WGA screenwriting credit system - <AUTHOR> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WGA_screenwriting_credit_system <comment><USER2> Famous example I remember is that Joss Whedon pretty much rewrote all the dialog in _Speed_ but never got a writing credit[0] - apparently the rules are written to prevent producers or directors adjusting a few lines to gain a credit, but they don't take into account more substantial contributions.

Residuals are also paid to those credited, rather than those who worked as consultants

[0] [http://www.huffingtonpost.com.au/entry/joss-whedon- speed_n_5...](http://www.huffingtonpost.com.au/entry/joss-whedon- speed_n_5473795)

</comment><comment><USER3> I'm not sure about US, but in many places a part of copyright that cannot be given away is the right to be publicly named as an author of the work (in particular, the right to prevent other people being falsely named as authors of the work in public). If this is the case in US, I wonder what would happen if an uncredited author of a screenplay would use that to protest the claim made in the credits that she wasn't an author of that screenplay.

<comment><USER4> That's part of the basket of "moral rights" that originated in Germany and France. In the US, the tradition of being able to sell (or commission) exclusive rights is seen as mostly incompatible with obligatory attribution. There is an exception for, essentially, studio visual art: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Visual_Artists_Rights_Act](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Visual_Artists_Rights_Act) and there appears to be some interest in extending it to other works. Other moral rights (like false attribution) are covered in the US outside of copyright law, such as via slander/libel or false advertising or tort.

<comment><USER5> Yes. The US signed the Berne Convention. Signatories to the convention must recognize Moral Rights. In practice the US's protection of moral rights are much weaker than other countries. There is VARA for statues, paintings, and certain photographs. For everything else the US just says, "no we totally protect moral rights under already existing laws. Believe us."[1]

[1][http://ir.lawnet.fordham.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=123...](http://ir.lawnet.fordham.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1239&context=iplj)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> I am not sure why this posted here, but I found it fascinating. I understand a little better why writers are the only unionised "creatives" in the film and TV industry.

<comment><USER7> What do you mean? There's a producers guild, screen actors guild, musicians union, AFTRA, and like a dozen others. It's a heavily unionized space.

<comment><USER6> The others might have guilds, but do they ever go on strike? A union that never strikes is just a social club.

<comment><USER8> [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1942–44_musicians'_strike](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1942–44_musicians'_strike) [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2003_Broadway_musicians_strike](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2003_Broadway_musicians_strike)

<comment><USER6> Not much of win there in 2003. I did say in my OP the film and TV industry, not stage and theatre.

There have been quite a number of theatre strikes by various unions over the years. Everyone working together in person seems to make for a more militant environment - or maybe theatre producers are just worse employers.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Ask HN: What cloud security practices should you do, but don't? - <AUTHOR> For example, you should run vulnerability scans on your infrastructure, but don't. Perhaps your company doesn't have vulnerability disclosure policy, but should.<p>Why not? <comment><USER2> I no longer work at the company, but I used to work at a startup doing IoT devices. Our cloud server didn't stay up to date with security vunerabilities as we should have. Basically letting Mysql get behind in versions. There was also the issue of SSL being forgone in the name of time saving since I was the only one working on infrastructure. The development platform we were using broke on older versions with SSL enabled, so it was thrown into the wind before I had the time to deal with it.

This was due to being inexperienced with the work, too many duties, and a time line that didn't give me the time that I needed to fully understand some topics.

TLDR; -Security vulnerabilities from version updates -SSL on some platforms -Not having a dedicated / experienced individual on staff for dev ops in general

<comment><USER3> <self promotion>

I'm not surprised to see that the first thing you listed was patching known vulnerabilities. Staying up to date with known vulnerabilities is the baseline of a security policy, but patch management is needlessly hard, especially if you don't have dedicated staff to scour security mailinglists.

We built a product to make this easier: [https://appcanary.com](https://appcanary.com) . Maybe it would have helped your old employer.

</self promotion>

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> > Why not?

From a sysadmin/devops PoV boils down to _flexibility_. Security comes at the expense of flexibility and flexibility is more important for the survival and well-being of many/most IT companies and its especially crucial to startups.</comment>


Why offices are where work goes to die - <AUTHOR> http://swizec.com/blog/why-offices-are-where-work-goes-to-die/swizec/6695

<comment><USER2> > I'm a digital nomad and full stack web engineer.

The 'f' in "full" got chopped off on the left. [http://imgur.com/SqxgeT6](http://imgur.com/SqxgeT6)

FF 38.0, Linux Mint.

</comment><comment><USER2> > 1: Verbal communication is not self-documenting

Thank you for putting that first. It drives me insane that current "policy-in- the-medium" is announced at our morning standup to whoever happens to have attended the standup. And similar.</comment>


Depression Far Too Common Among Tech Pros: Survey - <AUTHOR> https://insights.dice.com/2018/12/05/depression-tech-pros-common-study/ <comment><USER2> WTF is a "tech pro". Lots of people are depressed, we are living through some wild times right now. Part of the problem is that it is a pain in the ass to find a therapist and many don't accept insurance:

If a patient's insurance company finds a reason why it shouldn't pay for treatment, the psychiatrist cannot bill the patient separately. The time spent seeing that patient is a sunk cost.

For all of these reasons, therapists make patients pay out of pocket. But, this means that many potential patients can't afford treatment. In 2011, a report (pdf) from the US Department of Health and Human Services found that of the 45.6 million American adults with any kind of mental health illness, fewer than half received treatment. The most widely cited reason for not seeking treatment was that—insurance or not—patients couldn't afford it.

From: [https://qz.com/684475/theres-a-reason-its-so-hard-to- find-a-...](https://qz.com/684475/theres-a-reason-its-so-hard-to-find-a- therapist-who-takes-insurance/)

Granted, these are "tech pros" so I think they probably can afford it but you never know. Spending an extra $400+ a month on therapy is a lot for most people, even "tech pros".

<comment><USER3> I find it amazing that you seem to assume that "therapy" is a given necessity and this is some how acceptable.

I live in a society where there is still a stigma (unfortunately) around mental health issues. The down side of this is that many people who could benefit from assistance from a mental health professional don't seek assistance. The up side, is that because issues such as depression and excessive stress are not seen as normal or good, there is a lot of pressure on employees to ensure that their work places promote mental (and physical) health, and they are held to account if this is not the case.

If there was an industry where there was found to be a very high proportion of workers suffering injury that resulted in legs being amputated, our first reaction would not be to ensure that the workers had access to inexpensive artificial limbs. There would be an outcry, the cause of the injuries would be identified and laws put in place ensuring that the offending work practice was illegal.

I beg forgiveness for this example from the many military personal who have lost limbs in the service of their countries, but I believe my analogy stands, even the military makes every attempt to ensure their troops don't walk down a mined road without protection.

<comment><USER4> I agree that prevention is the best method. For many people, therapy is more like basic self-care (ie, brushing your teeth) than a new limb. There are a great number of experiences that can batter us emotionally, and we can access therapy now while we work to fix these societal problems.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> I agree that prevention is the best method. For many people, therapy is more like basic self-care (ie, brushing your teeth) than a new limb. There are a great number of experiences that can batter us emotionally, and we can access therapy now while we work to fix these societal problems.

</comment><comment><USER5> I'm concerned that this is partly due to selection bias. Blind is an app where people go to complain about their work.</comment>


Who's the First Person in History Whose Name We Know? (2015) - <AUTHOR> http://phenomena.nationalgeographic.com/2015/08/19/whos-the-first-person-in-history-whose-name-we-know/ <comment><USER2> Other brief discussions about this topic suggesting other candidates:

[http://www.funtrivia.com/askft/Question114584.html](http://www.funtrivia.com/askft/Question114584.html)

[http://ask.metafilter.com/103405/Who-was-the-first-person- in...](http://ask.metafilter.com/103405/Who-was-the-first-person-in-recorded- history)

One Metafilter user ("Riemann") makes the interesting point that a huge number of clay tablets that have been excavated remain untranslated, so it's quite possible that new candidates would turn up over time as scholars examine those artifacts.

In support of this, Wikipedia says (internal references removed):

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

> Between half a million and two million cuneiform tablets are estimated to > have been excavated in modern times, of which only approximately 30,000 – > 100,000 have been read or published. The British Museum holds the largest > collection (c. 130,000), followed by the Vorderasiatisches Museum Berlin, > the Louvre, the Istanbul Archaeology Museums, the National Museum of Iraq, > the Yale Babylonian Collection (c.40,000) and Penn Museum. Most of these > have "lain in these collections for a century without being translated, > studied or published," as there are only a few hundred qualified > cuneiformists in the world.

Edit: if you become a cuneiformist, maybe you can discover the new earliest known named person! I'm reminded of the exciting time that Amir Aczel had in locating the first-known written numeral zero in history.

[http://www.huffingtonpost.com/amir-aczel/worlds-first- zero_b...](http://www.huffingtonpost.com/amir-aczel/worlds-first- zero_b_3276709.html)

(He has published a whole book on this if you want to hear a longer and more dramatic version of the story.)

<comment><USER3> Why can't we scan and use OCR with machine learning to automatically translate those clay tablets?

<comment><USER4> > Why can't we scan and use OCR those clay tablets?

Possibly for the same reason you can't scan 88-year-old images of Mickey Mouse without being sued by Disney.

The academics who control things like that are protective with their finds (even if they didn't find it, but got control). The Dead Sea Scrolls weren't published for _decades_ because the scholars who got to them first wouldn't let anyone else see them[1]; they got published only after the government intervened.

One scholar even sued[2] another over copyright infringement for publishing the words he painstakingly copied off the scrolls; the guy he sued had merely copied his copy of the 2000-year-old words.

