What Do People Want? - <AUTHOR>

I want to build something people want. What do you want? <comment><USER2> Here is a good essay on determining what is a good idea for a startup. Might give some guidance on what you should build:

<http://www.paulgraham.com/ideas.html>

</comment><comment><USER3> I recommend starting by understanding what you _really_ want, and then see if others share your desire.

</comment><comment><USER4> They want things to be easy.

</comment><comment><USER5> read this great post: [http://www.gobignetwork.com/wil/2007/1/5/forget-about- the-so...](http://www.gobignetwork.com/wil/2007/1/5/forget-about-the-solution- focus-on-the-problem/10055/view.aspx)

The smartest entrepreneurs aren't the ones who figure out the solutions to big problems, they are the ones who actually understand the value of those big problems. Smart entrepreneurs focus on the very essence of why the problem exists and the pain it causes. Then, when they find a solution that works, they know how valuable the solution really is.

</comment><comment><USER6> People don't know what they want.

<comment><USER7> if people knew what they wanted, the most successful companies would be the ones with the largest focus groups.</comment></comment>


How to defend against DDOS - <AUTHOR> http://gcn.com/articles/2013/01/24/9-steps-defend-against-ddos.aspx?s=gcntech_250113

<comment><USER2> I kinda feel like this was written for beginners, but if its not that, I can't say this was really well researched. There are a ton of more technical things that you can do to defend yourself, and any expert will tell you that pretty quickly.

Also, if a search engine crawling you is a "high volume of traffic" to your site, you are doing it wrong. Search engines are designed to be pretty lightweight in terms of crawl load, but occasionally can get broken with bad CGI/apps/etc, but never to the point that they would appear to be part of a DDoS.</comment>


Remote working – Bringing sanity to mind and lessons worth learning - <AUTHOR> https://blog.quuu.co/lessons-worth-learning-from-remote-workers/ <comment><USER2> Both Remote work and office work can be really great for certain people at certain times.

When I was younger I was full-time remote for more than five years, and at the time I enjoyed it. There was some difficulty separating work from life when it all happened in one apartment, but overall it was a good fit.

Then I had kids, and that distinction became much harder. Little children have a really hard time understanding that mom or dad is right there in the other room but can't play now. At that point moving to an office job became a really nice change.

As a hiring manager, what I've found is that there aren't so many people who truly want to work from home all the time. Rather, what most people want is flexibility and compromise. For example:

\- "I want to work from home on Tuesdays and Thursdays so I can easily pick my kids up from pre-school over my lunch break."

\- "I want to live in (insert almost any city here) where I grew up and have roots, but there aren't many good jobs." Or the similar variation, "I want to live in (place that is very cheap or pretty or both)..."

\- "My wife and I want to be able to visit both sides of our family that live far away, and the logistics would be a lot easier if I could work remotely for a week here and there to make that work, rather than need 3 extra weeks of vacation."

The best thing about remote is that all that flexibility and freedom is just built into the job, and in my experience it's easier to find a full-remote job than an office job with comparable flexibility. The downside is you don't get the fun and energizing environment of working with neat, smart people in person, nor the work/life separation that many people find very helpful.

I think most people's stated preference just reflects which one of those is more important to them in their present circumstances.

<comment><USER3> This times a hundred thousand percent. I'm battling this hard right now at my workplace, some of my developers live a good 45 min drive from work and that's just insane to ask them to be in their car for 7.5 hours/week.

So what did I do? I went "against" the company policy and had each of my team members work at least 1 day a week from home, now they're up to 2-3 days depending on the week (humorous part is during the summer they're in the office more cause it's more quiet than home cause their kids are out for the summer lol)

So we're still a "work from office" company but I run our team how I want and surprise - zero attrition in 3 years on my team, we meet most of our commitments, developer happiness/engagement is up on my team, our time to first response for production issues is great and all because of a mutual understanding that regardless of the "rules" I'll take care of my guys/gals.

<comment><USER4> The down side is that this can have bad effects on company wide morale. My wife's company has a strict no remote work policy. But one or two managers go against the company policy like you have, and let their dept. work remote from time to time.

It's great for them, but it kills morale in the rest of the company as people in my wife's department kill themselves to come in day after day (despite good/bad weather, missing personal commitments, etc), while they notice empty desks in the dept. down the hall. Makes for some miserable workers.

<comment><USER5> Has the company looked at which departments need to be on-premise and then let the other ones have flexibility? If the departments who work remotely now and then are meeting the company's goals, it seems like a model to follow.

<comment><USER4> No they have not. And yes, it would seem to be a good model to follow. But they are not interested in looking into it. I guess eventually they will be forced to look into a remote policy due to attrition, but sadly, they will probably be able to hold out for a few years more before doing so.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> I just started a new remote position. I worked remotely in previous job as well and discovered then that working from home is not actually a good thing for me. I eventually worked exclusively from coffee shops but this isn't exactly the best way to work everyday — expensive, drink LOTS of coffee, and coffee shops generally make it harder to find flow state, not impossible but just harder.

That previous job was contract work for an enterprise — not super inspiring, lots of structural annoyances in the team that created barriers to getting things done, and team a setup that didn't quite put remote workers on the same level as the inhouse team members. Even with all the annoyances I found when working from home I had a lot of trouble "stopping" — it felt like I was always at work.

Switching to the coffee shops was definitely better, but with my role on new team (startup and fully remote team — it's aweskme!) I decided to try out a coworking space. Got a reserved desk at a WeWork walking distance from home and really like the experience so far! Short walk to work, sort of a community feeling at the office (well haven't made any friends Yet but it at least seems possible to), master of my own space, and whenever I want I can choose to work from a coffee shop or wherever seems convenient ...

Best of all worlds so far!

<comment><USER7> I want to be at a coworking space, but WeWork is pricey for my situation. A hot desk (not reserved) at my local WeWork is over $4k a year. If that cost were subsidized by my company I might use it, but it's a significant salary hit otherwise. Additionally, it's still a very loud workspace to work in. Even with daily food/drink costs, I spend well under that at the coffee shop.

<comment><USER8> Libraries are pretty underrated working environments. Generally quiet, and many have conferencing or study rooms for reservations

<comment><USER9> I work from libraries a lot, when I'm at home and when I'm on the road. My biggest disappointment is usually in university libraries because their internet tends to be more locked down then a community library, but hey it's their network.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> The problem with remote work is working for a team that hasn't committed to making remote work tenable. It's too easy to miss out on whiteboard sessions & hallway conversations, and resentment by people who don't like making special accommodations for remote workers definitely happens.

<comment><USER11> In general the recommendation is that it's best to have everyone remote. Mixed teams usually don't work well.

<comment><USER12> I work in a company where there is a mix between people who are always in the office, some who work 2 or 3 days at home (like me) and others who are mostly remote.

Seems to work pretty well - so it's certainly possible.

<comment><USER13> Personally, while I wouldn't say that mixed teams "don't work", they are much harder. Specifically for management.

The managers need to enforce that all meetings have to include remote workers. And I mean _ALL_ meetings should include them, or at least give them the option of joining in. Managers need to avoid falling in the trap of "I didn't talk to them today so they didn't do anything", even subconsciously. Managers need to make sure that no decisions are made informally in an office without giving a chance to remote workers on the teams from having input or knowing they happened. Managers need to make sure that in-office people know how to use and work with the remote work tools, and remote workers need to be held to the same standards (no one-on-one calls and decisions without including all the in-office people, not just the one they are talking to at the moment).

It's not impossible by any means, I even work in a situation like that myself right now where about half the team is remote, and half is in the office. But having worked in fully remote teams and fully in-office teams before, I will say that it's much easier when it's not mixed.

One really kind of "unique" setup I have at a current job is an always-on zoom "meeting room" where team members will stay in all day sometimes (often any time we aren't working on something individually or deep in a problem). It really bridges the remote/office gap really well, because just like in an office any of us can just unmute and ask a quick question about something, kind of like leaning back to ask someone a question at another desk in an office.

<comment><USER12> Yeah - we have all the gear for making sure remote access to meetings works really well (cameras, screens, hand held wireless microphones etc).

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> The number one request by a huge margin was put forward. Then the first thing mentioned is the dangers of remote work. Seems an odd tack to take.

That being said I really like remote work. But you have to be proactive in your role to be successful. I've found the main danger to be manager changes.

The previous manager accepted and worked with remote personnel. The new one does not like it so they create a situation. Then solve it by canceling the remote program. I'm pretty sure this is where most of the negativity comes from.

<comment><USER15> Manager changes are often indicative of what I perceive to be the biggest issue: cultural attitudes towards people that are not in the office.

If the organization understands that you're a full participant and they don't blink when you say you're remote, that's great and will lead to success.

If, however, you're perceived to be tele-shirking or "wink wink remote working" because of the company culture it will be a big issue. I would say this could be resolved by some focused in-person time to talk about norms and how to collaborate and share success, but it takes a good manager to do this. If the manager wants butts in seats and remote is not a company-wide norm, then that may be what you're left with, unfortunately.

