Ask HN: Do hiring managers like to be contacted directly about job inquiries? - <AUTHOR> How do the hiring managers of HN like to be contacted by job applicants? Do you like when potential candidates seek you out and contact you directly? Or do you prefer them to go through your applicant tracking system? Or do you prefer if they email your generic jobs@ or careers@ email? <comment><USER2> Personally, when it comes to companies with < 30-50 employees (early stage, seed fund or a series A), I have had a massive amount of success cold- contacting the CEO or CTO (if VERY small, < 10 employees) or the hiring manager (once somewhere is large enough to have one) directly.

I actually have never had a job that I did not get in this manner, contract or full time.

Edit: This is with the added addendum that I research the company beforehand, and know their business model and products as well as any engineering stuff they have published/blogged about.

</comment><comment><USER3> Generally no as people typically spam their CV, especially when I'd had a job advertised to contact HR and people guess me as the hiring manager. This will work against you most likely.

But really it would depend how you make contact. If you simply send a CV saying I want a job, you'll get the brush off.

The exceptions are;

1) If I've worked with someone even if it's not a close relationship. Then I'm much more open to chatting about something coming up or sending someone to a colleague as a recommended known quantity.

2) Send useful information. e.g. Send a document saying something my business is currently doing that I am responsible for and you feel by doing XYZ you could improve this. If its a good idea with realistic implementation I'd likely chat and consider a contract which might lead to something more permanent. This I feel is the best way to approach someone if looking for a job.

Edit: Fixing embarrassingly bad grammar.

</comment><comment><USER4> It depends a lot for me on the quality of the contact.

As soon as I started hiring at my last company, I got a lot of worthless email. Tons of contacts from companies selling low-rent coding. Randos selling things totally irrelevant. People who sent in resumes apparently without even reading my advertisement. Kooks.

That left me generally ill-disposed to anything that looked spammy, thoughtless, or clueless. So if you're going to write directly, make it worth the reader's time. Your email should be smart, clear, and short. You should have read and understood absolutely everything publicly available. And you should be either asking or telling me something that is not already obvious.

Best of all, of course, is that you get somebody to make an introduction. If somebody I already respect is willing to vouch for you, that's worlds better than a cold email out of the blue.

</comment><comment><USER5> I think the size of the company totally matters. The smaller the company the more likely that contacting the hiring manager is a good idea.

</comment><comment><USER6> If you're a legitimate engineer (ie. not a recruiter or overseas "IT agency"), I don't care how you contact me.

</comment><comment><USER7> I would say: contact through the official channel (so that you are "in the system") and at the same time contact the manager with a short (!!!) and targeted email.

</comment><comment><USER8> If the hiring manager is disclosed in the job listing, it shouldn't be out of bounds to reach out. However, if you're using your social engineering skills to find out who it is, don't be surprised if it's not appreciated.

</comment><comment><USER9> I speculate - I'm not actually certain of this - that I would do better by sending a dead-tree letter and resume via snail mail.

What leads me to believe this is that I never had much trouble finding jobs before it became common to apply for them online.</comment>


Two Brothers Making Millions Off the Refugee Crisis in Scandinavia - <AUTHOR> http://www.bloomberg.com/features/2016-norway-refugee-crisis-profiteers/ <comment><USER4> "For 2015, Hero Norway expects revenue of $63 million, with profits of 3.5 percent. "

Title correction: Long-time hospitality business entrepreneurs expand business into providing refugee housing and services. The business made 2.2 Million profits in 2015 operating highly efficient refugee care centers.

My guess is there would be at least that much money wasted if these centers were run by less experienced people in that business sector (e.g. the gov't). Also note: the government regulates the business.

Overall from the article, it seems like a good way to care for the refugees.

<comment><AUTHOR> Without access to their books, it's hard to evaluate their actual profit. But, later in the article there is this quote:

"The Adolfsens claim that theirs is 3.5 percent, but Herning calls that figure "highly unlikely. All the other refugee companies that I've looked at have a much higher profit margin." She says that in handling revenue from nursery schools and nursing homes, the Adolfsens have played a shell game, shifting profits from one business within their conglomerate to another. "I wouldn't be surprised if they were doing that for Hero as well," she says."

Also, quick searches seem to indicate that for-profit prisons (in the US at least), an analogous industry, have profit margins significantly north of 3.5%. [1] I wouldn't be surprised if the actual profit margins for the refugee care companies, when all subsidiaries are included, are between 5-10%.

I don't know if there's a perfect solution to refugee care that optimizes spending and societal harmony, but private enterprises running the show with close government oversight (and no shell games), seems like a somewhat happy middle ground.

[1] [http://www.cnbc.com/id/48675641](http://www.cnbc.com/id/48675641)

<comment><USER5> Who cares if the profit margin is even double that (10-20%). Almost certainly still cheaper than the government getting into the hospitality business, and has the benefit of not creating a permanent bureaucracy.

<comment><USER6> In 2007 a boat with 100+ Haitian refugees made it to South Florida. The refugees were immediately detained, then sent to Krome Detention Center (no women) and Broward Transition Center (men/women/children). However, between the 2 facilities there were not enough beds and the remaining were put up in private motels. Even in Miami/Fort Lauderdale Florida, where our main industry is tourism, I think the private motels were far more cost effective than the existing Government infrastructure/detention facilities. And the people making the most money? The contractors of the detention facilities making 1,000'sx profit margins on things like phone cards, sandals, and vending machine food stuffs.

As a side, my legal clinic represented the Haitian refugees who were children in asylum/visa hearings pro bono.

<comment><USER7> Thanks for helping represent the refugees pro bono :)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Many people seem to hold an intuition or belief that it is wrong to profit, or profit "excessively" when providing certain types of services, particularly related to "care", survival, or necessities (e.g. "price gouging" laws).

I think this is misguided for (at least) two reasons:

1\. Profit allows for the services to be sustainable, rather than charity- dependent.

2\. The more profit, the stronger the incentive for entrepreneurs to enter the market and/or innovate.

Figuring out a way to profit and reduce the problems of refugees in any way is win/win for everyone.

<comment><USER9> > 2\. The more profit, the stronger the incentive for entrepreneurs to enter > the market and/or innovate.

3\. The more entrepreneurs in the market, the tighter the margins will become, due to competition. The price for the service will fall as a result, and the companies will become more efficient.

<comment><USER10> But also remember that:

4\. The more low-hanging fruits in terms of efficiency have been picked, the more entrepreneurs will be pressured into saving money on quality of their product - which in this case means quality of care. This is the stage when serious abuse starts. The maximum benefit of a market solution is reached when you can stop companies from progressing from 3 to 4.

<comment><USER11> Only if the barriers to entry into that market or product/service stickiness are high. Otherwise, customers, unhappy with the quality, will flee to the competition.

<comment><USER10> To clarify my point - 4 is when _all_ competitors are pressured into saving on the product itself. It's not just about barriers to entry or stickiness - <USER2> can be simply because margins are very low. There will always be someone who will sacrifice yet another value in order to be more profitable, and thus will force his competitors to either give up on that value too, or to get outcompeted.

<comment><USER12> If that is the decision they face, that means customers did not want the thing that was sacrificed, and leaving it out is an improvement.

The danger most people worry about is when the customers are getting a better experience at the expense of individuals who don't have any choice in the matter, like in the prison scenario. But negative externalities are hardly specific to this situation.

<comment><USER10> I think you may be underestimating just how much crap customers can deal with before they say "enough" (and just how hard is it to coordinate them to say it together). I don't think anyone is happy that they have to replace light bulbs and electric kettles every other year, but we have no choice - the durable options are _not on the market_. They have disappeared years ago. And in case of housing, I think the conditions could reach a pretty horrible level before people would be forced to seek something else.

My point is that market is _too good_ at making things efficient. Its goal is to make things profitable. Which is a decent proxy for the peoples' goal of making a product or service "good", but those two ideas start to diverge at some point.

<comment><USER12> I know exactly how much "crap" customers are willing to deal with. The difference is that unlike you, I don't take it as a given that they are wrong to do so. Is your computer crap because it's not a blue gene? Are you dealing with crap by driving a Honda instead of a Bentley? If people willingly choose conditions you think to be horrible, try to at least consider the possibility that you might be the one misjudging things and not them.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> So the idea is that private enterprises are able to run refugee centers cheaper and more efficiently than the government. Unfortunately, it doesn't work and is a myth. It's a myth that fits hacker news because we are all entrepreneurs here..

Private companies have just as much waste as the government. One random example: Pension funds. The private ones are all more expensive than the government run ones. A share of the income needs to go to marketing and profits -> higher prices. Common sense.

All across the board it is the same situation, and it has been shown in study after study. Health care, train operators, retirement homes, banks, military... , banks.. When private enterprises take over prices go up and the service level goes down. Again, it's common sense, a number of private companies fighting for market share and profits are more wasteful than one government organization run with zero profit.

I forgot. One counter-example is telecom which has benefited from privatization. But it is an area in which _a lot_ has happened in the last two decades so it is not clear privatization is the sole cause of it.

I was asked for links:

[http://www.sns.se/sites/default/files/konkurrensens_konsekve...](http://www.sns.se/sites/default/files/konkurrensens_konsekvenser_pod_2.pdf) [http://www.su.se/om-oss/press-media- nyheter/pressmeddelande-...](http://www.su.se/om-oss/press-media- nyheter/pressmeddelande-arkiv/sjuksk%C3%B6terskors- arbetstrivsel-f%C3%B6rs%C3%A4mras-efter-privatisering-1.7179) [http://www.railwaysarchive.co.uk/documents/McNulty_InterimRe...](http://www.railwaysarchive.co.uk/documents/McNulty_InterimReport2010.pdf)

Maybe use Google Translate to read them.

<comment><USER14> Please elaborate on your random example, being "pension funds".

What pension funds are you talking about?

Are you talking about AP7 (Which has two funds, one equity fund and one money market fund)? (Swedish: "Sjunde Allmäna Pensionsfonden" English: "The 7th General Pension Fund").

