Assembler Relaxation - <AUTHOR> http://eli.thegreenplace.net/2013/01/03/assembler-relaxation <comment><USER2> I suppose the reason why it "doesn't have too much written about it online" is because almost no one seems to call it "relaxation" \- as someone who has been working in Asm for decades, this is the first time I've heard of that term. Everyone usually calls this "jump offset optimisation", "instruction encoding selection/optimisation", or some other variant of those words. Incidentally, the article doesn't mention the terms "near" and "short" jumps (16/32 and 8-bit displacement, respectively), which places it in a bit of an island with respect to others looking for related information on this topic. Instead I was expecting a post about how relaxing it is to read/write assembly language...

This goes all the way back to OPTASM in the 80s, if not earlier:

[http://archives.scovetta.com/pub/walnut- creek/JSAGE/ZNODE3/I...](http://archives.scovetta.com/pub/walnut- creek/JSAGE/ZNODE3/INFO/OPTASM.MSG)

[https://books.google.com/books?id=FC-L2faxEVkC&pg=PA43&lpg=P...](https://books.google.com/books?id=FC-L2faxEVkC&pg=PA43&lpg=PA43)

FASM is well known for this too:

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FASM#Design](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FASM#Design)

 _Essentially, the byte array holding the instruction has to be re-allocated because it has to grow larger_

No it doesn't - just do one pass to figure out the _maximum_ size (i.e. all instructions are the longest variant), and allocate a buffer of that size. You can be somewhat more intelligent by not increasing the size for the jumps that won't ever grow - e.g. backward ones ones whose target has been resolved already, and there aren't enough possibly-growing jumps between it and the current position to overflow the offset. Now iterate the code generation, moving the necessary bytes in the buffer forward when you hit a forward reference that's too far, until you reach the end. All done and ready to output, without any excess copying or messing around with linked lists. That's what the older assemblers which had this optimisation did, and they were plenty fast. (Rule of thumb: pointer chasing and small allocations are bad. Arrays and big blocks are good.)

<comment><USER3> The term to search for papers is "span-dependent instruction", which goes back to 1978.

<comment><USER2> This one?

[http://dl.acm.org/citation.cfm?id=359474](http://dl.acm.org/citation.cfm?id=359474)

Interesting paper, by a rather familiar author. I noticed the date coincides with the introduction of the 8086, but the paper makes no mention of it.

<comment><USER4> In the fall of 1978, I was taking Prof. Szymanski's EECS 217 class, in which the main project was to write a toy assembler. He mentioned this paper of his, but it was not part of the course. At the time, nobody was doing anything with microprocessors in the department; we had a PDP-11/45 running Unix, and the university had an IBM 360/91 for card-punch batch jobs and a new 370/148 (158?) with graphics terminals. The later machines had different length jump instructions, I believe, so perhaps that inspired him.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> This is interesting. For a while, like a few, I thought the solution was to assume the maximum and then iteratively optimize to shorter sequences. I think I even read that in that book on Assemblers and Linkers online. The counter example below by @rer0tsaz showed me that I wasn't thinking hard enough about the problem :-)

Is this a general problem. For example, is this a limited form of Bin Packing? Or is there a general solution for problems like these?

</comment><comment><USER6> I always kind of figured that the first pass would emit the most general form of a jump, then shorten it if possible, but I guess it works the other way around too.

<comment><USER3> If you start with the most general form you won't always get an optimal solution, because two jumps may be blocking each other from optimizing. TASM does it that way. Consider (16-bit NASM):

      a:
      times 124 nop
      jmp b
      jmp a
      times 125 nop
      b:

<comment><USER5> @SloopJon - I thought the same thing when I looked at this years ago. In fact, many older books/articles mentioned.

@rer0tsaz - this is a great counter example.

Is there a general form for these types of problems and solutions?

Also, I wonder how often instruction sequences like that would occur.</comment></comment></comment>


Sacrifice - <AUTHOR> http://www.rdegges.com/sacrifice/ <comment><USER2> It's also useful to try and downsize, or even completely sacrifice the time spent on twitter, reddit, HN, ... As far as I'm concerned, these tend to represent a big chunk of my free time.

</comment><comment><USER3> I identify with the author of this post a lot. I tried a lot of things, but two stuck:

1\. I got a big ol' whiteboard and wrote down everything I could be doing (project list, todo list, reading list, etc. etc.) The thing about using a .txt file or a Google Doc is that windows or open tabs can always be ignored, accidentally closed, minimized -- when an entire wall in one of your rooms is devoted to the things you want to be doing, its a lot harder to pretend they don't exist.

2\. I started working with other people. I have a standing man-date with one of my friends where every Tuesday night, one of us buys a six-pack and we just plug away on our computer with a new album or something in the background. I don't know what it is about being around other people that makes me inherently more productive, but I feel like I have a part of my brain that wants to do work and part of my brain that wants to goof off: when I have friends in the room, the goofy hemisphere can spend time cracking jokes and scattered conversations, while the productive hemisphere codes away. (Otherwise, goofy Justin hogs the computer and productive Justin just can't pry him away from /r/corgi.)

</comment><comment><USER4> I do this same thing, only with org-mode. Every little idea, snippet, project or todo that enters my mind? Capture it and get back to what I was working on. Sure, I've got a zillion things I will never get to, but I can always filter or archive them, and text is cheap! Synchronize with git, and you're done.</comment>


EBay Acquires RedLaser, Barcode-Scanning iPhone Application - <AUTHOR> http://www.businesswire.com/portal/site/home/permalink/?ndmViewId=news_view&newsId=20100623006637&newsLang=en

<comment><USER2> That's fantastic news, Occipital are fantastic guys who struggled to raise investment after TechStars but went on to kick ass with their product. That gives me a high bar to live up to!

</comment><comment><USER3> I wonder what will happen with the SDK and the cost of licensing. I was hoping to use RedLaser in an upcoming project so it'll be interesting to see how that shakes out.

</comment><comment><USER4> Here's the official blog-post:

[http://ebayinkblog.com/2010/06/23/breaking-ebay-acquires- red...](http://ebayinkblog.com/2010/06/23/breaking-ebay-acquires-redlaser-the- leading-barcode-scanning-iphone-application-ebaynews/)

</comment><comment><USER5> I love Red Laser and bought the iPhone app, but (and I can't believe I'm saying this) Bing's new upc reading function in the Bing app is head and shoulders light years ahead. Honest.

And it's free!

</comment><comment><USER6> "RedLaser" - what a great name for such an app

</comment><comment><USER7> How does RedLaser look up the barcodes to a product. Is there an online registry?

</comment><comment><USER8> Anyone know how much they got acquired for?

I know they had about ~1 mil in sales last year.

</comment><comment><USER9> Congrats, guys. (and Go Blue!)</comment>


Rejecting a candidate for over-qualification results in age bias - <AUTHOR> https://www.facebook.com/notes/kent-beck/over-qualification-wut/1671791376187053/ <comment><USER3> The "traditional understanding" of getting an applicant to your job that is over qualified is that they are just trying to get a paycheck while they look for something better.

I put that in quotes because yes, I've seen it also result in an age bias and as I went from one side of the equation to the other, I spent some time evaluating what was and was not important to me as an employee.

About 15 years ago I came to the conclusion that "over qualified" was never a legitimate disqualifying disposition of a candidate. Simply put, if you are applying for a job that needs less skills than you bring and are willing to take the salary that is offered, how far 'beyond' the requirements you go is irrelevant. I asked a hiring manager at Google once if they would tell a sales guy "No I don't want the Ferrari at the same price as this Mazda Miata, its more sports car than I need to get around." Even if you never expect to challenge the top end of the sports car you probably won't turn it down. Similarly with employees, if you are up front with them about what the job entails and they are ok with it, who are you to say they will be "bored" or "twiddling their thumbs all day" ?

Answer is, you aren't. Hire them and get get a discount on skilz they are offering you. Your company will be better for it.

<comment><USER4> > who are you to say they will be "bored" or "twiddling their thumbs all day" > ?

But that's not the real reason. The reason is they are afraid because the experienced person can see through bullshit better. They are harder to fool and brainwash to work for free. With stuff like "There won't be a paycheck next month, but don't worry we are turning corner, once we exit you'll all drive Ferraris!", "We are changing the world, just need to finalize this feature by next week, so let's all work a little harder (and by all I mean you all)". Someone with experience will say something "Thanks but no thanks, I've heard this before" a new college graduate will say "Yay! Let's do it, I'll impress everyone with how little sleep I can get each night".

And I am not being too hyperbolic here. I've heard from owners before confessing that hey love hiring college grads because they can drive them hard, they are full of enthusiasm and are not "tainted" by other corporations.

Another friend from another startup, confessed that they like those take-home interview problems. Stuff like "Implement a distributed database over the weekend and show us the code on Monday during the interview". The reason is because they can get the really desperate and dedicated people willing to invest that much time into projects. As when crunch time comes, they'll need those "skills".

<comment><USER5> It may be less nefarious than that. There may be legitimate concern that the employee is just looking for a short term paycheck while they look for something more senior. Most managers are probably not thrilled with the idea of investing in someone who may not even stay a year.

Obviously it is more complicated than that. Just saying there could be legitimate concerns.

<comment><USER6> Here's my thought about that. If they take your offer because they're having a hard time finding a more senior job, it won't suddenly get easier for them to find a more senior job after you hire them. So I think this risk may be overblown.

<comment><USER7> > it won't suddenly get easier for them to find a more senior job

My experience tells me otherwise. As soon as you have a job, everyone wants to hire you. If you have no job, nobody wants to touch you. It's kind of like dating, where scarcity makes you attractive.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> When we talk about "disparate impact" in racism, _this_ is the type of think we're referring to. Yeah, you clean-shaven policy _seems_ fair, but but disproportionally affects a certain segment of the population.

