Show HN: Tic-tac-toe, with a multiplayer twist - <AUTHOR> https://tic-tac-tic-tac-toe.firebaseapp.com/

<comment><USER2> Hey HN, I'm the creator of this multiplayer tic-tac-toe game called tic-tac- tic-tac-toe. It's a Firebase-powered variant of the game everyone knows that pits GitHub against Twitter. Let me know what you think!

<comment><USER3> I would join, but it wants my email which I'm not sure why you need it since it gives you my other github information to insure I'm not a bot.

<comment><USER2> Sorry to hear that. I'm not actually using the emails in any way and don't have plans to. The reason it asks for your email is that I'm using Firebase Simple Login which requests the email scope by default.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> I'm so impressed with the UI and execution. Very well done. No complaints, except that it's perhaps the move timer is a little fast.

I first learned about Ultimate Tic Tac Toe here[1]. Might be worth a link to that post -- it's a great explanation with surprisingly satisfying illustrations.

[1]: [http://mathwithbaddrawings.com/2013/06/16/ultimate-tic- tac-t...](http://mathwithbaddrawings.com/2013/06/16/ultimate-tic-tac-toe/)

<comment><USER2> Thanks for the comment! I considered giving each team 10 seconds per turn but settled on 5 seconds since I didn't want the games to last too long. I wanted to make it such that people kept saying "oh I'll just play one more game." And - for what it's worth - I think that's the same place I first heard about the game.

<comment><USER5> I still feel 5 seconds is too short.

I actually decided to stop playing the game rather quickly, because the team is so desperate to move in 5 seconds that they make several terrible moves in a row, easily losing the game in a almost minimal amount of turns possible to lose.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> The 9 game grid makes for an interesting game with two people, but the crowd tends to rush for the wrong move. I wish there was a way to explain that you don't need to dive on a move to block the other team as long as you don't let them play in that sector. Unfortunately cooler heads are usually outnumbered.

<comment><USER7> This and Twitch Plays Pokemon have taught me a lot more about group efficiency than The Mythical Man Month

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> What's the optimal strategy if you're playing solo vs solo (no team)? Regular tic-tac-toe is an obvious P1 draw due to the strategy-stealing argument, but that doesn't apply here because your move restricts your opponent's move choice.

This game can't end in a draw, bc majority gets the win.

<comment><USER9> I recall lots of people found winning strategies when the game first came out. They were based on always sending the opponent to the same field.

<comment><USER8> I meant optimal perfect strategy, either via a proof or a game tree search (alpha-beta pruning). With 3^81 game states (most not attainable), it should be searchable.

More precisely, the game has a finite # of states, and cannot end in a draw. It's always a win for P1 or P2. If both people play perfectly, who wins and what is the optimal strategy? (Note: It is possible that this game is a P2 win, because your move restricts your opponent's choice.) (For the person with the guaranteed win, what strategy forces the win? For the person who can't guaranteed win, what strategy gives your opponent the most opportunity to make a mistake?)

<comment><USER10> I'm not so sure that it's searchable. 3^81 is quite a lot. I don't know of any solved game with that many. Tic-tac-toe, connect 4, checkers, etc all have less. I think 3^81 is comparable to 9x9-Go and Chess which are both unsolved. I suppose it depends how aggressive you can prune (which, admittedly, is probably pretty aggressively).

<comment><USER8> To (perfectly) solve 9x9 go, you need to consider almost every move at every turn. That's a branching factor of 40+.

In this game, there are (usually) at most 9 legal moves per turn. The branching factor is a lot less. (Giving your opponent free choice to play anywhere is frequently a mistake.)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> Team Github seems to be the far more popular choice. Though strangely, it seems like the smaller team Twitter does better. Maybe crowds aren't as smart in this case?

<comment><USER11> Team Twitter was going really well around the 8 person mark vs the 20 or so on GitHub.

This was a blast. Great presentation. Who had the idea to pit GitHub vs Twitter?

<comment><USER2> It was ultimately my idea to pit these two teams together in this format but I initially got the humans vs. humans suggestion from a coworker. I initially had it as a single human team versus a computer AI but I think this makes for a more exciting matchup!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> I'm currently addicted to TicTactics and know a few decent strategies, so the experience of wanting to use a non-obvious move required for planning-ahead but having all the other players do the obvious move, is very frustrating.

BUT, that's just me. Nice app anyway!

</comment><comment><USER13> Nice, looks like this is also using the Firebase Hosting beta.

First time I've seen that in the wild but I've been using it in lightning talks for a couple of months now. It's pretty slick.

</comment><comment><USER14> This is great! The mob seems to make some funky decisions. I'm curious to see what happens when more people join; if the mob gets smarter or if they get worse. Tell you friends and let's find out!

</comment><comment><USER15> I think the rules are implemented incorrectly. Multiple times I've seen a move get made that seems to violate the rules.

As an example, I just saw team Twitter place a piece in the center square of the top left board (the center board had not yet been won). The Github team then proceeded to place their piece in the bottom right board rather than the center board. It may have been the case that there was a split vote for center and bottom right in Twitter's move that resulted in this bug manifesting itself.

<comment><USER16> I'm glad I'm not the only one who's seeing glitches. I've had instances of the right squares being lit up in green, but then a square on another board, which shouldn't be permissible, actually get selected.

<comment><USER2> I am seeing some of these issues as well. Also seeing the clock do some weird things. I am going to reset the host in a game or two and hopefully things will get back in sync. The game will probably be way out of sync for a few seconds while I do the reset.

<comment><USER2> Things should be better now!

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> Very cool. How do you make this with Firebase? Do you have a central server polling the Firebase collection or how does it make the decisions if all logic is on the clients?

<comment><USER2> Each client writes to a "suggestions" node in the Firebase with their suggestion. Each client also listens for changes to that "suggestions" node to show you how many people have voted on a particular square. Firebase internally does all the work to send the changes on the "suggestions" node to every client. I also have a single host computer (not a server, just my laptop next to me), which goes through all the suggestions once the timer runs out and makes a move for the current team. This move is written to the Firebase and every client is notified by Firebase that the move has been made. They each update their own UI and the process starts over.

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> Very interesting. I half to imagine most of the crowd doesn't understand the rules, or is intentionally trying to throw the game. Many of the moves that I saw happening were exactly the wrong move to make.

Here are rules and strategy as discussed here prior: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5898506](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5898506)

</comment><comment><USER19> Are there loads of trolls or do I not see in what universe it is a good strategy to send the enemy to a block we _almost_ own?

<comment><USER20> I think that's due to the timer causing people to make mistakes.

</comment></comment><comment><USER21> It's pretty fun, one complaint is that it sometimes drops moves or uses ghost votes to put us somewhere we didn't vote for... still cool for a weekender!

</comment><comment><USER22> i sense an off-by-one error? i was the only one playing for team Github:

Team GitHub played [8,1,0] @kn0ll chose [8,2,0]

</comment><comment><USER23> Any thoughts about adding chat? =)

<comment><USER21> Yeah, because most ppl don't read the rules and don't understand how the game works, with chat we could try n' educate 'em...

</comment></comment><comment><USER24> Collaborative gaming has a lot of promise, but so far it's been implemented poorly.

You need to allow gamers to create small teams, and allow them to talk with one another to discuss strategy. Then they decide on a move.

Someone make chess using the above.

<comment><USER4> To be fair, these implementations are only poor in your opinion. And your suggestion might be poor in other ways.

For example, I would suspect far fewer people are willing to invest upfront in a game like yours. It's much easier to find two people who want to play chess against each other where they are fully in control, than two groups getting only one single, slow game out of it.

One way a more thoughtful, strategic game like yours might work would be to achieve critical mass with a simpler, fast paced game and then add depth.

</comment></comment><comment><USER25> Very simple UI with a small learning curve. Bravo, this is fun.

</comment><comment><USER26> Team Twitter > Team Github! :) _tribal chest pound_

</comment><comment><USER27> Twitch plays Tic-tac-toe!

</comment><comment><USER28> for some reason it causes 100% CPU load after some time (Chrome 34)</comment>


Seagate brags of 1m SMR drives - where are they? - <AUTHOR> http://www.theregister.co.uk/2013/09/10/shingle_my_timbers_my_seagate_hearties/

<comment><AUTHOR> "Seagate brags of 1m SMR drives - where are they?

