for a while. That's going to be a hell no from me now.

<comment><USER4> The hack I use for subscriptions is to pay with a money order, mailed to their location. This makes it impossible for them to autorenew. I started doing this after discovering to my dismay that one subscription used my checking account routing number to auto debit a subscription renewal the following year, at a significantly increased rate, direct from my checking account! I don't see how this isn't larceny or bank robbery.

I also track who is selling my name to marketers by using initials. So my subscriber name instead of Bob Jones is Ned Y. Jones for the NYT sub, Will S. Jones for the WSJ sub, and Roger D. Jones for the Readers Digest. Then when I get mailed an ad for sex toys advertised to Ned Jones, I know the NYT sold my name to them.

<comment><USER5> > _after discovering to my dismay that one subscription used my checking > account routing number to auto debit a subscription renewal the following > year, at a significantly increased rate, direct from my checking account_

You might ask your state's banking(?) regulatory authority or attorney general's office about that.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Not just e-commerce sites—change.org shows "### have signed," where the number is programmed to tick upwards at a somewhat randomized rate. This is simply dishonest—a lie designed to make you feel like you'll be missing out unless you sign.

Example: [https://www.change.org/p/target-stop-filling-the-world- with-...](https://www.change.org/p/target-stop-filling-the-world-with-plastic- bags)

<comment><USER7> I've pondered this for a while, if this disingenuous design pattern is biasing people to sign their names, in addition to their shady user engagement email spam with click bait polarizing email subject lines and targeted spam "Sizzle, the discussion keeps evolving..."

How they promote petitions after you sign one by showing you 'trending' high shock value petitions is pretty scummy way to grab your attention and stay on the site signing more petitions. There has to be a better way to drive engagement than shoving polarizing clickbait petitions in my face.

Don't believe me? Sign up for the site and sign a petition, enjoy the flood of petition spam in your inbox.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> "The report coincides with discussions among lawmakers about regulating technology companies, including through a bill proposed in April by Senators Deb Fischer, Republican of Nebraska, and Mark Warner, Democrat of Virginia, that is meant to limit the use of dark patterns by making some of the techniques illegal and giving the Federal Trade Commission more authority to police the practice.

"We are focused in on a problem that I think everyone recognizes," said Ms. Fischer, adding that _she became interested in the problem after becoming annoyed in her personal experience with the techniques_."

If we used programmer vernacular we might say she was "scratching her own itch".

<comment><USER9> Too bad lawmakers must first experience the problem themselves, before they spring to action. I believe support for healthcare problems and modern-day solutions (such as s embryonic stem cell research) would benefit from showing more passion towards others.

<comment><USER10> The pointless popups became acceptable again because of the pointless cookie law forcing developers to implement dark ui. By the way did you know browsers use a thing called cookies? Scary i know.

<comment><USER11> >By the way did you know browsers use a thing called cookies? Scary i know.

Not sure why you're being snarky - how entities utilize cookies _can_ be unsettling/'scary' to some.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> An age old tactic I have encountered: Deep discounts (after raising the prices of course). For e.g.

(Harvard research paper - WIP) [https://www.hbs.edu/faculty/Publication%20Files/18-113_16977...](https://www.hbs.edu/faculty/Publication%20Files/18-113_16977967-84c0-488d-96e5-ffba637617d9.pdf)

[https://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2013/11/how- ret...](https://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2013/11/how-retailers- trick-you-their-amazing-black-friday-discounts/355525/)

[https://www.forbes.com/sites/camilomaldonado/2018/09/24/what...](https://www.forbes.com/sites/camilomaldonado/2018/09/24/what- retailers-dont-want-you-to-know-about-sale-prices/#4997add96878)

<comment><USER13> Those seedy furniture stores that have "going out of business" sales that seem to last for years, are often running the same scam. Grocery also stores do this, with their shoppers cards discounts.

Consumers are the other half of the problem though. At least some of the scummy tactics are psycological hacks to get around real irrational behaviors that actually work against both the consumer and the business. The rest are dark patterns meant to manipulate and coerce that work strictly for the business, consumers be damned. I'm not sure where the line is.

Side note: Even to this day, I still catch myself sometimes thinking/saying the cost of something is $X rather than $X+1, when the listing price of something is $X.99, and I curse myself for the foolishness :P

<comment><USER14> > real irrational behaviors that actually work against both the consumer and > the business

Do you have examples of such behaviors?

<comment><USER15> Look up JC Penny sales. Their CEO got rid of sales and marked the products down so the normal cost was the sale price. They almost went out of business.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> Not all these notifications are fake but they can still be misleading.

I've investigated a few of these sorts of apps on Shopify. They do use actual customer names but how long ago those orders came in seems a little dubious.

I believe it's not so much to promote fear of missing out - other apps do that better - e.g. ones that copy booking.com's pattern of 'only x left!'.

Instead, they're a very good way to signal to potential buyers that the (usually small) shop is being used by other shoppers to increase trust.

Few people go in to empty restaurants.

It would be interesting to know if there are legal implications to lying about your visitors using services like these, though.

</comment><comment><USER17> Why would the ThredUp example not fall under current regulations against false advertising? If I say "This dress was bought 4 minutes ago!" or "Hurry now! Only one left!", those statements are obviously either true or false.

<comment><USER18> Those statements say nothing about the product they're selling to you.

</comment></comment><comment><USER19> The FTC regulates advertisements. [1] At what point is a statement like "[x] just saved $[y]!" on your own site being shown to a visitor constitute an advertisement for your service? Or is it just advertisements involving a paid third party?

From 1: "Advertisements with specific claims can be substantiated with evidence"

[1] [https://bondstreet.com/truth-in-advertising- laws/](https://bondstreet.com/truth-in-advertising-laws/)

</comment><comment><USER20> As much as I don't like PayPal I will never sign up for any subscription that does not go through PayPal. Reason being, I can log into PayPal and stop my subscriptions any time without jumping through hoops.

</comment><comment><USER21> I run an international e-commerce site in several countries. We have been recommended all these dark patterns. Sometimes I see sites that apply all of them at once and a new user gets no less than 3 pop-ups within 10 seconds engaging them in different ways.

Many of these don't work long-term. These sites won't last long when they get one-time users who are deal seekers. This reminds me of back when all video sites had 10 ads and pop-ups or blogging sites. They all learned eventually.

I predict two dark patterns will stay with us. Making it hard to unsubscribe and designing the "YES" button to be more attractive to click than the "NO" button. They don't involve lying and they work surprisingly well.

</comment><comment><USER22> I think most of these tactics are explicitly forbidden in the EU. Opt-in (to newsletters and spam) is mandatory, for instance.

</comment><comment><USER23> I recall in another FB thread that shaming employees was not totally frowned- upon if it planted the seed in the engineer that they should maybe reflect on what they're contributing to and consider alternative work.

Would shaming designers that are complicit in these dark patterns be a similar, favourable way of movement towards a better direction?

I actually finished a book that tries to do that[1]. But I don't believe enough designers are told from their peers that maybe the way they're exercising their knowledge of design theory and psychology is being shitty towards people.

