Canada's tech startup sector wants easier access to hire top foreign talent - <AUTHOR> http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/politics/canadas-tech-startup-sector-wants-easier-access-to-hire-top-foreign-talent/article29401388/?cmpid=rss1&google_editors_picks=true <comment><USER2> Swaths of Waterloo and UofT grads leave Canada for better paying work in the USA. There is no lack of talent coming out of Canadian Universities. If they can't keep their own domestic talent, how do they figure they can attrack "top foreign talent"? It seems like a false flag operation to find cheaper labour.

<comment><USER3> Agreed. You try to stay in Canada for love of the country(no joke. I love it here) or just not wanting to leave familiar scene. But with insane housing market and (relatively)low wage, the temptation is strong.

<comment><USER4> Housing isn't that expensive outside of Vancouver. You can buy a one bedroom condo a 2 min walk from the CN Tower for $230k to $260k USD / 300k to $350k CAD, and salaries here are lower than SF or NYC, but not by that much. Vancouver, yes, pays very poorly and has unreasonable housing prices, but that is far from all of Canada.

<comment><USER5> The housing market in Toronto is skewed.

Yes apartment prices can be considered reasonable but actual houses are approaching the same levels as Vancouver.

Also those $250k apartments usually have $500/month maintenance fees attached. Not all, but some.

<comment><USER4> I feel like I say this all the time, but... Real houses _should_ be expensive in a _city_. The whole point of a city is densification. I don't want to live around a bunch of (usually detached) houses as far as the eye can see. I want to live where everything is happening. If you want a real house with an nice mostly quiet neighbourhood with a Canadian Tire and a Boston Pizza live in Georgetown and take the Go Train.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Canadian tech workers are underpaid and the weak dollar is making it even worse. You can practically double your purchasing power by going over the border and working in the states.

In my experience, finding a job here in Toronto as a programmer/developer/engineer/whatever has been VERY tough without a CS background (or any degree for that matter). Despite launching an app in the app store I still struggle to get interviews for even junior level positions, which in Toronto translates to around $50k - $60k. I could make the same amount of money waiting tables if I really wanted to.

<comment><USER7> "Junior level positions, which in Toronto translates to around $50k - $60k. I could make the same amount of money waiting tables if I really wanted to."

So the going rates in Canada are in that range. I interviewed for a remote senior position (5+ years exp) for a start-up in Toronto (that from brief research looked to be profitable, so I went ahead).

My jaw dropped when they said they were targeting $25 (CAD) an hour, with the exchange rate that's less than $19 (US) an hour. My sentiment was the same as yours, at $19 (US) an hour I could make the same amount of money teaching plain English anywhere in the world. It looks like they don't even do a cross- check for other industry rates, just fluent English can net you the same rates as an English teacher in practically any market.

<comment><USER6> It's mostly an estimated guess. It seems your real example is more accurate. How long ago was this?

I was recently working for a start-up in Toronto as well. They told me they could no longer afford me after billing them only ~$10,000 CAD for two months of work building the only product they were ever going to have. It worked out to close to $20-$25 CAD an hour as well.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> I'm a foreign worker worker who graduated from a top school in Canada but now work in Silicon Valley. Interviewing in Canada was a nightmare, I was called back 3 times to interview more and more people for the same company, salaries were abysmally low and I felt a general cautious vibe / old school bureaucracy in hiring.

There are hundreds of thousands of wannabe tech immigrants stuck in the broken US immigration process who should be prime targets for Canadian Tech Companies. But the fact that these people would rather be abused by lifelong delays imposed by US govt. than instantly get a Canadian Residency and Citizenship is testament on how unattractive opportunities in Canada are.

<comment><USER9> I've had mixed experience in Canada. Yes, the companies here are traditional and salaries are low, but that isn't all of the market. I have interviewed at a few exciting companies, all of which pay good salaries. Not SV-high, but higher than what Canada is used to.

I'd much rather take a pay cut, than spend 17 years to get residency in a country that doesn't want me.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> Retaining local talent may be difficult enough as-is without even thinking about attracting foreign talent. I'm not too familiar with the situation in Ottawa (as seems to be the main focus of this article), but as a Vancouverite, it's no secret that tech salaries here are lagging behind from our American neighbours, even as close as Seattle. Despite the gap in wages, our CoL is more or less comparable (yes yes, I'm aware of > $3k/month rentals in SF, but unlike SF, $100k in Vancouver isn't considered low). That coupled with a significant drop in the Canadian dollar...

Well let's just say it hurts.

<comment><USER11> Salaries are lagging in Waterloo as well. That's not to say they're bad or the CoL is equal, but they are lagging.

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> You want more top tech talent? Pay more. I have a pretty well paying comfy job in Toronto and even I keep considering just jumping to the states because it pays so much better. This is just a way of not having to pay what people are worth while trying to get talent.

</comment><comment><USER13> Currently staying in Canada as a tourist, while working remote for a European FinTech and have had a Express Entry application going for 6 months now. And I can tell you that the whole system is a joke.

I have a BSc in CS, 6 years work experience in the tech sector, near perfect score on the english language tests and I have 440 points (EE uses a point system). I have tried everything I can think of trying to have the CiC acknowledge that I have a job and an income (to gain more points) but to no avail. I would be able to pay my taxes in Canada as my home country has a dual tax agreement with Canada. However if I were to take a job flipping burgers, through the job bank program, I would get extra 300-400 points and be allowed to move in (in all likelyhood since the points would place me high enough to qualify).

Again, this system is a complete joke.

<comment><USER14> Start working as a contractor for your employer, and you get +600 points for having a job offer from your me.ltd contractor company.

<comment><USER15> This is great advice, cross-check it but thanks for posting nikanj

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> The issue isn't policy, the issue is companies in Canada are not competitive enough with their salaries.

<comment><USER17> That is simply not true.

For the past 12 months I've fruitlessly tried to obtain a work permit for a Toronto based company. The salary was quite competitive, but ultimately having 5 consecutive work permit applications fail just wasted too much time.

<comment><USER18> If salaries were actually competitive the job would probably have gone to a Canadian.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> Canada's tech sector can shut up about wanting foreign talent until they pay enough to retain canadian talent.

</comment><comment><USER19> What salaries do you guys consider competitive ? Do you all compare it to the SV salaries ?

If we exclude SV salaries how much more your avg US tech worker earns compared to his canadian peer.

And is this concentration of wealth good for the economy overall ?

I mean the canadians experience exactly the same. Even the high paid workers in Vancouver cannot afford housing as the "super rich" chinese that climbed upon the backs of their fellow countrymen and then swarmed Canada.

Don't you think that such concentration of wealth is not really a good idea ?

</comment><comment><USER20> Anyone can tell me what "top foreign talent" means here?

I just thought startup companies cannot afford to hire top talented workers.

I thought top talented workers usually launch startup.. not hired.

</comment><comment><USER21> I left Canada not too long ago. With the current exchange rate, my base here in SV is 350% of what I made in Canada for a much less stressful job. When you take the absurd RSU grant I'm getting into account, my estimated take home for the year is going to be nearly 10x that of my total Canadian compensation. The cost of living in SV is higher, but it is not THAT much higher.

The problem is that they just don't pay enough to compete. I'd move home in a heartbeat, but I won't work for a decade there for what I can make in a year here.

</comment><comment><USER22> I've always believed that if one of GoogleMicrosoftAmazonFacebook etc. started opening up more major development offices in Toronto, Vancouver, Montreal (but mainly Toronto), we would stop losing so much of our top talent to the US.

Competition would rise. And then we'd be able to create a much stronger talent pool, higher salaries in the tech community, and overall a better ecosystem. But none of these companies have really tapped into this system.

But it seems like no executive at these companies has figured it out yet!

<comment><USER23> What is there for these companies in Canada? It seems a better idea to open development offices in other countries, that might be cheaper and have a bigger talent pool.

<comment><USER24> Such as? (Genuinely curious)

Canada also has the same language, can have the same time zone as any US location, is closer (no overseas flights) and has established trade relationships with the US.

<comment><USER23> EU is a clear example. And then you have China and India, that have a smaller percentage of educated people, but have such a big populations that their elites can be excellent.

The issue with Canada is that it's pretty small, population wise. I guess that for those big American companies is simpler to bring the -relatively- small number of Canadians to the US.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> There are no shortcuts to solving brain drain. Find a compelling way to solve it (paying more, giving more opportunities to grow is a good start) and let's talk from there.

</comment><comment><USER26> Have just been thinking of moving to Canada in the next few years, because it's immigration process seems to be friendlier to professionals without a degree — but comments here have been discouraging, to say the least.

What's a good place to find more information about Canada's tech (gamedev in particular) to adequately measure my chances of finding a relocation offer?

