React 16 - <AUTHOR> https://facebook.github.io/react/blog/2017/09/26/react-v16.0.html <comment><USER2> 5 minute real-world performance test: I just upgraded a relatively large (200K+ LOC) app that performs server side rendering of charts from React 15.6 to 16.0. Render time dropped from ~50ms to ~15ms. The previous version was already optimized and precompiled (e.g. none of the process.env performance penalties were applicable).

Very impressive improvement for a drop-in upgrade! Especially considering the previous version was not considered slow at all given the complexity.

<comment><USER3> Can you tell what app is it? I'm looking for an app that can do server side chart rendering if necessary.

<comment><USER4> I'd go with SVG charts (SVG is well supported - [http://caniuse.com/#feat=svg](http://caniuse.com/#feat=svg))

[http://mediatemple.net/blog/tips/svg-charting- libraries](http://mediatemple.net/blog/tips/svg-charting-libraries)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> We're really excited about this release. I also wrote about how we made the rewrite happen on our Facebook engineering blog: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15339825](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15339825).

Happy to answer questions if y'all have any. :)

<comment><USER6> Are there plans to relicense React Native to MIT without a Patent timebomb as well?

<comment><USER7> But does MIT license really solve all patent issues? FB could still enforce patents regardless of license if I understood it properly.

<comment><USER8> Everyone can, that's precisely why they gave you a grant previously. Now that it's gone due to the outcry it's in the same, vague playing field that all other libraries are in. Every project you have ever written infringes on someones IP. The only thing that matters is that lawyers that previously got cold feet can now relax. We had a project for instance that was canceled, now it's being green-lit thanks to the MIT license.

<comment><USER9> Actually, there is an (albeit so far untested) implicit patent grant in all- permissive licenses like the MIT. So removing the explicit one-way, revokable patent grant actually implicitly provides a better patent grant.

<comment><USER7> I'd really like to see that written black on white,though.

<comment><USER9> The fact that MIT and BSD licensed code (implicit patent impunity) can be re- licensed under the Apache license (explicit patent impunity) is enough evidence for me.

Reference: [http://apache.org/legal/resolved.html#category-a](http://apache.org/legal/resolved.html#category-a)

<comment><USER10> What does re-licensed mean? You can't take mit licensed code and slap a Apache License on it.

<comment><USER9> You can create a derivative work and license that under Apache.

<comment><USER10> Not if it uses copyrighted MIT licensed code.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> Lovely. The file size reductions are quite surprising.

Removing the need to wrap sibling elements in a single parent element is a welcome change.

I'd be interested in hearing some use cases for using the Portal API.

Lastly, the new licensing announced last week was fantastic news. I commented on last weeks thread, but I want to extend another round of compliments to Facebook and the React community as a whole for prompting this change. _Props_ to them.

<comment><USER12> We use portals quite a bit in our application and they always are a pain to test. This is what excites me the most about React supporting them natively. Hopefully this means that enzymejs will be able to easily walk down and seamlessly jump into a different part of the DOM without having to use references to adjust.

Portals are helpful when using content overflow in modals. For example, we have a modal which contains a form and that form has an autocomplete text box. When we render the autocomplete part, we need to render it outside of the modal, otherwise the overflow policy blocks the contents and does not allow the autocomplete are to appear over / outside of the modal.

The use of portals also make it easier to support screen readers through the aria tags by allowing the application to quickly block the background of the application and allow the screen reader to focus on the content presented to the user.

<comment><USER13> This does worry me a bit though. There is probably a reason they are difficult to test, because they go against the React DOM pattern of a component only having control over the DOM nodes inside it. Call me a purist but this seems like a deviation from React's functional roots and going against the very problem React was trying to solve in the first place.

<comment><USER14> The feature is mostly intended for rendering into nodes _not_ managed by React. Such as a document child that is sibling to the application root.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> I'm impressed by how accessible Facebook makes open source tech. It's always top notch but documented in a way that allows regular devs the opportunity to use it in their own apps.

Smaller size and easier to use is a big win. Going with the MIT license puts a real bow on this release. Thank you to the React team.

<comment><USER16> It is very good, but I wonder what their intentions are. Is it to help hire talent?

<comment><USER17> Assuming you're referring to the licensing part, it's probably because they've gotten a lot of public backlash for their previous licensing scheme that has caused some to avoid React altogether.

<comment><USER16> No, I mean - open sourcing their software. I don't know what their goal is as a company.

<comment><USER18> Sometimes to attract talent, sometimes to brings free work to a project.

Other times it's lock in for related technologies (current or future plans).

Some have speculated that it's a legal trick, like the problem everyone was insinuating with the React license before the recent change.

Anyone else have reasons I'm missing?

<comment><USER19> Three other (somewhat related) reasons I've heard stated by FB folks:

1\. Makes it easier to identify talent out in the world that they want to go after.

2\. Raises the technical reputation of Facebook, making it easier to get candidates to say yes.

3\. Makes it easier to ramp new employees up on Facebook's stack if they are already familiar with a lot of it from open source.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> Great release but forcing the capturing of errors seems to violate the JS value of forgiveness. Worse, this "forcing" actually seems to _hinder_ debugging.

For example, I have one component that throws an exception. Previously, React would print the stack trace in console and carry on. Now, it destroys the entire DOM, spews three times as many errors, without even letting me see what the visual result was of that error.

To debug, I need to write a componentDidCatch method in the parent class of the erroring class, because the root componentDidCatch error handler can't reconstruct the DOM, because of that one sub-sub-sub-sub-sub-child state error.

Even after writing all this new code, React still removes the erroring element from the DOM, leaving ambiguous what its impact was on the end-user experience.

Does anyone else feel that the new version of React is fault-intolerant?

While I do enjoy Java, I would argue that Null-Pointer-Exception hell does not belong in JS scripting.

<comment><USER21> Everyone with a legacy codebase will probably update their components to extend a common class that handles errors in some very generic way without propagating them up the tree.

I'm not sure how I feel about this change, but at least there's an escape hatch.

<comment><USER22> Do you mean wrapping all components with a HOC?

<comment><USER21> No, I mean ES6 class inheritance:

class MyButton extends MyBaseComponent {

      // Render a button

}

Class MyBaseComponent extends React.Component {

      // Include error handling lifecycle hook here

    }

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> Even though React 16 is almost a complete rewrite, it's amazing how they kept an almost complete compatible api between releases.

Congrats on shipping!

<comment><USER24> Yes yes, this is incredibly impressive. Very smart as well for ease of getting people to adopt the new version. I was fearing that I'd have to redo who knows how much just to use 16.

</comment></comment><comment><USER25> 2 awesome things about this release: 1) No need to wrap siblings in an enclosing element - upgrade is worth it just for this change alone (j/k)

2) I'm surprised no one has mentioned it so far -- but this release uses the new fiber architecture - I saw the video presentation about fiber and think it could really help in terms of performance

<comment><USER10> What aspect of performance?

</comment></comment><comment><USER26> Portals seem like a great idea. It seems like it eliminates one of the major use cases (imo) for inlined styles: rendering child components deep within the DOM when visually the component doesn't appear that it should be that deep (e.g., rendering a global level modal that in the DOM might be appear in a deeply nested div). That always wreaked havoc with stylesheet selectors and is one of the reasons I started moving towards injected inline styles.

Overall reduction of container elements is a huge plus. I'll be happy if I can start thinning out the giant christmas tree that react tends to create, even if it's not a huge performance gain, this will improve debugging immensely.

</comment><comment><USER27> So, what's the current ES5, non-Babel/Webpack/Rollup/Brunch/etc story of React? When I first tested it, all you had to include was two Javascript files and you could go, and if you were foregoing JSX it was even easier.

These days it seems you need to download half the internet for even the most trivial uses, never mind using the half-finished ersatz JS du jour. And yes, I know that it gets compiled to a tiny thing worth of the IOCCC for the end user, but sometimes even us programmers want an easy setup. It seems the only framework that still has a good story regarding that is Mithril…

<comment><USER14> It's exactly the same as it always have been. See the doc:

[https://facebook.github.io/react/docs/react-without- es6.html](https://facebook.github.io/react/docs/react-without-es6.html)

[https://facebook.github.io/react/docs/react-without- jsx.html](https://facebook.github.io/react/docs/react-without-jsx.html)

<comment><USER5> In particular: you just need these script tags:

      <script crossorigin src="https://unpkg.com/react@16/umd/react.development.js"></script>
      <script crossorigin src="https://unpkg.com/react-dom@16/umd/react-dom.development.js"></script>

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER28> So much good stuff in here. Perf wins, in both bytes down the wire and render time. I've been wanting to return sibling elements from render for _years_!

Crazy to see such a robust, mature framework still improving so much. Can't wait to upgrade!

</comment><comment><USER29> Really excited about Portals. I work on a web app which was originally built with Spine.js (an MVC framework similar to Backbone). We've long moved on to React and Redux but have a few old views that have yet to be ported over. Portals seems like a nice way to refactor by incrementally replacing controller + template logic with components.

I'm also glad to see the switch to MIT license if only to put this patents controversy behind us. Now curious to see what happens with GraphQL...

<comment><USER30> How exactly does it put patent controversy behind us? Before you had limited patent grant now you have none

<comment><USER31> Because now it's exactly like every other piece of open source software, so lawyers can stop debating whether it's better or worse than an implicit grant.