I would caution you to be less general and provide more specific statements that you back up by facts. Currently it's hard to realize what you're trying to convey and the provided documents aren't solidifying what you're trying to convey either.

Speaking of the provided links, here are some context of the documents:

1) The "konkurrensens_konsekvenser_pod_2.pdf" document is in Swedish and has the title "Konkurrensens konsekvenser" (English: "The consequences of competition"). The document is 279 pages.

2) The su.se link is a press release from SU (Stockholm University) with the title "Pressmeddelande: Sjuksköterskors arbetstrivsel försämras efter privatisering" (English: "Press release: Nurses work satisfaction worsened after privatization") and it's announcing an article published in "Journal of Occupational and Organizational Psychology, 82, 45-65" by Falkenberg, H., Näswall, K., Sverke, M., and Sjöberg, A. (2009) by the name "How are employees at different levels affected by privatization? A longitudinal study of two Swedish hospitals" (Article in English).

3) The "McNulty_InterimReport2010.pdf" document is in English and has the title "Rail Value for Money Study: Interim Submission to Secretary of State – September 2010". The document is 28 pages.

<comment><USER13> The studies all support what I wrote. I guess you have to read them in full or find their abstract and read that.

Regarding the pension funds, yes AP7 is one example. It is the fund with the lowest management fee (incidentally has also been one of the highest yielding pension funds). The usual excuse given is that it is a "lazy fund" and "just following the index". But no private actor has been able to offer a similar "lazy fund" with lower fees.

<comment><USER15> Does AP7 beat Stockholm index? Which is free on most Swedish brokerages. Actually on NordNet all Scandinavian index-funds are free.

You're asking me to believe that a government run by Kaplan, Romsson, 100-dagar-Fridolin and that SSU-Douche who stole money will be the "competent" part in your equation?

There is no black and white. Sometimes smart people in government do better. Sometimes entrepreneurs do better.

You're biased from growing up with intelligent people running Sweden and believe that to still be the case.

Sanandaji would like a word with you....

Both Avanza and NordNet allows you to get free Index-funds. When I say free I mean with no courtage or cut from profits. No costs.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> The solution here I think is to open the market for more private providers and let the refugees pick and pay for their service, with the government providing a certain amount of financial assistance to the individual asylum seekers. This way the reputation of a certain firm will rapidly hit rock bottom as word about bad service gets out. This will keep pressure high to provide good service.

<comment><USER17> Solution to what? The profit margins the article quoted seem fairly reasonable, for all we know the Government is already willing to deal with others and no one else can compete. Seeing as the Government is the customer I don't really see why they would want to move purchasing power over to the refugees. There's no reason to assume they share goals.

<comment><USER16> I wasn't so much disputing the reasonable-ness of the profit margins as much as the policies of the providers. How are you supposed to keep track of how much profit is actually earned? Balance sheets etc. are notoriously easy to manipulate. By letting the refugees vote with their money we need not be concerned with profit margins as the market would(ideally) take care of itself. Win-win for both parties if this kind of system could be made to work. It would essentially be removing the government as an intermediary.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> > Neither Sweden nor Norway has plans to stanch the flow of newcomers

This is just ridiculously wrong, and taints the journalistic integrity of the piece.

<comment><USER14> It could be that the piece was written some time ago. Or that they hasn't kept up to date with recent developments (like the transporter responsibility to verify IDs on trains/buses on all traffic going into Sweden).

In other words, it might not be intentional and the piece is still interesting and well written in general - disregarding the mentioned quote.

I would like to see a piece about the private sector of refugee centers in Sweden. That would be interesting as well. I have gotten the impression that "Jokarjo AB" is (which "Bert Karlsson" is a proprietor of) a somewhat medium or large player in the Swedish market.

</comment></comment><comment><USER19> Yes, but the state, not the refugees, are the buyers.

This means that service and quality quickly become irrelevant, and the race to the bottom begins. Before you know it, you have unscrupulous folks taking government cash to lock refugees in a gritty basement without food and basic facilities.

I'm not saying this is an inevitability, but it's the dynamic that this creates - and that's why this should be the responsibility of the state - <USER3> set up so the refugees have a choice where they're put.

<comment><USER20> so your claiming that if wholly government managed they would be more accountable? Really? Who is a government agency ever truly accountable too?

The solution of all this is simple, government sets standards to be met and has inspectors who insure they are met. If the standards are kept and one of them can be a "happiness factor" who cares if they profit.

Plus the added benefit of these private groups is that can iterate faster, are more likely to bring new ideas to the table, and improve the lot of the refugees faster than government agencies which tend to persist problems to extend their own existence

<comment><USER19> Right, but if you give the refugees freedom of choice in which residential centre they reside, market forces will eliminate poor providers. If you don't give them choice, regulation is necessary, as you say, but you're then back in the realm of self-perpetuating quangos, as you say.

<comment><USER10> No, market forces will not eliminate poor providers. It may eliminate those who try to beat the market and drop their quality too quickly, but as the options to cut costs are exhausted, _everyone_ will be pushed down to the minimum quality level they can still get away with selling. Regulation can be an effective way to establish a border below which the quality won't drop, thus making the market solution potentially desirable.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> Anti-refugee mood is on the surge in Norway. The government just appointed the previous agriculture minister from the far-right party as immigration minister and she recently proposes a slew of tough immigration rules, promised to be the strictest in Europe, for the newcomers.[1]

There are many Norwegians who hate these two guys in Norway :) Take a look at the comment section.[2]

1\. [http://www.nrk.no/norge/_-vi-kommer-til-a-fa-en- asylpolitikk...](http://www.nrk.no/norge/_-vi-kommer-til-a-fa-en-asylpolitikk- som-er-blant-de-strengeste-i-europa-1.12724216)

2\. [http://www.nettavisen.no/na24/tjener-to-millioner-i- maneden-...](http://www.nettavisen.no/na24/tjener-to-millioner-i-maneden-pa- asylmottak/3422811800.html)

</comment><comment><USER22> Just imagine how much smugglers made off the boats or lifejackets in greece.

Have you seen the piles of lifejackets in greece? They are HUGE. Thousands upon thousands of them across the entire shore. Where are they all coming from and who bought all of them?

<comment><USER23> [http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-34073196](http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-34073196)

[http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world- europe-34675552](http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-34675552)

There's also a news story today about a factory making fake life jackets, and stuffing them with packaging not proper floatation devices.

[http://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/jan/06/refugee- crisis-...](http://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/jan/06/refugee-crisis- turkish-police-find-factory-making-fake-lifejackets-izmir)

</comment></comment><comment><USER24> I would be extremely worried in their position about personal risk & risk to my property.

[https://www.google.com/search?hl=en&gl=us&tbm=nws&q=fire+ref...](https://www.google.com/search?hl=en&gl=us&tbm=nws&q=fire+refugee+center)

</comment><comment><USER25> Amazing man, I wish I could meet them once

</comment><comment><USER26> Arming the refugees to fight ISIS may cost more now; but defeating ISIS will be worth it.

<comment><USER15> Many of them didn't flee ISIS. They fled Assad.

Attitude towards ISIS borders between "don't care" to "they're alright"

Some may hate ISIS, but they like parts of ISIS. Like treatment of infidels, women and LGBT.

[http://english.dohainstitute.org/file/Get/40ebdf12-8960-4d18...](http://english.dohainstitute.org/file/Get/40ebdf12-8960-4d18-8088-7c8a077e522e)

Getting radical muslims out of muslim cities has not proved to make them less radical.

My parents wish more "quality control" was imposed. My parents were refugees.

<comment><USER27> Where are your parents from? Iran?

<comment><USER28> That reads like you intended it as both a personal and national slur, which would be a bannable offence on HN. Please don't comment like this here.

<comment><USER27> You have very low opinion of me to think that I was trying to insult him by just inquiring about his parents national origin. His family name just caught my attention "Heidari" and I thought it was the Persian "حيدرى", that's all.

I thought people here give other people the benefit of doubt and not judge them based on mere speculation.

<comment><USER28> I completely misread you. I'm sorry. Thank you for the correction, and for repeating a core principle of HN that I also need to be reminded of.

Moderating comments like that is probabilistic, since they don't come tagged with intent. In your case I guessed wrong because the form of the comment was similar to nasty ones (edit: I mean by other users) in the past. Your intent would have been clearer, and the comment more informative, if you had included the detail about the names in the original bit.

<comment><USER27> No prob :)

I know that moderating a large community like HN can be very time consuming and frustrating at times esp. when mods aim to ensure a high quality level of interaction here and I applaud and appreciate all the mods' efforts to achieve that and if I could offer a suggestion to improve the quality even further, I'd invite everyone when reading comments and replies to give the authors the benefit of doubt and become more tolerant of polite dissenting view.

Thanks for all :)</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Fantasy must shake off the tyranny of the mega-novel - <AUTHOR> http://www.theguardian.com/books/booksblog/2015/may/15/fantasy-tyranny-mega-novel-george-rr-martin <comment><USER2> I think the response is more accurate - that big ideas and epic world-building require a lot of space. [http://www.theguardian.com/books/booksblog/2015/may/20/fanta...](http://www.theguardian.com/books/booksblog/2015/may/20/fantasy- imaginary-worlds-george-r-r-martin-robin-hobb)

And I would cite Brandon Sanderson as a good example (and good counter-example to the original article) - smaller ideas get novellas (Legion, Emperor's Soul), medium-sized ideas get novels (Elantris, Rithmatist, Warbreaker), epic ideas get large novels in series(Mistborn, Way of Kings).

All excellent, by the way...

<comment><USER3> One huge point in Sanderson's favor is that he writes fast and consistent enough that his epic series might be finished in a reasonable amount of time. I also get the impression that he plans a lot more in advance than many other fantasy writers, so I doubt he'll add a few more novels to his series at the end.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> I grew up just reading whatever I could pull off the shelf from my local library—finding the SFF short story scene in my late teens was a huge and welcome discovery. Not sure why, and it could just be confirmation bias, but in my experience the quality of writing in short stories tends to be a lot higher than the writing in a novel, or series. Short form has some of my favorite works now, and I tend to read that first since it's much easier to make time for. It's really worth looking into it if you've only been exposed to published novels before. Tor.com is free and has a great collection. Clarkesworld and Asimov's both charge subscription fees but are completely worth the price.

