The Etiquette of the Victorian Handshake: Advice on Opposite Sex Greetings - <AUTHOR> https://www.mimimatthews.com/2017/09/05/the-etiquette-of-the-victorian-handshake-advice-on-opposite-sex-greetings/ <comment><USER2> The author of this article writes Victorian romance fiction. It is not to be taken as advice for the modern reader. Unless you are a Steampunk cosplayer, or some sort of Neo-Victorian as appearing in _The Diamond Age_

</comment><comment><USER3> Hugs are more hygenic than handshakes. Hug greeting for the 21C!

<comment><USER4> Simpler one with _zero_ contact!

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

<comment><USER5> A visible nod, like a little bowing, would be enough.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> "Sweaty Palms, the startup that disrupts the personal greeting space by replacing the handshake with a block-chain based trust system that guarantees mutual agreeability in an safe and consistent manner."

(ICO starting now, invest unless you want to risk being isolated for the rest of your life. In fact, also invest to safely opt out.)

<comment><USER7> Name is too long for a modern startup, it needs to be something memorable like Palmr, Handi, or Shakr.

If it doesn't look like your keyboard is missing some keys you are doing it wrong.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> > In general, handshakes between men and women could only be initiated by the > lady.

Still the custom in the certain Muslim counties, you'll never get it wrong if you wait for the woman to offer.

</comment><comment><USER9> Isn't one of the reasons for handshakes thought to be to show that one isn't carrying a weapon? Since women aren't expected under most circumstances to go about armed, they have less reason to shake.

<comment><USER10> I think, as modern humans, we try to retrofit these reasons on to old customs but I have a sense that a handshake is simply the most convenient expression to signify to a person that you have an inherent respect for them or recognise their value.

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> The handshake is definitely one of the strangest social customs that exist. Like a stupid word which reveals its strangeness once you start thinking about it conciously, the handshake seems ridiculous in the moment one questions it.

<comment><USER12> How is it strange? (I don't find it odd at all)

<comment><USER13> I'm used to handshakes for non blood related males (friends, business contacts) and kisses in the cheeks for relatives and females.

In Anglo-Saxon and Germanic countries women default to the handshake even outside of business settings. I find it odd and still have difficulties adjusting to that.

<comment><USER11> Hehe as someone from Germany living in Sweden, I find this constant cheek kissing with quasi strangers in Southern or Western Europe or the Spanish speaking world pretty akward. But I understand that it's feels normal to most who grew up with it.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> Don't people think this is sexist? If men and women are equal shouldn't they be treated the same in all situations?

<comment><USER15> Why does equality require a loss of chivalry? Equality does not mean we pretend people are completely uniform.

<comment><USER16> No, but doesn't equality mean that we treat everyone in the same way, regardless of gender, for one thing?

<comment><USER17> People aren't equal though. Coming from Russia, the West is really confused about what it wants.

It seems to want chivalry plus equality minus morality. This desire is represented by factions who seem to work together on some level. The end result is a mess.

<comment><USER18> A mess the end result of which is that people here touch far more rarely than they did in Victorian times. Yet we know that rarely being touched in childhood is a strong risk factor for promiscuity later on.

As for equality, women are far more at risk from sexual predation and assault; I don't think it's rude to let social customs reflect this by having them initiate touch, largely.

<comment><USER19> Risk factor for promiscuity. Is promiscuity a bad thing?

As long as you take proper precautions, it seems like sex is a good thing.

I like it, anyway

<comment><USER18> At a young age, yeah, it correlates with quite bad outcomes.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


U.S. And China Seek Arms Deal for Cyberspace - <AUTHOR> http://www.nytimes.com/2015/09/20/world/asia/us-and-china-seek-arms-deal-for-cyberspace.html?hp&action=click&pgtype=Homepage&module=second-column-region&region=top-news&WT.nav=top-news&_r=0 <comment><USER2> Obama is a "compromise guy", so I wonder what he gave for the Chinese to accept this. Maybe he said he won't fight China on requiring US tech companies to implement backdoors? (which is actually something he may want, because first China requires them to do it, the companies build the tools for that, and then the US gov comes along and tells them to just "enable" those tools for US too).</comment>


The man who sold his 10% share of Apple for $800 - <AUTHOR> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ronald_Wayne

<comment><USER2> > He claimed that he didn't regret selling the stock as he had made "the best > decision available at that time."

Fantastic attitude.

I think the article actually does him a disservice by stating that it is just a 'claim', that suggests that he feels otherwise.

To suggest that he should feel different does not feel nice to me. I think it is wonderful if someone can stand by their choices simply because they figured that was the best they could have done with the information at the time.

Hindsight is 20/20, easy to say now 'you should have stayed on', when in fact it could have gone the other way as well and he'd have been on the hook.

<comment><AUTHOR> I agree completely.

BTW, there's more about this story here: <http://extras.denverpost.com/books/chap0411h.htm></comment></comment>


Use of Bitcoin causes around 22 megatons in CO2 emissions annually - <AUTHOR> https://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2019-06/tuom-bcc061319.php <comment><USER2> This needs to be pushed into the public eye more. There's a lot of green- washing going on in crypto-currency publicity, as of late, and it needs to be emphasized how the MODEL is fundamentally broken. (Example: Proof of work complexity quadrupling in 2018 alone.)

It's socially irresponsible, at this juncture in time, to be promoting such schemes. At this point in history it's abundantly clear that "alternative islands" cannot avoid confronting the "mainstream morass" as the "mainstream morass" is currently on a direct collision course with life itself.

<comment><USER3> How much pollution does gold mining produce? How much pollution does printing money produce? How much electricity (pollution) does visa use? How much pollution does any service we take for granted produce?

I'm not saying bitcoins CO2 product is good or bad, just that there are so many things that create so much CO2 that we never question or consider.

<comment><USER4> I think you're being disingenuous. Bitcoin is fundamentally different from all of those other things in that it is deliberately designed to be as inefficient as possible. Proof of Work is a Red Queen's Race[0] where the difficulty keeps escalating and you have to keep pumping in more energy or else risk somebody else executing a 51% attack against you.

Not only do miners and printers work to make their processes more efficient and cheaper, but once the gold coins are minted or paper money is printed, they can be used for N transactions at extremely low cost per-transaction. Contrast this with bitcoin where EVERY SINGLE TRANSACTION has to be bundled in a block, so every single transaction involves more energy than an average household uses in a week[1].

Imagine burning a whole tank of gasoline to pay for a cup of coffee and you'll start to see why Bitcoin is an ecological atrocity.

\--

[0] [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Red_Queen%27s_race](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Red_Queen%27s_race)

[1] [https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/ywbbpm/bitcoin-mining- ele...](https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/ywbbpm/bitcoin-mining-electricity- consumption-ethereum-energy-climate-change)

[2] [https://www.coindesk.com/carbon-footprint- bitcoin](https://www.coindesk.com/carbon-footprint-bitcoin)

<comment><USER5> You forget that it would use the same energy to produce a 1MB block than a 1GB block

<comment><USER6> So few people understand this. Doubling blocksize doubles the capacity, and therefore the efficiency of the network.

<comment><USER7> At the current efficiency level, the capacity would have to grow thousand-fold before it even approaches the efficiency needed. Not even lightning would provide the amount of capacity required IMO.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Given the razor thin margins of BTC the miners are heavily incented to use the cheapest energy possible. And as miners exploit cheaper energy they deploy more ASICs, raising difficulty and decreasing margins for the remainder. As such miners switch to economical power sources faster than perhaps any other industry and many operations have relocated accordingly

As of 2019, the absolute cheapest subsidy free energy in the world is Chilean solar power. In the next 5 years solar will indisputably become the cheapest if you consider the proliferation in China, Saudi Arabia's plans ect.

What is unique about mining vs almost everything else is that location is irrelevant. It doesn't need to be connected to any supply chain or residential areas. Accordingly we are seeing heavy investment to exploit areas that are very well suited to wind and solar but are hard to connect to the grid, meaning there is currently no demand even though there is potential supply. One such project is in Morocco

If BTC has merit as a network it will have staying power well past 10 years, at which point the carbon output should be null.

<comment><USER9> With the additional caveat that even if the production of renewables is not emitting CO2, the production of the equipment, installation and maintenance is.

<comment><USER8> True but that's probably 2 orders less. Ideally it would be done with electric vehicles at carbon neutral factories

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> Negative press in anticipation of FaceBook-Coin?

</comment><comment><USER5> That's not so bad considering that it would use the same power even with 100 time the current user base

Also the methodology used to get the miners IP is very questionable

<comment><USER8> IPs are crucial to understanding the actual carbon output. Often times analyses are simplified to the point that they discount that miners are using uncommonly cheap power sources like Icelandic geothermal

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> This argument is so misguided and I'm surprised whenever it comes up how many people bite.

How many megatons of CO2 are released globally every year due to people setting their air con to 72 when they could just deal with it being at 76. Or heat their homes in winter to 75 when they could just put an extra layer on and heat it to 70.

The point is energy is there to be used and people will choose to use it however it suits them for whatever they like within the confines of what they think is a reasonable use of their money. Bitcoin is no different. But these articles and the comments are all about attacking Bitcoin with an attitude that we should _prohibit_ this particular use of energy. The correct thing to do is to properly price in the externalities to energy so that _all_ uses are effected and if a use is then truly bad it will be priced out, or at worst it'll at least pay for its environmental cost (such as setting your thermostat too high).

