Appl Still Hasn't Fixd Its MacBook Kyboad Problm - <AUTHOR> https://www.wsj.com/graphics/apple-still-hasnt-fixed-its-macbook-keyboard-problem/ <comment><USER3> Apple has lost that magic it had. It's no longer a special company where people used to wait for hours at a time to buy a phone. Apple isn't that company anymore, where someone with good taste used to make your choices for you, and they somehow knew what you couldn't quite articulate.

There was an iPhone, an iPad, a MacBook Air, and a MacBook Pro. If you wanted the experience of an Apple phone, you bought an iPhone. You didn't go around asking if you should buy an Xr, Xs, or X, 9, 7, or iPhone googol. You went to the store and bought an iPhone. The product categories were clear. The vision behind them was clearer. Everything just made sense. And it worked too!

Apple doesn't make sense anymore.

I have a top of the line MacBook Pro 2016 that I can't type on. I am the professional these machines are meant to target. My use case isn't "hardcore" or "niche." It's that of most entrepreneurs, programmers, and designers. I wanted a machine that I could carry around in my backpack with good-enough battery life that could let me work from a coffee shop. Nothing fancy. Nothing complicated. Just a machine that a woman can use at a coffee shop with her soy latte.

What I got for my thousands of dollars is a machine that can't be used without its cradle. The keyboard has stopped working correctly despite weekly cleaning. I am worried that the screen will stop working too. And I don't have the time to take my machine back to the store and get it replaced because I'm so busy that I can't live without my computer.

Apple was supposed to be the company that made computers for people who do stuff. Now, it's a dividend machine that happens to make crappy computers.

<comment><USER4> > professional these machines are meant to target

When you are next time in one of those coffee shops, I suggest you to look around to spot people with latest macbooks. Then ask yourself what category of users they belong to. And whether their primary use case is the same as yours.

<comment><USER3> It is. Doing emails, calls, documents, a little bit of programming, lots of design stuff. Oh and very few of them like the newer machines. They're all tired of how crappy they can be.

This has come up before when I criticize Apple's current product line. I think it's an Apple-specific no true Scotsman fallacy. I buy their products. I own an iPad.I will own an Apple Watch. I had an iPod. I've had three MacBooks. I've used iMacs since I was a little girl. My school had the sunflower iMac way back when and it was the best computer I had ever used.

I think I'm fairly representative of their userbase.

<comment><USER4>
        > a little bit of programming, lots of design stuff.
        > very few of them like the newer machines.

This is _exactly_ my point. I used to be a mac fan for many years. Now all it is good for is hanging on Facebook, news websites and occasionally doing stuff in Google Docs. Basically a stylish Chromebook equivalent. This is the pattern I've been seeing for the last couple of years.

Serious design people seem to be moving to Windows, programmers - to the same direction, sometimes to Linux.

<comment><USER5> I see "serious design people" using non-laptop macs, and using iPads and/or iPhones instead of laptops for portable devices. There are a few who use Windows, but they are almost uniformly unhappy about it. The people I see who are most happy with Windows are (still) mostly there for gaming.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Not a lot of people know this because most people will try to get the problem fixed, but the problem will actually fix itself after enough time and use. The problem with the keyboard design is actually two fold: particulate AND keys slightly out of tolerances. You will notice that the problem almost always gets worse when the computer gets warm. E, C, X, R and a lot of keys on the left side of the keyboard seem to be the most troublesome when it gets warm. The keys expand and start to actually "click" different. The sound is audibly different. It actually drove me crazy when I first got it. It took almost a year for all the keys to have the same tone, and the S key is still ever so slightly softer than the rest.

I have a 2016 MBP and after about 3-6 months I started getting stuck and repeating keys. I was going to take it to the Apple Store to get replaced, but just sort of struggled through it for another 3 months or so as I missed appointment after appointment because I was busy. The problem is now entirely gone and all the keys click the same. I actually had this same thing happen with another 2016 MBP. With enough use, the keys break in and no longer stick.

This is, obviously, a ridiculous solution—if you can even call it that. But an aged keyboard is actually more reliable than a new one.

The fix for this wasn't just adding in a layer to keep the dust out, but getting tighter tolerances on the butterfly mechanism itself and designed around the expansion issue or using different/better materials.

<comment><USER7> I have a 2017 MBBp. I am alternating space and letter press:

bb bb b b b b b b b bb b b b b b b b b b b b b

k k k k k k k k k k k k k k k kk kk kk kk kk k k k

b b b b b b b b bb bb b bb b b bb b b b b b b

k kk k kk kk kk kk kk k k kk kk k k kk kk kk kk k

this has been happening for more than six months. earlier in the laptop's life time, I could get these problems to go away. now I cannot.

<comment><USER6> Spray the keys down with compressed air. You should notice a good amount of stuff actually accumulates in there.

<comment><USER8> I never, _ever_ , had to spray a laptop keyboard to make it work again in more than 20 years...

<comment><USER6> Well, with this one you do.

<comment><USER9> Sseems like horrible ddesign.

<comment><USER6> It iss.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> I honestly don't think they will ever fix it. Why should they? People keep buying the product!

At this point, I'm on a 2012 MBPr and I keep on deferring to the next year and waiting to see if it's resolved. They are pushing me ever year to say F-it and build a hackintosh.

I'm holding out some hope for the new rumoured 16" to come back to the original 2012-2015 design, but I know Apple is belligerent and will release an even thinner design!

My dream spec would be:

\- the 2012-2015 chassis

\- improved 4k oled screen and bezel less design

\- arm processor which will do away with throttling and fans

\- no touchbar

\- 2012-2015 keyboard

\- 2012-2015 touchpad not the massive one in newer models

\- magsafe

I can wait a couple of years, but in 2021... Apple won't get my money anymore.

<comment><USER11> Man I hope they don't listen to requests like these. I'm all for an improved screen, arm processor w/ better thermals, better and more reliable keyboard, but the design needs to move forward not backward. I can't imagine how anyone can use a 2012-2015 macbook and think the chassis and keyboard should be reverted to that in 2020. I mean it was great at the time, but would be horribly outclassed today.

Despite various issues with the new mac design, it was a good step forward and by most measures makes the previous generation feel old by comparison. Yes maybe they're over-optimizing for lightness and thinness, but these are indeed important aspects of a portable device and should not be ignored entirely.

They just need to correct the balance a bit more toward the middle, not go back in time.

<comment><USER12> > I can't imagine how anyone can use a 2012-2015 macbook and think the chassis > and keyboard should be reverted to that in 2020. I mean it was great at the > time, but would be horribly outclassed today.

Can you explain in detail why you believe this to be true? Once they hit the natural thickness limits of a keyboard device there really hasn't been any meaningful change. I periodically interact with a range of them and the only thing I can say for a certainty is that the older keyboards feel better and I have to check the system profile to know what the rest of the hardware is like.

<comment><USER11> The 2016-2019 macbooks feel much more modern. They're lighter, thinner, the touchpad is nicer, more uniform, and though the touch bar isn't terribly useful it looks quite nice. It's overall just a much sleeker and more modern machine.

I'm not a design expert by any means so I probably can't give as good of a detailed account as others could, but I know when I use my 2015 macbook pro after using my 2018, or after using an XPS or pixelbook, it feels much older than 3 years.

<comment><USER12> The new touchpad and touchbar could also be used on a new design which allows enough for a high-quality keyboard. I've never been struck by the weight or size reductions but the low-end keyboard feel is constantly noticeable.

<comment><USER11> > The new touchpad and touchbar could also be used on a new design which > allows enough for a high-quality keyboard.

For sure, as noted I'm all for that. I don't think we need to move back to 2015 to accomplish that though.

<comment><USER12> I don't think anyone is saying there's _no_ room for improvement but I would really like it if the requirement was that they fit a high-quality keyboard in even if it meant being 10% thicker. My home laptop is still a 2010 MBA because, even after almost a decade of heavy use, it still feels better than the brand new keyboards — that's completely ridiculous.

<comment><USER11> Well, unfortunately this will probably never be the case. I actually don't mind the new keyboard at all. It's not my favorite, but I actually would rather have the extra thinness than extra action, and believe it or not I prefer it over the 2015 macbook keys (overall I mostly use desktop keyboard though). And it seems the market is mostly in agreement.