Similarly "you over-qualified for this positions" seems fair, it may even seem like you're doing the applicant a favor, but if it disproportionally affects a particular community, perhaps it's time to reflect on it.

edit: spelling, thx icelander, and damn you autocorrect

<comment><USER9> I want to understand your reasoning better. If a policy is fair, but disproportionally affects a certain segment of the population - is it bad? Why?

The whole reasoning as to why exactly racism and ageism is bad, in my opinion, doesn't have to be based on morals, IMO (since everybody has different morals). It's sufficient to base it on self-interest: in an ideal simulation, where there would be bazillions of employers competing over bazillions of employees and vice versa, racist and ageist agents would lose, because they wouldn't make optimal decisions. (Of course, ideal simulation isn't real world, and that's why we have anti-monopoly and other laws that help to make the system run as if there were a bazillion rational agents).

But if some rational decision making merely correlates to segments of the population, and is not directly based on information such as race or age, I fail to see what is bad about it and why it should be avoided.

<comment><USER10> It is fair _if it is relevant to the job_. If the legitimate requirements of a job happen to negatively affect a sector of the population that's not necessarily a problem (think firefighters being able to move a certain amount of weight in a certain amount of time). If it's completely arbitrary - everyone needs to be clean-shaven every day - and disproportionately affects a certain protected class, you could have issues.

<comment><USER9> I'm completely with you right until the phrase "and disproportionately affects a certain protected class". What's a protected class and how does it differ from any other class?

<comment><USER10> Protected class is what you can't fire/refuse to hire someone for. Race, religion, etc. You can refuse to hire people who don't wear a suit to an interview. "People who don't wear suits to interviews" is certainly a class, but not protected. You can't refuse to hire black people, because race is a protected class.

<comment><USER9> But what if there is a significant correlation between protected and unprotected class? Like, what if black people are much less likely to wear a suit?

<comment><USER11> Protected class usually refers to groups protected against discrimination by law.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> After my dad's manufacturing related engineering position moved overseas he got told by an automaker that he was over-qualified for line work. However no one was interested in his engineering skills even after he tried to pivot to quality-control engineering.

The pay and work at the automaker would have been great for him. Instead he ended up carrying mail until retirement.

I constantly think about him and remind myself to not get to comfortable in an industry.

<comment><USER13> > I constantly think about him and remind myself to not get to comfortable in > an industry.

What are the practical outcomes of this? Side projects?

<comment><USER14> Save enough to retire early, or at least enough to be able to survive on a lower salary later in life.

If you work in an industry in which jobs are likely to be outsourced, or where ageism is a significant factor, you should not assume that you will be able to work until the normal retirement age. It's just not realistic.

<comment><USER15> Unfortunately, most industries are rapidly becoming ageist if they aren't already. And if you work in a job with lower general compensation (most of them... except finance which has major discrimination problems too) It's impossible to make enough money to retire at 40, which is exactly what most of us are now being asked to do, at the prime of our expertise, due to "overqualification"... ahem... ageism, I mean.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> I think the use of the term "over qualified" is often used to mask the real reasons for rejection.

I was rejected for a job when I was aged 39 for supposedly being over qualified. When I applied for the job in question I was upfront about my experience, qualifications and desired salary which was market rate for my experience. I didn't sell myself short. The product I would be working on was unified message distribution system not too dissimilar to Twilio.

After a code test, a whiteboard exam and two rounds of interviews I was told "Yeah, we really like you and you undoubtedly have the skills. But we were really looking for someone a little less qualified". I pushed a bit to find out what that meant and the HR person claimed it was my salary expectations, but I had my doubts.

During both interviews I was asked if I had children. I said I had two. I was then asked their ages and where they went to school. This led on to questions about how they got to school and what happens if one or both of them are sick etc. The questioning style was casual, but they were definitely probing me. In Ireland this line of questioning is illegal, but it happens a lot. At the time I answered the questions with a feeling of reluctance. I do believe that having young children lost me the job. I was asked what would happen if my children were sick off school, I answered that either me or my wife would have to stay home. I was asked why my wife wouldn't take on that responsibility exclusively. I responded because we share our responsibilities to our family. I could see the interviewers brow furrow when I said that.

I have a strong suspicion that the reason why age affects IT recruitment so much is not because of "over qualification". It's because the older you are the more likely you are to have family that you want to spend time with. Or if you don't have children you might have other interests that take priority over work. I've had managers who have straight up admitted that the older you are the less likely you are to put up with overtime and more likely to challenge over bearing bosses.

Put simply younger people have fewer adult life distractions, will work longer hours and put up with more crap.

<comment><USER17> I always wondered, could one simply lie? I mean, I never had to face the situation in an interview, but I would like to be prepared for it.

If my interviewer asks for my marital status/family size, could I simply refuse to answer? Or, if not, could I just lie about having children or not? Can a contract be invalidated by the fact that I lied about something during my interview?

I would guess that providing an excuse for firing someone would be harder than providing it for not hiring him, and you cannot simply fire someone for "having children and not having declared it".

I wish there was a way to prevent interviewers from asking these kind of questions, but until then this seems to me like a viable alternative.

<comment><USER18> "If my interviewer asks for my marital status/family size, could I simply refuse to answer?"

I would _think_ if you so chose, you could sue the shit out of them for discriminatory practices. This is so illegal it makes my head hurt.

<comment><USER16> I've been tempted to bring claims. The problem is it's your word against theirs

Plus, once your name gets out as a potential trouble maker then it's even harder to get a job.

<comment><USER15> You are so right about all of this! Here are my notes from "the resistance" (distant, muted chuckle) This year, after my fourth experience with ageism in the hiring phase as a candidate, I was disgusted, frustrated, and fed-up. When I contacted an attorney about the outrageous level of age discrimination I recently experienced at an interview, he was skeptical, at first, saying that these cases are very difficult to prove. He asked me for the key facts-- When I told him exactly what happened and some other facts about the job description as it was posted online versus what was told to me about why I was not hired versus who they ended up hiring (a 20-something year old with none of the posted experience supposedly "required" at the job). He asked me if I had written proof of this. I said that sadly, I did. I also had a recording. (Yes, they are that irresponsible about their hiring practices)He said that it was one of the most clear-cut cases of age discrimination that he had heard of in hiring, particularly because I offered every single experience and skill requirement listed in the job posting while the job winner offered none of these.(no, the online posting/position was never changed) He wanted to take it on contingency without hesitation. He did warn me that going after discrimination in any form is best as a last resort (i.e. If I know I'm too old for anyone to ever hire me in tech), because I will be marked as someone who stands up for themselves and no company wants to hire that person. He pointed out that since they were a well-known company in tech I'd face significant blowback and shunning, even if I won, which he felt I would. He also pointed out that the compensation I can get from it is not what it should be. I told him that changing this in our industry is important to me. If more people filed EEOC complaints it might help, but I'm not sure. (FYI, I just turned 47)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> I've been interviewing quite a few people for roles and more recently there have been far more who have PhD's in Machine Learning. I point out that role won't use these skills/expert knowledge, and ask what they think. No one ever says that the role is not for them but you know that if there were a machine learning role open they'd jump at it, thereby costing the company money in rehiring. It is a tough decision.

<comment><USER20> The news that there are apparently people with PhDs in Machine Learning who are finding the job market difficult enough they're applying for unrelated technical positions seems like it runs counter to the conventional narrative about high demand and trouble finding truly qualified scientists...

<comment> FLUX-YOU >conventional narrative

That shit's been broke for employees since Agile was successfully marketed and they figured out how to reproduce it (blogs, news, and conventions lead to consultants). Same for Big Data, ML, AI, coding bootcamps, and DevOps.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> This doesn't happen just because of age. While I was living in Canada, I met plenty of highly-qualified immigrants desperately looking for jobs, and would routinely get this response even though they weren't old or anything; its just that they would literally be applying for low-skill jobs because the appropriate jobs would not take them for lack of "Canadian Experience".

<comment><USER22> This is a thing in Australia as well, and it's quite baffling. As far as I can tell, it's not even racism or genuine comms concerns etc, it's just that any work experience outside Australia gets discounted as "not _real_ work".

<comment><USER23> >>it's not even racism

>>work experience outside Australia gets discounted as "not real work".

I mean, that might not be the strict definition of racism, but it essentially is.

<comment><USER24> This is still true even when the people getting discounted are of the same race _and culture_ as the interviewer, though. Like, hospitals seemingly don't want doctors that _grew up in the US_ but then studied medicine at foreign universities—even when those universities are world-renowned for producing great doctors.

Unless you're suggesting that such places think that the foreign culture "contaminated" their own countrymen in the few years they were abroad—and made them useless—a different explanation is needed for this effect.

<comment><USER25> If you discount the quality of a degree from a well-regarded university just because it's in a foreign country, it's racist (or xenophobic or something roughly equivalent). Not against the candidate but against (citizens of) the nation hosting the university.

With that said, I think hospitals want American candidates with degrees from American universities because the concern is that an American educated by a university in another country was perhaps unable to gain acceptance to an American school, in which case perhaps the foreign university isn't actually as selective.

<comment><USER26> > If you discount the quality of a degree from a well-regarded university just > because it's in a foreign country, it's racist (or xenophobic or something > roughly equivalent).

i don't see how it can be 'racist', because countries aren't races. it might be in some sense 'xenophobic', as it seems more a case of people being more comfortable with people similar to them.