<comment><USER11> One thing you are missing- bitcoin doesn't solve any problem. We have currency, and the currency in its form today doesn't need to waste electricity as part of its inner-workings (I'm aware it takes energy to produce). AC and its power consumption is a necessary evil in some places to make livable conditions. Bitcoin doesn't have that fallback; I can pay for my coffee without creating CO2, just by using cash. No one here is saying we should forbid/outlaw/block bitcoin because of its CO2 emissions. People are just seeing it as another reason to not blindly buy into the hype.

<comment><USER4> > No one here is saying we should forbid/outlaw/block bitcoin because of its > CO2 emissions.

I am. I'll make that case. Proof-of-work cryptocurrency should be banned for the same reason truck drivers idling diesel engines in cities should be banned: It harms the environment and produces nothing useful for society.

If these crypocurrency developers are such geniuses, and cryptocurrency is really solving a critical problem, then banning PoW will spur innovation in alternative mechanisms like proof-of-stake or proof-of-luck [0] to meet those use cases with far less ecological devastation.

[0] [https://eprint.iacr.org/2017/249.pdf](https://eprint.iacr.org/2017/249.pdf)

<comment><USER12> You're being a bit unfair. Diesel trucks solve a problem. They have much lower CO2 emissions than gas trucks of the same size would.

I also think that proof of work crypto currency needs to be eliminated, at least until the economy is carbon negative and everyone has food, shelter, etc.

Banning diesel? That probably should never happen, because niche use cases will need it until it isn't a global problem anymore. For the same reason, it doesn't make sense to ban coal fired steam engines. (99% of current use cases should go electric, to be clear).

<comment><USER4> No, no, you misunderstand me: I mean just idling not moving. Sitting and running your diesel engine when not going anywhere is the analogy to bitcoin.

A number of cities have prohibited or are considering prohibiting sitting in your truck or bus with the engine running when you aren't planning to drive anywhere.

[https://www.epd.gov.hk/epd/english/environmentinhk/air/prob_...](https://www.epd.gov.hk/epd/english/environmentinhk/air/prob_solutions/idling_prohibition.html)

[https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2019/mar/11/ban- cars...](https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2019/mar/11/ban-cars-from- idling-near-schools-say-uk-public-health-chiefs)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> Country closest to Bitcoin in terms of electricity consumption: Czech Republic[0]

\--

-[0] [https://digiconomist.net/bitcoin-energy-consumption](https://digiconomist.net/bitcoin-energy-consumption)

</comment><comment><USER14> This is why blockchain is a bad technology. It inherently has excessive overhead and the benefits (decentralization) don't pan out in practice.

</comment><comment><USER15> I propose that this is primarily a failure to invent ways to use surplus electricity in places with poor infrastructure.

</comment><comment><USER16> Anyone mentioned training one (1) AI model creates as much CO2 as 5 cars over their life time...??? Nope? Just saying....

<comment><USER12> Where did you get this number?

A _really_ , _really_ big (like the biggest FAANG had last year) ML cluster would use at most four or five DGX-N's to train a model, because that is the current scaling limit for CNNs.

Each draw 3500W:

[https://docs.nvidia.com/dgx/dgx1-user-guide/introduction- to-...](https://docs.nvidia.com/dgx/dgx1-user-guide/introduction-to- dgx1.html#topic_hwspec-power)

3500 * 5 is 17,500W. A US space heater maxes out at 1600 watts.

Training for a week (5 days) is 2100 kWh, which is less than 60 gallons of gasoline, or 2-6 tanks of gas, depending on your vehicle:

[https://www.convertunits.com/from/kWh/to/gallon+%5BU.S.%5D+o...](https://www.convertunits.com/from/kWh/to/gallon+%5BU.S.%5D+of+automotive+gasoline)</comment></comment>


Internet of Things and the Modern Web - <AUTHOR> https://developers.home-assistant.io/blog/2019/05/22/internet-of-things-and-the-modern-web.html <comment><USER2> Could you share front-end performance analytics?</comment>


Spammers profit despite getting one sale for every 12.5 million e-mails they send. - <AUTHOR> http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/7719281.stm <comment><USER2> This is actually fascinating.

I'm not totally surprised by these numbers (350 million messages, only 28 sales), but I am glad to see that there are people out there actually attempting to figure out what the true numbers are (as opposed to the tens of millions of dollars myth). Based on what the story says, spammers are potentially earning about $2 million a year. I suppose larger spammers could be earning 3 - 4x that (so, $6 - 8 million), and this obviously isn't chump change.

This study points out what we already know, though: there is a problem with email. The barrier to entry is too low which is both a blessing and a curse. It allows people communicate with ease, but it also allows people to send millions or billions of emails at little or no cost to them. Now, I know that these are hijacked computers, but the point remains that since it is so easy and cost-efficient to send email, it becomes profitable at virtually _any scale_ because of the non-existent cost.

I'm not saying that we should charge for every email, since that may not be a viable solution (though it could work), but there does need to be something done besides continuously improving our spam filters.

Also, isn't the methodology used by the researchers technically illegal?

"The team used these machines to control a total of 75,869 hijacked machines and routed their own fake spam campaigns through them."

<comment><USER3> "The fake pharmacy site was made to resemble those run by Storm's real owners but always returned an error message when potential buyers clicked a button to submit their credit card details."

<comment><USER4> Yes, but that don't necessarily make their action technically legal.

I find their methodology interesting, but anyway, wasn't similar numbers reported/predicted before?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> I actually thought the sale rate would be higher. I know so many people that will click (and buy) anything.

Glad I was wrong.

<comment><USER6> The ratio of emails sent vs. sales generated depends largely on the quality of the mailing list.

Professional mailers buy or lease mailing lists which are more less targeted and hence have higher return rates. On the flip side you have mailers that scrape the web for emails so they have a lower acquisition cost but also a lower hit rate.

<comment><USER5> Agreed. Even knowing that I thought it'd be higher.

I used to work for a company like JT Marlin; they'd buy company phone books by the 100.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> The original report: <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=358884></comment>


Formy - CSS Form Framework - <AUTHOR> http://code.google.com/p/formy-css-framework/

<comment><USER2> The vertical alignment between the labels and fields is off (at least in Safari 3 and Firefox 2).

I haven't found a workable alternative to using tables for this.

</comment><comment><USER3> Should I really trust a framework that forces me to use <br /> tags to seperates form fields from each other? Maybe this is a good starting point for people looking for getting more experiences with CSS and its culprits but probably no solution for productive environments. (And: tables are nice if you dont care for Googlebot, screen readers and many colleages working on the same code).

</comment><comment><USER4> Am I the only one that finds the idea of a CSS framework funny? After I heard about Blueprint I now see new CSS frameworks popping up left and right. My language fails me at the moment but I have put off posting on this for a few "CSS Framework" articles on HN until now. I just don't like them, there will never be a framework friendly enough to compete with all the different print and web designers that decide to throw a website together. If that framework did exist it would be enormous and then not usable for the reason of bloat. They walk a fine line between niche code snippets and an elephant code base of CSS styles.

</comment><comment><USER5> I love it, I just started building the same thing for personal use myself.

... after review though - this isn't really very good yet.

</comment><comment><USER6> It's interesting that it's focused just on forms. I can see how this would be a useful because it's meant to work with rather than to replace the more comprehensive CSS frameworks (Blueprint, YUI's grids.css) and to tackle layouts for one of the thornier parts of css-only html, although I can't be sure without giving it a whirl.

</comment><comment><USER7> Anyone have an online sample?</comment>


Teenager arrested over tweeting at Olympic diver - <AUTHOR> http://www.cbssports.com/olympics/blog/eye-on-olympics/19694918/teenager-arrested-over-tweeting-at-olympic-diver <comment><USER2> This report really doesn't seem to have got a handle - it was the same person who sent those later tweets.

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4317259></comment>


A New Journey into Hofstadter's Mind - <AUTHOR> https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/a-new-journey-into-hofsta/ <comment><USER2> (2007)</comment>


Systems engineer deemed best job in America - <AUTHOR> http://news.cnet.com/8301-17852_3-10468165-71.html <comment><USER2> But what is a systems engineer? When I was an undergrad in Mech Eng, a systems engineer was the person who integrated a project's mechanical, electrical, software etc parts to make a complete working system. You'd find this person plumbing an aircraft's engine into its avionics for example, or hitting an aircraft with simulated lightning to see what happened. Nowadays it's a fancy way of saying "windows sysadmin". Which do you suppose he's talking about?

</comment><comment><USER3> Hey, what's not to like? Enforcing a consistent font and no more than 3 bullet-points per slide on your lackeys I mean co-workers, all the money, the babes, the status, the happenin' clothes, why, all the cool kids want to be systems engineers.</comment>


Ask HN: HN Favourites Insights - <AUTHOR> Is there a way to access aggregate statistics about the favourite posts and comments of HN users? It would be really great if I could see the top 10 (or top 100) posts and comments across HN.
If there's not maybe somebody could use the HN API to aggregate that somehow? It should be possible.
That would be some great stuff to read and enjoy in the lockdown :) <comment><USER2> Top rated recent stories: [https://news.ycombinator.com/best](https://news.ycombinator.com/best)

Top rated recent comments: [https://news.ycombinator.com/bestcomments](https://news.ycombinator.com/bestcomments)

More lists: [https://news.ycombinator.com/lists](https://news.ycombinator.com/lists)

<comment><AUTHOR> Thank you for these links! However these are for top voted and recent (not all-time). I think favourites will give a different insight. I mean you give a +1 vote to something and move on. However your favourites are something that you keep, come back to it and manage!</comment></comment>


Ask HN: Why did DHH's last article get pulled from the front page yesterday? - <AUTHOR> ??? <comment><USER2> Seems that way, but it could also have been automatically penalized for other reasons. You'll never really know because there's little transparency into how posts are ranked and penalized. Also, I've heard (and assume) mods have the power to penalize posts so mods may influence rankings without anybody knowing.