High action keyboards will continue to be phased out by thinner devices and more touch. Many will lament it, but I don't see moving back.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> Been a Mac user since the very early fat Macs. Love Macs. Will miss iTerm. Can't stand the new keyboards, let alone their reliability issues, my fingers feel like they are typing directly on a desk/concrete. Fingers hurt.

Went to Dell XPS 13. Awesome Machines. Run Linux great. Got given a Thinkpad T407 and fell absolutely in love with the keyboard. It may not be perfect, but comparing side by side with the MBP 2017 one, it's so much better that I can't believe I put up with the MBP one.

<comment><USER14> Shopping for a 2013 rMBP replacement now. Which of those two do you recommend? Would love to run it as a hackintosh, if possible.

<comment><USER15> X1 Carbon if you don't need >16GB RAM. Otherwise P52 if you don't mind running Windows or Linux with NVidia binary drivers - 3K USD gets you 6core i7, 4K display, 32GB RAM 2x512GB NVME / 500GB spinning. That's without deals - <USER2> there always are.

<comment><USER14> Hell yes, that P52 sounds great! I only wish I could use AMD graphics so I could run OSX for a while … just to help with the transition.

I moved to Mac in 2001 after frustration with Windows ME and then XP. Now, I'm having frustration with multiple hardware generations on Mac, and it's clearly time to make a change. To say I'm in the walled garden is an understatement.

Getting out of the Apple ecosystem is going to take time , plenty of money, patience, and I assume lot's of sacrifice (I really don't want to give up my trackpad). I don't even know where to start, but I suppose buying a new laptop and finding a good distro (thinking Deepin) to put on it will be the best starting point.

Edit: And then he saw the P1.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> Apple keyboard related tale, though not an Apple butterfly keyboard:

I had to call Apple support yesterday to register an AppleCare Protection Plan agreement. The way this works is you first get routed to someone who takes some notes about your case, then that person sends you to the correct specialist.

Anyway, after waiting on hold a short while (Apple lets you choose your genre of on-hold music or wait in silence... though normally they call you but for some reason they kept getting my voice mail so I had to call them), the woman who picked up starting asking me for information.

Thwack, thwack, thwack I hear as she's typing, like fire crackers going off. Eventually I couldn't take it anymore so I said: "that is not an Apple Keyboard you're typing on!"

"Nope," she said. "I spilled water on my Apple keyboard earlier today and it stopped working, so I pulled out this old PC keyboard I had. But I hate it. I texted my husband and asked him to go buy me a new Apple keyboard." (It seemed like she was working from home.)

So I told her some people really prefer those mechanical switch keyboards, that they probably wouldn't stop working from a bit of water, but maybe her Apple keyboard would start working again when it dried out. "I hope so," she said, "Because I really prefer it for typing and my husband balked at the $100 cost of a new Apple keyboard." (Obviously she meant an external Magic keyboard and not a MacBook PoS keyboard.)

(Aside: I'd consider it a public service if the WSJ would make this article available for free. I love the toggle switches! I was unable to make an outline.com link but I could read it by following the link from a Google search in an incognito window.)

<comment><USER17> > It seemed like she was working from home

Significant portions of their phone support staff work remotely; they're called at-home advisors. Seems to be a really well-run program.

[https://www.apple.com/jobs/us/aha.html](https://www.apple.com/jobs/us/aha.html)

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> Here's the article in plain text in six parts:

1) [https://twitter.com/bookofjoe/status/1110952654757347330](https://twitter.com/bookofjoe/status/1110952654757347330)

2) [https://twitter.com/bookofjoe/status/1110952697426034688](https://twitter.com/bookofjoe/status/1110952697426034688)

3) [https://twitter.com/bookofjoe/status/1110952738685440000](https://twitter.com/bookofjoe/status/1110952738685440000)

4) [https://twitter.com/bookofjoe/status/1110952781270126594](https://twitter.com/bookofjoe/status/1110952781270126594)

5) [https://twitter.com/bookofjoe/status/1110952834856570881](https://twitter.com/bookofjoe/status/1110952834856570881)

6) [https://twitter.com/bookofjoe/status/1110952873934970880](https://twitter.com/bookofjoe/status/1110952873934970880)

<comment><USER19> > My Sci-Hub-ish good deed for the day

Sci-Hub can make the argument that the material it makes available is largely publicly funded research, which the public paid the creators for already by funding that research. That argument doesn't apply to the WSJ.

<comment><USER18> So should I take down my tweets?

<comment><USER19> I'd at least change the first one to not compare yourself to Sci-Hub.

<comment><USER18> I agree. But tweets are not editable.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> As one of the early engineers of the company, I have a 2015 Macbook Pro. New engineers with their new touch bar Macbook Pro are jealous. Other than some minor battery degradation it hasn't failed me. I'm holding on to this as long as possible.

<comment><USER21> Yep, I have a late 2013 pro, and plan on "upgrading" to the most specced out version of the last 2015 pre-touchbar model whenever this one dies.

</comment></comment><comment><USER22> I have a 2016 MBpro. I only use it with an external keyboard, except on week- ends (and I do not type much on these).

Then the N key started repeating.

Unbelievable. I cannot imagine the pain of a frequent typer on the keyboard.

<comment><USER23> This. I don't do any dev work on my 2018 mbp. It's essentially useless until I plug in an external keyboard.

</comment></comment><comment><USER24> Ummm

> NoScript detected a potential Cross-Site Scripting attack

> from [https://www.wsj.com](https://www.wsj.com) to > [https://stags.bluekai.com](https://stags.bluekai.com).

> Suspicious data:

      (URL) https://stags.bluekai.com/site/4454?ret=html&phint=serverDomain=www.wsj.com&phint=primaryProduct=Online Journal&phint=pageName=WSJ_Multimedia_Collection_Appl Still Hasn't Fixd Its MacBook Kyboad Problm&phint=section=WSJ_Collection&phint=contentChannel=WSJ_Collection&phint=articleType=WSJ_Multimedia_Graphics&phint=contentType=Multimedia&phint=isSub=WSJ_free&phint=edition=North_America_USA&phint=__bk_t=Appl Still Hasn't Fixd Its MacBook Kyboad Problm&phint=__bk_k=Apple keyboard,Apple butterfly keyboard,MacBook keyboard,MacBook Air keyboard,MacBook Pro,MacBook Air,AppleCare,Apple keyboard problem,Joanna Stern&phint=__bk_pr=https://news.ycombinator.com/&phint=__bk_l=https://www.wsj.com/graphics/apple-still-hasnt-fixed-its-macbook-keyboard-problem/&limit=10&bknms=ver=2.0,ua=0dd7c7d553f2517fa22a86fdfb24611b,t=1553703693224,m=4b4e4ecaab1f1c93ab1f1c93ab1f1c93,k=1,lang=07ef608d8a7e9677f0b83775f0b83775,sr=1920x971x24,tzo=420,hss=false,hls=false,idb=true,addb=undefined,odb=undefined,cpu=4b4e4ecaab1f1c93ab1f1c93ab1f1c93,platform=1c17637dbf2f8edebf2f8edebf2f8ede,notrack=,plugins=4b4e4ecaab1f1c93ab1f1c93ab1f1c93,cn=38593d014c984362435c7473ff6387ce&r=16711535

<comment><USER25> Yep, Tor catches this even now.

</comment></comment><comment><USER26> Wow, in the WSJ. That'll get some attention from Apple management

<comment><USER26> Favorite line: "It's time to stop prioritizing thinness over usability."

<comment><USER27> Yeah, this is like 90% of it. They passed the point of diminishing returns from thin/light back in the early 20-teens, especially for "Pro" laptops. For a pro laptop I want power, battery life, and durability far more than thin/light.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER28> Thank You Apple. Finally you have the courage to admit it. ( Although in both cases they were under the pressure of media and press )

Unfortunately the extended warranty programme [1] still does not include MacBook 2018. Now they have acknowledge it, at least there is hope this will change. I could never understand why Apple don't have some internal guidelines on it, even if it was out of warranty they could have fix it for free as Standard Procedure, without actually admitting it was a problem. Instead they try to charge people outrageous repair price on it.

Keyboard, TB3 Charging, Internal Display Connector, Trackpad False positives, and numbers other small things I can't remember. I am hoping 2019 Apple will have a MacBook Pro redesign that fixes all of these issues.