<comment><USER27> Same here, looking to move to Canada in the near future. Any info on how long the whole process takes and the other relevant info for web devs would be helpful.</comment></comment>


The Chromium Project has 24k+ TODO comments, each referencing an assignee - <AUTHOR> https://www.tickgit.com/browse?repo=github.com/chromium/chromium <comment><USER2> FWIW, when you see a username next to TODO() or NOTE() in Google-developed code, it's not the assignee, it's the author of the TODO comment. The idea is that every TODO should have a person you can check with to see what the history behind that TODO is and whether it's still relevant. The assignee is often whoever wants to work on cleaning up the code - it's intentionally left unspecified so that a.) people don't feel guilty or overwhelmed about leaving TODOs b.) the work can be load-balanced among different engineers at a later date and c.) the comments are (semi-)robust against people leaving the project.

<comment><AUTHOR> Ah interesting! Thank you for the context, that makes a lot of sense. I notice all of them (well, haven't checked all 24k, but many of them) link to [https://bugs.chromium.org/p/chromium/issues/list](https://bugs.chromium.org/p/chromium/issues/list), and I wonder if that's ensured by some sort of policy or CI rule</comment></comment>


Small Businesses Doing Well Building and Maintaining Backyard "Microfarms" - <AUTHOR> http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-farmers-for-hire-20100502,0,5980031,full.story

<comment><USER2> I really enjoy having a backyard garden. Although it doesn't produce much in the way of food value -- if I'm lucky, I'll get some potatoes, onions, zucchini and corn this year -- I find working in it a few minutes at a time to be stress-relieving and therapeutic, and it's nice to look out the window and see green things growing.

I hope this is a trend that continues for lots of families, actually.

On an unrelated note, I got a kick out of seeing that his revenues jumped "to $54,000" last year. That was my business's second-year gross, and I didn't think it was all that noteworthy.

<comment><USER3> "Farmscape pulled in about $54,000 for the first four months of this year--$22,000 more than last year"

<comment><USER2> Whoops -- well, that's a horse of a different color. Thanks.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Here's the site if anyone is curious about Farmscape: <http://www.farmscapegardens.com/#home>

The cost saving argument is probably a stretch: "In many cases, installing a Farmscape garden in the place of an existing lawn can lower your monthly yard maintenance and irrigation expenses. Depending on crop selection, most customers can expect to break even against the installation cost of the garden with the savings over organic grocery or farmers market purchases and the gas and time for the errands. This also depends heavily on how you value high quality fresh-picked produce and how you value your own time spent inspecting fruits and vegetables in the produce aisle."

But as another commenter points out, this is more about keeping up with the Jones than saving money. There's a chicness in CA these days in having a bountiful garden (chickens provide an extra level chicness in some places). And whereas the DIYers have set the trend and have embraced the dirt and sweat of the enterprise (see [http://www.amazon.com/Farm-City-Education-Urban- Farmer/dp/15...](http://www.amazon.com/Farm-City-Education-Urban- Farmer/dp/1594202214)), the green-leaning elite are willing to buy their way to the promised land. Another version of the same old story, no?

In terms of urban harvest, I think this is way cooler, although who knows if it's successful from an environmental-economics standpoint: <http://nymag.com/guides/summer/2009/57477/>

<comment><USER5> The cost saving argument might not be _that_ much of a stretch, if you consider that

(a) as human-vs-nature struggles go, playing at subsistence agriculture might be less arduous than trying to imitate a British lawn in the Southern California desert climate

(b) the people in Farmscape's target market are probably people who would otherwise be hiring a gardener to maintain their lawns

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> I think this kind of thing is great - people gaining a closer connection with nature and also knowing where their food comes from.

My wife and I have a small ranch near College Station Texas (home of Texas A&M University) where we raise a herd of Texas Longhorn steers, for natural lean beef as well as their beauty. I can't tell you how relaxing it is to walk through the pasture at the end of the day. It's not only relaxing, but a great opportunity to get more "think time".

</comment><comment><USER7> Feels like a fun hobby and stress release, not a cost-efficient way to grow food nor particularly environmentally friendly (they're using drinking water irrigation in the Los Angeles desert instead of agricultural water or graywater, the guy has to drive from plot to plot, etc).

</comment><comment><USER8> Wait a second, if this is getting popular because of the recession, why is it more expensive than _Whole Foods_?

<comment><USER9> A quote comes to mind:

"[She] lived in the kind of poverty that was only available to the very rich, a poverty approached from the other side."

        -- Terry Pratchett, in "Men at Arms"

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> Container gardening is far more efficient and cost effective than yard farming. It yields an equal amount of satisfaction, is easier to manage and allows for a better balanced landscape.

Large planters, raised beds and strategically located pots seem to me preferable to hiring someone to come "tend the lower 400 sq. ft."

<comment><USER11> Looking at the picture, it looks like they were doing container farming. If I wasn't sure of moving within the next two years, I'd be doing it myself.

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> Fascinating stuff. It would be nice if after harping on how expensive it is, the author put the cost in perspective, maybe by giving a rough $/pound comparison between, say, this, a farmer's market, a CSA, and the grocery store. $20 a week isn't bad at all if it's getting four people the majority of their produce. And I know a lot of people who'd pay a premium for this.

<comment><USER13> Agreed. We pay ~$24 a week for our CSA share (which is generally plenty for our family of four, and often includes other stuff like eggs or cheese each week). During the winter, I pay at least that much in produce at the local co- op.</comment></comment>


Ask HN: Startups, do you write unit tests for your projects? - <AUTHOR> If you are a small startup trying to build a product without a proven market, you need to execute fast. Don't get me wrong here, I understand the importance of unit tests. I am asking how many startups are following this in practice? Do you end up skipping them in favor of shipping a feature fast?<p>When you respond, please include the number of developers involved in the product. <comment><USER3> The first time, no, and regretted it.

The second time, yes, and it was worth it. With 90% coverage, you'll save yourself and your team several days per month of click testing and bug fixes; and probably a whole bunch of production bugs.

That's for code that'll go into production, though.

Proof-of-concept code is different. If the code is doing something highly complex or quantitative calculations, I'll write unit tests to verify output for various inputs. It's just faster to develop that way. But no tests for generic CRUD code.

</comment><comment><USER4> I have once worked at a startup where CTO literally forbade me writing any unit tests. - "We're not a consultantcy shop, we're trying to build our own product, we don't have time to write tests".... I left. Company went bankrupt a few months later.

</comment><comment><USER5> Hi,

At the beginning, we skipped the unit test because it's spending lot of time, (Chronofage in french :D), we want to get a product !!!

But after of one year, we get lot of indirect regress, all the time. So we have a product with features, but bugged ...

So we spend 3 weeks (2/2 developers) to add unit tests to all models (With PHP-Unit and Gitlab-CI), and unit tests for our API (DIY testing script - <USER2> on dev server).

Actually we do not make unit tests for our frontend, but they will came :)

To conclude, even in StartUp, unit tests ARE NOT F...ING USELESS ^^ We make test all the time after we add a functionnality.

Hope we help you ;)

Servuc</comment>


Reflections | Projections ACM@UIUC Conference - Oct. 7-9th - <AUTHOR> http://www.acm.uiuc.edu/conference/2011/

<comment><USER2> I went to this last year and there were a ton of great speakers!

<comment><AUTHOR> Here are the speakers for this year: <http://www.acm.uiuc.edu/conference/2011/speakers.php></comment></comment>


Ask HN: 9-5 burnout? - <AUTHOR> I always feel a little strange among all the other 9-5 workers. It's really difficult for me to do that every day of the week. It's not that I'm not enjoying work or anything like that, while I'm at the office I totally enjoy it, but I once I get home I feel drained out, as if I can't do anything but watch TV. It's like all my mental powers are gone and I can only do the simplest thing possible.
Thing is, when people are talking about burn out, they usually mean 60 hours work week, so complaining about a 40-45 work week feels spoiled. Maybe my psych is not built for continues effort but short sprints and relaxation. When I stay to work from home, and split my work day into 2 halves, morning till noon, and evening until night, I feel much better, though I still work the same time more or less. Problem is, this is not something I can do regularly since It's not common to work from home where I work, and I'm leading a dev team so I need to be around.
Does anyone else feels the same way? How do you handle daily burn out? <comment><USER2> I burned myself out building and launching a cloud service last year. After that service launched publicly, I quickly took three weeks off. The first week I felt depressed and was barely able to get up in the morning. The second week I started to feel better and was able to achieve daily goals. The third week I started to feel like my normal self but was nowhere close to being ready to go back to work.

Currently, I'm still struggling to have my normal drive during the 9-5. My short-term memory is not at its best. I'm averaging only a couple hours of coding a day but I'm also a lead on my team, so I have a lot of interruptions throughout the day. I feel energized on Monday, but by Friday I feel like a failure (like right now). I feel stuck.

After work I invest my time into improving skill-sets, knowledge, and other projects until 10 or 11 pm. My goal is to have an exit strategy in place by the end of this year.

I know I'm still recovering from the burnout and it seems like it's going to take another year to recover fully. Every week I want to break down, cry, and leave but I'm afraid to jeopardize everything that I've worked hard to achieve.

I would like to share more about my story and background, but I'm afraid to share too many personal details that will identify myself.