[1] [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dead_Sea_Scrolls#Publication](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dead_Sea_Scrolls#Publication)

[2] [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dead_Sea_Scrolls#Ownership](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dead_Sea_Scrolls#Ownership)

<comment><USER5> > _Possibly for the same reason you can 't scan 88-year-old images of Mickey > Mouse without being sued by Disney._

You mean besides the scientific (or at least practical, at the current level of OCR/machine learning) impossibility of what the parent suggests?

Plus, I don't think parent asks why don't WE scan/ocr/machine learn translate them, but why the archeological community doesn't.

<comment><USER6> > Plus, I don't think parent asks why don't WE scan/ocr/machine learn > translate them, but why the archeological community doesn't.

Pure speculation but if it's like any other scientific community the pressure to be the first to publish would take control. Releasing scans, pictures, etc would allow someone else to beat you to the punch which means they'll get the fame and future funding.

<comment><USER7> Which is fine if you're going to job security or trying to extract funding for the duration of your career, but being first to publicly publish proof of ownership and work done is a pretty surefire way to claim credit.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Traditionally history is said to start where we have written records, the time before the being relegated to anthropology and archeology. But they say that the scope of economic history is larger because we have accounting records before we have written records. Before we had any clay tablets telling legends and recording the events of kings, we have the exchange rate between fish and barley, records of indebtedness, estimates for how many customers a shop might get in a day. Writing in the near-east was essentially developed as a more sophisticated accounting tool. So before I even clicked on the link, I was placing all my bets on a shopkeep. However, as a nitpick accounting as an individual profession really didn't develop until the industrial revolution when large corporations requiring high investment costs to leverage economies of scale led to changes in corporations and bankruptcy proceedings, establishing accounting as a specialty and profession in it's own right, rather than a skill that a business person was expected to learn. So Kushim wasn't an accountant, that's a very modern idea of a job. Kushim was a businessman who kept books to keep track of trade.

<comment><USER9> _" that's a very modern idea of a job"_

I don't agree. A vizier [1] is very related to an accountant. For example: Joseph (book of Genesis) became a vizier and had to account for the supplies in storehouses. Maybe he didn't do the accounting himself, but I'm sure they had a way to write down what was in stock and what not. They also traded with surrounding countries that were out of stock, so I'm sure this was bigger than the work of a small businessman.

[1] [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vizier_(Ancient_Egypt)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vizier_\(Ancient_Egypt\))

<comment><USER8> "The vizier's paramount duty was to supervise the running of the country, such as a prime minister, at times even small details of it such as sampling the city's water supply."

That doesn't sound like much of an accountant to me.

It would be even more strange that Kushim could be called an accountant at a time where double-entry bookkeeping hadn't been invented. There were always people who kept records, sure. But a person who went to school to learn specifically about keeping and organizing financial records and, in all likelihood, is licensed by the state to ensure that all records are kept in a consistent manner - that's what's modern. It took a very long time for accounting to be a job instead of a task you did in certain jobs. There were even auditors who worked for the government and were basically tax-collectors. But they would actually go to a business and have the owners read aloud their financial records to ensure that they were being kept and they made sense ("audit" basically means to hear).

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> "Note from Robert Krulwich: I see that this column has offended a whole bunch of you. Yes, as many of you point out, my viewpoint was white, male (and hung up on fame and power) and many of you have serious, and totally legitimate arguments with my assumptions. Now that I read your comments, I'm a little surprised, and a touch ashamed of myself. But the thing is—those were my assumptions. They were wrong. I say so."

It is so sad that so may discussions end up in places like this. Absolute bullshit.

<comment><USER11> Why is it bullshit to consider the feelings and dignity of people who are different from you?

<comment><USER11> Why did this comment inspire this quantity of downvoting?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> Man, those comments are poison. Amazing how many people flooded in to that article just to act righteously offended and signal how virtuous they are.

<comment><USER13> Yet here you are, signaling your virtue to a different community. This is a thing that humans do. There's no need to get bent out of shape about it.

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> The first recorded writer probably was a male, indeed.

That's because most ancient societies were blatantly misogynistic. It's unlikely women were afforded the opportunity to be educated or trained in the scholastic, monastic, or financial professions which were most likely to leave some form of written record.

So, yeah, the odds, based on historical predicates, are that the first recorded human's name was a male name. But not necessarily (or even likely) because of the author's claim that males seem to be more prone to be early adopters.

Nor is it at all likely that many of the hostile commenters on this author's article have the right idea that women in ancient history were equal contributors to society's evolution. They probably were not. Not because of any intrinsic inferiority of women, but because of the male-oriented power dynamics that clearly dominated most ancient societies.

<comment><USER15> _The first recorded writer probably was a male, indeed.

That's because most ancient societies were blatantly misogynistic._

Actually, my understanding is that the emerging reality is more interesting.

Pre-agricultural hunter-gatherer societies were non-patriarchal and patriarchal societies only later became the norm with the rise of warlike/raiding and settled agricultural societies which co-evolved and co- depended on higher population densities.

This is certainly the case here in Zomia where uninterrupted matriarchal societies have continued to exist until today, though they are now rapidly disappearing.

However, writing did tend to evolve only after this shift, so your statement may tend toward observational truth despite being based upon fallacious assumption.

<comment><USER16> What evidence is there of matriarchy, and how is that defined? I think you're right that today a popular theory among anthropologists is that agriculture led to many inequalities, but like all things ancient, there just isn't much data for anthropologists to draw conclusions from.

<comment><USER17> > what evidence

Archaeological evidence

Evidence from literate civilizations writing about their uncivilized neighbors, which goes back to the earliest known works

Evidence from writers encountering such societies up to the modern day, although they're almost extinct outside of the deep Amazon and the like.

Logical conclusions - without a food surplus, there is no class system and other results

<comment><USER18> > _Logical conclusions - without a food surplus, there is no class system and > other results_

Even hunter-gatherers have chiefs and elders.

<comment><USER17> > Even hunter-gatherers have chiefs and elders.

Hunter-gatherer bands do not have chiefs. Looking at the Wikipedia article for "Tribal chief" it says "Historically, tribal societies represent an intermediate stage between the band society of the Paleolithic stage and civilization with centralized, super-regional government based in cities." I couldn't put it better.

Even with regards to Indian chiefs, and it's not hard to see how there are misconceptions about them if they're still referred to as "Indians", modern anthropology acknowledges that European notions about Indian bands and tribes in the 15th and 16th century were often wrong. Europeans saw parallels of European society in the New World which weren't there (of course there were different kinds of societies in the Americas, from Montezuma's Aztec empire, to humter gatherer bands).

<comment><USER19> To be fair, you don't have to refer to them as "Indians". Most serious academic anthropologists would refrain from doing so, preferring Native American instead. So to label them as "Indians" yourself and then to state that "it's not hard to see how there are misconceptions about them if they're still referred to as 'Indians'" is a bit disingenuous. I'm sure there are misconceptions but I don't take as evidence the fact that you chose to call them "Indians".

<comment><USER17> I said they're still referred to as Indians because they're still referred to as Indians. The point is the very name shows the nature of the ingrained misconceptions about them - the idea that they're from India for one. Yes, I know they're not from India, you seem to have missed the point.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> For those trying to understand the numbers on the tablet, this could help: [http://www.storyofmathematics.com/sumerian.html](http://www.storyofmathematics.com/sumerian.html).

However, I did not find success while trying to read that.

</comment><comment><USER21> Inter stung article. Do yourself a favour and skip the comments.

</comment><comment><USER22> Two things about this article registered on my bogometer:

1\. In the image of the hands on the cave wall, some of the images are positive and some are negative. The negatives were plausibly made by the technique described in the article (put hand on wall, blow dust at wall) but the positive images could not possibly have been made that way.

2\. The translations of the tablets seem implausibly precise. How could we possibly know that a particular bit of ancient Sumerian (or whatever it is) translates as the Anglicized name "Gal Sal" or "Sukkalgir" or (most implausibly) "En-pap X"?

Seems just a tad odd.

<comment><USER23> The "positive" handprints are still surrounded by a halo. So, blow dust on wall, put hand on wall, blow different-colored dust over hand on wall? Either that or dip hand in dust, put hand on wall.

<comment><USER22> I thought of both of those possibilities, but I don't think they can explain these images.

1\. For the dark colored positives I don't see any evidence of the dark color bleeding through the light halo. Also, some of the positives have fingers that are faded, and some are overlaid by negatives. A light halo overlaying a dark base layer can't account for those.

2\. The positives are too solid to simply be handprints. If you just make a handprint, it will have gaps in the center of the palm and between the palm and fingers (among other places). But all the images are solid silhouettes.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> The article somehow neglects to mention _why_ Kushim wanted all this barley - it was because they were a brewer:

[http://www.schoyencollection.com/24-smaller- collections/wine...](http://www.schoyencollection.com/24-smaller- collections/wine-beer/ms-1717-beer-inanna-uruk)

</comment><comment><USER25> This is a way better set of answers to that question: [https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/1tqfef/what_...](https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/1tqfef/what_is_the_oldest_recorded_human_name/)

</comment><comment><USER26> I am surprised that Lucy is not mentioned, or her affectionate nickname AL 288-1. Her time of 3.2 million years ago dwarfs the 3200 B.C. mentioned in the article!

(disclaimer: TIC - Tongue-in-cheek)

</comment><comment><USER27> if you're interested in early human history such as this, check out Gobekli Tepe (search youtube), the site of some very early temples. very fascinating.

</comment><comment><USER28> I know that Sumerian numbers were written in a combination of bases 6 and 10 (symbols represented, e.g., 360, 600, etc), but how do they get 29,086 out of those symbols?

<comment><USER29> Looking at the example image on Wikipedia's page, I still have a hard time recognizing the numbers, even though they are marked: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sexagesimal#Examples](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sexagesimal#Examples)

People have always been using short hand and sloppy hand writing, I don't find it surprising that you can't recognize the numbers without some practise.