<comment><USER30> Like every other piece of OS software that is known to be covered by patents

<comment><USER31> Just because software is not known to be covered by patents doesn't mean you don't have to worry about software patents.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER32> I'm super excited for pseudo-components. This should make it much easier to use CSS constructs like flexbox and the new grid system since they don't like nested DOM tags.

I tried to make a set of React components that worked like a table (with rows and columns) using CSS grid in React 15, but it was nearly impossible to do. For the record, the reason I didn't just use a table was because the grid system allows for more expressive sizing of columns than plain tables.

</comment><comment><USER33> The big news it that they removed the PATENTS.md file that made it nearly impossible to use for anyone concerned with protecting their IP. Good on them for making right with the open source community.

<comment><USER34> i wonder: if you don't have a contractual relationship preventing it, can't fb revoke your permission to use their patents at-will? if so, has removing the patent grant actually changed anything?

<comment><USER35> It's actually the other way around, as I understand it. This is one area in which patent law and copyright law differ noticeably.

Due to the way implied patent licenses work, if Facebook distributes React without explicit restrictions or conditions, they're automatically granting a license to any patents that are _inherently_ infringed by React itself. This is a pretty well-established area of US patent law, see e.g. [https://www.wilmerhale.com/pages/publicationsandnewsdetail.a...](https://www.wilmerhale.com/pages/publicationsandnewsdetail.aspx?NewsPubId=95535)

<comment><USER34> afaik no component of react is covered by a fb patent, so a fb patent revocation wouldn't impact one's use of react.

if fb actually wanted to prevent someone from using react, they could just revoke the copyright grant.

<comment><USER5> The LICENSE file is a grant that Facebook can't revoke even if it wanted to.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER36> Thank you FB React team. Along with the new license I can't be happier to see your good work and improvements on React.

Before the license change I was looking around for other options, but now I can continue to enjoy front-end development with this awesome library for at least a few years more. For me this definitely helps fighting JS fatigue not having to change to another framework.

</comment><comment><USER37> Impressive improvements in this version and very heartening to see performance improve in addition to the new APIs.

Multiple render return types and portals both solve some annoying situations that can come up.

<comment><USER38> Not to mention the decreased size! This is a really really great upgrade.

</comment></comment><comment><USER39> Small nitpick: the reduced file size appears to be, in part, due to depending on Map and Set. Polyfilling these will, in turn, increase file size so there's no real file size impact in practice. IMO the blog post could've been more honest about that.

Fantastic release nevertheless!

<comment><USER5> This wasn't actually the reason for the reduction, but it is something we weren't acutely accounting for since we already have Map+Set polyfills in our apps and expect most other users to as well. We'll see if we can recommend a smaller polyfill that isn't as large.

<comment><USER39> Awesome! I must admit I never really saw the added value of Map and Set given the size increase - for most purposes objects and arrays work fine in practice.

I strongly doubt I'm the only one there.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER40> If I were to cave in and learn React, can someone recommend an existing project that would serve as good learning material?

<comment><USER41> This repo has been quite helpful pour moi...

[https://github.com/gothinkster/react-redux-realworld- example...](https://github.com/gothinkster/react-redux-realworld-example-app)

<comment><USER18> Looks good but can any React experts comment as to

\- whether or not this really uses best practices?

\- leverages React to the fullest?

<comment><USER42> Those are both pretty broad questions. Skimming through the code, I'd say it's a reasonable example of a React+Redux codebase. I don't think I could say it "leverages React to the fullest", because it's unclear exactly what that means, and this is not an overly complex sample application. But, it does serve as a useful example of something more "real" than yet another TodoMVC clone.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER43> Congrats for shipping this for everybody involved! 16 has been a long time coming and I super happy for all the new features it brings us. Error boundaries! Fragments! Even better SSR! And so much more.

</comment><comment><USER44> If I'm building a site where SEO is paramount, am I safe using React and SSR? I'd kinda like to, but my inclination is to stick with a traditional server page approach.

<comment><USER45> SEO-wise there's no difference other than performance. But it was possible to build high-performance SSR sites with React 15, and with React 16 it's even easier.

The more important thing to decide is whether the development model of React is suitable for your needs.

<comment><USER46> We're actually doing this right now with tylio.com. We get pretty high scores (95+) on the various test tools (Pagespeed, Lighthouse, etc.) using React 15. Our biggest remaining issues right now are First Meaningful Paint and Time to Interactive, and I expect React 16 to help a lot in that aspect (streaming render + simplified rehydrate), can't wait to test it!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER47> This is interesting

> Instead of ignoring unrecognized HTML and SVG attributes, React will now > pass them through to the DOM.

Does that mean we can start using "class" instead of "className"?

<comment><USER48> I always assumed `class` was a keyword, which is why then went with `className` instead.

<comment><USER49> both `className` and `htmlFor` are what the actual DOM uses. [1][2]

[1]: [https://developer.mozilla.org/en- US/docs/Web/API/Element/cla...](https://developer.mozilla.org/en- US/docs/Web/API/Element/className)

[2]: [https://developer.mozilla.org/en- US/docs/Web/API/HTMLLabelEl...](https://developer.mozilla.org/en- US/docs/Web/API/HTMLLabelElement/htmlFor)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER50> Just for clarification, React 16 does _not_ support streaming, at least not in any way that is meaningful. React 16 has an API that gives you a Readable stream, but this stream doesn't provide HTML in chunks. It provides it all-at- once exactly like renderToString does.

What you _really_ want with streaming is whenever rendering is blocked by something asynchronous, like a database request, that whatever HTML is finished can be flushed out. React _could_ support real streaming in the future, but would likely require some new API.

Anyways, the sentence from the article "start sending bytes to the client faster" isn't factually true, it doesn't send it out any faster than renderToString would.

<comment><USER5> You don't need to wait for the CPU time of all components to complete before the first bytes are available. When we render an HTML element, we now emit the opening tag before processing the children. People have seen benefits in practice from this.

Our new architecture makes it easier to implement the type of async data fetching you describe and we'd like to add it in the future.

<comment><USER50> If rendering blocks the CPU to such a degree that this helps get bytes out faster, then you have a much bigger issue to deal with.

<comment><USER34> this seems like hasty generalization.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER51>
        We've added support for returning strings, too:
        […]
        See the full list of supported return types.

Why not express that with… ehm… proper types?!? You know… like those used by Flow or TypeScript.

<comment><USER52> Submit a PR :)

</comment></comment><comment><USER53> So, are there any plans to use ReasonML as the main React internal language in the future? I knew that Messenger is 50% using ReasonML

</comment><comment><USER54> Just wanted to add I noticed CRA (create-react-app) was just migrated to MIT license!

</comment><comment><USER55> Not a flamewar, starting a new project, VUE or React?

<comment><USER56> Vue is less complex, easy api, and easier to jump into. React is more complex, bigger learning curve, but more featured. Vue has satisfied my needs for 99% of projects.

<comment><USER57> This really boggles my mind. Having looked very closely at both (and being a react developer full time), I can not recognise this assessment. I just can't see how people can claim that Vue is simpler or easier than React.

React is idiomatic javascript. Vue is it's own quirky thing that doesn't feel anything at all like Javascript to me.

<comment><USER56> I'm not sure what feeling anything like JavaScript has to do with the discussion. No one asked which framework is most like JavaScript. I don't think JSX turning JavaScript into some weird XML/HTML hybrid feels like JavaScript either. Sure you can use it without it, but why would you? Vue works for me and others, whereas React works for you, and others. Let's just keep working on our projects.

<comment><USER57> Because the rest of your application is Javascript. Less cognitive burden when you switch to working on different layers of your application.

<comment><USER58> Wait, do you really experience cognitive burden when switching between html, js, and css? It surprises me if you do.

<comment><USER57> I'm talking about switching between a context where there are first class functions that can be easily passed around, to a context where there's some archaic and magical, non idiomatic convention based on string based dependency injection, or magical way of writing attributes.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER59> Will existing create-react-app apps automatically get React 16 when they update it?

<comment><USER60> Should be as simple as 'yarn upgrade react'

<comment><USER61> Well, a little more than that since there's react-dom and various other deps :)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER62> My shop has seen failure to black screen since migrating. Anyone else?

</comment><comment><USER63> Thanks for first-class async rendering, been a long while coming.

</comment><comment><USER64> Congrats to the facebook team. Awesome work!

</comment><comment><USER65> Congratulations on the release. Well done!

</comment><comment><USER66> Amazing work, hats off to y'all.

</comment><comment><USER67> Congrats team!

</comment><comment><USER68> How does it compare to Marko? [https://github.com/marko- js/marko](https://github.com/marko-js/marko)

<comment><USER69> Your last four submissions are either about eBay (creators of Marko), or a creation of Patrick Steele-Idem (one of the maintainers of Marko). So... you tell us?

</comment></comment><comment><USER70>
      This release is MIT license release after they start losing in front of more real open source frameworks like vue. Better late than sorry facebook!</comment>


Visualizing Concurrency in Go - <AUTHOR> https://divan.github.io/posts/go_concurrency_visualize/ <comment><USER2> I just have to compliment the author on this, even this makes for sort of a vacuous HN comment, because it is that cool. I clicked through half-expecting "just another Go goroutine/channel tutorial", but this really is something very nice and unique, with a lot of effort put in.

<comment><USER3> I was also anticipating "just another Go goroutine/channel tutorial" but this was special. Really nice. Kudos to person who did this! The visual reinforcements of software concepts is fantastic for learning or comparison aid whether it be algorithmic analysis, concurrency primitives etc. I would love to see more of this.