Disks with tiny tracks shipping, 5TB boxes by 2014, we're told.

Seagate has said it's shipped a million shingled disk drives to date."

Hmmm, I wonder who might have the budget to purchase Seagate's entire output of latest-tech super-high-capacity drives, and has a use case where tremendously slow over-writing of data wouldn't be a problem? Almost as though these are targeted directly at organisations that archive monumental amounts of data and never delete any of it…</comment>


Does my company have IP rights to the stuff I do in my spare time? - <AUTHOR> http://answers.onstartups.com/questions/19422/if-im-working-at-a-company-do-they-have-intellectual-property-rights-to-the-stu <comment><USER3> A few thoughts on this:

1\. I have done transactional work and litigation in and about these areas for nearly 30 years in Silicon Valley. Based on that experience, in practical terms, the risk you deal with in doing side work boils down to this: it is rare that an employer will make a claim to IP you develop on your own time and using your own resources but, when it does happen, its effect is pretty horrific.

2\. California gives you more scope only because it has a law on the books that generally prohibits employers, on public policy grounds, from making claims to IP generated by employees working on their own time and using their own resources.

3\. Even in California, however, an employee owes duties to his employer and one of those is that you don't misappropriate your employer's IP for your own use. This is why the California law says that you don't keep your side-project IP for yourself if it is in your employer's line of business or anticipated line of business. You can imagine the chaos that would result if any employee could state that, "no, that valuable IP that I came up with might have directly concerned what my employer was paying me to develop, but, in fact, I developed that particular key piece on my own time, etc."

4\. In this sense, there is a common sense element to this area of law as applied in California. You typically will sense, without being told, whether the work you are doing on the side is capitalizing on the things your employer is doing or if it is truly unrelated.

5\. That said, don't mess around with this sort of thing. It is both contract- specific and local-law-specific. That means general statements you hear from time to time (including those I just made) may or may not apply to you. If what you are planning to do has commercial value, then make sure to get it checked by a good local lawyer who can guide you through the pitfalls and explain alternatives. This is particularly so if you are not in California.

<comment><USER4> "If what you are planning to do has commercial value, then make sure to get it checked by a good local lawyer who can guide you through the pitfalls and explain alternatives."

Is being no-longer-employed by your employer an absolute defense, assuming that you can prove that any IP in question was created after the end of your employment?

I'm thinking of the case where an employee does something that's either not of commercial value or lets it revert to his employer's ownership, but then quits and founds a startup (with an entirely new codebase) afterwards.

For example, Marc Andreesen writes a web browser under the terms of his employment with UIUC. He then drops out, moves to Silicon Valley, and founds a company with Jim Clark, presumably with a from-scratch codebase. They get sued for trademark infringement because they name it _Mosaic_ Communications Corp, but UIUC has no legal claim to any of their source code or inventions developed after the end of Andreesen's employment, right, even though he gained quite a lot of experience working on web browsers there?

Or Larry and Sergey start Backrub at Stanford. It becomes Google before they leave Stanford grad school. Stanford obviously owns the PageRank patent because it was developed while they were still students, and they licensed it for a good chunk of shares. However, would Stanford own the original Google logo, forcing Google to redo it when they incorporated as a separate company? How about code - presumably Google licensed the codebase from Stanford, but if they hadn't and had started fresh instead, would Stanford have any claims on the grounds that Larry and Sergey had built an essentially identical product under their employment?

<comment><USER3> An employer can easily find grounds to chase you for your strictly post- employment work if it can argue that such work misappropriates its proprietary rights (usually but not necessarily trade secret), whether or not the work you originally did for the employer had commercial value at the time you first did it. Starting with a from-scratch codebase may or may not offer you a shield but likely not - this is because the concept of "trade secrets" is much broader than the code itself and a former employer can (normally) easily argue that you are gaining an unfair competitive advantage from your superior knowledge of the confidential information relating to its proprietary product and that you would be misusing such knowledge (which, by law, belongs to the employer exclusively) in using it to do an allegedly independent implementation. The employer might find it hard to win such a case but this would not stop them from making your life hell for several years as you try to defend yourself from such an assault.

Short answer: there is no absolute defense in the fact of your no longer being employed when you do the allegedly offending activity.

BTW, I don't know enough about the Andreessen or Google examples to comment intelligently on the specifics there.

<comment><USER5> (sidenote) <http://www.grellas.com/acquisitions.html> "We are sophisticated enough to help buyers and sellers in such deals valued at many millions of dollars and flexible ENOUGHT to provide cost-effective help for small business deals as well."

The copy on your site needs correcting.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Very often, yes. The boilerplate IP contracts provided by most law firms usually claims one of:

* All software development work you ever do while employed by the company.

* All software development work you do using in any way any resource of the company, from computer to network connection.

* All software development work you do related to the business of the company that employs you.

* All software development work you do that isn't explicitly listed in an exhibit of exceptions you, the employee, fill out.

Before you start asking how enforceable this stuff is, note that unlike with noncompetes (which usually aren't practically enforceable), the way _this_ issue is going to come up is, you're going to try to start a company, and your first official act of business is going to be to start defending yourself against legal actions from your employer that will torpedo any chance you have of getting funding for the year or so it takes for those actions to resolve themselves.

So, 'grellas may chime in and say "don't worry about this", in which case ignore me, but I wouldn't dick around with this issue. If my IP contract precluded me from working on my next company project, I'd get a clarified official path to working on it from my employer, and leave if one wasn't provided.

<comment><USER7> This also varies somewhat by state; there's a law in California (Labor Code section 2870[1]) that bars employers from claiming work that an employee does "on his or her own time without using the employer's equipment, supplies, facilities or trade secret information" unless the invention relates directly to the employer's business. I'd still check with a lawyer, though, even if in California --- and if elsewhere, most states are a lot less generous.

[1] [http://www.leginfo.ca.gov/cgi- bin/displaycode?section=lab...](http://www.leginfo.ca.gov/cgi- bin/displaycode?section=lab&group=02001-03000&file=2870-2872)

<comment><USER6> It may be harder than you expect to establish that you're not in a business related to your former employer, at least to the extent that you can quickly end a legal action; all I'm saying is, that legal safeguard may not be as helpful as you'd hope.

<comment><USER8> Remember that you aren't trying to convince a bunch of HN readers - you are trying to convince a judge (who thinks computers are magic boxes)

If your day job is Oracle DBA and your startup is iPhone apps or web design that still equals the same "computer stuff" to a judge.

<comment><USER9> I'm pretty sure Oracle is a good example of a company that makes you agree that they own everything you think of while employed by them.

A friend of mine became an Oracle employee when the company he worked for got acquired, and ended up needing to get approval from a long way up the org chart to be able to continue doing his phd, since the university had existing claims on ip in his phd research.

For quite a long time he described himself as " technically not being allowed to think anything..."

<comment><USER8> It's not oracle specificaly it's that if you are say a structural ironworker during the day and make bronze sculptures as a hobby then a judge will understand they are different.

But they might not understand that being a sysadmin is as different to being a web designer in the evening.

<comment><USER9> Sorry, I should have been more clear.

As I understand it, Oracle's standard employment agreement includes language saying you agree that Oracle owns every idea you have while employed by them, whether on "paid hours" or not, whether related to databases or software in general or not - if you're a database engineer for Oracle and you invent a better tap washer, Oracle seem to think they'll own your plumbing related invention. There's workarounds for at least limited exceptions to that standard rule, but it's apparently unusual and required signoff at many levels above the typical workers management.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Google, my employer, recently refused a request that I made to release as open source some software that I had been working on in my spare time and without using any of their resources, on they claim that my software would compete with one of their projects. :-(

<comment><USER11> There's a story in there. Did Google actually have any claims to the software you wrote? If not, then you wouldn't need their persmission (except that now that you asked, they could fire you for disregarding their "advice").

I'd love to hear cdibona's views on that.

<comment><USER12> I wrote them up last time this came up, you can find it here:

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1970191>

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> I worked for a company that not only had this clause, but it extended to any and all inventions pertaining to the employers line of business for 12 months after employment terminated.

