Titans Of Industry Don't Really Like Free Markets - <AUTHOR> http://www.cjr.org/the_audit/debit_credit_interchange_fees.php?page=all <comment><USER3> I can't help but think that it is advantageous for a general population to have government regulate currencies, be they physical objects, promissory notes, or digital representations.

If you follow the history of currency from a piece of gold of unknown purity, to gold coins produced by governments, to the establishment of central banks, to outlawing privately issued banknotes, to fiat currencies...

...you'll notice that all of these are created to keep up with the demands of a technologically driven advancement in the state of economic affairs.

If I showed up to your store with a lump of gold for trade, we would have to go find someone we both trusted to figure out how pure it was. That takes time and money. That inhibits commerce from taking place.

Having the government get involved and eventually come to manage the digital exchange of currency would be no different than these analogous historical transitions.

It doesn't make sense to completely rely on private companies for a type of economic transaction that has already become the dominant way that value is exchanged. Especially when those private companies require the full backing of nation-states and their currencies to even have any sort of business model to begin with. Why else would Visa and MasterCard have not yet created their own currencies?

You can't have a free market if you don't have a viable marketplace to begin with.

<comment><USER4> >> If I showed up to your store with a lump of gold for trade, we would have to go find someone we both trusted to figure out how pure it was. That takes time and money. That inhibits commerce from taking place.

It's the same with paper. If I show up to your store with a note and tell you it's worth x amount, a third party who we both trust has to back up that that note is indeed worth that value.

You're solution, which isn't really a solution at all, is to just have the government take the place of that third party. This is replacing a free market with a coercive monopoly, and carries with it the same repercussions as any other type of anti-free-market regulation.

Now we both still agree to treat my note or gold as having x value because it is endorsed by a third party, but now we choose this third party not out of trust, but because there really isn't much of a choice.

So now that there aren't any competing currencies, innovations like the ones you mentioned will happen much slower, and since maintaining our trust is no longer needed, the criteria for ensuring that a certain paper note or gold piece actually has it's claimed value will be much less strict.

Now the currency-regulator can do things like print too many paper bills, devaluing bills individually, while putting the value of the newly printed bills right into their pocket--and without repercussion.

And I think that's only the tip of the iceberg. Regulating currency is no different than regulating telephone lines or corn.

You said "You can't have a free market if you don't have a viable marketplace to begin with", but government regulated currency isn't a viable marketplace at all, and you really can't build a free market on top of an unfree one anyways.

<comment><USER3> Well, there WERE competing currencies in place for a time. The advent of paper currency comes from privately issued banknotes, which were legal in the UK until the Bank Charter Act of 1844.

The reason they pushed for it? Basically, private banks were printing too many banknotes and causing bouts of inflation. This was in a time when currencies were still backed by gold.

Here is the speech by Robert Peel that convinced Parliament (as well as myself) that this was a good course of action to follow: <http://www.historyhome.co.uk/polspeech/bank.htm>

If you made a papery currency, what is it backed by? A big pile of gold? Do you have a lot of men with guns defending that big pile of gold?

What is backing a fiat currency like the $US? Trust that the country will continue to exist? The might of the armed forces? It is a number of things, but the conditions are very difficult to reproduce without a lot of cold, hard steel moving around at high speeds through land, sea, and air.

<comment><USER4> >> The reason they pushed for it? Basically, private banks were printing too many banknotes and causing bouts of inflation.

Good to know we don't have to worry about that anymore...

IANAEconomist, but I think what the banks were doing then couldn't really be considered free-market either, since they were engaging in a type of fraud by telling people they're notes were backed by so much real gold, when that wasn't the case at all.

But then how regulating that sort of fraud fits in with free market vs regulation might be getting a little deeper into the issue than I really want to go right know so take that with a grain of salt :)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Related point: big corporations _love_ regulation, since they can afford the cost but startups they might otherwise have to compete with cannot.

<comment><USER6> Here I think you can distinguish between types of regulation. Lots of _bureaucracy_ , with forms to fill in and specific certifications to get can be onerous to startups. For example, having to get FCC approval for wireless devices falls into this category. There isn't really a way around this, other than to make sure the bureaucracy is not excessive, which brings us to a tautology - excessive bureaucracy is excessive.

However, much regulation is done proactively, for free. For example, restaurants don't pay for food hygiene inspectors, and if they have good hygiene practices the costs are minimal (and if they don't, we _want_ them to fail.)

I agree we want regulation to be of the second type, but sometimes the first type is the only practical way to do it (and you could still make it cheaper, e.g. by doing FCC-compliance tests for free.)

Also, in reality there is a sliding scale for small and innovative companies, e.g. PayPal or Pandora.

TL;DR Bureaucratic love-ins aside, regulation doesn't need to fall any heavier on the little guy than the big guy, and the little guy can often just ignore it (at least until they are big.)

<comment><USER7> > I agree we want regulation to be of the second type, but sometimes the first > type is the only practical way to do it

You're assuming that the benefits of the first type exceed the costs.

Regulation is systemic risk. It's also always captured by the politically powerful.

> Bureaucratic love-ins aside, regulation doesn't need to fall any heavier on > the little guy than the big guy

It may not "need to", but it always does. Walmart can always amortize its regulatory burden over more revenue someone else can. And with the savings, they can get special rules and treatment. They get to write the rules.

Yes, I know that you have good intentions for regulation, but reality trumps.

<comment><USER6> Addressing this in a slightly different order:

> > I agree we want regulation to be of the second type, but sometimes the > first type is the only practical way to do it

> You're assuming that the benefits of the first type exceed the costs.

Yes, that's what I meant when I said "the only practical way to do it." FCC licensing is not prohibitive on innovative, small radio companies, and is hugely beneficial to avoid a tragedy of the commons.

> > Bureaucratic love-ins aside, regulation doesn't need to fall any heavier > on the little guy than the big guy

> It may not "need to", but it always does. Walmart can always amortize its > regulatory burden over more revenue someone else can. And with the savings, > they can get special rules and treatment. They get to write the rules.

Two things: amortizing is unavoidable, but Walmart has more regulatory burden than a corner shop, so it has both more costs and more revenues -- who knows what the ratio is? Often the corner shop avoids regulation costs by getting away with ignoring some of it, which is probably as near to optimal as we can hope to get.

Getting to write the rules, we'll get to that.

> Yes, I know that you have good intentions for regulation, but reality > trumps.

The Clean Air Act, the Factories Act, the Child labour laws, clean water acts, the powers that will be used on BP to make them pay for Deepwater, FCC spectrum allocation. Yes it's political, and yes it's messy, and of course special interests get more than their fair say, but those are problems with democracy, not regulation. My intentions are irrelevant, but reality works out pretty well thank you so very much.

> Regulation is systemic risk. It's also always captured by the politically > powerful.

What's your point? "The politically powerful set the rules" is a tautology. The only way I can see you going from here is hardcore Libertarianism, and I don't bother debating that.

<comment><USER7> > amortizing is unavoidable, but Walmart has more regulatory burden than a > corner shop

Why should walmart have more regulatory burden? It's not like workplace injuries are less severe in a corner shop. It's not like food safety is less important.

> who knows what the ratio is?

Walmart does. It pushes regulations as competitive advantage.

> The only way I can see you going from here is hardcore Libertarianism, and I > don't bother debating that.

Of course not. You think that intentions matter. Me, I'm pissed that you insist on giving my money to the politically well connected and think that that somehow makes you a good person.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Finance is one of the most heavily regulated industries in existence. To hold it up as an example of the pitfalls of unregulated free-markets goes way beyond dishonesty and into the realm of outright stupidity.

<comment><USER9> Where did the article do this?

<comment><USER8> Are you being facetious? The whole point of the article is that Visa and MasterCard are "manipulating" the market so the government has to step in to regulate it some more because clearly the free-market isn't working. The evasion is that the only way to actually manipulate the market is through government policy.

<comment><USER10> "Finance" is a pretty broad word; the payment card market (at least until recently) _has_ been pretty free of regulation, certainly of regulation that would prevent the sort of abuses highlighted in the article.

One interesting point is that the form of regulation that currently exists - the various laws and rules that led to the billion-dollar settlements - <USER2> don't have enough teeth (sort of like the "cost-of-doing-business" fines that gross polluters pay that are barely a day's worth of profits).

<comment><USER11> The trick to getting people to stop polluting is to remove limited liability and enforce property rights. If you have to ensure your business, your insurer will make sure that you follow their regulations and if you don't they won't pay and you'll go bankrupt. The property owner gets to sue the polluter, and thus they get compensated instead of the fine going to the government it goes to those who are hurt.

<comment><USER12> The reason we have limited liability is because we wished to promote company ownership to more people.

Personally I'm right behind the idea of telling people that if they, or their pension fund, owns one share in BP they are jointly and severally liable for the entire corporate obligation of the company.

It's certainly make more people take exercising their oversight duties more seriously. Attendance at shareholder meetings to elect boards would be much higher. But I think it might have a few unexpected impacts on the availability of capital that you should think about. There aren't many people who would be willing to take that risk.

