U.S. Incarceration and Crime Rates Continue to Fall in Tandem - <AUTHOR> http://reason.com/blog/2016/12/30/incarceration-and-crime-rates-fall-in-ta <comment><USER2> Homicide rates are the key number to track. Other crime statistics have big reporting problems. Police can easily not report a crime (especially when there is pressure to make the stats look good), people stop calling police if they think the police won't do anything, etc. But it is very hard to hide a body.

And homicide rates have risen substantially in the last two years (up 10.4% in 2015, and projected for 13.1% this year). These are the biggest increases in a generation.

[http://www.copinthehood.com/2016/09/spin-this-biggest- murder...](http://www.copinthehood.com/2016/09/spin-this-biggest-murder- increase-in-45.html)

[http://www.copinthehood.com/2016/11/homicide-is-up-and- its-n...](http://www.copinthehood.com/2016/11/homicide-is-up-and-its-not- trumps-fault.html)

I'm not sure if the de-incarceration is responsible for the rise in crime. From my following, it seems like the police backing off in response to protests, riots, and consent decrees has a bigger impact. And I'm not a fan of prison -- there are better ways to deter crime and to keep violent criminals away from normal people. But I do notice that most times when I see a murder in the news, and the suspect has been apprehended, the suspect has a disturbingly long wrap sheet and I've wondered to myself, "how was this person allowed back out into civilized society."

<comment><USER3> Society's tolerance for crime is bizarrely irrational. There will be about 800 murders in Chicago this year -- yawn.

Now imagine if 800 Chicagoans were killed by radiation leaks from a nuclear plant. "Well, you can't have electricity without plutonium. Do you want to turn everyone's lights off?" Or if 800 African-Americans were lynched Emmett Till style by KKK thugs. "Regrettable, but what are you going to do? And don't white people have legitimate complaints?"

Even murder rates can be fudged -- turn the homicide into a "death investigation":

[http://www.chicagomag.com/Chicago- Magazine/May-2014/Chicago-...](http://www.chicagomag.com/Chicago- Magazine/May-2014/Chicago-crime-rates/)

Another point to keep in mind when you see these too-good-to-be-true stories is that criminal subcultures are actually quite conservative. When laws and policies change, it takes time for people to collectively figure out what they can get away with. This makes crime rates a lagging indicator -- we're still experiencing the positive effects of the crime crackdown of the '90s, not just in incarceration rates but in cultural behavior.

The mid-'60s were another period when social scientists realized that punishment was a medieval anachronism. It took 10-20 years to see the full effects of these policies, and another 10 for the political backlash to get started. It seems like we're due for another round of this pendulum.

<comment><USER4> > Society's tolerance for crime is bizarrely irrational.

       In 1940, a survey was taken of teachers asking them
       to list the five most important problems in school.
       They were: (1) talking out of turn; (2) chewing gum;
       (3) making noise; (4) running in halls; and (5) cutting
       in line.

       Fifty years later, the survey was repeated. The 1990
       list was substantially revised: (1) drug abuse;
       (2) alcohol abuse; (3) pregnancy; (4) suicide;
       (5) rape.

From [http://www.aei.org/publication/defining-deviancy- up/](http://www.aei.org/publication/defining-deviancy-up/), Charles Krauthammers corollary to Pat Moynihan's Defining Deviancy Down. [http://www2.sunysuffolk.edu/formans/DefiningDeviancy.htm](http://www2.sunysuffolk.edu/formans/DefiningDeviancy.htm)

Still good reading and still controversial after all these years.

<comment><USER5> There is much more to that article than the introduction, but in case anyone is wondering why Krauthammer doesn't cite a source for those surveys, it's because they're not real: [http://www.snopes.com/language/document/school.asp](http://www.snopes.com/language/document/school.asp), or search "Discipline List" here [http://ece.dallasnews.com/archive/](http://ece.dallasnews.com/archive/)

A bit later in the article, Krauthammer really succinctly sums up a major flaw in his own argument:

> As part of this project of moral leveling, whole new areas of deviancy–such > as date rape and politically incorrect speech–have been discovered. And old > areas–such as child abuse–have been amplified by endless reiteration in the > public presses and validated by learned reports of their astonishing > frequency.

Yes, perhaps the reason rape seems so much more common is that people in the 1940s didn't understand what rape is. Apparently some people still don't.

<comment><USER3> _Yes, perhaps the reason rape seems so much more common is that people in the 1940s didn 't understand what rape is._

I want to order a time machine and send you back to have a conversation with your great-grandparents, for whom you seem to have so little respect.

Sure, the "list" isn't real. People wouldn't have been passing it around in the '70s if it hadn't reflected the actual experience of living in the '40s, which many, many people at that time remembered well.

A time machine is not actually available. Your great-grandparents are probably dead. But you can still go read a bunch of books from the amazing, wonderful, astoundingly different, and yes -- not at all perfect -- world that they lived in. Chronological chauvinism is not a healthy emotion.

<comment><USER6> > Your great-grandparents are probably dead. But you can still go read a bunch > of books from the amazing, wonderful, astoundingly different, and yes -- not > at all perfect -- world that they lived in.

My great-grandparents were crossing the Atlantic to flee pogroms. My grandfather did similar, but lost the rest of his family who didn't leave Europe in the 1910s and 1920s when the 1930s and 1940s set in. There was this little thing while my grandmother was young called, "the Holocaust".

 _Fuck_ the violence, authoritarianism, and chauvinisms of the past. Today is far better.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> If we ever decriminalize Marijuana at the Federal level, that seems to me like it would mean millions of prisoners held for offenses involving only that drug would need to be set free. In my mind it is a horrible injustice to jail people for a relatively harmless substance like THC.

I think in 100 years, more evolved humans will look back on the THC incarcerations the same way we now look upon the Salem Witch trials, or prohibition, etc. You know, one of those times where mankind just massively screwed up 'en mass' on sort of a societal level, and was unable to correct itself because the majority of people are brainwashed into believing whatever their parents told them about things. Sort of as a feed-back loop also, parents were unwilling to teach their children things that conflicted with societal norms. So society as a whole can fall into this kind of a 'rut' where getting out of it takes a long process of evolution of thought.

<comment><USER8> There are not millions of people being held for offenses only involving marijuana: [https://www.bjs.gov/content/pub/pdf/dofp12.pdf](https://www.bjs.gov/content/pub/pdf/dofp12.pdf) (page 2).

There's about 95,000 people in federal prison with a drug offense as their most serious charge. About 11,500 of those charges involved primarily marijuana. (The overwhelming majority of that is for trafficking, not possession.)

Rolling Stone estimated about 40,000 people in prison for convictions primarily involving marijuana, with about half of those involving marijuana alone: [http://www.rollingstone.com/culture/lists/top-10-marijuana-m...](http://www.rollingstone.com/culture/lists/top-10-marijuana- myths-and-facts-20120822/myth-prisons-are-full-of-people-in-for-marijuana- possession-19691231).

That is of course not to say that justice, for a few tens of thousands of people isn't an important thing! Though I hesitate a little bit to put trafficking in the same "justice" category as using. It's generally accepted that the government has much more leeway to control what is sold in the market than to control what people do with their bodies.

<comment><USER9> It's pretty misleading to look only at federal inmates as they're a relatively small percentage of the overall prison population. There are currently 189,520 total federal inmates ([https://www.bop.gov/about/statistics/population_statistics.j...](https://www.bop.gov/about/statistics/population_statistics.jsp)) out of the total 2,173,800 incarcerated individuals (as per original article) in the US. Probably better to look for a figure that includes state prisons and local jails as well.

Edit: here's a handy infographic: [https://www.prisonpolicy.org/reports/pie2016.html](https://www.prisonpolicy.org/reports/pie2016.html)

<comment><USER10> So if you're right then doesn't that mean that half of all federal inmates are there for marijuana possession?

<comment><USER11> From the grandfather post to yours:

"There's about 95,000 people in federal prison with a drug offense as their most serious charge. About 11,500 of those charges involved primarily marijuana. (The overwhelming majority of that is for trafficking, not possession.)"

So no, your statement is not correct. If we take 'overwhelming majority' of 11,500 as 60%, that would leave ~5000 prisoners whose 'most serious charge' is possession of marijuana. Or about 2.5% of the federal inmate population (all this assuming that the figures quoted are correct, I didn't source them myself).

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> This is dandy and such, but it has a long, long way to go yet, still boasting the highest incarceration rates in the world:

1\. [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_incarceration_ra...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_incarceration_rate)

2\. [https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/fact- checker/wp/2015/07/...](https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/fact- checker/wp/2015/07/07/yes-u-s-locks-people-up-at-a-higher-rate-than-any-other- country/)

<comment><USER8> The difference is a little less shocking when you adjust for crime rates. E.g. we have about 8-10x higher incarceration rate of Germany, but we also have more than 4x the murders per capita. (And the chicken came before the egg here. Violent crime started going up in the 1960s, but it wasn't until the late 1990s that the incarceration rate had gone up by the same proportion as the violent crime rate.)

Americans aren't very generous when it comes to crime. In many European countries, even murder carries only about a 10-15 year sentence. On the other hand, I wonder if that's a product of our situation. The United States is fantastically violent in comparison to Europe, and always has been: [http://ourworldindata.org/wp- content/uploads/2013/03/homicid...](http://ourworldindata.org/wp- content/uploads/2013/03/homicide-rates-in-the-united-states-and- england-1900-2000-pinker-2011-jpg.jpg).

E.g. Berlin is slightly bigger than Chicago. In a typical year, it might have 60-70 murders. Chicago in comparison had well over 700 this year. You can't look at the criminal justice system in the U.S. relative to our more enlightened European counterparts without keeping in mind that difference.

<comment><USER13> > (And the chicken came before the egg here. Violent crime started going up in > the 1960s, but it wasn't until the late 1990s that the incarceration rate > had gone up by the same proportion as the violent crime rate.)

Did the incarceration rate for violent crime go up, or was it the total incarceration rate due to e.g. increased prosecution of drug arrests? If it's the former, then it's great that more violent criminals are being caught and sentenced, but if it's the latter then it's just compounding the problem.