</comment><comment><USER5> I've completely given up on reading multi-volume epics. Either stick to a defined 3 or 4 novel series (ie. call it a trilogy from the start), or go with a series of interconnected, but standalone, novels like Iain M Banks Culture books.

The major problem I find is that I just can't be bothered to re-read the previous books. Yet inevitably, I will have forgotten a lot of characters and plot (particularly with character dense fantasy), and _must_ re-read or be completely lost when reading the new book.

This isn't really a problem with trilogies, usually I don't need to re-read at all for the final book, or even if I do it's relatively quick. But the moment you start writing huge, 5-6+ novel series I get very annoyed with authors.

Take George RR Martin for example. I still haven't read the latest book, simply because there was a 5 year gap, then a 6 year gap between publications of the last two. During that time, I've nearly completely forgotten what went on in the books. I re-read after the first gap, but I'll be damned if I'm doing it again...

There are successful authors who manage to write large, interesting worlds/stories without needing to descend down into the muck that is the mega- novel series. Like Iain M Banks with his standalone Culture novels that form a coherent world over time. Or Terry Pratchett, with the Discworld.

<comment><USER6> The sad thing is that this very real phenomenon "punishes" those who start series early, the very people that validate the business model or writing sequels at all. I don't expect I'll bother with book 6 of GoT for the very same reason you state. And the TV series will be in syndication by then most likely!

<comment><USER5> Yeah, the TV series has put me off reading them too. I'd rather just experience the one version of the story. I've been waiting for it to catch up to where I remember in the books.

Having said that, I have bought the latest book and will probably buy the rest, I'm just not sure if I'll get round to reading them until the series is finished. Which given the overall slowness so far, could be another 10-15 years! That's why even though I highly enjoy a good epic, I really can't stand reading them anymore. It's a love/hate thing now.

<comment><USER7> I haven't read the books but it's my understanding that the show has caught up with the books & that you may be confused if you try to jump straight from the middle of the books to the middle of the show, since they've changed many of the characters' storylines.

<comment><USER8> > I haven't read the books but it's my understanding that the show has caught > up with the books & that you may be confused if you try to jump straight > from the middle of the books to the middle of the show, since they've > changed many of the characters' storylines.

It likely will have caught up to or passed the books by the end of this season (assuming that, given the divergence in storylines, the comparison is even meaningful anymore; but there are some signs that at least some of the divergence is just keeping the number of independent threads down and may converge back somewhat), but all of the existing storylines in the show that can reasonably be compared to the book remain behind the parallel storylines in the book.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Oh God yes.

I look back my days of reading D&D novels (Krynn and TFR mostly) with some fondness. Yes they were part of much larger series, but the books were usually fully contained novels with strong story-lines and conclusions.

Sci-fi is in a similar situation (if you did not consider sci-fi to be fantasy in the first place). Remember reading (possibly your parents collection of) Isaac Asimoc novels? Or possibly novelettes by today's standards. Amazing stories and imaginations in what would be the prologue of a 1500 page monster today. And without the constant graphic violence that has become a hallmark of modern sci-fi.

<comment><USER10> I've read great short fiction, but nearly every time I read something Really Awesome or Interesting, I end up wanting to read more exploring interesting things in that world. Parallel events, precursors, Lore, etc. I dislike when there's a constant "To be Continued...." (Wheel of Time, Game of Thrones), but love when there's a series of related books that each can stand alone, but also enrich a shared lore. I absolutely devoured nearly everything in the Dragonlance novels and Star Wars extended universe books, for example.

Whenever I read the first book of a book like Dune, or Foundation, or Earthsea, or Anne Leckie's Ancillary Justice, or the Diamond Age (or Snow Crash) I end up wishing for more from that same universe of Lore. Sometimes this ends up being something amazing, like the Foundation series, other times the sequel fails to hold me, or goes off the deep end like some fantasy serieses seem to.

I think I end up gravitating towards trilogies. I know there's more to the story arc than just one book, and but enough written that I (in theory) won't be left in the lurch. :-)

Then again, I also read all [at the time] of the Honor Harrington series, because I loved the characters and political story arc(s), but ended up getting burned out and never reading the more recent novels. I don't even know or recall if it was a feeling that it jumped the shark, I just didn't feel I had the energy to devote to it.

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> In terms of format, I appreciate something like Raymond E. Feist's Riftwar Cycle, where you have a series of connected trilogies. You carry over the universe and some of the characters, but the story is tied up at the end of each trilogy.

Or Fritz Leiber's Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser short stories, which were the individual adventures of those two characters.

There's something obviously appealing about a universe (a "franchise" or "IP", if you must) which goes on and on, but that doesn't mean spending decades on a single story.

<comment><USER12> Fafhrd and the Mouser are an interesting case: There are seven (pretty short) volumes of stories, written over nearly forty years, with the major anthologies halfway through.

Lots of those stories are just short vignettes, not more than a page or two long, that were nonetheless published individually. In the books, they seem like brief interludes, but they were originally written/published sometimes years apart from the longer stories. [http://panglott.blogspot.com/2010/08/for-re-reading-of- nehwo...](http://panglott.blogspot.com/2010/08/for-re-reading-of-nehwon.html)

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> A lot of the shorter fantasy goes into the Young Adult category now. Especially since the younger age categories read more books a month. Fish around a bit for your own taste and you will find shorter novels and novellas there [http://www.goodreads.com/choiceawards/best-young-adult- fanta...](http://www.goodreads.com/choiceawards/best-young-adult-fantasy- books-2014)

<comment><USER14> I find the whole "Young Adult" category strange. In film, most people don't automatically look down on movies just because they're not rated R or NC-17. Any book without blatantly adult-only content (which includes the majority of books) could reasonably be read by "Young Adults".

<comment><USER15> I think the problem is that "Young Adult" encompasses a wide level of maturity, and authors may tailor their works towards vastly different levels of maturity, that the quality can vary quite a bit. Some works are targeted for young readers, but are rather mature in their execution (well explained, well reasoned character motivations and plot, etc), while others bank on the possibly lower expectations of the young and inexperienced reader. I've picked up some _horrendous_ young adult fiction before and read it (I'm looking at you, James Patterson!). That doesn't keep me from reading it, but it does make me wary...

<comment><USER13> I've found word of mouth and reviews to help out with that. But its not 100% proof alright.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> It's interesting that they mainly start around more recent series, mentions older ones "Les Mis", but don't say how this is and always has been a thing. I remember reading most of the Xanth series (first book published in 1977!) when I was in high school (1999)- and there were already 20+ books in the series.

I like long stories about characters I care about. When I stop caring about the characters (or if the plots get too out there), then I stop reading the books.

I think it's fine if people want to read singular episode books as well. As @teirce says, this is why I also like Neil Gaiman (currently my favorite author). His stuff is self-contained and quite enjoyable.

It's up to the author to decide what they want to do with their characters, and I'll be game for it either way.

<comment><USER17> As I remember them, the Xanth stories had an order but mostly stood on their own, like the detective novels TFA mentions.

In contrast, there's hardly anything in Game of Thrones that isn't tied tightly to everything that precedes or follows it. The division between books is largely arbitrary and you could have divided them up in a million different ways that would be no better or worse than the way they are now. Not that this is qualitatively better than the older series or serial style, but I do agree with the article that it's "different".

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> This is needed if only so I don't have to get sucked into a great first book like Wizard's First Rule to then have to deal with 100 page lectures on Objectivism if I want to find out what happens to the characters later in the series.

<comment><USER19> Very much yes! That series was a disaster. It's not even internally consistent from the first book to the last.

The author completely changed his characters to make them fit into his new lectures.

</comment></comment><comment><USER20> The reason fantasy (and also much scifi these days) needs the length is partly because once you've gone to all that effort of establishing a world, you'll want to stick that world.

A short novel with a completely unique setting would turn a fantasy story into something closer to a fairy tale or fable, or be entirely _about_ the setting (as is often the case with scifi; Lem's "Solaris" is a great example).

Of course, you can still tell completely separate stories set within a single world. Which authors do: Banks with the Culture books, for example, and I rather prefer that form of non-serial storytelling. G. R. R. Martin himself has written spinoffs set in the Westeros world. Gene Wolfe's novels are often set in the same universe.

The second aspect of serial, "long-form" storytelling that everyone enjoys is the continuity; you may have lots of small stories told over the course of several seasons of a TV series, but it's the same, familiar world, and you don't need to be introduced to a completely new setting every time. As someone who greatly enjoys books (though not so much fantasy) but has a huge problem getting past the opening chapter or even the opening page, I completely understand the attraction.

(That said, there's no excuse for bloat. G. R. R. Martin seems to have entered into a kind of narrative tailspin as a result of having plotted himself into several corners. Rather than chopping away at the narrative and making some shortcuts to get the characters in the position he had planned for them to be in, he apparently decided the solution was... more plot. The end product was the long and tedious boat journey that was "A Dance With Dragons".)

</comment><comment><USER21> I have to admit I'm kind of puzzled by this article and its countering article "Fantasy cannot build its imaginary worlds in short fiction." Look. There is great fantasy fiction being written in _every_ length. And that's a wonderful situation! Why spend your time complaining because some works aren't the length you would prefer?

</comment><comment><USER22> Sprawling multi-book series work kind of the way fast food does. It's a known quantity in a world of unknown quantities.

<comment><USER23> It's also the most reliable path to income for writers.

</comment></comment><comment><USER24> This is one reason why I really like Neil Gaiman. His works tend to be on the shorter side and self-contained, yet still managed to be quite entertaining.

</comment><comment><USER25> Better are books that can be read on their own...and are part of an expansive series

* Foundation * Dune * Discworld * Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy * Hyperion

Even worse are 5 book sets (Belgarion and Eddings novels)

</comment><comment><USER26> It is somewhat surprising result in the world of short attention span. I stopped watching Game of Thrones after 3.5 seasons, stopped reading Terry Goodkind's Sword of Truth after 4.5 books and Zelazny's Chronicles of Amber after 2.5 books (notice the pattern of dropping the things halfway through the installment). For me it sort of goes downhill from production value and/or captivating action to a pointless nonsense _with no end in sight_.