<comment><USER11> I think things would change, but I don't know how much. Through insurance and bonding the risk can be mitigated, but the cost of owning the stock (the rates you need to pay) are now determined by the companies behavior so it becomes in their best interest to not cut corners. By aligning interests the problem goes away.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> This doesn't make sense to me. It's not the behavior of the credit card company that's a problem here. It's the behavior of the merchant. He's quoting the same price to people who pay with cash and people who pay with credit, even though he makes more money on the people who pay with cash.

Why is he doing that? He should be offering them a discount or something. Heck, why is he absorbing the transaction fees and folding them into prices in the first place? Doesn't that just make his prices look bad? Shouldn't he pass the fees on transparently?

That's all that would be needed for competition. Not regulation. The people doing the paying just need to see the price.

<comment><USER14> The credit-card company's agreements bar merchants from offering those sort of discounts:

<http://www.datawedge.com/news/newsletters/june07.htm>

 _This_ is why government action seems reasonable in this case. You can make the argument that we shouldn't have ended up with an effective duopoly, that regulation should be lighter to allow more competition that would drive out this sort of 'rent-seeking' behavior, and I'd be sympathetic. Unfortunately I don't think that sort of wider overhaul is politically possible, and even patching up the existing regulations with yet more seems better than doing nothing.

<comment><USER13> Ah. That's the same problem we encounter with medicine and insurance customers.

Is it ever a good idea to let one party dictate what another can charge a third? Seems an obvious way to leverage a market majority into a monopoly.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> As an American, I remember back when the Republicans passed the "Personal Accountability Act" or some such. The gist was that credit card debt was going to be even harder to get out of when a person goes bankrupt. The spin? People need to be responsible. When they make debts, they have a moral obligation to pay them. Therefore, the government shouldn't help them do something immoral.

Never mind the fact that _the entire business model of credit is based on assuming a risk the borrower doesn't pay_. If government takes away that risk, well, it's like printing money. Which is exactly what the credit card companies are doing.

I was with the author until this point: _That's what should happen in a healthy market. Credit and debit cards aren't a healthy market. That's why regulation is necessary._

Whoa. Hold on a minute. _Regulation is the tool of the monopolist, not his enemy_. I told the story about the Republicans to make a point: the game is for special interests like PACs to write legislation that then makes their members more powerful. The best (sometimes the only) way to do this is to pretend like you're regulating or cleaning up the industry in question.

So the Congressman who's all about cleaning up the finance industry? His staff is the one writing the 2,000 page bill that nobody understands yet somehow will be a boon to the finance industry in the next five years or so. When folks figure out that the bill actually made matters worse, he'll be the guy on TV telling us that what we need is actually _another_ bill, much better than the first one, and the cycle continues. (Just got through reading a great article on just this process from an HN link: [http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/print/2009/05/the- quiet-...](http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/print/2009/05/the-quiet- coup/7364/))

The answer, I think, is that government has a critical role in defining things. How about defining what a life insurance policy is? Make seven different levels. If you sell life insurance, you have to meet one of the levels. Or in this case creating a standardized P2P clearing process for payments? Nobody needs to force people to use it, heck, if you can standardize the way payments are made between parties such that the banks are mostly out of the picture? Visa and MasterCard just go away.

Not that this will happen. Too many connections and powerful people involved. But the point is that there is a spot between chaos and total regulation where government can and should do a lot of good. That point, in a lot of cases, is just in making definitions and forcing market players to use them. These choices are presented almost always as false dichotomies: one extreme or the other. That's because arguments sell newspapers and make people watch TV shows. It's also because in most cases politicians get more votes from the argument than from the solution (another reason why the regulatory bills that create new problems will come forth ad infinitum)

<comment><USER6> Frank Herbert says this better than I can in "Chapterhouse Dune", where the captured Bene Gesserit Lucilla is speaking to Spider Queen, head of the Honoured Matres (p 150--158.) (Actually the whole book is about law and governance.) An excerpt:

"That's not what I said. We have no conventional government." "Not even a social code?" "There's no such thing as a social code to meet all necessities. A crime in one society can be a moral requirement in another society." "People always have government."

...

"I knew you didn't allow a democracy!" "Why won't you believe me?" [...] "Because you'd have to permit open voting, juries and judges and . . ." "We call them Proctors. A sort of jury of the Whole." Now you've confused her. "And no laws . . . regulations, whatever you want to call them?" "Didn't I say we defined them separately? Regulation-past. Law-future." "You limit these . . . these Proctors, somehow!" "They can arrive at any decision they desire, the way a jury should function. The law be damned!" "That's a very disturbing idea." She's disturbed all right. Look at how dull her eyes are. "The first rule of our democracy: no laws restricting juries. Such laws are stupid. It's astonishing how stupid humans can be when acting in small, self- serving groups."

\---

To relate this more directly to your point; if we take the definition of regulation as past and law as future, then regulation is almost by definition a tool of the monopolist and the vested interests. However, in the case given here, the problem is a monopoly, and we have a _law_ against monopolies, that can interpret things sensibly, and will ultimately go before a court with a jury that can suggest and enforce radical solutions. We don't need new regulation to fix the credit and debit card market -- we need to kick existing law into action.

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> subtitled; _As Kevin Drum says, they prefer monopolies like the ones Visa and MasterCard enjoy_

That's not a monopoly.

<comment><USER10> At one point in the article he makes the correction that it's technically a "duopoly" - but certainly not a free market.

<comment><USER12> It is a free market (a free market is a market without economic intervention and regulation by government) it just isn't a perfect market (perfect competition occurs in markets in which no participant has market power).

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> _The ultimate goal for any capitalist worth his pinstripes is not to compete in a free market, it's to get control over a market. Merge. Acquire. Consolidate. Squeeze. Fewer competitors means less competition._

I'd argue that this is not capitalism he's describing. Capitalism, as Smith described it, involved relatively small businesses competing with each other -- not the quasi-fascism that the author describes.

<comment><USER18> I think the kids these days are calling it "Corporatism".

<comment><USER17> "Fascism should more properly be called corporatism because it is the merger of state and corporate power." --Benito Mussolini</comment></comment></comment>


My CSS3 Animated Resume (Full-Stack Dev) - <AUTHOR> http://ivanca.work/html5/the+company.html <comment><USER2> Either i'm blind or that is mostly jQuery

Edit: looked at it some more, seems to be 500 lines of JS using jQuery and 300 lines of css of which as far as I can tell less than 30 deals with animations and all of that just relates to the pulsing button at the end of the jQuery animations

<comment><AUTHOR> The animations are added from jQuery modifying the [style] attribute to add CSS3 animations ('transform' property). This includes the dollar sign and the photo at the beginning. There were more animations on previous versions but were removed for sake of shorter playtime; I guess JS animations may be more accurate.

<comment><AUTHOR> Sorry to disappoint by not making it declarative style (css file) but injected as needed using JavaScript; maybe it's not true "CSS3" that way.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> "straigh from the"

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks, fixed.</comment></comment>


The Man Who Saw America - <AUTHOR> http://www.nytimes.com/2015/07/05/magazine/robert-franks-america.html?x=1 <comment><USER3> "In other countries you don't feel they're so proud of their flag"

I always find it fascinating when Europeans point this out. The pride - <USER2> of which may now just be mimicry - didn't derive from a flag, it originally derived from the ideas the flag represented. The flag represented ideals of liberty to most Americans - that's what people had pride in, the premise that their country represented something good (and I'm not arguing here whether it did or not).

The other thing I find interesting about it, in my personal experience, I rarely run across Europeans online that aren't smug about something or another they supposedly best America at. Whether it's touting Scandinavia, universal healthcare, free education, lower crime rates, et al. It's almost a cliche to see things like: I live in Sweden, and here's why we're better. I see non-stop pride, arrogance, smugness pouring out of Europe, and I fail to see how it's any different than the pride Europeans see that Americans have in their flag.

Frank puts his pride on display numerous times in the article, no different than an American might:

\- "just amazed how well organized everything is, how perfect everything is"

\- "they [the Swiss] have everything they need. They don't believe in wishing wells."

I mean wow, if that's not boastful pride talking I don't know what is.

<comment><USER4> In New Zealand recently, there's been a 'debate' on whether or not we should change the flag. They've spent... $26 million on this so far, and yeah the populace is discussing it and such, but the funniest thing I hear most often is: "who the fuck cares?! it's a flag!"

Probably why they want to change it, to make it more "Kiwi" 'cos right now it's pretty similar to the Australian flag, and feels more "commonwealth" than an Independent blah blah boring nation.

I'm still confused as to why Americans love their flag. That said, I don't think I've ever met anyone who fits the 'non-stop pride, arrogance and smugness pouring out of Europe' 'cos that sure would be awful. At least the American flag just breezes around without annoying anyone. Personally, I think it's nice that people have passion/pride for their nation.

<comment><USER5> I've never seen any country or people with more pride in their flag than Denmark. Go to any Danish wedding, birthday, holiday party, anything... the Danish flag is everywhere. They decorate their Christmas trees with it the way an American might use tinsel. I've never seen anything like it in America, except at Independence Day or political campaign functions.