<comment><USER8> Even if we released all drug prisoners, the incarceration rate would only be about 15% lower: [http://fivethirtyeight.com/datalab/releasing-drug- offenders-...](http://fivethirtyeight.com/datalab/releasing-drug-offenders- wont-end-mass-incarceration). Meanwhile, it's about 6-7 times higher than what it was in the 1960s. Thus, almost all of that growth was not from drug offenses.

It's not necessarily "great" that more violent criminals are being caught and sentenced. Many European countries manage just fine having e.g. 10-15 years maximum even for murder. Which is why I find the drug thing to be so frustrating. Drugs are not the major issue in the prison system. The real issue is whether just locking people up as a response to high crime rates actually works or not.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> When they "drug related crimes"... does that mean these people are in prison for using/selling drugs or for robbing a liquor store to pay for drugs?

Because that would skew the stats significantly.

<comment><USER15> It probably means a crime where there is also a drug related indictment (or conviction, not sure which). Your example would be a crime of robbery, plus possession.

I wonder how many cases of 'drug related crime' are just defendants who were arrested for another crime while they had small time possession?

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> Punishment is almost always gratuitous. Aside from the handful of people whom society needs to be protected from, prison is always counter-productive. One of the recent stories linked here talks about how the brain doesn't really finish developing until the mid-20's, and that 20-something "kids" frequently get locked up for impulsiveness...

I had a passenger who got fined $1000 for letting his medical marijuana card expire. In the future, this fellow has it on his record that he is a political criminal who didn't hurt anyone, and a zealous brain-dead prosecutor might use this prior conviction to advocate for prison.

Another passenger had recently been released from a 2-year prison sentence. Her crime was sharing a single opiate pill with a friend. The cop was chuckling as he wrote her up. This one had gotten fat on prison food, which is not very nutritious. Several of her fellow inmates died from the neglect. (I guess police officers have to be rather disconnected from the consequences of their job. "I don't make the rules, I just enforce them" is a cop-out.)

Nassim Nicholas Taleb (author of The Black Swan, Fooled by Randomness, etc) recently had this to say:

      Being nice counts the most when
      you are nice to people ignored
      by others, deprived of attention,
      or devoid of friends. The rest is
      largely theater.

I tried to be nice to all my passengers, especially those who were having a rough day. One day I got a person going to the drive-through liquor store. I spent a few extra minutes talking to this person. After her taxi ride, I called back a time or two. There was a bit of hope in her voice - 'someone cares'. But on the third day she didn't answer, and I got distracted. Apparently she sobered up, but I didn't know that until later. After about two months this one started drinking again, found my card, and she called me because she just wanted someone nice to talk to.

This one had tried (really hard) to stay sober after almost 2-years in prison for her 3rd DUI. But life happened, and she hadn't learned how to cope in minimum-security prison.

I worked with her regularly over the course of about two years. She'd sober up, get a job, have a bad day at work, relapse... Finally I turned her over to her family (who previously had tried the "maybe mom will stop drinking if we ignore her" strategy), and she has really turned the corner now that she knows her kids are there to support her. Her son recently trusted her to watch her grandkids overnight. Prison didn't enable this transformation. (she originally fell into the alcoholic's pit when she found that vodka helped her anxiety better than the Xanax prescription. Benzodiazepines only work for about 4 weeks, before the patient's anxiety levels become worse than before.)

I'm still thinking about whether I should say more about this passenger. _The Difference Between Boys and Girls_ [1] is about another passenger who did quite well after meeting me.

[1] [http://www.taxiwars.org/2016/02/the-difference-between- boys-...](http://www.taxiwars.org/2016/02/the-difference-between-boys- girls.html)

<comment><USER17> Not to detract from your otherwise excellent point and story, but I take a bit of issue with:

> (who previously had tried the "mom will stop drinking if we ignore her" > strategy)

As someone who's been the child in that situation, sometimes you really just need an extended break from dealing with a parent's addiction.

It's extremely stressful and really hard to get over the resentment stemming from a childhood destroyed by a parent's addiction.

Some people are more resilient and can be there for their addicted parents as adults, but I think it's a little unfair to fault people for needing to distance themselves from their often traumatic childhoods. It's a bit like blaming soldiers for not continuing their military service after suffering a PTSD-inducing event (which hopefully we can agree is not behavior we should encourage).

Sorry if you weren't trying to imply blame or fault on the children, but that does happen fairly regularly.

<comment><USER16> I do completely understand her kids' reaction. I was able to reach their mom in a way that they couldn't, because I was an extremely over-qualified taxi driver.

Addictions are rather hard; society's efforts to punish addiction makes them harder still.

</comment></comment></comment><comment> Altay- This is such a pointless post. Why did it do so well here? Did any of you LOOK at the post and the stats/chart?

2% down since the peak. Who cares. Look at that chart. Its not even noticeable.

</comment><comment><USER18> [http://www.tylervigen.com/spurious- correlations](http://www.tylervigen.com/spurious-correlations)

I'm really interested in Lead poisoning cases from the past decade graphed against this correlative coincidence that likely has some external variables, affecting both.

</comment><comment><USER19> The data indicates just how much Americans need to use drugs. Imagine how big the numbers get when you scoop in prescription drugs in addition to prohibited substances. Clearly drug use is more important to large number of Americans than risk of incarceration.

Why does America have such a greater drug fascination than perhaps every other country?

<comment><USER20> I'm not confirming or denying that the US has maybe the worst drug problem in the world - seems plausible. But, on addiction (slightly different, but related), Rat Park is an interesting point of focus.

[http://www.huffingtonpost.com/johann-hari/the-real-cause- of-...](http://www.huffingtonpost.com/johann-hari/the-real-cause-of- addicti_b_6506936.html)

<comment><USER21> Follow-up studies were unable to reproduce the Rat Park results.

[https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/9148292?dopt=Abstract](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/9148292?dopt=Abstract)

[https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/2616610?dopt=Abstract](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/2616610?dopt=Abstract)

<comment><USER20> I was not aware. Thank you for the links/correction!

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> > Drug offenders accounted for half of federal prisoners and 16 percent of > state prisoners in 2015. The decrease in the federal prison population was > largely due to shorter drug sentences authorized by Congress and the U.S. > Sentencing Commission.

And this([https://www.justice.gov/sites/default/files/jmd/legacy/2013/...](https://www.justice.gov/sites/default/files/jmd/legacy/2013/09/07/prisons- detention.pdf)):

> The FY 2015 Budget requests a total of $8.5 billion for federal prisons and > detention

And from: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_federal_budget](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_federal_budget)

> During fiscal year 2015, the Federal government received approximately $3.25 > trillion in tax and fee revenue and had outlays (spending) of $3.7 trillion;

The population of the US is 318.9 million, and (from [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Incarceration_in_the_United_St...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Incarceration_in_the_United_States)):

> In total, 6,899,000 adults were under correctional supervision (probation, > parole, jail, or prison) in 2013 – about 2.8% of adults (1 in 35) in the > U.S. resident population.

So our federal government would be 0.1% smaller in terms of expenses if it weren't responsible for drug offenses, but a full 1.4% of the population is under their control as a result. 2% of the population has lost its right to vote, so perhaps 1% due to drug offenses.

That's about half the number of Jews in the US, which both political parties pander to quite heavily(making Israel a huge point of contention in any election). I guess that makes sense: drug reform is less visible than Israel in the news but still significant, though I haven't measured it to say that it's half.

You're actually allowed to discriminate against people and take away their right to vote, but the states are punished by reducing their representational basis so they get fewer legislators and electors in elections. Since we have a winner-takes-all system, this encourages states to allow all minority groups to vote if they wouldn't tip the election. I was originally thinking it'd be strange for states to reduce their basis by as much as 1%, but it looks like there's an exemption for crimes:

> Representatives shall be apportioned among the several States according to > their respective numbers, counting the whole number of persons in each > State, excluding Indians not taxed. But when the right to vote at any > election for the choice of electors for President and Vice President of the > United States, Representatives in Congress, the Executive and Judicial > officers of a State, or the members of the Legislature thereof, is denied to > any of the male inhabitants of such State, being twenty-one years of age, > and citizens of the United States, or in any way abridged, except for > participation in rebellion, or other crime, the basis of representation > therein shall be reduced in the proportion which the number of such male > citizens shall bear to the whole number of male citizens twenty-one years of > age in such State.

I suppose, strictly speaking, you could have your right to vote stripped away if you get a parking ticket? I wonder if it's a gerrymandering scheme to throw Democrats in prison and take away their right to vote. (Democrats tend to be big on drugs)

Since drug use counts towards the arrests but probably doesn't count towards the crime rate(it's a victimless crime, and the offender doesn't report it), that portion of it shouldn't affect the link described in the article.

I'm not sure it's smart to directly compare percentages like the article does. If the crime rate is already low because all the criminals are locked up, then you'll have no change in crime rate and a low change in imprisonment. And you usually want to compare derivatives of the log-percentage, not the percentage directly.

<comment><USER23> Support for Israel isn't just about pandering to Jews. There are a lot of fundamentalist Christians who believe Israel's existence is necessary for Christ's return, that allying ourselves with Israel is being on God's side, etc.. I doubt it would be worth making political hay out of it if Jews were the only ones who cared.

<comment><USER24> Exactly. Just to pluck one at random, Michele Bachmann is an example.[1]

[1]: [https://www.bloomberg.com/view/articles/2011-07-18/michele-b...](https://www.bloomberg.com/view/articles/2011-07-18/michele- bachmann-s-hazardous-love-for-israel-jeffrey-goldberg)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> overlay economic growth and contraction, and there's your answer.

<comment><USER26> There appears to be a only small correlation to the overall trend down, and economic growth. For example, crime declined in 2008 and 2009 when the economy was still flat and unemployment was high. Crime did tick up slightly leading into the recession, though not substantially. So while it has some impact, it doesn't look like it accounts for the broad trend down since the 90s.

</comment></comment><comment><USER27> Thanks, Obama!