[1] [https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/44432844-ruined-by- desig...](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/44432844-ruined-by-design)

<comment><USER24> Thank you for this point (and book recommendation). It has clarified my thinking on dark patterns, something I've long suspected. We need to (re)educate designers about the mistakes they're making, in service of what I assume are data- hungry marketing employees.

I also enjoyed and support the phrase from the article: "confirmshaming."

</comment></comment><comment><USER25> NYTimes + incognito = rejection.

<comment><USER26> Disable javascript on their site.

The next question would be "why is the browser advertising that it's in incognito mode?", but that's not a question for the NYT.

<comment><USER27> This "feature" is being removed:

[https://twitter.com/paul_irish/status/1138471166115368960](https://twitter.com/paul_irish/status/1138471166115368960)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER28> Here's ThredUP's Julia Boyle posting a number of open engineering positions in a recent "Who is hiring?" thread: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18358221](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18358221)

<comment><USER12> The link is 7 months old. I am geniunely curious how this is relevant to the discussion. Can you clarify please?

<comment><USER29> Thredup is the first company mentioned in the article.

<comment><USER12> My bad! Apologies for not catching this earlier.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> There goes that nasty evil capitalism, "It wasn't my lack of will power and cognitive short falls that caused me to buy these things ... it was capitalism's fault. I'm completely innocent and would never make bad decisions of my own accord ..."

<comment><USER30> That is somewhat unfair. Most of the time, it's a naive consumer on one side, and an army of UI experts and behavioral scientists on the other. That consumer is hopelessly outmatched, and the company will absolutely find a way to hack his or her psychology.

<comment><USER18> Citing human psychology is a sad excuse to excuse one's self from personal responsibility. You are the final arbiter of all decisions that you make. Nobody else. You are the one that is ultimately responsible.

If this were loot boxes, then maybe we'd be having a different discussion, but unless they're tricking you into something other than what is advertised, then the onus ultimately falls upon you to control your desire to purchase something.

<comment><USER31> Um, what makes one form of dishonesty acceptable and loot box dishonesty unacceptable?

Personally I lean on the "I am the final arbiter of my purchasing decisions" side, but surely this principle would have to be applied consistently (and what this looks like is I have bought almost nothing online ever)

<comment><USER18> Lootboxes aren't a form of dishonesty. It's a form of gambling. Gambling needs to be regulated, because that specifically does abuse psychology, whereas when you're buying a product, you know exactly what you're getting. There's no deception there, unless there is, in which case we have laws against it, because it's called false advertisement. We have laws against gambling, because we know how math works and the human mind doesn't by default.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Learn ObjectiveC or Swift for creating social media apps like Instagram/Snapchat - <AUTHOR>

Which one would be more efficient and easier to use/ learn. I know a little more than basic programming but I was just wondering whether Swift or Objective C would be the language to choose to create social media like apps. Thanks! <comment><USER2> Learning Swift is definitely much easier in my opinion. There are some oddities though that come from the world of Objective-C, but I believe it's pretty easy to understand regardless.

Also something you need to keep in mind is that there is a lot of server-side infrastructure that handles these Social Media apps. The apps just serve up the content for the most part. The server-side aspect of things is doing all the interesting work.</comment>


Ask HN: What's your favorite corporate power move? - <AUTHOR> I've never been able to find a list so I figure I would ask y'all.
Examples of corporate power moves:
- Showing up 5 minutes late to a meeting, to show someone your time is more valuable.
- "The Hard CC" where you cc someone's boss to throw them under the bus for not being accountable.
- Having someone prepare a report or do a lot of work on something and then tell them to "simplify it" or just give you the "key points" in a meeting
What are your favorite (or least favorite if something drives you nuts) corporate power moves? <comment><USER3> Giving my boss a heads up that I was gonna quit if things didn't change. Things didn't change, so I quit. They had almost no other technical staff so they called me asking to fix "just a couple little things". I quoted my rate at 300$ an hour, minimum 20 hours. They balked. Three days later my former boss calls me and agrees. I ended up billing 80 hours.

<comment><USER4> So weird how human nature works. The more I grow old, the more I see everything is a struggle/war/negotiation.

I'm always looking for friendly high drive collaboration but it's so rarely the case.

<comment><USER3> My new place is much better :)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> I enjoy being a nice person and not fucking over other people for my own personal gain.

<comment><USER6> Seconded, with the caveat that I enjoy fucking over those who fuck over my team.

<comment><USER7> +1 to this!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> I don't know if it's a power move, but I like to reiterate all verbal communications in a follow up email to the person(s) I was conversing with, prompting them to ensure I understood everything correctly. While it's more of a CYA thing, the power move comes into play when they try to feign ignorance on the topics of the conversation, and I can use their written words to set the record straight (or just have a record of what _I_ may have understood, but they failed to clarify by not responding to my follow up).

<comment><USER9> I would call that good practice and reasonable manners, this is normal in my professional circle and not doing it would be a dick move or maybe setting up for an ambush.

Conflict arises from differing or unmet expectations, so continually managing alignment of expectations is crucial to an end result where both parties feel there has been a positive outcome.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> Quitting. Especially effective in the Midwest U.S. where jobs are more scarce and employers tend to take you for granted.

<comment><USER11> I'm not sure why you got downvoted, but I have to agree.

At least a couple of employers I had in smaller towns in the midwest would treat employees like property, and would assume you would never (or be able to) leave. "You should be grateful to even have a job" was common.

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> Being late isn't a power move, it's just makes you look disorganized and disrespectful. This would have 100% the opposite of your intended effect with me.

Real power moves are exercising real power: saying no and being able to back it up, expressing a dissenting opinion, solving problems and providing real value, brining in money, controlling budgets or headcount, threatening to quit because you can/will, leading by organizing people to get something done, articulating a framing for situations that cut through the BS, understand people's motivations and what's actually going on, etc. These moves "take up space," but don't confuse taking up space for power. People with actual power won't.

So get to those meetings on time.

<comment><USER13> > Being late isn't a power move, it's just makes you look disorganized and > disrespectful.

Sometimes yes, sometimes no

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> The classic programmer corporate power move is wearing whatever you want to the office.

<comment><USER15> Metal/Video Game/Nerd T-shirt + Bermuda short + Espadrille was my main dress code this summer. Skater shoes + cargo pant + hoodies right now. My power move would be to switch to a sirwal (best pant ever!). I may try it. My god level move would be to wear a mundu or a pareo.

<comment><USER16> I've done the pareo before on multiple occasions. The cooling factor in 30°+ heat is unrivalled.

Easily one of my favourite things to wear at work when the weather's good for it. Probably want to practice putting one on and keeping it secure for a bit first though - don't want it slipping off in front of people! (That would be a different kind of power move.)

<comment><USER8> How much cooler if you freeball it?

<comment><USER16> Hard to quantify it but it's far more comfortable due to the soft fabric and lack of friction around the thighs. It's super refreshing not just with the breeze but also because it's like shade for your legs.

It's honestly a shame that it's not socially acceptable (in the West) for men to wear skirts and dresses.

<comment><USER17> One of these days I should go to work in the fencing outfit. (Mask optional.)