<comment><USER28> Recognizing the "digits" isn't the problem; that's already been solved and published:

[http://erenow.com/common/sapiensbriefhistory/sapiensbriefhis...](http://erenow.com/common/sapiensbriefhistory/sapiensbriefhistory.files/image023.jpg)

I can even find references to what many of the units represent:

[http://www.ancientscripts.com/images/su_numbers.gif](http://www.ancientscripts.com/images/su_numbers.gif)

For example, the six big circles in the middle seem to represent 6 x 3600. But I can't figure out what to do next.

<comment><USER30> Nice links!

Probably because it's not as simple as it looks. According to a handy copy of _A History of the Ancient Near East: ca. 3000-323 BC_ , by Marc Van de Mieroop,

"The Uruk IV notations seem complicated to us because seven different systems were used, each of which varied the physical shape of the numeral according to what was measured. For example, a sexagesimal system, relying on units with increments of ten and six, was used to account for animals, humans, and dried fish, among other things. A bisexagesimal system, which diverges from the previous one as its units also show increments of two, was used for processed grain products, cheese, and fresh fish. Volumes of grain or surfaces of fields were measured differently. [...] Although the shape of the number signs could differ between systems, the same shapes are found in various systems but sometimes with different values."

Wikipedia, citing _Archaic Bookkeeping Early Writing and Techniques of Economic Administration in the Ancient Near East_ by Hans J. Nissen, Peter Damerow, and Robert K. Englund (gonna have to get a copy of that one), claims more than a dozen different numeric systems.

So, yay, proto-cuneiform.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER31> Adam & Eve ;-)

<comment><USER18> God brought the world into being in 4004 BC. This article has a tablet from 5000 BC, so it looks like Kushim is indeed older than Adam'n'Eve :)

<comment><USER32> You misread that a little. It says 3200 BCE (which is about 5000 years ago), not 5000 BCE.

<comment><USER18> Damn, sorry. I liked that joke :)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER33> Evidence for the world's second oldest profession?

</comment><comment><USER34> I really enjoyed the intellectual curiosity of the article and it's author.</comment>


Ways to Build Virality into Your Product - <AUTHOR> https://medium.com/gabor/9-ways-to-build-virality-into-your-product-5975e1fe74e3 <comment><USER2> "Your product offers a differentiated type of messaging and encourages users to invite their friends to join them on the new messaging platform." ... "That's the limitation of this strategy: If the messaging experience isn't actually better in-product than over SMS or email, users will just find it annoying."

What kind of "differentiation" are they thinking of? I would pay good money to _not_ have to deal with any (more) proprietary chat systems. They're _all_ annoying. "Download the app" and "Register here" are just synonyms for "Back" and "Mark as spam".

There's a couple tech giants whose chat systems I use, only because I've got friends and colleagues who use them. Unless your new chat system will get me a job, or is the only way 1/3 of my friends will send messages online, I'm not going to touch it.

I don't understand how we ended up with so many incompatible chat systems today. Did we learn nothing from SMTP? Is XMPP not good enough? Are we so petty that compatible communications are somehow an anathema?

<comment> GuB-42 Examples of differentiation:

\- Signal end-to-end encryption

\- Discord game integration

\- Slack history keeping

\- Skype ability to make phone calls

\- Snapchat self destroying pictures

You may not see any use in any of these but some people do.

And some reasons why these aren't standardized:

\- it is hard to do without some form of centralization (ex: history keeping)

\- some services cost money (ex: phone calls)

\- some goals are contradictory (ex: end-to-end encryption and searchable histories)

\- owning a popular messaging network is simply too appealing

<comment><USER3> It's funny that you mention slack's edge as history keeping, which is a premium feature you need to pay for after a threshold... Skype and many others will always keep all of your history for free

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> I like the systematic breakdown. OP, what are some of your favorite viral marketing case studies?

</comment><comment><USER5> Great article</comment>


There soon will be no "offline" - <AUTHOR> https://medium.com/security-in-the-modern-world/22e7b2c247ff

<comment><USER2> "...Summary: we should vote out any representative who doesn't understand these concepts and, even more importantly, doesn't seem to care."</comment>


Yahoo to change name, trim board if Verizon deal gets done - <AUTHOR> http://mainichi.jp/english/articles/20170110/p2g/00m/0bu/032000c <comment><USER2> I read this as "Yahoo to change name, trim beard" at first. Too many hipsters moving into my neighborhood, I guess.</comment>


Cat confirmed infected and symptomatic with Covid19 by officials in Belgium/EU - <AUTHOR> https://www.brusselstimes.com/all-news/belgium-all-news/102984/coronavirus-belgium-reaches-7284-confirmed-cases/ <comment><AUTHOR> "Recently, the veterinary medicine faculty in Liège reported that a coronavirus infection has been diagnosed in a cat. The cat lived with her owner, who started showing symptoms of the virus a week before the cat did," said Van Gucht.

"We want to stress that this is an isolated case. Additionally, in this case, we are talking about a human-to-animal transmission, not the other way around. The risk of animal-to-human transmission, is very small," he added.

Edit (update): [https://www.brusselstimes.com/all-news/belgium-all- news/1030...](https://www.brusselstimes.com/all-news/belgium-all- news/103003/coronavirus-belgian-woman-infected-her-cat/)

"The animal lived in close contact with its owner, and started showing symptoms a week after the woman did. "The cat had diarrhoea, kept vomiting and had breathing difficulties. The researchers found the virus in the cat's faeces," he added."

</comment><comment><USER2> seriously cats now</comment>


Building an automated postcard mailing system with Lob and Zapier - <AUTHOR> http://www.mooreds.com/wordpress/archives/1468

<comment><USER2> Wow! This is a great use case, thanks for sharing (I werk for Zapier)!</comment>


What Time Is It on the International Space Station? (2013) - <AUTHOR> http://www.astronautabby.com/the-international-space-station-time/ <comment><USER2> It's weird that the author chooses Iceland as an example of a GMT+0 country, rather than Britain which is where Greenwich is.

<comment><USER3> Unlike Britain, Iceland does not have Daylight Saving Time, and therefore is GMT+0 throughout the year.

<comment><USER4> Am I the only programmer who is suddenly super duper envious of Iceland?

<comment><USER5> DST should not be the only reason to use UTC. It's probably just what makes it obvious once a year that someone uses timestamps wrong.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> I think they actually have a separate time called OBT (maybe it stands for Orbit).

I was at the Johnson Space Center in Houston recently, where we got a tour of the live Mission Control room for the International Space Station. I noticed two clocks at the top of one of the screens. One was GMT, the other was "OBT", and the OBT clock was around 17 seconds ahead of GMT. I think it has to do with relativity, and the fact that the space station is moving relatively faster than the earth. Maybe someone can confirm.

I got a photo of this mission control monitor if anyone is interested.

<comment><USER7> If you know the clock drift, won't you be able to calibrate the space station clock back to GMT+0, thus eliminating the need for an OBT?

<comment><USER8> GMT is already corrected back to earth GMT. But if you're doing a time sensitive measurement and went to measure real seconds, you look at OBT.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Technically, UTC is a time standard, and GMT is a time zone, so the two, although equal, are not really the same thing. Also, you can set your iPhone to UTC in the World Clock, which I do as an amateur astronomer.

<comment><USER10> I thought UTC the same, doesn't that mean that GMT+0 is essentially wrong? I thought GMT was essentially UTC+0, and all other time zones (ignoring DST) are defined as offsets to UTC, not GMT.

<comment><USER11> Think of it as two pointers referencing the same data:

        Time* UTC = Time(0);
        Time* GMT = *UTC;

        *UTC == *GMT; // True
        UTC == GMT; // False

<comment><USER12> Your example with pointers actually wouldn't compile, and I think the analogy you are trying to make is not accurate. On the second line you are assigning the target _address_ of `GMT` to be the _value_ pointed to by UTC. In other words you are trying to assign a value of type "Time" to an object to type "Pointer-to-Time".

If, however you meant for that line to be: Time *GMT = UTC;

it would compile fine, but then your second comparison would evaluate to true, and the whole analogy be rather pointless.

<comment><USER11> What I meant was to have them both point to the same data, but be different objects.

Sure, C wouldn't work that way, but it's just supposed to be pseudocode anyway.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> Tom Scott on timezones:

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-5wpm- gesOY](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-5wpm-gesOY)

</comment><comment><USER14> We spent a lot of time at Yeshiva discussing when a Jew in space, or on Mars, or on a planet orbiting Alpha Centauri (for example) would have to light Shabbos candles or celebrate Yom Kippur.

This issue has already come up with Jewish astronauts on the Space Station.

<comment><USER15> ...is it even allowed to set things on fire inside of ISS?

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> This kind of makes me want to make a site that will show the current solar time of the ISS. i.e. when the ISS is between the Earth and Sun it's 12:00, on the opposite side it's midnight. And show what time sunrise and sunset are. The minutes would obviously be much shorter (as a day is only ~90 minutes long), but it'd be interesting to see.

</comment><comment><USER17> I find it somewhat interesting that when SpaceX's streams switch to views with burned-in timecode it is always in UTC.

Edit: and usually in ISO8601-ish format

<comment><USER10> If you are going to design something using a time code the most obvious solution is probably to choose your own zone. When you realize that doesn't apply to anyone else, UTC is the next option. Especially because it means you don't need to deal with user configuration.

As for ISO8601, that probably results from people looking for some standard to help with compatibility. If you just mean YYYY-DD-MM HH:MM that is just nicely ordered. Actual ISO8601 would yield something like: 2018-03-11T22:53:40+00:00 I personally really hate that T in ISO8601, but it is actually a standard aimed at being both human and machine readable.

All that aside, I think we can all agree that MM-DD-YYYY is just incongruous and stupid.

<comment><USER18> It's yyyy-mm-dd not yyyy-dd-mm....

<comment><USER10> You are totally right, I got that wrong :( sadly it's to late to either edit or delete my shame.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> > Unfortunately the built-in iPhone clock application does not recognize the > International Space Station in its search.