</comment><comment><USER28> Still far-and-away the highest incarceration rate per capita in the world, despite post-truth libertarian propaganda.

<comment><USER29> Who has a higher rate?

<comment><USER28> ??? Not one major country. The US is the highest. [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_incarcera...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_incarceration_rate)</comment></comment></comment>


Ruby 2.0.0 feature freeze - <AUTHOR> http://blade.nagaokaut.ac.jp/cgi-bin/scat.rb/ruby/ruby-dev/46258 <comment><USER2> So, anyone has a list of the major changes coming in 2.0?

Btw, slightly misleading title. It kind if implies that 2.0.0 is out.

<comment><USER3> According to Matz last year,

"The version number goes up to 2.0 but the changes are rather small. Smaller than the ones we made in 1.9."

[http://www.rubyinside.com/ruby-2-0-implementation-work- begin...](http://www.rubyinside.com/ruby-2-0-implementation-work-begins-what- is-ruby-2-0-and-whats-new-5515.html)

Here's a Quora thread with links to a presentation by Matz and a summary by Yehuda Katz: [http://www.quora.com/Ruby-programming-language/What-are- the-...](http://www.quora.com/Ruby-programming-language/What-are-the-major- changes-in-Ruby-2-0)

"Language improvements:

\- Named arguments.. 1.step(by: 2, to: 10) { ... }

\- Selector namespaces (unclear to me whether this differs from refinements as described by Katz)

\- Multiple inheritance

Interpreter Improvements:

\- Incremental performance improvements over 1.9's VM

\- Better compatibility with non-unix environments and small/constrained devices (embeddable)

\- Sandboxed VM's (VM per thread)"

Matz's presentation: [http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=t...](http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=t9LMOydfc4k)

Yehuda's summary of "refinements": [http://yehudakatz.com/2010/11/30/ruby-2-0-refinements-in- pra...](http://yehudakatz.com/2010/11/30/ruby-2-0-refinements-in-practice/)

<comment><USER4> > Named arguments

yes, though it's basically an optional argument hash. AFAIK, you can't do _required_ named arguments without weird hacks, or specifically checking the arguments. For example:

        irb(main):007:0> def foo(bar: bar, baz: Object.new); [bar, baz]; end
        => nil
        irb(main):008:0> foo(bar: 1)
        => [1, #<Object:0x007fcaa40db4e0>]
        irb(main):009:0> foo(baz: 1)
        NameError: undefined local variable or method `bar' for main:Object
        	from (irb):7:in `foo'
        	from (irb):9
        	from /Users/aaron/.local/bin/irb:12:in `<main>'
        irb(main):010:0>

This hack makes the "bar" parameter required, but only because the value is evaluated when the method is called, and you get a NameError (rather than an ArgumentError).

> Selector namepaces

yes, but it's called refinements. You can see how they're used here: [https://github.com/ruby/ruby/blob/trunk/test/ruby/test_refin...](https://github.com/ruby/ruby/blob/trunk/test/ruby/test_refinement.rb) (sorry for the link to a test, I'm feeling lazy ;-) )

> Multiple inheritance

Sorry, there won't be multiple inheritance.

> Incremental performance improvements over 1.9's VM

yes, ko1 has been working on removing / optimizing bytecodes in the VM.

> Better compatibility with non-unix environments and small/constrained > devices (embeddable)

I don't know of any work on this other than mruby, which isn't MRI.

> Sandboxed VM's (VM per thread)

nope. <https://bugs.ruby-lang.org/issues/7003>

Other stuff:

* DTrace probes

* Better _within_ ruby tracing <https://bugs.ruby-lang.org/issues/6895>

I run edge ruby against rails daily. The main incompatibilities I've hit in Ruby 2.0 are what methods respond_to? searches (I've blogged about that here: [http://tenderlovemaking.com/2012/09/07/protected-methods- and...](http://tenderlovemaking.com/2012/09/07/protected-methods-and- ruby-2-0.html) ), and the `Config` constant has been removed (which is sometimes an issue for C extensions).

 __EDIT __

Just thought of this for the required args:

        irb(main):001:0> def foo(bar: (raise ArgumentError), foo: Object.new); [bar, foo]; end
        => nil
        irb(main):002:0> foo(bar: 1)
        => [1, #<Object:0x007fc65a882f48>]
        irb(main):003:0> foo(foo: 1)
        ArgumentError: ArgumentError
        	from (irb):1:in `foo'
        	from (irb):3
        	from /Users/aaron/.local/bin/irb:12:in `<main>'
        irb(main):004:0>

You could probably define a private method like `required` or some such, like this:

        irb(main):001:0> def required(name); raise ArgumentError, "missing param: %s" % name; end
        => nil
        irb(main):002:0> def foo(bar: required(:bar), foo: Object.new); [bar, foo]; end
        => nil
        irb(main):003:0> foo(bar: 1)
        => [1, #<Object:0x007fcfea143338>]
        irb(main):004:0> foo(foo: 1)
        ArgumentError: missing param: bar
        	from (irb):1:in `required'
        	from (irb):2:in `foo'
        	from (irb):4
        	from /Users/aaron/.local/bin/irb:12:in `<main>'
        irb(main):005:0>

<comment><USER5> > > Multiple inheritance

> Sorry, there won't be multiple inheritance.

Thank all that is holy in the world.

<comment><USER6> Amen to that.

C++ pretty much ruined that party for everyone.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> rename title, 2.0.0 is still months away. This is just a requested feature freeze.

<comment><USER8> How is "Ruby 2.0.0 feature freeze" an inaccurate title?

I ask because it has been common to use that terminology with Python releases for as long as I can remember, as well as with other projects I've worked on or am familiar with. We would have said the CPython 3.3.0 feature freeze was in June, with the final release happening last month.

<comment><USER9> The title at the time of jfaucett's comment was just "Ruby 2.0.0".

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Oh, would love to have had .present? added to ruby 2.0

</comment><comment><USER11> Any performance and memory usage improvement benchmarks? I was hoping Ruby 2.0 will no longer be dog slow...

</comment><comment><USER12> Will the GIL still be present in 2.0?

<comment><USER13> It'll be there.</comment></comment>


Ancient Survivors Could Redefine Sex - <AUTHOR> http://www.quantamagazine.org/20141119-ancient-survivors-could-redefine-sex/

<comment><USER2> One question that's not well-answered in this article is how new bdelloid individuals are created. Do they bud like yeast? Do they lay eggs? Do they just cleave in two?

<comment><USER3> They lay unfertilized eggs. That's why they looked for a male that would fertilize the eggs, but didn't find one.

<comment><USER4> Adding slightly to ars' answer. The method of reproduction is called _parthenogenesis_. Here is the simple wiki entry:

[http://simple.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parthenogenesis](http://simple.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parthenogenesis)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> So "traditional" sex is a PRNG that first generates a large number of random combinations of bits, picks two of them at random, returns those two, and discards the rest. Sounds rather inefficient, right?

These bdelloids, on the other hand, just decided to shuffle the bits in place. A bit insecure (prone to errors and contamination), but very efficient in highly constrained (frequently dehydrated) environments.</comment>


Turing codec: open-source HEVC video compression - <AUTHOR> http://www.bbc.co.uk/rd/blog/2016/09/turing-codec <comment><USER2> It's strange that they don't include encoding time or SSIM metrics. I assume "other practical HEVC codec" is x265. Hopefully someone will do more in-depth benchmarks of this versus x264, x265, and VP9.

Optimizing memory consumption is nice, but I don't see the point-- HEVC video compression will saturate CPUs to the point that you wouldn't want to run other jobs concurrently, so who cares if the encoder uses 256MB or 1200MB? 1GB of RAM is very cheap!

<comment><USER3> "Optimizing memory consumption is nice, but I don't see the point" More of the memory can't fit in cache, resulting in more cache misses and slower operations(as large swaths of memory need to be written to), gigabyte-level consumption resulting in more swapfile usage, and lowering memory for other applications, especially mobile devices(which have weak CPU/GPU and small battery capacity).

<comment><USER2> Any cache effects from using less memory would be represented in encoding speed, which is what matters.

If your video encoder pages into swap, you've lost all hope of being fast. Software HEVC encoding on mobile devices is not a use case most people care about.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> So it uses less memory than x265, but is it faster? Does it produce better output?</comment>


E-mail Addresses Of Early iPad Buyers Exposed By AT&T  - <AUTHOR> http://paidcontent.org/article/419-e-mail-addresses-of-early-ipad-buyers-exposed-by-att/

<comment><USER2> Goatse security? Really? Finds security holes? Someone is having some fun here.

Edit: oh the humanity I looked at their logo.</comment>


Show HN: Websec Weekly – Newsletter for web security enthusiasts - infosec-au https://websecweekly.org

<comment> infosec-au Disclaimer: I'm the author of this. The source code for most of it can be found on github [1] and the motivation behind building it is documented on my blog [2].

I'm happy to answer questions and take any feedback :) Thanks all.

[1]: [https://github.com/infosec-au/websec-weekly](https://github.com/infosec- au/websec-weekly)

[2]: [https://shubh.am/introducing-websec- weekly/](https://shubh.am/introducing-websec-weekly/)

<comment><AUTHOR> Is there an online archive that I can view before signing up?

<comment> infosec-au I just released this, so unfortunately I don't have an archive (yet).

However, you can view a fully filled example here: [http://websecweekly.org/static/newsletters/example.html](http://websecweekly.org/static/newsletters/example.html)

Thanks!

<comment><USER2> Great ressource, many thanks for releasing this. May I suggest showing this example directly on the HP?

<comment><USER3> Great idea! Done! :)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> I really love the idea of the HipChat notifications! It puts this stuff in a place where my coworkers and I can then easily have discussions about the things posted.

I just added a notification token, should I have gotten anything in the room by now? If not, I'd suggest a really simple welcome message, just so I know it worked.