<comment><USER25> Of course countries aren't races. The citizens of those countries do have races, though. If, for example, you're only judgemental against Latin American universities, that could be considered xenophobic but it could also be considered racist. The two aren't really that easy to separate when the prejudice is against a group that is both foreign and a different race.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER27> I'm seeing this now. I'm 48 and have applied to over 100 jobs. I have an MBA and have been well-qualified for every one of the jobs I've applied to, or else I wouldn't have wasted my time. I've had about 5 legitimate responses. I know it's not my resume, or much else. Age is just about the only answer, or not being able to afford me because I'm "over-qualified" which makes me wonder why they're advertising for the position, if they don't expect to hire a qualified candidate.

<comment><USER28> Response rates are just low in general for cold opportunities. Like, 5% sounds great. Either use your network or send out many more applications even to marginal opportunities.

<comment><USER29> Is it really that bad in the USA?

I've just started looking for a new job this week, and I've applied for maybe 3 jobs, and my phone has been ringing off the hook.

<comment><USER15> Yes. Where are you applying from?

<comment><USER29> Australia. It helps that ruby developers are rare as hens teeth here.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER30> I don't think you can fight this with laws: We live in an age and society that prefers young over old, smart over wise, quick profits over steady growth - <USER2> could go on with the contrasts but you get the idea. This might change over time but don't hold your breath.

If some of the young developers reading this realize that the same might happen to them then my suggestion would be not to wait around hoping that new employment laws will save you in a few decades (which will pass faster than you think), but to start taking care of things now. This means, make sure that by the time you get to the age when someone won't hire you, you won't need or want to be hired. You can do this by either saving enough money by that age to do whatever you want (which could be a new venture doing what you love, whether it is developing software or not) or by slowly creating a business (maybe starting as a side project) which will end up with you on the hiring side (even if you only want to hire yourself).

</comment><comment><USER31> When your date dumps you after the first date, the reason they give is never the truth. It's the same when they reject you for the job. There's not much of a percentage in stewing or arguing about it.

<comment><USER32> Agreed. I've heard candidates rejected as "overqualified" when they meant "not qualified or otherwise not interesting, but they seem to think a lot of themselves".

</comment></comment><comment><USER33> Employers constantly tell me "Your resume looks great, you have a lot of skills, so why is there a gap in those years? What were you doing? Don't you have any experience in technology X or Y? You might get bored here". I never get hired.

<comment><USER34> You could just lie about the gap.

And to do it without lying you can remain perpetually employed at the random consulting firm you coincidentally founded.

MANY OF YOUR EMPLOYED PEERS HAVE DONE THIS

<comment><USER35> If I find out later, you will be immediately dismissed. No exceptions.

I was honest with the employee and I demand the same in return. If you will lie to me about that, you will lie to me about other things or, worse, lie to coworkers or clients.

Dishonesty means your value to me is nothing and there is no reason to continue our relationship. Some forgiveness is fine for my personal relationships, but my business is staked on trust and dishonesty violates that.

Then again, I don't really care if there is a gap in your employment history. What you did is none of my concern. I care if you can do the job and if you're the most qualified I can reasonably find.

<comment><USER36> >>>If you will lie to me about that, you will lie to me about other things or, worse, lie to coworkers or clients.

This is not clearly the case and it's disingenuous to argue otherwise.

Resume gaps are just the ugly zit of people's career arc. Nearly everyone has had one, and they'd all rather not talk about it after the fact.

Trying to obscure it somehow by specific construction of the CV is more of a form of blemish concealer. Nothing more.

(NB: Your apparent enthusiasm for canning people is frightening. I wish I knew where you worked so I could never cross your path.)

<comment><USER35> I've fired remarkably few people, but I do have high standards and hold myself to even higher standards. Dishonesty isn't acceptable in business. I can forgive in a personal relationship, but my reputation is attached to the outcome of the employees work.

A willingness to be dishonest is not acceptable. You can tell me you were in Colombia smoking crack, it's okay. Don't lie and say you were in Colombia handing out aid to indigenous people, unless you were.

There are some lines that I don't allow people to cross. That is one of them. My employee's actions reflect on me and my other employees. They can cause harm to me or my other employees by making the business look bad.

I'd be more concerned with acceptance of dishonesty than I would with a perception of my enthusiasm.

The reverse is also true. If someone client is dishonest with one of the employees, our relationship is over. I will not have an employee's reputation harmed by the acts of another.

I don't think honesty is too much to ask for.

As for your own views, you can take comfort in the fact that I've long since sold and retired.

<comment><USER37> I think you're making the classic mistake of attributing actions to character rather than circumstance.

<comment><USER35> Actions are character.

If you call in to work, don't tell me your dog died. Tell me you're going to stay home and get royally drunk - if that's the truth. I'll still make it a paid day off.

Your actions are your character. If they aren't, you have no character.

I'd invest a lot in an employee and do a great deal to protect an employee. Demanding honesty is a pretty low barrier and everyone knew my policy. Don't lie. It's not very difficult.

Lies in business has another name, fraud. Don't do that. Well, you can, you just can't do that and represent me.

<comment><USER38> This sounds good but in my experience does not reflect real people very well. Most people tell small lies all the time, and this has little correlation with real bad behavior--I've met honest scoundrels and dishonest saints. If you think people are being perfectly honest to you, well, you're probably wrong. A policy like yours only fires inexperienced liars.

<comment><USER35> That's fine on a personal level. Well, not fine but forgivable. In business, that's not acceptable. My reputation is impacted (was, technically, as I'm retired) by the acts of other people.

Lies, in business, is also known as fraud. That's not okay.

At the other end, I was very protective of my employees. If a client or vendor lied, our business dealing were over. More than once have I insisted we get someone else to work with and more than once have I terminated relationships with suppliers.

Dishonesty is forgivable in your friendships, even though it's still not very good. You can forgive someone you love. You can't as easily undo the damage caused by something like a vendor lying to an employee and the employee telling a client erroneous information based on that lie. I can't easily undo the damage done when an employee lies to a client.

It's not just about face, it's about minimizing harm to the business and doing what I can to keep everyone employed and making good money. My policy on honesty was well known and clearly vocalized.

You can call in and say you're going to go get drunk and play golf. It's still going to be a paid day off, so long as it isn't excessive. What you can't do is call in and claim your kid is sick when your kid goes to the same school mine goes to and hangs out with my kid. Just be honest.

Not to mention, I'm kind of baffled. Why would you want to work for someone that you can't be honest with?

Again, it's also okay to say its none of my business, that counts as honesty. Lies are willful and intended, by the way. Mistakes are absolutely forgivable, as is not knowing.

Maybe this will help? I employed a bit under 250 people directly. We had three offices on the eat coast and a satellite office in the Midwest. I never put out a help wanted ad, it wouldn't have done any good. The kinds of people I employed weren't looking for ads in help wanted sections. I often pulled people directly out of academia but many hires came from referrals and I'd make sure to provide any needed training.

That may explain the environment better. I'm not sure the policy works for others, but it worked for me. I sold and retired a decade ago. Even if it doesn't work for others, I'd not want to work for someone with whom I couldn't be honest.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER39> In the end if don't want to hire you, they won't. Now, rather than being brutally honest, they invent ways around it.

<comment><USER40> I'm not sure that's true. If they don't want to hire you, they're less likely to, but at some point it might not be worth the effort to come up with an excuse. And, importantly for an organization, "they" might be a subset of people. If I have a biased coworker (where "biased" can be anything, but let's go with age for now) who doesn't want to hire someone, but can't communicate their dislike in email without putting animus towards a protected class in writing, and the rest of the team is mildly positive, the fact that they couldn't be brutally honest is probably enough to go from a no-hire (via the coworker's veto) to a hire.

<comment><USER41> It is, in my experience, absolutely correct.

About a decade back, I applied for a job in Dunedin. The manager of it met me, read my resume and loved it - I had plenty of experience where the other applicant he was interviewing didn't have any, he said, and queried what I knew about this and that, so on. He couldn't have been more positive.

Then he asked if I had any medical problems, I told him I have a disability.

The red started at his collar and worked his way up to his face. He made a point of going back to my resume, and loudly shouted at me for not having any relevant experience, how I'd f __king wasted his time and he was going to bill me for it, that he was going to lay a formal complaint with the employment agency I had gone through. He lied through is teeth about their work for the city council, that he "ran the computer systems for them, all the servers," and that he didn't have time to teach me how computers worked, that I only had an academic qualification with no real world experience. (I knew a guy who was loosely involved with ITS for the DCC at the time, and he told me the interviewer is a liar, most of their IT support was in-house or specialist software support.)

The interviewer also told me that I should get "real world experience running a corporate network," and he told me I could do that by stealing old computers and pirating Windows ("Well, there are ways to get Windows.")

A few years later, I ran into a friend of mine from university who, it turned out, had got the job I missed out on. He was just out of university when they hired him, and actually had no experience in any roles of any sort.

tl;dr: The interviewer lied to my face. It hindsight, it was obvious that he did, but at the time I didn't get it. (Part of the disability, I'm very easily lied to.) He made up every excuse under the sun to not hire me, or even continue with the interview. It would have been much less obvious (to an outsider) if he'd just concluded the interview normally, without any further comments on the disability and I wouldn't have been any the wiser, but he was too stupid and self-righteous for that.

(Further thought, when I found out about it, I mentioned it to a friend of mine who immediately told me that the employer had every right to discriminate against me on the basis of my disability, and nothing could convince him otherwise - not even the government, who stated that had I found out sooner and been able to prove it, I would have likely received a large cash settlement.)