<comment><USER6> I've heard it explained as a remnant of World War II. During the Nazi German occupation of Denmark, the Danish flag was forbidden. It became a resistance hobby to sneak in the simple red-white-red colors into anything and everything, and of course when the war and occupation ended people could celebrate easily and powerfully simply by having the previously-forbidden Danish flag draped over absolutely everything, and _this_ is the behavior which remains – the Danish flag has, by now, become a simple traditional part of many things, and there no good reason to _remove_ it, so it continues to be present at every conceivable occasion.

Or so I have been told – I am not a Dane.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> A question that's been on my mind all day after I read this column: Do you think this type/quality of photography work is possible to attain such fame now? The proliferation of cameras in the time since the mid-20th century has been significant.

I don't doubt that there are quality photos still being taken, however, I wonder how many significant, impactful collections like this are no longer being created because the photographer selected their 50-100 best photos from a trip or project (as best as they could tell on their 13" laptop, and then uploaded them to their facebook page, flickr, blog, or wherever, saw a few hundred likes/favs, and then moved on to their next shoot.

</comment><comment><USER8> I have a copy of _The Americans_ on the table in my office. I can't count the number of times visitors have idly started flipping through it, only to get mesmerized and ask to borrow it.

It's an amazing work of art that only gets better with age.

</comment><comment><USER9> This 2009 NPR story about Robert Frank and his book of photographs _The Americans_ is also interesting:

[http://www.npr.org/2009/02/13/100688154/americans-the- book-t...](http://www.npr.org/2009/02/13/100688154/americans-the-book-that- changed-photography)

" _The Americans_ showed a different America than the wholesome, nonconfrontational photo essays offered in some popular magazines. Frank's subjects weren't necessarily living the American dream of the 1950s: They were factory workers in Detroit, transvestites in New York, black passengers on a segregated trolley in New Orleans. Frank didn't even get much support from the art world, he recalls.

"'The Museum of Modern Art wouldn't even sell the book,' Frank says. 'But the younger people caught on.'"</comment>


Ask HN: Generic startup software - <AUTHOR>

What do you guys use in terms of bank account, book keeping software, expense tracking etc?<p>I couldn't find a good list of recommendations.. <comment><USER2> I just use a local bank. Banks generally all suck to the same degree.

FreshBooks is a popular accounting and invoicing solution, and it deserves its popularity. You may want to check out IFTTT/Zapier integrations to make it work best for you.

Don't worry about these things too much until you have some revenue. Keep your receipts of course, but setting up all the intricate trappings of a company is pointless until you're actually operating.

<comment><AUTHOR> Well I find that having the right stack saves a ton of time. I'm on my second startup now, the first one was in The Netherlands. Having the right integrations between bank and accounting software saves a ton of time. I just don't have a clue about what software to use for a US based company.</comment></comment>


How scientists fool themselves – and how they can stop - <AUTHOR> http://www.nature.com/news/how-scientists-fool-themselves-and-how-they-can-stop-1.18517 <comment><USER2> This is mistitled: the actual article title is "How scientists fool themselves – and how they can stop"</comment>


RISC V: A new blueprint for microprocessors challenges the industry's giants - <AUTHOR> https://www.economist.com/science-and-technology/2019/10/03/a-new-blueprint-for-microprocessors-challenges-the-industrys-giants <comment><USER3> Gentle reminder: you can buy dual core RISC-V chips today for $9, FPU, DSP, and TPU included, with WiFi onboard if you buy a module: [https://kendryte.com/](https://kendryte.com/). It won't run Linux (no MMU), but it will run FreeRTOS and TensorFlow Lite, straight from their GitHub.

<comment><USER4> _It won 't run Linux (no MMU)_

How are processes isolated from one another if there is no MMU? Is there some other form of memory protection? That doesn't seem likely?

Not having process isolation really limits the applicability of the chip.

<comment><USER5> It doesn't have processes.

This looks like to be a bare-metal (or RTOS) embedded system. It usually is for running a single application so isolation between processes doesn't make much sense. FreeRTOS doesn't even have concept of process neither, but tasks, which is similar to threads with preemption and deadline.

Furthermore MMU is often avoided in embedded systems because it violates hard real-time requirements: Translation table walking can take place while an interrupt occurs so it causes unpredictable worst-case execution time.

In case of ARM Cortex-M and R series they have Memory Protection Unit (MPU) instead of MMU to protect critical memory region.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> For better or worse, this will become a basis that the semiconductor industry will heavily shift to homegrown chips in China. As problematic as Intel maybe, it still is a major source of cash, talent, and jobs. That will be eroded over time.

<comment><USER7> The PRC still largely does not manufacture or design semiconductors.

RISC-V is popular in that young industry because it is credible and meets their criteria, and that value is similar elsewhere (particularly in India).

> _For better or worse..._

If the world would let the PRC gain a lead in semiconductors, it would be an unequivocal moral failure; I say this with great personal warmth for Chinese people. The world is a more grotesque and unfree place with every gain of the CCP.

<comment><USER8> China has all the resources to lead in semiconductors. How can you stop this? Companies are being happily sold to Chinese investors all the time: Kuka, Putzmeister, Volvo, etc. Geely slowly takes over German carmakers: [https://www.reuters.com/article/us-daimler-geely- electric/da...](https://www.reuters.com/article/us-daimler-geely- electric/daimler-to-develop-smart-brand-together-with-geely-idUSKCN1R90NG)

Just wait couple decades...

<comment><USER7> > _Just wait couple decades..._

This is why I'm not just waiting, I'm getting richer, and I will continue not to do business or politics benefitting the CCP whenever possible.

That's all anyone can do. You can't help but lose if you give up before starting. If things go well, I can do more, maybe go help secure trade secrets in Taiwan, or document CCP controlled forign land and infrastructure purchases; if not, at least I don't see a coward in the mirror.

<comment><USER9> As quixotic as this all may sound, I genuinely appreciate this kind of candour about motivation. It's quite rare, more often to see these kinds of actions justified in terms of specious economic or technical arguments. It's as if people have become afraid of admitting that personal morality drives some of their decisions.

<comment><USER7> > _It 's as if people have become afraid of admitting that personal morality > drives some of their decisions._

I think the fear is a bit justified. Admitting that you have moral principles means that people can hold you to them, and in fact that you _will be held to them_ , as nobody is perfect. People with no moral principles can't be held to account, since they don't participate in morality! :- )

<comment><USER9> Yeah, it's just a pity though, because while individual efforts are laudable, they are insignificant unless coordinated as a part of a whole, so without this kind of honest public discourse it's hard to feel how we can get anywhere.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> [http://archive.is/fFw5T](http://archive.is/fFw5T)

</comment><comment> ur-whale RISC-V is, among other things, a single shining ray of hope that we might actually be able to build a truly secure computing platform from the ground up instead of the backdoor-riddled stacks we have today.

<comment><USER11> Maybe, but I don't see why vendors making RISC-V chips are inherently more trustworthy? There are lots of dodgy vendors building standardized parts. It seems like they'd be easy to counterfeit?

<comment><USER12> Could you use side-channel power analysis to ensure a chip is on-spec?

<comment><USER13> No, the backdoor can use some activation mechanism on chip to avoid drawing power when not in use, then the additional power draw will be so low that it's essentially undetectable.

Tbh you'd have a hard time since either you're trying to measure a few milliwatts in a very noisy environment (either very low wattage, so various effects dominate, or high wattage, where your equipment will quickly get very very expensive).

<comment><USER12> I've worked with the chip-whisperer in the past, it's definitely a noisy environment.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> Coreteks did a really nice video on Risc V.

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=67KW4t42SZk](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=67KW4t42SZk)

</comment><comment><USER15> Consider joining and supporting the RISC-V Foundation! [https://riscv.org](https://riscv.org)

</comment><comment><USER16> I don't buy the argument that having a bunch of vendors extend the ISA makes it more secure. I think we would end up with an ecosystem with a lot of custom extensions and functionality that will end up exposing more attack surfaces and that would make it difficult to know if your device is affected or not.

<comment><USER17> You are highlighting the risk of fragmentation causing security problems. I think that's valid.

I think a lot of people are talking about "closed source" security as in nation-state level actors and "backdoors": [https://www.csoonline.com/article/3220476/researchers-say- no...](https://www.csoonline.com/article/3220476/researchers-say-now-you-too- can-disable-intel-me-backdoor-thanks-to-the-nsa.html)

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> "Alibaba, an e-commerce giant based in Hangzhou, announced its first RISC-V chip in July"

</comment><comment><USER19> What did make RISC-V a game changer? Why did not any open source chip enjoy such a success before?

<comment><USER20> Timing (trade wars, ending days of Moore's law, intels incompetence as of late), marketing (ucb/Stanford), few outright dumb decisions (e.g. no branch delay slots), money (DARPA), industrial support (nvidia, western digital, esperanto etc.)

<comment><USER21> Moore's law is pretty well on track – transistor density has been steadily increasing for decades now, and still is.