<comment> infosec-au Ah! Good idea! I'll implement it now :)

The HipChat notifications go off at a fixed time (9AM and 9PM UTC) every day, however in the future I may add a feature to let people set the time the bot posts.</comment></comment>


Salesforce, Google, Microsoft, Verizon are all eyeing up a Twitter bid - <AUTHOR> https://techcrunch.com/2016/09/23/salesforce-google-twitter/ <comment> happy-go-lucky > Google, Microsoft and Verizon have also been reported as potential suitors > in the past (one recent article here), and what we're hearing about the > Microsoft interest is that it, in part, is an attempt by the company to > drive the price up to keep it out of Salesforce's hands.

Interesting!</comment>


QuitGenius (YC W18) raises $2M to help people quit smoking - <AUTHOR> https://techcrunch.com/2018/05/22/quit-genius-helping-smokers-quit-picks-up-an-extra-1-1-million-in-seed/ <comment><USER2> > Since launch Quit Genius has grown to 300,000 registered users, with over > 20,000 people officially smoke-free in the app (which Quit Genius defines as > having not smoked for over 28 days).

I'd be interested to know how "smoke-free" time is established. Are users self-reporting that they have or haven't smoked with the app? And 28-days of not smoking is great, but it feels dishonest to call that "smoke-free".

> Healthy employees save the company money and are more productive, and Quit > Genius thinks it can not only help employees get healthier but give > employers a way to track that progress.

Dystopian.

<comment><USER3> > Smoking costs 45,400 lives, $16.2B in a year, study finds [1]

It is the largest single expense to employers and to the [Canadian] healthcare system. It is not dystopian to want to track smokers on their journey away from smoking - it's the only way we know if we're getting better at helping them quit.

28 days is a good measure of smoke free. By that time, you are through the nicotine withdrawal of about 72 hours, which I think is the biggest cause of relapse. After that, you need to resist the social and habitual pressures, and that is wholly up to the individual. Some people can go 20 years resisting these pressures, others collapse in a few days. So 3 weeks is a fair balance, I think.

[1] [http://www.cbc.ca/news/business/smoking-economic- cost-1.4357...](http://www.cbc.ca/news/business/smoking-economic- cost-1.4357096)

<comment><USER4> > It is the largest single expense to employers and to the [Canadian] > healthcare system.

I've read numerous times that smokers are actually a net gain for a healthcare system, assuming the same system pays for the whole life of the patient.

The majority of medical costs are incurred by a small minority of patients, usually at the very end of their lives. Smokers die earlier and faster, usually without the slow and expensive deterioration many healthier patients will go through.

<comment><USER5> Whether actually true or not, tobacco companies have definitely used this argument in lobbying against anti-smoking public health efforts, particularly in Eastern Europe.

Of course _at best_ this argument assumes that you are looking at cost for a comparable standard of care, not cost for comparable health outcomes.

<comment><USER6> > Of course at best this argument

To me, this deflects from the main question of whether it is true or not. Or in other words, whether those quoting the "costs" of smoking (as a justification for further anti-smoking measures) are using dishonest propaganda. Also known as lying.

<comment><USER5> > To me, this deflects from the main question of whether it is true or not.

It points out that the question the claim addresses is different then that addressed by the opposing claim (and different than the policy concern that is usually beoing addressed.)

Which means its truth is orthogonal, rather than opposed, to the truth of the other claim.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> These days it just seems crazy to trust some random SV company that's likely to be acquired by a huge company with questionable privacy ethics in a couple years with sensitive data that traditionally has been used to price discriminate in health insurance.

I went to their website looking for some acknowledgement that they take this problem seriously and didn't see it. Even worse, the article says that they envision a future collaborating with employers to track employee programs. There's just no way I would be able to feel comfortable sharing this kind of information with a company that has this business model.

<comment><USER8> The question is found on all health insurance applications as far as I'm aware -- "Have you used tobacco in the past 6 months".

I'm under the impression that the question is not optional and that it's perfectly legal for insurers to price discriminate based on the answer to it (understandably and justifiably so IMO). I'm not sure, but I'd also assume that being dishonest when answering the question would technically put you at risk of having claims denied on that basis -- or, at the very least, having your rates raised retroactively since it presumably would indicate that you belong in a higher risk (and premium) pool...

Is my layman's understanding wrong?

<comment><USER9> The fact that these companies can discriminate based protected human attributes like age or gender doesn't make sense in this day and age.

<comment><USER10> The fact that you assume that age and gender don't make a difference in this age of big data, doesn't make sense.

<comment><USER9> So does race do we include that? So do other factors like politics. Should we say if you are black you should pay more? A trump fan gets to pay less until he leaves office.

We create groups based on anything to assign costs to other people.

Everyone should be paying the same general rate with personal factors like accident history, or tickets.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> I wish them, and everyone they're trying to help, all the best.

I quit years ago and it was one of the best things I've done. There were only three mantras in my head when I quit "get through the first 48 hours" then "get through two weeks" then "don't fuck it up".

It's hard to quit smoking, but only in the short term. It's much harder to live as a smoker over a lifespan. Remember that.

I have more advice and micro tactics, but I feel like listing them all would only pollute the message above.

Just get through the first 48 hours.

You can do it.

</comment><comment><USER12> This seems to me like this should be a non-profit. This company's revenue growth is misaligned with their customer's goals. Total success would be for the company to have 100% churn from successful rehab, the better they are at what they do the higher their churn rate should be. I guess this is a common issue in the health industry, an area that I haven't the slightest clue about.

<comment><USER13> Mobile, can't link now, but the Obamacare expansion required covering rehab centers, and the industry exploded, and tons of bad actors are doing literally this. There are even cases of centers next to drug dens with staff acting as suppliers/runners

I apologise for no link, but quick googling will find the stories.

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> Simpler solution that actually works: buy one of these miracle devices (timer box) and just taper off your smoking. Make decisions that are in your best long term interest when you aren't in a weak "I must have a smoke now" mode.

I admit I use it for a different kind of smoke (legal in California, yay), and for that, no need to completely quit, just keep usage reasonable without having to constantly fight with temptation.

I don't own stock in the company, but I heartily recommend it. [https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00JGFQRN4/ref=oh_aui_deta...](https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00JGFQRN4/ref=oh_aui_detailpage_o00_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1)

<comment><USER15> FWIW this is not the right way to think about quiting smoking. It might work for some people, although i'd bet only temporarily unless the root problem somehow goes away.

This solution still has people believe they want to smoke and that it's something they enjoy (it will de-stress them, etc). These core beliefs have to be addressed IMO. Only until the user does NOT want to smoke and sees smoking as not only not being a benefit to them but also a harm to them, have they successfully quit smoking.

Not sure how this app works, though.

<comment><USER14> Well I've quit smoking multiple times, the first time in 1990 and then after a few relapses that each lasted a few months, in the time since.

I still want to smoke. I see no reason that will ever go away. It is enjoyable and relaxing -- during the time I am smoking and soon afterward. But it makes me unhealthy and generally feel like crap overall, so I choose not to anymore.

But I do know that during my relapses, this box would have fixed the problem quick. I just have short term weakness, and if a whole pack is sitting there, I will smoke it pretty quickly. If I could easily taper it off (and this device allows that) it would have been easy. (I've actually done the equivalent, but it required someone to hold onto my cigarettes and dole them out...the box automates that)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> This reminds me of Weight Watchers ($WTW). The idea is crazy - people will pay for advice and some instructions I guess. $WTW is a $5B company now.

<comment><USER17> Advice, instructions, and a social group centered around the advice & instructions! Bill Ackman lost a lot of money underestimating the value of the latter.

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> Does it bother anyone else that this is a phone app only? Why can't it be a normal web app? One of the bad habits people have is being glued to their phones. And the permissions it requires seem pretty skeptical as well.

</comment><comment><USER19> Frontage and already harvesting for my phone number? Good idea. With email I can at least mark you as spam or report you, much harder to unsubscribe or report my cellnumber abuser.

Truly a "Genius" idea.

</comment><comment><USER20> I don't know how necessary this is with electronic cigs now. I know many people that have switched to e-cig, slowly reduced nicotine and have quit altogether.

</comment><comment><USER21> Stopping smoking is not all it's cracked up to me.

The show Silicon Valley hinted at this when Bachman tries to pitch an app to crowdsource geolocating smokers.

First, yes smoking is bad, but all the health benefits of stopping have been completely absorbed by the unhealthy food that is sold / made available.

In fact, the second largest smoking company, RJ Reynolds, used to be called RJR Nabisco. A ton of snack food executives got there start from the world of smoking.

Second, there is a community level to this as well. It used to really bother me how many people at work smoked. I would walk past the designated smoking area and see 30 of them hanging out. Then I realized that there is something about smoking that brings people together (one of which is being forced to gather in a designated area), and perhaps in this era of individualism, loneliness, and anonymity that is a greater good.

For more on RJR Nabisco, I suggest this great book from the 80's:

Barbarians at the Gate: The Fall of RJR Nabisco [https://www.amazon.com/dp/0061655554](https://www.amazon.com/dp/0061655554)

<comment><USER22> I bet in another context you'd happily point out which logical fallacies you just used for points 1 and 2.

I used to think like you - while I was still addicted.

<comment><USER9> In fairness these safe snack foods being marketed as powerbars or meal replacement will be outlawed or restricted in the future for the same reason smoking is now.</comment></comment></comment>


Windows Phone 7 Sales Eclipsed by Android – and Symbian - <AUTHOR> http://blog.mobilesplease.co.uk/windows-phone-7-sales-eclipsed-by-android-and-symbian/

<comment><USER2> Who gives a shit about sales from a single retailer ?</comment>


Ask HN: Front end/CSS books - <AUTHOR>

Hello NH. I'm looking for Frontend / CSS / and-so-on books to master my outdated skills.
For example, ages ago i'd suggest Zeldman books or 'The Zen of CSS Design' by Dave Shea, but it seems to me that A LOT changed for now on.
Any great books to understand how to do perfect frontend today? Thanks. <comment><USER2> Here's a sampling of some great books in the front-end space. I'd also suggest looking into Tuts+ ([http://tutsplus.com/](http://tutsplus.com/)) or Codeschool ([https://www.codeschool.com/](https://www.codeschool.com/)).