<comment><USER40> I think I phrased that wrongly - for individual people, having laws may or may not actually help you. (If I'm understanding you right, the law _could_ have helped you, had you been advised correctly about it, but you weren't.) But for _society as a whole_ , having the law means some people are going to be helped by it. Many aren't. But a social change always starts small.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER42> Majority of managers do not want people that see through their bs. After all they need to manage. Someone who sees through their bs is not as pliable as an inexperienced hire. They want the naivety because it is exploitable just like ignorance. Remember most managers are trying to move up and if you pose a risk, they won't have that. This is also part of the reason why there exist so many collaboration tools. If we placed collaboration above competition just maybe the company would be a better place to work. Instead of this competitive minefield where everyone is just looking for the next opportunity to step up at the expense of others and at the expense of collaboration.

<comment> le-mark These types are the easiest to game though. Just tell them what they want to hear, and deliver something occasionally. Then you're considered to be a star. Rinse, repeat.

</comment></comment><comment><USER43> It's ironic seeing this hosted at Facebook, the land of "young people are just smarter".*

*The infamous quote from Zuckerberg

<comment><USER44> Well, Zuckerberg employs Beck, so he must have seen a sliver of the light at some point!

<comment><USER45> I misread that as "silver light" and thought it was quite a clever pun on silver haired programmers... :)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER46> I received some advice to omit the first 5-ish years positions from my resume and "reword" the line referring to my 20 years of industry experience. I'm older than my boss and it's definitely a bit scary. YMMV

<comment><USER47> I recently created a custom resume for a recruiter who wanted me to remove my pre-2006 experience from my resume before he would submit me for a contract. Boasting wide and deep experience in this industry is a liability for an employee, not an asset.

<comment><USER48> This is funny to me because it means 10 years of experience is the maximum any candidate should have.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER49> This person has wonderful skills and experience. They must have an extensive network of people they've worked with and for. Yet here they are in front of me not making any use of that network. Why?

Meet that head on because one possibility that goes through the mind of those making the hiring decision is "Is it because this person is horrible?"

"I'm here and not using my own network to get hired because (they've all retired rich the lucky bastards|the network went a bit cold while I did 15 years in xyz co.|I'm not comfortable using a network because I've always been able to get hired on my talent, skills and work ethic and that's really important to me|whatever the reason is).

Also when mentioning previous stuff you've done. "Did that with Jill and Amesh, great people, would work with them again in a heartbeat." "This one I did with Kar-Wai, talented guy, I liked working with him."

Hiring is an investment decision you have to live with every day. Fear and greed the same as any other, allay the fears, stoke the greed.

Note this is not "The Answer" my best to all doing it a bit tough in the job market. It's just one thing to consider if you haven't already, get the box next to it ticked.

</comment><comment><USER50> Over-qualified people are seen as a threat. The managers who hire, unless they are the owners, do not want to deal with the office politics of someone who truly knows more than they do.

If you are over-qualified for a position there is nothing wrong with playing down your resume. Writing code is a new career for me and I don't mention my previous management positions at all because I'm applying for subordinate positions framing my resume accordingly.

<comment><USER15> I had a suggestion from a friend that I should just cut off everything from my résumé that happened before 7 years ago. I have not yet tried this, but my friend just started getting calls for interviews having done this. Do you have any more advice?

<comment><USER51> This is what I was told as well. I'm 52, I have huge resume of experience at some great companies (even my own company I built), the reality is, you get 10 years in, the person thinks you're his or her "Dad"... it's a little shitty, but the advice I got was to do exactly this and I started getting more responses.

<comment><USER15> Thank you for confirming this. I'll start using this tactic immediately. I do think if we are forced to retire at 40 or even before, the younger folks in the industry should get hip now, and demand much much higher salaries like the athletes in professional sports do. And if it is collectively decided that no one wants to start a union, engineers (and even those in other professions now) should get agents just like the pro athletes do, because those negotiations will require some seriously professional legal and negotiation skill. People don't have time to become both Grace Hopper AND Jerry Maguire. Imagine if sportsers had to negotiate their own contracts... those folks would be abused and dumped.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER52> "you're overqualified" and "we only hire the best" is a bit of a contradiction, isn't it?

</comment><comment><USER53> It's true that if you always do the same kind of programming work, you might get bored and this can negatively affect productivity (in terms of raw speed)... But on the plus side; your code will likely be of very high quality and will almost definitely save the company a ton of money in the medium and long term.

So yeah I think that calling someone 'overqualified' is a poor excuse.

Startups love code monkeys that can churn out features quickly; they're often willing to sacrifice huge medium-term benefits for small short-term benefits but that's idiotic. From my experience, it only takes about 3 to 6 months for technical debt to become a major problem so unless you expect your startup to have an exit in the next 3 months then you really should not accept any short term solutions at all.

</comment><comment><USER54> Appearance matters so much in this discussion.

There are 40 year-olds who are obviously 40 year-olds, complete with greying beards, burgeoning bellies, and a wardrobe consisting of nothing but polo shirts acquired from years of conference attendance.

And then there are 40 year-olds who could pass for 30.

My intuition is that the likelihood of ageism being subconsciously or otherwise invoked in the former case is vastly larger.

In this sense, it is a lot like racism or sexism in the case of "culture" fitting. The desire to _appear_ young and nimble, as a company, is a significant part of whatever demographic they are shooting for, outwardly.

<comment><USER55> Lol I am in my hem hem 50's some of my colleges though I was in my 30's recently :-)

</comment></comment><comment><USER56> Part of the issue is that programming is largely seen today as a process of problem solving using an "agile" _hack it 'till it works_ approach. Quick thinking to put out a fire or implement a quick feature using some new technology easily learned is most valued, along with the ability to be "flexible" when it comes to quality of work and workplace demands.

Given this, one might as well look to recruit some smart, cheap and enthusiastic graduate. Sadly industry experience and lessons learned don't seem so important.

</comment><comment><USER57> Now that I'm in a position of hiring technical people, this seems crazier than ever to me. It's hard to hire talented software engineers because they're so in demand. I would be glad to consider eager and talented prospective employees who I don't have to compete hard for.

</comment><comment><USER26> i was unemployed for a while, and got a number of 'overqualified' rejections. eventually i ran out of money to pay the bills, and was a few weeks from being kicked out onto the streets... when i _finally_ managed to land something. it was a fucking brutal roller coaster. sure is nice to have a roof over my head.

</comment><comment><USER58> I've never liked being an employee. And I liked it less and less, as I got older. I also started getting rejected for being overqualified (plus having a bad attitude).

My solution was consulting. And eventually, consulting as a testimonial expert. Being older and overqualified helps in intimidating opposing counsel, and impressing judges and juries.

<comment><USER59> I like this route, too, so far, though it's new for me.

I did meet a 60-year-old programmer the other night who said he can't find consulting work anymore. I do sort of worry about one day not being able to keep up with contemporary techniques, but it seems like that day is far off, for now.

<comment><USER58> I worked with a testimonial expert in his 80s, and he was getting ~1000 USD/hr.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER60> So there could be a few more possibilities why an overqualified person is willing to accept the job. Maybe a burnout if very high pace high pressure work, could nsulting including. Perhaps chilling at the slower paced company is perfect for him or her. If so why would he leave? I have known plenty of folks who a really really want to mentor and contribute their experience from decades of consulting, but not necessarily go back to doing it. Why not take advantage of the fact. Also, from the employer's perspective give him or her opportunity to do something else when the jobbia done and there's time to spare. Opensource contribution on the clock, presales tasks maybe,speaking at conferences, mentorship. Who cares as long as his job is done, he feels needed and can find other things to do to not be bored. Does not take a lot to manage a self starter.

</comment><comment><USER61> This is fascinating to see.

I'm pushing 28, so every day I worry if the development job I have now will be my last. I'm a hard, dedicated, loyal worker who has never left a company, only swapping jobs when my old employers laid me off or themselves collapsed. Unfortunately, I suffer from strong social anxiety so management certainly isn't an option.

When I was 22, finding a job was easy. But once you have the portfolio they say they were looking for in the first place, no one wants you anymore because they're too afraid you'll jump to the next job paying $1k a year more or whatever. Its dumb.

<comment><USER32> I've never seen anyone reject a 28 year old as "overqualified". There's probably something else going on here, though I can't really help you with what it is. I suggest taking some of your technical friends out for some beverages of their choice and asking for some constructive criticism.

<comment><USER61> Most of the people I know in tech feel like they're aging out of the market. Small web/marketing agencies--the only development jobs available around here --want fresh grads for junior positions. Most of the time those are the only ones available, as there is rarely more than 1 or 2 lead/senior developers within the company.

I've never heard "you're overqualified" specifically, but I lost count of how many times I heard "we can't pay what someone with your skillset is worth and don't think you'll stick around because of it" when I was unemployed between jobs #3 and my current one for 5 months, desperately applying to any and all positions that got posted, like 'website maintenance assistant', 'adwords manager', 'forms developer' and 'frontend developer'.

Eventually two weeks before my unemployment would have run out, a senior java ecommerce developer position opened up, to which I currently cling with dear life. :)

This might just be regional/bad job market thing, I don't know. Never lived anywhere else but Maine.

<comment><USER32> Sorry to hear all that.

Unfortunately, ability to relocate might be essential in some circumstances. At least until employers are more willing to hire remote workers, assuming that happens eventually.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER62> As an overqualified employee, I think you should simply delete parts of your resume to appear less skilled. A job is better than no job. I wonder why more people don't do that.

<comment><USER63> Gaps in your employment record probably look even worse, so that means carefully underselling yourself in each position. That seems tricky, at the very least.

Also, selection bias might keep those stories from being told.

<comment><USER62> Not necessarily delete jobs you had. You can simplify the actual responsibilities and achievements you had. You trade potential higher salary for a higher chance of becoming employed. Later, you can ask for a rise.