When employment terminated and I intended to go work for a competitor, I was given a letter explaining that the business of my employer was "software and hardware" and was told verbally they would aggressively pursue that claim. The also notified the company I was going to work for who then withdrew the employment offer. Probably wouldn't have stood up in court if I had a few million to pay attorneys. As it was it cost me around $30,000 in legal fees to deal with and I was unemployable for a full year during a time when my expertise, which I had gained on my own time before working for these people, was very hot.

In the end it doesn't matter one whit what the law says because to maintain your rights you will have to fund lawyers longer than their staff attorneys are willing to harass you. In practice, you run out of money pretty fast.

You must not sign these sorts of contracts or work for these people in any way shape or form if you want to avoid big trouble. When they inform you of these clauses, regardless of what the state law says, they are warning you they intend to create legal problems for you if you ever try to work for anyone else.

Remember this one thing. If you do not have unlimited pockets you have no legal rights in a contest against a better funded party.

<comment><USER14> Can you please name the employer so the rest of us can avoid them? Thanks!

<comment><USER13> They don't exist anymore! It may appeal to your Schadenfreude to know that shortly after this they went bankrupt - because I wasn't there and so they couldn't complete contracts and got sued into oblivion by their clients.

I guess I'll mention the basic problem was I had a contract with them licensing one of my patents to them when I went to work there. They then told me they wanted me to transfer complete ownership of my patent to them when it became an issue that they wanted to license it to another company, which my license did not allow (non-transferable) and they didn't want to pay for. I said no, and so they fired me, but told me if I gave them the patent I could come back to work - blackmail!

The other company then wanted to hire me and deal with me directly, and that's when my former employer launched legal proceedings and sabotaged my new job offer.

That is when I found out that a qualified and experienced IP attorney who knows the law costs a lot more ($600/hr) than a regular family attorney ($100/hr). My attorneys were top guys nationally and were very clear that the company had absolutely no case whatsoever on any of their claims.

It soon became apparent though that the company attorney was scheduling meetings with my attorneys solely for the purpose of bleeding me dry. For example, company attorney would demand to meet with multiple members of my firm to discuss things, and then talk slow, fumble with papers and act stupid, at a cost of $2400/hr to me because there were 4 attorneys there. My attorneys told me straight up that that was what the deal was and they called the company on their BS but the company kept trying these tactics. Eventually the company got buried in their own bad karma and gave up, but it still cost me a fortune to deal with and stole a year from my life and caused incredible stress and dismay. Lesson learned was that it simply does not matter that the law is on your side and the other people don't have a case if they are acting in bad faith.

The good part was that I came out of it a lot wiser and since then I absolutely will not deal with any company that insists I agree to terms I don't feel are completely fair. That decision is still the right one, decades later, and completely changed the amount of BS I was dealing with in jobs. Any one who feels uncomfortable with any clause should not agree to it and be firm. If you have talent, you will find work for reasonable people and that work will be better paid and less stress than dealing with the jerks.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> The advice in that forum is an illustration of why you should not believe legal advice that is given to you by non-lawyers. Much of it is wrong, dangerously so.

For example one person claims that by default what you do on your own time is owned by you. Sorry, that varies by jurisdiction and local laws. It is true in CA, but false in NY.

Several people claim that CA offers strong protections. That is true, but the protections are not nearly as strong as they are claiming.

And so on. If you, personally, care about this topic, talk to a good IP lawyer who knows the local laws for your state.

<comment><USER13> Do you have a citation for your statement that "what you do in your spare time" is _not_ owned by you in New York?

<comment><USER15> My reference was what I was informed was the law by multiple lawyers when I lived in New York. It is possible that I misunderstood or the rules have changed in the last decade, but I am pretty sure neither is the case. Still you should confirm this with a qualified attorney before accepting what I say as being absolutely true.

More precisely I was told that New York recognizes 3 types of employee relationships. They are hourly, contractor, and professional employee. The first two are obvious. You are aware if you have to punch in on a clock, or are a contractor. The default for software development is therefore the third.

As a professional employee there are no set place or hours for your employment. (That is why you don't get overtime.) Therefore anything that you do that could possibly relate to your employment is by default assumed to be a work for hire that took place during the course of your employment. There are admittedly some complications there. If a programmer writes a novel, that's going to not be a work for hire. If a programmer writes a program, that's likely going to be a work for hire. But there are gray areas. For instance a VB programmer by day who works a C device driver for Linux by night _might_ have a case that their side project doesn't relate to their employment.

But just in case, virtually every New York company makes sure that employees sign contracts that clarifies any possible ambiguity..in favor of the employer. So the reality is that if you live in New York, you can't assume that you own your side project.

Incidentally this is the reason that the FSF (which is very careful on intellectual property) requires that they get copyright assignment both from contributers and from the contributers' employers. Because they don't want to get into a situation where they think they have copyright, but someone else has a legal claim to copyright that code.

<comment><USER13> Thanks for the detailed reply. I found a post from 2002 with a similar citation regarding NY's classes of employees: <http://www.perlmonks.org/?displaytype=print;node_id=153046>

He doesn't explicitly state if his open source work was entirely done on his own time and equipment or done during down time at work or such, but it might be the case in his post there.

It's strange. As you probably know, the work for hire exception to copyright comes from the 1976 Federal Copyright Act. It doesn't extend to times when you are not at work, or have a 24/7 idea for professionals. It's also the case that nearly every state has hourly, contract and salary/overtime exempt employment categories, yet no other states I know of extend work for hire to off hours in the absence of a contract. If this doctrine can indeed be found in NY State Law, it would seem to be a state regulating something that only Congress has a right to regulate, which is copyright law (Article I, Section 8, Clause 8).

It would be really interesting to see the text of the NY state law on this, maybe I'll be able to find it some time.

<comment><USER15> _AHEM_

I am intimately familiar with that case. :-)

<comment><USER13> Ah, OK, I should have noticed! Thanks.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> In general you should avoid signing the standard contracts at any job. I've always made changes to protect my after-hours work, and they've been okayed every single time.

<comment><USER17> Have you worked at any large companies and had success with that? I'm used to dealing with people who don't know who wrote the agreement, have given it to thousands of others "without a problem", and treat me like I am a bit odd for actually reading it, let alone trying to change something.

<comment><USER16> Yes actually I've pushed changes back at companies like Cingular and AT&T, and semi-large consulting firms like NCS Tech, and others. The HR rep will usually think I'm odd, but it's saved my butt at least once, so it's worth a couple odd looks:)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> As a condition of employment, back when I didn't know any better, I signed the All-your-IP-belong-to-us contract. I tried digging through my archives at my parent's house last year to try to find it but couldn't. I'm not sure I want to bring it up with my boss and Legal (red flagged). Then again, maybe I want to be the nail that sticks out and doesn't get hammered down.

Now that I am doing substantial freelance and collaborative projects - <USER2> strategy is to work on either a) side projects with diffuse ownership b) pro- bono projects or c) projects where we don't own the product - the client does - while I plot my eventual jumping ship. I hope they won't go after me.

Going to another company is kind of ridiculous because they tell you in the interview that 'as long as you don't use any of the code that you work on during the day'. Any good coder knows that reusing code is part of the job - and it would be difficult if not insane to pretend that you can keep code out of side projects. My strategy, if I were to take such a job, would be to open source the code I do on my own time that I might use at the company - and get permission to use my own open source library.

However, I've done enough freelance hours to know freelancing isn't a bed of roses - a bed of roses with thorns. There is no concept of weekends or holidays with client deadlines...

Ah, health care...

<comment> alok-g I requested a copy of my contract from HR (without even going to my boss) and they provided me information on how to access a copy of it on our internal website.

I was worrying about being red-flagged just like you. But a lawyer told me that I should not be worried about this at all, and should just politely tell them something like, "I am missing copy of so-and-so contract from my file, can I get a copy." It proved to be even easier in my case.

</comment></comment><comment><USER19> It's a seller's market, don't take a job at a company with policies you don't agree with, regardless of how common they are or how enforceable they might be[1]. It's quite easy to find employers in the bay area that don't demand such things or will waive the clause.

Make sure to tell them why you didn't take the job.