<comment><USER16> Going through this myself right now. I joined my company as just the third developer on the team almost a decade ago, working directly under the owner. A year ago when we were up to ~15 developers I decided to move to a different state and go full remote, with the owner's blessing. Since then two more layers of management were inserted between me and the owner and communication has all but broken down.

I like the company and I like working remotely, but it may be time for a change soon because of this.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> Please tell that to the European employers.

Most, especially in the German speaking part of Europe, are still run like factories, barely have flexible working hours and don't even want to hear about remote work as managers prefer having a close eye on employees at all time.

<comment><USER18> Lol no need to look all the way at Europe even. In the US not a single one of the big techs hires remotely still, and this I believe is a big barrier to the spread of remote hiring ("if google doesn't hire remote, there must be some good reason - so we're not gonna do it either!")

<comment><USER19> There is a small company named 'Elasticsearch' were most of the workers are remote workers since I don't think they even have offices.

<comment><USER20> GitLab is also known for being all-remote.

<comment><USER21> That's true! Here's some more info about it [https://about.gitlab.com/company/culture/all- remote/](https://about.gitlab.com/company/culture/all-remote/)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> Working remote is great but still requires a quality company for it to be enjoyable.

Meetings should be treated like everyone is remote. If people attend from their desk, these tend to work out better & you avoid unintentional things that make it difficult for remote employees to attend.

Having the majority of conversations done via e-mail or a chat tool & properly documented in something like OneNote or Evernote or a project management tool goes a long way in keeping everyone on the same page as well. This is good for non-remote teams as well.

Allowing flexibility in time & location goes a long way in making happy employees in my experience. It shows you trust them to get the work done. Sure, some people will abuse it but those aren't people you want on your team anyways.

As stated by others, being a remote worker doesn't mean you need to be a hermit either. There are tons of ways to still go out & socialize with people. Even on remote teams, I still find a good chunk of my day is socializing via video chat meetings where someone is bound to go off topic. People also login early & chat about life.

<comment><USER23> Which "things that make it unintentionally difficult to attend" meetings for remote people are you referring to?

<comment><USER24> I won't presume to answer for the OP, but my (remote conference attendance) pet peeves include: I have printed out important information (but forgotten to email it); let me use the whiteboard that is mounted on the same wall as the camera to illustrate a concept; I will speak exactly loud enough so that only people in the room can here me; I will use the free tier of some conferencing service, and start the call fifteen minutes early so that the connection drops halfway through the meeting.

<comment><USER22> Well said. The biggest offenders are usually companies & not the remote employees. I am in a great spot where I don't experience these today but the most frequent I've seen are:

Poor microphones set up around the conference room that make it hard to hear everyone.

No webcam at all or a bad webcam setup that doesn't allow the remote attendees to see the gestures people make.

Multiple people talking at the same time, but having very quiet conversations.

Using a whiteboard, a projector or showing a screen by turning your computer around but not making it visible to remote attendees.

* Basically doing things that the remote people can't participate in.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> I suspect that asking about "experiencing negative aftereffects of remote work" just means that people who think that their work life sucks and happen to be remotees are going to say "yes". I want to see the numbers for "negative aftereffects of on-site work".

</comment><comment><USER26> I personally haven't experienced any of these issues with remote work, but then I had many years of experience before my first remote position, as senior and often lead. I was the type to seldom seek help, but was often the one sought out for help. My theory is the more one is accostomed to working on their own, even in an office, the easier it is to work fully remote successfully. Has anyone else experienced this?

<comment><USER11> I agree that remote work needs a certain personality type. You need to be self sufficient but also be willing to reach out proactively when you have problems and not keep struggling in silence as I have seen before. This is a difficult balance for some people.

As far as depression and anxiety goes I get that from my current job sitting in a cube with constant noise and interruption. I feel it's starting to really impact my mental health negatively.

In the end i don't think remote work is for everybody. Some people will thrive with it and some people will thrive in an office. It's good to know which you are.

<comment><USER27> > You need to be self sufficient but also be willing to reach out proactively > when you have problems

It's not that different from sitting in a cube, at least for software development. It's just threshold when something becomes a problem to reach out for help is higher for remote work, since it takes a bit more effort to communicate. You do a bit more so you have something to show and to discuss, not try to reach out for every little thing.

<comment><USER11> When I worked remotely there were people that were incredibly needy and every 10 minutes asked me about stuff they could easily have gotten from a web search and others got bogged down for weeks with issues that could be resolved in five minutes.

I always felt that good remote workers are very mature, communicate well and are respectful of others . I guess that applies to office work too but remote amplifies this.

<comment><USER28> I believe remote work amplifies everything. Inefficiencies, poor organization, bad documentation, poor communication, poor work ethic. Any stresses start to form cracks when taken out of the office environment. The upside is all of the things that a successful remote team requires are the things that you should be doing anyway.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER29> I have learned the hard way that I am not good at remote work.

I recognize that I'm in the minority here, but I actually _need_ to get up, have a shower, leave my flat and go into an office with people for my mental health.

I have zero issue with other people working remotely, in fact I envy them.

<comment><USER30> Sounds like your only social life is from work.

<comment><USER29> It's not even that, it's like I mentally have trouble kick-starting my day without going through that routine of having a shower, brushing my teeth, leaving the flat. When WFH, some days I am no further along at 3pm than I was at 9pm, then come the deadlines.

Definitely something I wish I had figured out years earlier.

<comment><USER31> It is beyond critical that you keep your routine! Remote or not. Wake up, gym, shower, etc.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER32> A lot of the comments seem to be about remote work as some preference or something; the biggest driver I've seen though, however, is that housing is unaffordable near the office. Remote work makes housing more affordable for many folks. It also seems like it skews towards older folks, likely due to having families and children needing more room and better schools.

<comment><USER33> But on the other hand you have to wonder about the greater social implications down the line. The invention of the car was great at first. It allowed people to get where they wanted to go faster. But as it was adopted more and more heavily, we ended up with traffic and sprawl that mean people have to spend more of their time commuting than before.

I wonder if something analogous would happen with remote work. If more companies go the remote route, wouldn't we expect them to favor employees in cheap locations that will accept less pay for the same work? And if that's the case, wouldn't more and more families be forced out of more expensive locations, even those who could afford to live there before? In other words, remote work has the possibility to exacerbate the very problems that it seeks to fix.

<comment><USER34> If there was less demand for expensive areas, the market would adjust and they would become less expensive. The overall effect would be an averaging effect on real estate prices as cheaper areas became more expensive and expensive areas cheaper.

<comment><USER33> But it seems quite possible that incomes could fall faster than demand given there are other factors influencing demand like foreign buyers. And the money saved by employers would make many already rich people significantly richer. Perhaps the nice areas of the country would just become a playground for the rich (more so than they already are) while everyone else is in dystopian exurbs and suburbs.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER35> With virtually no tech companies offering private offices any more, this isn't surprising. Companies won't give employees what they need, so employees are hacking the system to find a way to get it anyway.

One of the first steps given here for remote work is to "set-up or find a space that lets you stay productive", which will enable you to "Stay focused on tasks and be able to fully disconnect whenever required". Sound familiar?

That's what private office advocates have been saying for years. The only difference is that companies refuse to allow this within the walls of the company. I'm surprised the companies aren't also pushing to have these people reclassified as independent contractors and not employees.

</comment><comment><USER36> I wonder how much of this doesn't actually have to do with the home, but rather office conditions:

\- open seating and/or highly sound-reflective surfaces

\- unfixable A/C and/or drafts and/or allergens

\- all methods of transportation to the place where the office is are unsupported (e.g. Cambridge, MA)

\- jerks cruising the office

\- unwanted attention not or only pretentiously connected to work

<comment><USER37> That can all easily be fixed. I'm currently working on a short term job at Statnett in Oslo. The office is all open plan but there are loads of small sound proofed rooms of various sizes that you can use for a work conversation. It's frowned upon to have a long or loud conversation at your desk. You just pick up your laptop and go to a little conference room. Some are just big enough for three people but they all have a big screen and conferencing tools.

Each floor also has an area where you can relax with a cup of tea or coffee and read the newspaper.

Desks are all motorised so you can adjust the height and use them standing if you like, the desks are not personal although those who work most of the time in the office do use the same desk all the time.

The environment is quiet, the temperature is pleasant, there are automatic blinds on the windows shut out the sun when it is too strong.

For me it works really well. If I have a meeting then I go in early, find a desk and work, go to the meeting, back to the desk and do some work, then finish the day just as though it was an ordinary office day.

But I agree, there are plenty of places (I've worked in some) where all of your negative office conditions apply.

<comment><USER38> Sidetrack: do you know how hard/easy is it for a United Statesian to get a job in Norway? It's kind of a dream of mine to live and work in Norway for a while.

<comment><USER37> Assuming that you can find an employer who needs your expertise then I don't think it should be especially difficult. At least it should be easier than it was when I moved here in January 1986 when I had to provide the Norwegian Embassy in London with a stack of documentation proving that the company that was going to employ me had tried for six months to find a Norwegian who could do the job and failed before they would issue a work permit.