Disclaimer: I'm currently unemployed.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER64> And people wonder why everyone goes for the startup lottery ticket

<comment><USER45> Not sure why you were down voted here, but this is my EXACT rationale at the moment. I am a 50 year old programmer who sold his software consulting business a couple of years back. I figure the ONLY way I can stay actively programming these days is to buy a ticket in the good old "startup lottery".

I've created 5 SaaS apps and around 10 mobile apps in the 3 years since I sold my business. Almost all the early ones struggled or failed completely. My current SaaS seems to be doing well, and I expect that it will see me through retirement. I guess I finally got lucky on a winning ticket :) I would expect a lot more players in this game as people age out of the software development world over the next few years.

<comment><USER65> it's not 6 figure, but you can go from 5 figure to 5 figure jobs with no hassle.

<comment><USER64> Now i just need to figure out how to work from somewhere cheap enough I guess?

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER66> I had several interviews where the chief interviewer said I worry you won't want to keep doing just frontend, and I was like but if there are tickets on other parts of the stack I can do why wouldn't I - and anyway if I know parts of the backend and the data layer that means I know where a ticket should be fixed - most things can be fixed in the frontend but not everything should be.

I didn't get those jobs though.

</comment><comment><USER67> What is results in is an organization without a focus on hiring the best people. Do this for long enough and your company will die.

<comment><USER68> The population mostly is what it is, so there ought to be companies and jobs designed for people who aren't elite. McDonald's doesn't focus on hiring the best possible worker, they focus on hiring conscientious workers who are at the appropriate point in their career/life that it's a good fit.

<comment><USER69> The problem is that many interviewers don't know how to suss out a good engineer. So they just ask questions that Google and Amazon ask. And that's why you spend half of your interview pre-optimizing contrived algorithms down to O(n) when the probability of the startup ever running code at scale is very small.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER70> I want to buy a bag, just to hold my stuff, my budget is $100 for it, now the store has a few luxury bags for sale, but they are all above $200 price tag, what should I do? do I have to buy them? or I can decide to keep looking for better performance/price ratio?

isn't over-qualify the same as too-inexperienced, that many companies are reluctant to hire? bias is part of the real world, while I'm not young anymore, I firmly support that the company has the right to hire who they want to hire, after all, it's its private money, its decision and we're not reaching communism just yet. It's the competition made USA USA.

</comment><comment><USER51> I'm 52, I recently got a "pass" on a job that matched that I was told in person that I would get an offer in writing while at my 4th and final interview with the COO/HR person (not the hiring manager). I walked out of that place thinking I had the job only to get an email from the hiring manager (CTO) telling me that "if the job was a Venn Diagram, you fit 80% of the role, I just think the other 20%, you wouldn't be happy and probably not challenged enough." I was stunned. Venn Diagram?? come on man... Seriously? And email, call and talk to me. Be an adult.

At first I was like "ok, not a fit." Then I had to realize I was probably 25 years older than he was and what he was really saying was "you're too old to be working here." The tone of his email was exactly as this blog. "You're just too experienced" \-- in so many words.

Sucks being old... But I replied in email that he was probably right, that the role itself was a little below my level (truth) and that it was probably something I would have had to work with him on. I also identified that this guy (great guy, I liked him), was immature on the management side and every co-worker that interviewed with me confirmed it by telling me how much "he needed someone under him to do be the leader, be the buffer -- keep him focused on vision", so they needed me -- or the younger me. So I felt confident this was going to work. But he clearly felt I was too old...

It's a bummer. Had they offered me the job, I would have taken it and worked through the issues and grown with them. The reality is, I was perfect for the job and they actually needed my experience and my level of software domain knowledge in this space -- they were young, struggling with execution and accountability. I came to the realization that my age was both a benefit (to the company), but a threat to the CTO (founder) as being too experienced under you which would give him a lot of insecurity, but also having a guy that was old enough to be your Dad work under you -- he couldn't handle that (probably). Personally, for me, I would have had a blast. I love working with younger people and I love the energy and I'm someone who can relate to people half my age in many ways. Not to mention, I have all the modern stack experience they needed and I'm a pretty fucking great guy for their culture.

So as a 52 year old developer, I never thought I'd say this, but I'm a dinosaur and I might have to end up being a consultant or building another company (again) -- which I did when I was in my 30's and young.

</comment><comment><USER71> When thinking about reasons for ageism you should account for consulting, which do not have this problem (or at least it is less pronounced). The cause is hidden in the overhead of full-time employment.

</comment><comment><USER72> My previous company was rejecting 95% of overqualified applications, sometimes because of their age, sometime because of number of their certifications in their CVs. There was once a time, the company was offering totally average daily wage for a contractor job, and we got a CV from a guy with almost every possible Java certification from last 15 years. We knew we can't hire him, he would be bored here and soon ask for more money, which the company didn't have.

<comment><USER73> > We knew we can't hire him, he would be bored here and soon ask for more > money, which the company didn't have.

I recommend giving anyone who appears minimally qualified the benefit of the doubt & see what they have to say before denying them a shot at meaningful employment.

I used to run a recruiting company, and I couldn't afford to pay very much. For example, I hired my first assistant as $15/hour USD when I was paying myself $12/hour USD. This was in San Francisco, CA where a that kind of money doesn't go very far.

Almost everyone I hired was overqualified, but that never seemed to matter. Before I hired anyone, I said something like...

"Look, I can only afford to pay you $X, and you'll duties will be A, B, & C. You look like someone who could get a job that's half as hard & pays twice as much. Why do you really want THIS job?"

If they gave what sounded like a sincere answer, I'd hire them. It was as simple as that.

One of my applicants had an MBA from a fancy school and had worked in sales at a prestigious investment bank. When asked why the heck someone with that kind of background would want to do entry level office work that doesn't pay very well, the applicant plainly said, "My partner is starting a hedge fund, I help my partner with in bootstrapping the fund, I'm looking for a little extra money at a job with flexible hours, and I enjoy this kind of work." That "overqualified" applicant was hired, and turned out to be one of my best workers.

When you pre-judge an applicant based on the appearance of too much experience & too many certifications, you are denying that applicant & yourself the opportunity to explore what could be an amazing employment relationship for both sides.

</comment></comment><comment><USER74> I've been rejected from jobs because I was over-qualified. Then I got accepted to one, which turned out later that I was over-qualified for that one too. I did get bored, I felt like the job wasn't a good match for my skills, and I went looking for a new job.

So the concern is indeed very real and can cause unneeded churn for a company.

</comment><comment><USER75> Reminds me somewhat of the Gervais principle. [https://www.ribbonfarm.com/2009/10/07/the-gervais- principle-...](https://www.ribbonfarm.com/2009/10/07/the-gervais-principle-or- the-office-according-to-the-office/)

</comment><comment><USER76> At my last interview, they reject me because "I'll not proper integrate with the team"

</comment><comment><USER77> Maybe you should look in places that management is based in evidences: [https://hbr.org/2010/12/the-myth-of-the-overqualified- worker](https://hbr.org/2010/12/the-myth-of-the-overqualified-worker)

</comment><comment><USER61> This is fascinating to see.

I'm only two years away from the cliff (30), so every day I worry if the development job I have now will be my last. I'm a hard, dedicated, loyal worker who has never left a company, only swapping jobs when my old employers laid me off or themselves collapsed. Unfortunately, I suffer from strong social anxiety so management certainly isn't an option.

When I was 22, finding a job was easy. But once you have the portfolio they say they were looking for in the first place, no one wants you anymore because they're too afraid you'll jump to the next job paying $1k a year more or whatever. Its dumb.

</comment><comment><USER78> Can someone share a non-Facebook link please?

</comment><comment><USER79> ageism was the first ism I had to deal with personally, said the old white guy. It is bad in every industry and job sector.</comment>


Thoughts Pertaining to Youth, Hot Rodders, and Chevrolet (1953) [pdf] - <AUTHOR> https://www.corvetteactioncenter.com/history/images/zora-arkus-duntov-letter.pdf <comment><USER3> I find it very interesting how the transcript put online is not the same as the original in significant ways. It is great that the pdf is available, but that is not what is going to be searchable on the web (especially with the quality of the memo text being so poor). The transcript present online does not give any indications that the transcript presented is highly edited. Here is one example paragraph left out that came after the third paragraph to the end in the online transcript:

"The association of Chevrolet with hot rods, speeds and such is probably inadmissible, but possibly the existence of the Corvette provides the loop hole. If the special parts are carried as RPO items for the Corvette, they undoubtedly will be recognized by the hot rodders as the very parts they were looking for to hop up the Chevy."

I enjoyed this post quite a bit as I am interested in cars and how the internet records history differs from the paper age.

<comment><USER4> Ok, we've changed the URL from [https://www.corvetteactioncenter.com/history/duntov_letter.h...](https://www.corvetteactioncenter.com/history/duntov_letter.html) to the pdf of the actual latter. Thanks!

There's more information at

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zora_Arkus- Duntov](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zora_Arkus-Duntov)

[https://www.corvetteblogger.com/2010/12/16/thoughts- pertaini...](https://www.corvetteblogger.com/2010/12/16/thoughts-pertaining- to-youth-hot-rodders-and-chevrolet/)

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> The result of this thinking was a tremendous breakthrough for GM. They captured the mindshare of hot rodders and their V8 became a de facto standard. It is commonplace to find these engines retrofitted into non-GM vehicles due to low cost and availability.

<comment><USER6> "LS swap" is now the go to engine retrofitting.

<comment><USER7> Long, long before the LS was even a twinkle in an engineer's eye, the the 1st generation chevy small block V8 was the most common choice for hot rods.

<comment><USER6> The Ford flat-head V8 would like to have a word with you.