[1] I suppose if it's clearly and completely unenforceable little harm is done

<comment><USER20> in what way is it a seller's market? as far as i can see, high-tech employment is still not all the way back up to pre-recession levels.

<comment><USER21> If you tried to hire in the past few years in an area like Boston this wouldn't require further explanation.

<comment><USER20> are you speaking from experience? if so, i'm curious - is it that you confined your search to boston, or that people elsewhere were unwilling to relocate?

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> Very much state dependent, and very much modified by the employment agreement (if you had one) when you joined a company. You can, and should, strike any objectionable material from the employment agreement, have the HR person who is helping you with your first day paperwork sign off on the changes, make a copy of the document, have the HR person sign the copy acknowledging it is a true copy of what was signed, and put that somewhere safe.

If the company won't accept your changes, then that is your signal that not only do they intend to own IP rights to perhaps everything you have done or will do, they also intend to litigate for those rights which you will have signed over to them with the agreement.

That is a good time to decide if you want to work there or not.

For folks who are thinking about changing companys but have yet to make the jump, ask your future employer to give you a copy of the employment agreement before you accept their offer. Have it reviewed by a lawyer. That way you can find out before you give notice that you weren't going to work there anyway.

At least for tech employees there is enough demand on the hiring side to give you an advantage.

</comment><comment><USER23> I recently came up against this sort of nonsense in a job interview. I do a lot of technological stuff in my spare time, so as soon as they mentioned that I would have to agree to stop engaging in such extra-curricular activities I ended the negotiations.

</comment><comment><USER24> IANAL, but in the UK, unless you have a contract that specifically says otherwise, yes.

On the other hand, if the outside work provably used no employer resources, and provably is unrelated, then you can probably defend yourself against an action. But you really, really don't want to depend on that.

Get it sorted up front. Get an explicit agreement with your employer that non- competing work done without their resources and without impacting your work, belongs to you.

Otherwise it's murky and dangerous.

<comment><USER25> > and provably is unrelated

I've been told by a professional that "unrelated" generally means work that might be in a different profession - and that to a court, "computers" could be considered a single profession in this sort of case. Work done in the field of "computers" outside of work, and you work for a "computer" firm? Related. Ergo your employer owns the IP.

So yeah, don't depend on it. At all.

This is the advice I was given when verifying that I had the IP relating to my startup. To avoid any doubt, I got the IP signed over with a contract I paid a solicitor for. This cost money, but more importantly it helped that my former employer was willing to do this.

Thinking about it, this default is the sort of thing that stifles innovation. If the Government wants to promote innovation, perhaps they should change the rules.

Edited to add: I'm in the UK.

</comment></comment><comment><USER26> Maybe, but if you don't actually create IP yourself -- you hire a contractor to do what you do at your day job -- you will stay in the clear and gain valuable experience.

Managing a contracted worker in your field of expertise, within the creative restriction that you cannot perform their work for them, is itself a highly educational exercise for someone with entrepreneurial interests.

Be sure to document well, though.

<comment><USER27> That's all fine and good for legal reasons, but frankly the whole point of doing stuff in my free time is that _I_ want to be the one doing it. Otherwise I wouldn't be doing it in my free time.

I get what you're saying from a financial and legal perspective, but it definitely does not solve the greater problem.

<comment><USER26> Yeah, I understand. You would think that employers would prize the kind of employee who wants to do the same thing in their spare time as they do at the office, wouldn't you?

And yet everywhere they are treated with suspicion.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER28> I wouldn't mind allowing a company to have rights over what I do on my own time as long as I get ownership rights over everything else the company is doing, regardless of whether I'm involved or not. Fair's fair.

<comment> alok-g It does not depend unfortunately whether you mind or not.

<comment><USER28> where there's a will there's a way :P

<comment><USER29> Where there's a will, there's billable hours.

<comment><USER28> i like that. "if you can't beat 'em, bill em!" :)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER30> I'm in sales and in my spare time I am creating a program for online data management(which will also create leads although they're B2B and my company does B2C). Can I use the "not work related" exemption or should I renegotiate my employment agreement? I work in Nevada. Thank you for any help you can give me.

<comment> alok-g PS: I am not a lawyer, although have done extensive online research on these issues.

1\. "Not work related" gives you an incomplete picture (not related to who's work?). That it is not related to your work is not enough. It must not be related to the employer's line of work, or anticipated line of work. Even if one person in the company is working on a related item, the your work may belong to the company. Even if one person in the company is anticipating the same, you have a potential issue. (See item 3 below for a related issue.)

2\. The normal meaning of "related" also should not be taken at face value. If you are making burgers for MacDonald's while making a software side project, you are likely to be OK (and I am guessing that McDonald's would make you sign an employment agreement for these issues also). If you are in sales for a technical company and are making a software, they can easily be considered to be "related" by your company or the court.

3\. Keep in mind that in any case the onus of proving is on you, so you the legal costs of proving you are clean would fall on you. That also means that in case of trouble, the court may initially side the employer and wait for you to prove you are clean to turn to your side.

<comment> alok-g Correction: "and I am guessing that McDonald's would NOT make you sign an employment agreement for these issues"

</comment></comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> Interested to hear perspectives from Europe/UK as well as the US, so if you mention specifics please say where this is relevant.

</comment><comment><USER31> I think that the most ridiculous contracts are the ones that attempt to assert ownership of things you have produced _before you even worked at the company._ (i.e. anything that you have created, are creating, and will create in the future) Companies/lawyers will do this claiming that it's only a defensive measure, but once they have that power over you, they _will not hesitate_ to go on the offensive if they think they have something to gain by doing so.

</comment><comment><USER32> [http://www.leginfo.ca.gov/cgi- bin/displaycode?section=lab...](http://www.leginfo.ca.gov/cgi- bin/displaycode?section=lab&group=02001-03000&file=2870-2872)

Unless I'm reading this wrong: if you work on it solely on your time, with your equipment, it's yours (in California, anyway).

UPDATE: Oh, also it can't compete with their business.

<comment> alok-g People, this link talks about "inventions". Nothing else is included in this. Please do not generalize this to "work".

If you invent something while adhering to the statutes stated here, and write software implementing that invention, then the invention would belong to you. But the software doesn't! Software is subject to copyrights, not inventions.

<comment><USER33> Regardless of the word used, this law does apply to copyrighted works in practice. "Invention" is used in the sense of "creations".

<comment> alok-g That would be excellent. How can I confirm this?

<comment><USER33> IANAL, but I know there are existing cases. I confirmed it through a friend who's been doing HR here for years. So: either lawyers or HR people or both, I suppose.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER34> UK Opinion:

I started writing an application 10 years before the formation of a UK Ltd company, and when I joined them I let them use it.

I ended up having to negotiate and buy said software from the liquidator when it failed because it was cheaper than fighting the claim in court to prove ownership.

As many have said, get everything in writing.

</comment><comment><USER35> In Norway, no.

Some companies try to put it in the contract, but it has no base in law and holds no legal obligations. I.e. you can ignore the clause safely.

</comment><comment><USER36> After the whole Bratz debacle[1], I make sure never to kid around with the danger of this.

[1]: [https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/wiki/Bratz#Legal_a...](https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/wiki/Bratz#Legal_actions)

</comment><comment><USER37> This topic has made me relook at my employment contract and I'm a little concerned.

Does this sound like I'm exempt having to hand over my IP for non-work related coding?

"All Intellectual Property developed, created or used by you or with your assistance during your employment with the Company in the context of the business of <Company Group> or any related activities shall be and at all times remain the property of the Company."

It feels like anything that is done outside of work that is not related to the company is exempt, but I'm not sure.

<comment><USER23> It sounds sufficiently vague that the company could claim that your extra- curricular IP belongs to them if they want to take it.

</comment></comment><comment><USER38> It depends on what your contract says... I work for a firm that clearly states that whatever you do, if it involves their equipment, resources, or time, or knowledge gained while working with them, they have IP rights at that point. That being said, some companies allow you to do stuff on your own, e.g. work for a different client / project outside your billable hours, and they don't have rights to those products (as long as you're clearly showing that you're not using shared resources).

</comment><comment><USER39> When handed one of these, put it in your desk. Same with second and third copy. If they ask for it before hire, say you need time to read it.