<comment><USER4> Thank you.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Anyone feel like these type of visualizations will be much more common in the future as we try to better understand software processes? It's really such a great way to demystify or reveal certain patterns in various algorithms..

Great work OP.

<comment><USER6> I do think there's lots of room for growth in this space. Spatial/visual intuition is highly underused relative to linguistic intuition in software development. In visualization we often are limited by our own design to encoding information along three spatial dimensions, but we've got some incredible machinery in our brains for dealing with color, texture, shape, size, relative location. For instance, take the remarkable effectiveness of "memory palaces"[0], or savant Daniel Tammet's description of his synesthetic experience of numbers and arithmetic as operations on shapes and colors[1]. Some applied examples in software might be fsn[2] of "Jurassic Park" fame or the dockercraft[3] minecraft mod. Not trying to claim that visualization would improve our understanding of every system, but I would love to see more work done in this direction.

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

[1]: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Daniel_Tammet#Savantism](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Daniel_Tammet#Savantism)

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

[3]: [https://github.com/docker/dockercraft](https://github.com/docker/dockercraft)

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> This is really, really cool! Where did you get the idea? Would you see similar results if you visualized other concurrency systems? I suppose if they were also based on the ideas of CSP? Hmm. I'd love to see visualizations like this for GCD on iOS.

<comment><USER4> Thank you. I was thinking about topic for my talk on Lviv Golang Meetup, and idea just popped in my head. But initially I thought there is an easy way to draw traces exists. Unfortunately, sharing visualizations is still a complex process, and in this particular case Go's grammar simplicity played a key role.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> Anyone who came to the comments without RTFA, I urge you to go have a look. The visualisations are brilliant.

</comment><comment><USER9> Why not release the code, so the community can take a look and help you improve it?

<comment><USER10> Author explains why on the page. Search for "Basically, that is a reason why I'm not open-sourcing the code yet."

<comment><USER9> I read that. My point stands. "It uses horrible hacks" isn't a valid reason. Actually, I don't think there is a valid reason why not to release code that does something interesting and you want to show people.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> This is an incredible visualization and article.

</comment><comment><USER12> Bookmarked. Thank you for creating this awesome resource.

</comment><comment><USER13> Really fantastic post and work. Love it.</comment>


Show HN: Thankuz - Send Thank You Notes - <AUTHOR>

Hi all,
I'm excited to share my new startup, Thankuz. It's a web app that lets anyone send instant thank you's to people, places and things for gifts, acts and expressions. People use it to thank family, friends, favorite businesses, or even celebrities.
Notes can be sent via Email, Facebook, Twitter or Short URL.
Been working diligently on the MVP for the past few months, so it's great to be able to keep working on it having got the "soft launch" out of the way. I've been lucky to have some great friends and family members trying it out for a couple weeks now and helping me to shape the MVP version. I'm excited to continue to keep improving the product in future iterations.
Please check it out and let me know your thoughts, you're always so much smarter than me - http://thankuz.com <comment><USER2> Congrats on getting started and building what looks to be a well designed and well built site. Here are some questions and feedback:

1) How do you pronounce it? My first thought was "thank-uzz" with a short "u" sound. After a while I realized that you probably want me to use a long "u" sound.

2) I clicked a sample note - <http://thankuz.com/notes/5nyplqr> \- and I don't get it. How is this better/different than me sending the person an email?

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks. It's been a crazy few months trying to get the MVP built and tested. We spent probably 2 months just validating our ideas and polling users to see if it's something they'd pay for, eventually.

Our UI/UX designer is stellar, he actually works at Twitter now (was really lucky to have him on the team for as long as he was).

1) It's pronounced like, Thank You's. Basically it's one of the cute, or fun ways people say thank yous on social networks. Along w/ thx, ty, tanks, etc.

2) We're not trying to replace email, or actual physical notes, but rather to nestle in the space between super formal thank you letters and cards, and the very informal social status updates. It's more personal than email, can be shared publicly / socially (unlike email) and it continues the conversation beyond the original, "thank you" and "you're welcome".

Thanks for chiming in, and asking such great questions. We want it to be much more than it is now, so I can understand how the MVP might look given that I know the roadmap, etc.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> This is really nice. I really like that you used a little card and the fancy font to convey the messages.

One thing I would suggest is to maybe grey the template text a bit, or do something else to indicate that it is just default text that can be overwritten, since this wasn't obvious to me at first.

Question: How do you plan to make money from this?

Keep up the good work.

<comment><AUTHOR> First off, thank you for taking the time to check it out, and for leaving your thoughts. Really appreciate the feedback.

The fonts & cards are limited right now, but we have some big plans using these elements in the future. Glad you liked that aspect.

Love your idea about greying out the template text as to create more distinction between it and the user text. Will play around with some ideas that just popped into my head. Good call.

Lastly, we're thinking of a couple different model opportunities:

First, a Freemium model where users could upgrade their account in order to unlock additional features (physical sending of notes, additional themes, textures, fonts, using their own handwriting, etc.).

We're also looking into a Virtual Currency (kudos, karma, etc.) model where users would start with a set number of notes, and could "earn" more by reaching certain milestones, using the site, interacting with other users, sharing w/ friends and of course, using real currency to reload their notes. If we went this route I'd personally like to see some Gaming mechanics built in (something like stamps instead of badges).

We're also building a mobile version of the Web App so thanks could be sent wherever the user is, at any time.

Thanks again for the words of encouragement!

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> 1) 'Get started by creating your first note' leads you back to the same page. I was expecting to land myself on the create note screen from here.

2) Yeah, something that indicates that the blanks need to be overwritten.

3) the size of the text window kept going up and down. Is this intended.

Overall, clean and functional app. What is the business model here?

<comment><AUTHOR> Great ideas. Appreciate you taking the time to write down your thoughts.

1) Interesting. It should have taken you to .com/notes/create Can you confirm your OS / Browser? Or, maybe you have JS disabled? Will look into this ASAP. Thanks for the heads up.

2) I agree that there needs to be some distinction between the filler-text, and user input text. Thanks for seconding that idea.

3) Yeah. It's supposed to as you write, but there are some buggy behaviors going on right now with it. It's a little choppy and if you add or remove too much text, or break lines too fast it can get hung-up. Am looking into this and should have it addressed in the next iteration. Thanks for noticing that.

Please refer to the comment above re: your business model question (didn't want to post the same down here).

Appreciate your kind words! Glad you commented.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> This is a neat idea, and the visual editor on the page is really neat.

However, I'd love to chat with you on improving your email deliverability - right off the bat I saw that your SPF records aren't set, so let me know if you'd be interested in getting some help in fixing that up. :)

Cheers!

<comment><AUTHOR> Really appreciate that Jon. Still have some improvements to make with the editor and process, but it's getting there and we've gotten an overwhelming positive response from our users, so far.

I just followed you on Twitter, happy to connect and discuss our current email system in more detail. Obviously we've tried to stick to the bare-minimum with the MVP, but in future iterations we'd talked about more visually, and user appealing emails with more actions built-in to the system.

It seems like we could benefit greatly from your plugin, PostageApp! Feel free to email me, Tweet, whatever. firstname.lastname@example.com

Matt Franklin

<comment><USER5> Hey Matt,

Apologies on the delay. I will definitely get in touch wtih you later today, cheers!

<comment><AUTHOR> No worries! Looking forward to it. Thanks.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Samsung Galaxy Tab Return Rates Hit 16 Percent | AllThingsD - <AUTHOR> http://digitaldaily.allthingsd.com/20110201/16-percent-of-galaxy-tabs-are-returned/?mod=ATD_skybox <comment><USER2> I've had a Galaxy Tab since they first came out, and I use it just about daily, in bed, on the exercise bike, in a jacket pocket out to Starbucks. I think the size is perfect, and with only one exception (TMZ) the apps have scaled to the 1024 x 600 screen resolution. The big advantage of the Tab is that it's here and got good reviews. I waited just about all of 2010 for an Android tablet, the Adam, Joojoopad... and I'm skeptical of any Android tablet's ship dates. Maybe by the 2011 holiday season I'll have the choice of good quality Android tablets I thought I would have at the 2010 holiday season, but I'd have had use of the Tab for a year. My real complaint with it is this is my first experience with Verizon. I'm supposed to have a "month-to- month", no contract data plan, months I don't want 3G I just don't pay, but my account seems to be accumulating past due amounts? Any ideas?

</comment><comment><USER3> As an owner of an original Samsung Galaxy (i7500) I can safely say that I'm not surprised. Samsung's approach to Android has been to quickly release poor- quality phones with broken firmware and little thought in regard to the actual user-experience.

If I'm honest, it shocks me that people still buy Android phones from Samsung. Nearly everything they've released for Android has been of poor quality, yet they sweep their old products under the rug and release something new and shiny for Android fanboys to gawk over. I cannot help but believe that the desire for a platform to come out on top suppresses much of the deserved criticism some Android phones face.

<comment><USER4> Unfortunate owner of i7500 here. What a nightmare that was. The only thing stopping me from getting a SGS is previous history with their product and the uncommitted upgrade answers from the VP.

I'll also never touch a Sony Ericsson for the same reason.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> From my understanding Apple spent a lot of time getting the form factor right for the iPad. A lot of thought went into ensuring the OS was adequate for the device. None of Apple's competitors was expecting a marketplace for tablet devices like the iPad.

All of iPad's competitors right now are jokes. It's as if companies think it's the shape of the device matters more than the experience of using the device. I guess knowing this is the difference between creating a market and just trying to build devices for a market.