[1] [https://www.apple.com/support/keyboard-service-program- for-m...](https://www.apple.com/support/keyboard-service-program-for-macbook- and-macbook-pro/)

<comment><USER29> Also please read this fine lines it might be very interesting for some:

>If you believe your MacBook or MacBook Pro was affected by this issue, and you paid to have your keyboard repaired, you can contact Apple about a refund.

</comment></comment><comment><USER30> Apple needs to simply put all their products and features through "what would Steve Jobs have done" filter. He would have probably thrown the butterfly design out the window and ask them to come up with a better design.

<comment><USER31> Sure, like how he threw the G3 iMac "hockey puck" mouse out before that unfortunate thing shipped.

<comment> inspector-g You're certainly not wrong, but the hockey puck was fairly quickly discontinued and replaced (within a year or two) by the "Apple Pro Mouse", which itself wasn't discontinued for 4 or 5 years.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER32> I always felt laptop keyboards/key caps were ALWAYS flimsy feeling. I guess just the older ones you could pull off and replace. But I never was a huge fan of the earlier chiclets either.

<comment><USER33> My 2011 MBP's keys were solid. Had a great feel to them and I never had an issue with keys failing or becoming stuck. I even had a few incidents where I spilled a beer on my keyboard and it was completely fine afterwards.

I now have a 2017 MBP and I hate these keys. The H is always sticking (no spills even) and the keys don't have that nice soft feel to them. I've interrupted a meeting or two with how loud this keyboard is as well... Definitely a step in the wrong direction IMO

</comment></comment><comment><USER34> I'm surprised people are still buying these models with all the issues with keyboards, GPU glitches, T2 chip, etc.

The repair program doesn't really solve anything. I'm willing to bet most MBP owners do not have a second Mac to keep working while it is being repaired.

Also, at least in Mexico, Apple is being super strict about which machines go into the repair program. I know a couple of people with keyboard problems that were told there was no problem with the keyboard.

</comment><comment><USER35> Love the new keyboards. Not been a problem for me. Love the size too. The 15in is about as heavy as the old 13in, making it very portable. Had to sacrifice some keyboard depth for that but so worth it.

For anyone working for extended periods of time, you will benefit greatly from having an external keyboard. Preferably one that tilts up in the middle. Why anyone would want a bigger laptop that they use at home to type on the laptop's native keyboard is beyond me.

<comment><USER36> So if I follow you, the argument is that the new built-in keyboards are great because you don't use them, and you find the idea that people would want to be able to type for extended periods on their portable computer "beyond you"?

If I wanted a big mechanical keyboard on my desk at home and a nearly unusable keyboard when I'm elsewhere, I'd get an iPad and a desktop. I want a laptop.

<comment><USER35> The new keyboards are great because they reduce the size of a portable computer, which makes the portable part of the computer even better.

If you want a less portable computer so that you can type at work and at home on its keyboard, you'd be missing out on the _much_ better desktop keyboards that can be had instead.

<comment><USER37> Or you could get something like the X1 carbon, which weighs much less (so is more portable) and has a keyboard you can actually type on for hours.

<comment><USER35> You could, for sure, but not with MacOS.

<comment><USER37> Fair enough :) If MacOS is mandatory, the X1 won't be an option. I just gave it as an example that you absolutely can have both portability and a good keyboard at the same time.

<comment><USER35> The X1 is a really nice laptop, that's true. It's up there with the MacBook in terms of quality.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER38> I really hate the keyboard on most laptops. XPS's I don't like and new macbooks seem the worst. Anyone recommend any? Thinkpads seem good, and many HPs.

<comment><USER39> Have worked on Mac's, XPS's and HP's in the past but once I got on Thinkpad, never looked back. My current system(for past 5 years now) is a trusty X1 Carbon that has seen some rough times but has never failed me. Thinking of upgrading later this year to a newer version of the same line.

<comment><USER40> How's the touchpad? What's kept me on Apple is the ability to actually use the MacBook Pro as a _portable_ computer, not just a crappy desktop you can drag between the power and mouse+keyboard stations that you need to get work done without swearing at it constantly or frowning while you watch the battery life indicator plummet.

The keyboard and port situations are both pushing the MacBook far enough out of that "close the lid and go, no worries" sweet spot it _used_ to fall so solidly into that I'm eyeing other options, but I have some very bad memories of both battery life and trackpads on non-Apple machines, and my (limited!) interactions with such more recently haven't made me optimistic.

<comment><USER41> Just to offer another perspective on the battery front, that only really matters for casual browsing. Anytime real work is done on a machine, you'll be plugging in within a few hours on everything anyway.

If you're doing CPU/IO intensive development work, they all fall down so quickly that I don't think it matters on the differences. It's really a browsing/videos metric, which is relatively unimportant to me when buying a workstation class laptop. I don't think I'd buy any laptop based on battery life as a primary factor, and the overall usability situation for most stuff on the market isn't as grave as it used to be (which your post accurately recalls).

I've owned the XPS15 with 6-core 8th gen Intel (maxing out the scales at 97Wh battery) and have a Thinkpad X1 Extreme. I've had MBPs in the past too.

For the touchpad on Thinkpads, I think they're pretty good if you're on Windows, most are anymore with MS Windows Precision drivers as the Thinkpads use. For me, a major driver for me towards these is the Trackpoint.

Depending on your usecase, my favorite machines on the market today are the X1 Extreme (development), X1 Yoga (consulting/development), Samsung Notebook 9 Pen 13" (home), and Macbook Air (home).

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER42> Current gen MacBook pros can't fit latest intel processors into that thin body. Other vendors already leave mbps in the dust performance wise. That fact makes me hopeful that apple will have to go thicker for the next mbp generation and that will maybe warrant a better keyboard.

This form-over-usability-and-function madness has to end.

</comment><comment><USER43> louis Rossman did an episode on the macbook keyboard problems:

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4KuVvb9DTaU](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4KuVvb9DTaU)

It's insane what a mac user must go through even to attempt to repair this themselves. Another reason it's important to support right to repair, [https://repair.org/](https://repair.org/).

There's also a lawsuit for the keyboard defects:

[https://www.classlawgroup.com/apple-macbook-pro-keyboard- def...](https://www.classlawgroup.com/apple-macbook-pro-keyboard-defect- lawsuit/)

</comment><comment><USER44> Extending the warranty of the MacBook's with the keyboards that have issues isn't enough. They should be under warranty indefinitely or made affordable to replace, even if it's at a loss for AAPL.

</comment><comment><USER45> As long as people keep buying their laptops (what proportion of HN users are on Macs? Probably >80%?) why should they resolve the problems with it.

Personally, I'm in love with my new XPS 13 and wouldn't touch a Macbook Pro.

<comment><USER46> Lenovo x1 carbon gen 6 is an amazing machine and will totally make ex-apple users happy. Windows 10 is rather satisfying with little modification.

<comment><USER47> Biggest downside to the Lenovo X1 Carbon is you can't buy it without an OS. You have to pay the Microsoft tax even though it works well with Linux drivers.

<comment><USER48> Still way cheaper, though, than the Apple tax? What is the cost forwarded to consumers for Windowson one of those Lenovos? I doubt it's much.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER49> I would by a laptop with a mechanical keyboard even if it makes it much thicker.

</comment><comment><USER50> They should have done one paragraph without the Es and Rs to make the point and then had it read as normal. I bet a lot of would be readers aren't bothering with this otherwise good article because of it.

<comment><USER51> There's a toggle in each section, that said I wish I noticed the toggle switch before I read the complete article myself.

</comment></comment><comment><USER52> I was planning to buy Macbook 2018 next week now after seeing all this complaints, i think I should wait for the 2019 model. Anyone with an idea when the next release would be?

<comment><USER53> Just a guess, but probably august/september

</comment></comment><comment><USER54> MacBook updates of 2016 and onwards are an example of "don't fix it if ain't broken". There isn't much choice on the market though. MacOS is something special still.

</comment><comment><USER55> Surely the need for Apple to noticeably grow profits is going to lead to ever more situations like this?

More flimsy products combined with more glamorous marketing to distract.

</comment><comment><USER56> Sad the article is behind a paywall. This is a topic I care about.

The penultimate generation MacBook Air keyboard is still my favourite typing device, and it's what I use today.

I would pay Apple double the price of their current MacBook for the same thing but with the old keyboard, and the MagSafe connector.