If that fails, write an addendum that neuters the document. "Nothing in this agreement precludes posting online, writing, blogging, coding, or contributions to open source software provided that no code or technology specific to company XYZ is disclosed." Most employers won't pay their lawyer to review your addendum and bang, you have your rights back.

</comment><comment> alok-g I had asked pretty much the same question here: <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1839301>

</comment><comment><USER40> Links to specific statutory provisions of various states: <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1970276>

Flow chart for analyzing employer rights: <http://www.ontechnologylaw.com/2010/12/diagramming-a-legal-i...>.

</comment><comment><USER41> Sometimes the law and common sense have nothing in common.

I have different hobbies besides coding, so if I create a painting masterpiece my employer owns it? How about my latest culinary invention? The new can opener I just invented? Or my one month old daughter conceived in my spare time?

I call retardedness, but that's the law and we must obey it or fight to change it.

<comment><USER41> It all boils down to this, the law is supposed to protect the individual, but the corporations have the money, and the law-makers follow the money, therefore the individual gets screwed. Corporatocracy is ruling the world right now but we are getting fed of it and even if it takes a hundred years we will make them serve the individuals that work for them and not only their C?Os.

</comment></comment><comment><USER42> Not in Canada they don't. The courts will look at every case individually but unless there is obvious malfeasance on behalf of the employee, any "we own you" contracts are unenforceable.

(Point being that it depends on where you live.)

<comment><USER43> Do you have any links, references on this??

Specific to Canada - and Alberta - would be nice. :)

I'm trying to find more info on this, and can't find any relevant info on Google...

<comment><USER42> You should check out the Alberta employment standards office. It's goes the same for non-compete agreements, which are also hard to enforce north of the 49th.

</comment></comment></comment><comment> alok-g I found this to be an excellent resource for this topic.

[http://www.amazon.com/Intellectual-Property-Open-Source- Prot...](http://www.amazon.com/Intellectual-Property-Open-Source- Protecting/dp/0596517963/)

While this has "open source" in the title, it's still an excellent book related to this topic.

Another good thing about this book is that it draws analogies between software source code and law statutes, making it very easy for software folks to understand these legal issues.

</comment><comment><USER44> Depends on where you live. Heavily state dependent.

<comment><USER45> Absolutely. Along with the standard, "talk to a lawyer" advice, it's worth noting a few things:

1) Virtually every major technology company includes intellectual property assignment agreements in the paperwork they require new hires to sign. Most startups probably have the same policy, many perhaps without even knowing it, since its part of plenty of standard paperwork. Y Combinator's standard paperwork includes such a clause.

2) For all of the ones I've seen (and I imagine most respectable companies, and probably every company in California, for reasons to be mentioned), the paperwork claims ownership over anything developed a) during work hours, or b) using company owned equipment, resources, or IP, or c) anything that doesn't fall into the first two categories but that involves an area of business the company is active in, or has plans to be active in.

3) The reason California companies all have roughly the same language, is because those restrictions are what are specified in California state law. Given the nature of California in the tech industry, I would guess that influences what a lot of tech companies use as a general policy. The language is somewhat complicated by the third part of the equation, but generally I believe the company has to be able to show damages in such an instance.

4) There are no such general protections on the federal level, and I believe a majority of states do not offer those protections, meaning that in many states all work, and even in some cases all ideas, that you generate during your employment belong to your employer (if you signed a contract to that effect with the employer).

</comment></comment><comment><USER46> The following article may be of some interest: [http://www.businessweek.com/managing/content/nov2010/ca20101...](http://www.businessweek.com/managing/content/nov2010/ca2010112_650227.htm)

</comment><comment><USER47> A recent relevant discussion on reddit:

[http://www.reddit.com/r/WTF/comments/fftaa/my_25_hour_foray_...](http://www.reddit.com/r/WTF/comments/fftaa/my_25_hour_foray_in_corporate_america/)

</comment><comment><USER48> My employer is hyper-strict about stuff that is directly competitive with their offerings, but has tightly "ringfenced" those offerings and allows us to do what we like outside them.

</comment><comment><USER49> Pertaining the case cited by the answer, this might be an interesting read: <http://bit.ly/gt5BGE> (Google Books)

</comment><comment><USER50> Generally if your employer wants to take whatever you created, they probably can. So best not to draw their attention to your side project.

</comment><comment><USER51> Interesting read, its doubtful they can.

If it ever came to a dispute, id follow the guidance of mark zuckerberg and fight it out for the rights to my work.

<comment><USER45> This seems like a fairly uninformed view of the Zuckerberg story. In the end, Facebook settled those claims for huge amounts of money (and only were able to because they in fact had huge amounts of money).

</comment></comment><comment><USER52> Link broken? All I get is "Portal Not Found"

</comment><comment><USER53> "Does this seem off-topic to anyone else? – Russell Steen Jan 26 at 14:49"

Is the reason I just get sick of S.O. sometimse.

<comment><USER54> Where "S.O" is shorthand for "answers.onstartups.com"?</comment></comment>


State of emergency in France - <AUTHOR> https://gist.github.com/fasterthanlime/faa2ae629d22f325beb7 <comment><USER2> Didn't France approve sweeping surveillance laws back in July? And they even were on high alert due to international talks happening in Paris...

Italy and Spain also stopped terrorist cells this month, but they don't seem to have such laws...

Guess they need more unwarranted power, uh?

<comment><USER3> We need targeted surveillance and by that I mean something that many will vehemently disagree with. Before you down vote, please make the effort to read to the end and then down vote!

If I was a doctor and my patient had cancer in his foot, then if try to treat the foot to get rid of the cancer. I would also pay particularly close attention to the leg connected to that foot, to make sure that the cancer did not spread throughout the entire body.

With that in mind, I believe that our only choice, assuming we want our free and open societies to remain as they are, is to monitor all Muslims living in Europe who have the potential to be radicalised and turned cancerous. Warrant, judge, monitor.

We could try and close all the borders (they are porous) or we can make pointless suggestions, like we should kick all immigrants out of our countries, but the fact remains that the attackers in London and Paris earlier in the year (and I'm betting last night too) are second or third generation immigrants who were born in the west.

Since 9/11 the security services have tried to crack down on radicalization within the internal Muslim communities, by expelling radical clerics, but the internet allows the radicalization of the very young and marginalised youth (mostly boys), to continue. This isn't surprising considering the racism against immigrants in the ghettoes of Paris, and the exclusion of these youths from French society. First came the riots in 2005, and now something much more sinister has arrived.

Or societies are desperately trying not to impose draconian rules of monitoring on a religious group, but as it stands I see little choice in the matter.

Also Germany is facing a firestorm. Within the large numbers of genuine refugees, are Syrian fighters from both sides. Some are most likely disillusioned by the brutality of ISIS, and some are coming to watch the world burn. We desperately need to know who these people are and urgently before they disappear into the masses.

We also need to understand ISIS and what they are trying to do. Wikileaks recently published a document [1] that outlines their goals and they are simple. They want to achieve the Islamic State with pure Sharia Law. Moderate Muslims (aka "the greyzone") either have to join, or be burnt in the war with all other Kafir (that has been prophesied). They need the west to turn against their Muslim communities forcing them back to fighting and into the open arms of ISIS. They want those new immigrants in Germany to be excluded, treated like dogs, so that they either return to the middle east and (re)join the perverted form of Islam that is preached by IS.

Now you can see the dilemma that the west faces. On the one hand, logic dictates that they need to closely monitor the youths in Europe who are getting radicalised over the internet, but they can't single out a religious group without a severe backlash. The alternative is to monitor everyone on the internet, because in doing that you get to watch the small part that you are interested in, without appearing to religiously persecuting Muslims.

Finally, there is a twitter account [2] that follows radical militia fighters from Syria and the middle East. A large number of which are now posting photos of them in Europe now. We need to find them now.

[1] ISIS strategy in France: Provoke a crackdown on Muslims to "Eliminate the Grayzone" [https://t.co/8fb8BbKOG2](https://t.co/8fb8BbKOG2) #ParisAttacks #AttaquesParis

[2] [https://mobile.twitter.com/EU_MilitiaWatch/](https://mobile.twitter.com/EU_MilitiaWatch/)

<comment><USER4> Draconian measures targeted against large ethnic groups has been historically unsuccessful in Europe. It also grievously violates the core principles of an open and liberal society, which are presumably what we are supposed to be defending. Vehemently disagreeing with your opinion is a crucial necessity for anyone who stands for democracy and liberty.