Anyway, Norway is a very transparent society with a well integrated government web site so you should be able to find the details here: [https://www.udi.no/en/want-to-apply/work- immigration/](https://www.udi.no/en/want-to-apply/work-immigration/)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER39> The biggest benefit of remote work is that it directly rewards productivity. At an office if you finish your work early you can't just go home; you're expected to do more work. With remote work, if you finish in 2 hours what takes other people your rank 8, you can stockpile commits and just take the day off.

<comment><USER40> I don't like your reasoning. I think it's selfish. You can always help out for the duration that you are paid for, regardless of tempo. There's almost always work to be done - cleaning up code, commenting, refactoring, documentation (api/sdk usage, help), cleaning up tasks, responding to e-mails, and so on.

I don't think it's fair that you idle while someone is paying for your time.

Someone, at the end, organized this so you can work remotely. Someone is taking care of you financially, at the end. The least you can do is do what you have agreed/promised/been contracted to do.

</comment></comment><comment><USER41> I think it's worth mentioning how remote work makes society more sustainable.

The energy usage and CO2 output for commuting versus using the internet is dramatically in favor of remote work.

In fact, if we are concerned with those things, I believe that commuting every day for jobs that can be done online should be illegal.

</comment><comment><USER42> I have worked remotely and also managed a remote team. There are causes of remote work that I consider positive, and causes I consider negative. The positive causes are that companies have access to a much wider pool of talent all over the world, and remote workers have more jobs to choose from. The negative causes are: 1) many cities are failing to provide affordable housing, so it doesn't make financial sense for people on the same team to work in physical proximity to each other. 2) there has been a wave of xenophobia in the Western liberal economies that has made it more difficult for talent outside those economies to migrate.

</comment><comment><USER43> > We tend to think of mental health disorders as something that happens to > others

Oh, that's hilarious. I certainly don't.

</comment><comment><USER44> Your manager makes all the difference. Having a remote manager is the key.

</comment><comment><USER45> Is remote overtime that bad? I guess I'll consent to put work at 10 hours a day (1 hour break included), in exchange of 1 hour commute time.

I wanna try remote working, wonder how it'll goes through.

<comment><USER46> I work from home.

My schedule is:-

6.50am wake up

7.00am start work

12.00pm lunch

1.00pm start work

5.00pm dinner

6.00pm start work

9.45pm get ready for bed

10.00pm sleep

I don't have any distractions (except the occasional quick read of HN, when I need a short mental break), don't own a tv, no kids, wear the same clothes, I eat the same meals daily and I wear headphones and listen to music.

I'll do this for 90 days and then relax on the schedule somewhat and then repeat for another 90 days.

Let me tell you. It's actually quite interesting on what you can accomplish with 13 hours of work (91 hours a week) available to you.

Elon has it right. In a compound interest sort of way, what you can achieve in 90 days (with this schedule) is akin to someone else taking 6 months or more to do the same.

Of course it means no social life. But that's for later on.

<comment><USER47> How long have you been doing this? And I'm confused on what you mean by "Of course it means no social life. But that's for later on." \- Do you have a spouse or significant other? Do you not think that having social interactions are important at all points in life?

<comment><USER48> This whole schedule is super bleak and reads like an intro to a dystopian novel

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER49> One small thing I want to add is that as someone with many hobbies and goals not related to my job I love the idea of getting X amount of work done and then being done as early as 2 or 3.

Those extra hours to make more progress on whatever personal project(s) I'm working on at that time keep me motivated and, more importantly, happy. Which means I'll enjoy doing my actual work more (or just tolerate it better) and you'll probably get better results from me.

</comment><comment><USER50> I wouldn't want to work 100% remotely, mostly because of the loneliness they talk about. But I would probably take it over my current situation of working in an open office 100% of the time, because open offices are a special level of hell for anyone with attention issues or sensory sensitivities.

Also, do people actually think "infinite vacation" is a perk? I like having a fixed number of vacation days that I can take without question or explanation.

<comment><USER51> > do people actually think "infinite vacation" is a perk? I like having a > fixed number of vacation days that I can take without question or > explanation.

It really depends on your manager and what the fixed number is going to be.

At my last job, I had "infinite" and my boss let me take six weeks over the course of a year.

At my current job, my boss would love to let me take 6 weeks (or more), but the giant behemoth of a company sets the limit at 3 weeks (but I get another week if I stay in my job for 10 years).

</comment></comment><comment><USER52> It appears to me that work environment is a personal preference based on an array of personality traits and motivations mostly opaque to most people until they've had a chance to try a few out. Further, it seems that the preferences fall into a few categories that are broadly represented in the population. Each has objective pros and cons but for any individual, the cons are easily outweighed by our preferences and motivations.

Once you realize this, articles regarding "X environment has Y good and Z bad" stop providing any value. What I want to read about is how to effectively manage a company to allow my employees to 1) discover the environment they prefer 2) be in that environment and 3) maintain a high performing team across those environments. Given considerations around maintaining culture, communication challenges and "informal, de-facto decision makers" forming up where people to choose to work closely together, #3 is a challenge I haven't seen a good answer to. (e.g. office or co-working employees naturally have a networking advantage and can quickly form an "in group" that makes decisions while, at best, unconsciously leaving remote workers out)

</comment><comment><USER53> I would love to work remotely- I am already productive when working from home on a big monitor in a quiet room- but I always worry that eventually I'd become decoupled from my coworkers and isolated.

Also there are many things at my startup where we really all need to be in the same place to make a decision- I don't think slack or other chat apps can really replace the high bandwidth in person discussions for important decision making.

</comment><comment><USER54> Been working remotely for 4 years and so far it worked really well. One of the key factors is that most of the team is remote. So remote is a default here. In the previous position, we had some people working remotely, and it was tough for them. They'd miss a lot of context for why some decisions were made and it was very frustrating. So I'd put that at the very top of the list of things to have for remote work risks.

> Intentionally carve a space and routine and set up a separate remote working > space

Yes. It's very important to have a separate "office" space. Then get dressed in the morning, get ready as if you're heading out of the door to an actual office. In the evening at 5pm close the laptop, walk out of the office and closer the door behind you. And you're done for the day.

</comment><comment><USER55> Is it that people love remote working, or that they hate commuting?

I would prefer a 20 min commute on a clean train, to a nice office than remote working (and I did have that on an Amsterdam based contract).

But an hour plus drive to an industrial estate in the middle of nowhere - I'd maybe push for a remote option.

<comment><USER56> I am a data scientist with little to nothing in common with my colleagues (particularly on the engineering side), outside of us working for the same company. I'd rather spend my time with my wife and kids, pursuing my hobbies, and generally being outdoors. Not having to commute or waste hours pretending to be interested in my colleague's lives outside of work is a huge benefit. Side conversations occurring at the office which are beneficial are a rare occurrence - put more specifically, I am willing to risk missing out on in office perks to benefit my own life. When I hit my financial number, I won't write code, conduct analysis or do anything near a computer screen again.

<comment><USER55> This made me chuckle, all power to you! How many of us would work in our current role if money were genuinely no object - in reality there are far more rewarding things to be doing with our limited time on this planet.

<comment><USER56> I thought our (you and me) mindset was normal, that if money weren't an issue no would work, but I have been mistaken many times. I am not sure if people don't have interests outside of their work, or their work is their interests but it seems many people would continue working if financially secure.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER57> We're big proponents of location flexibility in the workplace at Out Of Office. Work doesn't have to be so black and white with 100% in the office or 100% remote work. We think a combination of both working in the office and offering employees one or two flexible days to work from home or a coffee shop leads to higher employee retention.

I'm 100% remote but have never experienced some of the downsides mentioned in the article, but I know others who have. I'd like to see companies transition from their rigid policies to more flexibility that gives their employees greater control over their schedule.

</comment><comment><USER58> I think there is a sort of subconscious push for this that not everyone attributes. In tech work if you are at an office you tend to get "dump trucked" work even if it is not your domain or responsibility. "I gave it to you its yours now figure it out"

The reality is bad management is the rule rather than the exception in most of the world. If you are home you are "out of sight out of mind" for MBWA(management by walking around)managers. At the very least it requires a manager to stop think before just running over and screaming we need this done today type stuff.

</comment><comment><USER59> Last contract i was on everyone was remote. I ended up driving in everyday to work on the systems because i was one of 3 people who lived in the same city as the systems.

I could hardly ever get ahold of anyone. They would just not be there. Come to find out most would only work the 4 core hours (10-2 CST) we were required, then "work" after hours when no one was online. We lost the contract.

Remote CAN work and work well, you just need management in place to keep the ducks in line.

</comment><comment><USER60> The optimal situation for me is having the freedom to decide whether it makes sense to be at the office for meetings, technical discussions, ideas; or whether I need full uninterrupted focus which is easier to achieve at home (without building closing times, commuting, and with the choice to work late into the night). I think purely remote work would make me feel very self- centered and disconnected (even though I'm leaning towards the introvert spectrum).

</comment><comment><USER61> I wonder if the author misread the poll referenced in this article. When people choose remote work, often they are referring to the ability to work 1 or 2 days remotely in a week. Most companies in the Bay Area allow that and are quite flexible on where you work from if you are traveling. I don't think that can extrapolated to being fully remote

</comment><comment><USER62> The poll asks what is _most_ important to you, and they failed to leave out salary and other more obvious ones as one of the options.