"Help Me, Obi-Wan Kenobi. You're My Only Hope"

<comment><USER3> It sounds like you really gave your all to your employer, and it left you feeling demoralized and depressed. It also sounds like you feel stuck. Stuck in the situation, stuck in the bad feelings. My heart goes out to you.

At times, I've put an unhealthy focus on work, and it's left me feeling drained of life. Probably a similar feeling to yours.

It sounds like your schedule isn't allowing for much human-to-human connection. (Away from computers!) I don't know about you, but that's probably the main human need I have when I overwork! I'd suggest limiting the evening learning sessions and try to invest in some friendships! Try to brighten up someone's day!

<comment><USER4> Ha, interesting. Every time I'm severely burnt out, it has to do with humans, not computers.

Computers do work as you tell them to. Humans will make life difficult for you just to make it easy for themselves.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> I definitely feel that way - I'm much happier when I'm working less than 40 hours a week, these days. It is possible to start with what you want and eventually negotiate or find a work situation that meets your needs.

Some options:

1\. If you have good relationship at current job, see what you can negotiate. E.g. maybe you can become individual contributor. Maybe you can figure out way to make it work just by rearranging things - in office first half of day, available from 4-5 pm in afternoon, or something.

2\. Find a different job where you can the job schedule you want. E.g. remote job, or just a job with more flexible work schedule.

2\. Negotiate a less-than-40-hours job - definitely possible, I interviewed someone who has been doing that for 15 years: [https://codewithoutrules.com/2018/01/08/part-time- programmer...](https://codewithoutrules.com/2018/01/08/part-time-programmer/)

(I talk about options, negotiation skills and more in my related book, The Programmer's Guide to a Sane Workweek: [https://codewithoutrules.com/saneworkweek/](https://codewithoutrules.com/saneworkweek/)).

</comment><comment><USER4> Working a proper 9-5 job in software is extremely tiring. I compare it to athletes; you can't expect an athlete to work 8 hours a day of intense training without collapsing. Often they work a certain amount of hard hours and a few softer ones. They cycle it.

One should do the same for programming as well. It's all energy management. I find I can only work 3 hours on a tough problem, and the rest would be something lighter like refactoring or writing tests.

A lot of people who wake up at 5 and sleep at 11 PM are managers, which isn't as energy intensive.

</comment><comment><USER6> First, everyone's different. There's no single optimal workload that applies to everyone.

That said, 8 hours of real, intense, mentally challenging work per day probably is more than enough for most people.

The problem is that when talking about work in terms of time spent this often includes stuff that isn't really work at all but mindless busywork like writing emails, attending pointless meetings or idle water cooler talk.

This is particularly prevalent with those 'vaunted' 60+ hour weeks (also see [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parkinson%27s_law](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parkinson%27s_law)).

The point being: Your 40 hour work week might very well be equivalent to somebody else's 60 hour work week in terms of workload and mental energy required.

You seem to have already found a viable solution by working remotely and splitting your day in 2 halves. If that works for you you should try to optimise your work in a way that you can do this more frequently.

There are fully remote companies with employees across multiple timezones. So, this is definitely achievable. It just requires a little more effort than the default 9-5 kind of work organisation.

It should be in your employer's interest to ensure the long-term happiness and effectiveness of employees. So, why not talk with your employer about this and try to make the necessary changes in work organisation?

</comment><comment><USER7> I feel _exactly_ the same way as you do. (I thought I was the only one who feel like I just want to relax and do nothing in the evening even though only working a 9-5 office job!)

I'm at a relatively 9-5 job now (aside from occasional week nights or weekends emergency response work). The thing is, I've _been_ in 60-hour jobs (even 80-hour in some cases) before. I know what that feels like. I know what true burn-out is. I've even done that for 5 years. It was a cool experience when I was younger. I keep thinking that, my job is 9-5 now, I really shouldn't be feeling burn-out. But I am.

I blame it on the commute a lot; in Silicon Valley, a normally 40-minute drive becomes 1.5 hour one way, and 3 hours a day is a lot of time to spend on the road, and it's taxing. I know it's a huge part of the reason to feel burn-out. Like you, I'm also in the position of a team lead. I already have a one day a week WFH arrangement. It's helping me survive and not quit the job, but it's only borderline acceptable. I feel like I can't move to more WFH days. But having read itamarst's comment, I feel like maybe I should ask. I would probably feel better if I either WFH 2 days or, just work only 4 days and WFH 1 of those 4 days.

</comment><comment><USER8> Just in case this is an XY problem, maybe looking at the question in a different light could help. Instead of asking why we are burned out, maybe we could ask why we feel burned out.

For me, the opportunity cost of being burned out is that I can't summon the energy to work on my side projects and hobbies. It really kills me that every day I come home and have hours that I could spend coding or building something, but instead I just watch TV over a beer.

A couple of people closest to me say to just do all the things. So they are advocating discipline which is great and something I could probably find again if I was more disciplined.

My gut feeling though is that the issue might be more complicated than that. From prior experience, I know my odds of failure at any side project I attempt are somewhere around 90% if I measure them in terms of monetary gain. So I'm subconsciously multiplying the cost/benefit analysis by 10 and getting discouraged. But if I remove risk from the equation, maybe by working on something low-risk like an open source project or learning a skill I don't know (like playing music), then maybe I could get closer to feeling rewarded by tinkering instead of drained. Then I could build on that and add more ambitious projects over time (in theory).

</comment><comment><USER9> Can you cut down on the number of days you work? Even as a team-lead your team should be able to handle missing you one day a week (your team wouldn't be very self-sufficient if even that is impossible).

I am fortunate to live in a country where working three or four days a week instead of five is perfectly acceptable. I have explicitly chosen to work four days a week (four times 9-to-17), and use the remaining workday for my own relaxation/chores/shopping/projects. My partner does the same thing with a different day off, so we each get our own home alone downtime day. It works really well for us.

By working less days you effectively sacrifice only four evenings for recuperation from work, but keep three days for yourself. Of course that means less income, so this depends on your personal financial situation as well. It does make it easier to simply accept that you simply need the downtime in the evenings.

Some people are fine working five days a week, some aren't.

> Thing is, when people are talking about burn out, they usually mean 60 hours > work week.

Only in some countries (US I guess?). Burnout is a global phenomenon. In the Netherlands people tend to work 40 hours a week, but burnout is still common enough here.

</comment><comment><USER10> Think of human activity as lying on a spectrum of mental effort. You probably need activities that lie somewhere in the middle range of energy and complexity. Work is probably on the higher end: an continuously exhausting challenge. Vegging out in front of the TV is the lower end: relaxing, but unfulfilling and boring.

If the only mentally engaging activity you ever do is work, then every time you get bored, you will jump straight into overdrive just by THINKING about it. This will actually wear you out even if it's only 30 hours a week or 20 hours. You need activities that are only a little bit challenging to distract you from the big one.

I experienced the same problem myself (replace TV with jogging). I had other things going on (RSI, frustrating work environment), but adding hobbies like competitive video gaming and painting landscapes helped my mental health tremendously.

<comment><AUTHOR> > Think of human activity as lying on a spectrum of mental effort. You > probably need activities that lie somewhere in the middle range of energy > and complexity. Work is probably on the higher end: an continuously > exhausting challenge. Vegging out in front of the TV is the lower end: > relaxing, but unfulfilling and boring.

> If the only mentally engaging activity you ever do is work, then every time > you get bored, you will jump straight into overdrive just by THINKING about > it. This will actually wear you out even if it's only 30 hours a week or 20 > hours. You need activities that are only a little bit challenging to > distract you from the big one.

That's a very interesting way to look at it. Problem is I'm too tired during to pick anything up after work. I really feel that if I can reduce the amount of mental energy I consume at work, I'll actually have the desire to pick up the guitar or something like that.

Maybe using something like the pomodoro technique can help with that, and then taking more breaks. I think one of my problems is though, that my ambition takeover and I want to get just one more thing done. I feel like I need to produce better results, etc.

<comment><USER10> What about on the weekends?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> I've spent 2 years doing 8-5 and it just doesn't work for me. I'm going back to school and becoming an academic. The requirement to be here is what hurts the most, I'll happily work more hours as long as they are flexible and on my own accord, in my own space.

I am counting down the days.

</comment><comment><USER12> I'm feeling the same. I think it's very common. That's what motivates people to go above and beyond and try to be financially independent - as the alternative is having very little from life until you're old and retired.

</comment><comment><USER13> If you want to have time in your week outside of work where you aren't drained, one thing to try is waking up earlier every day and focusing on your own stuff before heading in to the office

</comment><comment><USER14> Yep, working from home, I take 2 hours lunch break to exercise a bit, eat and nap for an hour and after that I can be productive again in the the few remaining hours until 16:30

</comment><comment><USER15> Get rid of the TV.

<comment><USER3> > Get rid of the TV.

I agree this can be helpful. But it seems there are some deeper things going on.

I'm no psychologist or therapist, but it seems there are things going on at the emotional or psychological level that need to be addressed.

Of course I don't know this person, but I imagine solely getting rid of the TV would just make room for a different "mind numbing habit".