Either way, the chevy small block (and its evolution to the LS) has been dominant for a very long time.

<comment><USER8> That's exactly what the memo was commenting on.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> The auto industry pulled out of racing for years after a disaster at Le Mans killed 80 people in 1957.[1]

The memo is interesting. The author is concerned about beefing up the remainder of the drivetrain to match a higher powered engine, but not about improving the stability of the vehicle. Today, it's all about keeping the wheels on the ground and the vehicle pointed in the right direction. Power is not a problem. Most racing vehicle classes today are power-limited in some way.

[1] [http://www.superchevy.com/news/1705-the-day-performance- almo...](http://www.superchevy.com/news/1705-the-day-performance-almost-died)

[2] [http://speedace.info/lead_wedge.htm](http://speedace.info/lead_wedge.htm)

</comment><comment><USER8> A couple notes: RPO means Regular Production Option - as in you can order it from the factory with those parts.

Also, in the 50s and 60s GM's market share bounced between 40 and 50% (in fact 1986 was the first year that GM fell below 40% US market share). As such, competition was more fierce between GM divisions like Cadillac and Chevrolet than between GM and Ford per se. Thus the notes at the end comparing the Chevrolet engine to the Cadillac engine.

</comment><comment><USER10> It occurs to me that this very pattern could be seen in the iPhone development history.

"We're behind in the smartphone market But from what we see as the driving factor for adoption, we need to come to market with a capable base component, and pre-load the app environment with anything that users could want, we'll even make the developer ecosystem rich with expansion options."

Being second to market can be used as an advantage

<comment><USER11> > Being second to market can be used as an advantage

The jargon for that kind of business plan is "fast follower". Apple has sometime chosen that approach (iPod, watch, arguably even the iPhone) to great success, so it's not only a small company strategy.

Another phrase used in the valley is "you can tell who is the pioneer from the arrows in their backs". I don't like the term "pioneer" but the metaphor is apt.

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> Amazing write up on forming communities that can geek out obsessively over the things & the saga of what's happening to their things.

</comment><comment><USER13> The introduction of the small block v8 solved most of the described problems.

</comment><comment><USER14> > the slide rule potential of our V8 is really high

Damn, what a great line...

</comment><comment><USER15> This site is not a good site to look at. I am currently on mobile looking at the linked page. I had to scroll past about 13 ads before the actual article started. Was not a good start.

Edit: after switching to a desktop, this site is not mobile friendly

<comment><USER4> " _Please don 't complain about website formatting, back-button breakage, and similar annoyances. They're too common to be interesting. Exception: when the author is present. Then friendly feedback might be helpful._"

[https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html](https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html)

(We've since changed the URL - <USER2> [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24456231](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24456231))</comment></comment>


Data Visualization and D3.js Newsletter – Issue 88 - <AUTHOR> https://www.dashingd3js.com/data-visualization-and-d3-newsletter/data-visualization-and-d3-newsletter-issue-88

<comment><USER2> The most sought-after problem in data visualization right now (amongst the professional data vis community) is reusable charts. D3.js is pretty low level. I've seen company after company reimplement the same things. Adding legends, nice styles on your axises, even resizing visualizations takes hours of extra work per visualization.

I have not come across one clear winner in the open source reusable charts world.</comment>


The End of Asymmetric Information - <AUTHOR> http://www.cato-unbound.org/2015/04/06/alex-tabarrok-tyler-cowen/end-asymmetric-information

<comment><USER2> Asymmetric Information is an economic inefficiency. On its face, it should be eliminated. Cato Institute describes a trend which appears inexorable.

Yet, Asymmetric Information does allow various agencies to attempt to add value by exploiting those inefficiencies. Remove asymmetry and we are left with perfectly efficient markets whose value accrues, not to the participants, but to the owners of the marketplaces: those who have access to sufficient capital to operate at scale large enough to drive down margins to where only _they_ can compete.

My view is that agents, including individuals, must strive to preserve their economic advantage by jealously guarding their information streams and by poisoning competitors' streams with respect to data in which they have an economic interest.

Thereby, the inefficiencies of asymmetric information may be eliminated, as they should be. But the value of doing so will tend to be shared among all those who have an economic interest in adding value, by increasing efficiency. Thus a new information marketplace can be realised: one in which value from efficiency is distributed, rather than centralised.

To achieve this, massively decentralised information architectures are required.

<comment><USER3> I've often thought the same.

The haunting corollary is that the overwhelming popular opinion that we strive to make everyone equal in fact embeds and solidifies a tendency to the opposite.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> I would recommend Jaron Lanier's "Who Owns The Future?"; the short version is, we're so hooked on free or quasi-free goods and services (which includes Amazon), that capturing and privatizing market data has become the default business model, a process that started with the rise of credit/debit cards. Though in many ways consumers are more empowered than they used to be thanks to Internet (at least on a per-transaction basis), the majority of the benefit goes to centralized Big Data network providers.

</comment><comment><USER5> >> The actual problems with health insurance markets have less to do with information asymmetry and adverse selection than with too much information. That can make some people's insurance very expensive at actuarially sound rates. For instance if you have a cancer of a given kind, this is verifiable to the outside world, and if the treatment costs are $200,000, the cost of an insurance policy will in turn be about $200,000. Buying the policy won't be cheaper than buying the treatments, and in that sense the market for insurance is not always present. That is a very real public policy problem, but it is not well understood by invoking standard theories of asymmetric information.

I think the problem with insurance is too much competition. With a single provider there is no incentive to lock people out. The entire point of insurance is to amortize unexpected costs over time and population. In a market with multiple providers and people changing providers there is a financial incentive to exclude higher cost individuals rather than just spread the cost of treatment over everyone. This is not an argument in favor of any particular system, just pointing out a problem with the notion of free market insurance plans. There are plenty of problems with every solution.

<comment><USER6> there should just be one country-wide insurance pool. No company insurance pools or any other insurance through groups. that way risk gets spread out nicely. And I think administrative costs would be much lower.

<comment><USER7> The difficulty is that when a risk pool goes from large to very large, the proportionate amount of necessary reserves does not decrease meaningfully, but the costs of managing the complexity of the relationships with all parties - employees, customers, providers - increase, in some cases, exponentially.

This suggests that a decentralized network of risk pools balanced near the optimal point between risking being too small and being too expensively and chaotically large would be more effective than a single payer.

The public-private system in the United States _could_ function this well, but many factors prevent it from occurring, some by design and some due to context/inertia.

<comment><USER8> > when a risk pool goes from large to very large, the proportionate amount of > necessary reserves does not decrease meaningfully

What? Summed random fluctuations grow like sqrt(N), so per person risk "grows" (falls) like sqrt(N)/N. Larger population = less risk = lower cost of risk because the Law of Large Numbers is on your side. This is how casinos work. It's also why you aren't crushed to death by thermodynamic pressure fluctuations in the atmosphere.

> the costs of managing the complexity of the relationships with all parties - > employees, customers, providers - increase, in some cases, [grow] > exponentially.

The hell? Do you really mean to claim that having 5 different insurance companies and 100 different policies all with different paperwork is going to _increase_ efficiency vs having one for everyone (nevermind the overhead of all the fighting over who pays, advertising, paying for access to capital, etc)? Neither common sense nor reality agrees:

        Medicare: 3.1% administrative overhead
        Private Health Insurance: 14.1% administrative overhead

[http://healthcarereform.procon.org/view.resource.php?resourc...](http://healthcarereform.procon.org/view.resource.php?resourceID=004083)

<comment><USER7> Yes, however, beyond a certain size, the returns of large numbers diminish, but other costs increase - both internally and externally.

Medicare is a good example of a very large system that mostly has external costs. Due to the enormous complexity of the system it administers, its necessarily strict and automatic rules harm patients well beyond the ~11% cost savings difference you cite, and drive doctors whose diagnoses are too nuanced and studied away from Medicare patients towards more flexible insurers.

However, Medicare doesn't risk financial catastrophe significantly more than Humana or Kaiser or even Google's self-insurance pool.

Also, please do not preface comments with "what?" I understand you are trying to portray shock at how ignorant a comment I've made, but the content of your comment makes it unnecessary and it's rude.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Symmetries and asymmetries of information don't exist in a vacuum. They are often caused by, and in turn cause, symmetries and asymmetries of power [1].

Greater symmetry of some types of information may lead to greater asymmetry of power in the long term, and vice versa. And it's the latter, not the former, that we should be ultimately concerned about.

For example, if everyone knows where everyone else is, there's symmetry of location information. But since this symmetry doesn't exist in a vacuum but in the real world of three-letter agencies that already wield a lot of arbitrary power IRL, it results in an even greater asymmetry of power where most people feel powerless against the all-powerful eyes of the three-letter agencies.

On the other hand, if ordinary citizens can tell who the defense contractors are playing golf with, but the DoD doesn't know who we're talking to online, there's an asymmetry of information. But since we live in a world where a large asymmetry of power already exists between the DoD and ordinary citizens, this asymmetry of information actually helps counteract the existing asymmetry of power. The result is more symmetry of power, in the form of better accountability.

Increasing symmetry of information without regard for the overall balance of power is the kind of "transparency" that Mark Zuckerberg promotes. Increasing symmetry of information that actually help increase symmetry of power is what whistleblowers try to do, and that's the kind of "transparency" that I want to see more of.

[1] Yes, knowledge is power, and France is bacon. But information is not knowledge, at least not directly, and there are also other kinds of power. It takes more than mere possession of raw information to wield power effectively IRL.</comment>


Irving, TX ninth grader arrested after taking homemade clock to school - <AUTHOR> http://www.dallasnews.com/news/community-news/northwest-dallas-county/headlines/20150915-irving-9th-grader-arrested-after-taking-homemade-clock-to-school-so-you-tried-to-make-a-bomb.ece <comment><USER2> I cannot tell you how mad this made me. The racism, the refusal to appreciate the nerdy kid, the police idiocy, the bad teacher, the horrible administration. 5 police officers interrogating one 14-year-old who just likes tinkering because he brought in a clock.