It would be a much more sound poll if it was framed as "Among these options, which one is the most important when looking for a new job"

<comment><USER63> In the US it's generally frowned upon to acknowledge one considers salary a very important factor, unless one is at the top of the hierarchy. There's a reason "passionate" and "mission driven" are memes in the hiring landscape here.

</comment></comment><comment><USER64> One enormous ad that won't go away and can't be closed. Sweet.

</comment><comment><USER65> I've always hated working from home. Too much distraction, not enough verbal interaction with my team, and not enough face-time with my boss and his boss. Now that I'm a manager and manage a team that is remote to me (but colocated for everyone else including my boss) it's just terrible. I'm now a remote worker, while the rest of my team is mostly in-office. And yes that means that my boss goes directly to my team to get stuff done completely bypassing me. Sometimes he'll let me know, sometimes I find out after the fact. It's basically the worst of both worlds and I would never do this again.

</comment><comment><USER66> I know everyone is different, and noisy offices can be disruptive to some, but I can't help think that an ulterior motive with working from home is working less.

Maybe work from home will be how we reduce the workweek to account for the diminishing need for work.

<comment><USER67> Eliminating dead time is definitely part of it. However if a thinking based worker doesn't feel like working, it doesn't matter if they're sitting at an office. There's no way to verify whether they're thinking about a work related problem or thinking about their vacation plans. On top of that, in a lot of cases people can get away even with just blatant non-working like reading Hacker News on their work computer. Thus it's always about trust anyway. It doesn't matter much where the worker physically is.

Additionally, it's results not methods that should be managed. You want to set goals for your workers and see how they progress. Whether they achieve those goals sitting at an office or by outsouring their work to their little nephew while playing video games, it shouldn't really matter. Ultimately what matters is if the goals are achieved, as that's why you're paying the person -- not because you want them to physically be doing some specific activity.</comment></comment>


Price Tag of Bernie Sanders's Proposals: $18 Trillion - <AUTHOR> http://www.wsj.com/articles/price-tag-of-bernie-sanders-proposals-18-trillion-1442271511 <comment><USER2> If we understand the fiat money regime, Bernie's proposal is reasonable; that is, one does not need to get $18T from the taxation. The real constraints for any nation are real resources(labor, natural resources, for instance). What Bernie critics appeal to the limitations of financial resources('money').

The dominant economic thought in the states, the thought shared by both liberal and conservative economists, is called 'sound' finance: you can't finance a government unless you borrow or tax. There is an alternative thought, which is sounder than this 'sound' finance: it is Abba Lerner's functional finance. Modern Monetary theory (MMT) combines functional finance, with stock-flow consistent modelling pioneered by Old-school Kenynesian (not neo-Keynsian) Wynne Godley.

Read MMT to understand why Bernie's stance is reasonable. WSJ, NYT, WaPo, etc, all represent the sound finance school, sold by the elite and their cronies on the left and the right.

</comment><comment><USER3> that's crazy! what happens if we go into a recession and the top 1% aren't making enough money to pay 30% of the tax bill...

<comment><USER4> Print more money.</comment></comment>


My solo worker cafe is open. Come say hi.  - <AUTHOR> http://beta.cafesoloista.com

<comment> jack-r-abbit It would be most helpful to explain that I would be directed to a Google Hangout. It caught me off guard to land there and see my G+ icon and what not. I actually panicked a little and closed it while it was still saying "Please wait...". Eventually I let it finish what it was trying to do and it ended up asking me to install a plugin. I declined though.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for giving it a try and for taking the time to comment. Google hangouts is a temporary place for this - but I accept that it may catch some people off-guard. Would it help to note on the button that it is a google hangout?

<comment> jack-r-abbit Yes, I believe some text near the button telling us we're about to go to Google Hangouts would be a good thing.

<comment><AUTHOR> Awesome - done!

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER2> It is not clear your cafe is free to join [http://img138.imageshack.us/img138/4099/am8y.png](http://img138.imageshack.us/img138/4099/am8y.png)

<comment><USER3> he should also fix his naked domain

<comment><AUTHOR> Thank you! I had actually had this on a todo list and go to it about 45 minutes ago. Next time I will put things like this higher on my todo.

Thanks for trying the cafe.</comment></comment></comment>


Linux Command Examples - <AUTHOR> http://linux-commands-examples.com/

<comment><USER2> For anyone looking, there have been several great HN threads about UNIX commands, here are just a few:

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6360320](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6360320)

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6046682](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6046682)

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5022457](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5022457)

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4985393](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4985393)

I have also created a couple screencasts about the "Filesystem Hierarchy Standard" @ [http://sysadmincasts.com/episodes/12-crash-course-on-the- fil...](http://sysadmincasts.com/episodes/12-crash-course-on-the-filesystem- hierarchy-standard) and a "Crash Course on Common Commands" @ [http://sysadmincasts.com/episodes/13-crash-course-on- common-...](http://sysadmincasts.com/episodes/13-crash-course-on-common- commands)

</comment><comment><USER3> It would help a LOT if these were organized by something other than alphabet, or if these had some kind of five-word snippet describing what each command does. This is one of the few instances where alphabetizing doesn't do us any good -- if we knew what our command started with, we could just search for it.

<comment><USER4> _UNIX Power Tools_ by O'Reilly & Associates remains one of the best collections of these tips and tricks I've found.

It's now nearly 20 years old, and the most recent (3rd) edition was published in 2002, and very likely could use some very serious updating, though it still remains useful. But in terms of books that really bumped up my game for understanding Unix (then dominant) and Linux, this book was key.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> [http://www.commandlinefu.com/](http://www.commandlinefu.com/) is a good place to look for examples.

<comment><USER6> That site hurts my eyes.

<comment><USER7> I guess the site is themed resembling Hercules graphics terminal, or some like that.

<comment><USER8> Pointless minutiae:

Hercules was a video card, not a terminal. The color for monochrome is defined by the monitor, of course. Green phosphor CRTs were quite common in the IBM PC world (starting with IBM's original 5151 monitor I think), but for terminals actually used on Unix machines other colors were more typical. The VT-100 series were blue, I believe; and later DEC terminals went with amber. White was reasonably common. I don't think I ever used a real terminal on a Unix box with a green phosphor.

<comment><USER7> My mistake, i was remembering old pc 8086 with hercules card and green monitor. Also that look resembled the ibm3151 green terminals, but i liked more the yellowish ones.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Is it just me or does this seem like man pages but on the web? I applaud the effort but still, seems like it would make more sense spend this time and teach ppl how to use the man command.

</comment><comment><USER10> Searched for nmap, got this sweet exception:

CException Property "SiteController.bodyClass" is not defined.

Maybe later then!

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for pointing out this exception. Exception shouldn't be outputted... As for nmap, it is missing from the database, and will be added. If you spot any other missing command later, feel free to use the 'give feedback' button.

<comment><USER10> Just added a 'ps' entry on your website.

Having examples for using nmap can be really hand to get an idea of what you do with it, and there's a lot you can do.

I like the idea of this site anyway, good luck in your further developments!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> Looks cool. Is there a github repo somewhere where we can send pull requests? It's missing stuff like systemctl.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for the feedback. Feel free to suggest other commands missing by using the 'give feeback' link on the page any time you find one. Missing commands pointed out will be added.

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> This is excellent. Just what I was looking for as a Linux novice.</comment>


Ask HN: Why is Apple's Android Music app is so buggy? - <AUTHOR> Is it a deliberate strategy to show how bad is android as an operating system. <comment><USER2> See I was gonna say it's because they don't give two shits about writing decent software for non-Apple platforms. Silly me.</comment>


Bernie Sanders: The Vox Conversation - <AUTHOR> http://www.vox.com/2015/7/28/9014491/bernie-sanders-vox-conversation

<comment><USER2> "There's nothing holy about working in a factory as opposed to making a bed or cleaning a toilet. In the case of workers in the hotel industry, we have seen with good unions they can in fact earn a living wage and good benefits."

I'm wondering, where is the union going to get the money to pay a person that cleans a toilet $50,000/year+benefits? Oh yeah, from the companies that hire them. The most efficient way to pay someone is based on supply/demand/the free market. Anything else is just a smokescreen for a broken system that will eventually collapse.

So the question is: is this really going to be good for small companies? No. It will make it that much more difficult to actually start and run a successful business. The only ones that will be able to survive are large companies. Sanders will then complain that we don't have any competition left and try to bust monopolies..when these sorts of laws created the situation.

"In the wealthiest nation in the history of the world, the top one-tenth of 1 percent should not own almost as much wealth as the bottom 90 percent."

So instead of figuring out why the bottom 90% doesn't have this much wealth, the answer is to just steal it at the butt of a gun from the wealthy?

The wealthy may own lots of the overall wealth, but we are also more prosperous than any other time in history. The poor in the US aren't as bad as the poor in almost any other country in the world.

The US is where anyone with money goes to start a company. We have people literally sneaking over our borders and risking their lives to live in a country with more freedom than almost any other in the world.