<comment><USER22> Things are still shrinking but the tempo seems to be slowing down a bit even at TSMC. Maybe we'll get our full 6 remaining doublings down to 9Å[1] but I'm not sure I would count on it, especially given that the cost of a cutting edge fab is also going up exponentially. Even if features stop shrinking that doesn't mean that price per transistor will stop going down. And we're very far from the theoretical limits of energy per computation so I tend to expect we'll move to some other computational substrate in the future.

[1][https://en.wikichip.org/wiki/technology_node](https://en.wikichip.org/wiki/technology_node)

[2][http://www.futrfab.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/04/Small- Volu...](http://www.futrfab.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/04/Small-Volume- Technology-Fabrication_new.pdf)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> I'm surprised the Economist doesn't know ARM is British!

<comment><USER24> It isn't anymore - it became Japanese a couple of years ago.

<comment><USER25> Chris, would you still consider, Jaguar, Bentley, Land Rover British?

Because I think ownerships changes with time, but most of these brand, thinking, management are still very much British.

<comment><USER24> But this isn't an article about corporate culture - it's an article about the nationality of the company which owns the IP.

> are built around designs, known as instruction-set architectures (isas), > which are owned either by Intel, an American giant, or by Arm, a Japanese > one

Who _owns_ the ARM IP? A Japanese company. Not a British one.

If you asked me if ARM has a British history and possibly culture, then yes (it certainly pays like a British company!) But that wasn't the context - <USER2> context was who effectively owns the IP.

So what do you think is more likely? The Economist are mistaken about the history of the company, or they were using a different context, the one they actually make explicit in the article?

<comment><USER25> I was just wondering from a British Point of view whether you still consider them to be British or not.

>Who owns the ARM IP? A Japanese company. Not a British one.

ARM, a British Company, owned by Japanese Funds.

Because to me that is like saying HSBC is owned by Chinese if HSBC had Ping An and other shadow investors owning majority of it, but certainly HSBC is a British Company right?

P.S - I means no offence in case any Brits got the wrong end of the stick. Just genuinely curious.

<comment><USER24> > I was just wondering from a British Point of view whether you still consider > them to be British or not.

I think they're culturally British. I don't think they are British owned or that their IP is British owned. Which was the context of the discussion.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> Maybe we need a new blueprint for devices and run away from the existing bloated blobby drivers.

</comment><comment><USER27> I wonder where's AMD... did they omit it?

<comment><USER28> AMD aren't part of the RISC-V foundation.

</comment></comment><comment><USER29> Anyone hiring an ARM refugee willing to work on RISC-V?

<comment><USER30> I too having been asking around. Did not have much luck. Most of the requirements are in chip design. Software contribution is done by the open source community. Corporations are contributing to open source but the team size is very small.

<comment><USER29> Have you tried SiFive?

<comment><USER30> I have tried but I don't see software vacancies. Most are for hardware verification and validation requirements.

I don't they are interesting in hiring for remote positions.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER31> I have an off-topic rant: I know it's "RISC FIVE" and not "RISC VEE" but as long as companies use letters to represent numbers it's my opinion they forfeit the right to complain that people aren't saying it right. Apple finally gave up and changed Mac OS "ex" to macOS; everyone else should follow suit.

<comment><USER32> I'm not sure it would be less confusing to name the ISA 'RISC' instead of 'RISC-V'. The 'R' in 'ARM' stands for 'RISC'.

<comment><USER33> Increment the letter V by three positions and call it RISC-Y.

<comment><USER34> Done: [https://github.com/pulp-platform/riscv](https://github.com/pulp- platform/riscv)</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Remote doesn't work when wife is home - <AUTHOR> https://www.reddit.com/r/talesfromtechsupport/comments/cknody/remote_that_doesnt_work_when_wife_is_home/ <comment><USER2> Obligatory: [https://www.reddit.com/r/talesfromtechsupport/comments/3v52p...](https://www.reddit.com/r/talesfromtechsupport/comments/3v52pw/i_cant_log_in_when_i_stand_up/)</comment>


Neuronball - <AUTHOR> http://www.neuronball.com/

<comment><USER2> Er,

        Internal Server Error

        The server encountered an internal error or misconfiguration
        and was unable to complete your request.

        Please contact the server administrator, [no address given]
        and inform them of the time the error occurred, and anything
        you might have done that may have caused the error.

        More information about this error may be available in the
        server error log.</comment>


The Apple homepage ten years ago (iPhone launch) - <AUTHOR> http://tenyearsago.io/apple.com <comment><USER2> Hacker News hasn't changed a bit haha

[http://tenyearsago.io/news.ycombinator.com](http://tenyearsago.io/news.ycombinator.com)

</comment><comment><USER3> I must admit to being a little nostalgic for the original's high-affordance user interface elements. The original appeared and felt like more like a tool than a world unto itself.

</comment><comment><USER4> love the desktop NY Times :)

</comment><comment><USER5> soo black</comment>


Drawing is the best way to learn - <AUTHOR> https://qz.com/quartzy/1381916/drawing-is-the-best-way-to-learn-even-if-youre-no-leonardo-da-vinci/ <comment><AUTHOR> I think this presents an instance of a larger principle -- trying to do something, regardless of whether you excel at it or not, teaches things not learnable any other way.</comment>


Call for holiday robot videos on Robohub - <AUTHOR> http://robohub.org/call-for-holiday-robot-videos-2/ <comment><AUTHOR> Send your fun and geeky robot videos to info[at]robohub.org and we will publish the best ones over the break!</comment>


UNIX Text Formatting Using the -ms Macros (1984) - <AUTHOR> https://www.hactrn.net/ietf/rfcgen/textms.html <comment><USER2> I just found a brand new PAGER for man: konqueror (man:/) [https://imgur.com/a/F3o4VIu](https://imgur.com/a/F3o4VIu)

<comment><USER3> Konqueror is a marvel. Too bad that KDE is now pushing that brain-damaged piece of code, Dolphin.

<comment><USER4> Dolphin is actually pretty much aligned with Konqueror.

Konqueror can open up anything using KDE's KParts. Applications and libraries provide different KParts and Konqueror is just a shell that can open them all.

Dolphin is Konqueror's KPart provider for file browsing.

So basically Konqueror's file browsing capability is provided by Dolphin.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> I used troff to typeset a few papers, because it was relatively familiar from writing man pages and more light weight than LaTeX. And groff is installed on practically every Linux or BSD box.

But I switched to LaTeX because it it more mainstream for this kind of document production workflow, so for instance we have a LaTeX template for official-looking University letters, which would be hard to reproduce using troff. And I also switched from magicpoint [http://member.wide.ad.jp/wg/mgp/](http://member.wide.ad.jp/wg/mgp/) to Beamer [https://www.overleaf.com/learn/latex/Beamer](https://www.overleaf.com/learn/latex/Beamer) for presentation slides.

For man pages there is now the OpenBSD mandoc processor [https://mandoc.bsd.lv/](https://mandoc.bsd.lv/) which can turn semantic markup in -mdoc format in to fairly nice html and other formats. And though -mdoc is a bit weird it is easy to use, well documented, and powerful. It is so much nicer than the old -man macros!

</comment><comment><USER6> Perl's POD ecosystem is worth looking at if you have similar needs today. Even if you don't use (or like) Perl.

It's very easy to use, and supports a lot of different output formats. So, one source doc can create troff man pages, html, markdown, PDF, etc.

[https://perldoc.perl.org/perlpod.html](https://perldoc.perl.org/perlpod.html)

<comment><USER7> Can confirm. I wrote (for publication) about six novels using POD format plus some basic command line tools and a makefile, treating RTF as a final output format, back in the day.

(I was forced to adopt Microsoft Word for checking copy-edits only when my publishers insisted on moving to a Word/InDesign based workflow and ditching paper edits -- this was around 2008. Which in turn forced me to stop using vim as my main creative tool. If I had discretion to go back to chewing on text files today, I'd probably go with Markdown or a superset thereof.)

</comment></comment><comment><USER2> [https://tex.stackexchange.com/questions/390724/how-to- create...](https://tex.stackexchange.com/questions/390724/how-to-create-pdf- from-linux-man-pages-so-that-style-is-presereved)

<comment><USER2> if you want to convert to pdf some of the steps involving postscript can be skipped using something like xelatex

<comment><USER2> sorry I forgot the purpose of the link was to provide nostalgia but here I go with all of the format and conversion paths... sorry :(

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER2> [http://man7.org/linux/man- pages/man1/roff2html.1.html](http://man7.org/linux/man- pages/man1/roff2html.1.html)

</comment><comment><USER8> There's also the playfully named 'an' macro to format a man page:

nroff -man ls.1 | less

</comment><comment><USER9> Ha ha. Some of my University submissions were generated directly from project code using troff -ms macros. Nostalgia.

</comment><comment><USER10> Is there a PS or PDF version around somewhere? The HTML-output doesn't cover what is possible with the ms-macros.