<comment><USER27> I've noticed that my brain has developed an actual revulsion to fiction that never ends attains closure on anything. It is starting to feel very similar to the dream most of us have had of the quicksand we can't get out of because however high we go it's always higher. I don't mean that as a metaphor, I mean, I really do get a very similar feeling out of both.

So many of these things seem to start out tight, then just drag out forever. I have more experience in the TV-series side.

I am happy to not have all the answers, I'm happy to watch something overarching that goes on for a while, I'm even happy to watch something that _ends_ ambiguously. But I've got little and ever less tolerance for those authors who think the way to make their universe last longer is to _never resolve anything_. No... you resolve things, and then there are _more_ things. Preferably consequences, anticipated and otherwise. Just like, you know, real life. Don't simply stretch your story out... and out... and out... and out...

Stargate SG-1 attained the nearly-perfectly-correct balance for me. And it made some of the developments in that series legitimately surprising to me, when they actually upended their universe a bit in _several_ of the season finales, because I so casually expected "nothing to ever change" in a series like that. (Now it's more normal, but at the time especially I was surprised by their boldness. They never did quite take the step of making the program public knowledge, though...)

(Special callout for Alias, by the way, who also scraped against my brain in such a way that I'm also extremely irritated by "but wait, there's a conspiracy behind _that_ "... by the fourth or fifth time it's like the dream hallway that never ends. And my suspension of disbelief really breaks down too... how, exactly, does one become the guy in change of the conspiracy under the conspiracy under the conspiracy under the conspiracy under the conspiracy under the conspiracy? Is there a college track I should be focusing on for that? Does the n+1th conspiracy conduct secret interviews? Is a member of conspiracy-4 really supposed to be _surprised_ to discover conspiracy-5?)

<comment><USER28> After watching "Babylon 5", the first American TV series I knew that had a fixed length and didn't try to go as long as possible, I decided that if you don't have an end, you don't have a story. So unless I know there's an end, I don't bother. It's worked out pretty well; Robert Jordan's series kept getting longer (= doesn't know how to finish) until it got so long he died. GRRM seems be having similar problems--taking 5 and 6 years to write the latest two suggests to me he is getting bogged down (= doesn't know how to finish).

I had similar problems with "Alias." You can't just upend who is good and who is bad every month. It isn't believable, and it feels like you're playing with your audience. It also indicates you have no idea what you are doing (= no end point). I watched season 3, and quit early on in season 4 after I realized...

</comment></comment></comment><comment> guard-of-terra Sapkowski has a hilarious article on why fantasy authors tend to produce multi-volume monsters.

"There is no gold in the Grey mountains", struggling to find it online.

<comment><USER29> Is it in English?

<comment> guard-of-terra I guess there should be a translation somewhere, he's a major writer after all.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> Not just mega-novels, it seems like the long novel of 400-600 pages are more common too. Seems like back in the day you could get a good story in 150-200 pages. But now reading books is a bigger commitment. I think I'm going to start on the "novella" category of the Hugo winners =/

<comment><USER30> I agree! My book is 175 pages because I tried to keep in the good parts and trust the reader to figure out why character A got to point B without explaining the entire journey. Skip to the interesting parts and let a couple lines of some dialogue explain the in between.

</comment></comment><comment><USER31> it feels like it's starting to get shaken out. the whole mega-popular digital book thing is enabling wider distribution of formats like novellas.

heck, even sanderson is getting in on the gig with all of his recent success with the shorter novels like "the emperor's soul" or "legion" \-- which are both fantastic, btw.

</comment><comment><USER32> Oh Lord, yes. Signed. Upvoted. Just give us good stories with a scope the author can deal with in a human lifetime.

</comment><comment><USER33> If anyone is interested in a great single volume fantasy book, I recommend Tigana by Guy Gavriel Kay. It's a very good book.

<comment><USER34> Thanks I'll check it out. I'll add my own recommendation: anything by China Mieville. Although he does have a few books that are set in the same fantasy world they are each stand alone storylines although they may loosely reference each other (kind of like the Discworld series does). He also has quite a few single volume books, each with its own rich and fascinating world.</comment></comment>


Ask HN: What's your list of sideprojects? - <AUTHOR> <comment><USER4> 1) [http://www.confessionsoftheprofessions.com](http://www.confessionsoftheprofessions.com) (2013)

2) [https://mypost.io](https://mypost.io) (2015)

3) [https://notetoread.com](https://notetoread.com) (2016)

4) [https://scamshare.com](https://scamshare.com) (2017)

5) [https://callmeprivate.com](https://callmeprivate.com) (2017)

6) [https://textmeprivate.com](https://textmeprivate.com) (2017)

\-----

1) website dedicated to understanding jobs, careers, and the workplace ( kind of passionate about it )

2) a simple blog posting website that allows anyone to put up a webpage on the internet in minutes

3) a simple self-destructive note service

4) a place to call out scammers and expose their emails and methods for scamming people

5) call me private is great for individuals, entrepreneurs, startups, and businesses alike -- it is a virtual number service that helps you mask your phone numbers and look more professional (Show HN on 12/12: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15905375](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15905375))

6) text me private is a SMS-only virtual number service that allows you to maintain your privacy and anonymity while being able to send or receive texts from whoever you want

i have about 5 more side projects in the works. instead of sleeping.. i am always working on something! it is what i do!

</comment><comment><USER5> 1\. I made [http://www.manypixels.co](http://www.manypixels.co) last week - <USER2> design service for bootstrapped startups (though we have one VC-funded startup on board). Currently generates ~$3k weekly revenue (though I only have one week worth of data).

2\. Today I launched [http://www.getremotejobs.co](http://www.getremotejobs.co) (You pay a fixed fee, we send you remote jobs) - I coded a few bots that actually search for job offerings which are likely to accept remote and got a lot of success with it as I was freelancing, so I decided to productize it and try to see if I could have some passive income with it! Currently 0$ income for this one but have not promoted it yet.

<comment><USER6> How do you manage to create a product in one week and begin making ~3k a week? What is that process like?

<comment><USER7> Why would you start a new project if your current one is making $3K a week?

<comment><USER8> Not OP but I saw OP's post on Reddit /r/Entrepreneur Basically the first project is just a productized service which seems to be relatively hands off.

<comment><USER5> It's indeed hands off now (though I will be flying to Vietnam next week to meet with the designers).

Short answer: I just want to try to build cool stuff and make money along the way :-)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> I made a GTA V cover maker app right around the time when GTA V came out. The app allowed you to put your own images into a GTA V style cover (like this [1]. And here's a custom cover made with the app [2]). The challenging part about this was that there was no way to work with non-rectangular View on Android, so I had to draw everything directly to the canvas. Because of that there was also a lot of mucking around with low level bitmaps and matrix transforms. That was the first app I made when I was learning Android development.

Then I made a minimalist ToDo app for Android.

Next I made a public transit live timetable app to learn iOS, which was pretty much dead on arrival when I released it, as the local transit company released an app with all my features and more right before I released mine (I took way too long to release that anyway). Neither of those is in the Play or App store anymore.

Right now I am working on [http://madewithreactnative.com](http://madewithreactnative.com) where I interview developers and teams about their experience creating apps with React Native.

I've also had started other side projects, most of which have never seen the light of day however.

[1] [https://media.rockstargames.com/rockstargames/img/global/new...](https://media.rockstargames.com/rockstargames/img/global/news/upload/actual_1364906194.jpg) [2] [https://i.imgur.com/M7AesBj.png?1](https://i.imgur.com/M7AesBj.png?1)

</comment><comment><USER10> 1) [http://officehourscards.com](http://officehourscards.com) \- Launched in Oct, digital and physical versions are selling pretty equally. It's for startup teams to prepare for their accelerator interview or just get together and learn more about their own product. Has been the most fun & most profitable project.

2) [http://tinyhello.com](http://tinyhello.com) \- A gift site that started as a Fiverr gig that got really good feedback.

3) [http://tkchecker.com](http://tkchecker.com) \- A simple WordPress plugin built in 2015 aimed at writers.

I think in total I've got around 20+ side projects, I've got a Slack app for volunteers that is the next to be finished. I try and use a different technology each time or at least learn something different.

<comment><USER11> TinyHello looks beautiful. May I ask how you design (UI/UX) these side projects?

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> 1) Order Link ([http://www.orderlink.io/](http://www.orderlink.io/)), 2017: Beta status, it is a web app and helps to process orders at events or in restaurants with mobile devices in real time. Guests can also order with their own mobile devices. Currently looking for real users and a way to ensure that people are really at the location.

2) SU Grabern ([http://www.sugrabern.at/](http://www.sugrabern.at/)), 2017: Website of local football (some would say soccer) club, quite simple and minimal, but a lot of expansion potential.

3) Graberner GeschichteN ([https://www.grabernergeschichten.at/](https://www.grabernergeschichten.at/)), 2016: History documentation of my austrian community (video interviews), videos in german with english subtitles. Created with a friend, maybe we do another round in the future.

</comment><comment><USER13> [https://suet.co](https://suet.co) ([https://github.com/kehers/suet](https://github.com/kehers/suet)) - <USER3> analytics and reporting for Mailgun transactional emails.

</comment><comment><USER14> (2015) [http://hasgluten.com](http://hasgluten.com), filtered list of gluten- free ingredients in 5 languages

(2016) [https://priceeth.github.io](https://priceeth.github.io), my dashboard to track prices

(2016) [https://github.com/runwithmark/runwithmark.github.io](https://github.com/runwithmark/runwithmark.github.io), still running 1mi/day, but runkeeper closed their api

(2017) [http://mempa.io](http://mempa.io), password manager, read more [1]

\--

[1] [https://medium.com/@0x0ece/mempa-a-modern-deterministic- pass...](https://medium.com/@0x0ece/mempa-a-modern-deterministic-password- manager-2c0f28fa108b)

</comment><comment><USER15> 1) Poe ([http://getpoe.com](http://getpoe.com))

Distraction free writing app for Windows 10. Lots of neat tools for authors. planning to go cross-platform soon

2) Flatnote ([http://roryok.com/flatnote](http://roryok.com/flatnote))

Simple Evernote / Onenote etc alternative which stores your files as plain text / markdown files in a dropbox folder. Mobile versions coming soon

3) Various partially finished novels and short stories

</comment><comment><USER8> Plsm - [https://github.com/jhartwell/plsm](https://github.com/jhartwell/plsm) \- An Elixir library to generate Ecto models from existing databases

I'm working on a few other things now that aren't ready. First is a site that allows you to test REST services from the browser. Think Postman but in the browser.