It's ironic because what Sanders is proposing will take away freedoms, create an environment where only big businesses and governments can thrive, and create less social mobility.</comment>


Senate votes to repeal 1099 reporting requirement in health care law - <AUTHOR> http://www.portfolio.com/views/blogs/capital/2011/02/02/senate-votes-to-repeal-1099-health-care-requirement

<comment><USER2> Part of me is strangely disappointed by this.

A profoundly unrealistic tax law that, even if it were feasible, most people wouldn't have even tried to obey, anyway?

It would have only served to underscore just how out of touch the political class is, and to remind Americans that priority #1 is squeezing us for every cent possible without causing a riot. With the right spin from the smaller government crowd, perhaps, if it had lasted, it would have done more good than ill?

I guess I'm among the minority, though, in preferring more rapid oppression to the baby steps that our government is so good at. The boiling frog, etc.

<comment><USER3> My only disappointment is that I was hoping to get in on the software market that would have been required to track all of this nonsense. It was a gift in that regard.

I've talked about this quite a bit in the tax industry, and there are a few popular opinions. My favorite so far is that this was designed to fail to show just how bad our tax code can get, which would then be used to usher in simplification/reform, i.e., VAT.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> I'm curious why 17 voted to keep it.

Was there a rider attached for some other crazy rule?

Gotta find that website that shows who exactly voted for what...

<comment><USER5> govtrack?

<comment><USER4> They should have it up eventually I guess.

This is interesting though, all 17 were democrats despite that for months, President Obama asked them to repeal the provision. Senator Debbie Stabenow is the one that finally made the proposed amendment to axe it.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Good. I wasn't going to do it anyways

<comment><USER7> You and most of the rest of the US; how would you even educate the population about this massive change quickly enough? Computers have made much paperwork cheaper and faster but this was simply absurd, a perfect example of doing the cost/benefit analysis and simply assuming the cost of paperwork is either a flat zero, or that one can account for the cost of paperwork solely by considering the cost to the government as if that's the only entity that matters.

<comment><USER8> I think that tax preparation services were salivating at the prospects. Mine sent a letter with our tax prep organizer explaining the change and offering their services to prepare them for me.

I agree that it is absurd.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> I wish they'd repeal the 1099-K requirement for eBay income :)

</comment><comment><USER10> Good. It would be a huge costly hassle and wouldn't raise one cent in new tax revenue, despite their wild eyed hallucinations to the contrary.

<comment><USER11> Its funny too because they thought it would generate some $44,000,000,000; which of course now will have to come out of something else.

<comment><USER10> Yes, it gives them someone to blame for the imaginary "loss" when this abomination is cancelled.

There are a very small number of criminal underground businesses that are not declaring income, but those purchase are not made with check or credit cards, they are cash-only, no receipts. The customers buying blackmarket or illegal goods from these sketchy places are mostly not legit themselves. Mostly it is drug dealers and undocumented alien sole proprietor gardeners, not licensed legitimate long established businesses. They are not going to start filing 1099s. Maybe a few of them will though, and this will bring in an additional 10 million in income tax. That's a huge exaggeration, undoubtedly it will be less. But let's say 10 million.

Consider though the 99.999% of businesses that have always done legit business and report income who will be massively burdened by this and to process their 30 billion submitted 1099s each year is going to require new IRS personnel to the cost of way more than $10 million. In addition, a lot of companies will forgo purchases rather than have to deal with the additional paperwork. Submitting requests and filling out these forms and tracking it all to make sure you got them all is going to mean hiring more people (yay more jobs?) to handle it, but that means prices go up, or you have to lay off somewhere else. It's not stimulating the economy to hire people to do busy work at the cost of producing and earning less, it's stimulating to actually produce more and do well.

When we have a customer that needs IRS forms to be filled out with a purchase (often W-9s), it is never ever a simple request. It always comes coupled with very dense bureaucratic requirements from the other company (usually some government institution or contractor) which mean in addition to tracking and filling out forms, there is several hours of busy work, emails and phone calls because the people that demand this level of bureaucracy are like little helpless children, but very uptight ones. We have a W-9 filled out and available. This is followed by requests that they "entered it into the system and it came back wrong". Entered into what system? "The IRS validation system." IRS doesn't have that, do you mean an third party one? Did you type in the name of the business correctly? Yes. Try it again. I already did that, please mail us the W-9 form again. Two weeks later, same problem. Four weeks later, oops, they misspelled the name of the business, or the EIN, or they are using some dodgy company for validation which only has a small fraction of companies nationally. And never mind that W9s are _not required_ for retail sales of $20 in off the shelf software as it is, that doesn't matter, it "is their policy." Likewise, every institutional purchaser is going to demand several days of work to deal with 1099s as well now for a $20 purchase, because their policy will now be to collect on ALL purchases regardless of size just in case they happen to go over that $600 limit. To manage all this, it will be approved vendors only, which will be large institutional supplier/resellers who charge ten times normal retail in order to deal with bureaucracy. What happens to tuition then. And what happens to the small companies locked out of the system. No longer will it even be an option to buy the best product or lowest price, it will be whatever the approved vendor asks.

All this burden to find hidden income from a tiny blackmarket and illegal sector that isn't going to file these forms anyway.

The software guys salivating at the chance to sell software to manage all this stupidity should be ashamed of themselves, that is pathetic. Our economy has collapsed because of greedy non-producers who siphon off value from economic activity in order to benefit themselves financially while contributing nothing of real value. This selfishness is what is destroying our country and the world.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> The 1099 reporting requirement seemed excessive, especially when some corporations deal with thousands of vendors. Having to ask vendors to fill out W-9's is already a hassle, following up on every vendor would be a huge burden.

</comment><comment><USER13> For those unfamiliar with the U.S. political system, the senate passing an amendment is not the same as something becoming law. The amendment is part of a larger bill, the bill needs to be approved by both houses of Congress, and then the president needs to sign it. Many times legislators will put a popular amendment on an unpopular bill in order to get votes for the larger bill. Also many times the reverse is true: an unpopular amendment is stuck on a popular bill in hopes it can ride through.

So there are a zillion different games playing out here. Until the reporting requirement is actually repealed, it could all end up smoke and mirrors.

Because of the complexities involved, I'm really interested in the 17 senators that wanted to keep such a monstrosity. 90%+ of the business community is up in arms and a full sixth of the senate sees some reason that this is not worth voting for? To me this is the most interesting part of the story -- and the part not covered by the article. Some quotes from the dissenters would have been great.

</comment><comment><USER14> Now if only they'd supercede and effectively repeal the state money transmitter laws, we might actually be able to compete with PayPal!

Fortunately there's a hearing in two weeks about the Durbin amendment to Dodd- Frank, and if it's ever going to come up, it might as well be then.

</comment><comment><USER15> Yay!

Not much more to say.

</comment><comment><USER16> Why so much hate for this? I think it is a fantastic idea. People have no idea how much their health care costs.

EDIT: so people really think this is a burden? For my company of 25 it is trivial. Just a little more info to send to ADP.

As I said above, the extra work will have benefits.

<comment><USER17> This has nothing to do with healthcare. Every time your business paid another more than $600 in a year, you would need to deal with 1099:s. (Unless you use credit cards.)

That means that if you buy one laptop, a 1099. If you spend that much at Office Depot, a 1099.

<comment><USER18> And OfficeDepot has to receive and reconcile 50 million 1099s from its shoppers...

<comment><USER19> "Job creation" at its finest.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Spreadsheet? I'd rather use the command line. - <AUTHOR> http://cestlaz.github.io/2014/07/06/spreadsheet-vs-cli.html#.U7rXfjN-Fwo.hackernews <comment><USER2> That page is going for the UUOC(%) award of 2014.

\---

% [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cat_%28Unix%29#Useless_use_of_c...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cat_%28Unix%29#Useless_use_of_cat)

</comment><comment><USER3> True - the experts choice and the mainstream choice are often different. An acquired taste?</comment>


Ask YC: What are the command line tools you can't live without? - <AUTHOR>

Obviously, tools like 'ls' will be in everyone's repertoire. Looking for some possibly obscure or under-utilized tools here. <comment><USER2> Probably doesn't count, but I sure like that "sudo" command in Ubuntu.

<comment><USER3> Sudo make me a sandwich. (xkcd reference)

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> I love "open" on Mac OS X.

<comment><USER5> gnome-open for gnome users

<comment><USER6> Generic commands that use /etc/mailcap: see, edit, print, compose

socat is the swiss army knife that just about lets you forget everything's not a file:

$ socat readline: file:/dev/ttyS0,crnl,crtscts,echo=0 # interact with a serial port

$ socat readline: tcp:google.com:80 # interact with a tcp port

$ socat tcp-listen:1234,fork exec:cat # a forking cat service

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> du -h --max-depth=1 <dir>

apt-cache search --names-only <name>

less -S

free -m

time

host

</comment><comment><USER8> xargs; say, a fast replacement for a find-exec: % find <whatever> -print0 | xargs -0 <command>

</comment><comment><USER9> lynx, top, "curl -O <url>" on my mac since it doesn't come with wget (who's dumb idea was that?)