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> I'm guessing that you're an introvert and being around everyone in the office is what wears you out. If this is case, try and move your desk to a quieter less crowded part of the office and invest in some good headphones. You can also try going out for a walk in the middle of the day to get away from everyone.

Another thing you can do is focus on having more energy by doing things like working out, eating better, etc. If you are always tired you might want to go see your doctor and check for hypothyroid and / or low testosterone (assuming you are a middle-aged man)</comment>


Selfies Are Far More Dangerous Than You Think - <AUTHOR> http://www.policymic.com/articles/86287/a-psychiatric-study-reveals-selfies-are-far-more-dangerous-than-you-think?utm_source=policymicFB&utm_medium=main&utm_campaign=social

<comment><USER2> > The conclusion? "Increased frequency of sharing photographs of the self, > regardless of the type of target sharing the photographs, is related to a > decrease in intimacy" in personal relationships, wrote the authors.

an example of a study where causality can create misleading conclusions.

</comment><comment><USER3> The danger comes from the Dysmorphical Disorder, not the selfies.</comment>


AWS GLUE Developer Guide [pdf] - <AUTHOR> http://aws-glue-beta-documentation.s3-website-us-west-2.amazonaws.com/glue-dg.pdf <comment><AUTHOR> I feel like this, more than any other AWS product will push the ML/AI stuff into warp speed.

Discuss any cool findings here.

Why does this make or does not make sense for your analytics stack?</comment>


Why is Google selling potentially compromised Chinese security keys? - <AUTHOR> https://www.zdnet.com/article/google-launches-titan-security-keys-but-recommends-keys-from-chinese-firm-with-military-links-in/ <comment><USER2> We live in an interesting time and place where China could declare war on the democratic countries in the next 5 years...let me explain. China is in a very bad situation where it has accumulated too much debt in its national and local governments, and corporations. Inflation is going through the roof - rent has increased 30% from 2017 in Beijing and other cities, and food costs are going up because of the tariffs. And incomes are declining - top income for tsinghua graduates, the top university in China, has fallen 20% from 2016. There have been various protests from veterans about decreased/stopped pays.

All this will eventually lead to a point where the CCP has to appease its citizens for the crashing economy. Either it will choose to subdue its own people - either with more police state, lockdowns, or jailing, and do so for the next 10-20 years while the bad debts slowly gets resolved (ala Japan), or it will choose to redirect its focus abroad (ala Germany 1930) and starts to aggressively expanding and taking over countries as puppet states (which it is already doing now with various African states and Southeast countries) or use its growing military to attack nearby countries (Taiwan, Vietnam)

That makes the (cyber)defenses against China even more important today. Thus we have US/Australia banning Huawei and ZTE, and Japan is thinking about banning them as well from the network. The free, democratic countries of the world are starting to realize how dangerous giving China backdoors into the networks is.

We need to monitor all our security breaches that exposes us to Chinese cyber espionages, so we can prevent theft of important technologies.

<comment><USER3> What you described is more likely to happen in a society where citizens are used to high standards and these standards can't be maintained. Correct me if I'm wrong, but I think most Chinese workers only eat, sleep and work. How would you get them to the point of violent protest? It doesn't matter how bad the inflation gets when you're already at the very bottom.

Western countries are actually starting to imitate that system, because it allows for a somewhat peaceful submission of society at low living standards.

<comment><USER4> You might be correct, but that still leaves the Chinese middle class which is about the same size as the entire population of the United States.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> It's a good point, even if it is a shit article.

Exactly how does a Feitian key differ from a Google one? Where is the SoC produced? How secure is the enclave equivalent and that bit which produces the private key? What is the chain of trust?

I don't trust the UK or US governments, but why on earth would I trust China?

</comment><comment><USER6> There are zero genuine technical complaints here. Its just a long winded article saying "but China" (implying anything manufactured there could be compromised). That concern, legitimate or not, covers >99% of electronics, including the computer or smartphone these keys are intended to be used with.

</comment><comment><USER7> While I freely admit that I use a lot of Google services, have an Android phone, and so on... I can't fathom why anyone would think it's a good idea to buy security hardware from an advertising company.

<comment><USER8> Because it is an extremely high-value target that has proven capable of defending itself from numerous sophisticated attacks, and it has a vested interest in keeping its users and customers secure as well.

<comment><USER9> It's under US jurisdiction, so it has failed at least one major attack by default.

<comment><USER10> Is anyone actually taking this serious? As if all other countries are any better.

Uh, German data protection laws, yadda yadda - they didn't stop the police from raiding several activist non profit organizations a couple of months ago, with no repercussions.

The "US jurisdiction"-line is just tiresome and weak. Show me the country that guards user data that isn't part of 5 eyes and where attempts of the state to gain access to said data is actually penalized.

<comment><USER9> You present an excellent example of a fallacy of relative privation.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> Go read the U2F FIDO spec. I'll wait.

How exactly do you expect anyone to backdoor these devices?

<comment><USER12> It would be difficult, but the one thing I've learned to trust in security is that there's _no_ such thing as a system that can't be broken.

For U2F, the first thing that comes to mind is timing channels, or perhaps building in a radio and letting anyone nearby use the key as if it were theirs.

<comment><USER6> The existence of a hidden radio should be trivial to confirm - at minimum it would require a battery and an antenna.

If I we're the paranoid type, I'd avoid bluetooth security keys all together. NFC should be fine for use with a mobile phone, and while there are attacks that let you read NFC from a few meters away, if you credibly think you have an adversary who can identify you in public, and has this type of specialized hardware, you're dealing with someone who would have a much easier time just throwing you in the back of a van to extract whatever they wanted out of you.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> The fact is google are very good as managing security of their supply chain and if you're worried about China interfering with hardware then I'm wondering where you think your phones, laptops, tv, tablets, IoT fridges are made... they are full of parts from China, almost impossible to check everything inside your laptop - however a single hardware device provided by Google?

<comment><USER14> They don't mean the Google Titan security key but rather the one that's offered to you when signing up to their advanced protection program.

People in the UK are sent directly to a chinese online store which means at that point Google has no control over anything anymore.

<comment><USER15> The threat model for most people in the advanced protection program is "I'm a human rights activist and a government sent me a phishing link that looked like a Google docs login, and I'm not that careful, so I put my password in it", not "I run a backbone network that Intel agencies would love to tap and they're willing to expend lots of money/risk for that".</comment></comment></comment>


Cryptocurrency investors want the body of Quadriga CEO exhumed - <AUTHOR> https://www.zdnet.com/article/an-executive-died-taking-investor-cryptocurrency-with-him-now-they-want-the-body-exhumed <comment><USER2> Truth is stranger than fiction.

Bitcoin was supposed to usher in a techno-utopian world through a decentralized network of trustless machines.

What we got was an exchange of trust from financial institutions to....new and less regulated financial institutions.

Now rather than trust that Jamie Dimon at JP Morgan is making sound investments with your deposit base, we need to trust than rando CEO doesn't a) fake his own death, or b) legitimately die but be too incompetent to plan for the fact that no one else has his laptop password.

<comment><USER3> The problem here is really an incompetent CEO/company that people trusted. The same thing could theoretically happen with any tech company that decides to use the CEO as the sole key custodian.

E-mail companies would lose access to your e-mail, websites would lose access to SSL certs, JP Morgan would have a similar issue if they were stupid enough to give Jamie Dimon sole control of their encrypted customer account and investment databases. JP's funds may be slightly more recoverable if there were hard copies but it would still be massively difficult to track down where the money was invested and who it belongs to if account data were lost.</comment></comment>


Has anyone used any of these time tracking apps for your iPhone? - <AUTHOR> Been looking for a good time tracking app for my team for the last couple of weeks and I came across this guide (http://blog.hubstaff.com/best-time-tracking-app-ios/).<p>Have any of you here used any of these apps? Which one would you recommend? Other recommendations if it's not in the list? Thanks for the help! <comment><USER2> I use Hours but only in the coarsest "arrive at work / go home" sense since I'm paid by the day - and for that it works fine. (I have had update issues on the iOS betas but I can't really blame Hours for that.)

<comment><AUTHOR> Yeah I've got a ton of recommendations for Hours by other people. Problem is that it's a very basic time tracker. Plus you said you're paid by the day. What if I'm working with contractors by the hour? I gotta know they're working their required hours.

<comment><USER2> Well, it will track hours but my requirements are just "arrive/leave" tracking. I could have a bunch of timers per day depending on which work I was doing (but I only work on one project) and add things like lunch breaks etc.

[https://www.hourstimetracking.com/images/large- timeline.gif](https://www.hourstimetracking.com/images/large-timeline.gif) shows a fairly granular usage.</comment></comment></comment>


Ask HN: Have any of you with startups ran into someone trademarking your name  - <AUTHOR>

What i mean is they trademarked your name after you've already launched.I know that a lot of startups don't take the time to do the legal stuff right away or some just want to test out an MVP first and only register a domain name and begin with a website. Is this common? what should you do if you start getting traction and get put into this predicament? <comment><USER2> Rule one. If its important enough to register a .com, its important enough to trademark.