</comment><comment><USER3> cause he was dropping truth bombs.</comment>


We played Doom for a month and discussed it - <AUTHOR> https://www.dosgameclub.com/episode-1-doom/ <comment><AUTHOR> DOS Game Club is a discussion group for DOS games, much like a book club. We play the same DOS game for a month, discuss it on our forums and record a roundtable podcast afterwards.

For the first episode, we played Doom and then talked about it for 80 minutes with 3 of our members.</comment>


Firefox will soon flag sites that have been hacked - <AUTHOR> https://www.engadget.com/2017/11/23/firefox-notification-breached-sites/ <comment><USER2> I wonder if this will further reduce the incentive for companies to disclose that they've been hacked. If, upon disclosure, they know they'll get a red flag, then why should they? Without more information (e.g. the extent of the hack, how long ago it was, how it was handled, what the company has done to make things better) either integrated into the metric, or provided as separate metrics, this might be counter-productive. But who decides on those metrics and sets the hurdle to display a flag or not? I would suggest a government or UN agency, perhaps akin to a CERT org; in fact first.org (as a confederation of CERTs) might be a starting point.

Also, this sort of thing might produce false negatives where different sites/URLs use the same (compromised) backend data.

<comment><USER3> In my country, it's illegal to not disclose a hack that you know of. So, bigger fines would be one way to incentivize them.

<comment><USER4> same here, but then again, if you don't disclose it and cover it up properly, who's to say you've been hacked? it's a bit of a chicken and egg problem. unless some external party can prove you are hacked, which is not always the case, it's hard to apply this law to anyone.

To properly apply it, countries would have to scrape and invesitgate all sites in their locality, which is a problem, as automated processes for this can lead to false positives, and that could be very damaging for a company, as the fines are very high and would be devastating for a company who is wrongly accused by some automated process. (which is why they are careful with implementing such a measure i think, or i hope)

<comment><USER5> Easy, if there is incentive for companies to cover it up then hackers can blackmail them for a decent amount of money in form of Bitcoin.

I personally would not shy away from doing that if I had some unresolved grudge against the company in question.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> While in good intentions, this project has the potential to concentrate large amounts of power. Who decides what website is "valid" or not? Just as internet companies such as Google and Facebook, unwittingly or not, have become the gatekeepers of news, this would create a similar power structure for websites. Competitors? Spend money hacking one of their lower-priority services to get an entry on haveibeenpwned.com and then a flag on the Firefox browser.

While these power structures are concerning, we should be careful before calling it off prematurely as clearly consumers could stand to benefit a lot from such a service. If the service was coupled with ruthless transparency and digestible explanations, it could be far fairer. A list of "exploited vulnerabilities within the past 2 years", summaries, and references may be more forthcoming than an oversimplified flag indicating "bad or not".

<comment><USER7> Did you read the article? Firefox is not going to tell you if a site is good or bad. It is going to tell you:

"Firefox is working on the feature in collaboration with "Have I Been Pwned," the popular site that can check your email and tell you if your credentials have been stolen by hackers."

There is nothing subjective about this. If your email is in the HIBP list you are possibly screwed. This is very real, based on real data.

<comment><USER6> Yes, I did. Particularly this part:

> If you visit a site on Have I Been Pwned's naughty list, it will throw a > flag stating, "You visited hacked site ashleymadison.com."

This does more than just tell users if their credentials have been compromised. That copy is likely to affect traffic in a manner similar to invalid HTTPS certs.

Wouldn't you agree that some degree of subjectivity lies within the specific partnership with Have I Been Pwned and its submissions? Popular does not mean just.

A lot of this is contingent on how the user interface and data are presented in the program. That "there is nothing subjective about this" may be true for only a facet of the whole issue. No doubt, there are potential benefits for everyone here, but some of the worst outcomes have resulted from the best intentions.

<comment><USER8> Can you clarify how HIBP could be perceived as either unjust or subjective?

<comment><USER9> To the extent data breaches are only committed by external bad guys it's fine. If hacking a competitor causes a user visible flag, there is now incentive.

<comment><USER10> How is a breach from a competitor, who is doing it for financial motives, different from an "external bad guy" who is doing it for financial motives?

<comment><USER9> It's a little different because the competitor does not want the digital assets being hacked, but rather just wants the hack to be on record.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> If users fully understand what it means, ok. But I suspect this will create a "one strike and your out" dynamic for web developers. Nobody writes perfect bug-free software (though some of us try harder than others). A "has ever peen pwned" boolean is not much more useful than "has ever had a bug".

<comment><USER12> In most other engineering disciplines, "one strike and you're out" is _the norm_ , because of the amount of damage that a single uncaught error can make. As software takes on more and more important duties in the world, it starts approaching this point as well.

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> I'm not sure why everyone is poo-poo-ing this. I think this is going to be a good first attempt at this kind of feature. With a few changes and refinement it could help users steer clear of bad service providers.

<comment><USER10> I think that everyone is poo-poo-ing this because it means there would be lasting consequences for prioritizing permissionless innovation over solid engineering practices coupled with defense in depth. Given the audience for this site, it's not surprising that there would be consternation over this kind of feature.

<comment><USER5> >because it means there would be lasting consequences for prioritizing permissionless innovation over solid engineering practices coupled with defense in depth.

Awful, just awful! How could anyone make money with software if I had to engineer it properly? Why do such cruel people exist who force me to do this?

Truly only a villain would.

To be more serious, I hope that developments like this will finally hammer the point home for the "quick'n'dirty" developer crowd, especially node.js ecosystems seems to be prone to this.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> No thanks. This is not the way to correct for the problems we now face.

Now Firefox will ping a third party with the user's identity, to validate the user's currently level of safety, based on what other people know about the user ID. Dialing out to this third party will show externally observable traffic indicating authentication whenever threat validation traffic occurs.

Maybe I don't share the same idea about what represents safety.

An investigator found a photocopy of my driver's license in a file cabinet at a super villain's hide out.

So now I legally change my name, and apply for a new license under that name, yes? Well, great, this is the new normal.

<comment><USER15> In the current implementation the credential check only happens if you provide the credential to the plug in.

(at least, that's what I get from skimming [https://github.com/nhnt11/BreachAlerts/blob/master/client- ad...](https://github.com/nhnt11/BreachAlerts/blob/master/client- addon/src/bootstrap.js) )

It's not doing much more than advertising the existence of the breach lists to users.

<comment><USER7> Please read the README before you call this the "current implementation":

[https://github.com/nhnt11/BreachAlerts/blob/master/README.md](https://github.com/nhnt11/BreachAlerts/blob/master/README.md)

Specifically:

"This is only meant as a vehicle for quick testing as we iterate on the design, and to help visualize different ideas. In its current state it is in no way meant to represent actual production code, or how the feature will work or look like when it ships. Pull requests are welcome but please keep in mind the highly experimental/volatile nature of this repository."

And:

"The third goal brings up some privacy concerns, since users would need to supply an email address to receive notifications. Who is the custodian of this data? Can we avoid sending user data to haveibeenpwned.com? Can we still offer useful functionality to users who opt out of subscribing their email address? While the project is still in infancy, the idea is to offer as much utility as possible while respecting the user's privacy."

It is easy to jump ahead and come to some conclusions but this is an experiment currently. If you think Mozilla is going to send your email to a third party without your consent then you are wrong.

<comment><USER15> They have a prototype, I'm not sure why calling that the current implementation is problematic (I think it implies that change is quite possible...).

If you read my comment, you'll see that I talk about the user needing to provide credentials for them to be disclosed to a third party, so I think you misunderstood my meaning somewhere there.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> >Hacked sites, on the other hand, might not be too thrilled about a feature that will shame them about their previous lax security.

A simple flag doesn't reflect the quality of the security. You might not have a flag with terrible security simply because no one cared until now when a website might have invested tremendous efforts in security and meet doom because hackers were numerous, obstinate and smarter. Security is a difficult matter and doesn't make you "lax" because of a breach. I hope the plugin will be descriptive because I don't see that in the readme.

I would be more or equally interested by a plugin shaming websites who store passwords in plain text, restrict characters to 20, prevent you from using nothing else than letters and digits, etc. You could use pwned db to gather intel on the actual level of security of a website and flag them if they use outdated hash algorithms or other bad password storage practice. That would be more objective and force websites to fix their crap.

</comment><comment><USER17> A badge that just shows "this site has been hacked" wouldn't be very helpful to me.

I'd like the badge to reflect how recent the hack was (and maybe if it was uncovered or publically disclosed). I'd also want to see a log of all "hacks" against the domain and links to the details of each hack.

</comment><comment><USER18> Sounds good as long as it doesn't send my browsing behavior back to headquarters.

So probably it should work by me downloading a list of blacklisted sites, instead of me asking if I can visit a particular site.

<comment><USER10> Given that Firefox already has mechanisms related to exactly this for malicious sites, bad plugins, etc, etc, etc, that is most likely the case.

</comment></comment><comment><USER19> Totally in favor of this, but I hope Firefox will turn this into a test pilot experiment first: [https://testpilot.firefox.com/experiments](https://testpilot.firefox.com/experiments)

In order to gain information/feedback about the best UI for this before _baking_ it into the browser.

</comment><comment><USER20> Ever? Because I care much more about recent breaches vs. a breach from 15 years ago.

<comment><USER21> Looks like this will just notify about large-scale breaches, though, unless Mozilla is using additional data sources (besides just HIBP).