<comment><USER3> Do you have an alternative? All I see is naïve suggestions.

As I see it we have several options:

1\. We accept the fact that we will have more terror attacks in major European cities as a given. We such it up and we continue to live in a free and liberal society.

2\. We accept total surveillance of our society. As the technology becomes more honed, terror attacks might be easier to prevent before they start.

3\. We accept targeted surveillance of those groups that are most likely to end up radicalised and commit terror attacks.

4\. The more ideas the better...

<comment><USER5> I always wonder why I never see this one on lists of choices:

5\. Stop killing large numbers of Muslim people in the Middle East every week and see if that doesn't make them less likely to kill comparatively small numbers of people in Western cities every couple of years.

<comment><USER6> I didn't know France was doing that?

Anyhow it works relatively nicely here in Finland. We only take part in UN operations as peacekeepers. And we don't have radicalized Muslims doing strikes in Finland. But for some reason Finnish Muslim radicals still travel to Syrian and join ISIS.

I don't think Levant will be peaceful in my lifetime unless Israel magically disappears from the map.

<comment><USER7> > France is sending its largest warship to join operations against Islamic > State (IS) in Syria and Iraq.

source: [http://www.bbc.com/news/world- europe-34738177](http://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-34738177)

<comment><USER6> Thanks. I was genuinely curious.

To me "power projection" in itself is morally very questionable. Even without terrorist attacks. Unfortunately modern geopolitics is more Machiavellian than Machiavelli himself was.

<comment><USER8> Not stopping genocide is morally questionable too. And that's what Assad and IS have been doing.

<comment><USER6> It's not just morally questionable, it's outright wrong.

Unfortunately trying to stop genocide with violence and failing miserably is even more wrong. On the other hand using supposed genocide as excuse to forward geopolitical interests would also be wrong.

Given how Vietnam, Afghanistan, or Iraq wars have turned out, I'm not in favor of meddling. Given how nobody gave single fuck about Khmer rouge, I don't believe in genuine good will in geopolitics. So I'm not giving my permission to anybody to conduct air strikes in Syria, but they won't ask me either. Only air strike that gets my approval is dropping several tonnes of polyurethane to Dabiq.

[http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2015/03/what- isi...](http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2015/03/what-isis-really- wants/384980/)

<comment><USER9> Because it is better to let your own terrorist grow the biggest terrorist owned zone, and build an enormous army full of cash ? This is exactly what create this big projection power that make successful terrorist attack in France.

<comment><USER6> I didn't quite understand. Who is growing biggest terrorist zone? What what army, what cash?

<comment><USER9> There is 6000 europeans terrorists in Syria; 1000-2000 french, letting them settle there give them fantastical capabilities to recruit more, and project more power on european countries with trained terrorists.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Hey HN, I'm maintaining this gist. Feel free to propose better translations in the gist comments or right here, some of it could definitely use some improvement.

If you have any other questions, I'll try to point you to reliable sources. Thanks for your interest in what happens to our country!

<comment><USER11> [http://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/nov/14/paris-attack- wi...](http://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/nov/14/paris-attack-witness-he- was-dressed-in-black-professional-shooting-and-killing)

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> Is a curfew in place?

I know that all universities and research institutes are closed on Saturday.[1] Sucks if you have cells to maintain.

It would be awfully sad if people can't go out and drink and eat freely in one of the great European cities. If I was still in Paris I'd want to be having a good, relaxed time with my friends tonight.

[1]Bonjour,

Sur décision de la Mairie de Paris et du Rectorat, toutes les écoles et établissements académiques seront fermés le samedi 14/11/15.

<comment><USER13> The curfew was put into place last night, the first time it has happened since 1944 apparently, but it was lifted again by this morning. It's still recommended to not go outside unless you have to, but not forbidden. (Very recently a car reportedly with four heavily armed people in it broke through a police barrier, driving towards Paris - nobody knows if directly connected yet..)

It's still quite a tense atmosphere here.

<comment><USER14> Re: armed men in a car

It took a while to find a source that wasn't the Daily Mail

[http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/paris- police-...](http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/paris-police- tracking-black-car-carrying-four-armed-people-after-terror- attacks-a6734561.html)

<comment><USER13> French press has been (understandably I guess) ahead of international press on most of this stuff. Personally I'm following [http://www.metronews.fr/](http://www.metronews.fr/) [http://www.lemonde.fr/](http://www.lemonde.fr/) and [http://www.leparisien.fr/](http://www.leparisien.fr/)

Despite living here, my French isn't great so mainly using Google translate.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> Remember the goal of terrorism is to terrorize you. It's to get the maximum effect of very limited resources; right now 8 people have around a billion (or more) panicked. Wow.

If they are scaring you - especially into a state of conflict - they've won. There were only 8 of them. They can't really threaten you.

ISIS wants irreconcileable division and conflict between people who are Muslim and others. Are you giving it to them - and because of 8 people? The real conflict should be between peace-loving people and violent nutcases like ISIS - then our enemy is vastly outnumbered.

France's response should be to counter ISIS' goals, and heal divisions between people of different religions. Eliminate their ban on clothing worn by Muslims, accept more refugees; nothing would be more crushing to ISIS than people of all faiths living peacefully, happily side-by-side, as friends, neighbors, and families.

<comment><USER16> > nothing would be more crushing to ISIS than people of all faiths living > peacefully, happily side-by-side, as friends, neighbors, and families.

People living in Syria and Iraq have their cities bombed by western armies. People in Lybia saw it earlier. Maybe they lost their friends or relatives in a war. Sorry but your naive words about peaceful living would sound like a bullshit to them.

<comment><USER15> > your naive words about peaceful living would sound like a bullshit to them

I understand the reasoning (but please dial back the tone), but I think it's wrong:

First, peace is often made by those same people who survive war and other horrors. The great modern institutions of international peace were built by the survivors of WWII (and WWI before it), people who saw far more and were far less naive than you or me. The foundations of the European Union were established by the same survivors, whose friends and relative were killed and brutalized by other EU members. Martin Luther King and his followers were brutalized by their white neighbors, yet they preached peace. Perhaps it's the people who have seen war who feel the greatest need for peace and understand what it takes.

Second, do you have any basis for speaking for the people in Syria and Iraq? Research? Do you live there?

<comment><USER16> No. I don't live there. But I know that US and France invaded those countries and are fighting again IS. What was the true reason to do that I don't know. And what were the objectives of attackers I don't know too. They declared it was a revenge for Syria.

You are right, the United Nations was founded after the war to prevent conflicts to give a chance for other ways to resolve them. People who saw what war is didn't want to see it again. But people today are other generation. Was a decision to invade Lybia, Syria, or Iraq approved by UN? Was there any dialog? Were all diplomatic and economic measures avaiable used? Was it really necessary?

I didn't mean to be rude but I still think words about peaceful living from western countries won't reach people in Middle Asia.

<comment><USER15> > People who saw what war is didn't want to see it again. But people today are > other generation.

I suspect the same thing. Many in the US and elsewhere in the West since 9/11 have been quick to embrace violence, as well as the scourges that brought earlier wars: Nationalism, racial and religious prejudice, etc. What happened to the norms that said these things are dangerous? Is it that the generation who experienced the consequences has died out, and now we are ignorant again? Is that why history repeats? A lesson learned lasts no longer than a generation? How depressing.

I also wonder if I am merely remembering a golden age that never existed. Certainly during the Cold War many bad, hateful things happened.

> I still think words about peaceful living from western countries won't reach > people in Middle Asia.

Remember the idea that the generation of WWII knew about war and peace, and our generation has forgotten. Perhaps the current generation in the Mideast is the one that knows, far better than we do, about war and peace.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> A great part of the native French has always been openly or covertly racist towards the North African immigrants in France. I am not surprised by the presence of feelings of hatred amongst the North Africans. This event will make the native French even more racist and the North Africans even more filled with hate. Then, you also have the aspect of religion. The native French like to make derogatory remarks about Islam, while the Muslims may badly overreact. As outsiders, we can only watch how all of this will unfold ...