\- _Dive Into HTML5_ [http://diveintohtml5.info/](http://diveintohtml5.info/)

\- _Scalable and Modular Architecture for CSS_ [https://smacss.com/](https://smacss.com/)

\- _HTML5 and CSS3 (2nd edition): Level Up with Today 's Web Technologies_ [https://pragprog.com/book/bhh52e/html5-and- css3](https://pragprog.com/book/bhh52e/html5-and-css3)

\- _Programming JavaScript Applications_ [http://chimera.labs.oreilly.com/books/1234000000262](http://chimera.labs.oreilly.com/books/1234000000262)

\- _Building Backbone Plugins_ [https://pragprog.com/book/d-dbback/building- backbone-plugins](https://pragprog.com/book/d-dbback/building-backbone- plugins)

\- _Automate with Grunt: The Build Tool for JavaScript_ [https://pragprog.com/book/bhgrunt/automate-with- grunt](https://pragprog.com/book/bhgrunt/automate-with-grunt)

\- _The Offline Cookbook_ (recent article, but great stuff) [http://jakearchibald.com/2014/offline- cookbook/](http://jakearchibald.com/2014/offline-cookbook/)

<comment><AUTHOR> thanks a lot, books look nice!

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> HTML & CSS by Jon Duckett is a great resource. Very clear and concise [http://www.htmlandcssbook.com/](http://www.htmlandcssbook.com/).

<comment><AUTHOR> thank you! looks usefull!</comment></comment>


Show HN: A "Write Less, Do More" DB Class Based on PDO [PHP] - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/resonantcore/lib/wiki/DB

<comment><USER2> I just want to raise my concern about the security issues the current implementation provides. At a glance the _update_ method provides a simple way to execute arbitrary SQL.

Please be aware

<comment><USER3> Are you referring to a condition where if you let attackers control the array indices or table name, it's merely sanitized for meta characters?

[https://github.com/resonantcore/lib/blob/7b719907e8954241ff9...](https://github.com/resonantcore/lib/blob/7b719907e8954241ff93fe96f1f4416ed48fffd8/src/DB.php#L159)

Developer abuse ought to be sufficiently mitigated now. Thanks for saying something :)

<comment><USER2> No matter how hard you try. If queries are dynamically created, you (or your lib's user) will most certainly miss a spot were an attacker cloud sneak an offensive query.

You fixed the $i, but what about $table? What about $conditions's keys?

See the problem? And we are just talking about a single method ;-)

<comment><USER3> Valid points, but regrettably they were ones I had already addressed in subsequent changes.

I linked to a single commit.

I probably should have linked to the master branch instead. (Also, I just pushed another update as I wrote this.)

[https://github.com/resonantcore/lib/blob/master/src/DB.php](https://github.com/resonantcore/lib/blob/master/src/DB.php)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> TL;DR - it does everything PDO does (thanks to class inheritance) but also has some nice short-hand methods for getting jobs done quicker. DRY and KISS.

</comment><comment><USER4> Where are the tests?

<comment><AUTHOR> There aren't any, currently. These libraries are ripped from an in-house framework which has some tests already, but none for the classes we extracted. We created the tests folder in anticipation of actually writing some.</comment></comment>


Storing Emails from These Senators Will Be Easy, If They Ever Send One - <AUTHOR> http://www.nytimes.com/2015/03/12/us/politics/storing-emails-from-these-senators-will-be-easy-if-they-ever-send-one.html

<comment><USER2> Sounds like our peeps in Washington.</comment>


Ask HN: How did you scale yourself as an engineer? - <AUTHOR> <comment><USER2> Learn to prioritize, and value your time. You're not going to get much more done by working an extra 5 hours. Doing the same thing over and over again without getting tired is what computers are good at, humans have other skills.

So given limited time, you want to make sure you're spending it in way that produces the most:

1\. Are you working on something actually worthwhile? This is a very personal decision, about your own values. More here: [https://codewithoutrules.com/2017/08/07/do-something- useful/](https://codewithoutrules.com/2017/08/07/do-something-useful/)

2\. Are you solving the right problem, or just a symptom?

3\. Are you solving the problem the best way?

4\. Are you doing repetitive work that can be automated, as sheraz notes?

In the end you can't scale yourself beyond a certain point, but you can increase your impact by focusing on the really important things. More here: [https://codewithoutrules.com/2016/08/25/the-01x-programmer/](https://codewithoutrules.com/2016/08/25/the-01x-programmer/)

</comment><comment><USER3> Automation, templating, and and knowing when to ask for help.

1\. Automation I automate provision environments, deployments, tests, and the command line. Pretty much whatever I can in a reasonable amount of time.

2\. Templating I have a few project templates that already have the above automations scoped out. My ci/cd script, a makefile with common tasks, dockerfile skeleton, sensible playbooks. This lives in a skeleton git repo and cookiecutter.

3\. Asking for help I'm active on stackoverflow ,various slack communities and mailing lists. This is critical in moving my work along at a healthy clip. There is a lot to be said for figuring it out on your own, but I'm more concerned with delivering value than being academic or pedantic about my implementation.

These are the skills and behaviors I try to hire for and the ones I try to have for myself.

</comment><comment><USER4> Learning to document well. I've written runbooks for tasks that would involve me reading through the code for a day and brought the time involved down to 5 minutes (and that can be handed to junior engineers or new hires). I've also seen really great documentation written by a senior engineer that cut days off of tasks, long after that engineer had left.

</comment><comment><USER5> As I know what kind of engineer I am, I am really afraid to go to the doctors :-)</comment>


Ask HN: How much would you pay for a service that gets you your first 100 users? - <AUTHOR> Curious if this is a real problem for people and how much you would pay for a service that does the following:<p>- Turn your idea into a landingpage - Create custom branding for credibility, including a logo, color palette etc. (instead of using unbounce or a generic landing page builder) - Improve/write the copy for a better conversion rate - Promises to get you at least 100 people to sign up to your pre-launch list within 4 weeks or else all the work done is yours for free. These are targeted people that opted in, showing interest in your idea which you can then later work with to launch your product to, or talk to in order to improve what you're working on.<p>Was thinking in the $2k range, but love to get ideas <comment><USER2> _These are targeted people that opted in, showing interest in your idea which you can then later work with to launch your product to, or talk to in order to improve what you 're working on._

Depending on what you're starting, those are often the worst sort of people to target when you're starting a business. They're great if you're launching a customer oriented business that wants "everyone" as a customer, but most startups aren't that. Consequently they're not interested in what _you 're_ doing; they're just people who want to discover the latest thing regardless of what it is. Betalist, ProductHunt, etc are full of those people. They're easy to find. Unfortunately spending time courting them will give you the bad feedback (they want to please you rather than being honest), they'll rarely go on to become customers or evangelists because they're probably not your target market so they'll get bored quickly, and the whole process is a waste of energy.

I realise that sounds exceptionally negative, but this is an important thing for startups to learn.

On the other hand, if your service was something where I could pay you $2k after you've found me 100 _paying customers_ who stay with my startup for, say, a year then you'd be selling something _really_ interesting.

<comment><AUTHOR> that service should probably cost $20k+ :)</comment></comment>


Applying for Y Combinator Fellowship - <AUTHOR> http://startupapp.biz/blog/applying-for-y-combinator-fellowship/

<comment><USER2> love the out-take videos!</comment>


India makes good on vow to sabotage ACTA - <AUTHOR> http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/news/2010/06/india-launches-offensive-against-acta-cites-due-process.ars

<comment><USER2> Sabotage entails (for me, at least) some furtiveness and it seems to me that they are very clear about their motives and desires. And they are completely within their right.

<comment><AUTHOR> Fair point. I am thrilled by India's actions and didn't mean to imply they weren't acting exactly as they said they would.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> Surprisingly, there is very little discussion happening on this topic on Indian tech forums like pluggd.in or medianama.com.

Overall, the Indian government's main concern is about the impact on the generic pharmaceuticals industry. I hope officials high up are also considering the digital media angle.

<comment><USER4> Frankly, India's got a 40% poverty rate. They care about the basic needs of their people first.

If they do care about digital media, it's very, very, very low on the list of priorities.

<comment><USER5> As a matter of fact, the digital economy play a huge role in the 60% abot poverty rate. So it should matter to them.

<comment><USER6> You're not talking about digital media in that case. It's the rest of the "digital economy" that matters to them, specifically the telecommunications part.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> ACTA is not a win-win proposition for <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Third_World>

<comment><USER8> I've heard a few rumors that ACTA's primary purpose is not meant for piracy controls inside the respective countries like US or EU, but instead about piracy of street-vendors in third world countries. The reason for the secrecy was to keep them out so they don't complain.

The problem, of course, is that it's too generic and overarching and nobody wins except Big Copyright. When a country is worried about a treaty affecting generic drug manufacturing, IP laws have gone too far.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> Thank you, India.</comment>


Offshore finance: more than £12T siphoned out of emerging countries - <AUTHOR> https://www.theguardian.com/business/2016/may/08/offshore-finance-emerging-countries-russia-david-cameron-summit <comment><USER2> Is it possible that these people and orgs want to keep some of their money as _savings_ — and who cares where they are, since they're just supposed to sit in a vault anyway? Of course, the more enterprising governments cannot have that, and your savings are never truly savings (or yours, for that matter). Having savings in a foreign economy, in a different jurisdiction is the equivalent of an offsite offline backup — it's just good practice.

The commies at Guarniad of course don't rely on savings for their retirement, so they don't see it that way.

<comment><USER3> Yes, some of those people just want to keep some backup money in a different jurisdiction. Most of those people probably just want to do business offshore, and maybe even getting more money back into their local economy.

Those are both quite ok and nobody should disturb them. But lets face it - most of the money (not people) are plainly stolen and hiding outside local law enforcement's sight.

<comment><USER2> But that's not what the rhetoric is. It is important to understand how the world economy works, but this uncouth hatred for confidentiality, anonymity, and ownership is very old and very predictable. There are still places people can keep private property — bah humbug!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Having the money offshore, away from possible capital controls does not necessarily mean committing tax fraud by not declaring the income.