<comment><AUTHOR> Install macports and you can add wget, as well as elinks and many others.

<http://www.macports.org/>

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> none.

Some of us have moved away from some of these arcane methods of interaction.

They call it progress you know...

:-)

</comment><comment><USER11> tree

</comment><comment><USER12> mysql></comment>


How Apple Works - <AUTHOR> http://www.aaronsw.com/weblog/howappleworks <comment><USER2> I used to work at Apple and this is fucking stupid.

Yes we had designers who slaved over every pixel and software engineers who slaved over implementing those pixels with good performance. But to say that everything comes from top down from Jobs and his apostles is just blatant hero worship.

While many feature requests or comments did come direct from Jobs or the designers, many of the features of products came from suggestions from all over the firm and filtered through a thick layer of middle management politics.

In fact, anyone in the firm could file a bug (or radar, as they were known) asking for a feature or reporting that something was wrong, and it would get plinko'ed through project managers to the appropriate developer. If everyone thought it was good suggestion, it would get done.

Jobs' fingerprint is definitely pressed deep into the culture of Apple, but at the end of the day, it takes thousands to make their products and we all cared deeply about quality.

</comment><comment><USER3> The only problem with Ives is he likely wants more time in Britain, away from Cupertino.</comment>


Properties: The New Variables - <AUTHOR> http://briankardell.wordpress.com/2012/06/28/properties-the-new-variables/

<comment><USER2> I'll admit I'm not very familiar with the original draft proposal and I appreciate the intentions and the desire to make it a bit more accessible to pragmatic people but please indulge me on a little rant here:

I could not dislike the 'my-' prefix any more. Can we please as an industry of professionals decide to talk about things without having to baby talk it into a who's-on-first routine? Talking about variables in the first person possessive is difficult when the 'person' we are talking about owning it is an abstract block of code. In this proposal it is 'author defined' but really when I read your code, It is yours… and now it's mine… or maybe it's ours. Or perhaps it belongs to that block of code. What doesn't change is that it's a variable (or property).

I know that's probably a minor point but it annoys me.

Secondly, I think the $() syntax needs to be weighed against the cost of having nesting there. Is $ not enough to indicate a reference? I guess the idea is to use that to provide a default but I don't like having to always type out the parens for it.

<comment><AUTHOR> A link to the draft in github is in the article so fork, send a pull, suggest away. I would suggest a read through the variables draft and a search on hn and www-style list to see the previous confusion caused by using not just the word variable, but the prefix var- and non-paren form you suggest.

<comment><USER2> I hope it doesn't come off as too harsh. I mean it in a good-natured way and obviously you're putting forward your ideas which is a good thing.

Why do you think the term 'variable' is the source of confusion and 'property' is better? If so, why not use a 'prop-' prefix?

<comment><AUTHOR> No, not at all. We considered lots of things that could work: prop, map, author, def, store...

The more discussion and argument the better IMO.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> I want to agree with po from an entirely different point of view--a non- programmer often trying to figure out how a particular program (in a language I don't know) works. If I spot the "my" or "my-" prefix, I take it that the corresponding token (e.g. "mypref", "my-limit") is not a reserved term of the language, but one the programmer is defining or assigning. So the "my" prefix can be helpful (at least to some non-programmers) and I don't want it co-opted to become a reserved word.

<comment><AUTHOR> Just for complete clairty, my-* does in fact indicate a token that the author/programmer is defining (a custom property), in the same way that data-* properties do in HTML, which is why my-* was used. But I understand that you dislike it and I can appreciate why. As I mentioned to Po, the draft is open on github, and you are free to make better suggestions here as well... I don't think anyone is particularly married to my- we do know that var- and data- have caused what we think was unnecessary confusion. Set- was proposed and denied. What are your thoughts - that's what this is all about. Let's not wind up with something that people find unintuitive if as a community we can make it better.</comment></comment>


Philip Morris IQOS device knows a lot about your smoking habit - <AUTHOR> https://www.reuters.com/investigates/special-report/tobacco-iqos-device/ <comment><AUTHOR> As of April 30, 2019 the FDA permitted the sale of Philip Morris IQOS tobacco- heating device in the U.S. These devices are equipped with data-collection chips. "What they're going to have is a mega database of how Americans smoke."</comment>


Would you pay for a SEO service that doesn't guarantee results? - <AUTHOR>

I've paid for a SEO provider through a new outsourcing network that was mentioned here in HN few months ago.
The provider asked $700  for getting within top 10 with 2 - 3 months for one of our site. We are not even closer to that spot after 5 months, so I emailed the network support and asked their advice on this situation. They take the position that SEO cannot be guaranteed either results nor deadline. And I should wait longer or otherwise pay 75% of the initial amount. For me it doesn't seem fair, had the person told me this before I wouldn't have paid this much money.
Now they have my money and not willing to say even an approximate deadline.
I initially thought the network would take a neutral position in disputes like this.
Am I ripped off? <comment><USER2> No SEO can guarantee results. They aren't the search engine, so how could they?

I'd be interested in the changes to your site, your data architecture and your content that they have suggested because, if that's not how they've worked, you've at best (or worst) engaged a bunch of black hat SEOs whose actions may cause you extreme pain down the line. At worst (or best, depending) you've engaged people who have taken your money for no action, but at least there's no reputational damage.

If you /have/ had proper engagement from the firm, you will probably have derived value from their work in the areas I mentioned above, regardless of your SERPS position.

</comment><comment><USER3> You cannot guarantee or expect search result placement. Period. In addition, rankings are always in flux, and require additional work to remain well ranked. Do you expect the provider to continue to work on your SEO even after that period?

If they are a reputable SEO, they will provide you with an analysis of your current site, a statement of work for what they will accomplish for their fee, and note that rankings cannot be guaranteed. If they fulfilled the work, you just have to understand how uncertain SEO can be.

Then teach yourself the basics of SEO and save yourself the cash next time.

<comment><AUTHOR> All their work are external(acquiring links). I didn't get any kind of updates from the provider for the past 5 months. We own a portfolio of successful sites and know the basics of on-page techniques. Since the network was mentioned here on HN in one of the Show HN posts, I some how fall for that, hoping in any case of dispute the network should resolve the issue by taking a fair position. We never paid for a SEO service before and this one was to pretty much to test if it is really possible.

We spent around $5k on popular freelance networks each month for various tasks(not SEO). In many instances the networks takes a fair position in disputes. But I was dealing with the founder of this network and he wasn't reasonable. It is a great lesson for me, since it is a startup doesn't mean they would treat their clients with great respect.

As an Entrepreneur the lesson is, sometimes we may loose a valuable client by our not so good attitude and judgement.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> seo engine optimization increase the traffic to the website.but it should guarantee the traffisc</comment>


Two new scholarship programs for lean startups - <AUTHOR> http://www.startuplessonslearned.com/2010/03/two-new-scholarship-programs-for-lean.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+startup%2Flessons%2Flearned+%28Lessons+Learned%29&utm_content=Google+Reader <comment><USER2> These aren't "scholarships" they are free passes to conferences and the write up is marketing for those conferences.

"Lean Startup" is the new agile - more consultants, gurus and conferences than actual (startup) activity.

Imo Eric Ries jumped the shark when he transitioned to being a conference speaker/consultant than actually building stuff and running startups.</comment>


Ask HN: What are some good resources for learning C? - <AUTHOR> So far I've only come across scripting languages (Python, Node.js). I'd like to learn to program in C, for a number of reasons, but I'm not sure where to start. <comment><USER2> K&R "The C Programming Language" is a classic. If you're serious about learning C this book should definitely be in your collection. It's the book most C programmers have cut their teeth on over the past several decades, written by the guys who wrote the language itself. (Though go for the most- current ANSI version). If you already know basics of programming methods from Python or JS, you'll be able to handle this book. Make sure to do the exercises!

Beyond that, it would depend what you're hoping to do with C. Eg, Linux kernel hacking? Optimized Python numpy routines?

There also are some recent books that focus on writing 'modern' and also safer C code, particularly with regard to usage of pointers. There are some links on Amazon and O'Reilly that may be helpful (I haven't read any so can't give recommendations)

<comment><USER3> > Linux kernel hacking?

An excellent resource here as a beginner would be- [http://www.advancedlinuxprogramming.com/](http://www.advancedlinuxprogramming.com/)

<comment> vezzy-fnord Pretty sure that one's for userspace programming. In which case, I'd recommend _The Linux Programming Interface_ instead, which is written by the same person who maintains the Linux man-pages.

There isn't much of a central source on kernel hacking that isn't outdated by now, though some reasonably good books on device drivers are still out there and relevant. Beyond that, reading the kernel's Documentation directory, LWN articles and the recent "Linux Insides" series being posted here is your best bet, along with stalking the LKML, of course.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> I have seen a few people suggest: [http://c.learncodethehardway.org/book/](http://c.learncodethehardway.org/book/)

I bookmarked this discussion a little while ago which has several good links: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9333520](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9333520)

My suggestion is always to work on a real project but for that you need to know the basics of course.