I lost one I cared a lot about, not to squatters, or "enemies" but to guys I knew, respected and did business with because I got the .com and they got the trademark, both of us assuming that later on, we'd get the respective missing piece. Fortunately, neither of us was spoiling for a fight with the other so it was resolved amicably.

Trademarks trump ICANN registrations (to the point that ICANN will take your .com and give it to the trademark holder).

About the only thing having registered the .com before someone else trademarks it will get you is the ability to charge more to the trade-marker to sell him the .com.

<comment><AUTHOR> unreal, sorry to hear that situation...if you solved it amicably then i'm sure it wasn't a horror story. I guess i'll hit up legalzoom or quora for the best and easiest way to trademark. If you know good site's please recommend.

<comment><USER3> Trademarkia.com is a very simple and straightforward process. Also, they helped me via email and phone at the drop of a dime. I got started with Legalzoom but bailed and went with Trademarkia because they focused on trademarks and incorporating.

<comment><AUTHOR> cool thnx alot, ill check em out

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Do people register US/USPTO trademark only OR USPTO and worldwide?</comment>


How not to allow users to unsubscribe to automated emails - <AUTHOR> http://i.imgur.com/sbPpO.png

<comment><USER2> Wow I can't think of a faster way to make me hate a company more. Just because I unsubscribe, does not mean I do not want to visit the website. It usually simply means I do not want emails. If those were the ONLY options for 'unsubscribing', I would be an unhappy bunny.</comment>


Ask HN: Does putting Haskell and Common Lisp in my resume a good idea? - n-izem I'm an 3rd year CS undergraduate, and I have some projects in Haskell and Lisp (also in Java)<p>PS: I've worked through HTDP, SICP and PAIP. <comment><AUTHOR> I have a small amount of professional experience with Scheme and programming language design & implementation which I put on my resume. I've found people bringing it up is a pretty good bellwether for interesting interviews and people who are good to work with. Has it gotten me in the door ever? I don't know. Go ahead and do it.

<comment><USER2> My experience has been about the same. I don't think it got me any interviews/jobs but it hasn't hurt me to put it on my CV. It simply gives the interviewer something to guage where you are coming from in terms of style and knowledge of computing.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> There's a fairly slim chance having them will help you with job applications to _most_ companies. But they're vanishingly unlikely to hurt your chances anywhere.

Just don't put anything on your resume that youdon't know well enough to discuss in depth in an interview and start deciphering legacy code in your first day on the job.

</comment><comment> a-saleh I usually only put technologies I have used for work I was paid for, or at least was reasonably public.

I.e. I learned haskell at college, but I never put it in my CV. I have clojure in there, because I actually worked on a small clojure project (while doing QA at RedHat). I did put C++ on my CV, even though I only used it when writing my thesis, because I considered the project large enough. And I did put a sys- admin on there, despite the fact that the work I did with my friends to maintain a community server (I think we had like a forum and a church website there?) was not paid.

In general, I am trying to avoid blank statements like listing an alphabet soup of technologies, and just list various projects I have been part of, scope of my involvement and the technologies I used there. I am not sure if this helps me (mostly been hired through friends), but when I was on the other side, reviewing resumes, I really liked the project-based approach, rather than a list like {java: expert, python: intermediate, haskell: beginner} :D

</comment><comment><USER4> I would ask you questions about Haskell and functional programming, if you get them right it will definitely be a plus, but if you say you know Haskell and can't write basic monads from scratch you are doomed

</comment><comment><USER5> Does it a good idea?

</comment><comment><USER6> Yup. Those skills will impress any interviewer worth their salt.

</comment><comment><USER7> Yes</comment>


Who Would Win Coding Olympics? Based on 300K Devs - <AUTHOR> https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-switch/wp/2016/08/30/who-would-win-the-coding-olympics/ <comment><USER2> I think parts of the US have already started making coding mandatory (like Chicago: [http://cps.edu/News/Press_releases/Pages/PR1_03_19_2014.aspx](http://cps.edu/News/Press_releases/Pages/PR1_03_19_2014.aspx)) but it's a slow uptake. I think other countries (Finland and other EU countries) allow kids to specialize in CS early on (~age 14) when American students are starting high school which gives them more of an edge.

</comment><comment><USER3> Great insights!</comment>


Star Citizen Raised $148M from Fans, and Now It's Raising Concerns - <AUTHOR> https://www.nytimes.com/2017/05/10/technology/personaltech/video-game-raised-148-million-from-fans-now-its-raising-issues.html <comment><USER2> This will probably not be a well-liked response but I'm going to post it anyway.

I preordered Star Citizen back in 2012 or 2013. Whenever the original Kickstarter was. I've kind of forgotten about it. I've never preordered another game--or anything really. And I don't think this was a bad experience.

I haven't received a game yet, but I have played some demos that were really fun. I've seen hours of content (Sure, that content is freely available, but so is NPR), read some great stories, and had some great conversations about the game.

In 2013 I paid $60 for a game I have not yet played. That year I also went to a casino one night with $80 in my pocket. Both times I came away with nothing but a fun experience and some stories. In both cases I feel like I paid for some entertainment and received it.

This isn't a post to excuse vaporware titles on Steam Greenlight or preordering broken-on-launch games. Quite the contrary. I won't buy EA games until at least a year after they come out. I will NEVER buy a pre-release game on Steam. But I bought Star Citizen. I took a gamble, and I had some fun. I wouldn't have done that if I didn't think there would be some fun along the way.

Star Citizen could never come out, and I wouldn't really feel cheated, because I still got something out of it.

<comment><USER3> About the only game in Steams Early Access program I would recommend to buy is Factorio[0]. It is essentially a factory building/automation game that's constantly getting updated, with one big patch about a week ago and several bugfix versions since. They are also open about their development process, i.e. some devs playing the game live with streamers and answering questions from the streamers and the chat to the best of their ability. In one such instant IIRC they even said they're planning for the 1.0 release towards the end of this year.

All in all, this game is definitely worth your time and money if you're into this game genre. There's even a demo version if you're not sure.

[0]: [http://store.steampowered.com/app/427520/Factorio/](http://store.steampowered.com/app/427520/Factorio/)

<comment><USER4> I have purchased/followed a number of Steam Early Access titles and very rarely have I been disappointed. I think the trick is, to wait a bit to see how often the devs update. There are some outliers such as RimWorld or Subnautica where updates happen only a couple times per year, but each update is game-changing and adds tons new content, features and bug-fixes.

Other titles which are still in EA but are releasing constant stream of information plus software updates:

      - Space Engineers/Medieval Engineers (weekly YT blog)
      - Rust (weekly blog)
      - Rogalia (daily to weekly Steam blog)
      - Project Zomboid (weekly blog)
      - Kenshi (between weekly and monthly changelist)
      - Factorio (weekly blog)
      - Don't Starve Together (multiplayer addition to Don't Starve)
      - DayZ (I only play maybe once per year but the blog updates seem quite frequent)

Titles which had a long EA period but ended up releasing IMHO amazingly polished products:

      - Terraria
      - Kerbal Space Program
      - Prison Architect

<comment><USER5> Subnautica is a fairly unique project in a number of ways. One of my favorites is their public task boards and bug tracker: [http://subnautica.unknownworlds.com/](http://subnautica.unknownworlds.com/)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Funny, people expressing their "concerns" became a bit of a meme on the Start Citizen forums in the early days.

As far as the meat of the article, I've been following Star Citizen as a backer since the Kickstarter days. My take on the history of the game's development is that Cloud Imperium Games was kind of unfocused and spinning some wheels for a while at the start as they attempted to build a AAA studio from scratch by partnering with smaller outsourcing firms for animation and modeling work. I think they misfired on some of their choices of early partners but that seems to have ended and they seem to be focused and moving forward.

The thing a lot of people forget is that the game was initially going to be: "you log in, you spawn in your ship/you are your ship/and...dogfight". As well, many of the ambitious features that they've been successfully implementing like seamless travel across millions of kms of volumetric space were player requests. I know I requested the ability to fly from space to planet surfaces and also expressed that I would be content to wait longer for the game's release if that was possible.

I don't really have sympathy for the folks who feel cheated or abused because from my experience, CIG has bent over backwards many times.

Anyways, I'll get off the soapbox. I'm optimistic and the game is already fun, with only a limited amount of the full content to come (especially in June when they launch an expanded PU).

<comment><USER7> I agree, it has definitely been a community driven scope creep as far as I am concered. We are getting what we asked for. Some of the communication has been disappointing but everyone is learning here, this is a big and new undertaking and there is no protocol.

I also don't understand how anyone could possibly want a worse game sooner outside of plain impatience. If you wait longer and the game is delivered near spec, it will be a better experience than if we get it earlier and sacrifice some features. To have both is ridiculous, it's not like they are twiddling their thumbs over there. They are progressing as fast as they can.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> The original Wing Commander: Privateer had about 20 core team members and cost (guesstimating) around $3 million to make, inflation adjusted.