But it _does_ do UTC.

</comment><comment><USER20> Do their clocks take into account time dilation?

</comment><comment><USER21> Article claims that Houston is GMT-5, but isn't Houston GMT-6 as part of central standard time? (Although not CDT is GMT-5).

</comment><comment><USER22> It's not just the ISS -- GMT (aka Zulu) is the standard for aviation and the US military in general.</comment>


University of Waterloo: Silicon Valley's Canadian Feeder School - <AUTHOR> http://www.businessweek.com/articles/2013-10-31/university-of-waterloo-silicon-valleys-canadian-feeder-school <comment><USER2> There is something special about Waterloo. We noticed it a couple years ago.

<comment><USER3> What's special about UW students/grads, and what do you attribute it to?

<comment><USER4> It's the co-op program.

Students trade independence during summers for year-round schooling that has them gaining 2 years of work experience at up to 6 different organizations by the time they graduate. And the reputation of the program is such that, if you've got the ability, you'll get opportunities at the biggest tech players. On top of the work experience, you'll have a wealth of experience applying to literally hundreds of jobs, being interviewed, both technically and non- technically, perhaps as many times as you will _for the rest of your career_ , and all of this while working alongside and competing with very bright peers.

<comment><USER5> Definitely agree.

The co-op program actually increases time to degree a little bit (three terms), because a "normal" 4 year university degree is 1/3 summer term, while Waterloo students alternate co-op term and academic term after their first two terms (I'm glossing over some details, but this is more or less how it used to work).

A = academic; S = summer (most universities); C = co-op (Waterloo)

Most unis : AASAASAASAA

Waterloo : AACACACACACACA

Essentially, Waterloo students get 8 academic terms and 6 co-op terms in 14 4-month terms. As others have mentioned, the history and structure of the co- op program means that students are getting industry experience very early on in university. The extra few terms seem like a small price to pay for that experience.

Most other (US / Canada) universities focus their teaching in the fall and winter terms so that a student will get 8 academic terms and 3 summer terms (where you're much more on your own in terms of finding a summer job).

<comment><USER6> I went to waterloo, I wanted to add a little more insight to your comment.

the system you gave is correct, but there is a little nuance to it. when you are on your academic term, around midterm time you have to find your job for the next term (assuming you don't continue your previous term's job). so during midterms you are studying like mad and interviewing like a pro to make next term work. its not easy, but you become extremely adept at interviews (trial by fire) and editing your resume. Also you get used to shrugging off rejection.

funny is if you get the Google, Apple, Amazon, Microsoft, or Facebook job. Your next term you can pretty much get a job at any of the others.

another scary tidbit at UW, is the level of talent around you. I can't tell you how many times my mind has been blown away by another person's ability to make some impossible assignment/task look like a cake walk. so its really hard to be arrogant at UW. I remember feeling like I can leap tall bounds in a single stride, but everyone else seems to just fly.

<comment><AUTHOR> This. Thought i was smart in high school. Got the highest score in the descarte math course. Went to waterloo and got my ass whooped. Always below average. My time at Waterloo made me feel dumb. I mean, things were just effortless for them. I was just a late bloomer, I tell myself.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> _Waterloo is a sleepy, postindustrial city of 100,000, a little less than 200 miles northeast of Detroit._ Ummm ... Waterloo-Kitchener-Cambridge form the K-W region (these 3 blend together with indistinguishable border) of ~ 1/2 Million peoople. Hardly "sleepy" the region is know as Canada's Tech Triangle and has a vibrant corporate _and_ startup economy. While it is 200 miles northeast of Detroit, it may as well be 2000 ... Detroit has no influence whatsoever. More accurate would be to say it is ~50 miles from Toronto.

<comment><USER8> Common, anyone who has even driven through Waterloo knows it's sleepy... No one says "shit, I really want to go to Waterloo". That's like saying people want to go to London (Ontario)... That's just not a thing

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> For anyone wanting to hire students from Waterloo / looking for work in the area:

[https://uwaterloo.ca/jobmine/employers](https://uwaterloo.ca/jobmine/employers) / [https://uwaterloo.ca/hire/](https://uwaterloo.ca/hire/)

[http://waterlootechjobs.com/en/](http://waterlootechjobs.com/en/)

[http://www.techjobswaterloo.com/](http://www.techjobswaterloo.com/)

[http://www.communitech.ca/](http://www.communitech.ca/)

<comment><USER10> And if you want to have a lengthy conversation with CS majors at Waterloo, bring up Jobmine. Jobmine is healthcare.gov of UW.

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> Waterloo's rep really hit home to me when at the end of our YC interview, PG still hadn't seen our demo and when we asked why, he said, "You're from Waterloo right? It works."

</comment><comment><USER12> Oddly once upon a time (back in '94) we were a feeder for Canadian high-tech and Microsoft, but very few students ended up in the Valley, at least not fresh out of school. In the intervening 20 years Canadian high-tech has stayed flat at best while the US has taken on more and more Waterloo grads every year. The increases in UW engineering & CS enrollment over the past 20 years are basically all going to the US (in my anecdotal opinion).

<comment><USER13> As an Ontarian this is a little sad, although I'm sure there's places in the US where the same thing happens. Certainly though I think companies should think of setting up engineering locations in KW. You can get quality people for way less money than you would have to pay in the Valley.

<comment><USER14> I wish American software giants would open more offices in Canada. Canadian software industry is still in a sorry state right now, but there's a lot talent in the country. American companies can pay lower wage to Canadian devs than US and they will still attract top talents from other Canadian companies because developers are lowballed hard here.

<comment><USER15> Hear, hear.

Google really needs to take a hint from BufferBox. If they can set up parcel delivery sites everywhere, what about setting up small to medium sized offices in every major city so that people don't have to relocate to work with them. Start with Vancouver. Mozilla has an office here in Vancouver and near as I can tell its only function is so that local people can work close to home on one or another of the Mozilla projects.

In my opinion, this is the future of work. Small hubs colocated with other small hubs, so that you are not working remote alone, but with a handful of coworkers in a larger office environment that has many businesses sharing a building and the overhead things like receptionists, room booking, coffee rooms, etc.

<comment><USER16> Google has debs working in Montreal and Toronto.

<comment><USER17> Got a source for this? All I know about is the marketing office, where Hinton now works some months of the year since the acquisition of DNNresearch. [1]

[1] [http://www.cbc.ca/news/technology/google-buys-university- of-...](http://www.cbc.ca/news/technology/google-buys-university-of-toronto- startup-1.1373641)

<comment><USER18> The Montreal office is on Ste-Catherine, near Place Ville-Marie. Afaik they work on Chrome.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> The funny thing is, at least when I attended UW (early 2000's), is that its domestic profile was not as strong as its recognition in the US would suggest. Many Canadians would mention more established schools such as U of T and Queens before Waterloo.

However, when I went for my first internship in California (NVIDIA, with about 20 fellow UW students), I found out that most people there couldn't name a single Canadian school, but if they could, it was UW.

I also remember a poker dealer in Vegas seeing my friend's iron ring and guessing "Waterloo?".

<comment><USER19> According to Google's top hit, Waterloo also happens to be "the top poker university": www.pokerlistings.com/blog/top-5-poker-universities

<comment><USER20> One alumnus the university tends not to brag about is Calvin Ayre, founder of the bodog online poker empire.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> Former Waterloo student here...

It's a shame that more Waterloo folks don't stay in Canada and build their businesses here. Unlike when I was at UW, nowadays there is plenty of investment money available in Canada and significant tech hubs in Vancouver, Toronto and Waterloo itself. Not to mention the fact that even in less major Canadian cities (or the US Midwest) there actually is a tech scene happening and people are starting new businesses. It is no longer necessary to move far from home to build a tech business.

<comment><USER21> Every time I've looked into it in detail, I feel Canada's VCs/angels are essentially bankers. Too much risk minimization going on (at the expense of the entrepreneur). What I find is a travesty is that the recent govt of Canada investment in developing startup activity will most likely go to these glorified bankers to help them further reduce risk.

Look at how much YC has spent on its startups ... my memory might be faulty but when I heard pg give the number it was around 6 million. If the govt of Canada did a program similar to startup Chile where they would invest in people's startups for a few months, THAT would have been a game changer for the smart Waterloo and UofT grads. Squandered opportunities ...

<comment><USER3> You're right on the money. Bay St likes resources, not startups. The company I'm currently working for was started by a couple of fresh UVic grads in 2005 and they went through 60 VCs before they found one who both had a worthwhile network, and seemed legitimately interested in funding a startup that had positive cashflow from day 1 and partnerships with tech titans.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> Pretty simple really.

They throw their students into the deep end and have them do multiple internships versus my public school in CA where I was the exception to the norm for doing an internship at all.

These people come out of school with the abilities of someone 2 years out of school but with the same freshness and excitement of other new grads.

</comment><comment><USER23> I'm very proud of my time at Waterloo. The school surrounded me great students and (some) great professors who were constantly challenging and rewarding. I wouldn't be the person I am now, and wouldn't have had the same great opportunities had I gone to another school.

As always, these stories about 'Canada's hidden talent pool' slide into a discussion about the 'brain drain'. Many of classmates from the class '07 ended up in the bay area, Seattle/Redmond, NYC or Boston. I'd estimate greater than 50%. In fact, I'm one of them. While I may not be living in Canada, I still stay connected to my home. I have many friends who have moved to the US after school only to return to Canada when they're ready to settle down and have a family. Canada remains a great place to live; I just wish we could decrease the cost of doing business between Canada & the US lower, and convince more Americans to move up north.

<comment><USER24> Isn't it pretty hard to get Canadian citizenship if you're American? Like, even with highly sought after skills in tech I've heard it's near impossible.

<comment><USER25> Among the "rich" countries, Canada is one of the most open in the world to skilled immigrants.

<comment><USER26> it's getting harder. slowly but definitely.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER27> In my experience Canadians don't perceive the same differences between universities that Americans do.