Second is an Elixir library for the Chicago Metra Rail API.

</comment><comment><USER16> [https://www.niftyword.com](https://www.niftyword.com) A word exploration site that shows words often used together, derived words, related words etc

[https://www.camerasforpros.com](https://www.camerasforpros.com) A site cataloging most recommended camera gear on StackExchange and Reddit.

</comment><comment><USER17> Since I am always trying to decide between various side projects to work on (and gadgets to choose from), I built a simple website that help me decide: [https://HelpMeDecide.today](https://HelpMeDecide.today)

Not really finished because I got distracted with some other projects, but I will finish it one day.

</comment><comment><USER18> 1) [https://github.com/Ahnfelt/react4s](https://github.com/Ahnfelt/react4s)

2) [https://github.com/Ahnfelt/funk](https://github.com/Ahnfelt/funk)

3) 4) 5) a game, a language, a db

React4s is React for Scala.js - with automatic shouldComponentUpdate.

Funk is a toy programming language which has been described as "functional Smalltalk".

</comment><comment><USER19> [https://engineered.at](https://engineered.at)

Feed Aggregator with HN/Reddit style front end. Haven't put much time into it since deploying 6 months ago, hoping to do some work over the holidays. Next step is summaries/excerpts from each post, and automated hash tagging using some simple machine learning.

<comment><USER20> sup bros!

</comment></comment><comment><USER21> [http://deadcoins.com](http://deadcoins.com) \- A list of dead crypto.

</comment><comment><USER22> 1) unfinished HN clone in Hack (probably dead)

2...n) Game dev projects in various degrees of disrepair[0], eventually leading to... something.

[0][https://bitbucket.org/kennethrapp/gamedevprojects/src](https://bitbucket.org/kennethrapp/gamedevprojects/src)

</comment><comment><USER23> [https://rebrickable.com](https://rebrickable.com) \- A LEGO database that shows you which sets you can build from your existing collection, also includes thousands of fan-submitted designs.

</comment><comment><USER24> I am looking to write blogs from the stuff I learn daily about learning a programming language called Clojure, simple hacks which I build and work on Open source stuff. I'm planning to learn designing as well.

</comment><comment><USER25> [https://logmyhours.com](https://logmyhours.com) \- Time Tracking & Invoicing. Hoping this one will replace my full-time job in 2018.

</comment><comment><USER26> 1) [https://www.recapped.io](https://www.recapped.io)

2) [http://www.sellsomemore.com/coaching](http://www.sellsomemore.com/coaching)

</comment><comment> jonathan-kosgei [https://ipdata.co](https://ipdata.co) \- a Free IP Geolocation API I've been working on the last few months

</comment><comment><USER27> A service for monitoring cron jobs and scheduled tasks - [https://www.cronalarm.com](https://www.cronalarm.com)

</comment><comment><USER28> 1) YouTube Channel

2) Board Game design/publication/editing

3) B2B SaaS solutions for Education

4) Woodworking

#3 is the most profitable, but I'm less passionate about it compared to 1 and 2.

<comment><USER29> What exactly in "B2B SaaS solutions for Education"

<comment><USER28> I work in Education. There are a surprisingly small number of vendors that are willing to do little projects in the space. When I hear "I wish we had something to do X", I take notes and come back with offers to build X. Recently, I've decided to make this my own Project as my employer is shuttering it's doors in 6 months.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER30> [https://bestfoodnearme.com](https://bestfoodnearme.com) food dishes by location.

</comment><comment><USER31> 1) Automotive Analytics web app 2) Open swimming (in lake) tracker for swim clubs (mobile web app)

</comment><comment><USER32> 1) Stock trading robots

2) see 1)

</comment><comment><USER33> Daily New York Times crossword.</comment>


Google Store warranty horror story: what to do next? - <AUTHOR> I have been an happy owner of a Nexus 6p phone, bought in the UK Google Store, for the past 2.5 years. Yesterday though, when I went to check my email, I found it stuck in the Google boot loop. This is a quite well known issue with the phone, and the factory reset didn't help bringing it back to life.
I got in touch with Google Store customer support, and here is where the problems start. The phone is still on warranty, but:
* They no longer have Nexus 6p on stock, so they can't give me a replacement.
* Since I moved to Canada, I have closed the bank account I used to originally pay the phone, which, according to them, means I can't get a refund.
The second customer support person I spoke with mentioned that I might still be able to get a refund on a new UK bank account, but I'd have to find somebody in the UK to go through all the required steps for me, which is not really an option.
All in all, this basically means I am stuck with a 500£ phone that is still under warranty, but apparently Google refuses to do anything about it. Has anybody had a similar experience? What do you think is the best next step in this situation?
Thanks!
PS: I know there are hacks to fix the issue, but the ones I have found void the warranty and basically require you to throttle the phone, which I would argue is not an ideal solution. <comment><USER2> I know it _FEELS_ like a 500£ phone, but if you look at ebay it's more like a 35-40£ phone today. Perhaps this helps reframe it? If Google is offering to give you back your original 500£, that seems like an awfully good deal.

I, personally, just went through a similar situation, except my 6p was out of warranty. I use Project Fi and have the device protection $5/mo add-on, and they sent me a top of the line Nexus XL to replace my top of the line 6p, for $100 (the device replacement cost). My 6p also got stuck in the boot loop.

Perhaps ask if a Nexus XL (not Nexus 2) is a replacement option?

Honestly, my 6p was damn near unusable before the replacement. I wouldn't say I have a lot of apps installed, I basically install a set of the ones I use daily and rarely install new ones, but it was incredibly laggy. The Nexus is way better in that regard. Yes, I had some apps I could remove, but pretty much everything on the phone was something I used regularly, most I used daily.

Aside: I was looking at a recent sale on the Nexus 2 XL, which brought it down to more like $800, and they offered $180 trade in on my Nexus XL. I felt like that was kind of low, but when I looked at ebay it turned out that was about right. I decided I'm super happy with my $180 phone! :-)

<comment><USER3> I'm guessing that by "Nexus XL" and "Nexus 2 XL" you mean a "Pixel XL" and "Pixel 2 XL"

<comment><USER2> Oops, you're right.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> A similar issue got me from recommending android and google services to friends/family to actively discouraging them (and migrating off of every service I could feasibly do). The WiFi chip on my nexus 6 burnt out and neither Motorola or google would replace it without paying several hundred dollars (motorola said it was a software issue and google said it was a hardware issue). Looking at forums this was a known issue across every nexus device.

I have zero patience for poor customer service.

<comment><AUTHOR> I am on the same boat. I really love the stock Android experience, and before this issue I was suggesting it to colleagues and friends, and I was considering to possibly upgrade to the Pixel 3 later this year (at least if it lives to the expectations).

After this though, I think I'll look somewhere else, possibly with a company that offers a better customer support.

<comment><USER5> The changing of countries is a big deal. Many companies will have problems supporting that scenario.

It is surprising that google is one of them, though!

<comment><USER6> When my Nexus 5x stopped charging, I realized when doing my exchange that the warranty company wasn't Google. They outsource their device warranties.

In any case I paid $100 and got a working replacement.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Ignoring the phone being under warranty, you may be covered under UK consumer law to request a repair, replacement or refund from the retailer:

[https://www.which.co.uk/consumer-rights/advice/i-want-to- ret...](https://www.which.co.uk/consumer-rights/advice/i-want-to-return-my- goods-what-are-my-rights)

[https://www.which.co.uk/consumer-rights/letter/letter-to- get...](https://www.which.co.uk/consumer-rights/letter/letter-to-get-a-refund- if-your-item-is-faulty)

[https://www.which.co.uk/consumer-rights/advice/how-to- reject...](https://www.which.co.uk/consumer-rights/advice/how-to-reject-a- faulty-product-and-get-your-money-back)

Another angle would be to pursue this based on the terms of your warranty. Do the terms of your warranty restrict the refund to only be to your original payment method? (this seems ridiculous to me). If so, it is possible you may also be able to challenge this under UK consumer law as an unfair contract term: [https://www.which.co.uk/consumer-rights/advice/how-to- compla...](https://www.which.co.uk/consumer-rights/advice/how-to-complain- about-unfair-contract-terms)

> If the extended warranty document makes it look very difficult for you to > claim, or the wording is particularly tricky to understand this could be > regarded as an 'unfair term'.

(disclaimer: i dont live in the UK or know anything about UK consumer law, i'm just some idiot on teh internets, i am not your idiot on teh internets)

</comment><comment><USER8> In my dealing with Google Fi, different reps may offer you different options. I had to call a couple of times on my Nexus 5x. Because of specific business reasons I won't go into, I'd waited a while before trying to get the thing fixed or replaced. I couldn't get it replaced -- I'd apparently missed the window for that, wherein I'd heard of people getting new units or Pixel 1's or the like, perhaps because they'd run out of that stock -- but a subsequent rep did qualify it for repair.

In your case, if it's under warranty, I'd say they owe you service.

Often, in the case of warranty, if a company can't repair a failed unit under warranty, they'll replace it with an equal or better current/available unit. This is not some novel concept.

But, it costs. Google and partners can afford it, and it might be less expensive than all the bad PR.

Look what's happened to LG phones and marketshare, since the whole bootloop fiasco.

Anyway, Google, it's under warranty. Stop fucking around and honor the warranty.

</comment><comment><USER9> Maybe try signing up to one of the challenger banks in the UK? Monzo, Starling or Revolut? The sign up process is a bit easier there.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for the suggestion.