Maybe even the full historical reconstruction set I have.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> The response of "noted".

You do a little scribble in your book or tablet or whatever and look up and say "noted" and then just stare with a pregnant pause, indicating you are waiting for the next meaningless "concern" to be articulated.

<comment><USER18> I do this all the time and didn't realize it was a power move. I find myself saying it to curb additional discussion I feel like is going to be superfluous - especially over slack or whatever. Noted!

</comment></comment><comment><USER19> Employ or feign total ignorance of operations so no one can expect a raise, because the boss/manager doesn't even know what you do here.

Assume loyalty only from those whom you have directly hired; remove all those who predate you.

Make a strict deadline, but merrily add features at your whim, when the deadline is missed, then act astonished "how could this have happened?"

Elicit sympathy from your underpaid minions for crashing your Porsche again while auto racing.

<comment><USER20> I am sorry.

</comment></comment><comment><USER21> Having confidence in myself and my own future. Enough so that I can say exactly how I see a situation and I can deal with the consequences whether positive or negative.

<comment><USER21> To add to my comment, having learnt this 10 years into my career, I feel like this thinking is a virtious circle. If I am able to communicate exactly what I am thinking in a diplomatic manner, the more it is appreciated and the more success I have. This leads to greater confidence and the more I express myself in such a fashion.

</comment></comment><comment><USER22> At $bigcorp we had a senior vice president continuing his phone calls in the mens room (toilet) at the pissoirs. I can imagine he saw himself doing a power move (I certainly didn't) showing how important or busy he is. He did wash his hands at least.

<comment><USER23> U.S. President Lyndon Johnson used to take this power move a step further. In one-on-one meetings with members of his staff, he would go into the bathroom attached to his office, start urinating, and then _call the staff member into the bathroom to continue the conversation._ They would then have to either go into the bathroom and literally watch him relieve himself, or risk offending their boss, who happened to also be the most powerful man in the world.

<comment><USER6> > They would then have to either go into the bathroom and literally watch him > relieve himself, or risk offending their boss, who happened to also be the > most powerful man in the world.

Those are the times you politely demur, and when pressed ask the "reducto ad absurdum" question - "Sir, you wish for me to watch you urinate?" Helps if you have a solid poker-face.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> From the comments, seems there is confusion on what you're looking for. I sense sarcasm in your request, i.e., 'What are cargo cult things one can do to show power?' But some responses are more genuine. If you make the ask clearer in what you're really looking for, it'll make it easier to decipher the responses.

My 2 cents...

<comment><AUTHOR> Mea culpa. I could have been clearer. I was mainly looking for a "zoo of power moves". definitely not advocating for the use of dis-respectful social tools. I was mainly trying to identify what they look like out in the wild - <USER2> good, bad, and ugly included.

</comment></comment><comment><USER25> Document dump. Not software-related, but someone needs files for diligence and either has some obnoxious request list or wants something you'd prefer they not really know about; you just dump literally everything on them in terrible formats to potentially obfuscate negatives and consume an enormous amount of their time. Many people will find whatever they need to check the box and move on. It's a dick move.

<comment><USER26> You mean hundreds of scanned pdf files without ocr and password protected with different passwords isn't helpful?

</comment></comment><comment><USER27> CC boss is called "escalation" and is useful if direct requests don't work. It's not throwing under the bus, its ensuring accountability. CC boss on the first request is usually unnecessary.

Showing up late to meetings is indeed a "power move" but not respectful. Its the same as "busy bragging", talking about how much work/meetings you have. Both these are completely lame.

The biggest thing I see is holding the floor in meetings, even timing your words and sentences to prevent interruption. This is sometimes necessary when making brief, complete points, in a very aggressive environment. I like to teach people how to break into the monologues.

<comment><USER28> "busy bragging" tells me that you are unorganized/inefficient/trying to impress (i.e. not powerful).

</comment></comment><comment><USER29> "Per my previous email" is my favorite. I usually attach the prior email that answers the question.

<comment><USER21> Isn't this passive aggresive? Would you do this in real life? I feel like this thinking would breed bad culture and is a short-term win at the expense of a long-term relationship.

<comment><USER30> "It depends". I've used this when someone is claiming to their boss that we never communicated something, generally in situations where we've been communicating like crazy, but possibly not with them _directly_ , but via emails to the several affected parties.

Generally I assume that the person is just forgetting because they are very busy rather than out to get me, but, nevertheless, you have to defend yourself against that sort of thing. Passive-aggressive in this case is superior to aggressive-aggressive. If you don't defend your reputation, nobody will.

<comment><USER21> I generally agree with what you said. Maybe I take issue with the phrasing: "Per my previous email" I feel like it triggers some people. I prefer to try and soften it by saying something along the lines of: "I don't know if you got my previous email (see attached)"

<comment><USER17> That one is additionally condescending, implying the recipient cannot handle their email.

Good job!

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER31> These just sound petty, not powerful

<comment><USER16> Wholesome corporate power moves, also known as being a good leader:

\- Allowing your team to work remotely if they want to

\- Assuming responsibility for something that needs doing when it would be easier to pass the buck

\- Shielding your team mates from unwarranted external criticism

the complete list is practically endless

</comment></comment><comment><USER32> The "Hard CC" isn't a power move its how things get done. I constantly check in to make sure I'm doing my job right and when I am and the problem isn't fixed, its time for it to be someone else's problem.

source: working in Support.

</comment><comment><USER33> My boss never accepts calendar invites for meetings, and may or may not show up to the scheduled meeting.

Brilliant filter since people will ask again if she's really needed, vs just invited for show.

</comment><comment><USER34> Being the only remote employee when the rest of the company is onsite.

<comment><USER35> Huh. Achieved that at my previous job (3 days out, 2 days in), but the effect was ultimately opposite to what you'd expect. Sure, initially I was _the_ person that managed to convince management to give them remote work. Fast forward couple months, I was next to nobody on the floor, because I couldn't keep up with the social aspects of the workplace and wasn't present at the relevant watercooler conversations.

</comment></comment><comment><USER36> I like to leave at exactly 5pm.

<comment><USER31> Ha. Slave to the man. Do you badge out too?

<comment><USER36> Few people can entirely avoid having to work for a living.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER37> Refusing to sign NDAs and non-competes

</comment><comment><USER38> How are these power moves? They transfer your power to someone else? Showing up late for a meeting purely to waste time tells the other person you are extremely inconsiderate and someone they should actively avoid.

If I value my time, why would I spend any of it around you??

The rest of these things are just extremely rude, I cannot understand why you'd call them 'power moves'. They show insecurity and a desire to destroy the company you work in, not 'power'.

<comment><USER39> They're certainly quite rude. It's possible the OP isn't sincere in asking for more ways to be rude.

In a sense, being rude is a signal of power, because if you're rude and not powerful then you'd get punished for being rude. (As you say, I wouldn't wanna work anyone who behaves so rudely, though). [https://medium.com/incerto/how- to-legally-own-another-person...](https://medium.com/incerto/how-to-legally- own-another-person-4145a1802bf6)

<comment><AUTHOR> (OP here) I am 100% not advocating the use of "power moves". I don't believe they grow mutual respect or help build constructive work environments... but let's be real, any of us that exist in the real world have seen this stuff from time to time and like everything, there are good and bad versions of it.