Fewer differences between our universities is a plausible explanation. So is the possibility that Americans perceive differences that don't exist.

</comment><comment><USER28> No mention of Chamath Palihapitiya or Eric Migicovsky. I think the title and intent of this article are spot on, but like so many things Business Week, the reporting doesn't hit the important datapoints. Why focus on BlackBerry, which certainly deserves mention, but totally ignore two huge successes that support the thesis of the article.

<comment><USER29> Business Week isn't real journalism. No surprise here.

</comment></comment><comment><USER30> The Waterloo students I've worked with have been absolutely amazing and have tons of programming experience. They do co-ops year-round. If you're running a startup, I'd recommend putting a post on Jobmine, which is their online job matching tool: [http://uwaterloo.ca/jobmine/](http://uwaterloo.ca/jobmine/)

The next deadline to post a co-op is January 15, for students working in summer 2014.

(You can technically post now for the "continuous cycle" of Jan-Apr co-ops, but I think most students are already matched so you'll get fewer results.)

</comment><comment><USER31> "Most years, we hire more students out of Waterloo than any university in the world" -Bill Gates

I think we topped Google one year too, but couldn't find a source.

<comment><USER32> We tend to trade back and forth with Stanford for top at Apple too.

</comment></comment><comment><USER33> The Waterloo CS co-op program got me down to the Valley in 1998. I wound up dropping out in 2000 to move to New York (I don't recommend this lightly, but it didn't harm my career and likely helped it due to timing).

It was a great program in that it actually tried to teach programming alongside classic CS (this was before the SoftEng degree), and forced you to get out in the real world as soon as possible. The biggest problem was that (due to the grind in years 3 and 4) most of my peers who graduated CS wound up hating computers and couldn't wait to get into management. Also, graduating tends to take 5-6 years due to the work terms. I left in 3B so didn't quite have those scars.

</comment><comment><USER34> More evidence for Waterloo's "specialness" can be found here:

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Lowell_Putnam_Mathemat...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Lowell_Putnam_Mathematical_Competition)

Its teams have finished among the top five 18 times since 1968, twice as many times as Stanford (though far fewer times than MIT, Princeton, or Harvard). This with a budget that's dwarfed by the schools who dominate the competition (and can afford expensive international recruitment). Waterloo had its heyday, interestingly enough, around the time that RIM was founded: beginning in 1978 it placed in the top five eleven of the following sixteen years.

<comment><USER35> Another is the schools consistently high placement in the ACM's ICPC:

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ACM_International_Collegiate_P...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ACM_International_Collegiate_Programming_Contest)

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> Waterloo is really great at making it _easy_ to hire co-ops. This is a huge part of its success. I've heard hiring managers say they prefer UW students over other schools simply because the co-op process at UW is so _easy_ for them.

<comment><USER36> I'm not sure to what extent hiring managers have to interact with the software that powers the co-op process (Jobmine), but as a student who has used it to secure 5 terms of work, Jobmine is definitely up there on my list of the worst designed/most frustrating pieces of software to use. Jobs for CS students are good and plentiful, so its still worth sludging through the system. Looking forward to the replacement, if it ever comes (startup idea?)! ([http://www.bulletin.uwaterloo.ca/2011/feb/25fr.html](http://www.bulletin.uwaterloo.ca/2011/feb/25fr.html))

<comment><USER37> For students it's easy to criticize Jobmine as users of it. But given the even worse (or in many cases, non-existent) co-op application systems at other schools, Jobmine is light years better.

I remember working with some Waterloo alumni from the 80s/90s and they spoke of the chaos of the application and ranking process when everything was done on paper. I personally can't even fanthom how UW managed to do any of this (although obviously there were less than half the number of students then to what we have today).

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER38> This is anecdotal but one of their students once told me that Waterloo puts more emphasis on mathematics compared to other universities. It's not that students there necessarily take more math courses but that most courses try to integrate math and teach the mathematical aspects of their material, even courses outside of science. Their wikipedia page states that "Waterloo created the first Faculty of Mathematics in North America" so I guess it's a tradition for them.

<comment><USER39> Waterloo does have a strong Math tradition. But further to that, for a long time the Computer Science degree at Waterloo was a specialization under their Bachelor of Mathematics degree. So you had to fulfill all of the requirements of the Math program and graduated with a "BMath". You were also offered interesting minors like "Combinatorics and Optimization" where you would get deep into Cryptography, Graph Theory and so on.

I can't say how it compares to other schools, but certainly many of my memories of CS at Waterloo were working feverishly through difficult math assignments so I could get back to the lab. ;)

</comment></comment><comment><USER40> We have been using co-ops from Waterloo for some time and have subsequently hired several full time. Some greta people there (even if they eat that weird abomination, Poutine)

</comment><comment><USER41> is Waterloo the only university in canada with similar startup culture and recognition from tech companies? i was unfortunately denied admission recently to Waterloo, and I'm planning to try UBC and UToronto. UBC in particular has a special program for people like me - college graduates seeking a second degree in CS, which sounds really good but I keep hearing these things about Waterloo which makes me feel really sad about not making it there.

<comment><USER8> Don't take these things too seriously. At the end of the day it's about how good you are. You might have more of a grind to the top, but it's attainable.

<comment><USER42> I agree, I got rejected from Waterloo as well, but I did fine going to U of T.

<comment><USER41> i'm a little confused though. UofT is supposedly the #1 engineering school in canada, though it does not have the same startup reputation as Waterloo, but you're saying if Waterloo denied you, you still stand a good chance making it to UofT? I'm planning to apply to UofT and UBC as well, so this is pretty good news to me.

<comment><USER42> IMO it really doesn't matter what University you go to as long as you finish. The degree is just a way to show employers you can endure a taxing 4+ years.

Waterloo has co-op, 4 months school, 4 months work. This is really good for getting a feel for where you want to work. But the amount of time at the company isn't all that much. Depending on the company they may be reluctant to give you anything big to work on as you will be gone soon.

U of T has PEY, professional experience year, 12-16 months of internship. I really enjoyed my year off, made what I learnt at school make sense. When I came back to school after a year I was much more committed. The downfall is that for a few summers you maybe doing odd jobs to get by.

In terms of education, I think it really depends on the student. But talking to my buddies that went to Waterloo, the classes are smaller and it sounds like they actually care that you pass.

At U of T you get so much thrown at you that you have to learn what is important and only focus on those things. Pass or fail is up to you as it is super competitive.

Best of luck!

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER43> Currently working with a Waterloo intern and I can personally attest that he is the bomb.

</comment><comment><USER26> As far as I remember UW is one of the only universities in the continent to offer a course to build an actual real-time operating system, from the ground up. I learned so much in that course. Co-ops rule, but for non-coops the so- called "big three" courses are pretty famous as well. I've had countless interviews where an interviewer asked me if I'd taken at least one of the three courses.

<comment><USER44> Plus you got to play with trains.

<comment><USER45> when they're actually working...

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER46> Being an engineering student at University of Waterloo has been a great experience so far. Co-op is one of the main reasons why I chose UW as it is certainly rewarding. The knowledge and experience that I have gained through 1.5 coop terms (currently on co-op) has been simply amazing. It also helps pay the tuition and reduce, if not completely take away, the debt after graduation. Besides the university, the Kitchener-Waterloo region is a great place to be in for technology and start up enthusiasts. The R&T park right beside the university and the Tannery Complex in Kitchener are home to many great companies/startups. It is compelling to overhear conversations about reversing linked lists,javascript mvc/mv* frameworks, monetizing apps while eating at a local restaurant. Having 2 years of experience at possibly 6 different companies helps stand out from graduates from other universities.

</comment><comment><USER13> Tuition is $12000 now? I graduated from Mac in comp eng in 1996 and I think it was getting to around $3000 then. Definitely worth it, but if you told me at the time I would have thought $12000 was crazy. I graduated with no debt though.

<comment><USER37> It's roughly $6000/term (for engineering, cheaper for CS students though) not including paying for food + housing (an additional $1600-3000 depending on where you decide to live on or off-campus). I'm in the boat of Waterloo grads who graduated with no debt. But I would hazard a guess that the majority of engineering students have little to no debt. And the students who do co-op in the US most definitely earn more money than what's required to pay for school.

<comment><USER47> I study Software Engineering at Waterloo right now; I paid 7600 this term including tuition, incidental fees, co-op fees, etc. but not including food or residence.

<comment><USER37> I ignored incidental fees from my figure. Strictly the tuition cost.

Also factoring in the point that tuition for engineering is making a major hike (I think it was 5%?) and a lot of students get the 30% tuition cut from the provincial government (although this doesn't apply to 4B students).

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER48> If you are a tech/software company you should definitely consider taking on Waterloo co-ops. There is a lot of competition between the students to get the best jobs. This results in students that go above and beyond in their work to distinguish themselves for the next round of interviews for their next co-op job. On top of that, having this kind of ambition on your team can rub off on the rest of the team boost the teams productivity.

</comment><comment><USER42> Canada still has plenty of talent. U of T has strong CS/Engineering programs. Only a few of my buddies are in the valley.

<comment><USER49> My anecdotal experience is different - almost every software type I went to school with at Waterloo is now in the US somewhere. I know exactly 3 Canadians I went to school with who are still in Canada.

</comment></comment><comment><USER50> It goes all the way back to Watcom Fortran.

That eventually got absorbed into Powersoft, which was bought by Sybase, with the star being the DBMS that turned into SQL Anywhere, which became the ostensible reason for SAP's acquisition of Sybase.

(That story is of course oversimplified ...)

</comment><comment><USER51> Does anyone know if companies view soft-eng grads vs. compsci grads from uw differently? The school says it's the same, but I'm hoping to hear some first hand experience. Asking as a prospective undergrad next year :)

<comment><USER52> Having done > 70 interviews in my time at UW, most companies don't understand or care about the difference between Soft-eng and CS programs. I'd highly recommend CS over Soft-eng, unless you like pain.