As far as I can remember from my time there, a valid UK address was mandatory in order to open a bank account there, but maybe this is no longer the case (or it isn't for the banks you mention).

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> Sue in small claims court.

I expect that Google will lose and you'll get your money.

<comment><USER11> He bought it in Canada, I doubt he has much grounds to sue in the UK. If he bought it in the UK, that's a whole different story and he has very strong consumer protections.

<comment><AUTHOR> I bought in the UK and then moved to Canada. Google refuses to replace the phone (since they no longer have it in stock), and they claim they can't refund me since the payment method I used to buy the phone (an UK Credit Card) is no longer active, and I don't have an UK bank account.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> Keep escalating through Google customer support. I recommend going through Fi support; I seem to have gotten better service that way. There's also a "reddit request" that you can submit if you go to reddit.com/r/projectfi.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks, I'll try this approach and see how it goes!

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> I'm sorry this happened to you. I don't have a solution for you. Personally I don't trust google with customer service stuff (as well as most other things), which is why I rely on Apple, for better or worse.

</comment><comment><USER14> If you paid for the 6P with a credit card, you might be able to go through them. Many credit card companies have lesser known perks, such as doubling the warranty period of products purchased with that card. If this is the case, you can contact your credit card company and go through them for a replacement/refund.

<comment><USER15> The customer "closed the bank account I used to originally pay (for) the phone", which means that getting the bank to help is probably not an option.

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> Neither of these should be your problem. Google have a duty under the warranty. They can make up internal rules and policies all day long, none of which should be any of your concern. You have a right to a new phone.

</comment><comment><USER17> Just tossing in my two cents: Avoid the Google store at all cost. Their service is absolutely worthless. Getting on the phone is the only way to get anything done.

I bought a pair of headphones from the Google store that ended up having a manufacturing defect, so they sent me a replacement.

It broke again. 2 hours on the phone, and denying me a refund, they sent me another pair.

It broke again. Two more hours on the phone. Deny me a refund. Insist on sending me a replacement. This is where I get upset, so they escalate me to their refund department. Denied a refund, send me a replacement. But, I am assured that if THIS pair breaks, they will refund my purchase.

It broke again. Two more hours on the phone. They tell me I am out of warranty. I throw a conniption. They agree to refund me. They refund me $30 of the $180 I spent on the defective headphones. Two more hours. FINALLY after hours and hours of talking on the phone, I get a refund. 5 months and 4 pairs of headphones later.

The whole process was demeaning and wasteful. I did not love opening up and throwing away boxes upon boxes of packaging. I did not love the fact that they probably received the defective headphones and threw them into the trash. Their refund policy was asinine and TECHNICALLY, they made an exception for me because I made it clear I was going to continue accepting the replacement headphones and sending them back when they inevitably broke again just to waste their time and money. At one point the support person suggested that it is a known issue with the headphones, but not something they were acknowledging yet.

Ironically, the only thing wrong with the headphones was a defective 3.5mm to USB-C cable which would disconnect due to a weak connection at the USB-C end. Initially I told them I just want another cable, but they would only accept a full return.

tldr: the Google Store has a bullshit return and refund policy and you should NEVER buy anything from the google store if you can help it.

<comment><AUTHOR> I am sorry to hear you had such a bad experience with them.

I wish I had researched more around Google Store customer support before making my purchase: now that I know, I'll avoid it as much as I can.

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> I bought a 6p on launch day and my warranty has long expired. How is yours still active?</comment>


Story behind the 'Do you use your real identity on Hacker News?' poll - <AUTHOR> http://blog.binarybalance.com.au/2010/10/17/story-behind-the-do-you-use-your-real-identity-on-hacker-news-poll

<comment><USER2> repost of a comment I left there:

As long as I've been in business I have never seen such an amount of vitriol as from the anonymous coward the first comment here, and his 'contributions' to various HN discussions, but he illustrates my point quite nicely.

Ever since I posted my perspective on [http://jacquesmattheij.com/The+pros+and+cons+of+%27fuck+you%...](http://jacquesmattheij.com/The+pros+and+cons+of+%27fuck+you%27+money) 'fuck you money' (for want of a better term) there seems to have developed something like the negative equivalent of a fan club.

What I find amusing is that none of these 'anonymous cowards' are nearly as anonymous as they think they are. Their trails (nicknames, ip addresses, writing styles and so on) usually make it fairly easy to identify them anyway. To a man I've never had any real life contact with these people and I've always wondered what is driving their hatred.

A friend of mine - female - who is a local celebrity has a file folder full of nastygrams, she jokingly refers to it as the kill-file, in case she ever gets murdered we should go through it, the culprit will surely be in there somewhere.

One part of why the HN community attracts negative attention from time to time I think is that being rejected for YC is a slap in the face to some that can't understand the difference between limited time and resources and a thing to take personal.

So they will rant about the 'cult' around PG, as if by trashing it they can make themselves feel better for not being a part of it.

On the highway, you need a driving license, on the internet you need no such thing, which is good, but comes with inevitable downsides as well.

Personally I couldn't care less about these childish attempts at attacking me, one funny fragment from the comment referenced seems to imply that I should be the one to want to do business with some vitriol spouting troll, see, that's what I meant with real life collaboration flowing from writing and interacting under your own name with others. That way you know a bit more about the people you're dealing with, which is a very useful filter in a world full of possibilities.

<comment><AUTHOR> Repost of my reply:

@Jacques: the last thing I was expecting in response to my post was a near incoherent rant from a disgruntled HN user. But yes, I'm glad that Mr Anonymous was able to so deftly demonstrate the downside of online anonymity and thereby reinforce the conclusion of my post. I don't think I've personally had any direct contact with you before now and I did not really have any preconceived opinion of you or your contributions to HN. But if it's between even handed and civil comments or over the top bitter trolling with a side of character assassination, that's not a hard choice.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> I ran a similar poll on this issue 200 days ago: <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1232020></comment>


386BSD - <AUTHOR> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/386BSD <comment><AUTHOR> >"Further reading Jolitz, William F. and Jolitz, Lynne Greer: Porting UNIX to the 386: A Practical Approach, 17-part series in Dr. Dobb's Journal, January 1991 – July 1992:[9][10]

Jan/1991: DDJ "Designing a Software Specification"

Feb/1991: DDJ "Three Initial PC Utilities"

Mar/1991: DDJ "The Standalone System"

Apr/1991: DDJ "Language Tools Cross-Support"

May/1991: DDJ "The Initial Root Filesystem"

Jun/1991: DDJ "Research and the Commercial Sector: Where Does BSD Fit In?"

Jul/1991: DDJ "A Stripped-Down Kernel"

Aug/1991: DDJ "The Basic Kernel"

Sep/1991: DDJ "Multiprogramming and Multiprocessing, Part I"

Oct/1991: DDJ "Multiprogramming and Multiprocessing, Part II"

Nov/1991: DDJ "Device Autoconfiguration"

Feb/1992: DDJ "UNIX Device Drivers, Part I"

Mar/1992: DDJ "UNIX Device Drivers, Part II"

Apr/1992: DDJ "UNIX Device Drivers, Part III"

May/1992: DDJ "Missing Pieces, Part I"

Jun/1992: DDJ "Missing Pieces, Part II"

Jul/1992: DDJ "The Final Step: Running Light with 386BSD"

Jolitz, William F. and Jolitz, Lynne Greer: Operating System Source Code Secrets Vol 1 The Basic Kernel, 1996, ISBN 1-57398-026-9

Jolitz, William F. and Jolitz, Lynne Greer: Operating System Source Code Secrets Vol 2 Virtual Memory, 2000, ISBN 1-57398-027-7"</comment>


Check if someone or your neighbor is stealing your wi-fi - <AUTHOR> http://www.labofweb.com/how-to-find-if-someone-else-is-stealing-your-wifi/

<comment><USER2> Eh? Two options: 1) you leave your wifi unsecured intentionally, and are hence willing to have bandwidth 'stolen' OR 2) you use WEP (I know, I know) etc or MAC address limiting to restrict access

Also, my modem's admin mode lists active connections, and can log activity.

So what was the point of this article again? Detection of use != prevention (as claimed by the writer)</comment>


DC Taxi Commission Proposes New Rules to Shut Down Uber - <AUTHOR> http://blog.uber.com/2012/09/20/here-we-go-again-dc-taxi-commission-proposes-new-rules-to-shut-down-uber/ <comment><USER2> As a Libertarian I find this downright revolting. Unions and government working together against progress and free market forces. It does nothing to improve quality of service or to allow competition to lower costs. It is simply repugnant. When will people realize that unions --and those in government who favor and feed them-- are helping destroy this country from the inside out?

<comment><USER3> As a liberal I find libertarians downright revolting. When will these society supported and overwhelming rich (or "going to be rich") technical males realise that the government created the industries they worked in through decades long investment where the free market failed to do so. When will they realize that their entire philosophy centers around a sociopathic psychological bias (<http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Just-world_hypothesis>) and should essentially be known as a little more than a psychological disorder? When will they understand that free markets are not natural phenomena but the artificial creation of governments for the benefit of society and subject to the corrupting influences of market participants which turn most free markets into cartels without the pressure of regulation holding it back?

<comment><USER4> Whoa, you should at least steelman libertarian beliefs before you assault a strawman position.

Anyway, government is also responsible for creating cartels and monopolies, some of which lot of people justify. For example, patents should be granted to people for the purpose of encouraging innovation. However, it's more like granting a legal weapon to beat competitors into submission. The AT&T for example, wages war against the telephone independents using their patents.

How do you prevent governments from simply becoming the lackeys of rent- seeking corporations? I had no fricking clues. Those libertarians seem to think elimination is the answer.

<comment><USER2> I don't think elimination is reasonable. I do think that massive reduction in, numbers, reach and powers is.

As and example: I don't want to be at war with ANYONE. I don't want my government to have the power to unilaterally start them or get involved in them. If there's conflict it should be US, the people, who vote on these things. Why? Because these kinds of things can and will affect us, our children and their children. I don't want a vote-grabbing whore to be able to make those decisions.