</comment><comment><USER5> I wonder if the ease of movement both physically and financially is going to make it permanently non-viable for countries to keep control over their citizens' assets as was done in the 20th Century.

</comment><comment><USER6> Number changed to 8tn

<comment><USER7> Yes now showing as $12tn (£8tn)</comment></comment>


Ask YC: Good resources for dev/staging/production config - <AUTHOR>

Looking for some good information regarding keeping development, staging, and production separate from one another in order to balance development of new features and maintenance of the current release.<p>Any and all info is greatly appreciated. For the record, however, we're using SVN and Django. Three developers on the project. <comment><USER2> We use SVN, Rails, and Capistrano.

If you are using rails I highly recommend capistrano.

We each have our dev environment on our local machines including the DB.

We have a staging server which is at our place the staging server is the same OS (Debian), apache, ruby, rails, and updates as our production server. (We always perform system updates to this box and do test deployments before going to production).

We have our production servers off site.

deploying to either environment is fully automated with capistrano.

cap staging deploy cap production deploy

We mostly develop on the trunk, but when working on really large features that might take a few days or break significant amounts of the code / test, we then work in a branch. We often want the trunk in good shape in case any large bugs show on production and we need to start to work on fixes right away.

This works well for us, I am sure there is similar tools for Python and I do think keeping a separate staging server around your place is worth the trouble.

<comment><USER3> From what I've read. Capistrano is not Rails exclusive. You can use it to deploy other frameworks as well.

<comment><AUTHOR> Yeah, Capistrano is language exclusive, you can use it for anything. I have looked into it but never found it that exciting. I guess I need to revisit Capistrano :)

<comment><USER4> Language agnostic?

<comment><AUTHOR> Garrr. Yes, that's the word I was looking for. Thanks :)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> I really like VMware's virtualization. Workstation is well worth the price. You can set up several server VM's on one box, and then use that for Dev, and Staging boxes if you like. And, you can set up a separate SVN repo on a different VM as well. If your box starts to bog down, it's as easy as copying and pasting the VM to another machine without losing anything.

And, if you want to deploy an entire VM to Amazon's EC2 service, Enominalism sells a tool to do that: <http://www.enomalism.com/features/amazon- ec2-migration/>

Also, it's possible to set up virtual networks between separate VM's, so you can model a 3 tier architecture and test your DB + Middleware setup if you like as well.

It's worth looking in to.

<comment><USER5> +1 for VMWare.

If you're on-the-cheap, you may also want to check out VMWare Player and the virtual appliances. I had a Workstation license, but it was from nearly 4 years ago and didn't work with many of the newer Linux distributions (notably Ubuntu). So I downloaded Player and an Ubuntu Gutsy virtual appliance, and was up-and-running in about 5 minutes.

<comment><USER6> VMWare Server is free and allows you to create new VMs (and comes with the VM addons for various OSes).

It allows you to start up VM at boot time, etc hence the "Server" name.

The drawback is that it installs a bunch of services.

Microsoft's VirtualPC 2007 is (was?) free and more of a single package, but I found VMWare Server to be faster.

VirtualBox is also available and open source.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> Thanks everyone for all of your info. Let me explain our situation and it might help some of you guys understand where I am coming from and where I am trying to go, as well as others out there in the same situation.

Right now we're developing, as I mentioned above, in Django and use SVN for everything. We have DB's locally.

From the get go we knew that there would be two major versions of our website. "Phase1" was fairly simple, the initial creation of the site and initial deploy into production.

"Phase2" Was the next giant step, which was essentially (and we learned this as we went) going to be an entire redesign from the ground up. We pretty much touched every file, redesigned over half of our models, etc... So, we created a branch called phase2-development and continued working. This was a pain in the ass because we still had to run and maintain the older "phase1" code locally for bug fixes, etc.. as well as continue our future development of the "Phase2" code. We also ran into problems later on because we were fixing bugs in the trunk "Phase1" and not merging those as we went into our phase2-development branch. So at one point we spent an entire weekend merging code.

We just launched our "Phase2" stuff a month or so ago, however, it wasn't all of the functionality we wanted in phase2 so we refer to it as phase1.5. Our head guy (more marketing/business xp. than tech came up with those names, so for all of us you can think of it as s/phase/version/g)

So now we're about to dive fullspeed into actually completing phase2, and but we still need to be able to maintain and fix bugs on the production site. What should we do? I would rather not run two copies of the site but since the new development we're going to be doing is going to be even crazier than going from v1 to v1.5 so not sure if that's even possible. Should we just create anther branch and develop on that? I'm not even sure the correct questions to be asking here, maybe you guys can help me from what I've described :)

</comment><comment><USER7> What we've been doing is the following:

Source code management system (we use SVN) with two branches: development and production. Anything goes on development and we use the ElectricCommander system to do automatic build and test off of the development branch.

Code that's being released to production is manually merged to the production branch and ElectricCommander runs build and test.

To deploy we have a staging server that takes the output from the build system and we can use it for final testing if we want to do something manual (mostly we don't). Then the build system is instructed to deploy the code (which in our case is rsync over ssh to our servers).

The servers will pick up the new code by cycling virtual machines (basically all our servers are virtual and when the VM starts it picks up the latest code).

</comment><comment><USER4> I too am interested in this. I'm a relative newbie to this all.

At the moment, we have a simple script that pulls down the latest (or any) revision and deploys it on the production server. Our app is mostly client side, so there's not a lot of complex backend logic, which makes things easier.

I _highly_ recommend having separate dev and production servers for anything but the simplest app. SliceHost slices or other VPS works well for this. Just make sure you get one with enough memory. We were regularly wedging our 256MB dev slice, which was a pain in the ass.

</comment><comment><USER8> With 3 developers do you really need to be working on Trunk and a Branch? Branch for every prod release but resist the urge to work on it unless an absolute disaster strikes, instead do regular (say every 2 weeks at most) from Trunk. Also - as the other commenters say - automate everything, and use a continuous integration tool e.g TeamCity

<comment><USER8> regular releases, I meant to say

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> Slicehost has a articles about configuring a server <http://articles.slicehost.com/>.

I use git, Rails and Capistrano. Git is nice because everybody has a copy of the repository and in case the server is down or you are offline you can still work.

</comment><comment><USER10> I've been using TortoiseCVS ( <http://www.tortoisecvs.org/> ) for a while on some small-to-medium scale projects. Its working out pretty well for version control and branching.

</comment><comment><USER11> Roll your own. A lot of open source projects out there are overkill.</comment>


Associations between intelligence and childlessness in men (2019) [pdf] - <AUTHOR> https://www.duo.uio.no/bitstream/handle/10852/72403/1/Does-Intelligence-Predict-Childlessness-In-Men.pdf <comment><USER2> The actual title should include "in men" as it does in the study.

> Results: No linear association between intelligence and childlessness was > found. However, follow-up analyses showed that higher risk of childlessness > was associated with the highest stanine intelligence score (two standard > deviations above the normed average), and that this effect was mediated by > whether participants had ever been in a relationship by their late twenties. > No significant direct effect of the highest stanine intelligence score was > found when the question of whether participants had ever been in a > relationship by their late twenties was included.

<comment><USER3> >...and that this effect was mediated by whether participants had ever been in a relationship by their late twenties. No significant direct effect of the highest stanine intelligence score was found when the question of whether participants had ever been in a relationship by their late twenties was included.

I don't know if it is just me, but I am struggling to parse the meaning of the part regarding the effect of "ever being in a relationship by their late twenties" on the premise of this study. The only way I see it now is it means "being in a relationship by their late twenties negates the whole phenomena of childlessness and intelligence score relationship that was observed in the study", but that doesn't feel right.

If someone in the thread can offer a more readable/simplified version of that statement, it would be very appreciated.

<comment><USER4> I think that more readable one may be "not having been in a relationship in late 20s is a stronger predictor of subsequent childlessness than scoring high in intelligence."

<comment><USER5> This seems correct to me, i.e. the current title here is clickbait.

From the paper:

"The results of the present study did not support my hypothesis that intelligence should be negatively associated with childlessness."

In fairness, the somewhat confusing verbiage here is from I assume a Norwegian non-native English speaker.

<comment><USER3> To their defense, a lot of academic papers even from native English speakers tend to have barely readable convoluted wording here and there. Either for the purpose of making it sound more complicated or to pad the length of the paper, I have no idea. But it is something I have been consciously noticing since a while ago.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> In this study men with the highest AND lowest intelligence were the least likely to have kids.

It reminds me of "Smart Teens Don't Have Sex (or Kiss Much Either)" discussed in [http://www.gnxp.com/blog/2007/04/intercourse-and- intelligenc...](http://www.gnxp.com/blog/2007/04/intercourse-and- intelligence.php). There was an analogous relationship with having sex. My interpretation: assortative mating.

</comment><comment><USER7> Obviously enough intelligent people are more prone to question the popular idea everybody is to have children (let alone early) in the first place. And then only reproduce once they feel like they have enough time and money to raise children in accordance with their reasonably high standards (which may turn out negative until its too late). While stupid people don't care and just fuck.

</comment><comment><USER8> I read the title as "association between intelligence and childishness". Made it halfway though the abstract trying to see if my immaturity meant I was actually intelligent. Disappointed.

</comment><comment><USER9> Title is misleading (see conclusion below).

It could also be interpreted that higher intelligence leads to delayed family formation (for a myriad of reasons), which necessarily involves less offspring.

 _Conclusion: The present study revealed a complex association between intelligence and childlessness. The mediated association between the highest stanine intelligence score and childlessness was interpreted as an expression of delayed family formation. It is still unclear whether this delay in family formation will "catch up" if childlessness is measured at an older age, which raises the need for additional studies on the subject._

</comment><comment><USER10> Did they investigate if this was by choice?

</comment><comment><USER11> Is that because wealthy people are less likely to want children? Doesn't mean you are intelligent if you don't have children

</comment><comment><USER12> I thought this study was done years ago: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CXSz0bA9CiE](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CXSz0bA9CiE)

</comment><comment><USER13> Regression to the mean?