<comment><USER6> _From my understanding Apple spent a lot of time getting the form factor right for the iPad. A lot of thought went into ensuring the OS was adequate for the device._

The device is too big and too heavy. The OS far from optimal for the device. That the Galaxy Tab is a pretty marginal device, with a slew of weaknesses, in no way validates anything that Apple has done with the iPad.

The iPad is a superior device to the tab. However I, and billions of other people, haven't opted to buy it. The market waits for something that fits our needs better.

 _It's as if companies think it's the shape of the device matters more than the experience of using the device. I guess knowing this_

What does this even mean? It sounds like some sort of iPad-owner defensive reaction to a smaller tablet. Samsung couldn't suddenly make Android tablet- ready, but as above you're drawing the wrong conclusion.

A 7" tablet with a unoptimized OS does not invalidate a 7" tablet. A tablet with an unoptimized OS does not validate every facet of a tablet with a more appropriate OS.

As one aside, and to go slightly conspiratorial, the lack of decent Android competitors to the iPad falls largely on Google's shoulders. It strongly seems like Google was of mixed emotions about tablets, desperately wanting devices bigger than a smartphone to be owned by the ChromeOS project. They ignored the market, undermined the market, and only came around after lots of delays, all while ChromeOS slowly pushed its way into the light.

<comment><USER7> I honestly think the iPad size is spot on - a larger one would be too clumsy and a smaller one would sort of defeat the purpose of a device a bit.

It might be a bit on the heavy side (and I had to think about that) but I guess it is a trade off with battery size - and I'm pretty pleased with the battery life.

I'm not a particularly enthusiastic smartphone user (I have both a work iPhone and a personal Android phone) - I use the iPad far more than my phones.

<comment><USER8> I think it is still a bit early to rule out 7" tablets, since Tab is the only 7" device in the market now and running a non-recommended OS.

"Price" could be a deciding factor in this case. $649 is a ridiculous price. ( [http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00480P67K/ref=asc_df_B00480P67K141...](http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00480P67K/ref=asc_df_B00480P67K1414228?smid=ATVPDKIKX0DER&tag=hyprod-20&linkCode=asn&creative=395093&creativeASIN=B00480P67K) ) Pricing it above iPad is unbelievable. Someone who pays $649 (or $599 through discount stores) expects a greater value than iPad experience, which Froyo does not meet.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> They've published the audio and transcript from the Samsung official that apparently said sell-through was "quite small" and in reality they said "quite smooth".

<comment><USER4> _apparently said sell-through...was "quite smooth"_

What the hell does that even mean? When someone asks for a quantity you give them a number or an estimate of a number (big,average,small). When you want to describe squishy things then you can use smooth in the sentence (ie, the UI is smooth, workflow is smooth, this ice cream is smooth).

<comment><USER10> _What the hell does that even mean?_

That sales, as a function, have derivatives of all orders?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> It didn't seem so bad when I tried it. As it stands nothing I would buy instead of an iPad but I couldn't find any glaring flaws. Using it felt like using a smartphone with a somewhat larger screen, maybe not particularly optimized for its form factor but ok. I would be interested to know why people return it.

</comment><comment><USER12> There is one major reason why people are returning the GT. The iPad launched with an operating system (OS 3.2) that was designed specifically for it's form factor yet Samsung chose to launch their flagship device with regular, off the shelf Froyo. Perhaps the return rate will go down(and the huge number of unsold tabs will finally start moving) once Honeycomb finally premiers. I know that's what's holding me back from buying it. Imagine an iPad that could only run iPhone apps in that cheesy 2X mode. No thank you.

<comment><USER6> Android does natively support quite decent resizing, so it isn't quite as bad as the 2x mode.

While a slicker, more polished interface will do wonders, I do suspect that a lot of the returns right now are still network effect issues: People who get the Tab as a present and then wonder why they can't run all those cool apps that their iPad toting friends have, etc. I would expect that return rates are much higher than iPhone return rates on smartphones as well, for the same reason.

That is changing, of course. The app situation -- and the network inclusion -- is quickly improving.

The Tab only makes sense as a device significantly discounted below the iPad. That it is actually the more expensive option is just perverse.

<comment><USER9> The Tab got some good reviews, some people comparing it favourably with the iPad. And they did rejigger some of the included apps for the bigger screen. Most of the negative chatter seems somewhat _ideological_ , what with it apparently having the "wrong" size or "wrong" OS rather than any specific issues caused by these decisions. Even if this return rate applies across the globe they've sold more than I would have expected.

Since people repeatedly harp on the price, which has always been the same or less than the iPad+3G I'm guessing that the continued lack of a Wi-Fi only model is the real bone of contention (and/or the fact that tablets in general are too expensive for most folk, even/especially those who've already spent thousands on a slightly smaller, data-connected touchscreen slab that they carry as a phone).

I'm guessing the lack of Wi-Fi only was the (unforseen?) consequence of Google's restrictions on device capabilities which meant you needed a 3G radio and phone capabilities to get access to the Market. Google is supposed to have relaxed these and a Wi-Fi only model has been teased, though whether that will be eclipsed by the 2nd gen or not is a matter of timing.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Price is a deciding factor: <http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2379100,00.asp>

If anyone is competing with iPad, they better price it appropriately. There is no reason for a typical consumer to choose a tablet that costs more than iPad, unless it provides a damn good experience that is beyond the iPad experience.

<comment><USER13> Why would price be a deciding factor in the return rates, which happen _after_ the buy decision has been made?

<comment> space-monkey I bought a Mac Mini and returned it last year. If it had cost 1/2 as much, I wouldn't have returned it. It just didn't do enough for me to justify the price. If something turns out to be worth less to you than (the return value - time and irritation cost of doing the return), you return it.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> What's the typical return rate on a consumer electronics product? Say a Garmin navigation system or something like that?

</comment><comment><USER15> I don't know what this statistic really means and I doubt anyone yet does. For years I've encountered people on the Net who think nothing of ordering the latest device just to "try" it and return it! They've stated so outright. So I wonder if this 16% does nothing but reflect _those_ kind of people who make things miserable for everyone else who just want to buy?

</comment><comment><USER16> I love my Galaxy Tab. I guess some of it might be because of Honey Comb.

</comment><comment><USER17> iSchadenfreude</comment>


Microsoft To Phone Makers: Maybe You Should Pick Us - <AUTHOR> http://www.forbes.com/sites/ericsavitz/2011/08/15/microsoft-to-phone-makers-maybe-you-should-pick-us/

<comment><USER2> Microsoft will basically pay billions to Nokia in deals/cash/promotion and they will allow them to customize WP7 more than any other manufacturer. Plus, they've put a lot of their "former" employees at the top of Nokia.

Is that really that different? It looks like an unofficial acquisition of Nokia, to me. At least with Android they are selling millions of devices per month. With WP7, not so much.

</comment><comment><USER3> Right. Because Windows phones are flying off the shelves faster than factories can produce them...

<comment><USER4> Not sure exactly what your argument or point is. Is Android selling because it is the best OS? or because it is currently seen as the 'other' OS? if more devices come with WP7 installed, with more shelf space dedicated to WP7 vs. Android, is there any reason why WP7 couldn't take the same position as Android?

The WP7 marketplace is growing quickly, the OS is solid and beautiful, and there is a lot of 'interest' at the moment. That 'interest' may not turn into sales, but handset manufacturers considering WP over Android could make a huge difference.

<comment><USER3> The biggest problem with WP7 is that it's limited to fairly high-end and expensive phones. Android spans a much wider space - not always well, and that's one reason for the relatively low consumer satisfaction.

Google has a delicate situation in their hands - they must calm down its Android partners and ensure Motorola won't have preferential treatment. One way to calm them down is to step up with its new patent portfolio and use it to help protect the likes of HTC and Samsung from Apple's and Microsoft's patents.</comment></comment></comment>


Hacker News Postmortem (Personal YC app site) - <AUTHOR> http://christopherbiscardi.github.com/blog//hackernews/2012/10/22/hackernews-postmortem.html

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks to everyone that took the time to view my personal site and give feedback. I've lost my cofounder since I posted so that makes the site that much more important.

Redesigned Site: <http://christopherbiscardi.github.com/></comment>


Tell HN: MITCNC Startup Engine Series inspired by HN - <AUTHOR>

After reading Hacker News for a year or so, I got sad that the MIT Club of Nor Cal didn't have a Series that dealt with hacker topics.  Lots of materials science, solar cells, OLEDs, etc, but basically nothing about internet technology...
... so we started one.  The club's new Startup Engine series is going to grab trending topics on Hacker News and pull together a panel on them.  Get panelists to answer three questions about a particular topic: what's happened in the past 6 months?; what do we think will happen?; and how should you get involved?  Get meaningful advice from practitioners.
First up is mobile applications:
* http://www.mitcnc.org/stateofmobile
* August 19, 6:30PM in SF (KickLabs, 4 blocks from CalTrain)
*  On the panel: Google, Appcelerator, Bump Tech, Dropbox
Second up in October is probably: the State of Databases (e.g. NoSQL)?  (Or whatever HN is talking about then...; suggestions?)
Anyway, exciting stuff and all, but I wanted to say thanks for inspiring us!
EDIT: mbot3000: Startup Engine events are open to everyone (not just MIT alums).
---
Note: The MITCNC is 501c3. <comment><USER2> This sounds cool. It's open to everyone right? I hope so....