To put that in perspective, Fallout 4 cost around $150m to make (IIRC), and that was an amazingly frugal budget for such a large game (Several AAA titles have budgets twice that large).

To be honest, I would have been happy with something along the budget of the original Privateer. And that would have probably left him lots of wiggle room to experiment and engage in research-esque goals.

I cant be too angry at him for being ambitious, or even changing his goals, but the #1 thing Roberts did wrong IMO was accelerating to AAA-style development and growing the team to 400 large before even really knowing what he wanted to develop. Spending a $100k+ on mocap and acting as early as he did is like producing a movie and then writing the script for it after the fact.

<comment><USER9> I would say that Chris Roberts has always had a very good idea of the game he _wanted_ to build, but but the original plan was to only build part of what he really wanted. When the crowdfunding kept coming in, it enabled him to go straight for building the game as he envisioned it, rather than iterating after release.

It's also worth noting that CIG only hit 400 employees fairly recently. I know some of their major presentations have included employee counts over time, so you could dig up the exact numbers if you wanted to. I _think_ they had roughly 50 at the end of 2013, and maybe 150-ish at the end of 2014?

<comment><USER8> good points :)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Oh dear.

Reminds me of: [https://twitter.com/mcgd/status/850347746452099072](https://twitter.com/mcgd/status/850347746452099072)

"When the kleenex box is full, you take two. When it's almost empty, you might use one twice. That's why oversized financings are bad."

It seems like the better route would be for them to make the $10 million game, and then to ramp up from there.

<comment><USER11> I've found this to be true not just of financing and money but of scheduling and time as well [1]. I wouldn't be surprised if this applies to many other resources, like employees in a company.

For example, given the task of building a complex system under a time constraint, it's easy to exhaust the time granted, be it a week, a month, or a year. A complex system can always be more perfect, so you can always spend more time on making it better. A limited resource (e.g. a week) can force you to focus on the essential solution whereas an abundance (e.g. a month) can lead to frivolous design and overengineering.

The antidote seems to be organizational restraint, concrete milestones, and constant readjustment to keep in line with greater goals. Scope creep, perfect-as-enemy-of-good, and bike shedding are all aspects of this behavior.

[1] [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parkinson%27s_law](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parkinson%27s_law)

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> I feel like crowdfunding sites ought to force each campaign to have a 'maximum funding' value they have to choose. That would both force the people building whatever it is they want to build to consider just how much money is too much, and also signal to those funding the project the kind of ambition the builder has.

<comment><USER13> A sibling comment pointed out that they did their own fundraising, but this is still a good point. The limit could be set to the highest defined stretch goal + n% to compensate for non-payers.

<comment><USER7> Considering the crowdfunding platform makes its money from these kinds of runaway successes in funding, I don't suspect they have much incentive to offer such a feature.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> Am I correct in my understanding that every dollar pledged essentially pushes the release further into the future since the developer is on the hook to add something extra with that dollar? Not that each dollar comes with a signed and sworn commitment, but more that the $500,000 game probably would have been out and actively enjoyed already.

<comment><USER15> I may be misunderstanding too, but every time I read another story on Star Citizen's development, it certainly seems that way, and Robert's own comments suggest he will keep spending every dollar to make "the best possible" game. It certainly suggests that even if he isn't legally on hook to spend it all, he will try.

He's arguably painted himself into an unfortunate corner by not imposing a fund raising cap - morally/ethically you could argue he has no choice but to try to spend all the dollars - to simply pocket 'the extra' cash would leave a bad taste in backers mouths I imagine, especially when they are effectively donations.

I can't help but feel that when he reached 9 figures Roberts maybe should have considered closing the donations for a while...

<comment><USER16> But couldn't he have done iterative releases instead? Give all the backers more that just a little demo, but a real mini-game that demos the tech and can keep gamers occupied for a few days. Slowly add more onto it?

Or maybe release the game in 3 different parts?

I haven't played any of the demos but it does look like a really impressive game. I probably won't play it as I don't like MMORPGs, but I did really enjoy his earlier work in the Wing Commander series.

<comment><USER9> That's pretty much what the current Persistent Universe Alpha is. An actual playable version of the Star Citizen MMO half, with the currently built technology.

<comment><USER14> Ah, it wasn't super clear how much of anything is available to play. Is it like Minecraft where it receives rapid improvements?

<comment><USER9> Heh. I don't think "rapid" is the right word. Last year they had said they were hoping for monthly-ish patches, but that went by the wayside pretty fast around Alpha 2.3 or so, when they began integrating the backend persistence systems.

The Persistent Universe Alpha is currently at 2.6.x. It currently includes one "limited" area of space around a gas giant in one specific solar system. (Note that "limited" here means that it's only a fraction of the planned final solar system, but thanks to CIG's 64-bit map size technology, it's legitimately several hundred million KM^3.) There's a few space stations, several quests, and some limited economy. All fully playable, but gameplay-wise, it's still mostly at the "tech demo" level in a lot of ways.

The "holy grail" version that we fans have been waiting for since last fall is Alpha 3.0. The /r/starcitizen subreddit has a ton more info on what it's supposed to include, but off the top of my head: a larger chunk of the Stanton solar system; several moons or planets that will be 100% "see it -> fly there -> land there"; the first iterations of several professions; and a whole lot more.

The current production schedule for Alpha 3.0 is at [https://robertsspaceindustries.com/schedule- report](https://robertsspaceindustries.com/schedule-report) . They originally projected it would come out around June 29, but just pushed it back a couple weeks. Realistically, I would expect them to bump it back into August. Once that's out, they'll probably get out another couple good-sized updates later in the year.

So, definitely not "rapid", but given the scope of what they're doing, not surprising. (Besides, my laptop actually can't even handle playing the game right now, so I've just been watching the development progress. I'll probably upgrade later this year sometime after Alpha 3.0 comes out.)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> IIRC Star citizen got started in funding around the same time as Elite:Dangerous.

It seems that the E:D approach has worked out rather better, in that they delivered an initial playable game that was rather lacking in some areas , and have been incrementally adding to that game over time in terms of both features and platforms supported.

<comment><USER18> As someone that bought heavily into both games, I have to be honest here when I say that E:D was a great short-term game, like many of those single-player games we're all used to. I quickly hit the grind part of E:D and stopped playing it. I should mention here that I'm an "explorer" subtype of game player, so the grind doesn't do it for me.

On the other hand, I am a very early backer of Star Citizen, and I regularly (about once a week, which is a lot for me) play the alpha and because I'm also an Imperator subscriber, I get rental credits for new ships and weapons and stuff, so there's always something new for me to try. Then there's also the knowledge that the full persistent universe ("game") is yet to come. I've got a lot of ships to fly, and an organization/clan with lots of RL friends to fly missions with. I'm stoked for all the accompanying lore being built into Star Citizen. This universe already feels lived in and detail-oriented. I am confident that I could play for a long time and still not hit the end of the road to satisfy my inner "explorer" player subtype.

</comment></comment><comment><USER19> I bought into SC when they promised Linux support. All this cool stuff that people are getting to play with early is Windows-only. I have significantly less patience with Star Citizen because so far as I'm concerned they've broken their promise.

<comment><USER20> I feel you.

It's not a reason I originally backed for but I've been increasingly more linux focused so it's something I'd love to see. PCI passthrough with KVM looks to be the solution for now, but it does mean having a chunk of machine resources reserved for windows :(

<comment><USER21> Worse, it would mean violating my Microsoft boycott. ;)

<comment><USER20> The horror!

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> I'm not a backer, but it seems to me that Star Citizen is progressing well. There's still active development and progress to the actual game, there's been several demos released, there's been constant communication.

As long as they continually scheduling and releasing new Alpha builds incorporating their growing world as they flesh it out, I don't see cause for concern.

</comment><comment><USER23> Amazing delusional quote, "But imagine — the game I can build with $140 million is going to be very different to the one I could build with $10 million."

Yes, it sounds like the $140 million game is not going to get made at all.

<comment><USER24> This is where the value of frugality really shines. The more money you have, the more bogged down in extra features and additional complexity you can get because of excess ambition or feeling of duty to your supporters.

It seems that because of overfunding, these guys are already suffering from the second-system effect even without having built a first system to begin with.

[https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Second- system_effect](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Second-system_effect)

</comment></comment><comment><USER25> Programming is hard. Who could have known that?

AAA studios don't act the way they do just for the sake of being an asshole.

<comment><USER7> Not to mention it took two years to build the AAA team to begin with.

Also, immense scope creep. The game to be delivered is nothing like the game people backed originally, and hopefully that's a good thing.

<comment><USER26> Until a game is delivered isn't it premature to label it a AAA team?

<comment><USER27> AAA refers to production quality of a game. The quality of what we're seeing is already AAA.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER28> Far from it for me to take anything away from Star Citizen hopefuls - I hope the game comes out and is good and fans have fun with it.

But when I look at the mind-numbing scope and ambition of the project... It will be very impressive if they can deliver everything promised, as good as promised.