<comment><USER18> _The native French like to make derogatory remarks about Islam, while the Muslims may badly overreact._

It is a bit flippant to put those two so close. The point is not who is right and who is wrong, he said she said---the point is that some people went objectively too far. We draw the line at physical violence.

Unless, of course, you actually believe that making derogatory remarks about Islam is comparable to what happened. It's not exactly clear from your comment; do you?

<comment><USER19> I didn't see any attempt at comparison, I'm not sure where you are getting that. I think you might take a moment and asses your response.

The point being made was just that this is a bad cycle. Responding to events like this with increased hatred and racism will not lead to a reduction of tensions in France.

As you said, the point is not who is right and who is wrong. The point is to find a way to end the violence. Hatred won't do it (unless you can find a 3rd part to unite in hatred of :).

<comment><USER20> Yes, ISIS has even publicly stated that's one of their strategies, to polarize Europe so that Muslims can no longer live in the "gray zone" of being both Muslims and Europeans, a situation ISIS views as a threat to "true" Islam.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> This should have been placed in politics.stackexchange.com.

This isn't truly searchable by google or Bing and stack exchange is.

Can someone please move this to the better alternative?

<comment><USER10> seems searchable enough: [http://i.imgur.com/VwLGFxG.png](http://i.imgur.com/VwLGFxG.png)

<comment><USER22> This is completely tangential to the discussion of this thread, but so much of google search is forecasting based on user's search history these days it's hard to tell if it's just biased towards HN because we all visit it.

<comment><USER10> yup, that's why I always check these things in incognito mode.

Google also has this 'hide private results' setting that I keep checked, to avoid bias (when DDG is not enough, anyway): [http://i.imgur.com/2v1FV8n.png](http://i.imgur.com/2v1FV8n.png)

it's not first in the results anymore, btw — at the time of this comment, the top three spots are time.com, france24.com and news.yahoo.com

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> I would very much like to see what people here think of the arguments presented here: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c2iBZkODgxA](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c2iBZkODgxA)

</comment><comment> jarek-foksa I'm not really into the geopolitics and recent news, but what's wrong with this plan? Hopefully the future European governments will be up to something along those lines rather than balkanization followed by the final solution.

1\. Move all illegal migrants to a heavily guarded area akin to the Gaza Strip. All EU members would pay for building and maintaining the camps. Base the camps in a non-EU country so that drastic measures could be taken in case situation gets out of control.

2\. Don't grant any new citizenships to legal migrants from high-risk countries, instead issue permanent residence permits and then deport anybody suspected of radicalization.

3\. Perform full-scale military intervention in the Middle East to restore the old order. Ideally make deal with Russians and Syrian government to take care of the most dirty tasks.

4\. Move migrants back to their homeland.

</comment><comment><USER24> This is a HN frontpage material only becuase it's on GitHub?

<comment><USER25> It is interesting information of a technical nature relevant to an important current event. That it is distributed in a manner HN finds quite palatable is icing.

</comment></comment><comment><USER26> Time for Europe to really take care of its backyard in the MENA.

Its policy of supporting despots and tyrants, the latest of which was Sisi of Egypt ,to contain the radicals and terrorists, that they engender with their oppressive policies on an industrial scale, has to change course soon.

Time for the European leaders to have some faith in the people of the region that they would make a better future for themselves (Tunisia as an example) and not fall victim to perpetual and vicious cycle of violence as they fear or have led to believe.

I know that Europeans are in a very precarious situation between a rock and a hard place where they know that tyrants are using them and holding the security of their southern border as hostage and that they have to turn a blind eye to their sytemic repression and prosecution of opposition in exchange of not having to worry about taking considerable and resource draining measures to secure the borders but on the other hand these very tyrants have set domestic policies and failing economic programs that are breeding more and more of these terrorists and desperate people by the day that they are no longer can contain and put on leash i.e. increase in aggregate numbers and the hit ratio for terrorists, not to mention that this plays in the tyrants' hands increasing the leverage they have worsening the awful even more.

Like with the movement to decriminalize/legalize marijuana in the west, it's time for Europeans to exert more influence to legalize the aspirations and legitimate demands of people in the MENA region for living in a true democracy and free society and not be intimidated by the threats of tyrants and despots.

Time to operate on this ever-swelling cyst in the region before it explodes in everyone's face and infect everything that it touches. I know that it will be very messy and painful esp in the beginning but as we say here and I paraphrase "Going through pain for an hour is better than having it every hour"

Help us to help you.</comment>


Facebook Launches Fake News Filter in France Ahead of 2017 Election - <AUTHOR> http://www.theverge.com/2017/2/6/14520172/facebook-fake-news-filter-france-election <comment><AUTHOR> _> Under the system, if an article is reported as false by users, it will be sent to a portal that all eight media companies have access to, according to Le Monde. If at least two of the companies confirm the article as false, the content will be flagged as disputed and users will see a warning before they share it._

Why should a handful of big media companies have editorial discretion over whether Facebook users can see other sites' content?

</comment><comment><USER2> Facebook should stay out of international concerns, meddling in anything election taints it's color and makes facebook useless to any serious minded citizen, I will never use it.

</comment><comment><USER3> It seems harmful to allow any regulating body to determine what information is valid to read. It's too bad we can't rely on real people using their brains...</comment>


Unnecessary Monsters - Ways Bootstrapping could be made easier - <AUTHOR> http://blog.sunil.is/post/34247472333/unnecessary-monsters

<comment><USER2> A lot of these are mitigated if you're a "self-employed consultant" who just happens to have one particular client which indefinitely defers invoices. (I use this _very_ frequently in Japan, which makes Tulsa look like Silicon Valley in terms of tolerating novel employment options.)

<comment><USER3> I don't quite follow you here. Can you explain this more explicitly for me Patrick?

<comment><USER2> Landlord: "I need to see your last two paystubs."

Me: "I am a self-employed consultant, so my income doesn't come with a pay stub. Would running my credit or a letter of reference from the bank be acceptable as an alternative?"

or

Wife's Family: "What is it you do exactly?"

Me: "Well-regarded software companies in Tokyo, the US, and Europe pay me to advise them on selling more software."

WF: "But you're not working right now. Are you... Between employers?"

Me: "... In general, I have a lot of flexibility in how I arrange my affairs, and I thought I'd rather come to a family outing than work today."

or

Government Official: "What is your employment?"

Me: "I'm a self-employed engineering consultant as attested to by this blue folder of official forms issued by the last 32 departments I had this discussion with."

GO: "That isn't permitted under..."

Me: "3rd page."

GO: " _reads_ But your taxes..."

Me: "Starts on 5th page, continues through 9th, previous years are in the next pocket."

GO: "So things are pretty much in order?"

Me: "Well, 32 offices say yes, and who am I, one little voice with no authority to override all of their decisions simultaneously, to say otherwise."

GO: "Ok, we're done."

Me: "Can I get your stamp on this certificate? I think you'll find it costs 200 yen."

<comment><USER3> I see your point.

I was thinking more in a softer sense, where that might not work. Around here people are /very/ conservative 17% retirement population, 20%+ work for govt, a large chunk of the rest for large govt owned businesses (crown corporations)

<comment><USER4> You could try telling people that you build software for the government. All it takes is one contributed bugfix to the right open-source project and you'll be telling the truth.

If they ask for details just tell 'em. E.g.: "Well, [federal website X] is built on an infrastructure that was assembled by a big team of developers from around the world, and I'm one of them."

<comment><USER3> I have a better solution. sell to and deal with people who care about getting things done, rather than "who" you are. Problem solved.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> > Most entrepreneurs have similar beginnings: They do well in grade school, go > to a great college in which they do well, get a great job, quit that job, > and try to start something on their own. When they start something, it's the > first time in their lives that they stray from the beaten path.

Really? I'm kind of surprised to find this in an article supposedly about bootstrapping. I mean, if you live in SV and you worked at Google and saved up for a few years and now you're "bootstrapping" a start-up, you actually already _have_ an angel investor: yourself.