<comment><USER3> Definitely open to all.</comment></comment>


Firing - <AUTHOR> http://cdixon.org/2012/06/19/firing/ <comment><USER2> This article is half as good as it could be. The underlying assumption here is that you already know an employee is bad and that you need to fire them. But how do you know an employee is bad?

This is a question that no one seems to get right, unless its fairly obvious. If they stole something, no brainer. If they sexually harassed an employee, _should_ be a no brainer. And if the company is in a financially distressed position, it may be unpleasant to fire someone, but atleast its understandable. What if the company is healthy and employee did nothing obviously wrong?

Then I guess, you look at the quality of their work. But judging quality is subjective, and you're likely to have a sliding scale depending on employee's past experience and delta to their start date. And what about periodic reviews? What about quarterly objectives? What about what _other_ employee's think? How long do you warn an employee before you go ahead with it?

I think one of the better ways of dealing with firing is how it was handled in grad school. At my school, you had a series of qualifying examinations and you had a committee. The rules were pretty clear: 2 chances to pass and if not, goodbye. One of the tests was an oral examination in front of the committee of 5. There weren't any clear answers, but the committee would convene and in an hour they'd have a decision with lots of feedback. I failed my first attempt. But guess what? After that, I honed in on their feedback, worked my fucking ass off and passed my second attempt with flying colors.

I don't see this happening at many (or any) companies. I'm not sure why, but IMHO employers use the "at will termination" too liberally. Either that, or they let the bad employees stay far too long. Sometimes I wonder if a second chance would help bubble good employees to the top when you had previously mis-classified them as bad or vice versa. Firing scares the shit out of people...why not make this process less of a surprise than it has to be.

<comment><USER3> The role of a manager is _not_ to determine the fire-worthiness of current employees. Putting employees in front of a firing squad on a regular basis and having "half-fired" employees working in a state of limbo would murder company morale.

Any good employee would be out the door as soon as they were handed a "second chance". They would use that chance just long enough to find a better job, if they didn't quit outright. Truly "bad" employees would likely stick around (lack of motivation to move, inability to move, spite, etc) and wreak havoc on your business.

Firing is sometimes a business decision, sometimes due to someone actually doing harm to your business but often the last in a series of management failures. It's a last resort but if you've reached that point just get it over with.

<comment><USER4> _The role of a manager is not to determine the fire-worthiness of current employees_

Then whose job is it?

 _Any good employee would be out the door as soon as they were handed a "second chance". They would use that chance just long enough to find a better job, if they didn't quit outright. Truly "bad" employees would likely stick around (lack of motivation to move, inability to move, spite, etc) and wreak havoc on your business._

That's not been true in my experience. The good employees tend to appreciate the heads up, and work with you to either fix the problem (which may be as much your problem as theirs) or move out in a productive way.

The bad ones tend to realise the jig is up and move themselves out ASAP, or rapidly foul up again giving you the evidence you need to shift them out without the decision being seen as arbitrary by the rest of the company.

<comment><USER5> _which may be as much your problem as theirs_

My attitude at worked had declined immensely. My communication with coworkers suffered and important pieces of information from clients was lost lost on my desk.

I was given a list of behaviors of mine that were frustrating my project managers.My first reaction was flippant. But after an hour I knuckled down, read the list thoroughly, and drafted a personal action plan for each item. The next day I went onto my review, handed the 3 man management team copies of my plan, took control of the review and went through each point one by one and how I would correct it. And then, after all their concerns were addressed, I told them that they were failing me too, and gave them three actionable measurable goals for improving my career there.

It is like a marriage. There is a power balance. Each party needs to know what they want and be able to communicate it in clear actionable measurable goals.

<comment><USER4> _Each party needs to know what they want and be able to communicate it in clear actionable measurable goals._

If I had more than one upvote to give you'd get it :-)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> There's a famous paper in economics that looks at the long-term labor market outcomes for people that were laid-off because of plant closings versus those were just laid-off: <http://ideas.repec.org/a/ucp/jlabec/v9y1991i4p351-80.html>

The plant-closing people generally fair better: the idea is that the market/future employers infer that the firm used their discretion when making regular layoffs (using it as a chance to get rid of the low performers) but that no negative inference is warranted in the case of plant closings.

</comment><comment><USER7> "The good people bounce up, the bad ones bounce down" - That's a very broad, sweeping statement. I'd love to know how many people he's fired/known to be fired to see if this is true. I mean, does he constantly watch the working career of the folks he fired? How would he know whether the "bounce up" or "bounce down".

Incidentally, how the heck does one "bounce _down_ "?

<comment><USER8> Thought the same thing.

"At the time, I thought this just made him feel better about himself. Over time, I've seen the wisdom in what he said."

No, you were right the first time. "The good ones" and "the bad ones"? I feel sorry for the "ones", period.

<comment><USER9> I think you guys are being a bit too literal. This is how people talk in colloquially, and it's a common phrase in the hedge fund world where I was working at the time.

<comment><USER7> If I took it _literally_ , then I'd be imagining "good" employees literally bouncing around, and "bad" employees... well, I have no idea how to bounce down, so perhaps my imagination is not as good as it should be. :-)

However, I still don't see how you can back up your claims that good employees seem to recover better than bad employees. I don't see how you could know!

<comment><USER4> _However, I still don't see how you can back up your claims that good employees seem to recover better than bad employees. I don't see how you could know!_

You'll be surprised at the number of times you encounter folk you've worked with again. I suspect you're also more likely to stay in touch or hear more about the "good" employees.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> > The good people bounce up, the bad ones bounce down.

That's tautological if you're judging by the future result.

But that's just a nitpick. Nice post. #4 is a great way of framing a bad situation.

</comment><comment><USER11> As I read points 1-3, I kept thinking "how do you fire someone very high up in the chain of command who is careful enough to never make a fireable offense and is also important enough that customers will raise eyebrows (e.g. CTO of a tech company or CFO of a finance company)?"

Then I read:

> 4) The other choice is firing everyone.

When you look at it this way, rest of the reasons don't really matter. It is indeed possible for just one person to bring down them morale of their department, direct reports, or immediate team members. That in turn infects the rest of the company over time, slowly lowering the bar for performance, quality, and enthusiasm. And that can most certainly bring about 4) in the not-too-distant long term.

<comment><USER12> That's true, but _firing_ one person can also cause surprisingly large problems for morale, depending on the person and circumstances. The classic case is the underproductive but friendly and intelligent person who has a good rapport with everyone in the office, good answers/comments in discussions with coworkers, willingness to do miscellaneous odd jobs and help people out, etc. Axing that person can depress the mood around the office and cause others to view management as harsh, especially if they had a higher estimation of the person's productivity than management did.

<comment><USER13> _The classic case is the underproductive but friendly and intelligent person who has a good rapport with everyone in the office, good answers/comments in discussions with coworkers, willingness to do miscellaneous odd jobs and help people out, etc._

In that case, I'd question if that person is _truly_ unproductive. More likely management just doesn't understand how to properly value their actual role, which may not be reflected by their job title. In that case, instead of firing them, it might be better to either:

A. understand the actual value they deliver and leave well enough alone

or

B. create a new title for them, which reflects the value they produce and then hire somebody else for their old position.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> Something I've been curious about relating to this topic, what do you do in a situation where an ex-employee (or ex co-worker) is lying about their position with the company?

Are you allowed to sue for misrepresentation (if such a thing exists) or is it pretty much _deal with it_? For example someone claiming to have been with the company for a year longer than they really were in a role they never held (eg: someone working in customer service at Facebook from 2008 - 2009 then claiming on their resumé they worked in the engineering department from 2008 - 2011).

<comment><USER15> Possibly not, unless you can prove it's causing harm to your company.

The hiring person can certainly sue somebody for lying on their CV e.g. after calling your company and finding out they misrepresented their position.

<comment><USER16> Sue? How about telling them you don't hire people who misrepresent themselves, then not hiring them. Why in god's name would you sue a person for lying on a resume?

<comment><USER15> I don't know how things work in the USA, but in the UK, your references don't get contacted until after you're hired, usually on a probation period.

If the wage you're being paid is high enough, it could be worthwhile taking someone to court to claim it back, as they're effectively defrauding your company.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> Even then, some startups, like Github, have managed not fire anyone in 4 years[1].

Of course, there are people that say that Github is a special case[2]. Which I believe is a nice way to deflect the hard question: "how can we do better?" Which, as it seems, is the very question that Chris Dixon is tackling.

[1] <https://twitter.com/timanderson/status/178093828111208449>

[2] <http://swombat.com/2011/3/30/github>

<comment><USER18> I don't think I'm so much deflecting the question as much as just highlighting that Github _is_ a special case, so one should take extra care when translating their insights and lessons to one's business.

Github is a product for geeks (few of those take off), build by a founder team consisting exclusively of uber-geeks, with the exact right timing (wasn't possible before, and someone else would have done git hosting later - and did, but less well), in a winner-takes-all market (which, to be fair to them, they engineered - source code hosting didn't use to be a winner-takes-all market, but github's social features made it so). Moreover, Github lent itself very well to a viral spread model (doesn't work in most cases, and is hard to bolt on to an unsuitable product), and so had less need for sales efforts than most B2B products.

I'm not putting down Github's team (they executed brilliantly), or even the lessons that they garnered - those are worthwhile lessons to pay attention to and learn from. However, be careful when translating those to your startup, which is probably a very different beast and may crash and burn if you just apply Github's lessons directly!