Does anybody know a good way (that is, polite and unlikely to be percieved as menacing) to send something to the family? I'd totally go in on a giant AdaFruit gift certificate for the young fellow. Or a scholarship fund. Or both.

<comment><USER3> [https://docs.google.com/forms/d/1ws7e8WyQvrsLfhSFvdGot3n9NWK...](https://docs.google.com/forms/d/1ws7e8WyQvrsLfhSFvdGot3n9NWKfY3XLPBgbHaZDy3k/viewform?c=0&w=1)

<comment><USER4> Thanks for this! I offered a FaceTime tour of our scientific robotics labs. When I was in middle school learning and playing with electronics I would've loved that.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> I am just baffled at the ignorance. Not only does everybody in that school automatically assumed it was a bomb, but the police has the audacity to: "They led Ahmed into a room where four other police officers waited. He said an officer he'd never seen before leaned back in his chair and remarked: "Yup. That's who I thought it was.""

The engineering teacher advising him to not show anyone else is just sad. He just wants to show people his passion, but everybody else's inability to for one second think that maybe this kid has great potential, rather think that he made a bomb, because what else could he possibly be making. This is infuriating.

You can buy your own damn clock kit on Amazon for $6! [http://www.amazon.com/Electronic-Production-Suite- Clock-…/…/](http://www.amazon.com/Electronic-Production-Suite-Clock-…/…/)

How are these people in these positions?

<comment><USER6> It's not ignorance, it's malice.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> You can imagine how proud he was, he really wanted to show off his clock. I can think of a few times I got shut down by bored adults when I wanted to present something I built.

But he wasn't met with boredom, he was met with an arrest. Police still threatening charges.

</comment><comment><USER3> Anil Dash started a document for folks to show support. He says he'll be in touch with the family soon.

[https://twitter.com/anildash/status/644000575617658881](https://twitter.com/anildash/status/644000575617658881)

</comment><comment><USER8> Foley artists and prop guys are so responsible for this (obviously not morally).

Guns don't "sound like guns" (pew! pew! click!), bombs don't "look like bombs" (red dynamite strapped to a modernist circuit board with dramatic technicolor wiring), drowning doesn't "look like drowning" (dramatic flailing & yelling) etc. etc.

"Mr. X, it's like you're not a real teacher! You haven't even given a dramatic monologue about believing in myself yet!"

<comment><USER9> That's what I was thinking. "It looks like a movie bomb." Which, were it an actual bomb, would defeat the fucking purpose!

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> Would you like to see a kid wearing NASA t-shirt and handcuffs? Go ahead... [https://twitter.com/anildash/status/644020453724585984](https://twitter.com/anildash/status/644020453724585984)

</comment><comment><USER11> You know it's bad when real headlines sound like they're from the Onion...

</comment><comment><USER12> Irving; that's all you really need to know. In Plano or at the Dallas magnet school downtown he'd have been celebrated.

</comment><comment><USER13> Irving, TX's Irving high school[1] has 34 athletic coaches[2], so you can see their priorities. I can't find any course descriptions on their site, other than a few online courses. ("Web design - Learn industry-standard software including Adobe Fireworks, Dreamweaver, and Flash with helpful videos.")

[1] [http://www.irvingisd.net/Domain/8](http://www.irvingisd.net/Domain/8) [2] [http://www.irvingisd.net/Page/6032](http://www.irvingisd.net/Page/6032)

</comment><comment><USER14> I hope that this arrest does not go onto his records and create some red tape nightmare for the future.

</comment><comment><USER15> > "He just wants to invent good things for mankind," said Ahmed's father, > Mohamed Elhassan Mohamed, who immigrated from Sudan and occasionally returns > there to run for president.

Wait... run for president?

<comment><USER16> it's not unusual for people to occasionally return to their country of origin to engage in politics. quite often the reason they're abroad is the security risk involved in being in opposition to the political status quo.

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> This experience, may make the boy turn into a terrorist- -being racially profiled..I could imagine someone being like "well they think I'm already a terrorist, might as well not let them down...' \-- I mean seriously -- I hope the cops, and principle have their arses sued off for this crap.

<comment><USER18> Or he could become an activist. Or he could do nothing, take the slight, and mor forward with his life. No one simply becomes a terrorist. They are groomed. They are sought out and programmed.

Tsaernev was heavily influenced by his older brother who was heavily influenced by members of his mosque and I would say his own family. I doubt Ahmed is going this route. He's been contacted by CAIR, Anil Dash, and is a raised by an activist father. I don't see extremism in his future. Far too many people care about him.

</comment></comment><comment><USER19> Poor kid. Idiot adults.

</comment><comment><USER20> Idiots vote for Trump to "make America great again" and when a smart American kids tries to build something they arrest him.</comment>


Scientists say now-dominant strain of coronavirus more contagious than original - <AUTHOR> https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2020-05-05/mutant-coronavirus-has-emerged-more-contagious-than-original <comment><AUTHOR> [https://archive.vn/Bgd6T](https://archive.vn/Bgd6T)

</comment><comment><USER2> A tradeoff, more contagion and lower lethality is how flu became benign. I am sure this will be tested.</comment>


Gmail message retention bypasses Mailvelope encryption - <AUTHOR> https://forensic4cast.com/2013/09/gmail-and-mailvelope-leakage/

<comment><USER2> _" Email is 20 years old and has all of the same restrictions and quirks that it had when it was first used in 1993."_

E-mail is much older than that. SMTP, the mail transfer protocol that's standard today, became widely used in the 1980s.[1] E-mail between machines on the ARPANET (the precursor of today's internet) dates back to 1971, and already used the "user@host" form at that time.[2]

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

[2] [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Email#Rise_of_ARPANET_mail](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Email#Rise_of_ARPANET_mail)

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> tl'dr; A couple of months back I posted an article about Gmail retention (see here) in which I showed that Google not only saves copies of your unsent messages, but virtually every iteration of any message you type is potentially saved by Google. This means that it is available by subpoena to Google from whichever entity sees fit.. [With Meilvelope] Yes, your email message is encrypted. Yes, anyone attempting to intercept the message won't be able to read it while either in transit or looking in your sent folder. Yes, this makes you feel warm and fuzzy because you're using encryption until you understand that, yes, Google still has the pre-encrypted message sitting on their servers. Not only this, but they saved multiple copies while you were typing your message.

<comment><USER3> Mailvelope developers are aware of this, the default is to compose emails in separate window, and not on Gmail.

[https://www.dropbox.com/s/ffidxl4u4dylsp8/Screenshot%202014-...](https://www.dropbox.com/s/ffidxl4u4dylsp8/Screenshot%202014-11-30%2013.10.57.png?dl=0)</comment></comment>


Deploy Rails (production) on your own server - <AUTHOR> http://www.mistriotis.com/deploy_rails <comment><AUTHOR> I wrote the tutorial I would like to read. More compartmentalized approach than most that are out there, identifying component and looking at how they work together.

Rails version 5.0 with PostgreSQL running on Nginx with Phusion Passenger.</comment>


Science Fiction Timeline of Inventions - <AUTHOR> http://www.technovelgy.com/ct/ctnlistPubDate.asp <comment><USER2> It's hard to find the first reference of each idea.

I remember some picture floating around showing Star Trek as inspiration for cellphones, tablets, augmented displays, video calling

[https://i.pinimg.com/originals/15/26/e5/1526e5f6cfd6c2beb010...](https://i.pinimg.com/originals/15/26/e5/1526e5f6cfd6c2beb010bb1cc67f51e5.jpg)

but the creators were not aware all of those things existed long before.

[https://i.imgur.com/RtyUYoR.png](https://i.imgur.com/RtyUYoR.png)

</comment><comment><USER3> While the patent system has its flaws, one good concept is that a patent requires not only an idea, but a credible recipe for reducing the idea to practice. As such, few of the ideas in science fiction are actual inventions.

At the workplace, someone will often suggest something at a meeting, or to a subordinate, and claim "credit" for it later on. My rule of thumb is that credit goes to the person who actually made it happen, because that person had to work out whether it was feasible or not. Ideas are a dime a dozen.

<comment><USER4> I think you are wrong. Ideas are a dime a dozen, good ideas are not. Ideas, which can be put into something useful. Yes, bringing an idea to life is also important, and often credit belongs to the person who does. But on the other side, there are plenty ideas, which once being had, are trivial to put into production.

So credit belongs to all involved people. Sometimes it is more the execution, sometimes it is the idea by itself. And very often, it is a process of iteration. Having an idea, implementing it, augmenting the idea and implement that.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> I recently discovered that Jules Verne's Nautilus (1875) was named after the "first practical submarine", designed and built by Robert Fulton (later a steamboat designer) and first tested in 1800. Fulton built the submarine as a delivery device for the torpedoes he also invented, and tried to sell the weapons system to Napoleon to counter the dominant British fleet.

So while Verne is one of the great scifi inventors of all time, his submarine was an homage to an older invention, dialed up to eleven.

I wonder if there is another timeline somewhere of inventions that no science fiction story ever anticipated. It may be a shorter list.

</comment><comment><USER6> This is cool. Reminds me of Orion's Arm, a kind of collaborative hard sci-fi world building exercise that pulls from any and all sources.

[https://www.orionsarm.com](https://www.orionsarm.com)

Then there's this:

ATOMIC ROCKETSHIPS OF THE SPACE PATROL or "So You Wanna Build A Rocket?"