<comment><USER53> That may be true, but for a Canadian a big advantage of taking software engineering is that it makes it much easier to work in the US later. An engineering degree lets you easily qualify for the "engineer" category of the TN visa, but with a CS degree it's considerably harder.

<comment><USER54> I don't think it's that much harder as CS can easily apply under the computer analyst category for the TN visa.

<comment><USER55> CS grad here, I've obtained multiple TN's and it's no different. You just have to avoid telling the agent that your job involves "programming". It's just a technicality really, the language was drafted at a time when terminology was different.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER56> This is something big tech companies have known since the dot-com era (Amazon & Microsoft have been recruiting from Waterloo heavily for over a decade).

</comment><comment><USER57> UW has had a great CompSci program for decades. WATFOR has celebrated it's 50th anniversary.

</comment><comment><USER58> I find it very strange that they picked BufferBox instead of Thalmic Labs.

<comment><USER59> Why?</comment></comment>


End-to-end book/guide for creating and managing a web app - <AUTHOR>

I know that there are lots of guides for creating web apps in X language or Y framework. What I am looking to find specifically is a guide or series of information on creating/monitoring/maintaining/troubleshooting web apps in general. One with best practices for logging, dev(staging/qa/production), testing,tools for debugging and inspection,deployment, etc. Does such a thing exist, or something close to if not more in depth of what I describe? <comment><USER2> It's not necessarily a guide, but I like the web development class at Udacity. It builds a solid foundation for web development.</comment>


Ask HN: Moving to Puerto Rico for the Tax Benefits? - <AUTHOR> Puerto Rico is the only place a US citizen can move to and legally owe 0% in federal income tax and capital gains tax.
From https://ustax.bz/puerto-rico/
Under Act 20, a Puerto Rican corporation that's engaged in certain types of service businesses only pays Puerto Rican tax of 4%.
Under Act 22, you can pay 0% on certain dividends and capital gains you realize while you're a bona fide resident of Puerto Rico.
I guess the most optimal reason to move there is if your day job is an investor. Curious if anyone has looked more closely into this or has actually moved there for this reason and whether it is worth it or not? <comment><USER2> Here is a podcast where Peter Schiff talks about this.

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3u7kDfEtKfs](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3u7kDfEtKfs)

33:30 Living in Puerto Rico</comment>


Thoughts on the Nexus 7, supposed iPad mini, and the mid-sized tablet - <AUTHOR> http://davidchartier.com/nexus-7-thoughts-mid-sized-tablets <comment><USER2> "The build is great." - Not so much for probably thousands of people who already got a replacement unit because the screen came lose on the left side. I must say Google was really good sending out replacements.

"yet too small to display almost every type of content one would want to consume, including the very stuff Google pre-loaded" - Yeah this is one of my bigger annoyances. It is just so dumb that the 'Welcome to your Nexus 7' email does not scale properly. This is a common theme with HTML email on the Nexus. Most of them are fixed width and impossible to read on the Nexus.</comment>


The Wiki is in French (2011) - <AUTHOR> http://www.hccp.org/the-wiki-is-in-french.html <comment><USER2> It could have been worse, and it has been.

"The Spider of Doom" (2006)

A crawler deleted all of the content in a CMS, because the delete button used a GET request, without authentication, and with the URLs embedded in the HTML.

[https://thedailywtf.com/articles/The_Spider_of_Doom](https://thedailywtf.com/articles/The_Spider_of_Doom)

<comment><USER3> I know of someone who tried to backup company wiki with wget. There were links that would delete pages, "protected" by some JavaScript which didn't get triggered. Fortunately they had some real backups, but the error seems to be quite common.

<comment><USER4> Part of the problem is that we don't really have nice ways to send POST requests from something which looks like links, from what I can tell.

An <a> tag can only ever send a GET request. It can't be made to submit a form (without JS) afaik. The only simple way to have something the user can click to send a POST request is to use a <button> or <input type="button"> in a form, and styling that to look like a link is absolute hell.

I'm sure that if we had proper HTML tools from the start to say, "I want this thing to look like a link, but I want it to send a POST request", we'd at least have less such issues.

<comment><USER2> Sure, but styling is possible ([http://jsfiddle.net/adardesign/5vHGc/](http://jsfiddle.net/adardesign/5vHGc/)) even though it's not perfect, and requiring JS is completely acceptable for >99% of people. If you want it both ways, you can always use JS to replace the button with a link, that way you get a functional button without JS that looks like a link (but is slightly off), and a well-styled link with JS, and you get zero GET requests that delete resources. Progressive enhancement!

It's a mess, but as far as I'm considered "not messy" HTML+CSS+JS was never an option to begin with, at least for most people.

<comment><USER4> Sure, it's possible, and every web application worth its salt should make sure it doesn't use GET requests to mutate state. I'm just saying that if it wasn't so unintuitive (i.e having to just know of all the styles browsers tend to apply to buttons, and how to change them to how browsers tend to style buttons), people would have made that mistake less.

The thought process should have been as straightforward as, "I want this link to modify state, so I'll use <a method='post'>".

I agree that using JS is probably okay for most tasks these days, but 1) a lot of web platforms were written at a time before JS was widespread, and 2) just throwing together some HTML is a lot easier than adding javascript to every link. (If you don't think that speed/ease of programming matters; you'd be surprised to learn how many internal tools various places use were just thrown together and isn't a polished product.)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> One day I got a similar call from an old customer I had not heard about for 6 months or so "Please help, my customer website has been hacked ! All content has been deleted !". A simple grep delete on the Apache logs showed that a User-Agent called GoogleBot visited all delete pages. Looking at these pages source codes, the developers that coded their website had forgotten to check authentication on a number of administration pages. And of course, the list page showed links to delete each content item, that was intercepted by a javascript callback doing a confirm(), which didn't matter for GoogleBot.

</comment><comment><USER6> Reminds me of something that happened to a mate. He created a database for a project and while it was still in testing he generated a very long random number and made it into a URL to reset everything. It was not linked to from anywhere and he sent it once to the client over a Skype message. He gets a call from the client a few days later to ask if there is a problem as the database had emptied itself. He finds one visit to the page in his logs. From an IP located in Redmond. He reckons they were scanning URLs from Skype and using them to help populate Bing.

<comment><USER7> Wow, that's...Redmond's fault in this case? You can't guarantee every URL you scan is going to be idempotent. That's a hell of an oversight on their part.

<comment><USER8> I completely agree with your comment but... automatically hitting URLs to create link previews in messenger apps is a common practice, and one that seems to have been (frustratingly) accepted by the mainstream of developers and users alike.

This might be MS' fault, but it's also Facebook's, Slack's, pre-FB-WhatsApp's, to name just a small few of many.

<aside> On the other hand, if you're putting up a GET endpoint that's not only not idempotent, but unauthenticated and wipes your whole DB. Even on a test site. Blaming MS for your troubles is a bit much.

<comment><USER9> This is a practice that exposes the tension between protecting users from malicious use and privacy at scale. A _lot_ of malicious links get sent over messenger systems, and loading them is often the only good way to find out which ones are or aren't.

But wait! Surely there are other possible approaches. Can't users just report spam? Surely there are clear usage patterns that can be detected too!

These are valuable and useful approaches, but have historically proven unequal to the task. It can be tricky to spot a spam campaign spread over N accounts - only the most basic forms of spam are really obvious. URLs are easily disguised and changed. Loading the URLs and checking the contents that come back is one of the better approaches. Users also don't tolerate a bunch of spam. They _will_ migrate away.

So, yes, anyone who makes a GET endpoint into an unauthenticated change-things URL deserves all the misery they get.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Modern crawlers can easily follow javascript or some basic POSTs. So, apart from the insane state-changing GET requests in the code, unless you are spidering your own application, I would not give a crawler admin credential. Anyway a very nice anecdote of the two-thousands decade. Never ever forget the basics.

</comment><comment><USER11> Pretty lucky that the "delete everything, really, also the backups!" button needed a POST.

</comment><comment><USER12> I have seen a lot of web apps doingthe opposite - using POST requests for everything. Has this ever caused anyone problems?

<comment><USER13> It makes it impossible to bookmark a specific search result, for one example; either the page of results or a specific instance, because the bookmarked URL doesn't have any of the search/ID metadata that a GET-loaded page would.

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> Once somewhere in 2016 on Facebook I clicked a slate.fr link. Ever since, my Facebook has been in French.

</comment><comment><USER15> And this is why GET requests should not modify state.

</comment><comment><USER16> I don't understand how a crawler could change the language of the wiki without being authenticated.

<comment><USER17> > After determining the source IP of the crawler (one of the admins was > experimenting with Nutch as a supplement to the wiki's impoverished search > capabilities and had authenticated the crawler using their admin > credentials)

Quoting the article.

<comment><USER16> Thanks, I missed this on first read! The lines are quite wide.

Now wondering what the wiki software was that had implemented it as a GET (of course, opening up to CSRF too if there's no token param) _and_ implemented poor search functionality.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> Funny, the original author appears not aware of the derivation of the expression "all too".

</comment><comment><USER19> Company wikis should not be accessible from outside a VPN or physically being on the office lan.

<comment><USER17> While your comment is correct, this would not have prevented the issue stated in the article.

> After determining the source IP of the crawler (one of the admins was > experimenting with Nutch as a supplement to the wiki's impoverished search > capabilities and had authenticated the crawler using their admin > credentials)

The real problem is that a GET request is meant to be side-effect free. A crawler only issuing GET requests should not be able to modify e.g. global settings. Even when using an admin token.

<comment><USER20> > GET request is meant to be side-effect free

Meant, yes, by somebody, but a web service creator can decide otherwise, for some reasons, like simplicity.

If I remember correctly, there was a good story about Viaweb, how they figured that sending requests to follow links can be used as commands - and I wasn't sure they didn't use GET for that... but maybe I'm wrong.