<comment><USER22> And as far as I know they will only notify you as you use the specific credentials that have been breached, in which case you should always care about it regardless of how long ago the breach was.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> Wouldn't it make more sense to tell you if a site you had visited was breached and when? What if you never go back to a site you used your common credentials on? It seems wrong to just say this site has been hacked when you go there (what major site hasn't been at some point?). With Have I Been Pwnded data, FF should be telling you if any username/password combos it has remembered have shown up on any lists, which sites you've used them on, tell you to change them and remind you not to use the same combos across sites.

</comment><comment><USER24> That we know about. The vast majority of hacks will never be exposed. This flag will make people feel they are more secure on the web when it doesn't trigger than is probably warranted. Note that between the moment a hack is published (if it ever is) and the moment it is actually done a substantial amount of time can pass.

</comment><comment><USER25> I like this in concept. I do fear, however, that larger or deep-pocketed companies that end up on "the list" will be able to litigate and lawsuit their way off while the smaller guys will be banished forever.

</comment><comment><USER26> Firefox is really going overboard with this crap. Labelling sites as good or bad is not okay with me. Even the https warnings are excessive in my opinion but this is another level of arrogance.

</comment><comment><USER4> I wonder who they will get this information, and if it will be perceived by people in the event of false positives, that it's internet cencorship going on.

</comment><comment><USER27> With great power comes great responsibility - yah I know this is cliche but it is true.

While I would love to see services like HIBP used to improve the overall security of the Internet, I also have my doubts that it will be useful and I speculate that in some instances it may be actually harmful. Naming and shaming the companies who have bee breached at some point in time is only good for a while but not forever. Just like the prison system, carrying the extra baggage of being labelled a criminal at some point is not constructive and in fact, it has been proven countless of times that it is anything but detrimental.

If the service delivers a one-time notification when the breach occurred (sort of a broadcast) that will be very useful and it will help users stay secure while keeping the companies incentivised to ensure their shit is tight. But if the service offers warnings even for breaches that occurred 2 years ago, then I speculate this is only going to make companies pay out ransoms in the form of "Bug Bounties" when they get breached. With the introduction of GDPR this is only going to make it a more lucrative way to make legitimate money through criminal activities.

Last but not least, I know there are quite a few people on this "forum" that actually do security for a living so they may object but I've been also doing this all my professional life and what I've learned is that no one is protected. Banks are just as easy to hack as anything else and people tend to think that all it matters is customer data - what about employee data? What about your government records? It is not so black and white at the end and while it is easy to point out the problems, it is much harder to fix. I know this sounds like an excuse but most pentesters, security researchers, etc. do not run extensive infrastructures themselves and when they write code, while sometimes technically challenging, it is hardly more than a few thousands of lines monoliths with fairly straightforward logic. Most of this software is poorly written (yes there are quite a few exceptions and we all know them). That does not make them/us great codders - just great at discovering and exploiting vulnerabilities. The reason I am mentioning this is because with my security hat on I can easily point the problem, laugh at it and wonder why it was not fixed but I have also seen the other side too. Building a company from scratch is anything but simple and you have been doing this for more than 5 years you are likely to have legacy systems already, which is crazy but this is how fast technology is moving. So yes, things will get hacked. We need to change our entire mindset how to run companies in order to prevent this and as far as I know, no one has figured it out yet.</comment>


Ask HN: Par Value, what do think? - <AUTHOR>

I have noticed from several of the posts in here, that the Par Value per share is recommended from .001 to .000001 per share. That seems like a pretty big margin.
Is this somehow related to the stage of the company, for instance initial filing of the corporation vs. issuing a round preferred stock?
What are your thoughts on this? <comment><USER2> The reason for the variation is that the actual number doesn't matter, just that it's nominal.

</comment><comment><USER3> I thought it was because the more par value you put on your stocks, the more its going to cost you during incorporation.

FYI: My company has 10,000,000 stocks valued at .01 a share, it cost $94 total [Delaware C-corp].</comment>


How Russia Created the Most Popular Texas Secession Page on Facebook - <AUTHOR> https://extranewsfeed.com/how-russia-created-the-most-popular-texas-secession-page-on-facebook-fd4dfd05ee5c <comment><USER2> See also regardimg the Gerasimov Doctrine: [http://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2017/09/05/gerasimov-...](http://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2017/09/05/gerasimov- doctrine-russia-foreign-policy-215538)</comment>


I tried to use WordPress with GitHub Pages - <AUTHOR> https://www.melissadu.com/i-tried-to-use-wordpress-with-github-pages-and-it-was-a-nightmare/ <comment><USER2> "running WordPress locally is a nightmare... I should also caveat that I know almost nothing about Apache, MySQL, FTP, and PHP."

Without wishing to be too snarky, this could be rewritten as "Running this software is a nightmare if you know nothing about the technologies it is built on." And being slightly more snarky, my response would be: well, duh.

<comment><USER3> Totally agree, running Wordpress locally needs a minimum understanding of Apache, MySQL and PHP for sure

<comment><USER4> I'd add you need to know how your OS will handle the installation, IIRC Mac OS comes with pre-installed PHP and/or Apache which uses configuration files you might not know to look for and may conflict using the same ports etc. Its a mess.

<comment><USER5> It's not a mess. It's just different from what you're used to.

Running WordPress on macOS is slightly different from running WordPress on Ubuntu, which is different from running it on CentOS.

I maintain WordPress sites on all three. None of them are inferior to the other for this purpose. They just have different conventions.

In fact, I've had far fewer problems running multiple WordPress installations on macOS than I have on CentOS. But that's because I understand Apache better than the author of this article. Pretty much the only problem comes during a major OS upgrade when the installed backs up some of your configuration files and replaces them with the default. But once you deal with it one or two times, you know what to do.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> So, yes, Wordpress is a nightmare.

But no, static site generator plus headless CMS is not the answer, regardless of how many comments here enthusiastically say so.

I've been down the static site generator rabbit hole for the past 7 years...and realized they aren't really well suited for anything other than tiny developer blogs that don't ever get updated (dev writes his occasional post in VScode)—-or, giant company marketing sites that get hooked up to enterprise-y headless CMS products like contentful.

If you're somewhere in between, I'm starting to think Webflow is the answer. In fact, I've started moving all my side project marketing sites/blogs over to them and couldn't be happier.

The problem with [insert static site generator] + [insert headless CMS] is that getting off the ground is a massive pain in the ass.

If you're trying to set up a static site for your side project, let me give you a preview of what your next couple of weeks will look like:

First you have to pick a SSG. There goes a day of research. Then pick the next hot CSS framework (of course, you shouldn't waste your time on this, but you will). Tailwind! Sick! Then setup a build process. Then troubleshoot the inevitable issues. Fixed. Then setup a git repo. Then hook the repo up to Netlify. Then hook up continuous deployment. Then get the domain. Then configure the domain to talk to Netlify. Then realize your hot new SSG doesn't do any SEO stuff for you. Setup xml sitemaps. Generate proper tags & structured data. Then you have to create the actual site. Realize your CSS framework is overkill. You're already a week in. Optimize for breakpoints. Cool. Almost ready. Now let's write some content. Shit, I'm never going to write if I have to fire up my code editor each time. Look into headless CMS options. There goes a day of research. Pick one. Now Setup models in the CMS. Try to figure out how to hook it into your git repo and trigger deployments to Netlify. Realize the UI of the headless CMS you picked is clunky. Never actually write any content. Forget how you even set everything up. Get frustrated. You haven't even hooked up any analytics or email signup capability yet. Give up.

On Webflow I've managed to cut the previous paragraph down by about 80%.

<comment><USER7> 95% of your list is applicable to any other project you might venture on. This is absolutely nothing specific to static site generators. In fact, if you started a WordPress site from scratch, you'll probably be adding a ton more things to that list.

I run a couple of Jekyll sites, with Directus as my headless CMS, and my experience is pretty much the same as writing posts for a Wordpress site. I wrote the post in a simple editor, save it, and manually trigger a deployment on Netlify. Even the deployment can be automated if I were to set up some simple build hooks.

There are a view downsides and limitations, but nothing I can't live without. And it actually helps me keep everything as simple as possible.

<comment><USER7> Can someone point out why this comment is being down voted?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Use the right tool for the work you're trying to do. WordPress is probably the right tool for the author's problem. GitHub Pages is probably not the best tool to use with WordPress.

A carpenter doesn't try to build a chair without understanding how both a saw and a measuring tape work. People who want to build a chair with a saw and a surveying rig are probably better off going to a chair store.

It seems that the author overestimated his technical abilities, and blames the tools he chose, rather than himself for choosing those tools.

</comment><comment><USER8> I find the first mistake here to be trying to use WordPress. Maybe it's just because I use it so much (or rather, as a developer, I'm often hired to fix other people's mess and broken code) but it is genuinely my most hated piece of software.

<comment><AUTHOR> Haha! I'd love to hear more of your reasons why.

<comment><USER9> Not the OP, but I've fought Wordpress plenty of times as well. Probably the worst time was when I was writing a WP authentication plugin for my org. I was reading the docs when I ran into this gem[0]:

> The semantics seem rather fuzzy. If id is a WP_User or other object, or an > array of properties, it seems to clone it without touching the cache. > Otherwise if id is a number it seems to try to read it possibly from the > cache, or from the database using ->get_data_by(), which can also update the > cache. If id is empty it reads by login name.

I realized that if even the _offical_ documentation didn't know what Wordpress was doing, I definitely had no hope.