<comment><USER16> Try the web link at the top of the page in an incognito window then click through from the Google search results. It worked for me.

<comment><USER57> ah, copy the title and search it via Google worked out (using the link in Google search did not worked).

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER58> Does anyone have a similar issue with 1 of the Logitech keyboards? The "{" key keeps falling off, and it has happened with multiple keyboards.

</comment><comment><USER59> I'm planning to buy a MacBook Air. Is this butterfly keyboard affects only Macbook Pro? Is it the same with MacBook Air?

<comment><USER42> I just got the latest air and it has the same keyboard that current mbps have. They've added some rubber membranes, so it's hopefully less prone to broken keys, but there are reports that the problem still exists, unfortunately.

</comment></comment><comment><USER60> I know she is trying to make a point, but I don't think she should have mispelt almost every word.

</comment><comment><USER61> Wow, Joanna really carried that bit till the very last word. I love it.

</comment><comment><USER62> my MacBook's shit key doesn't work occasionally. I'm still thinking to bring it to fix or not.

<comment><USER63> Looks like you have the same problem with your f key!

</comment></comment><comment><USER57> You don't need an E. This is why we have autocorrection in macOS :p

</comment><comment><USER64> Nice title, sad paywall

<comment><USER65> Can we stop accepting paywalled sources? I don't ever see links to $20 papers on Elsevier.

<comment><USER66> I agree. This article has a hard paywall for me. Tried with google referrer (incognito or not) and with outline but that didnt work.

<comment><USER67> use pocket</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Ask HN: What happens to programmers after 40? - <AUTHOR>

You see all these startups, most people are pretty young, what happens to the programmers who are closer to 40, but aren't managers? Would you want to hire someone older than yourself? <comment><USER2> You know this age thing is a relatively new phenomenon, I am approaching 40 and back in the day, like say around 92-95 when the internet was starting to leak out of the universities by those of us graduating, when we went into the corporate world there where a lot of grey beards, and they where well respected, it was not looked at as a failure to choose a life long career of programming.

This new focus on age concerns me, because it is the exact problem that is wrong with outsourcing to India. The difference is in India it is in hyper- drive because everyone wants to be a manager or people ASAP. The number of people that report to you is a status symbol and everyone is playing the game to jump to the management ladder. It seems that that mentality is slowly infecting the US, but there is an age limit on ours but if that age limit starts to creep down to the point where people are looking to jump as soon as they have secured a development job, expect to see the quality of US software diminish with that creep.

<comment><USER3> I'm a U.S. citizen living in the Philippines. The culture in the Philippines has many of the same weird status quirks as that of India and you will never see this in the U.S.

I think any age issues in programming in the U.S. might be more practical than status issues.

Big corps are more rigid than scrappy start ups. Perhaps this causes issues that you might not see elsewhere. For example, everyone wants to make more money (probably through raises.) A 40 year old programmer who has been programming for 20+ years has probably maxed out on experience, possibly has maxed out on time on the job and eventually gets to a point where the position just can't offer any more money. The value of the position might even be less than the money paid to the programmer. At this point, the company would probably rather hire a fresh developer who can do the same job (which probably doesn't require all that experience anyways) for less money. So, if that programmer wants to make more money, then he / she probably needs to move on.

The bottom line is that programmers need to always be looking at ways to move up the value chain (or at least demonstrate that he or she is worth that current salary.) The best way to do that is different in every situation. In some cases you might just hit that ceiling and you might need to move on. The only case where someone is going to start looking at age is that situation where he / she is getting too comfortable and too afraid to make big moves.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> We cut our hair. Cut our hair real close so you can't see the gray.

Seriously, 40 is the new 30. I still have the chops and a lot more wisdom to boot.

<comment><USER5> I see it going the other way: 40 is the new 50. ;-) A 40-year-old used to be considered mid-level, not senior or particularly wise; certainly not a graybeard.

<comment><USER6> Totally disagree! I'd also say 30 is the new 20 - especially for me, I'm nearly 28 and have more enthusiasm for things like education and my career than I've ever had.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> If they are good, yes I want to hire them regardless of age. Experience is a valuable asset as well.

</comment><comment><USER8> What happens to the programmers who are closer to 40, but aren't managers? They have a choice: a) continue earning a living doing what they do with ever- diminishing returns, regular holidays, time with the kids, or b) go it alone, and risk a hell of a lot more than the young. I read somewhere that YC tends to steer away from engaging with generally older people who's risks/dependencies are obviously an issue.

Would you want to hire someone older than yourself? Absolutely. But only for the job that suits both me and them. I may want someone who really has the experience to do a specific task _with authority_ , and that is more often than not a greybeard, or enthusiastic experienced (40+) peer.

</comment><comment><USER9> I would say not much, but then I'm a sysadmin, and there's a lot of older folks there. I think more than half my coworkers are at least 40, and most of the rest are over 30. There's very few 20 somethings.

</comment><comment><USER10> They start to worry about how their age is defining them... and thus their age starts to define them. As someone who recently turned thirty and works in "start ups" I must say it's their own baggage.

</comment><comment><USER11> I am 44 and going stronger than ever. And having fun helping young developers out of the holes they more often than not dig for themselves :-)

</comment><comment><USER12> Some of our best programmers are well over 40. They're too smart to join ramen startups.

</comment><comment><USER13> that's the great thing about a tech interview. If you know your stuff you pass.</comment>


StupidFilter Project - <AUTHOR> http://stupidfilter.org/main/index.php?n=Main.HomePage <comment><USER2> Immediately reminds me of <http://www.chrisfinke.com/addons/youtube-comment- snob/>.

I can't seem to create a string that qualifies as stupid text (Demo: <http://stupidfilter.org/demo.php>). Apparently I just don't have it in me to be stupid.

Can anyone trigger it?

<comment><USER3> "why I must admit this message is bloody ridiculous and its stupidity rating is off the scales"

Nope. I even told it it as a stupid message and it didn't listen.

I don't really like the idea anyway, spammers are everywhere, but stupid comments come from real people. If your getting stupid comments your attracting stupid people, so your content is likely stupid too. Or maybe you just got dugg...

\-----

OK and tested the message above the line, and the "Text is likely to be stupid." Umm?

<comment><USER4> You're spelling "you're" wrong.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Doesn't seem to work very well. I just hand-selected some pretty egregious stupidity from Reddit and it didn't flag any of it.

<comment><USER6> For that you need the Ron Paul Filter.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> Isn't quite there yet, I just wrote a ton of slander into it and nothing.

Either way I don't quite agree with this kind of project, if you need a stupid filter you're browsing the wrong sites, and filtering out comments based on a shoddy algorithm is just silly and elitist.

</comment><comment><USER8> "FAIL!" triggered it.</comment>


Man boards plane at IAH with loaded gun in carry-on - <AUTHOR> http://abclocal.go.com/ktrk/story?section=news/local&id=7848683

<comment><USER2> This is important to keep in mind. Many people are willing to give up liberty and convenience for safety, and I can understand that. But the TSA is not actually effective, which means we are getting stripped-search for no reason other than to make some friend of a government employee rich.

I can't wait until someone uses a gun to hijack a plane. Then what? Metal detectors and full-body imaging to prevent that from happening again? Oh, but we already have metal detectors and full-body imagining to prevent that from happening again. Fuck.

</comment><comment><USER3> I accidentally ran a disassembled shotgun through a checkpoint at IAD. I'd filled out all the appropriate forms for declaring a gun (unloaded) in checked luggage, and couldn't figure out who to hand them to. This was at a period of high alert, so they were screening even checked bags. I finally got someone's attention, and he waved me to put my bags on the conveyor and walk through.

The bag went through without comment, and they were rather surprised and embarrassed when after that asked them what I was supposed to do with the declaration. Should we take from this that security is all a sham? No, probably not, but I wouldn't put much faith in simply adding mandatory checked bag X-rays.

</comment><comment><USER4> > Advanced imaging technology and more stringent pat downs have also since > been implemented.

Which wouldn't have found the gun that was in a _bag_.

</comment><comment><USER5> Flying is one of the safest things you can ever do, safer than showering, safer than walking down a busy sidewalk, safer than going to McDonalds to eat a burger.

We don't need anal probes and full body cat scans to make extremely safe things even more safe.