<comment><USER17> I obviously completely agree with you (being a long time reader of your blog). The point is not that Github is a special case, but that _all_ startups are a special case, and every founder has to figure out what works and what it doesn't for their own.

I have spinned up the contrarian touch a bit in order to exactly get this kind of reaction, and to raise this conversation, which I don't think we have enough.

<comment><USER18> > I obviously completely agree with you (being a long time reader of your > blog).

Hey, you don't have to agree to read my articles :-) Disagreers are welcome too ;-)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> There's two reasons for firing somebody in my experience. Hiring a bad employee and hiring the wrong employee.

This list is mostly about the first kind I think - because of the line "Some people who get fired react by fixing their weaknesses". The wrong person doesn't have "weaknesses" to fix. You hired a round peg, when you should have hired a square one. Its your fault - not theirs.

(Okay - the "bad" employee hire is your fault too, but it's a different kind of mistake.)

</comment><comment><USER19> If you'd replace "firing" with "dumping your gf/bf", this would end up in teen column.

<comment><USER20> Judging by what I've seen of adult relationships, it's a column that's needed by more than just "teens."

We, as a species, are afraid of rejection, and we hate being the ones to reject another person. I don't know if it's evolutionary or so ingrained in every culture as to be effectively evolutionary, but somewhere in our caveman brain, we're kicking someone out of a small tribe and leaving them to die, something to be taken very seriously.

Further, we've told these people to quit their current stable jobs, or start making plans with the income they have, rather than thinking of it as fleeting or temporary. It feels like an awful human thing to do, especially to a likable person.

Many of the firing advice columns I've seen are as simple as "it's not the end of the world for either of you." And that's a lesson that takes more than one link on HN to get.

(I think it's also a lesson that's hard in most of our dating lives, from what I've seen..)

<comment><USER19> Don't really agree with that one. Forcing a relationship to work makes one re- evaluate oneself which might work for better, not worse.

On the other hand, it's time and labour intensive process, and at some point, you really need to cut it.

So, in the article, I basically have issue with point 2, "doing it early". No, you need to try to make it work, and make that process beneficial for both parties. Work it up to a certain point, of course.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> I keep reading about how managers fire employees and I can't help but think there was something under the surface going on when I was fired. I wasn't given any warning or explanation, and it came as a shock to coworkers that I worker closely with. Unfortunately, I'm take with trying to describe this situation to every potential employer anyway. Its great to hear that maybe my case was there exception, and that most employers are more transparent and open about performance expectations and how their employees are doing at their job.

<comment><USER22> Sorry to hear that.

Just because people are over you in an organization doesn't mean they are wise and mature. Of course, if you are in the position to hire and fire then you get to make reality to some extent because you have more power. The employee has to pretend the boss knew what they were doing even afterward on penalty of being blackballed. It's not so easy to get an employer blackballed because somebody else always needs the money. And the culture says that a complaining employee is a liability, and if someone was fired or not hired then there is probably a good reason not to hire them.

Hiring and firing are just another job, and they are done by the same smart, average and stupid people doing other jobs. Let's not pretend that these decisions only ever depend on sound, objective calls completely grounded in consideration of facts and business.

</comment></comment><comment><USER23> I enjoyed this article. The emphasis on firing someone and still being friends or peers is a nice separation between business and relating to other people.

I'm curious about employer/business owner and worker relationships going forward. There's major downsides to full-time employees: it's difficult to hire someone that's skilled and gets along with others and firing a full-time employee is not a pleasant experience for anyone. There's also additional overhead associated with benefits and hr departments.

The modern tech ecosystem has eliminated much of my need to hire other full- time employees. Github takes care of version control. Mixpanel takes care of analytics. Even Airbnb simplifies traveling to the extent that I don't need any help. I can just pay contractors and freelancers for the work where I do require help.

The point is that full-time employees are looking less and less attractive to someone like me who's starting a new company. The path of least resistance is to just adjust my business structure or model to minimize the number of full- time employees I might need in the future.

There are certainly upsides to having full-time employees. And many companies require them. I think the extent to which I'm avoiding full-time employees long-term is interesting. I doubt I'm the only person considering this. So I'm curious how the employer/business owner and worker relationships will change in the next decade or so.

<comment><USER4> _The point is that full-time employees are looking less and less attractive to someone like me who's starting a new company. The path of least resistance is to just adjust my business structure or model to minimize the number of full- time employees I might need in the future._

I don't know if this is generally true. But it's something it's a behaviour I noticed in myself, and others, over the years.

People starting their first company don't like hiring full time employees. They see a lot of extra responsibility - and a loss of control that they get from working with contractors.

People starting their Nth company positively look forward to the time they can hire full time employees. They realise that they can't control or manage everything themselves, and the quicker they can move from being the keystone that holds everything together the better it's going to be for the long term survival of the organisation.

<comment><USER24> There seems to be a inflection point where the company gets big enough where working with contractors becomes more beneficial again.

Whether this is to be flexible around seasonal demand or scaling up for particular projects, this can avoid long term costs involved having full-time employees. I've seen that larger organisations are far more willing to bear the short-term costs of flexibility than smaller ones.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> I liked the article. The part about firing early is very true. It's like ripping a Band-Aid off quickly rather than slowly. Just get it over with as it may affect your future and everyone else's, as the article also mentions.

One thing that caught my eye though was in the comments. The user claims that the article could be put another way " why hiring right team is crucial for startups". I don't agree with that at all. Someone may look good on paper and interview great, but they may not be a good fit for the company. It may be anything from conflicts with other staff to consistent lateness. You can't find these out in an interview. You also can't find out by checking references as many employers will give glowing references to staff they want to get rid of but can't.

</comment><comment><USER26> Spot on post. So many times when talking to seasoned/experienced founders, this comes up as the thing that most founders (seasoned or first timers) get wrong. To quote Max Levchin (on #2): "When there's a doubt, there is no doubt."

<comment><USER22> > "When there's a doubt, there is no doubt."

Too bad employees can't think this way about the companies they are at.

<comment><USER27> Why not? I've left companies when things went sour. I know lots of people who have.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER28> Firing is gut-wrenching for the person who does the firing, and for the person who gets fired (of course). The submitted blog post makes the point that sometimes, despite the short-term wrenching of guts, everyone is better off if an employee who doesn't fit in one workplace moves on to another.

Several of the interesting comments here ask what connection there is between how someone is hired and whether or not someone will be fired. Even if it's not possible to guarantee that you'll never hire someone whom you'll later need to fire, it sounds like all of us want to reduce the risk of making hiring mistakes that will lead to unpleasant experiences later with employees who just don't fit. With that in mind, I'd like to ask some questions.

What hiring procedures are you using now? How structured are your hiring procedures? How much looking ahead to reducing the probability of future firing is built into your hiring procedures?

Hacker News readers who haven't seen it recently may be interested in a FAQ document about hiring employees, based on suggestions I've received from several participants here in previous discussions of how companies hire. Many hackers think many companies hire based on crazy procedures. Research suggests that most companies in most places don't use the best available hiring procedures. I'd appreciate comments about the hiring procedures FAQ below.

There are many discussions here on HN about company hiring procedures. From participants in earlier discussions I have learned about many useful references on the subject, which I have gathered here in a FAQ file. The review article by Frank L. Schmidt and John E. Hunter, "The Validity and Utility of Selection Models in Personnel Psychology: Practical and Theoretical Implications of 85 Years of Research Findings," Psychological Bulletin, Vol. 124, No. 2, 262-274

[http://mavweb.mnsu.edu/howard/Schmidt%20and%20Hunter%201998%...](http://mavweb.mnsu.edu/howard/Schmidt%20and%20Hunter%201998%20Validity%20and%20Utility%20Psychological%20Bulletin.pdf)

sums up, current to 1998, a meta-analysis of much of the HUGE peer-reviewed professional literature on the industrial and organizational psychology devoted to business hiring procedures. There are many kinds of hiring criteria, such as in-person interviews, telephone interviews, resume reviews for job experience, checks for academic credentials, and so on. There is much published study research on how job applicants perform after they are hired in a wide variety of occupations.

The overall summary of the industrial psychology research in reliable secondary sources is that two kinds of job screening procedures work reasonably well (but only about at the 0.5 level, standing alone). One is a general mental ability (GMA) test (an IQ-like test, such as the Wonderlic personnel screening test). Another is a work-sample test, where the applicant does an actual task or group of tasks like what the applicant will do on the job if hired. Each of these kinds of tests has about the same validity in screening applicants for jobs, with the general mental ability test better predicting success for applicants who will be trained into a new job. Neither is perfect (both miss some good performers on the job, and select some bad performers on the job), but both are better than any other single-factor hiring procedure that has been tested in rigorous research, across a wide variety of occupations. So if you are hiring for your company, it's a good idea to think about how to build a work-sample test into all of your hiring processes.