The "Ask HN" is meant to be of an "observational" nature. My aim is that the discussion provides utility for understanding social dynamics, and hopefully people use discretion with the info (i.e. Hanlon's razor).

Hopefully the info can be used to help people navigate their lives better.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER31> Scheduling an offsite or business trip to avoid trivial initiatives you don't want to deal with.

<comment><AUTHOR> nice.

</comment></comment><comment><USER40> I didn't start doing this because it was a "power move" although its been pointed out to me that it was since.

My company like big 20 person meetings where my portion of the agenda may only be 5 minutes long.

The rest of the meeting I will listen to what is going on, chime in when relevant, but I keep on coding so I can meet my deadlines. This bothers some people who think your full attention should be on the meeting, but honestly it just isn't required for me so I multitask.

</comment><comment><USER41> The re-org in which dead wood is shunted off to an out-of-the way planning or strategy assignment.

Extra points for dotted-line reporting to another strategy person. Further extra points if the planning assignment is not funded adequately and/or has no personnel authority.

</comment><comment><USER42> Pretty much every scene in the movie Margin Call.

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hhy7JUinlu0](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hhy7JUinlu0)

</comment><comment><USER43> I don't know what kind of corporate culture you are dealing with but I personally believe in Open,Honest,Direct approach to solve my problems.

</comment><comment><USER44> Canceling the meeting after 3 minutes to show them you don't tolerate lateness.

</comment><comment><USER45> "What I'm hearing you say .." and then say what you want to happen.

<comment><AUTHOR> lol. Yep seen many a manager use that

</comment></comment><comment><USER46> Working from home</comment>


Ask HN: What I have to do get a job? Tech Recruiters? - <AUTHOR> Just had this correspondence from a recruiter/client. Do people actually accept this as reasonable?
Recruiter: Hi Chad,
    Hope your day is starting off well.  We got some positive feedback form the folks at ---- and ----- and they are interested in having you take their PHP challenge.  To quote their Director of Development:
    "I know this isn't an easy challenge, but senior-level work is a lofty claim.  Nailing this challenge is a pretty quick ticket to landing this job."
    I have attached the Code Challenge and they would like you to complete it as soon as possible.
Thanks, Recruiter
Chad: Hi Recruiter,
I will admit the the Director was smart not just to issue the challenge, but he put a small psychological challenge to taunt the ego with the term "lofty claim". Unfortunately, three variables that where left out of the equation: Risk, Time and Economy. Risk: preforming this task is no guarantee of job, so the time spent on this project has the complete potential of being unhedged, i.e. unpaid. Time: The opportunity cost of preforming this task, as I can be developing existing clients (profitable), job opportunities (variable profitability),  spending time with my new born, or playing basketball (the last two are not profitable, but enjoyable) instead of working on this unpaid project. Economics: Based on the current demand for programmers and senior programmers this particular project seems a little egregious, it might have been acceptable in 2008-2009, today not so much.
In Nov., I was paid to work on a side-projects for a company that was interested in hiring me. I did a side project for them that benefited both parties. In the end I wasn't interested in the position, I got paid and they got the side project done. Thanks,Chad
Recruiter: Thanks Chad I'll let him know.
Challenge can be found here: http://pastebin.com/jLMeGBW6 <comment><USER2> Welcome to the interview process - not every employers does it, but coding evaluations are common. Also: grow up or cut the arrogance, nobody's impressed with the attitude but you.

<comment><AUTHOR> Yeah I'm that good. :)

Maybe you like wasting time on mindless projects, or tech recruiter? It might benefit to polish up on your economics, specifically supply and demand.

Last week alone in Denver: -15 Dev jobs at Pacific Metrics -20 Dev jobs at Health Grades -A Mapquest recruiter I don't know begging for referals. -New Tech (Denver) 15 minutes of job announcements.

You might think I have an attitude or arrogant, (oh well) what you can't deny is I now the market.

<comment><USER2> I think a coding evaluation that requires an unreasonable amount of time to complete is inappropriate. So if that's the case, your premise is fine. However, burning bridges is a poor strategy and what I can't deny is that you acted with an attitude and were arrogant.

Yes, I enjoy wasting time on mindless projects because I retired at 31...and was a tech recruiter. I would be happy to teach you a few things in professionalism, economics, all of the above :)

<comment><AUTHOR> Sorry, I'm a retired Marine, I just cut to the chase, it did wonders for my military / civilian career.

Congratulations on your retirement at 31 as tech recruiter, you surely are one in a million!

Like I said burning bridges with recruiters that have a shelf life 7 1/2 months, I'm okay with. I am more than comfortable that in your tenure as a recruiter you sucked in your pride to get that fat commission check.

As for your offer to teach, I am okay thanks, I don't need to downgrade my knowledge.

Cheers.

<comment><USER3> There are a handful of recruiters that I refuse to deal with at all. I set my cell phone to block their number and set my gmail to automatically archive their emails.

Actually, I have a simple solution now, that works surprisingly well. When someone contacts me, I search my gmail for past interactions. That's saved me from wasting time on several occasions.

<comment><USER2> I like that approach, fair and efficient!

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> You didn't have to be all wordy and cocky with your refusal.

Just be like "hey this seems fun but I just don't have the time for the challenge".

How many years of experience do you have?

<comment><USER5> I have to agree. Most companies expect some kind of coding challenge now to weed out those who lie on their resume.

The recruiter will likely just forward your entire response to the company and honestly, it sounds a little pompous.

I've been on the hiring team for a couple of companies and if I saw that kind of response it would be an instant turn off because I think it shows someone who is difficult to work with.

However, if you simply just said "sorry, I don't have time for this right now I'm interviewing with 5 different companies alongside my day job" you can bet that would get a more favorable response. I know cases where someone's resume looked good enough to allow them to skip that part and just come in for the in-person interview. In fact, I've used this very line myself to avoid doing coding challenges that would have taken too long.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> They're just trying to move the cost of identifying talent from their bank account to yours. You can do the reverse.

Find someone in the company (preferably someone you know). Ask him if he wants a recruitment bonus from his firm. Then send him your resume. He gets money for sending an email on your behalf, and you don't have to take these silly tests. MBAs and HR folk don't have to jump through all of these hoops to get hired. Why should programmers?

<comment><USER7> This is at best unethical and at worst against the contract that the company signed with the recruiter.

I once had someone offer this to me at an interview, and it completely sunk their chances.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> This kind of evaluation is much more likely to find qualified people than the standard programming trivia questions interview process. They made a couple of mistakes that make it likely that very qualified people will skip it, though.

1\. They should set up a virtual machine with the framework installed and a skeleton project working with dead-simple instructions to run it

2\. They should time-box it. Meaning -- you tell me when you can do it -- I send you the instructions beforehand and then you have 2 hours. I tell you my expectations -- not beautiful code, but an indication that you understand the spec and see what you can do in a few hours.