<comment><USER7> That's why I am glad I backed though. We don't need another safe bet AAA war game. There is truly new ground being broken in the technology side of the project and that will filter out into the rest of the gaming industry, filling the metaphorical toolbelt with new tools.

The engineering is the biggest time sink so far and it's not surprising it's creeped and taken longer than expected. They have invented novel approaches to new problems and that is worth every dollar I backed to see happen.

<comment><USER26> I've played a lot of Elite: Dangerous it is unclear how much new ground is actually being broken here. I'm looking forward to and hoping SC succeeds, but let's not ignore the competitors that have already delivered.

<comment><USER7> I would recommend looking at some of the more recent tech focussed ATV episodes. There is a lot more to SC than there is in Elite, which is not to detract from Elite at all. It is a different game and excels where it aims to.

The underlying theme though is that SC is built of very finite systems that all interact with eachother. When Chris Roberts talks about fidelity it is often misconstrued to be about graphical fidelity. But it is equally applicable to the systems fidelity. In theory, after you have placed a cargo crate of goods in the cargohold of your ship and taken off, a pirate could shoot out your generator, hop out of their seat and pick up a gun off their gun rack, EVA to your ship, enter through a hole blasted into your hull and grab the individual crates to move to their ship. Later the pirate will store the crates in their homestead on a planet nearby, or pawn the goods at a market. Meanwhile you are left to fix your generator and ponder deep space.

But the fact that you could steal the crate from a disabled ship isn't because they put in a crate stealing game mechanic . It's simply intrinsic in the way they are developing the item interaction system and physics systems in the game. That wasn't a great example but hopefully it conveys what I am trying to convey.

This comment is also an example of how No Mans Sky disappointed everyone. Community based hyperbole. But I used only current features or 3.0 features to make it up so here is hoping.

In the 2.5 Alpha you can already disable a generator, you can already EVA and board a ship. In 3.0 there will be planets, planet outposts and markets, cargo to steal and nefarious people to steal it.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER29> The Star Citizen tech is really impressive looking. I love watching their demo videos because they just look amazing.

Their development process seems inefficient from afar. They've switched engines at least once, maybe twice? They've announced titles that then kind of fade into the background. They build really detailed systems for simulating light / gravity / thrust in ways that seem impressive & unrelated to gameplay.

It kind of reminds me of Overgrowth, though with a whole lot more money (and charging users a whole lot more as well). I'd be interested to see, in 5 years or so, what the final-ish product looks like (I don't mean they're 5 years from release, I mean in 5 years they'll be past release).

<comment><USER9> They never actually "switched engines".

They've been on CryEngine since the beginning. They've heavily customized large portions of it, to the point that I think one of the devs estimated it was only 50% original code left. They also actually bought a full license to the CryEngine source, and stopped taking any real updates from new versions of CryEngine as the codebases diverged.

They did recently announce that they were "switching" to Amazon's Lumberyard engine, but Lumberyard is itself a particular fork of CryEngine. The switch was primarily about branding and sponsorship. CryTek has been having serious financial issues, while Amazon is busy putting resources into Lumberyard. CIG also just switched all their backend cloud computing from GCE to AWS, and I'm sure they're getting a deal on AWS costs as part of the switch from "CryEngine" to "Lumberyard".

If by "titles that fade into the background" you mean the Squadron 42 single- player campaign... yes and no. Yes, they've been deliberately very quiet about that, because as a single-player game they'd like it to actually be meaningfully new and interesting on release. Also yes, backers are getting a bit antsy wondering where SQ42 progress actually stands at this point. However, it's not like they've abandoned development on SQ42.

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> I'm a High Admiral backer from November of 2012, and I feel like I've got my money's worth, and I'm not really concerned about the opinions of people that haven't put skin in the game. "This game is taking _forever_ to be developed!" I suppose if your frame of reference is every blockbuster made by every enormous shitty studio conglomerate, sure. But saddle up or shut up as far as I'm concerned. Play what's available, read the development timeline so you actually know what's going on with development and what's happened so far, and then I'll take any of these criticisms seriously. It's pretty stupid the number of people saying things like "I paid my thirty dollars a couple of years ago and I still can't play!" Well that's _your_ fault for not looking before you leap. You have known two things if you've read the packaging before you bought the beans: 1) Development is ongoing and the final game is not released, 2) Development timeline is not rigid and inflexible like it is for giant studios cranking out titles. This is Chris Roberts being given ample time and money to create a magnum opus. That is what it's been the whole time, and what it's been advertised as since the beginning. Outsider opinion is worth nothing.

<comment><USER30> As a High Admiral backer, you could also be a in High Commitment Bias? Not trying to be offensive.

[https://www.aqr.org.uk/glossary/commitment- bias](https://www.aqr.org.uk/glossary/commitment-bias)

<comment><USER18> I thought about preempting your post specifically, because every time I mention that I've put investment into the game, someone mentions it. I think if you dig into my post history, you will find about six posts _exactly_ like yours, link to more information included. Let me put it this way: I don't gamble with the rent money. That money is gone, and I'm not counting on a return. This is the way I think when it comes to this kind of thing, because any gains I see are a wonderful surprise. I started changing my psychology when I started going to war in my twenties: As I went out expecting to get hit, it was always a wonderful surprise when we didn't. It's pretty cool how that works for funding Kickstarter projects!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER31> With apologies to Mister Sinclair: It is very difficult to make a developer finish a game when his salary depends on not finishing it.

</comment><comment><USER32> I'm not sure why they didn't just "Build the $10m game" and release that, then spend the rest on expansions to that game. Would have been a much more predictable approach (assuming the original game is setup to be appropriately expandable.

<comment><USER33> Or build the $10M game and return the remaining $130M to the backers, proportionally?

My question is: What would he do if he got an extra $300M? Increase the scope even more? At what point do you stop increasing scope and concentrate on shipping a product?

<comment><USER15> How big a 'cut' does Roberts himself take as well? Given this endeavor is built entirely on the charity of the backers, I would really hope he isn't taking a percentage, but sadly wouldn't be surprised either if he is.

<comment><USER34> Why wouldn't he? All you are doing is buying something unreleased for a discount because of the built in risk. He gets to do whatever he wants with the money left over as long as he meets the stated goals.

<comment><USER15> I think many people would argue that ethically/morally it's somewhat questionable - he's taken donations, not investment, and as such lacks any of the oversight/due diligence external investment usually attracts. Similarly, I doubt even a majority of backers actually understand the business/charity model they are putting money into - that we are now at 9 figures certainly suggests these are not "sophisticated investors".

Was keeping a large amount of the cash for himself a stated goal? probably not, hence my curiosity. His business occupies a grey area between business endeavor and charity. Me in his shoes, I'd sure as hell feel bad taking a chunk of the donations. I'd have no issue with him pocketing the profits of traditional sales, should he ever reach that point - no one who donated was under the illusion a return would occur, but they should perhaps quite rightly expect that their donation at least pay for development, not lining Robert's pockets.

I think it's also debatable the extent to which backers have "bought" anything, let alone received a discount.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER35> It seems like a safer use of extra funding is for free expansions. It may seem unfair to take $140 million and build a $10 million game, but people funded you with your $10 million game, deadlines included, in mind.

<comment><USER36>
      It may seem unfair to take $140 million and build a $10 million game

If a film spent $10M, and turned $140M at the box office, it would be seen as a success, rather than a con. Should a game be any different?

<comment><USER37> It shouldn't be any different, however, this situation is:

        If a film spent $140M and turned $10M at the box office, it would be seen as an utter failure. Should a game be any different?

<comment><USER38> I don't think that's totally accurate. That $140M could be considered preorders, basically.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER39> How have people not yet realized that supporting a video game hype train will end in disappointment

<comment><USER40> It reminds me of the people who put significantly larger amounts of money into the "Aido" home robot - a heap of unrealistic promises in an unrealistic timeframe for an unrealistic price - it's way behind schedule but has yet to pull the rug out.

(More on Aido here: [https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/aido-next-gen-home- robot-...](https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/aido-next-gen-home-robot-- 2#/comments))

<comment><USER41> Someone should start a kickstarter to investigate scams on kickstarter..

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Just for point of reference, here's today's episode of the weekly "Around the Verse" video update series, showing what the UK studio has been working on: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ADB- wpvTD0k](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ADB-wpvTD0k) . Just watching the initial UK update segment, looks like we've got examples of lighting effects, ship design and implementation, object interaction, and a lot more.

I have no problems with people questioning CIG's ability to hit deadlines, or wondering what exactly the status of Squadron 42 is. Those are totally fair critiques. But, as long as they keep showing progress updates like this, I'm perfectly content to sit back and let them make the game we want them to make :)

</comment><comment><USER42> I ended up with a free copy of Star Citizen when I bought a graphic card. At the point when I got it there wasnt much to do. I somehow still get weekly email updates from them but I've been expecting them to stop over the last 9 months or so because it seems the full game will never be finished.

<comment><USER43> GTA 5 took 5 years to developed, they've proposed a much more ambitious game.