I did horribly in grade school (spent all my time on the internet instead of studying), went to a crappy college, dropped out (spent all my time dicking around with coding projects instead of studying), got a string of horrible jobs (the majority of which were minimum-wage and didn't even marginally involve technology -- O, to live in the US, let alone SV), and now I'm trying to start a start-up because it's the only thing I feel any sense of engagement toward.

I'm "bootstrapping" in the sense that I highly doubt anyone would ever invest in me. No cofounders, no "workspace", just me, my laptop, an EC2 micro instance, and some combination of {Erlang, HTML5, Objective-C, Stripe}. Wish me luck.

</comment><comment><USER6> Purchasing your own insurance is the easiest way to ensure continuity of coverage and ensure you are not choosing your life's work based on the inconvenience of changing medical coverage plans.</comment>


Foxconn may not build WI manufacturing plant - <AUTHOR> https://www.nbcnews.com/business/business-news/foxconn-may-not-build-10b-wisconsin-plant-trump-touted-n964411 <comment><USER2> Background: [https://www.gimletmedia.com/reply-all/132-negative-mount- ple...](https://www.gimletmedia.com/reply-all/132-negative-mount- pleasant#episode-player)</comment>


After a DUI Felony Conviction - <AUTHOR> So I've had 4 DUI'S in my life time I'm only 27, after 4 DUI'S in my state the 4th one becomes a felony it's my first and only Felony I took a plea deal for 1 year because they wanted to give me a lot of prison time if I didn't take it like 5 years.
It's my first and only Felony . My Dream is to become a Web Developer if anything else fails I'd like to get a job working with computers in some kind of way first of I'd be down for a year I forgot a lot of things of coding
Sometimes my hope is shot because I got a Felony.
Can anyone explain to me is it over for me? Should I go find another career path like construction? or is Computer science or Web development an option for a guy like me? what are some good resources for me to learn and start my journey.
I studied PHP and Javascript in the past read some books on it online tutorials I'm not a total beginner I can learn fast. <comment><USER2> You mentioned it was your first and only felony a couple of times, like that is something to be proud of. Truth is it was your fourth time GETTING CAUGHT driving while impaired. Obviously the first three times the punishment wasn't strong enough to break your habit of making bad choices. I'm concerned that you have now decided to stop drinking all together and that your using the drinking as a scapegoat for your selfishness, the problem with this attitude is the cycle of addiction sets up the situation that when you relapse eventually, as most people do, chances are you will get behind the wheel again.

Now that I'm done ranting...It is definitely not over for you, your felony will have an affect on your life but that will be the case regardless of your career choice. You are still young enough to build a great career and succeed at life. I would start by looking into online courses such as Coursera or maybe one of the places listed on this site: [https://acethinker.com/web- videos/sites-like-coursera.html](https://acethinker.com/web-videos/sites-like- coursera.html)

Unfortunately a felony conviction does make it difficult to receive government financial aid and grants but it is still possible to get help through private means. I would also suggest volenteering, there is no easier way to gain practical experience than this and it will go a long way towards getting your felony expunged once enough time has passed. Good luck, it's not going to be as easy as giving up but nothing worth doing is.

</comment><comment><USER3> You can still have success in the tech field for sure... but now you're going to have to work extra hard for it unfortunately. The consequence of your felony is such that you need to stand out even more from any potential competition, more so than if you had a clean record. But hey, the only direction you can go now is up.

</comment><comment><USER4> You have poor impulse control.

</comment><comment><USER5> This is a wake up call. You should investigate whether your felony can be expunged in X years. There is a fair chance it can.

Either way, your good life is all still possible.

The single most important thing you can do is get your priorities in order. Not doing that, say valuing having fun over living a reasonable life, is why you are here now.

The world will, for realz, shut a LOT of doors for you should you continue to treat it as you have done yourself.

Have some self respect. Look hard at that guy in the mirror and begin the process of getting this right.

And I do not intend or want you to feel bad. You may, and you have to work through all that.

No, this is about revisiting your basic life choices. Question them. Begin a self dialog every day. The world you live in begins with that guy in the mirror. Have a talk. A real talk.

Example: holding a door open

This is trivial, but instructive. I did all this myself in my 20's. Was sucked into bad religion, coming out of poverty growing up, angry, jaded, the works. Bad days.

I had a long drive to and from work. I would have that talk during that drive. One little thing questioned each day.

How can I play it differently? Why do I want to play it differently?

You can too.

So, holding a door. Being polite. Nice.

At first, I did it to just comply with good norms. Not good enough. On a bad day, I would revert, and return to shitty.

It was the why that mattered more than the how, or what of things.

One day, it struck me. We all get tired, we all get old, we all like niceness, consideration.

What if it were me?

Boom! You hold the door to amplify good, set norms, and contribute to the net happiness, the better in the world while you can. The doing of that helps with when it is your time.

And you do it because it feels good. We live in harsh times in many ways. Sure, there is amazing tech, and lots of awesome experiences, but there is hate, poverty, war, crime too.

I ended up resolving this to making damn sure I was not contributing to the bad, and that what good I am about can spread, touch others and make it better.

The important thing here is that you find what it takes to change and that you do it for yourself, for your reasons, on your terms.

Brutal honesty with yourself is the way. No fear, no shame, no blame.

Drop this first and only felony shit. That is a bunch of spin and it reeks of someone not taking good care of themselves.

Truth is, if you do not own who you are, this may be the first of other bad things. And for each one, you can do what you are doing; namely, pity party, excuse it away

, or

you can take the wake up call as the opportunity it really is!

Here is the beauty of what I advise:

When you get there, you will look back, laugh at who you were and you will be ultra secure in that great guy you will have become.

That guy is someone people will value. That guy has his priorities in order. That guy can do what I am doing right now too.

That guy can talk about what happened in past terms and with the weight of no longer being that felonious, lost soul.

You need nothing here but quality time with yourself, and support from anyone who knows you and sees you getting after better.

Now, this is hard. I will not sugar coat it:

Right now, evaluate everyone in your life. Who is who?

Winners?

Losers?

Bad influence?

Good influence?

Take your goals, and your priorities, sort them such as you can right now. This will not be perfect. No worries. We all are a work in progress. Know that.

Filter those people into:

Good influence

Role models

Value you for you and will augment your efforts to become, grow, succeed.

The rest?

Phase them out. No need for aggression, no need to tell them anything. Just move toward better, avoid the old, the traps, the bad.

And seek new friends, a lover, perhaps. Make sure they are those people who model better, who you look up to.

Even better than you are.

Watch what they do and say. Ask them questions sometimes, but do not copy.

Take what you see and have that internal talk.

Is that me?

Why?

Etc...

And I will be frank here:

Start with easy shit. Holding that door. Do it. Experience it. Have the chat with yourself.

And when you feel the change, you will know how to get more. You will have internalized what I put here, and then get to work on the big stuff.

Many people simply adopt a lot of rules. They comply and they do so out of fear, shame, etc...

That can work, but it sucks mostly.

What I put here is harder, but the rewards are much greater! You doing you right means feeling alive, vital, not having to pretend, or be inhibited all the time.

Your relationships will be more true. When bad things happen to you, you will be better equipped to power through.

And you will be helping others as much as you help yourself. People will often help others who are helping themselves.

A great world is out there.

Go to the mirror, know absolutely that guy is where it all starts.

How do I know?

Grannie told me. I had a great grannie. So smart. So humble. I miss her, but the gift she gave is the one I give you.

Powerful.

I struggle hard right now too. Like I said, we live in harsh times.

Down deep, I am OK. Do not need much and the people in my corner are the best.

Seek that. You will find it.

No more talk of "first felony"

Just begin living better, well, and be damn good to yourself. Be honest.

Oh, one last thing:

You will become secure in all of this. Making better choices because your priorities are in order does that. Others may judge. It is not about that or them. You do you right for you and all you touch.

As you make progress, those judgements will fall away, leaving good in your and yours lives.

People can tell when you make progress and that opens doors. The ones you need will open when you do this work. Have confidence in all of that. It is the truth.

So go do it. You need no permission.

</comment><comment><USER6> Quit drinking and endangering others lives would be the obvious first step. Then move on to interviewing for positions.

<comment><AUTHOR> Yes I paid dearly for my mistakes. I quit drinking.</comment></comment>