If you want to decrease your risk of dying from various causes, spending your entire life aboard public aircraft would be a wise thing to do.

<comment><USER6> looking at what's in a McDonalds burger, their (there?) are a LOT more things you can do that is safer than eating one of their burgers.

<comment><USER5> I wonder what the odds are of dying a few hours after eating a final burger (stroke, heart failure, etc) verses dying a few hours after boarding a doomed aircraft. I recall the odds of dying are like one in 15 million for first world airlines, I have a hard time believing that less than 1 in 15 million people who eat a burger die because of that burger.

<comment><USER7> If you eat three meals a day, you've got a good chance of dying a few hours after a meal. What are you arguing?

<comment><USER5> I'm arguing that the obsession with making flying safer and safer by strip searching people is insane.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Khan Academy and the Effectiveness of Science Videos - <AUTHOR> https://fnoschese.wordpress.com/2011/03/17/khan-academy-and-the-effectiveness-of-science-videos/

<comment><USER2> I have experienced this first-hand. Let me give you a little anecdote:

I took Chemistry Honors as a sophomore in high school. Now a sophomore in college/senior in high school, I'm again taking Chem since it's required as part of my gen-ed. I basically never come to the packed lecture hall as I see it as a waste of my time to listen to a repeat of a class I took 2 years ago.

I print off class lectures and view the khan vids and it's pretty easy. Yet this hasn't really translated over to my performance in tests. I think a culprit may be that I gloss over bits when I feel this all has a "I know this stuff" feel.

Compare this to my biology honors course as a freshman in high school as well as again as a freshman in college/junior in high school again. I didn't know about khan academy then, and took notes in class for things that I wasn't sure about (it was all still essentially review --props to my great HS freshman Bio teachers). I also studied outside if class and did practice problems during my free hour right after class. Aced the class and more effort was put towards the learning. Any misconceptions/confusion was resolved with either a quick google search or question at the tutoring center for homework help at college.

I plan to try and see if the physics course I'll be taking soon will produce different results, since I haven't taken a physics class yet ever, so it'll be pretty much all new. I plan on first studying with mainly Khan Academy only and seeing the results, then with other more "traditional" methods. I'm mainly testing to see whether the newness factor has any effect on my ability to acquire and retain the content just from videos.

</comment><comment><USER3> It's interesting that people are not really paying attention when the facts presented differ from their own mental models - I suspect this also happens a lot in school and university settings. I remember the only useful lessons were those that actively engaged the learners (and not in some phony interview style either, but real exchange with the teacher).

When watching almost any tutorial video, I find myself zoning out a lot. Often times I even open up the browser and read something completely different while the videos is still running.

A few weeks ago I had a discussion with a friend who challenged me to convince him his adamant assertion that videos are the inevitable future of _all_ media is wrong. At the time I just felt instinctively video was never going to replace the written word and 2D graphical presentations, but I couldn't make a convincing argument. It only now occurs to me there might actually be scientific data in support of my suspicion and that instructions on video may have an information-to-brain bandwidth similar to a very boring teacher after all.

<comment><USER4> Unfortunately, most college lectures are even worse than videos. It is very difficult to not zone-out or become distracted in a poorly-lit room with uncomfortable chairs. And if you miss something, you are much less likely to ask a professor to repeat it than you are to jump to a previous location in a video.

I think the lectures need to be replaced by the videos as a home assignment. Classroom time should be split into two activities - intelligent discussion on the subject of the video, and actual problem solving with other classmates, with the teacher immediately accessible for any questions.

<comment><USER5> I teach at mathematics at a community college. I have videos for each section of the book and created problem sets for each section of the book. In essence, I've created my own book.

My intention was to invert the role of homework and classwork. That is, that homework would now consist of watching the lecture. Classwork would focus on solving problems. The outcome? Disaster.

I tracked usage of the videos. Around half the class didn't watch a given lecture. Around 1/3 consistently watched the lectures. The effect of this was that over time only around 1/3 of the class was able (and willing) to engage in problem solving and discussions about the material.

I had 2/3 of the students hopelessly lost by the tenth week. How does this compare to the traditional format? When I give the standard lecture/homework assignment type class around 2/3 will pass. I double the number of people passing but I strongly suspect that they end up failing in the next course. (It is quite easy to pass beginning math classes these days. ) My anecdotal experience is that while I get more people to pass by giving lectures each day I end up with a group of people who know the material less well.

My experience tells me that around 1/4 of the students will learn the material from my video lectures because they are motivated and willing to engage me when they are lost. Around 1/4 will stumble through the course and learn something regardless of the format it is given in. The rest are mostly hopeless. They lack motivation, drive, and the ability to work intellectually.

What you describe does work with motivated students and the right teacher. I am not the right teacher for this though. Without motivated students I don't think it works. That's the essence of the problem. Too many students don't want to learn.

In a traditional class a student can hide their ignorance. They don't raise their hand and don't participate. The facade of being studious and understanding the material can be maintained. When you assign lecture watching as the homework and then spend class time solving problems it becomes evident who is not keeping up. It can't be hidden. This causes negative reactions in my experience.

Here's a great lecture by Eric Mazur. It's long but well worth watching. It's called, "Confessions of a Converted Lecturer".

<http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WwslBPj8GgI>

<comment><USER4> I wonder if shorter videos would help. I know when I did video lectures, it helped immensely to speed them up anywhere from 1.2x to 2x, depending on the lecturer and the audio quality of the video.

Additionally, watching the video could be an assignment that counts towards a grade. Sure they could sign in, turn on the video, and walk away, but this at least provides additional motivation to do the first two steps, which may be all you need to overcome the activation energy for many students.

Additionally, threats of failure help - I had a course that was considered the filter - about 50% failed every semester. I think I was motivated by that statistic because it ended up being just about the easiest class I had. The motivation was less about not wanting to fail and more about showing excellence where common people fail.

<comment><USER5> My videos tend to be under 20 minutes long. I try to keep them focused and to the point. No fluff. I agree that generally, shorter is better.

Motivating them to watch is a problem for me. I'm philosophically opposed to giving points for something a well trained monkey could do. I can't bring myself to give points merely for pressing play on a video. I'm slowly coming around though.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Essentially this is a critique of lectures and traditional teaching models which unfortunately uses Khan Academy as a pretext for discussing how lectures don't work very well.

The tiny feedback loop that Khan Academy quizzes provide just renders the whole point moot. And that's just one additional aspect of Khan Academy.

It's unfortunate because it's not as if the author doesn't understand that Khan Academy is much more than just videos -- it's stated at the start of his video. But all that is literally swept aside at the start of the video as it focuses on the same old stuff that we've known for all too long -- teaching via lecture doesn't work very well.

Anyone can put a video up on YouTube, but what makes Khan Academy fundamentally different is not just the quality of the lectures, but the structure of Khan Academy and supporting materials that go along with those lectures.

The irony is that the author seems to be reinforcing their own idea of video education by ignoring how Khan Academy doesn't fit within their preconceived concepts.

<comment><USER7> 2 points:

1\. Having quizzes post-video is still different than having a different teaching style. In terms of learning outcomes, the two styles could potentially be equal, however in terms of student motivation/engagement/interest, they are different.

2\. I'm not disagreeing with you necessarily here, but I thought the quizzes are only for some math at the moment, and nothing else? This would mean that at the moment his argument applies to everything except some math concepts?

<comment><USER6> I should have said that I found the technique interesting and insightful. Learning doesn't happen without engagement -- that's the key point. I just thought it was a bit disingenuous to ignore what Khan Academy is beyond video lectures & "worry" about it being bad for students.

Re: Point 2. Yes, I just looked over the Khan Academy knowledge map and it does look like I was wrong; however, I'd still posit that there is more to Khan Academy than just videos (I've talked about the "Coach" elsewhere in this thread). But I can see the point the author is trying to make and I'm not asserting that the method is wrong, but that he's glossing over everything outside the video content of Khan Academy.

That said, I think the idea is a really good way to give students a better way to engage with the subject. It adds another way for a student to engage, which can never be a bad thing.

<comment><USER7> Yeah I agree that he did gloss over some of the other Khan features.