</comment><comment><USER5> I enjoyed Mastering Algorithms With C. After going through that book I was able to actually get things done. I recommend this because it walks through the implementation of basic data structures that you will be working with no matter what you're doing.

K&R is a good reference, but I only found it useful after I knew enough to actually get things done. I didn't find it good to learn with, and I was already proficient in a couple of scripting languages.

I also recommend Richard Stevens books. Advanced Unix Programming and Unix Network Programming are excellent. I'm not sure what you want to work on, so that might not be relevant.

For studying how non-trivial things are implemented I like TCP/IP Illustrated Volume 2, and The Design and Implementation of the Freebsd Operating System.

One of the things you're going to find about C that's different from higher level languages is that it's so minimal that you're going to have to build up a personal library of code to get things done.

For code samples, I like to look at OpenBSD. It's all in one place and there's less cruft than most of the alternatives. This is useful because while the key tasks of a particular program might be described well in one of the books I mentioned, it's not the same as a real modern program. I've found it really helpful to actually look at something that's stood the test of time for inspiration. Also, it's man pages are awesome. I look at them often even when writing code on other operating systems.

And remember, valgrind is your friend.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks, this was very useful.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> I am currently going through CS50 online. You can join through edX or here:

[https://cs50.harvard.edu/](https://cs50.harvard.edu/)

Pretty good first steps intro that eventually goes into algorithms and data structures.

</comment><comment><USER7> As someone who has tried this myself, there are no solid 'tutorials' or 'guides'. Unless you are extremely versed in documentation-absorption it will be quite the uphill battle.

That said, if one of your reasons isn't 'iOS' (in which I would recommend Swift anyways), and you are instead moreso interested in learning a systems language period, I would heavily recommend diving into Rust.

The documentation/introduction book is wonderfully written and a breeze to go through. I have found the Rust team to be a wonderful group of guys that are extremely responsive on SO, IRC, etc.

HN users pcwalton and steveklabnik both have many wonderful comments in Rust threads that go into the minutiae of why it is so powerful. I had found steveklabnik's book "Rust for Rubyists" wonderful, but it is since outdated since the official Rust book has become concentration (www.rustforrubyists.com confirms this) but the book includes some 'ruby inside of rust' examples etc.

Good luck in your journey!

<comment><USER8> Thank you so much for the kind words <3

While I did take the site down, you can find the old source for Rust for Rubyists at [https://github.com/steveklabnik/rust_for_rubyists](https://github.com/steveklabnik/rust_for_rubyists) still.

<comment><USER7> No problem. Keep up the wonderful work :)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> There are no good resources for learning C. All the good, accurate books on C do not serve as tutorials.

It is impossible to write a tutorial in C that:

\- targets newbies (particularly programming newbies);

\- is comprehensible to that target audience; and

\- _isn 't_ chock full of inaccuracies and outright lies that have to be unlearned later.

Sorry, no space here to prove this, but anyway, since it is impossible, one doesn't exist. So, good news, you don't have to waste time looking for it.

Use a reliable _reference_ instead and struggle along for a bit.

I would recommend Harbison and Steele's _C: A Reference Manual_ : [http://careferencemanual.com/](http://careferencemanual.com/)

(Yes, it's _that_ Guy Steele.)

<comment><USER10> What's wrong with K&R?

<comment><USER9> Firstly, the K&R2 is outdated. It was published in 1988, a year before ANSI C. It has not been updated since. As a reference, it serves only long-time programmers who steadfastly stick to ISO C 90.

The K&R and K&R2 can be likened to sales brochures for the C language, which promote the language to users of other systems programming languages and provide a mini-reference to get them started.

I started learning C circa 1990 from K&R2. A few years later I started reading the ISO C standard and realized that much of what I knew was wrong. I had a _" wow, so _that's* how it actually is"* moment on what seemed like every page. It's not that the K&R2 explicitly teaches wrong things---obviously not; rather, it misguides the inexperienced by _omission_. You're expected to be an expert programmer who reads between the lines, asks the right questions about the limitations of constructs and consults a reference manual or standard to have them answered. The book is also not a tutorial on programming, either.

Thus if you're a n00b, you will not learn programming from K&R2 and you will not learn C properly. A combination of K&R2 together with Andrew Koenig's _C Traps and Pitfalls_ might be better. If you have those two books, plus the Harbison and Steele reference manual and a PDF of a draft standard, you're in very good shape as far as being well-informed. You still don't have a great tutorial though.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> One approach: Pick a simple project that you completed in a language you know. Now try to do it in C.

C isn't good for CRUD webapp type stuff, though. For example, if you tried to write a C program that processes a GET request, does a database lookup, and then serves a webpage, that's going to be a big effort. (There are some libraries out there that make this easier.)

Some important points:

\- learn about declaring the types of your variables, a big difference compared with scripting languages

\- learn about compiling vs interpeting

\- learn about memory management and pointers (Higher level languages use references. The implementation of references is in C with pointers.)

\- learn the common C standard libraries (stdio, stdlib)

</comment><comment><USER12> Head First C by O'Reilly was pretty good. Shows how to use make and explains linked libraries in addition to just C semantics.

</comment><comment><USER13> I am currently writing a small "Intro to Programming" textbook that uses C. If you email me (username @ gmail.com), I can send you what I have right now, along with updates.

</comment><comment><USER14> Perhaps this excellent looking free resource, which I haven't closely looked at: Modern C.

It was discussed here [1], and also more recently submitted [2].

[1] [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9018247](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9018247)

[2] [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9647257](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9647257)

</comment><comment><USER15> Allow me to ask, any book unrelated to C that made you appreciate, understand and write better C in the end ? e.g a book on Pascal, or Forth, or even something more Mathematical ?</comment>


Why are we still programming like it's the punchcard era? - <AUTHOR> http://pchiusano.github.io/2014-09-30/punchcard-era.html

<comment><USER2> Here is an IDE the author is dreaming about: [http://www.jetbrains.com/mps/](http://www.jetbrains.com/mps/)</comment>


How to write a cell address encoder in ruby - <AUTHOR> https://medium.com/amiralles/how-to-encode-cell-addresses-using-ruby-e3fd02c1260b <comment><USER2> A class that has 2 methods and no state whatsoever. This is exactly why I don't like much of the ruby code out there.

EDIT:

Correct me if I'm wrong, but spreadsheet column addresses are basically just base-26 encoded numbers, where the digits are 'A'...'Z'. If you convert them into their base-2 representation, you could store 65536 rows, instead of the 26*26=676 you can store with two integers.

An additional consideration would be that spreadsheets are often of fixed width and grow downwards, so you can use more bits for indexing rows than columns. This depends on the use-case though.

<comment><AUTHOR> You are right about classes with no state. Nonsense. In fact, if you take a look at the gist I linked to the post ([https://bit.ly/2NgWBJK](https://bit.ly/2NgWBJK)), you'll there is no class, nor module, nor anything like that, just a couple of ruby methods on a file. Ruby can do that, too ;))

I'm not sure on how actual spreadsheets encode cell addresses. In my particular case, what I had to do was to find a way to (efficiently) encode any cell address in the range [A1..ZZ(10^6)] into a _64_ bits integer. I needed 64 bits integers because that's what I use as a key to store/retrieve cells for the in-memory data store. (An avltree indexed by integer keys.)

As I mentioned in the post, the real code was written in C and targeted 64 bits platforms. Maybe that's way I doesn't make sense under OOP lenses on 32 bits systems.

Maybe I'll do a follow up post on "how to store spreadsheets cells on avltrees" to show why this encoding mechanism may make sense...

Thanks for you comments. Let's see how it goes!</comment></comment>


Faster than radix sort: Kirkpatrick-Reisch sorting - <AUTHOR> https://sortingsearching.com/2020/06/06/kirkpatrick-reisch.html <comment><USER3> So since this sorting algorithm involves a trie, would there another optimization possibility by using a data structure inspired by the MergedTrie?

My first thought would be to split the list of numbers into a prefix and a suffix part and building two tries connected at the leaves[1][2], replacing the trie used in the article. Then we sort both tries using the Kirkpatrick- Reisch method (but in reverse order for the suffix trie so that the final result is sorted correctly), and finally we would have to reconnect the two while walking the tries.

[0] [https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal...](https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0215288)

[1] more or less, the MT in the linked paper works a bit differently but also has a different use-case in mind.

[2] Also I have no idea if it make sense to have two depth 2 tries, or if there is _another_ algorithm out there with two depth 1 tries that _kind_ of looks like this algorithm

<comment><USER3> So I tried working this out on paper. The simplest variation I could think of:

\- split the numbers into a top and bottom half (from now on: prefix and suffix) (linear time)

\- make an unordered suffix trie (linear time). First level has suffixes as, second level has prefixes

\- make a (recursively sorted) ordered prefix set, and a (recursively sorted) ordered suffix set

\- initiate an ordered prefix trie, but only the first level for now - <USER2> is, don't insert suffixes yet (linear time over the ordered prefix set)

\- in order of the ordered suffix set, walk over the suffix trie and for each prefix leaf insert the parent suffix into the appropriate prefix bucket in the prefix trie (linear time)

\- now we can walk the prefix trie in order and combine prefix and suffix again (like in the article)

This _feels_ like it should have comparable computational complexity - as far as I can see the only real difference is that it recursively sorts twice as often (once for the prefix set and once for the suffix set). Either way it still seems to have horrible memory overhead, requiring a trie for each level of recursion and all that.