[0] [https://codex.wordpress.org/Class_Reference/WP_User](https://codex.wordpress.org/Class_Reference/WP_User)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> I think part of the problem is because you were previously used to GitHub Pages with Jekyll, you were trying to use a new (but old) tool (Wordpress) with GitHub Pages and it's not a great fit for it. I'm sure it's possible somehow, but it wouldn't be straightforward. Just conceptually I'm not sure how it would even work: GH Pages is for hosting static sites (AFAIK) and WordPress uses a DB and dynamically writes posts. So I'm guessing you're trying to do a setup where you locally run WP, write from the WP interface, saves posts in your local Mysql DB, and then generate a static site (html files output) and pushing those files into a GitHub repo?

It's a roundabout way to publish to a web site to say the least. If Jekyll has enough issues where you need to tweak its config in Ruby every time you want to write, you could try a different static site generator (e.g. Hugo for golang, or Miner [1] for Svelte. Disclaimer: I worked on Miner.).

I think the product you're looking for is a static site generator + the use of a client-only WYSIWYG markdown editor that connects to your git repo via OAuth and lets you write on a good UI instead of plain text markdown files. The SSG is one of above; unfortunately I don't have a recommendation or know of a client-only WYSIWYG MD editor with git OAuth integration.

1: [https://github.com/bigicoin/miner](https://github.com/bigicoin/miner)

<comment><AUTHOR> Yeah you're totally right about my mistaken logic. I definitely should've thought through the "how it would work conceptually" part more.

Thanks for recommending Miner! Checking it out right now.

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> > I started to procrastinate writing because there was always some small thing > I wanted to fix with Jekyll first.

This is what happened to me when I thought it would be a good idea to build my own blog software.

These days I'm a believer in using whatever setup minimizes the daylight between wanting to write, and writing.

<comment><AUTHOR> Couldn't agree more. What's your setup right now?

<comment><USER12> I have the same problems as both OP and the blogger: I want absolutely nothing to do with the hosting of the blog itself. I just want it to be a writing platform, a very very simple one, and nothing more.

I ended up using Hugo hosted on AWS Amplify and CodeCommit: [https://gohugo.io/hosting-and-deployment/hosting-on-aws- ampl...](https://gohugo.io/hosting-and-deployment/hosting-on-aws-amplify/)

This allows me to do plenty of things. There are no servers to manage, and I write my posts with vim and use Markdown. I have a simple theme. Deployment and testing happens automatically through Amplify.

If I really, really, absolutely must, I can dig deeper into Hugo and do whatever I want. But if I just want to stick to the basics, I write files in the content folder and edit the settings file the first time. That's it!

And because it's in AWS, I can use cert manager and Route53, things I already know from work, to put my domain on it.

This was a lot easier for me than anything else. I previously used Ghost hosted on a Digital Ocean instance, but I quickly grew tired of having to update Ghost, dealing with node, etc. Plus having to worry about securing the site and the instance. Patching the instance. Backups.

<comment><USER13> How about Hugo's stability when upgrading? I haven't tried it myself, but have read many a comment (including on HN) on how even minor version upgrades end up breaking things.

<comment><USER12> I honestly haven't updated! Or at least, not purposely. The package in Ubuntu's repo is at v0.68.3 which was released at the end of March. So apparently I updated at least once. Latest version is 0.74.3.

A lot of the updates I am missing seem to be simple bug fixes.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> If anyone does want to convert Wordpress pages to static pages then WP2Static seems to be the best option [https://wp2static.com](https://wp2static.com) They even list alternative tools that are better in certain use cases [https://wp2static.com/alternatives/](https://wp2static.com/alternatives/)

You might not be able to find it as a plugin, the author made a deliberate decision to delist the plugin from wordpress.org [https://staticword.press/t/removal-of-wp2static-from- wordpre...](https://staticword.press/t/removal-of-wp2static-from-wordpress- org/159)

<comment><USER15> This is what the author is trying to do.

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> > For example, I tried and failed multiple times to add a <meta> tag to the > head of my index.html file. This theoretically should have been a very > simple change.

The thing "they don't tell you" about static site generators is that you should vendor your site theme. Don't expect to both get upstream updates _and_ make HTML level changes.

<comment><USER17> Every month there's a new static site generator invented. Every time I check to see if they handle this type of thing cleanly. Every time I'm disappointed.

Hell, I'd be happy with a decent theme library that actually gets tested and regularly updated.

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> WordPress is an incredible blog editing software, which is why it's so popular, so I get the author's intention.

It'd be amazing to have something that let's you open a desktop app, have WordPress with all (or most of) its themes and ease and plug-ins for blogging, deploy changes to a git repo, and from there to a host -- in a way where you don't need to know more than how to make an account on say Github and Netlify.

Maybe there already is something like that, I'd love to know if so!

<comment><USER19> Well it's not WordPress and you're missing out on the plugin-ecosystem (and there aren't that many themes yet) but the closest I know that fits your vision would be Publii [0].

[0]: [https://getpublii.com/](https://getpublii.com/)

</comment></comment><comment><USER20> Wordpress is part of the LAMP stack, and there are easy tools like XAMP to get you up and running locally. With a tutorial it should be doable. It's probably better if you get hosting with auto-install if you're really averse to tinkering.

That said I wonder why you'd need Github Pages if you're already set up with Wordpress...

<comment><USER21> >That said I wonder why you'd need Github Pages if you're already set up with Wordpress...

Maybe there's something I don't understand here? Wordpress.org isn't hosted, it's just the website software itself. Hence the need for Github Pages (although most people just use a hosting provider like Siteground).

<comment><USER20> But it's specifically made to be a blogging software, to me it just feels like an extra step to convert your writing, unless the Github Pages ecosystem gives you lots of benefits.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> My background: I'm a technical person who can get around Unix/Linux, work with file permissions, shell, databases, etc., comfortably. Yet, I have to agree with the author and her observations, especially after my trials on macOS.

> Here's what I know now: running WordPress locally is a nightmare. > Successfully figuring it out was way harder than it should have been.

I tried XAMPP recently after a long, long time (this is on Mac). After the initial steps of creating a database (not a problem for me), the database users and modifying wp-config.php, I faced all the errors the author writes about and more, and had to search online for solutions. Updating WordPress core fails due to permission issues. Cannot install plugins or themes from the dashboard because of permission issues. Heck, even uploading media files, like photos for example, for a WordPress post requires permissions to be handled. Even the location where the site is stored has to be mounted first if you'd like to explore, modify files, etc. Don't even get me started on the black box that is ProFTPD to configure FTP access to the site (neither the ProFTPD site nor the StackExchange Q&A sites were very helpful)!

All this would be forgivable if the documentation was adequate. But I found the XAMPP site's documentation to be really thin and sparse. One would think that the most popular blogging engine (WordPress) would be included in the documentation. But no, they just wash their hands of by pointing to Bitnami for installing apps, and that didn't work for me either.

I can understand the XAMPP team focusing only on the basics, but the project has been around for a very long time and should cater to what most users may be using it for.

I recall that XAMPP (and the Bitnami stack) used to be easier to work with. Or maybe my memory of it isn't good enough.

I also tried MAMP and gave up within minutes (forget about the free trial of MAMP Pro and upgrading to it).

All in all, XAMPP was a total disappointment and a very frustrating experience. I can only deeply empathize with the author who doesn't seem to have as much exposure to dealing with systems at a lower level as I've had.

Right now, I would discourage anyone from trying XAMPP and MAMP (both on Mac; I don't know if they're vastly better on Windows or Linux). Just go with an online host with a good control panel and stop wasting your time.

<comment><USER22> For Windows folks, now that Window 10 WSL2 has been released, running Wordpress locally in something like Ubuntu seems like a better way to go.

I find the drawbacks to WSL2 is that (1) there's no one-click GUI that will install Ubuntu + Wordpress; console commands are still required. It's still a virtual container, so network/file access isn't directly accessible like you get with XAMPP. There was an issue where webservers hosted inside WSL2 were not available on localhost, but that looks to be resolved and should hopefully be available to everyone soon: [https://github.com/microsoft/WSL/issues/5298](https://github.com/microsoft/WSL/issues/5298)

You could also install Docker inside WSL2 and run a WordPress image. However, wrapping your head around Docker poses its own challenges. Tutorials for Docker + Windows aren't really up to speed with WSL2 and troubleshooting often gives out-of-date advice. For instance PHPStorm Wordpress + Docker tutorials have files mounts from Windows into the container, which gives poor performance. However, I did have luck getting WordPress up and running on my local machine in Docker following this guide: [https://www.singularaspect.com/phpstorm-using-xdebug-for- wor...](https://www.singularaspect.com/phpstorm-using-xdebug-for-wordpress- development-in-docker/)

</comment></comment><comment><USER23> This is not a wordpress issue and I think it's unfair to put your problems at its door. The issues you encountered would affect you with any PHP/MySQL application if you chose to run the setup as you have. The optimum solution that I've found is Laravel Valet and SequelPro (Both free); valet is your server and SequelPro is your GUI for MySQL. Everything should "just work".

The problem most likely stems from the fact that Wordpress tutorials are a very competitive space (ads) due to the widespread adoption of the platform, but many are either (a) not very good or (b) out of date. If you follow one that says to use xampp or similar then you will have an experience similar to your own. If you find one that says "use docker" you will have a needlessly complex experience. Tutorials like this should focus on the simplest way to execute something, but are too often written by inexperienced devs or worse, rehashed from other tutorials by marketeers looking to produce SEO friendly content (efficacy of advice be damned).

</comment><comment><USER24> Laravel has a great tool called Valet. Makes running multiple instances of WordPress locally a breeze. You just point it to a folder and it creates a local [directory_name].test. Works great for static html too

Confused why the poster wanted to use GitHub pages. Sounds like a hassle considering hosting with Wordpress.com you point your domain too.

<comment><USER25> I'd like to add that Valet is a great tool and I use it daily.