War is just one example of what I see as government over-reach. It happens to be one of the best examples that everyone can easily understand.

Look at the history of the World Wars. Government started them. Governments. Not people. Tens of millions of people died. Imagine the entire population of California, Florida, Illinois, New York state, Ohio, Pennsylvania and Texas killed off. Everyone dies. That's probably less people than those who died during the World Wars. Isn't that sickening? You an imagine that, right? Well, governments started these wars. Not the people who died. Not their kids.

We've become overly permissive with those who govern us. They get away with, almost literally, murder. Not sure what will stop it or change the course.

<comment><USER5> > Governments. Not people.

I've never known a government to start a war. I've known people that make up a government to start one, however.

> We've become overly permissive with those who govern us.

We are not qualified to decide how we are governed, but we are qualified to start a war?

> I don't want a vote-grabbing whore to be able to make those decisions.

So who should make the decision? Only those that vote?

> Not sure what will stop it or change the course.

Definitely not with flame-induced rants like this. You choose words precisely to evoke emotion. Rather than approach this rationally, you hide behind passion, and hope that anyone reading this will be to emotional one way or another to understand what you are trying to say.

In every way, you are acting the part of the vote-grabbing whore you so disdain.

<comment><USER6> That's seriously splitting hairs. By extension you are saying "I don't know anyone in government who started a war they simply signed a piece of paper giving authority to other humans to start killing another group of humans and the money to do so."

Wars only destroy so when no one is threatening you in any serious way engaging in them is crazy.

<comment><USER5> > That's seriously splitting hairs.

No, it's not. And by extension, I'm saying anything of the sort.

OP keeps using the word government and then people, as if the two are distinct and different. It's a technique to make you ignore the fact that the government isn't some other being. It's made up of people.

Treating the government as some alien entity is a political tactic used to frighten people.

> Wars only destroy so when no one is threatening you in any serious way > engaging in them is crazy.

That's a rather naive look, and ignores the own premise set forth by the OP I was responding to (in his case, the people should decide).

He's under the belief that the people wouldn't have supported war with Iraq (despite overwhelming support in 2003 for the war).

So, I'm not sure what you are really trying to say? On one hand, the OP says we should attack regardless of a direct threat. On the other hand, you say we should only attack unless we are seriously threatened (and the will of the people be damned). Maybe you think we should be seriously threatened _and_ require that people support the war? This would of course require that people be told how the threat is seriously threatening them.

And that's how we got into the war with Iraq.

<comment><USER6> Ok well it seems like you are confusing the concept of society and government. They aren't the same thing.

By serious threat I really mean someone is attacking you actively. No sure how you would ever seriously think Iraq could injure the United States. They had to tell quite a few lies to convince people of that.

<comment><USER5> > They had to tell quite a few lies to convince people of that.

If the government started the war, why would they have to tell lies to convince the people?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> It's like a criminal racket, except it's the city doing it.

<comment><USER7> Some scenes from the inside:

[http://www.washingtonpost.com/local/crime/dc-taxi- official-t...](http://www.washingtonpost.com/local/crime/dc-taxi-official- turned-fbi-informant-recalls-role-in-corruption- probe/2012/04/02/gIQAErYhrS_story.html)

I like the imagery of the murderous taxi kingpin driving a gold-painted Mercedes. (page 3)

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> As a business strategy, this kind of brinkmanship wouldn't make me sleep well at night.

Basically Uber goes into a city, hires drivers, outfits them with equipment and starts operations. And for what it's worth, the service is awesome.

By the time the city & existing cab and livery drivers notice and want to do something about it, they've look like the bad guys, are anti-competetive and they've turned the public against them.

It's clever, but I can't help but think they'll end up with a situation soon that doesn't end up working out in their favor.

<comment><USER9> So Uber should pass out flyers to all competitors before it moves into a town?

As long as good ethics are used, it is called business competition and is generally a good thing. Do you think Uber is doing anything unethical? From the parent link, it appears not, and some of the rules Uber pointed out seem arbitrary and downright anti-competitive.

What really pisses me off is when people try and use legislation as a competitive advantage. That is unethical and it does make them look like your description: "By the time the city & existing cab and livery drivers notice and want to do something about it, they've look like the bad guys, are anti- competetive and they've turned the public against them."

<comment><USER8> No, I think you're missing my point.

Uber is doing this expecting the cities and existing players to get pissed off and try to stop them. And then they publicize the anti-competetive nature of it.

That's their strategy. Get local news to write about how the city & cabbies are trying to shut them down. It's great marketing.

And it benefits Uber not to talk to local government prior to launching as long as they follow the letter of the law.

This is a genius strategy. But if I were the CEO, it would cause me stress that all of my drivers in a given city might be forced to not work indefinitely because I'm not getting the OK first. Maybe that won't happen.

<comment><USER10> No other business has to ask the city if the city is planning on changing the laws to shut them down. Why do you expect Uber needs to do that? The fact that changes to laws are being proposed in order to shut Uber down proves that Uber is perfectly legal under the current laws, which means Uber is well within its rights to open up shop without asking permission. In fact, if Uber were public and I was a shareholder, I'd be pretty pissed-off if Uber actually asked for permission first, because that's just asking to be shut down.

Any sort of disruptive business will get lots of pushback and anticompetitive pressures from the existing incumbents. There's no reason why Uber needs to make it easier for someone else to block them from operating.

<comment><USER11> I think just like alecdibble, you're missing the point. sudonim isn't commenting on the ethics or legality of Uber's strategy, but putting him/herself in the Uber CEO's shoes and imagining the stress associated with executing on a strategy that depends on pissing powerful people off.

Again, it's a brilliant strategy, but might be a stressful experience if you're on Uber's side of the table.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> Non-driver here, so I use taxis and private car services almost exclusively in northern California (My many thousands of trips over 10 years have probably moved from the class of "anecdote" into "data").

I've used Uber a couple times. It's pricey ($49 for a $33 taxi trip) but fantastic for those who can afford it.

Uber is better than taxi's in many ways:

o Taxi will frequently not take a trip if it doesn't like where it's coming from ("Bad neighborhood") - Uber doesn't tell the driver where you are until they accept the trip.

o Taxi will ask where you are going, and decline the trip if they don't like how much they'll make. Uber driver asks you where you are going, after you are in the vehicle.

o Taxi will sometimes take a trip, while they already have one - resulting in 30-45 minutes extra delay - hard to do with Uber when you can see where they are traveling.

o Taxi on the peninsula is usually 30-45 minute wait. Uber is < 15 minutes on average

o Drivers in Taxi's can be somewhat "eccentric" on the peninsula (As in, some of them scare me, they are so crazy). Uber Drivers are professional, rated.

o Vehicles in Taxi's are pretty craptastic sometimes. I've had to have the driver open my door (god forbid we get in an accident) - ubers vehicles professional Sedans.

o Airport Drivers will sometimes try and scam you for a 50% surcharge when they are still "in zone". They even try and pull that on someone like me who flys in and out of SFO on a monthly basis - I can imagine how many just accept it. Uber charges are identified _before_ you book your trip.

o Lots of taxis will not take credit cards, or (try to) charge you a 10% surcharge - some of them would even RETURN to SFO when they discover you don't have cash. Uber is 100% electronic. No cash/credit card required, just your Smart Phone.

I love the electronic receipts, rating on the driver, certainty about when the vehicle is arriving.

On the peninsula, you pay about a 50% premium (or more, depending on demand), which is represented in the much higher quality trip you get.

I think if Uber was prepared to stick with that "premium" market, then the commissions wouldn't have a problem with them. Their concern is that, much like AirBNB was a trojan horse to get into the Renting Apartments/compete with hotels market, Uber is going to start competing with regular taxis - and for someone who has paid > $1mm for a medallion ([http://blogs.reuters.com/felix- salmon/2011/10/21/why-taxi-me...](http://blogs.reuters.com/felix- salmon/2011/10/21/why-taxi-medallions-cost-1-million/)) they are going to demand some sort of recompense and/or action be taken.

My guess is that there will be a strong correlation between cost of medallions and the resistance to Uber in any particular market.

What I would love to see, is that TAXI services adopt the uber model of source blind/closest taxi gets the trip/rate your driver/GPS location of Taxi/electronic receipts. It would be good for the industry, good for the customers, and good for the reputable drivers/services.

The only ones who would lose out would be the crappy services, with poorly maintained vehicles, and lousy drivers .

<comment><USER13> Already had a taxi assuring me the trip from the airport to my place was well under $20, as I had only a $20 bill and no active credit card. I asked him before hand if he was absolutely sure and that I wouldn't be able to pay more. I had 30Kg of luggage so I figured it was a good idea.

When we reached $20 at 70% of the way, he said "so ill bring you to the nearest ATM and you'll pay the diff ok?". I said no. He opened the door. I walked home. With my 30Kg. Yay.

I'd certainly take a non-taxi company whenever I wanna be _sure_. Sorry for honest taxi drivers.

<comment><USER12> That's one I've never heard of before. Taxi drivers have a lot of flaws, but they are pre-programmed to take you to a safe-destination. Also - I do a _lot_ of fare negotiation on longer trips (I rarely, if ever, pay meter from anywhere but the airport), and, in 10 years, I've never had a driver back out on a deal.

In particular, on a long fare, say, San Francisco to Mountain View, if it's a slow time with light traffic (weekend afternoons) - I can usually get a $150 trip for $75, and never more than $100.

<comment><USER13> Yeah I wasnt very happy that day. ;-)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> As long as Uber is proving a useful service in a lawful manner, not ripping people off, the the city should let the consumers decide whether they should stay in business.

If they are such a threat to the DC cab industry the cab companies would do well to adopt some of the techniques that are making Uber so successful.

<comment><USER15> The problem is that the DC cab industry was so corrupt that they ended up heavily regulated. Now those regulations do not allow them to do things that Uber does. The fix isn't to outlaw Uber, but to allow the taxis to compete in the same way.

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> It's sad that in order to stay in business, start-ups might have to instate a position as CPO: Chief Political Officer.