<comment><USER2> heres a more recent groff implementation of it the macros: [https://linux.die.net/man/7/groff_ms](https://linux.die.net/man/7/groff_ms) prob not what you're looking for, you prob want to get ahold of the orig nroff/troff files</comment></comment>


Best way to handle interviewer asking me out on a date after tech screen? - <AUTHOR> http://www.reddit.com/r/cscareerquestions/comments/2x9q6r/best_way_to_handle_interviewer_asking_me_out_on_a/ <comment><USER2> * Say no.

* Forward copies of emails to the company's leadership/HR department.

* Keep printed copies of the emails handy in case he decides to retaliate with lawyers.

* Keep your own legal counsel on speed-dial.

* Move on with your life.

There's not much you can do from a legal standpoint, with regards to grievance/redress. Escalating the situation through contacting his boss/HR carries a risk, even though you have the moral high-ground, but it could work in getting him punished. Or it could achieve absolutely nothing.

Or he has a long history of this abusive behavior and this is the last straw that will get him ejected from the company for being a serious liability/generally unpleasant.

He has your resume, and he's exhibited awful behavior -- legal counsel should definitely be at your disposal on a moments notice.

Naturally, if it really interests you, you can consult a lawyer to verify whether there are any punitive measures you can apply against him. The OP hasn't indicated that the guy has harassed her per se, so I don't know if she has any legal standing regarding that.

<comment><USER3> Seriously ? All for asking her on a date ? I don't see any harassment or any kind of quid pro quo. Mistakes happen all the time.

<comment><USER4> I'll take the risk of being buried along with beenpoor, but I should point out that asking someone out once is not harassment. Harassment is asking them out repeatedly after being turned down (i.e. it is known to be unwelcome).

Not making any excuses for what interviewer guy did at all, that was still pretty slimy.

<comment><USER5> So making sexual advances in a professional setting is A-OK, as long as you only do it once per person?

<comment><USER6> It's not sexual advances.

It's not in a professional setting.

Not saying that what he did is OK (it's not) but let's keep our facts straight.

<comment><USER5> It's making an advance for the eventual goal of sex. How is that not a sexual advance? How is an email chain between interviewee and interviewer, discussing your interview results, not a professional setting?

<comment><USER7> People go to GREAT lengths for the "eventual goal of sex" all the time without it being labeled a sexual advance, including striking up what may seem like friendly conversation even though you may never have the slightest idea that their end game was actually to screw you (among many other things). Arguably the majority of anything that people do is for the eventual goal of sex.

The e-mail "later that evening" was not discussing the interview results. It was a later email, presumably on his own.

<comment><USER8>
        People go to GREAT lengths for the "eventual goal of sex"

Like get married

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> You know, I'm all about being laid back and rejecting traditional corporate culture, because you can be serious without a suit. But you still need the "be serious" part, which somehow got lost between all the ping pong tables and beer on tap. I actually think a big chunk of the industry encourages unprofessionalism, because professionals do really obnoxious things like negotiate compensation. I really hope that the tech scene can hold on to the fun parts of what makes it special, while getting rid of terrible things like this. But, in my opinion, culture and professionalism starts at the top, even if it's easy to go after the low-status, low-political-power programmers at the bottom. The typical company will give you sexual harassment training and fire people who do inappropriate things, but the same companies encourage their 20-somethings to get wasted at Friday happy hours and have few to no women on their board of directors or executive management positions, and that culture of men-in-charge inevitably trickles down.

<comment><USER10> Surely we can find a middle ground between ping pong and unzipped trousers. The boundaries are just not that complicated.

I'm all for encouraging women in tech and executive positions, but we shouldn't need women to tell us this is wrong or to police our behavior.

I hope none of that sounds too much like disagreement. I think we're mostly in alignment, except perhaps the suggestion that with a preponderance of men in executive positions and on boards this kind of behavior is inevitable. I have to believe that men can do better on their own if they want to, however much the help from women is welcome.

<comment><USER11> I applaud your point that harassment is largely a clear violation of norms, not a gradation on a spectrum of relaxed behavior.

May I respectfully take issue though with the turn of phrase "we shouldn't need women to tell us"? Does that wording illustrate a problem by assuming that women are outsiders?

I write "illustrate" because I doubt that you really make that assumption. I don't really mean to single you out. I just felt that this language throws light on one of the problems facing women in our computing workplaces.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> What the fuck? How does this shit happen? How on earth does someone, male or female, get into such a state that they think it is appropriate to do something like this in a professional setting?

Can someone explain to me how this works? I'm male in a male-dominated industry, and of course I don't give a damn what people look like and treat everyone with respect. The problem is, I don't believe a single one of my male friends (or female friends) would be capable of doing something like this.

Where the hell do these people come from, and how can this be stopped? I hate it when shit like this happens because I worry people will associate this behavior with me.

<comment><USER13> > The problem is, I don't believe a single one of my male friends (or female > friends) would be capable of doing something like this.

I know guys who I wouldn't be surprised to see do something like this, mostly from the bar I go to. I have female friends who know lots of guys who would stoop to this. They would not necessarily believe there's a lot wrong with it, and might welcome the advance if they liked the way he looked or acted. This guy did it sight unseen though, I can't see any of my friends going for that.

There's a pervasive element in society of success in dating requiring playing a numbers game, on both sides of the gender fence. My female friends all expect me to be asking out any girl I think is attractive. Being asked out is something that just happens all the time for them, they just seem to get used to it. The context matters mostly as a signal for what it's going to be like to date them.

An attractive female coworker of mine told me about how a lawyer who hires her on the side to help him with document stuff asked her to dinner on a business pretext and at that dinner was feeling her out for willingness to date him. I was surprised that she accepted his invitation and didn't slam him for being a creep for his behavior. She thought it was weird but didn't have a huge reaction or anything, she told me like one might talk about any weird thing that happens to you in the course of a day.

I have one IRL female friend who was a feminist and would definitely see something wrong with this behavior. She's also extremely attractive and describes getting hit on constantly. She definitely does not have a neutral reaction to it. But she also relayed her fear to me that she'll never be able to get married because feminism.

<comment><USER14> I think you discovered your answer in your last paragraph. The question being: why did your attractive female friend accept the dinner invitation from creepy lawyer guy? Every society has certain expectations of its members, and most current societies think of marriage or relationships as being "the" natural state to be in. i.e. if you're single, you're either a "player" or a "loser", you can't just be...happily single. And from speaking to my female friends, that pressure seems even worse for them.

The result is that most people, men and women, will give a shot at anything that might lead to a relationship.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Dating within the tech industry is tough, especially when most of the people you meet are also in tech, but you also don't want to contribute to the problem of creating an environment where women feel like they're constantly being evaluated not only for their skills but also as potential partners.

As a guy, it's probably best to just put the idea out of your mind altogether unless specifically approached. Meeting romantic partners at work is extremely common in other industries, but most of them don't have the same gender imbalance problems that we do in STEM fields. I think it probably sucks for everyone that dating in the tech industry is such a tricky thing, but I think that's probably just a sacrifice we're going to have to make until we've got a better culture and gender balance.

It's definitely not ok to take advantage of the power relationship between interviewer and interviewee in any case.

<comment><USER15> > ...unless specifically approached.

I don't even think that's a good idea. I don't live in the U.S. or in the western world for that matter but from my reading of all issues in the tech industry from HN it seems to me the best approach is to pretend your a eunuch at work or around your colleagues no matter the location.

<comment><USER16> I concur. I don't see how there's a way for genders to coexist in the same work space without leaving sexuality completely out the door. Too many opportunities for awkwardness, misunderstanding, legal liability, public shaming, Internet outrage. It's not worth it. Work spaces must be 100% asexual, I don't see how else you'd accomplish this. Open to suggestions.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> So what are the rules for contacting someone you once interviewed in order to suggest social interaction?

NOTE: I said "social interaction" rather than "a date" because I'm asking about more general situations.

For instance, suppose you interview someone, and (unlike the guy in this incident) are not using the interview to try to find someone to date. You stick to questions specific to the job, plus more general questions about the things on their resume, including open source projects they say they contributed to.

You find them interesting and witty and enjoyed talking with them, but there is someone better qualified who gets the job.

Six months later, you are planning to attend a one day conference on an open source project you contribute to. It's a 3 hour drive to the conference. You don't know anyone in your area who works on that project to ask along to make the drive more interesting.

Then you remember the person you interviewed six months earlier is also a contributor to the project.

Is it acceptable to contact them and tell them you are driving to the conference and would like to find someone to come along to make the ride more social, and asking if they would like to be that person?

<comment><USER18> No, it's not acceptable. I'm assuming you find the contact info by looking at interview records in the scenario you gave. You can't ever use any privileged information for personal purposes.

</comment></comment><comment><USER19> That is so unprofessional I can't fathom it. Never work for a company that values professionalism so low.

<comment><USER20> I doubt this is a company-wide problem. I think this is an employee with a serious inability to appreciate boundaries, and he should be removed from his position of responsibility.

<comment><USER21> Yet somehow this guy wormed his way into interviewing her. Someone let that happen, and someone gave this guy interviewing responsibilities.

<comment><USER20> Small company, he's a programmer - primary interviewer is busy (something came up) - asks another technical person to cover for him. Happens all the time in startups / small companies.