It is a Mac app though.

<comment><USER26> There's a Linux port too

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER27> It takes a while to understand the wp modular system, that's why people get paid to set it up and customise it for specific needs.

That being said, deploying WordPress takes minutes. And running it locally as well. Docker images are available if installing hundreds of libraries isn't your thing.

</comment><comment><USER28> As someone who works with WordPress every day, I can see both sides of the issue here.

Could it be easier to set up and run locally? Sure. Could it be easier to customize without knowing any code? Sure. But also, getting a dynamic CMS like WordPress to produce static output for use on GitHub Pages is a sort of "square peg, round hole" situation, and it's not surprising that the author ran into some issues.

For running WordPress locally without mucking around with PHP, MySQL, and such, what you probably want is Local [1], which installs everything you need all in one go, and is quite user-friendly. You can spin up local sites in minutes, install whatever plugins you want, and go to town. (If you host with the company that makes Local, you can even deploy to live from inside the app.)

I haven't used any of the plugins designed to make static pages from WordPress, but my gut read is that they probably aren't going to work quite right unless you A) really know what you're doing with WP, and B) you understand the limitations of your chosen static code generation tool. After all, WordPress is meant to be run in a dynamic environment with PHP, MySQL, and a web server. Shoehorning it into some other way of working might not end well, especially if you are new to WordPress.

Anyway, it looks like the author wound up on SiteGround, which as basic shared hosts go is one of the better ones. :) It'll certainly be easier than running WP locally, generating static files, and deploying those to GitHub Pages.

[1] [https://localwp.com/](https://localwp.com/)

</comment><comment><USER29> Just to point out a caveat with the original idea: all the posts would be stored in a local database. If something where to happen to it, it's quite miserable to recreate posts from scratch, even if you have the source material. Don't ask how I know.

PS, author, if you see this, make sure to use a child theme or custom plugin to make code changes. Otherwise a security update (which are usually automatic these days) will wipe out your custom changes.

</comment><comment><USER30> Publii is a local CMS application that generates static sites and pushes them to various platforms, including GH Pages.

Theme options leave something to be desired, though.

</comment><comment><USER31> I recently started working on my own portfolio site, and I wanted to include a blog. I considered Wordpress to be way too overkill for what I needed, plus I wanted to write my own theme. Plenty of flat-file CMS software options exist, which would probably be more like what the writer needs.

Many here mention Publii which perplexed me when I saw it (a desktop app posing as a CMS which is just an SSG) but I guess the writer would actually be the perfect target audience for that.

I recently settled on Bludit since the web admin is very quick to get writing and still takes care of all the extra meta tags and fields without getting in the way of the writing, which is easy enough that I've installed it for some websites where non-tech people are using it just fine. Totally lamenting the lack of templating language but I've been managing.

It's very odd that blog software for the layman tends to require so much setup and flat file CMS software are approximating but not quite achieving a dead simple setup and usage.

</comment><comment><USER32> Her blog requirements sound simple enough that I wonder if she couldn't have just coded up a few HTML pages by hand. Or is that too 2001?

<comment><AUTHOR> That's essentially what it was before :)

I mostly just wanted a better writing experience and CMS. (I talk about that in a section on the post).

<comment><USER33> if you wanted a cms and was using jekyll, why not something like [https://forestry.io/](https://forestry.io/) ? it's git-aware, which means it should work with github pages (i've not tried it myself, other than a cursory look-see).

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER34> I think the author has been unlucky really.

The installation documentation has good instructions on how to setup Wordpress. We use chassis ([https://beta.chassis.io](https://beta.chassis.io)) to run And develop it locally. If you're looking to develop your own theme or plug-in it's worth checking out.

That said creating static sites is not a common use case so the author is finding out its not super easy. Prior to installation warnings are shown for out of date plugins, so she is unfortunate to have skipped them.

Setup an author user then you don't have to worry about the administrative screens that might be confusing.

I'd suggest to give it another go as it's worth being self hosted and being in control of your own setup, if you're interested in learning about PHP and WordPress.

</comment><comment><USER35> What we really need is a good static output generation built-in wordpress that actually works and downgrades successfully. Instead, the team decided to work on a page builder (Gutenberg) which was/is far behind Elementor and the rest. Static generation is an absolutely essential feature in my opinion for having the peace of mind regarding security. I tried EVERY SINGLE one of the static generation plugins out there for a client project (avada theme/elementor/wpml) and none of them worked. (But apparently they do work if you use the SaaS version, not tried it myself)

So I guess Automattic will not solve it as it would hurt their wordpress.com business and if somebody comes up with a good static generation option will just turn into another SaaS offering.

<comment><AUTHOR> Can you elaborate more on why you say static generation is an essential feature for peace of mind w.r.t. security?

<comment><USER35> Yes. Of course. Most of the problems with Wordpress websites are because of bugs in programs written in PHP. When you no longer serve PHP and are just serving a bunch of HTML/CSS files then there is nothing left to hack. (unless you want to target the webserver [such as Apache, etc.) but 9/10 times it is some sort of an outdated software or just some previously unknown bug in some plugin. Less attack surface, more peace of mind.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER36> I don't understand how the author was able to set up a Jekyll/github/DNS/markdown website and later hitting a roadblock with the whole Apache/PHP/FTP/MySQL stack.

Is the root of all this the fact that github offers free hosting through github pages ?

</comment><comment><USER3> Wow this article makes me feel old. Running wordpress locally is something I have done so many times in the past, but yes, I would not imagine it being a good fit for then turning it into a static site.

These days there are a lot of better CMS options for JS single page applications.

<comment><AUTHOR> Do you have any recs for what those better CMS options are?

</comment></comment><comment><USER37> FWIW I've used Typepad for my blog since 2004. I may be the only person in the world still using it, since it's never ever mentioned as a WordPress alternative.

</comment><comment><USER38> > _Here's what I know now: running WordPress locally is a nightmare. > Successfully figuring it out was way harder than it should have been. If > you're trying to do this yourself, don't. You most likely don't need to, and > there's probably another solution you can use to get to what you want. (I > should also caveat that I know almost nothing about Apache, MySQL, FTP, and > PHP._

Running "ls" can be a nighmare too if you know nothing about filesystems, files, file types, flags, manpages, and so on.

</comment><comment><USER39> The built in php -S can run WP just fine, albeit without url rewrites, aka nice permalinks. One still needs a mysql server though.

</comment><comment><USER40> Perhaps a wordpress.org instance can be wget/httrack mirrored and uploaded as github pages.

</comment><comment> richsu-ca The TLDR is right at the end when I have already read the whole thing! :)

By the way, I recently migrated a weblog from Wordpress to Hugo on Netlifly. It was easy! Just add a post in GitHub and it automatically triggers a build in Netlifly and the post is live in seconds! You can also have your own custom domain for free.

Don't have recent experience with Jekyll but can't imagine it being that painful with the build/customization.

</comment><comment><USER41> > "However, I really don't think I should have needed to learn about all of > those technologies just to set up WordPress locally"

Then you have no business being a developer

<comment><USER42> Please omit personal swipes from comments on HN. In this case, since the comment consists of nothing but a personal swipe, it would be better not to post.

[https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html](https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html)</comment></comment>


In-N-Out managers earn triple the industry average - <AUTHOR> https://medium.californiasun.co/in-n-out-store-managers-earn-160000-wages-b08fe6f1706f <comment><USER2> I once did a quick "anthropological" study with In-N-Out employees (read: fancyspeak for sitting down and talking to them about their job), I was quite surprised.

Most of them were very happy with their jobs, not just happy with pay and benefits and so on, but happy to work there. They found it a very welcoming and friendly work environment, where people were rewarded for initiative and trying to improve things.

Most of them didn't see themselves leaving the company any time soon, unless it was for a different job type (such as moving to an office job after finishing school).

It was a very good lesson on how job satisfaction doesn't need fancy cafés, ball pits and slides.

PS: Those were just my impressions from talking to a limited number of employees. Endless numbers of caveats apply.

<comment><USER3> I've never done that, but it was clear from observation that it was true. Here's what amazes me, that people like Bezos exist. I mean, treating people that work at Amazon (especially the warehouses!) like the employees of I-N-O, Amazon could be an even more valuable company. Instead of being an employer of last resort (I would take any job before I worked there), they could be the "it" place to work. Instead, Bezos allows people to be treated like complete shit.

<comment><USER4> I just finished reading _The Everything Store_ a few weeks ago, an eye-opening book that deep dives into the history of both Amazon and Bezos. I don't think there's any chance that Bezos and crew haven't done the math on this part of their business. They have an extremely detailed understanding of what makes Amazon tick, and cutting costs is an absolutely crucial part of that equation.

Ethically, I agree with you. They shouldn't treat their employees like shit. Some things are worth more than money.

But financially, it's 100% untrue that Amazon would be more valuable if they focused on employee happiness over cutting costs. It's not an accident that Amazon generates more revenue than any other Internet company in existence.

<comment><USER5> > _But financially, it 's 100% untrue that Amazon would be more valuable if > they focused on employee happiness over cutting costs. It's not an accident > that Amazon generates more revenue than any other Internet company in > existence._

Or it very well could be (an accident). Survivorship bias and all...

<comment><USER4> That's a possibility, yes, but I think Amazon's success is too extreme a case for an accident to be the most likely explanation. If it was merely a "decent" success or a "pretty good" success, then yeah, but it's many orders of magnitude beyond that, in a very cutthroat industry. To get to this point, the company has had to consistently make aggressive, unintuitive, massively beneficial decisions, many dozens of times per year over several decades.