3\. They seem to want you to geocode the address -- they should provide a dummy function or service to do that (or give some indication of what they expect here)

4\. The only semi-challenging part of this is the hierarchical algorithm they want to see you code (common ancestor). The rest is just boiler-plate. Perhaps just cut to the chase (give you the rest of the code -- and just leave this function blank and have you code it).

</comment><comment><USER3> That definitely was too much, just for an interview. A couple times, I had someone ask for a consulting project as a coding test, like the guy who asked for a program that connected to Interactive Brokers and executed VWAP trades. That test project was too specific and detailed.

My rule now is that if the pre-interview coding test takes more than 15 minutes, I just pass.

A lengthy pre-interview coding test has many issues:

\- you could do it and not get an interview

\- you could do it, and they turn out to be douchebags (likely, because they're insulting your time with the test)

I just pass on almost all pre-interview tests now. How do you know it's worth your time until you meet them?

<comment><AUTHOR> VWAP isn't a common term around most programmers. (Don't worry, I know all to well what it means.)

Is there a site the specializes in programming/trading/finance? or do you have to be in NYC or Chicago?

<comment><USER3> Most of the banking/trading jobs are in the big cities. It's mostly NYC and Chicago, but a little for other cities. (with Chicago being more options and futures)

Like you mentioned elsewhere, it sucks as you might imagine. Why would a big bank need good software when they can get trillions of dollars in bailout money from the government? (and the losses by Knight are still a rounding error compared to the government subsidies the financial industry receives) For example, 0% interest rates are a massive wealth transfer to the financial industry, because they can borrow at 0%, buy stuff, wait for inflation, and profit (and get bailed out when they're wrong).

Financial software is shockingly low quality.

Like most things, you need previous financial/trading experience. I haven't done it in a couple of years, so I wouldn't be seriously considered now.

<comment><AUTHOR> Yeap, that is our financial system in a nut shell... Thanks Grandma Yellen for continuing to bail out the banks.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Working with an external recruiter who I assume charges a contingency fee of 25% of your first year salary is really important, actually, and may be undermining your relations with these companies. If they hire someone who costs $200K/year, they pay the recruiter $50K. Just to get someone to sign and stay for a month. Since hiring someone is so costly to them, they must be extremely certain that it's worth it. So by choosing to work through a recruiter, you are, in a sense, inviting some of these demands on yourself. There are lots of other ways to find work and be found by potential employers.

</comment><comment><USER9> To your first question: Obviously you don't have to complete this to get a job. You didn't, and so you probably will not get the job.

To your second question: I find this particular challenge to be unreasonable. I have provided coding challenges many times for people who are interviewing for companies I work for or own. Sometimes they are "very large project" type challenges. But I always stipulate in writing and over the phone that "we would like you to time box your efforts to 30 - 60 minutes total. Focus on some aspect of the project you would like us to see. We don't mind if you only write a single function. We want to understand your methods and thought processes, that is all." I find this works exceptionally well. Unfortunately, a number of technical companies really get this interviewing thing wrong.

Now for some friendly advice, which, of course, you can take or leave. You must be looking for a job or at least you are attempting to have a relationship with this recruiter, because it seems you have spoken to companies that this recruiter has found for you. It is good to not burn bridges with recruiters. You just burned a bridge.

You need to realize that the recruiter is never going to pass your message along to the client. The recruiter is right now crafting a message to the client saying "Chad really doesn't have time to complete the challenge because he has a few other offers on the table. Would you like to give him an offer? Of course if you don't, I have 30 other engineers for you to look at who would love to complete the challenge and will be a great fit for your company!" Yes it is a blatant lie, and your recruiter may make up an entirely difference excuse for why you won't do it. But the client will certainly never receive your message. Never.

In the future when a job comes up which fits your skill set and price range, do you think this recruiter is going to think of you first? Not a chance. "Chad looks like a perfect fit for this. But, what if they give him a code challenge? That's a lot of hassle to have to save face with the client. Hmmm Susan and Johnny are both pretty good fits as well, I'll send them."

Your point is good but your presentation is the problem. Maybe you could have tried:

"I am super busy right now, I just can't complete such a large challenge with my family life and work schedule. Please let your client know I am so sorry and I don't want to cause them trouble, I just can't complete it at the moment."

This would have been a great way to get out of it that would have left the recruiting thinking of you in the future. Alternatively you could have tried something like:

"Wow! I really like this client and I would love to work with them. It sounds like the Director really wants to find the right candidate. However, I am a bit concerned. This is not just a lofty challenge but a time consuming one, especially with family, kids, and work. I estimate this would take me 8 hours to complete. Maybe I am way off though. I would love to show them my abilities, but would they object to me time boxing this to 1-2 hours? How can we work together to make this happen?"

Your milage my vary of course, but don't burn too many recruitment bridges, or you might find you have no way to cross over to the other side.

<comment><AUTHOR> Oddly enough I agree with most of what you are saying. The fact of the matter is I don't need a job that bad that I needed to conduct this challenge. In addition, I sometimes I like to do a little creative writing...

I'm okay with burning bridges, honestly people should probably do it a little more instead of using double speak. Although I do try to be nice to recruiters, I know this one specifically is just shuffling resumes. (He past on my resume with out even really looking at it, I know because I always ask a few questions, to see if they made to the bottom of the page.)

Burned bridges will always be rebuilt when money is involved.

<comment><USER8> Disagree. Reputations travel far and last a long time. 2008-2009 was part of a cycle that will come around again.

There are plenty of companies that are unwilling to deal with the friction of "rockstar" developers.

<comment><AUTHOR> Disagree to disagree. I explained politely why I wasn't interested. I work in Denver and have the ability to work remote which only expands mt reach. (plus I have other clients on the side.) The recruiter will forgive me, if he wants to make his numbers and a commission.

But you are right 2008, will happen again in some form... (US oil, banks?)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> I'm the internal recruiter at FutureAdvisor, an online investment manager backed by Sequoia and YC. As a recruiter who doesn't code, I expect this comment will provoke a disproportionate amount of disagreement from the software engineers reading this thread. But I hope I can tell you why recruiters and hiring managers act the way they do, so that you can handle them better and understand their constraints.

I've written about this a lot elsewhere: [https://medium.com/terms- conditions](https://medium.com/terms-conditions)

The message you sent to the recruiter and the hiring manager at Company X was: "I don't want to work for Company X."

Hiring someone is kind of like getting married -- an employment agreement is a long-term commitment to mutual dependence as you work toward a common goal, and it involves a large share of your hours every day.

You want to marry someone who's nice to be around, who can hold up their end of the deal, and who shows clear signs of wanting to marry you in return. That desire is expressed through the effort they put into your relationship, especially in the beginning.

Both you and the company face the same challenge: gathering reliable information about someone you don't know. The only information the company cares about is a) can you do the job? and b) are you easy to get along with? By refusing to take the coding challenge, you gave them no answer to a) and a clear signal that the answer to b) is "no."

I'm not saying you should waste a lot of time taking hourslong coding challenges for companies that you don't want to work for. But if you do really want to work somewhere, you need to find a way to show them that you can do the work and that you won't be a wrench in the gears.