</comment><comment><USER14> It's because we are so annoying to normal people.

<comment><USER3> I bet it has more to do with refusing to develop even a minimum baseline of social skills, thinking that being very smart can compensate for being intolerable around other people. The reality is, you gotta have both on at least a baseline minimum level.

And no excuses like "it has to be one or the other" are really valid, because I've definitely met people who were both extremely smart by any possible metric (even if the baseline of intelligence used for comparison is an average of other engineers), as well as extremely socially intelligent.

<comment><USER14> People prefer to marry those who have similar intelligence to themselves.

When one gets out 2, 3, 4, 5 standard deviations from the mean, there's only a very small number of others of similar intellect. Very very very small at the high end.

The chance of finding someone who is of compatible intellect and who is also compatible in even basic other ways is extremely small.

This accounts for the results of the study. There's no need to propose mechanisms whereby the exceptionally intelligent somehow foolishly believe that their intelligence gives them a pass, which it obviously doesn't. Mere observation and life experience shows that to be the opposite of reality.

<comment><USER3> I think you misunderstood my comment. Emotional/social intelligence and "technical" intelligence are completely separate things. I agree with your point, but I don't think that it works against my original hypothesis, it works alongside it.

I wasn't trying to say that all exceptionally intelligent people believe that they have no need for social skills because they are so smart. In fact, I brought up an example of the opposite.

And I agree with you that it makes sense that people would prefer to pair up with people of similar "technical" intelligence as them. However, I doubt that if you take a potential couple, where both people possess "technical" intelligence but only one possesses emotional intelligence, that person is going to be very willing to be with someone who lacks it to such a severe degree.

Leading me to a conclusion that a lot of very "technically" smart people are limiting their already narrow pool of people of similar "technical" intelligence level by not working on their emotional intelligence/social skills.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> I'm curious if this is just a Western thing. I feel like in Asia the government takes steps to prevent this from happening (one/two child policy and the ability to "buy" more children).

<comment><USER16> Asia isn't just Mainland China.

<comment><USER17> According to whom? The PRC might disagree with you.

<comment><USER18> You have to be colossally ignorant to not know India is in Asia.

<comment><USER17> And I'd be colossally surprised if the PRC had never fantasized about ruling India (not that they could). They seem to feel just about everything ought to belong to them.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> Well intelligence is partially hereditary, and childless men won't be passing on their genes, so I counter that these men really aren't as intelligent as claimed.

<comment><USER19> > and childless men won't be passing on their genes, so I counter that these > men really aren't as intelligent as claimed.

Hmm, I guess we found the breeder?

Not even sure where to begin with this, circular reasoning?

Have you perhaps considered that these intelligent people have considered tgat passing on their genes is not as valuable to them as other things they might value? I'd posit you haven't, and further, you shouldn't consider yourself among them.

<comment><USER18> I don't have any kids, so you failed to find "the breeder".

Nor do I consider myself particularly intelligent, making you 0 for 2, and it all the more wonderfully ironic if you considered yourself amongst that group.

<comment><USER19> I said you shouldn't consider yourself among them, not that you do.

Also your circular arguments towards childless men being stupid while also being a self-proclaimed "stupid & childless man" is poetic and somehow makes sense to me.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


An alternative to monkeypatching in Ruby - <AUTHOR> http://blog.rubybestpractices.com/posts/gregory/008-decorator-delegator-disco.html

<comment><USER2> If you don't clearly understand the implications of "Monkeypatching" (also known as "Ninjapatching") then watch this:

<http://rubymanor.org/videos/unobtrusive_metaprogramming/>

Slides: [http://seanohalpin.github.com/unobtrusive- metaprogramming/un...](http://seanohalpin.github.com/unobtrusive- metaprogramming/unobtrusive-metaprogramming.html)

Its a nice little talk explaining in detail whats going on with all this namespace pollution in Ruby.

Here is the direct link to the mp4 btw.:

[http://rubymanor.org/videos/unobtrusive_metaprogramming/unob...](http://rubymanor.org/videos/unobtrusive_metaprogramming/unobtrusive_metaprogramming.mp4)

<comment><AUTHOR> Ah, Sean is one of our bloggers but he's been dormant since the start of the blog. Maybe I can nudge him to write up some content based on this talk, as it looks quite interesting.

Thanks for sharing these links!</comment></comment>


The universe has been proven to be doomed - <AUTHOR> http://arstechnica.com/science/2015/08/we-now-understand-the-universes-doom-better-than-ever/

<comment><USER2> I don't know if I could be an astronomer. You're looking at the fundamental facts of reality, and they are depressing.

<comment><AUTHOR> It does seem like the ultimate downer: The universe itself will die a horrible, awful death and there is nothing you can do.

Go curl up in a ball and die :-(

I want my BLUE PILL!</comment></comment>


Could Millennials End Salary Secrecy? - <AUTHOR> http://www.theatlanticwire.com/business/2013/04/could-millennials-end-salary-secrecy/64317/

<comment><USER3> The whole taboo about talking about salary isn't really about salary. It's about the end result of what happens several steps down the line from people talking about salary.

Say, for example, you and Steve have the same job description and Steve tells you that he makes $40k more than you. You naturally feel screwed, so you go talk to the boss about it. Now, one of two things might happen. It might turn out that you're actually as good as Steve, and just weren't as good at negotiating. That's the best case, and maybe you'll get yourself the raise that everybody always talks about when this topic comes up.

But more likely, you're just not as good at your job as Steve. And now your boss has no choice but tell you so directly. So now you feel even worse, your boss is uncomfortable, and Steve is all self-conscious.

Your boss has thought all this through, so he put that silly policy in place. (Notice how _he_ loses in either case.) The fact that such a policy exists is probably an indicator that you're not actually as good as Steve (or possibly that Steve isn't as good as you), and that no real good will come from discussing salaries with each other.

If you want to talk salaries, do it with people working at _other_ companies. Figure out your real market rate and if your current employer won't match it, go find somebody who will.

Incidentally, a corollary to the above is that you should avoid working at a place where all salaries are public and they pay all their developers the same, based on a few "tiers" or whatever. Unless you expect you're either bad enough at what you do or bad enough at negotiating that you'd normally end up with a salary below the "tier" level, you're guaranteed to leave money on the table in this situation. Probably about 50% of your actual value if you're genuinely good at what you do and can negotiate your way out of a paper bag.

<comment><USER4> This system is broken.

Just have discrete salary levels that are well understood and public. That way you _know_ what levels everyone is on, there is _no negotiation necessary_ (which is an amoral practice anyway) and everybody can focus on actual work instead of secretly wondering if they're getting screwed compared to some random no-talent clown on their team. You wouldn't need that many different levels either, maybe ten in total. In my country, government jobs already kind of work this way, and the military does, too.

When we were doing our startup, we had three tiers for a company of about 15 people. Everybody in the same tier made the same.

<comment><USER3> As I said in the comment you're replying to, that's a terrible idea. For, well, the reasons I gave in the comment you're replying to.

It's the same reason that Unions are such a bad idea for professions with wide variation in individual skill (such as software developers). I (and likely you) don't want to be lumped in with whatever the "average" worker of my years experience and skillset is making or able to negotiate. Unless you're in the bottom 50th percentile, you can do better on the open market.

To use your example, the system you advocate would ensure that you were earning _the same_ as that no-talent clown on the next team. Me, I'd prefer to make twice his salary.

<comment><USER4> As I implied in the comment you're replying to, _yours_ is a terrible idea ;)

I advocate transparency and simplicity not because it's a perfect system for getting the exact amount of compensation appropriate (no such system exists) - I advocate its use over the alternative which is based on empowering the employer only and unfairly rewards people for being good at negotiation. I allege the whole thing is a philosophical artifact created by the idea that unregulated free markets can solve every problem: "just let the workers fight over it, the best will get the most!"

Interestingly, a wide variation is skill is _not_ something that is addressed at all by this don't-ask-don't-tell lottery scheme. If anything, it is _based_ on the idea that two given people with the same skill set end up getting disparately compensated. In what world can that look right to anyone? People wonder why women and minorities get paid less than white males: that is the reason why right there.

The truth is, I'd rather rest well _knowing_ I get the same compensation as a coworker than spending energy wondering whether I'm getting ripped off or not. And here's the shocker: I don't want my coworker to get ripped off either! Now if a team member happens to be awful, and he keeps on failing upwards through the ranks of the company, I prefer to have some visible indicators for that as well. You say you prefer to make twice the salary as that guy, but under the system you're advocating you couldn't even _know_ whether that is indeed the case.

 _> I (and likely you) don't want to be lumped in with whatever the "average" worker of my years experience and skillset is making. _

That really depends on the company and the kind of colleagues you are dealing with. I'd prefer to work in a team where I'm not above everyone else. I like being surrounded by people who inspire me and whom I can maybe inspire in turn. Being lumped together with comparatively untalented coworkers is not just a compensation issue, it also creates an environment where one part of the team has to constantly shoulder additional workload and carry the underperformers (who by the way are almost always better at politics).

Getting back to my levels proposal: it already works elsewhere, it's just not used that much in our industry for cultural (and probably philosophical) reasons. Yes, skills vary, but the negotiation-based system addresses this in an even worse way than compensation levels do. My experience with running a level-based system has been overwhelmingly positive. It was pleasant from an administrative point of view, and it created zero contention among employees.

<comment><USER3> I like to think I'm _full_ of terrible ideas :). Here's another one.

I don't agree with your idea that negotiating is "amoral", nor that rewarding people for being good at negotiation is "unfair", nor that you can get "ripped off" by receiving a salary that you agreed to, nor that a "don't-ask- don't-tell" workplace need be a "lottery".

I think it's fine that people can negotiate with one another, and that being good at negotiating has advantages. I think the most productive thing to do in a world where people negotiate is to learn some basic negotiation skills so as to live in that world.

I think the least productive thing you can do in that world is to try to make everybody stop negotiating for things. Doing so can only make things worse for you, since everybody else will continue negotiating after you stop.