About the method the video talks about -- I bought some audio-only lessons for learning French once by Micheal Thomas that (for me anyway) confirms this method. On the audio, the teacher had 2 students present, and the lessons consisted of Michael teaching these two students. The teacher would often ask questions and test their knowledge, and the students often would make mistakes. Naturally he would always correct them. I found it incredibly engaging and effective for myself.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> The article glosses over the most important part of Khan Academy: pairing the clear concise videos with practice/assessment. This is what engages the student "on a deep enough level" and reinforces the lesson. The only thing missing from the traditional classroom learning cycle is the possibility of something being explained in a different way if the student is still having difficulty.

<comment><USER2> I think YouTube replies would be great in this case, by others (and even Sal) using the same approach as Sal with Wacom and 10-15 min explanation of common misconceptions and corrections.

<comment><USER9> Sometimes I've wondered if the vision of Khan Academy executed to its fullest would be to have a Stack Overflow-like up-/down-voting system for user- submitted videos. Khan Academy is amazing (note: I'll be interning with them this summer, and I'm SUPER excited), but it's never going to be accessible for _everyone_ as long as it's just one teacher. I think Khan is a great teacher, but there are always going to be at least a couple people who are confused by wording in an unforeseen way. If everyone posts videos, and the best teachers' videos get pushed up to the top, then it's bound to round out the experience and help people who might not like Khan's personal style. This idea sounds good in theory (kind of), but it would never work in practice since videos are much more time-consuming to make and watch, and so could not easily be digested and voted on by the masses. Sure, there's the potential that if you open up the teaching to the masses that some really excellent material could rise to the top, but it would also be drowned out in the noise of countless sub-par teachers. With Khan producing all the videos, everything is guaranteed to be high quality.

Sidebar aside, the site does have a place for users to ask/answer questions below each video. What I realized while briefly mentioning Stack Overflow above is that it would be _amazing_ if that kind of rapid-answer community could be built up around these questions.

<comment><USER5> I've wanted to create such a site for many years now. My focus is on community college level mathematics. My goal is to make it topic based.

My college's administration is a bit conservative when it comes to new ideas. I think you are wrong about not having enough videos though. More and more college faculty are creating their own videos. What is lacking is a central storage location for these videos. I think people would be willing to upload their videos and make them publicly available.

I could, over time, what evolves is a book. In math this would work because at the beginning levels the knowledge is static. How to factor trinomials is not ever going to change. I think a Stackoverflow site would work for lecture videos.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Regarding "pseudoteaching" mentioned in the article - every great teacher is to some degree a con artist. They know that in the end it is up to the student to engage with the material - the only thing they can do as a teacher is to communicate their excitement about the subject and provide a point of view that would make the material easier to absorb, at least to some. Their goal is never to reach everyone yet everyone leaving their lectures feels like they have been made a party to some exciting secret.

<comment><USER11> I had a remarkably effective teacher who said as much, quite emphatically. I don't think most of the students actually believed him, writing it off as bluster. It was true, though, and this idea permeated his whole approach to teaching. It worked, too.

Years later, I still find this hilarious.

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> Khan Academy and other video teachers need to have lots of problems for each lesson for the students to solve. We learn best by doing.

For example, I remember my Calc II professor said that when he was in college, he'd do every single problem in the book for that lesson--even though only half of the problems were assigned (the ones w/o answers in the back). And look where he ended up: as an expert in calculus.

Also, I'm going through Stanford's CS193p (iOS dev) on iTunesU right now in my free time after work. Probably 80% of my learning happens by completing the assignments.

<comment><USER13> >Also, I'm going through Stanford's CS193p (iOS dev) on iTunesU right now in my free time after work. Probably 80% of my learning happens by completing the assignments.

Are these the assignments you used? Or are the ones on iTunesU different?

[http://www.stanford.edu/class/cs193p/cgi- bin/drupal/download...](http://www.stanford.edu/class/cs193p/cgi- bin/drupal/downloads-2010-fall)

<comment><USER12> That page has the assignments, lecture notes, and source code from the lecture demos. The lecture videos are hosted on iTunesU.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> I think if the students were told what they got _wrong_ on the first exam, they would have easily done a lot better. Like some of the other commenters stated, constant assessment is key. Once people start to figure out that some of their most common conceptions are misconceptions, they'll start to question everything, and then the learning really begins.

</comment><comment><USER15> The biggest flaw in tnis is that the OP criticizes khanacademy videos by showing that vastly inferior videos don't work. Khan videos are good b/c they make it easy to think: there are no distractions, just a blackboard and an intelligent voice "in your head" guiding you through the problem domain. The OP, instead of using a khan video or even a khan-like video, tries to teach physics using a video shot outdoors featuring the face of a talking girl with a guy juggling in the background. He might as well give his subjects a physics book and turn them loose in a sports bar to study while following ncaa basketball. Neither method is a good one for learning physics. What's sad is that thd OP is not just some crank on the internet, but apparently a newly minted PhD in education who will likely end up teaching teachers or running a school system.

</comment><comment><USER16> Illuminating. Seems that the academy's recent focus on mastery and testing is of utmost importance, at least that way students who watch the videos but do not absorb the material will realize they don't actually "get it" when they can't answer the questions. The key will be in devising problem sets that truly require mastery and not just plug and chug or rote memorization.

</comment><comment><USER17> One of my worst experiences in college is to have a lecturer run through some gnarly theory, after which you get the impression that you understand it.

Then he goes "whoops, I made an error just now", and everything has to be reassessed.

</comment><comment><USER18> Interesting video. The theory the article demonstrates through its video is that people don't pay attention unless you begin with the popular misconception. Otherwise, people automatically believe they know what you're going to say.

<comment><USER19> I agree that it would help people with those misconceptions learn. But I think it would be a waste of time to listen to all possible wrongs if you are eager to learn and adequately knowledgeable about a particular subject. Maybe entertaining for the first few times, but inefficient in the long run.</comment></comment>


Seriously, Equifax? This Is a Breach No One Should Get Away With - <AUTHOR> https://www.nytimes.com/2017/09/08/technology/seriously-equifax-why-the-credit-agencys-breach-means-regulation-is-needed.html?hp&action=click&pgtype=Homepage&clickSource=story-heading&module=first-column-region&region=top-news&WT.nav=top-news <comment><USER2> "If a bank lost everyone's money, regulators might try to shut down the bank."

Oh really? I thought it depends on how big the bank is. Agencies giving tripe-A to junks were punished so harsrhly...

<comment><USER3> 2008/9 suggests that isn't the case!

Hell, HSBC was actively money laundering and they are still kicking.

<comment><USER4> HSBC isn't a monolithic organization, it was fined and people did went to prison, probably not as many and should've went but still.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> I think at this point the smart move to make is to devalue the stolen data: assume social security numbers are public information.

<comment><USER5> an afterthought: and make Equifax pay for it.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> I think this incident is a very good argument for why NSA and the agencies in other countries should focus on publishing known exploits. This was probably not one that was known, but it shows what could happen if criminals get access.

<comment><USER7> I don't understand that logic? The NSA's mission is not to find exploits, it's just a means to an end. If they released the problems they find, there is literally no business case to justify the NSA spending money on finding exploits to then have them closed.

Arguments like that would make more sense to suggest that a new agency is setup to find and fix faults in software. You're keeping the agency's mission focused.

Problem with an agency like that is that in effect it's government support for software companies. Microsoft, Google, Apple could cut back on security processes because they know the tax payer is picking up the tab.

Government shouldn't be in the market, they should hold the market to account for bad actors. We should make having security breaches a painful cost. The market would adjust to meet the macro economic environment.

<comment><USER6> According to Wikipedia, NSA is also tasked with the protection of U.S. communications networks and information systems. By not disclosing the exploits they find, they put the information systems at risk. If they can find it, someone else can too.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> I mean, Equifax is quite literally in the business of making sure people don't get away with things. It would be unfair to their mission for them to continue as a going concern.

</comment><comment><USER9> I wonder if Equifax will face any international action, for example here in the UK we have Data Protection laws that can be used to fine companies for such breaches, although it's not entirely clear if British customer data has been affected.

Still, Equifax are probably quick to tell everyone if you've missed one payment on your credit card, but took a few months to say they've been hacked? Doesn't seem fair

<comment><USER10> > _...although it 's not entirely clear if British customer data has been > affected._

It has [0]:

"... Equifax also identified unauthorized access to limited personal information for certain UK and Canadian residents ... no evidence that personal information of consumers in any other country has been impacted."