You could have tried to meet them halfway. Get some projects you're proud of up on Github that you can point them toward. Let them know that you'd be happy to do some live coding during a technical interview so they can hear you think out loud as you solve problems. That's one way to minimize the time and effort you expend, and still give them information they need.

They're not going to pay you to get that information, but like you, they should be willing to spend some time, in a process of escalating commitment, to make sure you can do what you say.

What a lot of good software engineers don't realize is that there are a lot of bad software engineers out there. The job market is full of noise. People lie about their skills and experience. So employers need to be able to test those claims, and they do it with coding challenges.

I have to respectfully disagree with @taprun. The fact that coding challenges can be applied to the job market for software engineers makes it much less corrupt, and raises the quality of matches between employers and employees.

MBAs and HR people are not in a position to show what they make. This leads to a lot of bad decisions. That said, there is still a screening process. A good company does a ton of reference checks, and watches them closely to see if they deliver on the job. If they don't, they're usually gone in a few months.

<comment><USER6> @vonnik I didn't argue that coding challenges were bad. I'm arguing that it's improper for businesses to offload their hiring costs onto programmers. Any business can offer a hiring challenge, but it should be prepared to pay programmers to take them.

As you say, hiring someone is like getting married. So too is getting hired by someone. If I asked you (the recruiter) to write a 1,000 word essay (tailored to each applicant) on why you'd be a great employer, would you do it? Please be honest. I suspect that you'd suddenly see that your time has significant value.

<comment><USER10> it's called "opportunity cost"; most ppl wouldn't mind when the opportunity is good enough. will Chad finish a coding test if Apple/Google asks? i doubt anybody would refuse knowing it might lead to a $200k+/yr job.

<comment><USER3> But every lame startup acts like they're Google/Apple/Facebook. If you're a no-name startup, why should I spend 2-40 hours for the privilege of maybe meeting you?

<comment><USER8> You shouldn't. One partial solution to the inefficiency of the job market would be a standardized and centralized coding challenge that software engineers could take once and show to many potential employers. In fact, several startups are trying to create something like that. HackerRank is one example. TrueAbility is another, specific for DevOps. These are both great ideas because employers get the information they need and engineers don't have to waste time on repeated challenges. In the end, though, it's just a prelude to showing what you can do in person, since every online test will be hacked.

<comment><USER3> Maybe everyone could go somewhere, study and be tested for a couple years, so they are certified as having basic competence?

I have a CS degree with multiple honors fron a top 10 university. What was the point of that? Can't I skip the "prove you have basic competence" pre- interview screening?

<comment><USER8> With luck, the CS degree gave you the skills to perform on the job. Unfortunately, many CS degrees do not guarantee basic competence. The problems of industry are different from the problems of academia. Things like academic pedigree and GPA don't correlate with performance on the job. This is a truth many companies learn painfully.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> I'm working on an index to the "Careers" section of tech employer websites at:

[http://www.warplife.com/jobs/computer/](http://www.warplife.com/jobs/computer/)

I take requests; if there is a specific city where you would like to work, please let me know.

This is built manually. I have some ideas as to how to automate this, but the manual work yields insight into how to better automate it.</comment>


Ask HN: Do you know of any resources for reuniting refugees with their families? - <AUTHOR>

Today I was shocked when talking to a stranger. He has been working in different countries for the last 14 years trying to get his wife and children out of Eritrea (Africa).
In my life, I'm used to having ideas on how to approach any problem, being able to google it, and start fixing working. An unapproachable issue of this magnitude stuns me.
I'd like to be able to at least point my friend/acquaintance in the direction of an NGO that works on problems like these, but I could only listen, stunned.
Can you imagine working on getting your family out of a dictatorship for over a decade with no progress? Can you imagine if you couldn't even talk to your loved one for more than a few minutes before your connection cut out? Knowing they live in a place where water only runs a few days a month? Where the government wouldn't give them their birth certificates, and didn't allow exit visas for it's citizens?
I feel like the heart of a hacker reaches out to solve problems, to make the world run better, to destroy artificial inefficiencies.
Do any of you guys even have an idea how someone would get started on something like this? Further complicating matters, my friend Mulubrharn only has rudimentary English literacy. We live in Chicago, if that helps. <comment><USER2> OK, I've spoken to my girlfriend about this - she used to work with the Red Cross's International Tracing and Messaging (ITMS) department.

Her strong recommendation is that anyone in the situation you describe should talk to the US Red Cross as soon as possible. Their ITMS department will either be able to help or point him to someone who can.

They've got considerable expertise in this area.

</comment><comment><USER3> [http://www.hias.org](http://www.hias.org) \- Originally set up to help Jews fleeing Russia, now helps all refugees. If they can't help you, they'll likely know someone who can.

</comment><comment><USER4> Check out [http://rapidftr.com/](http://rapidftr.com/) runs on Android and is already in use in some countries I believe.

</comment><comment><USER2> My girlfriend used to work with people in a related field. I'll ask her about this and comment back later.

</comment><comment><USER5> cannot find it now but there is a ted talk about I think Italian hackers who setup website to reunite people after earthquake and it is still used by NGOs for similar reunite projects. (this is finding not immigration problems) seems a good place to start</comment>


What's important after two years of programming - <AUTHOR> http://rluckom.github.io

<comment><AUTHOR> sorry to repost; mistyped url last time.</comment>


What to look for in a technical co-founder - <AUTHOR> https://pilot.co/blog/what-to-look-for-in-a-technical-co-founder/ <comment><USER2> _At an early-stage startup, a technical cofounder is responsible for actually developing the product that you envision._

Why does this always feel like the technical guy is going to be shouldering an awful lot of the hard work?</comment>


Hey HN: I made something to add Help to your startups. Thoughts? - <AUTHOR> http://helpbubble.com

<comment><USER2> Couldn't you provide a demo without me having to change the source code of my web site?

Not sure what it is yet, but I don't think I would open up my site to external JavaScript just for popup bubbles, to be honest.

<comment><USER3> The demo is right there on their website - bottom left corner.

Edit: apologies, that was such a short reply that it's at risk of coming across as snarky, but no such intent!

<comment><USER2> Just checked - it seems it doesn't appear every time I load the site, therefore I missed it the first time. Try reloading the site a couple of times.

<comment><USER4> Exactly. I had to reload the page to see it. Once I tried it out, it seemed like a pretty cool idea. It just needs some smoother execution.

The reload was one thing and others have mentioned the confusion of the "try it" button. Maybe a "Try It" arrow pointing to that lower left corner would help? Then change the original "Try It" to "Sign Up".

Edit: To note that the overall site seems pretty cool! Keep going...

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Girlfriend reaction: "Wasn't this in Microsoft Word 10 years ago? It had a cute dog."

Take that for what you may.

Cool concept, but I don't think this is something I'd ever pay for. GetSat or Uservoice could kill this in one update.

There is just something about it that would bug me having it on the page.

<comment><USER6> Never judge a startup by where it is now. Judge a startup where it could be six months down the line.

Of course, this equally applies to GetSat and Uservoice too.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> I think the loading animation is too much. It'll be better if it just pops up.

Also I think this is taking up too much real estate, it should probably just be a 16x16 pixel image with a ? on it.