Imagine Lebron James — Could he just be lucky every play he goes out onto the court? It's possible. But I'd say the more likely explanation is he knows what he's doing. He's got a fundamental understanding, an underlying theory, and a set of skills that map well to reality and give him an edge that contributes to his success. So does Amazon.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> That they can pay hourlies (as well as the highlighted managers) well above industry average and still manage to make a profit undercuts the argument that companies in the service industry need _cheap_ labor to survive.

It's the companies who want to milk dry the American worker who cry wolf at the thought of having to pay Americans a decent wage. There are millions of people who have left the labor force because their wages have been undercut.

I think there is a significant pool of willing workers willing to work for the right wages --they may need some assistance in getting back to being productive workers, but I think industry owes them that after decades of neoliberal policies outsourcing and shipping jobs overseas.

<comment><USER7> Usually you hear the "we need to pay our workers low wages" from companies that have very low margin unit economics. McDonald's for example has a high number of cheap products. Same with Wal-Mart. They need a lot of people to service all the offerings they have. In-n-out has like 5 things on the menu, so they probably need far fewer employees overall. Costco is another example: they carry very few products compared to Walmart and thus need far fewer employees. Guess which companies offer their employees lots of benefits?

<comment><USER8> McDonald's is actually a very bad example; they're famous in the industry for their ridiculously high margins, on the order of 15-20% rather than the medium single digits for most fast food chains.

<comment><USER9> Most McD franchises would kill for 15-20% "margins" depending on how you measure that. At the end of the day, a franchisee usually sees a 10% margin after controllable expenses, and before any taxes.

<comment><USER10> Which is still pretty good :) . From what I know, stores in popular areas have surprisingly big revenues, I'd love 10% of that (my brother used to work at a store with a million dollars in monthly revenue).

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> I personally believe this has much to do with with two things.

1) In-n-out is not public. At all. So they don't have to answer to the pressure of Wall Street and it's sharks or get a huge stake taken by a hedge fund or Any of those other external pressures of that nature.

2) they're still majority family owned and the guy who founded it reallly believed in taking great care of his workers

<comment><USER12> I have a slight quibble with the first point, though I generally agree. There are public companies out there that simply don't care about Wall St, and are run like they're private. It requires an admittedly rare combination of founder controlled/involved, no need to raise capital, strong business model, and unique culture. Think about Amazon, who have given the capital markets the biggest middle finger of all time, refusing to show a single dollar of profit because they believe the reinvestment opportunities are too great (I would strongly agree).

There's an agricultural company called Seaboard Corp that's public. Its's a $5 billion market cap company controlled by the founding family. There are no analysts covering it, they've never once held a conference call, they don't give guidance, etc. The stock is near its all-time high and has returned a staggering 22% annually since 2000. Sure, these are rare, but the market is pretty efficient about this stuff over time.

So it's possible, and I bet it would be possible for In-N-Out as well. But it would probably still be viewed as a hassle, and if no one in the family needs liquidity to buy a super-yacht, or pay a massive divorce settlement, or buy an NBA team, there's no point.

<comment><USER13> Amazon is an interesting example. Yes, they grossly reinvest rather than pay dividends, but they don't invest in employee pay/compensation directly ('wastes' as per common view of what wall street wants)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> Chik Fil A owner operators also comfortably in this realm of income. Both companies get a lot of the same things right for customer and employees.

P.S. If you get put down as a reference for a potential hire at Chik Fil A corporate, don't be surprised to find yourself in a 45+ minute discussion about the hire. They take vetting seriously.

<comment><USER15> I don't think comparing franchise ownership with managers is a particularly fair place yeah? You have to put like a million in capital down at a minimum to open something like a chick fil a.

<comment><USER16> Chick-fil-a famously requires $10,000 to become a franchise "operator", but they require a heavy investment in time and energy and can be revoked at will. I think it's more appropriate to compare a chick-fil-a operator with an in- and-out manager, than it is to compare them to a mcd franchise owner.

<comment><USER14> About a decade ago a friend applied to become an owner-operator at Chik Fil A. He had years of experience managing multiple car washes, and a letter of recommendation from someone at corporate.

He made it from the initial multiple thousands of applicants to the second round of 500. Corporate told him to go work for 12+ months behind the counter in a Chik Fil A and then re-apply.

They had you rank your store location choices, and you moved where they told you to, if you were selected. I forget how many stores they were going to open a year, but I want to say it was around 100 back then.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> Here is the key: 'In-N-Out has no public shareholders'. Stay away from Wall Street sharks and the urge to give increasingly bigger profits every year vanishes.

</comment><comment><USER18> >A typical architect in California earns about $112,000 a year, according to the jobs site Indeed.

That's because software architects are wrapped up with building architects on Indeed. Building architects make much less: [https://www.glassdoor.com/Salaries/architect-salary- SRCH_KO0...](https://www.glassdoor.com/Salaries/architect-salary- SRCH_KO0,9.htm)

(Which is partially why I left.)

<comment><USER19> The salary comparisons are also hurt by the fact that "architect" and "lawyer" are titles you have your entire career, while "restaurant manager" is a title only one person in the restaurant has.

If you compared the salary of an in-n-out manager to the engineer running the team, or to law firm partners, you'd get a different conclusion.

The fact that someone who's worked for a good chunk of their life at an In-N- Out makes more than a young professional fresh out of school seems pretty reasonable, when you think about it. (Although it still makes In-N-Out an exception, which is too bad.)

<comment><USER20> >The fact that someone who's worked for a good chunk of their life at an In-N- Out makes more than a young professional fresh out of school seems pretty reasonable, when you think about it. (Although it still makes In-N-Out an exception, which is too bad.)

With almost certainly far more hours worked to make that salary, as well. Most fast food managers are spending 60+ hours/week in the store, opening early and closing late at night. All to make a _decent_ living wage in California. I would not envy that life one bit.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> They're run head and shoulders above every other fast food restaurant, maybe the secret is paying employees enough to make that happen?

edit: changed management to employees to capture more generally.

<comment><USER22> Agreed. They are my least favorite burgers and fries but the service is absolutely incredible. Every single person I have EVER dealt with is very professional and polite. I have never seen another restaurant with employees like that.

It's often compared to Five Guys but the vast majority of Five Guys I've been in have employees that don't really seem to care.

<comment><USER23> Five Guys isn't fast food in the traditional sense - a basic cheeseburger/fries/drink is over $15 out here in southern California, whereas the same at In-N-Out is $6.

But in that market we do have Burger Lounge which goes well beyond In-N-Out's service level. We also have Luna Grill for Mediterranean, similar excellence in service and quality of food.

<comment><USER24> In-N-Out is fast food. Five Guys and all the other restaurants you've mentioned fall under fast casual.

<comment><USER25> I've never had a fast trip to an In-N-Out. Lines are always really long. Quality of their food has gone down hill over the years as they've tried to keep up. While it's not even close to my fave I'd still shove an animal double double down my face so fast...

<comment><USER15> In the Bay Area, at least, the quality is always the thing I've been most impressed with. The burgers are picture-perfect (like, could be in an advertising photo) every time, and the food is good.

I haven't had such consistent high quality of anything at any other chain.

<comment><USER25> > The burgers are picture-perfect

Yep definitely going to different In-N-Outs.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> Another business that had well paid store managers is Trader Joe's - I believe they also make something towards $160K in total comp. Also a place filled with happy, helpful people.

Almost like there is a connection between a good package and happy employees.

</comment><comment><USER27> This is accurate, my old childhood buddy worked through In-N-Out for something like 7 or 8 years before and through college told me several years ago that managers make great cash and the whole In-N-Out ecosystem is really top notch in their employee dynamics.

</comment><comment><USER28> > If other fast food establishments have been reluctant to raise wages, > Jayaraman added, it's because pressure from investors has elevated quarterly > gains above the potential long-term benefits of happy workers. In-N-Out has > no public shareholders.

Well, that's a reason why I think lots of startups these days opt for a much later public offering. Public investors are just very short-sighted on making a smart financial investment decision. Can't blame them, we are all been told using number (or some measurable metrics) to evaluate any businesses without even understanding what does the business do.

<comment><USER29> > using number (or some measurable metrics) to evaluate any businesses without > even understanding what does the business do.

if those metrics are any good, why won't those metrics be higher for those companies that put long term gains (e.g., happy workforce) a priority? Those metrics that show good numbers for short term gains are bad metrics, and the shareholders who like them are likely to want to cash out before the 'long term' hits, and therefore, use those metrics to justify their decisions.

<comment><USER28> Unless there's an agreed methodology on how to measure that "happiness" in the workforce with good science backing it, then sure. But for so many years, I think human never reach that consensus.

<comment><USER29> i would've thought the most obvious, and most agree-able method is to simply ask the yes/no question- 'are you happy at this job?'.

<comment><USER28> Sure, but I don't think human is very good at judging his/her own emotion on a simple yes/no question on happiness. :-)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER30> I think the interesting point here is that the company is private and doesn't have to maximize short term profits for shareholder gains.

From my own experience I've seen that a private/bootstrapped company has much more flexibility to think long term (and that usually means keeping employees happy) than a public company.

On the other hand the stock market drives a lot of important things like pension funds, mutual funds, etc. Maybe we can strike a balance and trade shares based on their long term dividend potential.

<comment><USER31> AMZN is entirely focused on long term gains and reinvesting money and the stock is killing it.

Being publicly traded != making short term decisions.

</comment></comment><comment><USER32> What I found interesting in Japan, was it seems like employees working in the larger fast food chains had a pretty much guaranteed track to the corporate office if they were willing to put in the time working at the store and had credentials to match. Usually the employees are part time with no desire to climb up, but I met few people who worked at McDs or KFC during college and had a job offer or atleast an interview waiting at the end of it in the corporate office.