[0]: [https://www.equifaxsecurity2017.com](https://www.equifaxsecurity2017.com)

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> This is kinda how I feel. [https://equifaxbreach2017.com/](https://equifaxbreach2017.com/)

FYI. That is not the real site.

</comment><comment><USER12> I think it's important to take a step back, take a breath, and look at this rationally.

Look at what actually happened. Equifax was using the Spring framework. This is a very safe, popular choice. They were using what everybody else uses.

There was a critical vuln in the framework, and they failed to update their box for N months. But we're talking only a few months. N is very small -- maybe four? And yeah, you can argue that four months is an absurdly long time to have a known critical vuln in production. But I guarantee you that _everybody reading this_ is similarly vulnerable. Whatever company you work for, if you do not have regular pentests, you are no better off. And even if you do, it's overwhelmingly likely that you've overlooked some lonely outdated server that's still running on your network because Bob set it up a year ago and forgot about it and oh look now you have a pivot into your whole network.

It seems very strange to choose this _one_ company and crucify them just because they lost your data. Everybody is insecure everywhere always, and we've learned to tolerate this by pretending it's not true or that it doesn't exist or that it's not a big deal. But you know what? It is true. That truth will continue to manifest itself in the years to come. No matter how much you'd like it not to be true, your stuff will still get stolen. Usually you just don't hear about it.

Yes, it was stupid for them to have everybody's PII attached to that one webserver. A single point of failure should never result in compromising the whole system. But think about how that architecture would work in practice. A customer service rep still needs to get at most of your data. It's a credit bureau. Where would the data be stored in a way that a remote code exec wouldn't be able to snag it?

Equifax's crime boils down to "they failed to run the equivalent of sudo apt- get update on their framework." When you're managing a fleet of hundreds or thousands of machines, this is a situation that almost all of us have wound up in. If _we_ can't get it right, why do you want the execs' heads to roll? Are you sure you won't be next on the chopping block?

Think about it this way: the time between "someone discovered a vuln in Spring" and "the attackers stole 150M credit reports" was just a few months. Are you sure Equifax wasn't a victim here? Someone threw a cinderblock through their window and made off with their trove of data.

Food for thought.

<comment><USER13> They were using what everybody else uses. But not everybody else has financial data on so many people behind this framework. If you're dealing with this kind of data there are some additional requirements. I've worked at a few banks and they all provide a lot of extra security on top of those frameworks. So no they're not just victims in this.

I read that top management sold a lot of stock prior to the news coming out about the breach. I hope they get sued for prior knowledge or whatever that is called.</comment></comment>


"United Arab Emirates Intelligence Tried to Hire Me to Spy on Its People" - <AUTHOR> https://theintercept.com/2016/10/24/darkmatter-united-arab-emirates-spies-for-hire/ <comment><USER2> Currently the phrase "perfect surveillance state" doesn't appear in the article.

<comment><AUTHOR> Sorry, I should have checked that. I took the title from a link in a curated news list. The actual title, "Spies for Hire", isn't useful. I'll change it to a phrase from the article:

"United Arab Emirates Intelligence Tried to Hire Me to Spy on Its People"

Not perfect, because it's quoted from something else, but hopefully good enough.

<comment><USER2> Cool, that change makes more sense to me.

I found the article interesting. It seems like the journalist struggled to find concrete, direct evidence that this company is engaged in the offensive work that she claims -- but found a very considerable amount of circumstantial evidence. I also appreciated that hackers were willing to talk about their concerns with doing this kind of work, and that the article mentions the way people might not know the nature of the work they (or their colleagues) might be asked to do at the time that they're hired.</comment></comment></comment>


The Dizzying Capabilities of Mathematica's Import Function - <AUTHOR> https://reference.wolfram.com/language/guide/ImportingAndExporting.html <comment><AUTHOR> I've always been extremely impressed with Wolfram Mathematica's import function. This one call can handle importing images, text, file I/O, optimization files, geographical file formats, genetic encoding files...etc etc. The consistency is what is truly impressive here as even though Python can probably do much of the same things, each type that isn't built-in uses an entirely different library with different conventions.</comment>


Programmer hiring programmers - <AUTHOR>

Hey HN, I'm a startup founder who codes himself and I'm about to hire 2-3 programmers to give me a hand on the front-end of my web-based app (JS, AJAX, simple stuff). But I believe a large fraction of people who claim to be good at that criteria are noobs. Well, if you test 5 people who claim to be good Scala programmers, 3 of them will pass. But the number for JS is 1 at max. So, what do you guys suggest for hiring a good JS coder who produces good, reusable, extendable code ? Cheers. <comment><USER2> Do you use Firefox (or Chrome)? If so, go through the list of add-ons you have installed and contact the developers. (JS is the primary language for add-on development.)

Many add-on devs are freelancers (read: available to work), and if you're using their add-ons, they've already passed at least one test.

</comment><comment><USER3> By "hiring" do you mean finding enough of those who can pass tests (which I agree are essential)?

<comment><AUTHOR> I do.</comment></comment>


New rules for contractors have unexpected consequences for strip clubs - <AUTHOR> https://www.sfexaminer.com/news/new-rules-for-contractors-have-unexpected-consequences-for-the-citys-strip-clubs/ <comment><USER2> Essentially what's happening is that now the club owners have to pay a bunch of taxes they managed to avoid paying before. The dancers themselves were likely not paying as much in taxes as they were supposed to, but now, with paycheck withholding, they're probably paying more in taxes than they used to.

The clubs, in order to compensate for all the "new" taxes, are only paying minimum wage, and are taking larger cuts of private dance fees from the dancers than they were before, and are in some cases tacking on new fees dancers have to pay, like "private room rental".

Dancers _might_ be getting better benefits under the new rules (health insurance, sick days), but might not, since some of these benefits require minimum weekly hours worked that the dancers mostly don't meet. Dancers are also feeling pressure to be less choosy about what things they're willing to do for different customers, since "it's their job".

Really what it boils down to is that these are not sustainable businesses at the prices they currently charge customers, unless they _also_ avoid paying a bunch of taxes. If they want to keep their dancers from quitting, they'll likely have to raise prices enough to get a similar amount of cash into the hands of their dancers, while also meeting their tax obligations. Not sure if that increase in cost will decrease demand to the point where it just won't work.

<comment><USER3> I doubt that most strip clubs will be unprofitable now. What I think is closer to the truth is that they were previously _obscenely_ profitable, thanks in part to exploiting dancers and evading taxes, and will now be "merely" profitable along the same lines as any other service-based small business like a bar or restaurant.

<comment><USER4> > were previously obscenely profitable

How can that be. Wouldn't that simply increase the supply of strip clubs, from more getting into something thats that profitable.

<comment><USER5> I'm going to guess that it's hard to get a license to operate a strip club in San Francisco so it may be more of a regulatory and lobbying game.

<comment><USER4> > hard to get a license to operate a strip club

So they are solving issue they themselves created with more laws. Heh.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Reading the article, it seems like the primary complaint is that, since the business has to pay things like social security, payroll taxes, worker's comp, etc. that they then have to withhold this money before they pay the workers, rather than have the workers withhold this themselves?

It sounds a lot more like the complaints are "I was making $X before because I was underreporting my income, but now that the business is on the hook for all this, I'm being forced to comply and am finding that the work isn't profitable enough anymore". Which translates to me as everyone else, who was paying into all these public tax pools, was essentially subsidizing the dancers.

I guess you could argue that some of the stuff, like workman's comp, some people might want to just pocket the money that otherwise would've gone to insuring the risk of being injured on the job. Which I think is maybe irresponsible, since otherwise the burden just ends up getting shifted, again, to the general public (worker injured without worker's comp then ends up on food stamps, or ends up getting their medical debt written off, etc). So we should probably require people to directly pay into these things, like we require people to maintain liability auto insurance.

And I suppose you could also say that maybe the businesses are taking the opportunity to pocket some extra profit, but hopefully the invisible hand of the free market would compete that back down as employees and customers move around based on new pricing/comp.

</comment><comment><USER7> > "The BSC-managed clubs now have matching payroll taxes, unemployment > compensation, workman's compensation, Healthy San Francisco costs, > Affordable Care Insurance costs, and SF sick leave pay for several hundred > new employee entertainers in addition to the hourly wage," he wrote.