<comment><USER21> > but a web service creator can decide otherwise

This is like "undefined behavior" in C. Sure, you can make a GET have side effects in your application, but everything else will still assume that HEAD and GET is free of side effects, and might repeat requests, omit requests (using cached data), or even do requests speculatively in advance.

<comment><USER22> This reminds me of the story of an internet connected garage door opener that uses GET for opening and closing

> > [https://twitter.com/rombulow/status/990684453734203392?lang=...](https://twitter.com/rombulow/status/990684453734203392?lang=en)

TL;DR: Safari figures out the user is visiting this page very frequently so whenever Safari opens, it tries to send a request to fetch the garage door "page" link before he visits anywhere to cache the response. Which immediately opens the garage door.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


HTC defends their own innovations in Apple patent lawsuit - <AUTHOR> http://androgeek.com/htc-defends-their-own-innovations-in-apple-patent-lawsuit.html <comment><USER2> Blogspam (no original content, just multiple sources).

Real URL of HTC response is: [http://www.slashgear.com/htc-respond-on-apple- patent-suit-ar...](http://www.slashgear.com/htc-respond-on-apple-patent-suit- are-committed-to-defending-their-own-innovations-0276377/)</comment>


A Brief History of High Availability - <AUTHOR> https://www.cockroachlabs.com/blog/brief-history-high-availability/ <comment><USER2> Claiming that "high availability" started with the internet seems to ignore the role that Telcos (Bell Labs?) have played in our field and modern technological world.

The engineering work to deliver five nines of availability for POTS shouldn't be omitted in a piece about the history of HA, in my opinion.

<comment><USER3> I think it's ignored because the story is focused on databases' HA.

My impression from my limited telco experience (correct me if it's wrong) is that there was not much "database stuff" happening in telcos back in the days: only dispatch tables and call duration records come to mind. With then prevailing post-call billing, I assume a lot of the hard constraints on consistency were not there.

<comment><USER4> Banks and telcos both had database systems that had zero downtime in 20 years, in some case. Tandem Non-Stop was very real - [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NonStop_(server_computers)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NonStop_\(server_computers\))

<comment><USER5> They still are :D

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Hmm, I think potted history is more correct...

There is no mention hardware here. HP, Compaq, IBM and Sun all produced hardware with HA ability. Meaning that normal software could be run on two or more nodes, and should one break, it'd fall over with no loss of data, or outages. Here is a (contrived) video where they literally blow up a server stack: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qMCHpUtJnEI](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qMCHpUtJnEI)

You can do this with VMware, and if AWS could see a way to make money, they'd do it to. (For a while AWS's platform was not capable, but that was 7+ years ago. its much more lucrative to make people build in HA and redundancy into software, as its requires more services to run)

<comment><USER7> Hey, for once my former life designing HA infrastructure is actually useful!

The reality is that hardware HA was almost always terrible. Of the platforms you described:

\- Sun had no hardware HA ever, down to the unfathomable design that all of their E-class machines had only one power cord. They had SOME hotswap hardware, but the rules were byzantine - it couldn't be the first processor board, and it couldn't be the last processor board, oh and by the way, if a processor or RAM went bad, the machine would crash, but when it came back up it would take the bad processor offline and if you were lucky enough the bad processor wasnt on the first or last board and then you could hotswap it.

\- The only HA hardware from IBM was the mainframe, and even there, it was definitely possible for a software fault to take down the entire thing. The P-series boxes had lots and lots of fancy sounding HA capabilities, but they would only certify a configuration as fault-tolerant if you bought two of them and clustered them with HA/CMP (i.e. software HA).

\- Compaq had the NonStop servers, based on the Tandem acquisition. As the downthread comment correctly pointed out, there was a ton of hardware redundancy in that platform, but I think it ran a proprietary OS. They also had their OpenVMS clustering, which offered amazing HA - but it was all delivered in software, and your app had to be either a) stateless or b) cluster-aware

\- HP bought compaq, but the HP-UX machines relied on software for their clustering.

This all dates back to when people thought servers were special in some way, and needed to justify their insane price points with all sorts of fancy marketing features. Some were useful (I remember an early IBM linux box with RAM mirroring that actually kind of worked), but in the end, a Veritas cluster of decoupled nodes almost always worked better, more reliably, and faster than any hardware nonsense.

EDIT: fixed my wrong assertion about Compaq tech.

<comment><USER8> _" Compaq had the NonStop servers, which ran OpenVMS...but it was all delivered in software"_

NonStop/Guardian had nothing to do with OpenVMS. And the hardware was certainly purpose built for HA, including redundant, lockstepped CPUs, disk controllers, etc.

<comment><USER7> You are 100% correct - in my haste, I conflated the old Tandem hardware line with the OpenVMS clustering platform. My mistake, I'll see if I can edit my post.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> HA was a thing long before "the internet" on mainframes, and still is. And apart from sharding, there were, and still are, load balancers for your service tier and HA (redundant, replicated) shared-disk DB clusters from Oracle and others around 1990 or earlier.

<comment><USER10> One word: "airlines".

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> The opening about availability and our expectations hits right at home.

I'm originally from France, where stores closing during lunch time, sundays and mondays all day is normal. I remember when I moved to Canada, it seemed so amazing that stores were opened 7/7, and sometimes until 9pm (on Thursdays and Fridays). Wow!

Then I got used to it, and now, anytime I'm back in France, I just find it unacceptable and wonder how those store survive and make any money while always being closed!

<comment><USER12> Because they are all closed at the same time?

<comment><USER11> Sundays / Mondays, yes, almost all stores are closed. Lunch time, not all of them close, but it is a fair part.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> As mentioned on HN previously, B&H (a large New York based photography store) do not take online orders in accordance with Jewish holidays.

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12183263](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12183263)

<comment><USER14> I once worked with a bank where a server we depended on was only available from 0800 to 1500, then 1530 to 1700. I think that's the only time i've ever had to build around a computer which took a tea break.

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> For anyone interested in learning more about HA and consistency, I found this book very interesting: [https://dataintensive.net/](https://dataintensive.net/). The author does a great job developing an intuition for progress made along with trade-offs at each stage.

</comment><comment><USER16> Good read, thank you. I always welcome these articles where the notion of "how things came to be" is introduced. Makes it easier to manage the latest and greatest, when you have an understanding of how things have evolved.

</comment><comment><USER17> The article mentions sharding (a scaling technique, not exactly something that helps with HA), but then it stops. Does every node in CockroachDB store all data?

<comment><USER18> No, data in the tables is sharded into blocks and each block is replicated across the cluster using Raft consensus.

</comment></comment><comment><USER19> latency, throughput, availability and storage capacity, the quest for the holy grail.

</comment><comment><USER20> Hey bro you want to hit this? Whats the WORST name for a company we can come up with??</comment>


The Sad, Beautiful Fact That We're All Going To Miss Almost Everything - <AUTHOR> http://www.npr.org/blogs/monkeysee/2011/04/19/135508305/the-sad-beautiful-fact-that-were-all-going-to-miss-almost-everything <comment><AUTHOR> I'm curious what the community thinks about this especially as entrepreneurs and developers/designers.

I spend a huge portion of my time learning new languages, tools and technologies that fitting in fiction/non-fiction books that do not directly relate to building a business or learning a new technology is extremely difficult. (e.g. I've been reading a US history book for a couple of months now)

I'm sure people on HN have interests in a large variety of topics, what do you do to cover all of those topics? Or __do__ you cover all of those interests at all?

Do you just pick a couple of interests and stick to them or do you dabble in many different ones and only dive in deeper if you get "bitten"?</comment>


Study finds that mindfulness is associated with reduced procrastination - <AUTHOR> https://solvingprocrastination.com/procrastination-study-mindfulness/ <comment><USER2> I have tried to get started on meditation/mindfulness several times but I have never been able to stick with it. Any suggestions on a good way of getting started with it?

<comment><USER3> For me the headspace app worked wonders. It's really only ten minutes a day to get started. Ten minutes, a comfortable rest and no interruptions. You don't need more.

You can always go to other programs later.

<comment><USER4> Headspace app has worked well for me too. I have been using it for more than 3 months, meditating for 20 mins every day and I feel calmer throughout the day.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> I believe I am fairly "mindful" \- but I am also a huge procrastinator, especially on tasks I don't really want to do. Maybe I'm not as mindful as I think?

What's also interesting is that - for certain of these tasks - once I get involved in them I tend to find some pleasure in doing them. Usually things involving maintenance or repair of my home environment, or my automobile. But both are tasks that I will usually procrastinate on, or just pay for someone else to do it (especially if it's during the summertime; depending on the task, heatstroke here in Phoenix is a definite possibility for me).

It would be interesting to take both of these tests, just to see where I would place on them. Hopefully this thread may have some tips on how to stop or reduce my procrastination tendency, something I've had all my life and has probably limited my potential at times.

<comment><USER6> I wonder if the aversion is not to the task itself, but to the disruption of cognitive frame. Now that I think about it, I never have a problem with simple chores like laundry--I just hate tearing myself away from whatever I'd otherwise choose to be doing.

</comment></comment><comment> 0-_-0 I wanted to start meditating for a while but I keep putting it off. How can I stop procrastinating?

<comment> fbi-director Based on mroe than just this comment, have a serious talk with yourself

Procrastination is often not about being lazy, but a deeply embedded or burried fear of failure. That being said, being overwhelmed can also stop you from taking action of any kind, and a part of fixing that pattern (which has usually already developed once you start to recognize procrastinating is a provlem for you) is indeed cutting everything into bite sized chunks.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> I don't know about needing to be non-judgemental to be mindful. I tend to curse myself out (repeatedly) at self-infractions and it seems to help.

Though i recently noticed that explaining my problems to others seems to help the most. Somehow just the act of of it makes me more capable of avoiding these procrastination activities.