<comment><USER17> Well if you are disrupting old established markets then they will have already coated themselves with political armor, that the livery business goes back several centuries its not surprising that this is so. That said, it would behoove more companies that are attacking such markets (music distribution, and publishing come to mind) have a person who does exactly this, they look at public policy and the way it is being manipulated by the 'competition' and work to counteract that manipulation. John Gage at Sun had the title Chief Science Officer but his day to day duties involved understanding government processes, political movers and shakers, and how those processes worked for, against, or neutral with respect to Sun's goals. He was instrumental in getting me access to the NSA when we wanted to ship strong encryption in an interpreted language.

<comment><USER16> I wonder if the necessary consequence of this is to get involved with lobbyists. Not necessarily to lobby, just to pay them for an understanding of how the local politics work.

This would also be a big bonus to YC, if they managed to provide domain knowledge in this respect. Because what the hell are you supposed to do in a situation like that as a fledgling start-up?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> pg on Twitter several months ago: "Uber is so obviously a good thing that you can measure how corrupt cities are by how hard they try to suppress it."

</comment><comment><USER19> Taxi drivers are heavily regulated already, including rates, posted information, what they can and can't do and in at least one case how they can bill/accept money. In Boston a taxi driver told me the city mandates they use a city provided credit card method that charges them 8% and holds the money for week.

I'm not for regulation but anyone who's ever been scammed by a driver will appreciate it.

If all the taxi drivers have to live under these regulations, why would a 'private' taxi service be able to skirt them all? Uber should be held to the same standard and we should work on reforming the overall regulations to allow for more innovation for all.

</comment><comment><USER20> I know about the DC taxi commission a little bit...they will go anywhere, and do anything to protect their bottom line.

<comment><USER21> The bottom line of the commission? Aren't they a government agency?

<comment><USER22> Taxi commissions make a significant amount of money from Taxi medallions. They can cost anywhere from $200k-$1 million dollars each in some cities.

<comment><USER21> No, they don't. There are no medallions in DC. And any money they "make" goes to the city's general fund anyway.

<comment><USER22> Ah you're right.

Only source I could find about revenue is how they added $9.9 million in revenue by increasing the surcharge by 50 cents and recently awarded a $35 million dollar contract to Verifone.

So they must be generating some significant amount of money still.

[http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/mike- debonis/post/final-...](http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/mike- debonis/post/final-vote-on-dc-taxi-overhaul-set-for- today/2012/07/10/gJQAjQQUaW_blog.html)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> I'm all for more efficiency, but can these companies who add more efficiency to the economy really suggest they are "creating 1000s of jobs." By definition, if you are making an industry more efficient aren't you taking away people's jobs?</comment>


Tim O'Reilly on big data, social networks and the future of print - <AUTHOR> http://www.linuxvoice.com/interview-tim-oreilly/

<comment><USER2> Always great to read Tim's thoughts on the future of science and publishing. It's not mentioned in the article, but he's also invested in PeerJ ([https://peerj.com/](https://peerj.com/)), a new open access journal that's pioneering a 'pay once for life' membership model.

More details on the O'Reilly investment here: [http://blog.peerj.com/post/91251985913/exciting-times- peerj-...](http://blog.peerj.com/post/91251985913/exciting-times-peerj- secures-next-round-of)

(I'm not involved with PeerJ directly, but I should say that we're working with them on opening up science; I'm one of the founders of Overleaf ([https://www.overleaf.com](https://www.overleaf.com)), the collaborative writing and publishing platform that grew out of writeLaTeX. Send me a message if you'd like more info.)

</comment><comment><USER3> I was just introduced to the article "The Meme Hustler" about Tim O'Reilly [1], where Evgeny Morozov discusses, among other things, how O'Reilly spins social movements (Free Software) into depoliticized economic arguments (Open Source).

Seems odd that Linux Voice would lead with "Meet Free Software, internet and publishing visionary, Tim O'Reilly" when he was so active in advocating the term "Open Source" instead of "Free Software".

[1] [http://www.thebaffler.com/salvos/the-meme- hustler](http://www.thebaffler.com/salvos/the-meme-hustler)</comment>


SDPaxos: Building efficient semi-decentralized geo-replicated state machines - <AUTHOR> https://muratbuffalo.blogspot.com/2018/11/sdpaxos-building-efficient-semi.html <comment><USER2> After going through the article, I'm not seeing anything that supports or justifies the phrase "decentralized" or even "semi-decentralized". The terminology should be "distributed".

Claiming this is semi-decentralized is confusing, and seemingly wanting to borrow from the recent success of decentralized systems (like IPFS, ours, GUN, and others) without being honest: There system is distributed, not decentralized. In the same way "Serverless" totally requires using servers.

Otherwise, very good article.

<comment><USER3> I'm not sure the distinction that you're making between "distributed" and "decentralized" is commonly accepted in the research community (or broader technology community). In this context, the authors appear to be using "decentralized" to contrast with the "centralized" nature of leader-based state machine replication protocols.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> anyone familiar with the algorithm can help answer a few question?

1- Why C-instance can come from any node without a paxos phase 1a Prepare message, is it because each node (R0 to R4) have its own distinct replication log for C-instance?

2-When sequencer receive a C-Accept why is it safe to assume this value was successfully accepted by other replica without receiving a paxos phase3 Commit?

3-If replicating large value, are the value only sent in C-instance message and not in O-instance messages?

<comment><USER5> 1) Yes.

1& 2) In fact the C-instance messages do not conflict with each other and gets accepted immediately. These messages do not even need a ballotnum, but the ballotnum used is that of the O-instance to denote sort of an epoch of which sequencer the sender thinks is still in-charge.

3) If replication messages are large, you can just order the "commands" referring/pointing to them via Paxos, and not necessarily the data itself.

<comment><USER4> for 3) I mean O-instance is the commmand itself replicated or just the node id ?

<comment><USER5> Yes, for O-instance it could be as small as the command id.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Curious, why Paxos over Raft?

<comment><USER7> Note that there's 3-10 variants of Paxos depending on who you ask and how many research papers you've read.

Paxos has different performance characteristics, different implementations, and more maturity.

There is no simple answer to your question unless you make it more specific.

<comment><USER6> Considering we're talking about distributed state-machines, I am curious why you would choose Paxos, a more complex algorithm over Raft. Raft, to my knowledge provides the same guarantees as Paxos, and is simpler to understand and implement.

I am no expert on Paxos - just hoping for an explanation.

<comment><USER4> Paxos itself and not something built on top of Paxos like multi Paxos is in fact super simple compared to raft.

Where it get complicated is trying to build a practical replicated log system using Paxos. Raft just happen to clearly and completely define this use case.

What SDPaxos or EPaxos try to achieve is good performance over WAN. Something that Raft and any Paxos variant that rely on a stable leader are very bad at.

This can't be easily added to raft because the main reason the raft algorithm is simpler is because it assume a stable leader in every operation except leader election.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


ElectricPork: Electron app that helps you write and publish threads on Twitter - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/scripting/electricPork#electricpork <comment><USER2> Demo video by the creator here - [https://twitter.com/davewiner/status/906191200838877184](https://twitter.com/davewiner/status/906191200838877184)

This is made by the same person who developed [http://pork.io/](http://pork.io/) , which is a very useful web app for creating a tweet storm.</comment>


The Diversity Staff at the University of Michigan Is Nearly 100 People - <AUTHOR> http://www.intellectualtakeout.org/article/diversity-staff-university-michigan-nearly-100-full-time-employees <comment><USER2> Why is this flagged?

<comment><USER3> It's a clickbait article with almost no substance. It lifts all data from [https://www.aei.org/publication/more-on-my-efforts-to- advanc...](https://www.aei.org/publication/more-on-my-efforts-to-advance- diversity-equity-and-inclusion/) and adds some lazy commentary.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> This reminds me of Professor Doom's rantings like this one

"Illinois University: Cut Faculty Pay To Zero" [http://professorconfess.blogspot.com/2018/05/illinois- univer...](http://professorconfess.blogspot.com/2018/05/illinois-university- cut-faculty-pay-to.html)

</comment><comment><USER5> Tuition increases are mainly due to expanding administrative staff subsidized by a bottomless supply of $120 billion+ yearly in federally guaranteed student loans. If you aren't rich (or destitute and eligible for a full ride) you're going to take a big hit.

<comment><USER6> You don't have to be destitute to get quite a lot of tuition assistance at Michigan's Ann Arbor campus:

[https://admissions.umich.edu/costs-aid/michigan- residents](https://admissions.umich.edu/costs-aid/michigan-residents)

The $11 million divided across 45,000 students is $250, so hardly the main component of the $15,000 tuition.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> What I got out of the article is you can almost use the letters in diversity to spell divides.</comment>


Why Apple had a secret meeting with app developers to discuss the App Store - <AUTHOR> https://www.businessinsider.de/apple-secret-meeting-developers-new-york-subscriptions-app-store-2018-7 <comment><USER2> Frankly the subscriptions goal won't really work unless it's the _only_ option, required for all, and "end subscription" simply means "no more updates" (as opposed to "broken app").

Given that model, you aren't risking much by daring to ask your customers to opt in, as literally any other app they can buy would have the same deal. And customers wouldn't risk much either, as worst-case they pay your initial price and have to keep what they have.

A really nice feature, if Apple is serious about this, would be to have a "resume" price that kicks in _based on_ how _long_ it's been since the customer last paid. That way, feel free to stop paying but don't expect to come back in 2 years and get all the latest updates for nothing.

</comment><comment><USER3> Fuck Apple. Just another snippet to add to the "Apple hates consumers" pile.</comment>


Ask HN: Favorite Android App to Browse HN? - <AUTHOR> <comment><USER2> Honestly I just use the web interface with HN Replies[0]. Non of the Android apps I have tried support notifications which defeats the purpose entirely for me.

[0]: [http://www.hnreplies.com/](http://www.hnreplies.com/)

</comment><comment><USER3> Materialistic

<comment><USER4> Yeah, is there any other?

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> Why do you need App when you can browse HN in preinstalled browser?

<comment><USER4> It has a dark theme. That's really the only reason I use Materialistic.</comment></comment>