Translation: "Our business was profitable only when we got to avoid following the same rules that all other employers have to follow." That goes for both the entertainers and the establishments.

Sounds like this is the expected result to me. In a free and fair market, price is a genuine signal of relative scarcity. CA has removed a particular factor that skewed prices in some labor markets. The result should be a correction in those markets.

</comment><comment> crooked-v The "traditional" standard here is for strippers to obviously be employees but get called contractors to evade paperwork, taxes, and required employee benefits, which is exactly the kind of situation these new standards are intended to prevent. I don't see anything "unexpected" about the result.

<comment><USER8> Yep, it's very common. "You're an independent contractor, but if you sleep with any of our customers for money[1], we'll 'fine' you $2000, and you can't work for anyone else"

[1]Prostitution is legal in my country.

<comment><USER9> > if you sleep with any of our customers for money[1], we'll 'fine' you $2000

This sounds like a refreshingly constrained non poaching clause. It is quite common for independent contractors to be forbidden from establishing a direct bussiness relationship with the customer's customers.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Law of unintended consequences, maybe? California did something pretty bold, and only time will tell if it was a good idea or not. Seems like there's a lot of fallout though, so far. Anecdotally, I know a few people whose small businesses were impacted by the change; neither knew it was even an issue until one was sued by a contractor they'd been working with for a few years. I wonder what kind of due diligence the State went through when making this broad-sweeping change.

<comment><USER11> Hard to say. Is there a reason to treat adult industry as any other industry? I can see the wish for higher level of privacy, but beyond that?

Apparently, there are lawsuits that precede the Uber issue:

> However, as a result of the lawsuits and ongoing demands by the suing > dancers and their attorneys

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> > Some dancers also feared being classified as employees would mean not being > able to pick and choose which customers to serve.

> "I think they should control their own sexuality, they should control their > own bodies," he said. "The difference there being, of course, if you're an > employee, you don't have a choice who you perform for, as an independent > contractor you get to choose how you perform, whom you perform for, and what > level you're comfortable at."

Is a stripper allowed to discriminate on protected characteristics? Can she say that she doesn't want to strip for Asians, for example? Or will she run afoul of the anti-discrimination laws?

<comment><USER13> I am not an expert but I think they officially offer very basic services and anything extra is at the dancer's discretion. but since nothing extra is officially offered, it's hard to make claims about it

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> I feel there is a strong argument to decouple social security and benefits from employment; the current legislation feels like a bad model design.

I am confident that when it was first conceived, people sought to do well for individuals. Now, a month doesn't go by without a similar dispute affecting a new industry. The argument is always between individuals that want to become employees, and individuals that want to stay as contractors.

It is a shame that among our political candidate options nobody is really rethinking the system with an engineering mindset. To even begin to grasp the current model and its implications feels like jumping into a legacy project without hope, and that isn't right. It should be simpler.

<comment><USER15> Health insurance is still hopelessly broken. A "gig economy" cannot work with such fundamentally broken services. I wrote about this a while back, having both worked in health insurance and having lived in other countries:

[https://battlepenguin.com/politics/returning-to-america- and-...](https://battlepenguin.com/politics/returning-to-america-and-the- unaffordable-care-act/)

I do not like the private model at all, but at a minimum, I agree with you and I think the ACA would have only worked if it forced employers to give employees vouchers to then have everyone buy insurance from a common marketplace. Obama's promise that people could keep their existing insurance was a terrible idea.

It does keep people in America perpetually working. No one can afford to really take time off for themselves even if they have the savings, because if they're not working enough hours to get health care and get sick, that's it. You're fucked. You have to use that other American Healthcare site: Gofundme.

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> Look, i get the "sorry not sorry welcome to life like the rest of us" attitude. its true - but there is more truth.

certainly there are skeezy strip joints that take advantage of women without options and do more harm than good, but others could have been a way out. we just locked all the parachutes because some (probably most) people were joyriding with them, but this does greater than zero harm. _some_ people needed those parachutes and couldve changed their life.

im not saying this change is wrong. if you kill your enemy you would kill him again given the chance, but he was still someones son. something good was lost here.

edited a half dozen times before any replies because my brain is mush

</comment><comment><USER17> I wonder if strippers could be classified as sales people. There are plenty of companies that pay sales people on 100% commission. If saying "hi honey, want a dance?" isn't sales, I don't know what is. It's been a long time since I worked in sales, so I'm not sure if this would work.

<comment><USER18> They're too honest about the product for it to be considered a sales job.

</comment></comment><comment><USER19> To my understanding strip clubs got looped into this because their business and employees were classified much differently than your typical business. They aren't open 24x7 and overwhelming majority of girls work part-time - that's it.

The problem you have is with companies like Uber and other who have for nearly decades have abused contract work but strippers were classified as the same.

It's too bad they got lumped and really shouldn't have been but we've had enough major corporations screwing the middle class evading taxes.

</comment><comment><USER20> One stand out quote:

> The whole point about being a stripper is you go in, get fast cash, no one > knows how you're getting it, it's not documented and it's not taken from you

I can't imagine why a government might have a problem with that. Starting to think cash-in-hand workers were the target all along.

</comment><comment><USER21> Where did all the money go? If the dancers made hundreds of dollars as independent contractors wouldn't it have been tips from customers? Wouldn't the dancers still get the same amount but now also $15/hour plus benefits?

<comment><USER22> See the article; the cut which the clubs take, has gone up.

<comment><USER23> And also they had to pay taxes on their income now.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> Wouldn't economics dictate the lower supply of dancers be paid more money?

Sounds like the clubs will need to raise those wages a bit.

Also, the dancer can now unionize which means they can bargain for fairer pay.

This whole piece comes off as a victim plea from the clubs' owners who've been skimming dancers. Time to pony up fellas.

</comment><comment><USER3> "This whole business will be completely ruined. The whole point about being a stripper is you go in, get fast cash, no one knows how you're getting it, it's not documented and it's not taken from you."

Sorry not sorry that you have to actually start paying taxes on your income like the rest of us. Some of these quotes are really helping to make the case _for_ the law.

<comment><USER25> But that doesn't explain why their comp is fixed at the minimum wage of $15/hr

This article is a year old.

<comment><USER3> That's not at all uncommon for jobs that make a lot of money in tips. The minimum wage for servers is $2-something, for example.

Even more so than servers, strippers are a tip-based job.

<comment><USER25> I've heard anecdotally (from strippers wanting tips) that their tip based comp has gone down. Like what they get to keep from dances and private rooms had been cut in conjunction with the reclassification

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> Quotes from Darla:

> "This whole business will be completely ruined. The whole point about being > a stripper is you go in, get fast cash, no one knows how you're getting it, > it's not documented and it's not taken from you"

>"Not one of those girls had a check for two weeks over $300. There was a lot of upset. A lot of girls packed up to leave that night. I was one of those girls," Darla said.

1\. Pay your taxes like everyone else.

2\. Form your own LLC to contract talent out, call it whatever you like and no one is going to look at your pay stub to know what you do

3\. The reason the performers had poor pay was _because the club owner was paying them poorly_. Ask for more money, because clearly the clubs are losing it by not paying their employees appropriately.

Weirdly enough, this regulation seems like it should spur some classic market capitalism in the strip club business. It appears that the labor is in short supply and demand is rising, so you'd think they'd ask for more than minimum wage!

<comment><USER25> I really wonder what is going on here - I think any salary negotiations failed because the dancers are much more fungible than they believed

The clubs set the pay at the base minimum of $15/hr and dancers I talked to said the tipping system has also been upended.

So a lot of dancers left and BSC has a regional monopoly.

I dont really hear any discussion about what happened when asking for a higher salary.

Looks like different women applied and got in.

Maybe talented dancers left but good enough ones replaced them, customers aren't _that_ discerning even if the prior dancers were more entertaining.

<comment><USER22> The fact that 12/14 strip clubs in the area are owned by one business, suggests that we don't have a completely freely operating labor market, here.</comment></comment></comment>


Egor Homakov available for hire - <AUTHOR> http://homakov.blogspot.ru/2013/04/consulting.html

<comment><AUTHOR> I think Egor has done quite a lot for the community, but he wouldn't personally dare posting here, so posting it as a "thank you".

</comment><comment><USER2> you need to 10x your rate Egor

</comment><comment><USER3> GitHub : Go Hire Him !! :D</comment>