One guy I talked to was told that he had to put in a full year to be considered for interviews in the next graduating class, so he worked at McDs after college so he could interview the next year.

Do the chains in the US offer similar tracks? Does experience at the chain translate well to getting hired in the corporate offices? Seems like an easy way incentivize college students and graduates to work at a chain and actually take it seriously. I worked at a McDs as my first job, years ago and I still see a lot of the same faces when I go back home. Even when I was there one of the managers was complaining that after 10 years she was told she couldn't get her normal yearly raise because she was "making too much money already" according to the owner. Corporate could and should pay for/partially pay for college for managers without an education as a perk for high performers.

</comment><comment><USER33> I realize this is the exception and not the rule, but it's great to see that fast food chains can make incredible profits while paying their employees significantly more than the competition. There are so many restaurateurs and investors claiming it's impossible for the fast food industry to survive the $15 minimum wage hike, but I suspect it will just make this already cut-throat space even more prone to failure.

<comment><USER31> In-N-Out truly seems to be in a league of its own. The one I frequented in Mountain View would consistently have a line through off hours. I would show up midnight and still have to wait.

Meanwhile, the Jack in the Box just down the street usually had about 3 cars in the lot, one for each employee.

It's very possible that $15/hr could kill a lot of less popular fast food restaurants, particularly in more isolated areas.

<comment><USER34> The market at work! Make a shit product and get driven out of the market or be forced to up to game.

Ultimately that means better pay and better products. (Since the two go hand in hand when it comes to service-driven businesses — In and Out is a case in point.)

<comment><USER35> > Make a shit product and get driven out of the market or be forced to up to > game.

The problem is when you have a fastfood restaurant in a run down part of the town where people may have money for a $1 cheeseburger but not for a $2 cheeseburger.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER36> This is not an atypical salary for yum brands managers in the Bay Area. I wonder how much of this is being a primarily California chain.

<comment><USER37> I've thought this as well - location might play into all of this as well. I live in a relatively small county in southeast Georgia and all of the fast food joints here start great but end up abysmal simply due to the caliber of people that are working there. Pay? Location? Manager? Over all framework with all of the above applied as cause? Not sure. Recently several places here (Waffle House and Burger King) are super short staffed because they simply cannot find anyone to fill the positions with the pay advertised. That kind of thing here is becoming more of a problem.

</comment></comment><comment><USER38> My 2 cents:

1\. in-n-out is amazing. It is my favorite mcdonalds-type burger. It's simple (only one burger on the menu, with or without cheese), it's fresh and it's cheap. In addition, employees are always nice to you. I wish it was in Europe.

2\. I worked at McDonald in France, got minimum wage. I got out quickly but some friends stayed for quite a long time (3 years). The main reason is because they promote you quickly. Everybody hates the job (unless you're staying for a few months only, then it's fun) but everybody gets trapped by the constant promotion system. The trick is that promotions don't necessarily increase your salary, or if they do then it's peanuts. Even the director of my restaurant (not a franchise) was paid peanuts.

3\. Working in a fast food can be fun! people don't expect that, but I always recommend people to try it. There is definitely a pleasure in manual labor, an instant gratification that you don't necessarily get in intellectual-type jobs.

</comment><comment><USER39> Welcome to the world where we talk about the company giving their employees a proper salary and benefits, because every other company of it's kind is unlikely to do so. Let's hope more companies follow eventually.

I heard good things of In-N-Out and ill likely visit one one day when I'm ever back in the states.

<comment><USER31> What is a 'proper' salary?

Also, the very reason this is news is because it's 3x the average. If all of the restaurants paid the same it would just be the average and not worth an article.

<comment><USER39> A proper salary is one where the workers can live their lives without worries about money or having to work multiple jobs to make ends meet.

And 3 times the average for this kind of work in a place where 2 times the amount is the normal average is kind of crazy. And this should indeed not be an article to begin with but it is.

<comment><USER31> >A proper salary is one where the workers can live their lives without worries about money or having to work multiple jobs to make ends meet.

That's lacking enough concrete details to be meaningful. It seems to be 'more than they'll ever need' to meet the criteria of not needing to worry about money.

Do you think one of these managers could live in San Francisco without worrying about money?

20k/annum is enough for someone who owns a house and lives in a low COL area to not worry about money. (one of my friends lives like that and appears to be happier than I)

300k/annum is not enough for a family of 4 living next to Central Park in NYC.

There is no way to decide that people are making a living wage without a centralized definition of living, which most people will disagree with.

<comment><USER39> I do think one of these managers could live in certain area's in SF without much worries.

But I agree if you will live in a 30 million mansion with a view over the city, you won't have enough as a manager.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER40> Though the In-N-Out where I live has seemed at times understaffed, most of the employees who work there have been there at least as long as I've lived here (over five years now), which has to be anomalous in fast food.

<comment><AUTHOR> I suppose it helps that they're paid a living wage!

<comment><USER40> I would wager that's the biggest single factor

<comment><USER41> +1 for the pun

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER42> I've been eating at In N Out since the '70s (store #3 is a block from my high school, the same alma mater as the founders) and the consistency is amazing. It's been pretty much the same great recipe, as far as I can tell, the whole time. The fries changed some time in the '90s; they used to be more limp and greasy than they are now.

I had friends who worked there and they made a great hourly wage (at the time I think I remember 200% minimum for a non-manager) and they really liked it. It was a tough and coveted job for a high schooler or someone in jr college.

</comment><comment><USER43> Hmmm. Is this true? Seems like the ideal way to get a disgruntled front line... You're in a service industry, making 30k a year - 15/hour as a cashier (regardless if you're getting any extra benefits) and your direct superior makes 160k?

I don't know, but I can't imagine a scenario where people don't get pissed-off with such a massive difference for two jobs that are performed on the same location, imply interactions with the same people and are only one command- chain level apart.

<comment><USER44> Store managers most likely aren't the front line's direct supervisor. And the gap between roles as far as responsibility would be high. I would expect very high standards and tough to reach goals would make being a store manager a challenging role to succeed at.

</comment></comment><comment><USER45> I always notice there are a TON of people working at every In N Out. Like maybe 10 people behind the counter versus 3 at a McDonalds.

Anyone know what's up with that?

<comment><USER46> McDonald's has been investing in labor saving (including automation). A robot pours the drinks for the drive thru, they've got the combo ketchup and mustard things; and a lot of the food is prepped off-site. In-N-Out tends to be higher volume than the MacDonald's around me; but they also are cutting potatoes just in time, and hand assembling burgers.

<comment><USER25> I wouldn't exactly call what McDonald's has a robot. It's just a button that turns off the street after so long. Been using them for at least 10 years now too.

But I get what you're saying. They just updated the McDonald's near me to be primarily touch screen ordering yet somehow they still take forever to essentially assemble pre cooked food. I don't get it...

<comment><USER46> They've got new robots since last year ish; it pulls a cup, puts in ice, and fills with soda. Here's a video: [https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=akv4vSXa5a4](https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=akv4vSXa5a4) In this video, a human is waiting around for it, but what I've seen as a customer is the machine usually runs unsupervised while the drive thru person chases after the food orders.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER47> Does anyone know if they hire store managers from outside or whether they have to rise up through the ranks?

<comment><USER48> I can't say for sure, but I would strongly imagine that they would want any managers they hire to be intimately familiar with the culture. So I could see that even if they did hire externally, the applicant would need to train through one or a few different jobs and become acclimated with their way of doing things.

But I'm seriously only guessing from what I've seen of companies with really strong company cultures.

</comment></comment><comment><USER49> My understanding from folks who work there is that it's basically impossible to get a job there unless you know someone who already works there and can vouch for you.

As in, they won't even interview you without a recommendation from a current employee.

I guess this helps them maintain quality hires.</comment>


Traditional Crafts of Finland – Episode 1 – Puukko Knife Making - <AUTHOR> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BLnqr6IGVgs <comment><AUTHOR> There are a bunch of these kinds of video on Youtube, and I really enjoy watching all of them.

We focus on one or two people. We start at the begining and work through. Everything is explained, but not as if you're an idiot.

See also this, from 1970: _Art of the Marbler_ [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vyga8VMWXKg](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vyga8VMWXKg)</comment>


Google should be regulated like telcos and electricity companies, say rivals - <AUTHOR> http://www.pcworld.com/article/2042954/google-should-be-regulated-like-telcos-and-electricity-companies-say-rivals.html <comment><USER2> I trust Google much more than any other monopoly out there. Just contrast their behavior, with other companies sitting on mountains of cash. They don't need to do a lot of the things they do. Yet they do it. That's a big positive.

The negative is innovation in search is restricted to a few hundred people sitting in Mountain View. I just don't think innovation in search is happening at the pace that it could be happening because of this limit.

Just as they have done with Android and Chrome and Youtube they need to create a marketplace on top of search.

Just think about it...right now they have a random bunch of 10 or so tabs (flights, recipes, patents etc) above the search box. Is that it?

To expand search to its full potential that list has to expand. What better way to do it than create a marketplace?

It would be a good experiment to run a pilot in some small country or city and see what happens. Unlimited API access to google search...any app built on top of that platform that gets X number of hits becomes another tab above your search bar...for a price...or advertisers could make it free cause domain based search can get them better targeting. This is just an example but they really should be trying to tap into entire dev community worldwide to expand search.</comment>


Cross-platform Games - <AUTHOR> http://smotko.si/crossplatform-games/

<comment><USER2> He totally forgot Haxe (<http://haxe.org>) as a language and NME (<http://www.nme.io>) as a cross-platform library for Haxe.</comment>