</comment><comment><USER8> Yet, I find that procrastination helps me perform better.

<comment><USER9> Same here up until a certain point.

If I'm working on a difficult problem and I've spent hours/days/weeks getting nowhere, I view constant procrastination as a signal that I need to step back and do something else. Once I step back and do something unrelated (even washing the dishes or ironing), I usually have a breakthrough on the issue.

Procrastination also cripples me if I let it get out of control. Have you ever had a 2 hour work day between 7 hours of Reddit/HN?

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> I was able to set up a consistent meditation habit for several months by combining the Seinfeld method and a commitment contract. I used a large wall calendar to mark the days I meditated and used Stickk to make a 6-month commitment to meditate at least 20 minutes a day every day.

</comment><comment><USER11> I've noticed that too. But the hard part is to not procrastinate meditation itself. It's still a chicken and egg problem.

</comment><comment><USER12> The relationship goes both ways. hard to say there is anything actionable here

</comment><comment><USER13> Several comments here have stated that they have trouble starting meditation/mindfulness due to procrastination.

Rather than answering directly, I figured I'd share my own experience with procrastination. I've been a severe procrastinator, among other things, my whole life, as far as I can remember. Over time, I've tried to use various strategies to cope: breaking the work into smaller chunks, convincing myself to work for 10 minutes and that I'd stop if I felt like it, keeping to-do lists, asking other people to tell me to do stuff, among a bevy of other strategies. I've also tried to keep up exercise and eating well, finding fulfilling hobbies, etc., but could never keep doing it for long and as a result I grew progressively out of shape as I aged. I've also tried meditation and mindfulness at times, as suggested by various articles and books I'd read when trying to cope with getting work done.

Despite finding it hard to get any work done, whether required or related to my hobbies, I could get by through all of my education with relatively good grades, mostly through studying and doing the work at the last possible moment and lots sleepless nights. I've also been lucky, I lost count of the times where events outside my control saved me from the consequences of my procrastination (professors missing classes, deadlines getting pushed back, weather, power or network outages, etc.) giving me an extra day or week to finish something I couldn't finish on time because I started too late. In general, I managed to maintain the illusion of competence at great cost to my physical and mental health. I had trouble going to sleep at night and waking up in the morning, I was constantly tired and stressed, as a consequence of which I couldn't keep up with any exercise routines and would regularly resort to unhealthy food for comfort.

Things got progressively worse as I continued my education, because the work got considerably harder. I would catch myself regularly going to sleep at 6 a.m. or later because I was finishing something that should have realistically taken me a couple of hours to do and that I had an entire week to do.

Sometime after (barely) finishing my doctorate thesis, I decided that this was not sustainable anymore and went to seek medical help. After doing a lot of tests ruling out physical causes like diabetes, which I am very glad I don't have (my lifestyle was very unhealthy), I was referred to a psychiatrist. I was diagnosed with adult ADD and after some trial and error we settled on lisdexamfetamine, along with some other drugs. I'd love to say that the medicine solved all my problems immediately, but that's not how it works. What did happen, almost immediately after I started taking lisdexamfetamine, is that all the strategies I had tried over time for dealing with procrastination actually started working. I could effectively start doing my to-do lists or working those first 10-minutes and then not stopping, I had the energy to cook healthier food and exercise. I can now fall asleep almost immediately after laying down, waking up is easier and I could easily take a nap during the day (despite the stimulant) and wake up refreshed. My doctor suggested mindfulness exercises and meditation could help, so I started again and found that I could actually do the 10 to 20 minutes of calm, collected thinking and resting.

This got a bit longer than I planned, but the tl:dr is that none of the techniques worked for me until I got medical help. The medicine didn't provide a magic pill that solved all my problems like some people expect, but it did give me ability to use the tools I already knew about in order to solve my problems and improve my well-being.

I am quite thankful that my doctor explained to me that the medicine wouldn't work by itself and that getting better is a process, and for working with me throughout. As I result I've been feeling better about myself than I ever remember feeling. I do regret not going to a doctor earlier, but in the past I was convinced I could power through, that I was one of those people that "work better under pressure" (when the truth was that under pressure was the only time I could get any work done at all), which combined with the fact that I come from a culture with a distrust of mental health professionals, I don't think anything could have convinced me to get help earlier. In effect, I procrastinated getting help.

I'm not trying to say that taking medicine is right for everyone, and I'm fully convinced a lot of people can get through their procrastination by applying existing techniques like mindfulness/meditation or other coping strategies, maybe with help from other people. But my own experience has changed my view on seeking help with mental health and taking medicine, and if procrastination is interfering with your life and health, maybe do look into going to a doctor. My experience taught me that knowing how to solve a problem does not mean being able to apply the solution.

<comment><USER14> Thanks for this comment. (Mostly commenting so I can find this again, but also genuinely grateful for what you shared)

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> "Study finds mindfulness is associated with reduced creativity"</comment>


Machine Learning is the new Algorithms - <AUTHOR> http://nlpers.blogspot.com/2014/10/machine-learning-is-new-algorithms.html

<comment><USER2> One indicator of this progression is the commoditization of many core ML algorithms. You can now pull a decision tree (or SVM, or GP) off the shelf and just use it.

GIGO still applies, as it always has in engineering problem-solving. But if you take care to do the basics, like clean your data and find good features, you can use some ML methods as components with somewhat known characteristics (performance, flexibility, runtime).

It used to be that you needed a skilled person to guide you to a decent FFT or matrix library, and then core numerical software was commoditized. Same for data structures. It's fun to observe that some of this is happening to ML as well.

</comment><comment><USER3> Tomorrow, not today. Where do I slap some random forest in my enterprise DB+forms app? Now, for a high-level intelligent agent I would find a work.</comment>


Fix the Internet with This One Weird Trick - <AUTHOR> https://medium.com/@angel_j/fix-the-internet-with-this-one-weird-trick-b982f76761a0 <comment><USER2> Agree. The whole landscape would change and change for better if ISPs give us public IP addresses.</comment>


The Four Week Startup - <AUTHOR> http://clarkdinnison.com/fourweekstartup/

<comment><AUTHOR> Any feedback is much appreciated.</comment>


I Am a 9 to 5 Developer (And So Can You) - <AUTHOR> https://exceptionnotfound.net/i-am-a-9-to-5-developer-and-so-can-you/ <comment><USER2> Is this hard to achieve or something? Most developers I know work relatively low hours.

<comment><USER3> Personally I have too many ops responsibilities. I'm essentially always on call and work anywhere from 30 minutes to several hours a night after I'm done with the 9-5. Usually 1-2 nights a week are 2+ extra hours.

<comment><USER4> Please ensure you're getting paid for that time, or find a new job. You should be paid for the hours you work, including on call time.

<comment><USER3> Well, I'm salaried, so I'm not really being paid for it. The salary is good though, given my lack of college. I'm not the only one doing this sort of thing though and to be honest I'm more upset that we can't solve this problem for all of us than I am about the time I spend on it personally.

<comment><USER4> Don't sell yourself short because of a lack of a degree. The labor market is extremely tight right now, and you have bargaining power as long as you have the skills.

Moving to security architecture from infrastructure/DevOps with no degree, I doubled my compensation.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> And if you don't know how to get to 9-to-5, I wrote a book that can help you get there: [https://codewithoutrules.com/saneworkweek/](https://codewithoutrules.com/saneworkweek/)

</comment><comment><USER6> Good for this guy. I've never been a 9-5 developer because I'm not a great developer who can get everything done between 9-5. I've always found I have to put more hours in just so I can get stuff done.

If you can do it, do it.

<comment><USER5> As I said in the other comment, it really goes the other way: there's a bunch of skills involved in being productive, but most of them learning one way or another how to prioritize, and what work _not_ to do. So starting with attitude of "I have too much work to do" will result in working long hours, starting with attitude of "I have limited time" will allow you to work less, once you have the relevant skills.

Example skills:

* Working from goals ([https://codewithoutrules.com/2017/08/03/stay-focused/](https://codewithoutrules.com/2017/08/03/stay-focused/))

* Knowing how and when to ask for help ([https://codewithoutrules.com/2017/12/07/asking-for-help/](https://codewithoutrules.com/2017/12/07/asking-for-help/))

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> For this to work, you first have to get yourself into the mindset than when you _are_ working, you're kicking ass. I'm having a lot of problems with this.

<comment><USER5> Other way around. If you work less hours, you end up becoming more productive because you value your time more and learn how to prioritize better.

[https://codewithoutrules.com/2016/11/10/work-life-balance- so...](https://codewithoutrules.com/2016/11/10/work-life-balance-software- engineer/)

<comment><USER8> If your high-priority task takes _N_ hours, and you only work for _N-k_ hours, you won't finish your work. You can't just magically do more with less.

Working longer is a proven way to finish work that takes more time. Prioritizing only lowers _N_ , not _k_.

<comment><USER5> That is true, but somewhat tautological. You're making the following assumptions:

1\. There is only one way to solve the problem. Often there is more than one way, and the proposed way is just one of them, and not necessarily the fastest.

2\. The whole task needs to be done by deadline. Often only part of it does.

3\. The task actually needs to be done. Often it's not actually high priority.

Etc..

<comment><USER8> The assumptions I'm making are:

1\. There exists, for many tasks, some indivisible, minimal unit of value created by work. If you need your car _today_ , but your mechanic left an hour early with the engine disassembled, it doesn't matter that they finished 95% of the work. The value of that 95% to you is zero.

2\. In practice, how your work is thought to be divided into value-units (by whoever is assigning it) matters more than than how you think it is, or how it optimally could be.

3\. Whether the demands on you are self-imposed, or reasonable, or whatever else, not meeting them has consequences.

It isn't tautological to say that, even after finding all the better ways to do it, there are things you have to do and there exists some minimum amount of time you need to do them ( _N_ ). If you work _k_ fewer hours than required, you won't finish work that takes _N_ time. This is just an observation of a fact.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>