<comment><USER5> Nowhere is negotiation and politicking more aggressive than in a scenario where it is "officially" disallowed. When you have a "transparency" or "no negotiation" policy you just push this underground.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Job market is just like any other market - governed by supply and demand. Currently, it is not efficient. In fact, not even close to being efficient. This is because, a key characteristic of an efficient market is perfect sharing of information.

This is why ending Salary Secrecy is a good thing - for both the employer and employee. It might seem that the employer is most affected (as the article suggests), but that is not always true. If there is an equally talented person who is not paid well, someone would eventually make a better offer. He would take that offer thinking that his current company would never pay that well.

While tweeting your salary might be quite unlikely, most employees today don't mind sharing their salary details with their friends. It simply helps to understand what the market demand is and improves efficiency of a broken system.

<comment><USER5> _equally talented person who is not paid well_

People are naturally going to disagree about things like _equally talented_ ("Of course my UI was equally difficult to make as Bob's graphics engine! Maybe even harder!") and _paid well_ ("Are you serious? I made 30% than that at my last job!")

<comment><USER6> You are right, such terms are ambiguous. But I would be happy even if employees playing the _same role_ achieving the same results get paid the same. But that is often not the case.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> It's a ridiculous one-sided advantage to suppliers of labor if we keep our mouths shut. Perhaps by speaking "that which must not be spoken," we can make salary decisions more open and fair across the board.

</comment><comment><USER8> In Norway, taxable income is public information. It used to be that it was so public that newspapers would put up searchable databases where you could enter name and postcode to get a list of everyones income and fortune. It's been restricted a little bit. The idea is that it acts as a deterrent to tax evasion and money laundering (your neighbour gets suspicious about that new Ferrari you bought) etc..

I don't really have much of an opinion about whether it's good or bad - <USER2> mostly don't care other than 5 minutes of excitement when the numbers were out when online news sites still published them.

<comment><USER9> When I first heard about how easy it was to look up a person's income in Norway, I was blown away. I'd personally hate for that information to be public. I think perhaps in Norway, there is a bit less disparity in incomes, it's a little closer to equal. The wealthy are also heavily taxed. So it makes things a little less uncomfortable when your friends, colleagues, family members, etc. know exactly how much you make.

<comment><USER8> That's true. I'm Norwegian, but live in England now, and I make a lot more here than what I would in Norway, and my neighbours make a lot less here than what they would in ordinary "blue collar" jobs in Norway. But I think also the novelty wears off very quickly. It was fun to "spy" on friends and neighbours once or twice, but then it just starts feeling a bit icky.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Coworker pay is irrelevant. The contract is between you and your employer.

I've seen people tie themselves in terrible knots over this. It's a losers' game. Instead of getting organised and creating the life they want, they take the lazy option and get caught up over what people in their immediate context are doing.

When you apply for work, you need to have a good idea of what you're worth in the broader market, and what kind of work environments you'd like. Having done that, look broadly, negotiate thoroughly, and get something that works for you. When you're not happy, make new arrangements.

<comment><USER11> "When you apply for work, you need to have a good idea of what you're worth in the broader market"

Which is why coworker pay is _not_ irrelevant.

<comment><USER10> Through your wage, the employer is already communicating to you the point at which they cut their losses on you and let you go. Maybe through hard bargaining you could inch a bit more out, but to do it you have to introduce an unpleasant penny pinching theme into your relationship with coworkers and employer.

If you're working in a situation where you feel you're tied to a single company needing to gouge out pay increases on the basis of what the guy next to you is being, you're already screwing yourself from so many angles that you have bigger problems to be thinking about. Instead of worrying about some fractional adjustment to your wage, you should be worrying about becoming more valuable, broader, flexible, self-sufficient.

This is an interesting topic because cultures have very different attitudes about negotiating. Here's a wave from the London morning crowd. The English tend to be silent-auction, sudden-death negotiators. It will be interesting to see what the Americans have to say when they get in.

<comment><USER8> > the employer is already communicating to you the point at which they cut > their losses on you and let you go.

Have you ever been on the employer side? Because I have. I've been involved in negotiating and setting salaries for the last 18 years, for dozens of employees.

Your statement above has _never_ been true in any of the companies I've worked. It would have been true if the employees were all perfect negotiators, everyone had perfect information, and we were quite weak negotiators and ended up being pushed until stretching.

In reality, hiring managers tend to have much more information - when hiring _we_ know what we can hire others for, as well as what others have accepted, and what a typical employee will bring in. We also know much better what the market is like. You will likely get an offer that is low enough that some candidates will walk away from it.

On top of that, most potential employees are _shit_ at negotiating. Most never negotiate at all - they take the offered number or leave it, but they rarely push.

But the first offer is _never_ my best. Why? Because it doesn't have to be, and we'd be throwing money out the window if it was.

On the flip side, when I am the one seeking a job, I never, ever accept a first offer. I've never had a job offer I couldn't negotiate up. Anything from 10% to 40%. For most type of professional jobs you're likely to get a 5%-10% increase over the initial offer just from saying the offer is a bit on the low end, and asking if that's the best they can do.

At the same time, raises are hit and miss. If someone does something that really merits a raise, sure. But 90% of the time it is _not_ obvious, and chances are we miss things that someone has done when we evaluate them that could have led to a raise if they, or their co-workers told us. This is part of the reason why people often get those "shock increases" when they apply for a new job: Applying forces them to update their CV's, which forces them to think about and formulate what value they bring. Most employees never actually tell their managers about that, on the assumption they know. They're very often wrong.

> Maybe through hard bargaining you could inch a bit more out, but to do it > you have to introduce an unpleasant penny pinching theme into your > relationship with coworkers and employer.

Frankly, I respect the employees that come to me and negotiate _more_, as long as they have done their homework and knows what they are worth, and can explain to me why. They are demonstrating that they understand their value to the business. Those are the employees that also tend to actively try to increase their value to the business.

<comment><USER12> _On top of that, most potential employees are shit at negotiating. Most never negotiate at all - they take the offered number or leave it, but they rarely push._

This is why the article sounded so strange to me. It seems like the idea that's really being pushed is that negotiation is bad, which is an easy sell because most people have a strong aversion to it. They're eager to find a reason to not have to do it, even when they suspect they're underpaid.

It's the uncertainty that causes so much angst, not the money in absolute terms, and appeasing that uncertainty by convincing the median earners that it's okay to gossip seems like a great way to get them to never ask for more. They will gladly continue leaving money on the table if only they can be confident that nobody else is taking it.

<comment><USER13> Negotiation IS bad. Why would a thing that most people have aversion be considered good? There must be strong reasons for it to be good for the median employee, and there is none.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> Regarding the HR comment, the Fair Labor Standards Act forbids employers from forbidding employees from discussing their salaries.

<comment><USER15> Yep, but ask the average worker if they know this. That law doesn't keep this clause from appearing in employment contracts either.

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> I am generally in favor of transparency. In this case I am definitely in favor of more high level transparency about wages. But when it gets to the specific data about one person and their coworkers it gets more difficult due to various cognitive biases (including the Dunning Kruger effect). I would be interested in the results of experiments in complete transparency and how they deal with these issues. I wouldn't currently undertake the experiment because I don't know of a way to structure it that allows it to fail and not be permanent.

</comment><comment><USER17> Well my employer does tell us the median salary for our roles. If you have clearly defined roles within your organization then salary woes should not be an issue. It is part of being a professional organization. Then you back this structure with a clear process for evaluation and advancement. Advancement does not necessarily need to be upward.

</comment><comment><USER18> I think the most important thing to know about Millennials is that we're the exact opposite of the smear thrown at us. Boomers call us "entitled" at work. We're actually _disentitled_.

An entitled person expects a social contract to be upheld, and usually the pejorative aspect of the word "entitled" implies that it's one-sided advocacy.

We're disentitled because we no longer believe in the corporate social contract at all. We'd be entitled if we expected the other side to follow the rules. We don't. We know they won't, so we break just as many rules. Sure, it's bad for social harmony to people to figure out if they're getting screwed. You know what? Fuck that! I find it worse that people are getting screwed.

<comment><USER12> Cynically, Millennials can be coaxed into doing anything if they can be convinced it's sticking it to The Man.

<comment><USER18> There's a lot of truth in this. I can't stand hipsters because they're a bunch of cargo-culters who have no idea why they're rebelling, or which targets deserve it and which ones don't.

I've worked in corporations. I have the right to hate them. I have more insight into corporate evil than 99.99% of people alive. If you dick around in Williamsburg and haven't seen the morning sun since college, then you don't understand why corporations do what they do and have no right to complain about them.

Reflexively hating suburbia, for one example, is the epitome of being suburban. I'm surprised by how many people don't get that.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> no.

<comment><USER20> Excellent rebuttal. You had me convinced at "n".

<comment><USER21> Ok, so what are your perceived advantages of knowing your colleagues salary?

We also follow this so-called "taboo" in our office, and everything is peaceful. There is a rule to not talk about it, but it is not strictly enforced...if one really would like to reveal his salary, he could; but it seems that there just isn't a motivation to do that.

<comment><USER22> Harder for management to rip people off by underpaying them.

<comment><USER23> I suspect that a lot of people mostly don't want to confront potentially unpleasant truths about how their employer values them in a relative sense.

Probably a self-confidence thing as much as anything.

<comment><USER24> How their employer values them should be reflected _only_ in the title - be it Sr. Whatever, Whatever or Jr. Whatever.

EDIT (meta): How many times it should be stated on HN that downvoting is not for expressing disagreement...

Just reply your opinion and move on.

<comment><USER5> So everyone gets paid the same and is compensated with an increasingly fancy title?

 _Someone_ will benefit from that arrangement, but it won't be the majority of employees.

<comment><USER24> I'm not a huge fan of fancy titles either. What I meant to say is that the salary should reflect the contribution. So if two person contribute the same value to the company, they should have same compensations.

Which is not necessary tied to titles, right.

The only entity which benefits from salary secrecy is the employer itself.

<comment><USER5> I see what you mean now.

I misunderstood the meaning from your original posting - I thought you meant that the CTO should get paid the same as a junior programmer should get paid the same as a janitor.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>