<comment><USER22> Question isn't if it happens all the time in small companies. What's under discussion is whether this is what we want in our (the startup/tech) industry, whether this is ok, or if there's something we should try to do about it.

First step is awareness, then next step is recognizing there's a problem. Your comment stops at the first step.

<comment><USER20> I was pointing out that the fact that this guy was conducting interviews was understandable in the context of a small company - I have picked up interviews for team members before when they were unable to make them.

I meant no implication about it being acceptable in small companies - it is unacceptable everywhere.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> I will go out on my limb here. It was a mistake on his part. See if you are willing to let him go with a caution. I know everyone is crying for blood and it is justified. Going to HR will likely ruin his resume for life (possibly).

<comment><USER23> HR exists for addressing problems like this. You absolutely should talk to them. I don't think it will "ruin his life" but whatever action is taken (if any) is ultimately up to his bosses. This is unacceptable behavior and if no one ever says anything about it, there's no reason to think it won't continue.

<comment><USER6> > HR exists for addressing problems like this.

They address problems for this _for the company_. HR is there to defend the company, not the employees.

Letting HR know about the incident will likely cause this person to be terminated.

I'm not saying OP should or should not do it, just clarifying the consequences.

Personally, I think what this guy did is

\- a bit creepy

\- pretty mean since he probably turned her down so he could ask her out

Having said that, what he did is NOT

\- sexual harassment (there is no authority relationship at play)

\- abuse of power

<comment><USER23> > Letting HR know about the incident will likely cause this person to be > terminated.

HR doesn't generally have the ability to decide to fire people. So if this person's bosses, in consultation with HR, think this is worth terminating someone over, that's certainly their right.

I don't want to parse words with you, but this is wildly inappropriate behavior and it certainly should not be ignored. HR is the correct department to make sure it gets addressed.

And, frankly, some companies may believe that "creepy" and "mean" behavior on its own is a serious offense even if, as you assert, no abuse or harassment occurred.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> I would report it to their superior, or the CEO if they are the head of HR. Particularly since it sounds like he may not have provided you a fair interview.

Equality doesn't happen if people are silent about injustices.

</comment><comment><USER25> I don't see the drama, but then again I'm a guy (40+). If he just waited a few weeks with that second mail, we could hardly fault him for being unprofessional could we?

I don't believe she would have gotten then job with another interviewer (the "more experience" part sounds plausible).

And if she was a really interesting candidate, another tech screen or phone interview would be natural.

I'd tell any friend to say "thanks, but no thanks" and move on.

(If he's that creepy, he'd get her the job and hit on her then)

<comment><USER26> >I don't believe she would have gotten then job with another interviewer (the "more experience" part sounds plausible).

please don't speculate, as she said if they were looking for "more experience" why would he interviewed her in the first place? He also admitted that her cv was interesting

>(If he's that creepy, he'd get her the job and hit on her then) hitting on a co-worker is much more complicated than hitting on someone outside the company. that's the point.

He is clearly abusing his position of power, it's not ethical and probably also against the company's policy.

<comment><USER7> You're speculating in the same breath with which you say not to speculate. We don't know why they interviewed her, and frankly we interview people fairly often that don't have the requisite experience on paper because we know it often has little to do with what's on the paper, a lesson HN readers are VERY familiar with (the whole "meritocracy" thing).

<comment><USER26> based on the information we have he didn't do anything to test her experience.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER27> my 2 cents:

* Say no to date in person

* Decline the job for reasons that you explain to the HR department: He asked you out on a date in a professional setting (I must inform you .... I regret ... best regards). Writing this in a friendly form (the HR person receiving this mail has not asked you for a date). This person will be up in arms for you. You will receive a very very friendly call from someone up the foodchain. See, it happened in person .. so you cant prove shit. But if you are a boss.

* Do not send the mail CC to the interviewer

* Close the mail friendly with best regards

* Document what you can. I guess the interviewer did not do this in written form.

* Go on and strike this company off the list of companies that you aspire to work for. Do not believe this was an single incident. When hiring people everything should be extra shiny (normally you discover problems after starting).

So with 15 years experience in the field: that shop is crap!

One thing: The tech job market is a sellers market. More people want to hire than there are able engineers. You are not the one asking for something only. The company is as well. A work relationship must be on the basis of a mutual understanding what is ok and what not. Seems you have a difference here. Good luck for the job hunt. The good companies are out there (and many people who can show you the way for harassment free work experiences).

</comment><comment><USER28> Oof.

The poster should forward that email to whoever else at the company can deal with it so that hopefully someone else doesn't have to deal with it in the future.

</comment><comment><USER29> Regardless of whether it was done creepily or innocently it's not something I would do or tolerate.

Without any context I thought this seemed like an innocent scenario (guy is not a creep)... but it doesn't matter. It's inappropriate regardless.

</comment><comment><USER30> As far as I can tell, the offence here is that he used privileged information (contact details from her job application) to contact her about a personal matter (the date).

Once her application was rejected there ceased to be a meaningful power relationship. Some people seem to be implying that there remains a professional power relationship since she may choose to apply at the company in the future, but I doubt that has any practical or legal teeth. The same could be true of all her potential future employers OR her future employees, vendors, customers, etc...

So what he did was creepy and unprofessional, yes. But let's understand why and to exactly what degree before deciding what the appropriate response should be.

Personally, I would contact the HR department and inform them that I didn't appreciate company employees using the contact details from my application to solicit me for a date.

</comment><comment><USER16> I'd also add it's possible some of these men are desperate for a date, given how hard it to get one in some areas of the country that are heavy in tech. He knows he shouldn't, but he's desperate.

<comment><USER31> This is why gender imbalance is bad for everyone involved. Not saying there should be more women in tech so men can find dates. The point is being around more women at work will help people learn what is socially appropriate.

</comment></comment><comment><USER32> Since OP mentioned that the company in question is a startup which implies a fair chance that they not yet have a HR department or that even some of the founders took part in this sexist behavior, IMHO OP should not hesitate to call out names (only the company's) as it seems it is the only way to punish this behavior.

</comment><comment><USER33> If the interviewee found him attractive would this be an issue for her? I doubt it. Just say no and move on, don't do anything to aggravate the issue.

<comment><USER34> Please don't propagate the myth that women only object to inappropriate behavior from people they are not attracted to.

<comment><USER33> I'm propagating no such thing.

I'm saying the behavior would no longer be considered inappropriate if there was mutual attraction. I sincerely believe this will still be the case even if the genders are flipped.

<comment><USER34> And _I 'm_ saying that saying such _is_ propagating that myth.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER35> Just say NO.

</comment><comment><USER36> The problem with deducting from one side of a story is you can't reach a definitive conclusion. For example if you read the first 4 paragraph, that is 'the essence' of most interviews. Assuming it is, what the interviewer is doing after, are inappropriate but "thanks, but no thanks" would be adequate response in my opinion. People make dumb mistakes some time.

But if OP highly suspected that the interviewer does not intend to do proper interview from the beginning and only interested to her personally, reporting to HR is the only way to go.

</comment><comment><USER37> Wasn't there some recent ruling that indicated interns and the like are not protected from sexual harassment because they're not technically employees? I feel like a prospective interviewee would fall under that same umbrella, and hence a legal case would ultimately go nowhere. Not to mention that, as has previously been mentioned on HN, HR is designed to protect the company from you, not the other way around.

I'd bypass the legal system altogether (which increasingly seems designed to protect this kind of atrocious behavior) and go straight to the media with it. Public shaming unfortunately seems to be the only way to combat this.

</comment><comment><USER38> Unfortunately, I think the best way (safest) to handle this as someone new out of school without a network is to ignore it and move on to other potential opportunities.

Most likely, this is an issue isolated to this one employee, who should have his position of responsibility in the hiring process stripped, written up/ demotion, whatever tools are available to the company to _strongly_ reprimand him.

There is a chance that this person (who has already shown to be outrageously unprofessional) would retaliate. He has your resume which likely significant personal information such as cell phone and address.

If you had a network, the best course of action would be to find someone you trust who is connected to the CEO. Any CEO who is not breeding a malignant culture would be absolutely appalled by this employee's actions. The CEO is fortunate to have a female grad student from a top 3 school applying to work at his/her company. Diversity is incredibly valuable to teams, and hi-jacking the hiring process into a personal dating workflow displays such egregiously bad judgement I would probably be personally offended as the CEO to the point of firing the person.

<comment><USER5> Ignoring the problem is how we got into this situation in the first place.</comment></comment>


Why morning people rule the world - <AUTHOR> http://www.thisislondon.co.uk/lifestyle/article-23852426-why-morning-people-rule-the-world.do

<comment><USER2> > _Yet the research continues to mount, arguing that evening people have > qualities which should be nurtured. They tend to be more creative, > intelligent, humorous and extroverted. They are the balance to morning > people, who are said to be more optimistic, proactive and conscientious._

You're sounding _dangerously_ close to a horoscope, there.