Because of a Supreme Court decision in the United States (the decision does not apply in other countries, which have different statutes about employment), it is legally risk to give job applicants general mental ability tests such as a straight-up IQ test (as was commonplace in my parents' generation) as a routine part of hiring procedures. The Griggs v. Duke Power, 401 U.S. 424 (1971) case

[http://scholar.google.com/scholar_case?case=8655598674229196...](http://scholar.google.com/scholar_case?case=8655598674229196978&q=Griggs+Duke+Power&hl=en&as_sdt=2,24)

interpreted a federal statute about employment discrimination and held that general intelligence tests used in hiring that could have a "disparate impact" on applicants of some protected classes must "bear a demonstrable relationship to successful performance of the jobs for which it was used." In other words, a company that wants to use a test like the Wonderlic, or like the SAT, or like the current WAIS or Stanford-Binet IQ tests, in a hiring procedure had best conduct a specific validation study of the test related to performance on the job in question. Some companies do the validation study, and use IQ-like tests in hiring. Other companies use IQ-like tests in hiring and hope that no one sues (which is not what I would advise any company). Note that a brain- teaser-type test used in a hiring procedure could be challenged as illegal if it can be shown to have disparate impact on some job applicants. A company defending a brain-teaser test for hiring would have to defend it by showing it is supported by a validation study demonstrating that the test is related to successful performance on the job. Such validation studies can be quite expensive. (Companies outside the United States are regulated by different laws. One other big difference between the United States and other countries is the relative ease with which workers may be fired in the United States, allowing companies to correct hiring mistakes by terminating the employment of the workers they hired mistakenly. The more legal protections a worker has from being fired, the more careful companies have to be about hiring in the first place.)

The social background to the legal environment in the United States is explained in many books about hiring procedures

[http://books.google.com/books?hl=en&lr=&id=SRv- GZkw6...](http://books.google.com/books?hl=en&lr=&id=SRv- GZkw6TEC&oi=fnd&pg=PA271&dq=Validity+and+Utility+of+Selection+Models+in+Personnel+Psychology&ots=iCXkgXrlOV&sig=ctblj9SW2Dth7TceaFSNIdVMoEw#v=onepage&q=Validity%20and%20Utility%20of%20Selection%20Models%20in%20Personnel%20Psychology&f=false)

[http://books.google.com/books?hl=en&lr=&id=SRv- GZkw6...](http://books.google.com/books?hl=en&lr=&id=SRv- GZkw6TEC&oi=fnd&pg=PA95&dq=Validity+and+Utility+of+Selection+Models+in+Personnel+Psychology&ots=iCXkgXrnMW&sig=LKLi- deKtnP20VYZo9x0jfvqzLI#v=onepage&q=Validity%20and%20Utility%20of%20Selection%20Models%20in%20Personnel%20Psychology&f=false)

Some of the social background appears to be changing in the most recent few decades, with the prospect for further changes.

<http://intl-pss.sagepub.com/content/17/10/913.full>

[http://www.economics.harvard.edu/faculty/fryer/files/Fryer_R...](http://www.economics.harvard.edu/faculty/fryer/files/Fryer_Racial_Inequality.pdf)

[http://books.google.com/books?hl=en&lr=&id=frfUB3GWl...](http://books.google.com/books?hl=en&lr=&id=frfUB3GWlMYC&oi=fnd&pg=PA9&dq=Validity+and+Utility+of+Selection+Models+in+Personnel+Psychology+%22predictive+validity%22+Duke+Power&ots=5O9Hx_E1vY&sig=g-zERWztBWq3h4guEuv9VVkTh8I#v=onepage&q=Validity%20and%20Utility%20of%20Selection%20Models%20in%20Personnel%20Psychology%20%22predictive%20validity%22%20Duke%20Power&f=false)

Previous discussion on HN pointed out that the Schmidt & Hunter (1998) article showed that multi-factor procedures work better than single-factor procedures, a summary of that article we can find in the current professional literature, in "Reasons for being selective when choosing personnel selection procedures" (2010) by Cornelius J. König, Ute-Christine Klehe, Matthias Berchtold, and Martin Kleinmann:

"Choosing personnel selection procedures could be so simple: Grab your copy of Schmidt and Hunter (1998) and read their Table 1 (again). This should remind you to use a general mental ability (GMA) test in combination with an integrity test, a structured interview, a work sample test, and/or a conscientiousness measure."

[http://geb.uni- giessen.de/geb/volltexte/2012/8532/pdf/prepri...](http://geb.uni- giessen.de/geb/volltexte/2012/8532/pdf/preprint_j.1468_2389.2010.00485.x.pdf)

But the 2010 article notes, looking at actual practice of companies around the world, "However, this idea does not seem to capture what is actually happening in organizations, as practitioners worldwide often use procedures with low predictive validity and regularly ignore procedures that are more valid (e.g., Di Milia, 2004; Lievens & De Paepe, 2004; Ryan, McFarland, Baron, & Page, 1999; Scholarios & Lockyer, 1999; Schuler, Hell, Trapmann, Schaar, & Boramir, 2007; Taylor, Keelty, & McDonnell, 2002). For example, the highly valid work sample tests are hardly used in the US, and the potentially rather useless procedure of graphology (Dean, 1992; Neter & Ben-Shakhar, 1989) is applied somewhere between occasionally and often in France (Ryan et al., 1999). In Germany, the use of GMA tests is reported to be low and to be decreasing (i.e., only 30% of the companies surveyed by Schuler et al., 2007, now use them)."

</comment><comment><USER29> Can better hiring method avoid the need to fire staff? Could you create a culture that retains the right people and forces wrong people to leave?

Looking at previous work experiences, you sometimes wonder how some people ever got through the interview process.

<comment><USER4> _Can better hiring method avoid the need to fire staff? Could you create a culture that retains the right people and forces wrong people to leave?_

No. It assumes that the "wrong" people now were the "wrong" people from the start. Your business changes. People change. The combination of those two factors mean that sometimes you have no choice but to fire somebody.

<comment><USER30> Your point about businesses changing reminds me of the arguments I've read in the past that there's too much full time employment and not enough freelancing. The idea is to get the best person for the task then move on instead of constantly trying to adapt everyone to the latest departmental needs.</comment></comment></comment>


The Number of Older Student Loan Borrowers Is Rising - <AUTHOR> https://mobile.nytimes.com/2017/01/11/business/number-of-older-student-loan-borrowers-is-rising.html?em_pos=small&emc=edit_dk_20170112&nl=dealbook&nl_art=21&nlid=65508833&ref=headline&te=1&referer= <comment><USER3> Has there been any attempt to orchestrate an income based repayment program? This could be implemented in a variety of ways, the most popular of which is taking a percentage of your income after graduating.

Some advantages I can think of:

1\. Educational quality is more tied to student success.

2\. The burden of "payment" is shifted from the student to the school, as the school now must make sure their students are capable of getting good jobs if they want to be paid themselves.

3\. Education and corporate "curricula" are more coupled. This could also be a disadvantage, depending on how you think about it.

Some diadvantages:

1\. This hurts liberal arts, where the value is more opaque.

2\. Research based, or generally any profession that's intellectually difficult, but pays low will be discouraged, implicitly through this.

3\. Makes the point of education a bit more professional and practical, which may have longer term effects (people who think outside of the box generally aren't the ones who are paid well, initially).

<comment><USER4> My school, Purdue University, has been making a big push towards IBR. The biggest issue with it I can see, is that, as far as I can tell, there's no cap on the money collected. That is to say, if they take 15% of your income, and you end up making lots of money, they will continue collecting their share past the actual cost of college. It honestly makes me feel like they see me as an indentured servant, not a student.

<comment><USER5> On the other hand, if the cost of a college is "flexible" as in a % of your income, doesn't it just end up in a situation in which higher-paid graduates subsidize the cost of college for lower-paid graduates?

<comment><USER4> I believe that's the entire idea of it. That and then the college could selectively decide how many majors of a certain type they need, financially speaking. A college will then be punished financially for pushing out tons of gender studies grads rather than engineers.

<comment><USER6> Or water down their engineering program in order to push out more graduates.

<comment><USER7> But since education is a market this would lower the reputation of the college thus attracting less candidates and if they lower the requirements too much they may even loose their accreditations.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Slightly off topic, but does anyone know how/have experience getting a california bill put on the ballot?

One area that I believe is highly inequitable is that home owners can write off all of their interest on their home loan, but there are income caps for student loans that restrict who and how much interest can be written off.

I'd like to draft a measure to make student loan interest 100% tax deductable at the state level. The hope is that passing it in CA would create a conversation around federal income tax policy and student loan interest.

<comment><USER9> Then, as someone who is a renter and does not have student loans, I would miss out on two tax breaks. I think a more elegant solution is to get rid of interest deductions for home owners. When you take out a loan, I think you should pay the real price for that loan.

<comment><USER8> Just out of curiosity, did you attend school? If so, how exactly did you pay for it?

<comment><USER9> I got BS from a public school. I paid for school via a mix of working ~10 hours a week throughout the school year, applying for local scholarships, doing a paid internship every summer, living in a cheap apartment, and then getting some loans. Since my tuition was only ~$10,000 a year and I graduated in 4 years, the overall amount of loans needed were not huge and could be paid off relatively quickly.

<comment><USER8> I did a similar thing for undergrad and graduated with no debt. After working a few years went back for a grad degree which is how I accumulated some grad debt. Luckily I am doing fine and will have it paid off relatively quickly. My issue is more with the structural disadvantages we are creating for others and I think creating a system that is fair for both types of borrowers, home loan borrowers and student loan borrowers makes sense.

I would even consider allowing the write-off of discretionary interest like car loan interest. It should likely be capped at some value that allows people to buy a new, but not ridiculous car. (I don't own a car so this is especially not something I care about).

Point is, if home buyers are writing off their interest, people who are investing in themselves definitely should. I also agree with your elegant solution, and would support no write-offs, but I believe it is harder to take away write-offs than to add them.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> The idea that necessary education is 12 years goes back a century, AFAIK. Perhaps it's time that we extend that to 16 years (I'm not the first to say it) and stop making it an issue of ability to pay. Certainly the job market values college degrees much more than high school diplomas; an economy full of more productive workers will make the tide rise for all the boats - <USER2> selling to those workers, hiring them, those workers' kids, etc etc.