<comment><AUTHOR> The loading animation (aka "the swoosh maneuver") actually only happens on the front page of helpbubble.com -- it's intended to really draw your attention to it, since it's sort of the star of the show. When it's installed on your site, it's much more sedate. Fancy animations are easily added via JavaScript hackery, of course, if you so desire. :)

<comment><USER8> Definitely communicate that then!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> This is great !

BUT, as with other 95% of the tools out there. I cannot use it. Because it does not support localization.

Can you allow for changing the text in buttons & captions ? (Moving the box RTL will be great too)

</comment><comment><USER10> Wow. This is really, really awesome.

Edit: I'm sure you guys felt the urge to add more features and customization right out of the gate, and I appreciate that you kept things simple. I see myself (and others) using this specifically because it looks so clean and lightweight.

<comment><USER11> I agree. It's pretty awesome.

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> "Your website visitors are really confused."

No, your website visitors are really confused. i.e. me

<comment><USER13> Offer a few helpful points with that and I wounld't have voted you down.

You could have said: TRY IT should open a help bubble. Add a GET IT button to get the code.

<comment><USER14> Yeah that's what I expected. It didn't load for me first time (must be a bug, that's fine we all have bugs) so I clicked on the "Try It" button. I like it but would not use it as software as a service, but I would buy it especially if its API supported <insert favourite big web framework here (Django for me)>.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> Firstly, excellent execution of a very useful little tool. I could really use something like this on my site.

That said, I think I could probably build a less polished version in about an afternoon, and having something native provides peace of mind and flexibility.

That's not to detract from your offering, but my hunch is that you'll find a good customer base in larger companies that have a hard time approving development of anything non-business critical. There's immediate appeal in quick integration and allowing the maintenance to be handled by a non- technical person.

</comment><comment><USER16> I love it, and would happily pay money for it (please, tell me you are going to charge for this).

I was pacing around my apartment late last night trying to figure out how to quickly integrate help into my new product. I was convinced I was going to spend the time in rolling my own system rather than launching. Thanks to this, I'll be able to launch much sooner.

It's easy to say "I could write this in a few hours" (which I doubt), but why? Why would you waste cycles on something that is not core to your product?

Anyway, great job, and I can't wait to see where this goes.

</comment><comment><USER17> I'd rather the initial animation slide up from the taskbar. and it would really be context sensitive if it could slightly buzz/vibrate/gain users attention in case it 'detects' that the user is stuck. what 'detects' actually is the context and could be configurable by the author based on wait time, scroll up-down, highlights of keywords etc. I can't think of a really fit example for this, but perhaps any web based application that requires specific input for relevant results such as mint.com?

</comment><comment><USER18> This is great. Very useful, but it does take up a lot of space. I actually built something like this for my site, but ended up scrapping it since it was too much maintenance.

</comment><comment><USER6> Quick additions that you can consider:

* A default option whereby a visitor can ask question which isn't listed on a page.

* A simple 'did this answer help you' under each answer. Like what Google does on its support pages.

* Some basic stats like how many visitors clicked the help bubble and how many got their question answered.

The three options above will provide you will insights whether you are answering the right question.

</comment><comment><USER19> FYI: With FF & Safari/4.05 I find that long Help questions expand beyond their containers (in the actual help response). Just a cosmetic issue FWIW.

PS: Do you know whether your pricing model will be 1) Per site? 2) Per traffic? 3) ___________?

</comment><comment><USER20> Where is the bubble to help Canada assert its sovereignty over Hans Island?

<comment><AUTHOR> It's floating over northern Nunavut as we speak.

<comment><USER20> Are you sure it isn't a spaceship built by a teenage boy with designs that came to him in a dream?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Is it specific to a webpage or whole website?

Another note: <http://www.kissinsights.com/> is somewhat on similar model, though it is a survey.

<comment><USER21> Each question is specific to the whole website OR a particular URL match. For example, you can configure a question to /login such as "How do I reset my password?"

You can also specify wildcards, such as /users/* etc.

</comment></comment><comment><USER22> I have no use for it but a way to close the help bubble besides clicking the icon again would be helpful. Like an [X] where there is normally an [X] on these kind of popups.

</comment><comment><USER23> Busted left and right on Opera (10.51 on Win7). I assume you can update it as you please since you host it, so maybe it'd be better to just disable it on untested browsers.

<comment><USER24> Busted it is. Opera 10.51, Windows 7.

</comment></comment><comment><USER25> Very nice. It doesn't work, though, when you open the website inside an iframe. You might be referring to the top window in your code rather than the current window object.

</comment><comment><USER19> Just curious: what guided you to use Prototype rather than, say, jQuery?

<comment><USER26> He's not using either one.

<comment><USER27> The site itself is using jQuery.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER28> Who did the design for your site? I really like it.

</comment><comment><USER29> I'm guessing you don't offer ssl?

<comment><AUTHOR> Not at this point, but it's definitely on the todo list.</comment></comment>


Show HN: SQL Storage Back End for Kubernetes - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/rancher/k8s-sql <comment><USER2> Very ugly, just use storage backend as recommened in kubernetes manual.

[https://kubernetes.io/docs/tasks/run-application/run- single-...](https://kubernetes.io/docs/tasks/run-application/run-single- instance-stateful-application/)

<comment><AUTHOR> Let me clarify, this code is to store the k8s cluster state in a SQL DB and not in etcd. This had nothing to do with applications deployed by k8s.

<comment><USER2> Sorry, my mistake. I now understand!</comment></comment></comment>


Summer at Highland Capital Partners 2011 - <AUTHOR> http://www.hcp.com/summer/

<comment><USER2> Not bad actually and a funny deck: <http://www.hcp.com/content88010></comment>


Mental Illness and Startups - <AUTHOR> http://blog.tesser.org/2011/5/12/mental-illness-and-startups <comment><USER2> While I don't disagree with this statement:

 _There are people who think that depression means 'feeling low', and that if you try hard enough, you can 'snap out of it'. These people are idiots. It's not a matter of being strong enough or dedicated enough. For me, like most people with depressive illnesses, there will be times when I just plain can't. In my worst states I can barely remember what a for loop does, let alone code one. Accept that there will be times when you can't work, and make the most of the times when you can._

There is an approach called "behavioral activation" that my psychiatrist taught me. Basically, instead of saying "I'll do it _when_ I feel better", you say "I'll do it _so_ I'll feel better".

Doing things I didn't feel like doing, that felt almost impossibly difficult (like putting on real clothes and going outside) was probably the most effective tool I've ever had with dealing with depression.

<comment><USER3> Coping mechanisms like that one definitely help -- especially if they get put to use early on in a depressive cycle. A high level of self-awareness, acknowledgement of depression (or other mental illness), certain hobbies, "sunshine therapy", all help to mitigate depression and other mental illnesses.

Still, though, there are severe forms of depression that can become invulnerable to all the self-help approaches.

<comment><USER2> Absolutely, I pointed out a type of cognitive behavioral therapy (behavioral activation) because it's easy advice that may help people.

The science is pretty clear that a combination of medication and professionally-guided CBT has the most effective rates for treating depression, and that some specific treatments specifically don't work at all for some people.