[http://www.projectrho.com/public_html/rocket/index.php](http://www.projectrho.com/public_html/rocket/index.php)

</comment><comment><USER7> This is great from many perspectives... Futurists would like it; other science fiction writers would like it, philosophers, particularly philosophers about technology would like it (and even would-be future comedy-about-technology writers such as yours truly, would find inspiration in it!)...

A fascinating and inspiring collection of ideas! Worth re-visiting at various intervals in the future!

</comment><comment><USER8> I think such articles underestimate the ingenuity and detailing that goes into inventions. The idea represented by the science fiction and its execution by science are not the same thing. Case in Point: The dream of human flight must have existed ever since man first looked up at the sky and found it beyond his reach. But to say ancient humans came up with the idea and Da Vinci executed it (unsuccessfully) would be either belittling Da Vinci's designs or the thought and imagination that went into them. Better to say ancients had some idea (Hindus with flying chariots, Greeks with wings stuck-on with wax etc.), Da vinci had some other idea, and Wright Brothers an altogether different one.

</comment><comment><USER9> The moving picture player, by H.G. Wells, from 1899 is definitely intriguing: [http://www.technovelgy.com/ct/content.asp?Bnum=762](http://www.technovelgy.com/ct/content.asp?Bnum=762)

<comment><USER10> Edison had already invented it (sans sound) and was publicly showing films a few years before that.

Seeing the timing in sci-fi remains interesting. But quite a few items on this list are responses to inventions, not newly conceived concepts. I'd be interested in seeing a breakdown of which ideas were first conceived in fiction.

<comment><USER11> And Edison's work was based on Lumière's Cinematographe and before that, the Zoöpraxiscope which was proceeded by the Zoetrope. Each one took and idea and developed it in ways that made improvements. This is how invention actually works, not the sudden inspiration of the lone inventor who deserves full credit. It is a serial process of inspiration and enhancements that over time produce progress.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> This entry on workplace distancing is apropos:

[http://www.technovelgy.com/ct/content.asp?Bnum=3253](http://www.technovelgy.com/ct/content.asp?Bnum=3253)

</comment><comment><USER13> The movie Impostor doesn't get enough credit. The personalized ads credited to Minority Report appeared a year before in Impostor. Both were based on Philip Dick works, so maybe he was the genesis for both.

</comment><comment><USER14> Interesting. Just as a test I decided to see it it included concepts as well as SF devices, and it did indeed include 'flashcrowd' (Larry Niven in 1972) and 'worm' (John Brunner, 1975).</comment>


Views Show How North Korea Policy Spread Misery - <AUTHOR> http://www.nytimes.com/2010/06/10/world/asia/10koreans.html?pagewanted=all

<comment><USER2> "Those North Koreans who have never crossed the border have no way to make sense of their tribulations"

Just today someone on some Russian blog wrote about typical North Korean perceptions of life abroad... It was along the lines of "Yes, we know they are bullshitting it. It's all propaganda. We're told Americans are all hungry and unemployed, but we know anyway! Life is good there, you can get plenty of rice for your ration stamps! No millet, no barley, everyone can get rice if they want. Not only in the capital, anywhere in the country. And the rations are big!"

<comment><USER3> Maybe each country is different, but I would hesitate before making broad assumptions.

I grew up under a communist regime in Eastern Europe. I was 20 when the revolution took place. So I think I know pretty well what the situation was during the dictatorship.

There was a pretty big difference between the official propaganda and the way people were really thinking. But it would have been very difficult for someone "from outside" to get a glimpse of what was going on behind the layers upon layers of doublethink. The risks were simply too great for anyone to open up and give a piece of their mind to a total stranger. The true dimensions of this orwellian spirit are hard to fathom without having the unmediated experience of it.

I would say that people had a pretty good idea about "life in the West". Not a perfect image, many details were certainly lacking, but overall correct. However, they would not openly discuss about those things except with close relatives or very close friends. Beyond a certain point on the social graph, the official doctrine would automatically kick in and start getting mixed into the discourse.

So take everything you hear about NK with a grain of salt.

Again, maybe I should not extrapolate like this. Maybe NK is a special case. I guess we'll find out one day, after the insanity is over and that land becomes free again.

<comment><USER4> Sadly, I fear lots of people will have a fair chance to experience Orwell first-hand.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> This article infuriated me. No amount of aid, negotiations, or activism is going to help the people of North Korea. Literally their only hope is a large invading army.

The world had its chance to end this epic tragedy for 50 years and it did nothing. Now the madman has some nukes and all options are out of the question.

Good job world peace. Way ta go.

<comment><USER6> And how exactly would the many inevitable civillian deaths and the gruelling guerrilla that are certainly going to happen if the US invades north korea help anything?

It's partly because of war-mongering articles like this from the NYT that americans are so intent on war as a universal tool to "help" other countries.

If it makes you any happier, as soon as some very precious natural resource is found in North Korea you can be sure there will be US troops.

<comment><USER7> When the entire population is living in such complete misery, I don't really think that a guerrilla war would happen. The North Koreans aren't religious fanatics with some "higher cause" that would motivate them into a protracted insurgency.

A war-mongering NYT article? That is a contradiction in terms.

The only reason we haven't invaded is because China is protecting North Korea, and they're only really doing that because they don't want a massive flood of refugees into their country.

<comment><USER8> _"The North Koreans aren't religious fanatics with some "higher cause" that would motivate them into a protracted insurgency."_

No, but the North Korea regime is based upon fanatic nationalism, which isn't really that different.

<comment><USER5> Korean nationalism. South Korea's army would be the "occupying country" so I really doubt this would cause an insurgency as severe as the ones in Afghanistan or Iraq.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> It is not all gloom and doom. I remember reading about Pyongyang University of Science and Technology and how it was initiated by this man - Kim Chin Kyung in fortune mag. His background is very interesting. [http://www.theage.com.au/articles/2003/07/04/1057179156781.h...](http://www.theage.com.au/articles/2003/07/04/1057179156781.html) He tried to affect change in a different way. Not by anger which we all feel after reading the article. You have to admire his determination. Immediate changes or changes caused by outside interference may not be a lasting or stable thing. I believe at some point in time, the idiots ruling the place will want to follow their only friend, China, transformation. The question is when. Any form of aggression is only going to cost extra lives and delay this timetable. As for them making the first move in a war....hmm...US can vaporize the whole north peninsula and still have left over nukes.

</comment><comment><USER10> Stories like these make me feel spoiled. I wish I knew how to help.

<comment><USER11> <http://linkglobal.org/> \- Liberty in North Korea

also their talk at Google is very, very impressive... <http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-2531661047425836509>

<comment><USER12> The video is well worth watching.

It gives a very clear picture of what's happening in North Korea, and about the situation for North Koreans inside and outside of North Korea (I was going to write '...their country', but that doesn't really seem correct).

It is from 2007, but (as far as I know) the situation hasn't changed much. Althoug the South Korean "Sunshine Policy" has now been stopped. Due to a change of government a bit over a year ago, not in response to the more recent naval conflict.

Two things the speaker said that stood out to me: 1\. This humanitarian disaster is totally man-made. 2\. This is a place in which the word "evil" really does apply.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> This article illustrates why freedom (as in free speech and freedom to contract) is so important and why a state's attempts to restrict freedom should be vigorously opposed. Without the ability to control speech and restrict free contracts, especially the ability to enforce the use of state- controlled fiat currency, the North Korean government could not stay in power.

What is happening in North Korea is an illustration of what policies of control lead to. What's interesting is that most of the people of North Korea, because they don't know any better, don't realize the cause of their poverty.

We are in a similar situation with regards to fiat currency here in the west. Although we are not dirt poor like the North Koreans, we are still a lot poorer than we should be because of the huge portion of our economies consumed by government and especially because of fiat currency. Like the North Koreans, most people can't even conceive of a commodity-based, non-government- controlled, free-market currency. As a result, they are blind to the true cause of business cycles and their stagnant purchasing power.

The best way to increase wealth is to spread truth.

</comment><comment><USER14> I wonder how many individuals would volunteer to go to war against North Korea if there is no other options available.

<comment><USER15> War is always the worst option. Especially a war against somebody with tens of thousands artillery pieces on the border, with medium range missiles and with nuclear weapons that can reach something like 200 million people.

<comment><USER16> Not to mention the fourth or fifth largest standing army in the world.

<comment><USER17> Yeah, that is going to be a problem wrt pow camps when we have to house all those who surrender so they can get food, clean water and a bed to sleep in.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


NewME Launches Accelerator for Minority-led Start-ups in Silicon Valley - <AUTHOR> http://www.blackweb20.com/2011/04/14/newme-launches-accelerator-for-minority-led-start-ups-in-silicon-valley/

<comment><USER2> Very happy to see this launch. I'm happy staying on the East coast, but if NewME ever launches something in NY I'd love to be a part of it.

My only quibble is with this:

"Without successful exits from minority-led start-ups we forgo creating new angle investors, venture capitalist, mentors, role models, and more start- ups."

NewME is an investor, so I get the need for returns, but it wouldn't hurt to have a few minority-led companies with a 37signals-like philosophy toward business and promotions.

<comment><USER3> Hopefully we'll be able to have a program on the eastcoast too, it makes sense to but we are def trying to crawl before we sprint ;)

Just to clarify NewME isn't an investor. We aren't making financial investment in any of the companies and we aren't taking equity. We are providing the speakers, and mentors, and place to stay for the summer. We're also providing a community of sorts. :)

<comment><USER4> Great initiative. Agree on crawl before you sprint -- that said, please put Seattle on the list as well!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> also very happy to see this. hopefully this will lead to some great things in the future.</comment>