Then I realized that if we are at the base case where prefix/suffix can be sorted with a counting sort, then the above can actually be simplified to LSB radix sort where we sort the suffixes into a temporary secondary array, and the prefixes from the secondary array into the original array (I think we can safely say that using a plain array of _n_ elements has both lower memory overhead and better computational performance than a trie with _n_ leaves). But... couldn't I then optimize _the entire recursion_ into an LSB radix sort? Which would imply it must have... worse time complexity than Kirkpatrick- Reisch sorting? Wait what? Where did I go wrong then?

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> I suspect memory indirection would clobber the theoretical perf, but I'd be happy to be proved wrong.

My inclination is that this would be slower than "standard" high perf radix sorting, but I'm not sure if the high level overview of this algorithm represents an equivalent level of implementation.

</comment><comment><USER5> If you are into integer sorting, this might be of interest as well:

[https://yourbasic.org/algorithms/fastest-sorting- algorithm/](https://yourbasic.org/algorithms/fastest-sorting-algorithm/)

[https://sorting.cr.yp.to/](https://sorting.cr.yp.to/)

</comment><comment><USER6> Written by Tomek Czajka, a 3x TopCoder winner and algorithmic mastermind. Worth following!

<comment><USER7> Remember him at high school programming olympiads, top place year after year (also on math olympiads and likely other competitions I'd have to recall), everybody admired him.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> O(n+n * log(w/log(n)) )

Wouldn't this decrease again for large enough n, and even go negative after n=2^(w * 2)?

<comment><USER9> The recursion assumes that log(n) > w; if log(n) <= w, then you're in the base case and it's O(n).

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> > Faster

Benchmarks?

<comment><USER11> Yeah, would be curious as well. There's two really _awesome_ things about radix sort:

1\. It scans in linear order, so if you tune your radix size to L1/L2 cache it will happily beat other "faster" algorithms thanks to the prefetcher.

2\. If preserves ordering for keys with the same value.

#2 makes is a really good depth-sorting algorithm for alpha rendering, and #1 just makes it darn fast. There's a nice floating point implementation out there for it as well.

<comment><USER12> vvanders, I believe you've worked in games so you might already know about how the PlayStation 1 kindof had radix sort baked into the hardware. The hardware had no Z buffer, so all polygons had to be ordered back-to-front using the Painter's Algorithm for visibility. The hardware understood a linked list of polygons; as odd as that sounds. And, the standard practice presented by the API was to have a pre-allocated linear array of NOP list nodes forming a radix as the starting point for inserting sorted polys.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> I might be missing something but radix sort I can sort a 64 bit vector 11 bits at a time.</comment>


Show HN: Quickly create and share events - <AUTHOR> http://www.wherewhenwho.io <comment><AUTHOR> With WhereWhenWho, you can quickly create & share events with friends. It only takes a few seconds, as no registration is required.

I use it for small stuff, like organizing my friends and I when we meet and play football.

Any kind of feedback is greatly appreciated! :)</comment>


Namecheap: Help Keep Domain Prices in Check - <AUTHOR> https://www.namecheap.com/blog/keep-domain-prices-in-check/ <comment><USER2> I'm less concerned about the potential for high prices on those TLDs and more concerned about the disturbing practice of coordinated censorship by registrars such as namecheap.

We should be commenting to ICANN that all registrars should be required to register and domain regardless of it's content. The registrar wouldn't have to provide secondary services such as hosting, dns, etc... But the actual registration and pushing of glue records should be required in order to maintain your status as a registrar.

ICANN is supposed to be operating in the pubic trust, but by handing off registrations to other entities who ban together to censor undesirable content they violate that trust by proxy. This is a far more relevant issue for us.</comment>


The Wisdom of Crowds: Using Ensembles for Machine Learning - <AUTHOR> http://blog.factual.com/the-wisdom-of-crowds

<comment><USER2> Ensemble learning is indeed a powerful tool--more than just the sum of its parts.

This is a cool ranking that lists various learning algos and how they do on MNIST (which may or my not be a good benchmark for what you're doing). Links to the corresponding papers are provided, including a few ensemble methods (committees), which tend to perform rather well. <http://yann.lecun.com/exdb/mnist/>

<comment><AUTHOR> Very cool! Thanks for sharing that

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> Our group's review of a book on Ensemble Methods: [http://www.win- vector.com/blog/2011/07/book-review-ensemble-...](http://www.win- vector.com/blog/2011/07/book-review-ensemble-methods-in-data-mining-seni- elder/)

</comment><comment><USER4> I found this very cool! I clicked on the article thinking it would be about crowdsourcing, but it's actually about a cool machine learning technique I didn't know about. Plus, it was very well explained. Thanks for writing it!

</comment><comment><USER5> The title was groan inducing, but the article has introduced me to rotation forests. Thanks!</comment>


Bullet Journal - <AUTHOR> http://www.bulletjournal.com/

<comment><USER2> That's a coincidence : I just bought an Arc Notebook[1] from Staples with the express will to try this (I really like to be able to rearrange pages). So far (a few weeks), it's going very well. I tweaked the process to my taste but the idea remains the same.

I really wanted to implement my calendar and todo-workflow on my smartphone. The idea of having everything synced everywhere and to be able to "do" stuff everywhere was really compelling. A few months later, I'm back to paper and pen because the feeling and the level of control is so much better when I write.

Another thing I realized is that I'm a doodler. My to-do lists are messy, filled with small drawings but I still understand everything. Fitting them into a computerized list feels like trying to insert a square peg into a round hole.

I know that my journal won't scale easily, but I can't imagine being way busier than I'm now for a little while.

[1] : [http://www.staples.com/sbd/cre/marketing/arc/](http://www.staples.com/sbd/cre/marketing/arc/)</comment>


Ask HN: How long do you put off getting help on Stack Overflow/Lists/IRC? - <AUTHOR>

From the moment I started programming, I've had a dogged need to solve my own puzzles instead of reaching out for help.
If I'm having a challenge with a framework or a new language, I'll sit there and tear my hair out for hours until a steady onslaught of experimentation, Googling, Stack Overflowing and discussion board searches erodes the problem and the dam breaks. It takes longer, but I think it's more fun. Maybe it's a typical nerd control freak thing: I can control the ongoing assault on this problem, but I can't be sure someone will respond to a question in a timeframe that pleases me.
Assuming a smart colleague with experience around your challenge isn't nearby and able to set you straight, do you go immediately for community help or is it a last resort? Is my addiction to puzzling things out wasting my time? <comment><USER2> In 1999 I used to ask (on usenet), but it has been at least 5 years since I've encountered a problem for which there was no solution on the net. If you know how to search, almost all problems already have solutions on the net.

</comment><comment><USER3> In general, any problem you are having has existed before. Any issues you've had during development other programmers have had as well. This is especially true for any popular language/framework/design problem. The programmers that have had these problems before you will often blog about it, open issue tickets somewhere, or be vocal on the mailing lists. Google should be able to answer just about any issue you are having, since it already exists on the web somewhere. If the search results are slim then chances are you are doing it wrong or not thinking about the problem correctly.

Of course you may discover a bug or some edge case. In that case feel free to go out and post about. However, if this is happening once a day, or even once a week, you are most likely doing it wrong.

Just remember - other people have been in this spot before, what did they do to fix it?

</comment><comment><USER4> It depends on the problem. Of course, I always have a decent shot at it myself first, but if the problem is easy to describe and is most likely just a case of knowing some trick I post it fairly quickly. I see nothing wrong with that - that's what SO is for and it's great at what it does.

If it would take a significant amount of effort to distill the problem to something that can be described on SO then I'd spend a lot more time trying to figure it out first. Not only would it take more time to post, but it's also less likely to get answers and those answers are less likely to be useful.

</comment><comment><USER5> I try to search as much as possible before posting a question. Usually someone else has had the issue I do. I'd rather find their accumulation of knowledge and add my own, rather than start another pile.

</comment><comment><USER6> An important factor is if I need that to do some paid work and urgently or is it something without a deadline.

Generally, I would know quite soon by a google search if the problem is a common one or something very specific. If I see several different solutions, I may take time to try them before asking. If I see that nothing matches closely, I would not hesitate and ask.

Of course, if I'm doing something just for my own education, I'm more than happy to try by myself for any period of time.

</comment><comment><USER7> I use IRC a lot, for both asking and responding other users questions, I also like to read other people questions in mailing lists.

Asking and responding interesting put me in contact with great programmers, tools and problems that otherwise I will not be exposed to.

I specially enjoy the emacs IRC and mailing list, I always learn small tricks that boost my editor knowledge.

</comment><comment><USER8> I do this too.

In my opinion whether you're wasting time comes down to how you're solving the problem. You shouldn't be doing the same thing over and over again. If possible you should be learning something new about your application or the libraries you are using. You should be taking notes because you will probably run into this problem again.</comment>