<comment><USER3> To get less horoscopey: Kanazawa and Perina found a correlation between "eveningness" or being a "night owl" with higher childhood IQs, in a study of about 15,000 adults. They conclude that the correlation is due to more intelligent people being more likely to espouse "evolutionarily novel values." The paper is here at LSE: <http://personal.lse.ac.uk/Kanazawa/pdfs/PAID2009.pdf>

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> A simpler explanation seems to be that morning people are more in line with the regular 9-5 schedule of businesses and schools, and that 9-5 schedule was set from the days when natural light was an important factor in when work could be conducted. Thus, biology may be less of a factor than social structures.

These days, I'm noticing a shift toward later schedules--college professors are realizing they get better attendance if they hold classes in the afternoons, for example. So perhaps a gradual cultural shift will come to better accommodate evening people.

<comment><USER5> It's the flight of the evening people... away from the morning people. Now they have a choice, so they choose to come in later and work as late as possible thus minimizing the time they have to share with the energetic, cheerful, hyper, morning folks.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> When I was doing remote software consulting I would literally get up at 7pm, go out clubbing. Not drink, come home at 1 or 2 am and code till about 9am and then talk to clients for a few hours and then go to sleep. It was totally k-rad awesome. I find that if I work regular hours after work I can't enjoy myself because I am totally burnt out from the work day and just want to go sleep. Doing the most stressful act of the day, talking with clients, right before I went to sleep was perfect.

<comment><USER7> why didn't you stick to this schedule? did you give up consulting? and if so, why?

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> I alternate between the two, and while I have to admit I get more actual measurable work done during the day my best work was invariably produced during long and undisturbed nights.

It's mostly an attempt at normalizing my interaction with society that forces me in to a 'day' pattern, if not for that I'd be perfectly content sleeping days and working nights.

<comment><USER9> I also work both. I rotate or "flip" my schedule about every week and a half. I find working in the evening to be my most productive time, but coming in early is wonderful for collaboration and coordination. By splitting my schedule I'm able to binge on both, keeping me overall productive. It's also convenient for me because as a night owl, I can't maintain a morning schedule.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> In an ideal world, I'd be both a morning and an evening person. I've found this works best for me. Unfortunately, this can be challenging to pull off, because it requires taking a long nap in the middle of the day, and this practice is held in even lower esteem and even more discouraged by employers than evening people.

<comment><USER11> I'm in the habit of taking a lunch time siesta myself. I've found it best to get in the car and drive to a nice shady spot so my clients aren't wondering what the heck I'm doing.

A 20 - 40 minute nap in the middle of the day works wonders.

<comment><USER12> Amen to that. I feel that my productive part of the day consists of two halves - one in the morning, another a couple of hours after lunch. A siesta in between makes it just perfect for the ultimate "work throughput".

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> "They are the balance to morning people, who are said to be more optimistic, proactive and conscientious."

...

"It was the morning people who were more likely to agree with statements such as "I feel in charge of making things happen" and "I spend time identifying long-range goals for myself.""

...

I'd say back to the drawing board it is...

<comment><USER14> In the article, "They" in your first quote refers to evening people, so I'm not entirely sure I understand what you're trying to say here.

<comment><USER13> But I am pretty sure the "who" refers to the morning people. So morning people are said to be more optimistic, and they give themselves higher ratings in a questionnaire. It is therefore not clear if they give themselves higher ratings because they are really better, or because they are just more optimistic about their performance.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> Seems to me 'morning' people tend to get less sleep in general.

I've read that early morning or sleep deprived minds are in a sort of pseudo- hypnotic state, more susceptible to suggestion, able to absorb information easily and less likely to become distracted. Obedience and banality are traditional paths to success in the workplace.

It's crazy that almost no schools have quiet places for students to nap. Yet one can spend ten minutes on a bowel movement, or thirty minutes eating. Rest somehow isn't seen as necessary. [http://www.nj.com/mercer/index.ssf/2010/07/wake- up_call_on_t...](http://www.nj.com/mercer/index.ssf/2010/07/wake- up_call_on_teen_sleep_dis.html)

Sleep deprivation is an effective means of torture. <http://www.wired.com/dangerroom/2009/04/in-a-2005-memo/>

</comment><comment><USER16> If you stay up late enough you can get the best of both worlds. My ideal schedule would be something like this:

5PM to 1AM: Personal time (pretty choice hours, lines up with other people's personal time)

1AM to 9AM: Distraction free work time overnight and enough time in the morning to send out some e-mails at the start of the business day. (you can cheat and que the messages up and send them all at 9am)

10AM to 4PM: Sleep (7 hours, not bad)

4PM to 5PM: Answer your e-mail that has accumulated through the day before the 9-5-ers pack it up. People won't be expecting instant responses so you can avoid a lot of the back & forth of inefficient e-mail communication.

<comment><USER17> Not a fan of sunlight, I take it? I don't think I could deal with only seeing a couple of hours of sunlight per day, and besides, my body clock _wants_ to synchronise itself with the sun.

Ideally I like to get up at 6am and work from 7 'til 3. The only trouble is that it's socially difficult to leave work at 3pm since everybody thinks you're slacking (they didn't see your two hours of work before they came in).

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> Well it's sure that a good school -> good university -> good job. It might not always be the case, but usually it goes like that. And school is really morning based until you get to college and university where you can choose your schedule. So, in this way of thinking, morning people are kind of advantaged because they "fit" better in the educational system.

pre-school that starts at 1pm to 10 pm someone? I'm pretty sure those kid's parents will be pretty upset!

<comment><USER19> _until you get to college and university where you can choose your schedule_

This depends on the country. When I was at university in Italy I could choose some exams in my study plan, but courses where usually in the morning.

And indeed people coming to follow them where the ones who graduated first and with better grades.

</comment></comment><comment><USER20> _"[C]an one change one's chronotype from evening to morning?"_

I used to be a night owl, but I eventually synced to my wife's morning schedule. When I had no other structure (school, work) I found that I had a 26 hour day, which would precess through a normal day over time.

<comment><USER21> Mine was about 28 hours. It was great fun, I made lots of progress with lucid dreaming when I was giving my body whatever sleep schedule it dictated, and I got to know all the great all night diners. But setting appointments was troublesome; involving projections of when the precession would next overlapping a waking period with normal business hours.

<comment><USER22> I've also found scheduling to be the biggest issue with a daily rhythm != 24hr. Mine's about 28hr as well. Fortunately I work for a small bayesian- oriented marketing research co (15 employees, I am #6) with some very accommodating founders. The biggest hurdle is making sure I keep the team up to date on when I plan to be at work/working from home. It's not always easy to forecast my sleep schedule.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> > Morning people also anticipate problems and try to minimize them. They're > proactive.

Looks like the author never had to plan the next day, knowing he'll be "low- brained" during morning hours. _This_ requires forward planning.

Try to wake up in the middle of the night and resume work without context, we'll see how it goes!

I personally maintain a detailed TODO list, as well as a log book. So I know were to start from, what's pending, and what I did. Bonus is that it also help you answer "What the hell did you do last month?" questions from clueless managers.

+1 for the mid-day nap. I find it to be a great refresher, when not too much in sleep debt, of course.

</comment><comment><USER24> Am I the only one who is questioning the quality of the conclusions in an article whose sole factual basis is a survey of college students from a single university and a couple of anecdotes from the CEO of a vitamin water business?

</comment><comment><USER25> Many times, I have been stuck on a programming problem at the end of the day. Many times, I come in and solve it immediately first thing in the morning. This leads me to believe I think more clearly in the mornings. Anyone else have this happen?

<comment><USER26> Or, perhaps your brain is unconsciously working on the problem overnight and the solution is presented to your conscious self the next morning.

I used to try to reach a "clean" stopping point before quitting work for the day, until I was advised that going home with problems outstanding can have benefits. It does seem that even if I'm not actively thinking about such a problem, I will have fresh perspectives the next morning.

</comment></comment><comment><USER27> I find that getting up in the morning is useful for several reasons.

I get up with an alarm clock; therefore, my day begins with a sense of purpose. As a result of waking up so early, my first action is often to go exercise or drill basketball dribbling or whatever. Or it may be to read a book. Also, by getting up early, at the end of the day, I am exhausted, and fall asleep immediately. Unfortunately, I miss out on the social benefits of waking up late. I have yet to formulate an excellent resolution.

<comment><USER28> I get up with an alarm clock; therefore, my day begins with a sense of soul- crushing obligation.</comment></comment>


Ask HN: Clever ways of implementing "invite" mechanic in dating sites? - <AUTHOR>

What are some ways to get people to invite friends to dating sites? Generally, there is not much incentive to do so, and people often don't advertise with friends that they are on a dating site. Any clever ideas? <comment><USER2> What about recommending a potential matchup to your friends? I don't use dating sites, so this might be out there already.

In short, what if I'm looking at a profile and think, "hey, this would be a good match for my friend XYZ." The mechanics of it could allow me to set my friend up with someone, basically allowing me to act as an agent on behalf of my friend (initially).

Alternatively, you could do a take on the double-date idea. Have people with friends post a double date, where your user fills in the 3rd/4th person depending on the calculated compatability of friends (for this, you would need to answer a few questions about your friends... which would make their signup seem slicker and faster).