<comment><USER4> There are tons of other types of therapies as well:

[http://therapists.psychologytoday.com/rms/content/therapy_me...](http://therapists.psychologytoday.com/rms/content/therapy_methods.html)

Which one is "most effective" (by what measure?) is very debatable.

Here's a Jungian critique of CBT ("Psychology's New God") :

[http://hbmag.com/jungian-psychology-series- psychology's-new-...](http://hbmag.com/jungian-psychology-series- psychology's-new-god/)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> "you don't have to be mad to work here but ...."

i've found smaller companies are much more tolerant & flexible with nutters (like me).

there seems to be more focus on results than politics. in larger places I've felt more pressure not to rock the boat, and produce the illusion of work, rather than actually delivering things on time. it doesn't seem to matter if you actually do anything as long as you look like you're not doing /nothing/.

and I don't mean a startup. even startups can grow into kafkaesque nightmares because it's the only way they've ever thought to run a company. really, you have to be in a small, autonomous group if you want to get away with not being that normal.

the moral is: being a startup in and of itself is no guarantee of tolerance for off kilter people, the people and culture within the company are important. there is a correlation between small companies/startups and tolerance, but it isn't causation.

<comment><USER6> I've worked for Microsoft for over a year now, and they've been exceptionally supportive of my peculiarities. I've suffered massively from depression and sleep disorders, and everyone's pretty willing to reschedule meetings, allow for an altered work schedule, or just let me work from home when it gets bad.

As long as I deliver what I'm supposed to, when I'm supposed to, they're very reasonable.

<comment><USER7> Though I was in a "channel" (as they call(ed) it) that was perhaps less attuned to freaks, I had the opposite experience at EA.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Speaking as someone who has a family member with mental illness: if you have such an illness then please seek professional help right away. If you suspect that someone you care about might have a mental illness then you should urge them to seek professional help right away.

Sometimes it is all manageable or heals on its own, but sometimes the illness progresses and the results are tragic, so it needs to be viewed seriously.

<comment><USER9> Eh, psychology and psychiatry are still fairly young sciences. I'd say it's worth a shot, but people put too much faith in it. I've had family members in professional help forever with no noticeable improvements. They'll even admit to it.

My personal opinion is that, while sometimes useful, we just don't know enough about how humans work to really fix a large number of issues. People tend to go to psychiatrists persistently even after no track record of improvement out of the fear that they'll get worse. No one will ever recommend that anyone 'give up' on professional help out of the fear that saying so will make them responsible for the negative consequences.

<comment><USER8> True. I think the best way to approach it is to acknowledge that there is no certain outcome, and that the best you can do is to maximise the probability of success. If it doesn't work then it doesn't, but that doesn't mean that you don't try at all.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Without disclosing personal details I would like to say this post spoke to me as it very much fits with what I've been through. Dropping out, the highs, the lows. I'm now 26, have worked at a startup for just over 4 years and we just sold to google. I found the freedom of a startup to be exactly what I needed.

</comment><comment><USER11> I was once depressed. Now I have life by the balls. How? (this is purely anecdotal and should not be taken as advice).

      Take Meds. It's no solution, but it's the beginning of a solution.
      Quit school.
      Go to the Italian country-side and *become a man*, Italian style (it involved a lot of wine and pasta).
      Work Mike Rowe-style jobs (like learning how to build an entire house in France).
      Refuse to do any more stupid shit (for others) in your life.
      Stop feeling guilty about anything. (Doesn't mean you lose your conscience).
      Do what you love, do what you love, do what you love.

<comment><USER12> How do you figure out what you love?

<comment><USER13> With a relaxed attitude, you can see what things are fun to do. Do you like fixing tractors? Making tractors? Here's a video of Open Source Backhoe: <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dPgr_LV1dxY>

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> Works great until the startup is successful enough to hire an executive who things that office hours are a more importamt measure of productivity than peer respect or checkins.

It's easier if you're a founder.

<comment><USER2> The moment an executive thinks that, it's no longer a startup, pretty much by definition.

<comment><USER14> I've seen it happen twice - once just after a series A, and once after a company made it incrementally to good profitability. Both had headcounts in the 20-30 range, and still considered themselves to be startups.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> Trust me on this, most fiction writers can relate to that post 100%. Musicians too, I think.

<comment><USER16> I wonder how frequent is depression among programmers. That's not something people like to blog about.

<comment><USER3> Programmers especially, since they tend to live in a world of logic and rational thinking, which tends to lead to the notion that depression can be controlled by modifying certain behaviors or thought patterns -- the same way that any other function (or generic system of functions) can be controlled by modifying their parameters.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> As a student and an amateur developer working for a magazine startup, my schedule is chaotic and busy. Doesn't help that I go through days and sometimes weeks of just laying in bed and watching babylon 5 DVDs. Sometimes the only thing that can snap me out of it is an impending deadline. I'll then end up stressed as I try to complete my workload. Needless to say, my burndown charts are skewed.

I feel the chaos of a startup doesn't help things. I long for a structured 9 to 5 job in an office. Being alone at home just exacerbates things and having a bed behind me just makes me want to crawl under the covers and sleep. I tried going to various cafes to work but there's no free wifi (which I suppose I wouldn't use anyway) and the prices are ridiculous. Libraries are great when they aren't packed and when the homeless aren't using it for shelter.

I have to admit I do have a sudden burst of energy when I stumble across an interesting github repo.

</comment><comment><USER18> Motivation to do X often comes _after_ you start doing X.

Purposeful / meaningful activity is a great way to combat depression.

Just my opinion, I'm not a subject matter expert.

</comment><comment><USER19> If you are depressed, why don't you just go out and do something really awesome? You have nothing to lose, right? So why not do something adventurous? Sell all your shit, move to Europe or South America, and go start a revolution.

<comment><USER15> That's just not how it works. The simplest thing -- getting out of bed, showering -- seems impossible and just pointless. _Everything_ seems pointless.

<comment><USER20> Everything is pointless: then again what is the difference between habit and ritual?</comment></comment></comment>


Internet Brands Acquired For $640 Million - <AUTHOR> http://dealbook.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/09/20/hellman-and-friedman-to-buy-internet-brands/

<comment><USER2> Wow, I just left Internet Brands a month ago. I think it's a good time to sell. CarsDirect was their cash cow 3 years ago, but now it is in bad shape because of the auto industry, and the rest of their revenue is ad-driven (read: volatile). For example, a recent change in Google ad policy eliminated clickable whitespace in ads. Some publishers have seen ad revenues drop 30% as a result. And with the trend toward instant search and social media, I doubt they can keep squeezing revenue out of a portfolio of vBulletin forums with stale content.

Looks like the first cries of foul play have started: [http://www.marketwatch.com/story/kendall-law-group- investiga...](http://www.marketwatch.com/story/kendall-law-group-investigates- internet-brands-inc-acquisition-for- shareholders-2010-09-20?reflink=MW_news_stmp)</comment>


Richard Stallman is looking for love - <AUTHOR> http://www.stallman.org/extra/personal.html <comment><USER2> Who loves me loves my dog as well, indeed.</comment>