I'm not saying they're going to accomplish they're goal, but their dev time isn't even approaching unimaginable yet.

<comment><USER7> They also didn't have a team sitting and waiting. They have had to build a 300 head team so they weren't at full productivity until year two or three.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER44> It seems to me that Star Citizen is more about the journey than the actual game. I'm sure it'll be released at some point, but the fact that people are able to justify their purchase says a lot about the game and the community.

</comment><comment><USER45> I hadn't heard about this game until right after No Man's Sky, which ruined my eagerness to back/pre-order things. Except for Everspace I have no backed or pre-ordered anything else, forcing myself to wait.

As a developer working on a Steam game, I've decided not to let myself down this path. Kickstarter is tempting, but I'd rather release something when it's ready and build from there - if someone pays me, I want it to be for a product they can have now.

</comment><comment><USER46> Star Citizen will probably release when Overgrowth and Day Z come out of Early Access alpha.

<comment><USER16> Duke Nukem Forever did eventually come out.

<comment><USER41> Too early in my opinion.. they should've waited for kickstarter.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER47> My guess: Star Citizen will eventually raise 500M USD. No full game resembling the original promises will ever be delivered.

The "investors" will keep saying that with just a little more time, things will be perfect

</comment><comment><USER48> I wish Star Citizen to success. At least, the idea of a massive multi-player in the space, with economics, politics, roles, etc. it is very interesting, in my opinion.

<comment><USER41> Umm.. have you not seen Eve Online?

<comment><USER48> Wow, no, thank you! :-)

<comment><USER49> Eve is a game I have never played, but enjoy reading about. It may be the largest, longest running economic simulation out there. Two good stories: [https://www.polygon.com/features/2014/2/24/5419788/eve- onlin...](https://www.polygon.com/features/2014/2/24/5419788/eve-online- thrilling-boring) and [https://www.polygon.com/2016/3/31/11334014/eve-online- war](https://www.polygon.com/2016/3/31/11334014/eve-online-war)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER50> They have been upfront about plans and missed targets for the entire duration - communication is why people are still happy

</comment><comment><USER51> I haven't bought into SC yet, but I do support them and have confidence they will deliver something worthwhile _eventually_.

Right now my main reason for support is that they are planning to go Vulkan only, and Vulkan is what is going to allow gnu+linux to become a real competitor in the pc gaming market.

</comment><comment><USER52> "Space exploration" games have strange tendency for hyper-hype and scams, for example recently released No Man's Sky.

<comment><USER53> I have friends who enjoy No Man's Sky very much.

Don't buy into the "mass rage" that spreads from some small number of people crying out loud.

<comment><USER54> Mostly negative across 73k reviews. I'll grant there is a lot of bandwagon hating, and that art is subjective. But this is the best data we have to use as a proxy for quality.

[http://store.steampowered.com/app/275850/No_Mans_Sky/#app_re...](http://store.steampowered.com/app/275850/No_Mans_Sky/#app_reviews_hash)

<comment><USER55> Steam reviews? Yeah, there's _never_ any good reviews for a backlashed Steam game.

Steam as a platform is great, but as a community it's a bigger dumpster fire than 4chan.

<comment><USER56> You're not wrong that it could reflect an angry minority, but it's far more reliable than "I know a couple of people who liked that," which is the competing metric in this case.

<comment><USER55> Not really. That's actually a _better_ metric in most cases if you a) trust the person saying it and b) trust their ability to review friends choices.

Quite frankly I find Steam reviews to be one of the _worst possible_ metrics and would trust the octopus that picked world cup winners more than Steam reviews.

<comment><USER56> > _That 's actually a better metric in most cases if you a) trust the person > saying it and b) trust their ability to review friends choices._

How so? Whether or not I trust someone has no obvious bearing on whether their opinion closely matches the general consensus.

For example, I know someone who likes the 1990 version of Night of the Living Dead better than the original. I absolutely believe her on this point. But it would be ludicrous for me to say, based on her preferences, that the 1990 version is widely considered the definitive Night of the Living Dead.

<comment><USER53> Feels like the conversation got pretty off topic. If a game is entertaining is a matter of personal preference of course.

It's another thing entirely to call a game a scam.

Looking at the subreddit [https://www.reddit.com/r/NoMansSkyTheGame/](https://www.reddit.com/r/NoMansSkyTheGame/) it looks like there is a healthy community playing a lot and game updates are released regularly.

My initial point was to give a different view and to try to stop the negative feedback loop this game always gets.

<comment><USER56> It's sometimes called a scam because the lead designer was making false claims about the game all the way up to its release, not because it's bad. That's a totally different question.

Anyway, it sounded to me like your initial point was that the game is generally well liked and the people who are disappointed should be dismissed as "a small number of people crying," which is both rude to those people and seems to be the opposite of reality. That's why I was like, "Whoa there."

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER57> If most of that $148M came in via KickStarter, their cut is 5%, so almost $7.5 million, on a single project.

Really good ROI for a low-to-medium complexity website, and a company of 129 employees.

<comment><USER6> CIG raised about $6,000,000 on KickStarter if I recall correctly. Almost all of the crowdfunds came after they moved off KickStarter to their website: robertsspaceindustries.com

<comment><USER9> Off the top of my head, the initial month of crowdfunding raised approximately $6.5M, with roughly $2.5M via Kickstarter and $4M via the RSI website.

<comment><USER6> There you go, I was thinking of that first month.

Thanks!

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER58> My theory is scope creep. These guys have done a good job of convincing people that they can live the ultimate space exploration fantasy that's been talked about since the 80s.

It's the ultimate simulation. We know very little about space and even fiction (ex. star wars) seems to generate even more demand.

As people got excited and started throwing money at them, so did the scope obviously. I love Star Citizen's attention to detail but it's suffice to say that they've hit people's patience.

<comment><USER59> No theory required:

> "I'm already building the best game I can," said Mr. Roberts, who > acknowledged the bumps. "But imagine — the game I can build with $140 > million is going to be very different to the one I could build with $10 > million. If I can build a bigger and more robust experience, I will."

My guess is they keep going until donations taper off and they're about to run out of money, then rush out a massively buggy release that disappoints everybody.

<comment><USER58> So basically, a crowd funded No Man's Sky</comment></comment></comment>


Balancing a Personal Life and Career in Web Development - <AUTHOR> http://blog.trackduck.com/2014/07/18/balancing-personal-life-career-web-development/

<comment><USER2> I've always wondered, who is the target for this kind of post?

I can't remember the last time I didn't stay in the office an extra hour or two because everything is urgent and for yesterday.

It seems only owners or freelancers able to set their own rules can benefit. As an employee, if I want to keep my job, my personal life is screwed.

<comment><AUTHOR> I find it relevant for my own work too, but I have my own business, so you make a very valid point.</comment></comment>


Flagstaff Arizona switched to LEDs without giving astronomers a headache - <AUTHOR> https://arstechnica.com/science/2019/10/how-flagstaff-arizona-switched-to-leds-without-giving-astronomers-a-headache/ <comment><USER2> I wish it was possible to purchase redder led headlights. The lowest I can find are around 5500-6000k, aka blinding white. And often people drive around with bright blue, which is even more off putting at night.</comment>


When Your Work Is Classified, 'Work from Home' Doesn't Work - <AUTHOR> https://www.defenseone.com/business/2020/03/when-your-work-classified-work-home-doesnt-work/163782/ <comment><USER2> I understand that there is critical work to be done by contractors at the pentagon, but I also don't lose sleep over lost productivity of those in the business of death.

There's also some irony here now that I think about it. ARPA net was designed in part to solve this problem.

</comment><comment><USER3> So they spent the resources to identify what needed to happen in case they couldn't come in to work, but didn't follow through. That is some amazing management.

This will also cause data leakage as people go into work, cause traffic, and get sick. And how closely those people work together.

<comment><USER4> I recall that was exactly the purpose of some bioweapon scenarios.</comment></comment>


How to wish your loved ones with most lovely birthday wishes they desire.? - <AUTHOR> Feeling and showing love can bring about a gigantic move in our lives. Remember that love comes in numerous forms. We can love our pets, our relatives, our companions, and our beloved ones. Many individuals accept that love can tackle numerous issues. Generally, it's an all universal language.
(wishesvines.com) brings you some free true love quotes that you can share with loved ones without hesitation.
"Now and again I used to think about how it has happened in my life, how I met you in my life. The defining moment in my life is meeting you."
"The sun can rise, the sun can set, yet my day will never begin until I get a message from you, trailed by an hug, and later with loads of kisses. I love you."
"No words can express the amount I love you so. You are everything to me and my reality will be incomplete without you. I cherish you!"
Meeting you was destiny, turning into your companion was a decision, yet beginning to look all starry eyed at you was outside my ability to control. I love You.
Wishing your love a very happy birthday with the right words is a tough task to do. Hope this few images and quotes can help you share your feeling with your loved ones.
For more visit the site: www.wishesvines.com <comment><AUTHOR> For more visit the site: www.wishesvines.com</comment>