<comment><USER3> the matchmaking idea was tried by a company called thread.com [http://techcrunch.com/2009/09/01/threadcom- raises-12-million...](http://techcrunch.com/2009/09/01/threadcom- raises-12-million-for-facebook-powered-matchmaking-service/) ... they could never find traction, but again its about execution.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> whats your site ?

<comment><AUTHOR> it's a new site to meet people with similar interests. <http://www.GetToLike,me> \- it's not explicitly a dating site, but I figure the environment will be similar.

<comment><USER3> i created a very similar site, it would statistically matchup people based on all kinds of things likes, location, photos, sharing, frequency of updates.. etc. I wouldn't focus on the dating aspect but more of a viral aspect, similar to other facebook viral apps like people for sale, the quiz ones you see a lot on there. good luck.</comment></comment></comment>


The geek's way of finding wallpapers that fit your screen resolution - <AUTHOR> http://beerpla.net/2010/01/09/the-easiest-and-best-way-to-search-for-beautiful-wallpapers-in-your-specific-screen-resolution-and-size/

<comment><USER2> Or just get something bigger and proceed to resize or crop.

<comment><AUTHOR> Of course, that is always an option.</comment></comment>


The mystery of filtering by sorting - <AUTHOR> http://www.uxmatters.com/mt/archives/2009/07/the-mystery-of-filtering-by-sorting.php

<comment><USER2> I think the confusion comes from the use, in English, of the word sort in phrases like "sorting laundry", "sorting recyclables", and "sorting mail", which is actually an "iterative filtering" (ie "grouping") operation. See <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sorting> and <http://www.google.com/search?q=define:sorting>

This is similar to the confusion between "and" and "or" I've seen people have when using computers to do searches. In plain English, "and" is often an expansion term, in that it often expands the result set rather than restricts it, similar to "or".

      go through that file cabinet and find
      all records for Alice and Bob.

This actually means "give me records matching Alice or Bob", because the name/ownership/topic field is mutually exclusive (if a record is for Alice, it can't also be for Bob), and people intuitively understand that. So it expands to "give me (records matching Alice) and (records matching Bob)", not "give me records that match Bob from the set of records that match Alice".

</comment><comment><USER3> Call me naive, but I didn't know there was any mystery surrounding filtering and sorting. I don't see any ambiguity there.

<comment><USER4> You're naive. Go run some user studies and observe how differing mental models affect how people interact with controls such as filters, facets and sorts.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> A search engine that can sort by, say, date and give me results in real time would be pretty useful. Why not, Google?

</comment><comment><USER6> A very helpful article for sites where filter/sort/search functionalities coexist.</comment>


Python Patterns: An Optimization Anecdote - <AUTHOR> http://www.python.org/doc/essays/list2str.html <comment><USER2> Bear in mind this is extremely outdated article and some of the advice should be taken with very big grain of salt, as things have changed since 2002. The most significant improvement of Python (in this context) is the introduction of generators, which seem like an almost obvious choice for a problem such as this. The solutions that immediately came to my mind, for example, were this:

        import itertools
        def f2_1(list):
            return str(itertools.imap(chr, list))

and this:

        def f2_2(list):
            return str(chr(c) for c in list)

They are both about twice as fast (in 2.7.2 CPython) as the suggested array solution (f2_1 performs slightly better for smaller lists), and their readability is rather significantly better.

<comment><USER3> To avoid confusing newbies, str() does not concatenate a list (or generator, etc.) of strings into a single string. You probably meant to call ''.join() instead.

      >>> import itertools
      >>> def f2_1(list):
      ...         return str(itertools.imap(chr, list))
      ...
      >>> f2_1(range(10))
      '<itertools.imap object at 0x10048e850>'
      >>> def f2_2(list):
      ...         return str(chr(c) for c in list)
      ...
      >>> f2_2(range(10))
      '<generator object <genexpr> at 0x10046b780>'

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> I'm a total newbie at Python, but wouldn't

      ''.join(map(chr, list))

avoid the quadratic time of doing "string += something" (and also be a prettier solution IMO)?

(In Python 2.x doing ''.join(chr(n) for n in list) might be a better solution to avoid the intermediate list created by map)

<comment><USER5> The article is from 2002, so it's entire line of reasoning is quite outdated.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> Just a note that there was good discussion about this before [1].

Remember that this essay is quite old (2002) and Python has changed significantly. [2]

[1] <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1859417>

[2] [http://keithdevens.com/weblog/archive/2002/Apr/10/AnOptimiza...](http://keithdevens.com/weblog/archive/2002/Apr/10/AnOptimizationAnecdote)

<comment><USER7> Thanks for the links. The most interesting thing in the previous HN thread was learning that this article is a) really old (probably outdated), and b) written by Guido!

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> It's troubling to read something about Python optimization/performance without mention that this is atrocious in a loop

string = string + s

That is such a code smell I cringed every time I saw it.

Should append to list and join at the end (once). Which, I bet (I, or you, don't know anything until we actually profile), dumping the += is significant reason why last two examples where _much_ faster.

<comment><USER9> I still follow that rule, perhaps somewhat anachronistically. This has been long optimized in CPython so it's not quadratic:

$ python -V

Python 2.5.2

$ python -m timeit -s 'v=["a"]' 'v.append("a")'

1000000 loops, best of 3: 0.199 usec per loop

$ python -m timeit -s 's="a"' 's+="a"'

10000000 loops, best of 3: 0.127 usec per loop

The string append is actually FASTER now. Tried with strings of length 5 and it is still faster.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> Here are performance numbers for a variety of approaches using a list of length 256. You can see that having a local reference to the global chr function (as discussed in the article) can give a slight speed boost. Using join() in conjunction with map() performs fairly well.

      python -m timeit -s 'l = range(256);' '"".join([chr(i) for i in l])'
      # 10000 loops, best of 3: 80.5 usec per loop
      python -m timeit -s 'l = range(256); lchr = chr' '"".join([lchr(i) for i in l])'
      # 10000 loops, best of 3: 75 usec per loop
      python -m timeit -s 'import itertools; l = range(256); lchr = chr' '"".join(itertools.imap(chr, l))'
      # 10000 loops, best of 3: 52.8 usec per loop
      python -m timeit -s 'l = range(256); lchr = chr' '"".join(map(chr, l))'
      # 10000 loops, best of 3: 48.9 usec per loop
      python -m timeit -s 'l = range(256); lchr = chr' '"".join(lchr(i) for i in l)'
      # 10000 loops, best of 3: 87.2 usec per loop
      python -m timeit -s 'l = range(256); lchr = chr' '
      s = ""
      for i in l:
        s += lchr(i)
      '
      # 10000 loops, best of 3: 64.2 usec per loop

</comment><comment><USER10> This[1] was my bible when I first wondered how best to build strings in Python.

[1] <http://www.skymind.com/~ocrow/python_string/>

</comment><comment><USER11> ", ".join([0,1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9]) works well. Why not that?</comment>


Examples of algorithms and proofs that seem correct, but aren't - <AUTHOR> https://cstheory.stackexchange.com/questions/40478/examples-of-algorithms-and-proofs-that-seem-correct-but-arent <comment><USER2> For algorithms that seem correct, but aren't, look at any security vulnerability in decently audited software. A nice example is [https://crocs.fi.muni.cz/public/papers/rsa_ccs17](https://crocs.fi.muni.cz/public/papers/rsa_ccs17)

Also, see _"Nearly All Binary Searches and Mergesorts are Broken"_ ([https://research.googleblog.com/2006/06/extra-extra-read- all...](https://research.googleblog.com/2006/06/extra-extra-read-all-about-it- nearly.html)), which is caused by the difference between mathematical integers and computer 'ints'.</comment>


Holographic Presentation Room Powered By Microsoft And DVE - <AUTHOR> http://microsoft-news.com/check-out-this-amazing-holographic-presentation-room-powered-by-microsoft-and-dve/#!

<comment><USER2> Who has a connection this reliable over geography small enough that it doesn't make more sense to meet in person?

That's CCTV quality there.</comment>


Gab cries foul as Pennsylvania attorney general subpoenas DNS provider - <AUTHOR> https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2018/11/gab-cries-foul-as-pennsylvania-attorney-general-subpoenas-dns-provider/ <comment><USER2> I hate gab with a passion, but I can't see any obvious way that this could conceivably be valid - gab hasn't violated any actual laws, nor is it accused of such. Simply being a social network for racists, homophobes, and anti- America nazis is not a crime. Nor should it be, i'd Like to be able to know if someone is a user - but mostly as a "are these people dangerous" check.

<comment><USER3> Hi, user here because I'm not about to let someone squat on my globally-unique username. That, and with a couple of filters, it amounts to Twitter with a nicer UX.

Go ahead and add me to the "dangerous person" list then?

<comment><USER2> Do you actually use it though?

<comment><USER3> With aforementioned filters, yes. The idea of a social network with freedom of speech guaranteed at the platform level is interesting to me. If someone is saying something I don't like, I merely need mute them or the topic they're speaking about.</comment></comment></comment></comment>