That doesn't solve the abysmal K-12 education so many people receive, of course.

<comment><USER11> > The idea that necessary education is 12 years goes back a century

So previously it was 6 years, and you want to make it 16?

IMO, the opposite should happen. Germany got this pretty right. [https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/0/0e/Ge...](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/0/0e/German_School_system.svg/500px- German_School_system.svg.png)

There are far more varied education routes, it means not everyone takes $100ks of loans when they really just need a couple years of trade school.

<comment><USER12> I like Germany's system of education, granted I went to a Gymnasium for a year, which seems like it's a better deal insofar as it sets you up for higher wage jobs.

But to push back a bit, the sorting process in 4th grade is incredibly unfair, especially to students with uneven learning (ie. are "behind" in 4th grade and thus are destined to be a low wage worker for their whole lives) or are immigrants.

And what's worse, well-off families can work around the system by pushing back if their child is "sorted" into Realschule or Hauptschule. Or, they can just opt to send them to private school instead.

So, it's not all roses. But outside tracking (which will never be a perfectly efficient), I think it is fundamentally a better than the U.S.'s education system.

Some people don't need to and shouldn't go to college. And, it's great if they can get an education that's tailored to them.

<comment><USER10> > Some people don't need to and shouldn't go to college.

Who are these people? Who decides? Have you asked them? What if they want to go to college? Is college only valuable for work skills? What about understanding the world?

I wonder if people said the same about high school, and basic literacy.

EDIT: I'll add to people reading this: Did you go to college? Do you expect your kids to? What about Senators, CEOs, etc - will their kids go to college? Much of this is the elite telling everyone else that their families don't need to go to college.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> For more details, here is a link to the original report written by the CFPB: [https://s3.amazonaws.com/files.consumerfinance.gov/f/documen...](https://s3.amazonaws.com/files.consumerfinance.gov/f/documents/201701_cfpb_OA- Student-Loan-Snapshot.pdf)

</comment><comment><USER14> It's quite a concept that easier student loan debt would create more of it.

Perhaps a better system would have kids starting internships 4 years earlier (i.e. high school) and having the flexibility and context to specialize in a path earlier. And if their career didn't have much use for a degree? Save the time and money. I had learned far more from working/independent reading/independent projects/the Internet in general than in my formal engineering classes by the time I had graduated. Two or three classes stuck out as having a comparable impact as my internships and other ventures, but in reality it's kind of a net waste. I'm more academically inclined than a lot of people, so that really speaks to how important this point is regarding those who grow up not liking academics in the first place.

</comment><comment><USER15> > Americans age 60 and older are the fastest-growing group of student loan > borrowers.

There it is. The "fastest-growing". [https://xkcd.com/1102/](https://xkcd.com/1102/)

I wonder if people beyond their 20's are going back to college in hopes of meeting a mate?

<comment><USER16> > I wonder if people beyond their 20's are going back to college in hopes of > meeting a mate?

If you read the linked article, it's about taking on debt for kids/grandkids or repaying debt incurred when they were young. There's nothing in there about a change in the trend of older people going back to school.

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> "Some older borrowers are carrying their own student loans, but most have education debt taken out on behalf of their children or grandchildren, either by borrowing the money themselves or co-signing loans with the student as the main borrower, the report found."

</comment><comment><USER18> More usury in the one of the most immoral societies in the world. Where it is perfectly legal to create terms of a contract where an elderly person can be pushed into crippling poverty if they are unable to pay.

<comment><USER19> Immoral by what measure?

<comment> rm_-rf_slash Where to begin? Land stolen through genocide and worked by slaves? Mass incarceration? Instigation of coups in foreign governments to ensure lower consumer costs and higher profits at home? Unaccountable drone strikes of innocent people in several countries, including countries we aren't at war with like Yemen?

Our society is very sick. It has been for a long time.

<comment><USER20> If we get to reach back into history for atrocities to describe current societal ills, then we effectively mar most of the world's nations: practically all of Europe, most of East and South Asia, the Middle East, North and Central Africa.

Then the metric ceases to be meaningful.

<comment> rm_-rf_slash So other people are just as bad and somehow that makes it better? Is that really the best that we can do?

<comment><USER20> Were bad != are bad now

I am no moral relativist when it comes to civilizations: some are more humane than others.

On the other hand, how is it fair to judge a person or persons based off of their ancestors' actions?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> The cynic in me says "well yes, odds are they have more assets in case they default.."

</comment><comment><USER22> There are multiple issues at play here, but it all comes down to mis- management of available funds.

1\. Parent's (or grandparents) and student's not appropriately preparing for debt that a student will incur. If you know there is going to be a large debt in the future, stop buying and save. No one need's x-mas presents, no one need's that $30k car, no one need's to go on vacation. We as a culture are in the habit of spending and then complaining about our college debt.

2\. Paying for college tuitions that we really don't need. If you don't have the available fund's to pay $20k a year for your undergrad, then don't. Go to a community college and pay 1/3 of the cost. Or better yet, take half the classes, live at home, create a budget, and pay for your school (or at least books) as you go. I have never heard of anyone being turned down for a job because of their undergrad being from a no-name college. Usually it's because the students want the "college experience" and then have to reap the cost of it later.

3\. Mis-management of available fund's after college. College debt is debt. It may be a little more flexible than a credit card, but debt is debt. Live in the smallest house you can find, buy older cars, no vacations, no eating out. Pay off the debt that you agreed to, and then move on. I've seen too many people buying large homes, new vehicles, buying junk, and then complaining that they still have student debt.

4\. Only go to college for a purpose, not because you feel the "need" to. Stop going to college just to go. Go to college with a purpose that will impact your life later in your years. So many people begin college no knowing at all what they want to do, change majors, and end up doing nothing related to their education.

5\. Spend on your degree based upon your expected return. If you are getting your degree in liberal arts, do not spend $80k on your degree - you will not receive a balanced return on your investment.

Now, this article really has to do with parents and grandparent's co-signing for students and how the parents/grandparents are now on the hook for this debt. If there were required curriculums in high schools on how to manage money and how to manage debt, a lot of these types of articles would disappear. Or better yet, if people were not allowed credit until their student loans were paid.

Some just can't afford to pay off loan's quickly, and I feel for them. But if you are making $70k a year and cannot pay off your loans, you are mismanaging your money.

In regard's to the elderly in this article that are on the hook for this student debt, I have no remorse. They have lived long enough to understand money management and debt. If they allowed their grandchildren free access to debt using their credit, then they should either have a plan in place for repayment or been willing to bankroll the debt themselves.

<comment><USER16> > I have never heard of anyone being turned down for a job because of their > undergrad being from a no-name college.

Have you really never come across this? My anecdota are the exact opposite. In every hiring process that I've been familiar with (granted, that's only like...3), you'd have a non-trivial advantage at getting your foot in the door if you have a good name on your resume. By the time you get to interviews, nobody really cares, but the recruiters in pretty much every organization I've been exposed to use extremely blunt filters like that.

<comment><USER23> Yeah, I literally laughed when I saw this. I worked at Goldman Ball Sachs for a little while. Tell you what, you will get discriminated by management if you don't have ivy on your resume. I have had a md talking straight to my face that he thinks I am lucky to get this job because the people around me all graduated with a phd from Havard, Princeton and Yale. I don't even give a shit.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> Ever heard of the Parent PLUS loan?

Yeah. That's why.

<comment><USER6> This is even worse than traditional student loans, because it parents feel like crap for not "helping" their children. When in reality, the fact that a student needs a PLUS loan should be an indicator that their chosen college is too expensive.

Eliminate Parent Plus loans. Then require colleges to guarantee to a student, before they start, that they can graduate from the program on time for the maximum amount of student loans they will be granted. This prevents students from going to an expensive university and ending up in a financial bind two years in.

</comment></comment><comment><USER25> This is good in a way. People with outdated skills are getting new training, as long as they are able to avoid schools with poor career performance.

<comment><USER26> From the article:

      most have education debt taken out on behalf of their children or grandchildren</comment></comment>


Ask YC:  How do you build a community in a single player puzzle/game site? - <AUTHOR>

Do you think it is important to build a community in a single player puzzle/game site to maximize traffic?<p>If so, how would you do it? <comment><USER2> Well, one of the most interesting things about puzzlers is that a significant (but perhaps still small) proportion of them like making puzzles as well as solving them.

If this were a problem I was working on, I'd try to support that behavior. Make it easy for people to transition from solvers to makers of puzzles. Then feed and nurture the community of fans by allowing solvers to rate and discuss and find similar puzzles.

<comment><AUTHOR> How do you get around the problem of "diluting" the main puzzle? If fewer people play with the main puzzle, that could result in a loss of traffic overall.

It's similar to the problem of subreddits diluting the main reddit.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> You're getting to be almost as persistent about Numbrosia as rms was with his herbal remedy =)

<comment><USER4> 2 threads in 400 days, and a comment in every thread about drugs. I thought it was reasonable. And it's technically not an herbal remedy, because kratom is not classified as anything by the FDA.

;)

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Check out forumwarz... one way they do it is by having the community build more levels to play. It's an RPG, not a puzzle game, though.

<comment><AUTHOR> A potential problem is this would dilute the main puzzle, resulting in less competition and interest in the site.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> I think it will significantly increase return rates, if the game is good. See: kongregate.com</comment>