Use this instead of press releases - <AUTHOR> http://mbites.com/2015/07/01/the-press-release-is-dead/ <comment><USER2> First things first, consider why you are pitching this reporter in the first place.

For most companies, TechCrunch is a waste of time (see his note on press releases designed to stroke the writer's ego.)

They are probably not your market. Your market is the people you help. Those people — small businesses, local governments, regular people, video game enthusiasts, whatever — probably don't read TechCrunch.

Find what they read and pitch there.

But what about gaining respect in the Valley? No one whose respect you care about will respect you for seeing your funding round in TechCrunch. Focus on building your business. Focus on building your product. Telling stories is important, but only when you're talking about things that matter. Funding is a means to doing other things, not an end in itself.

Hiring? When I was at ZenPayroll, the toughest time for hiring was right after our Series A. We had tons of people who applied because we had just raised $20 million and they saw us in TechCrunch. They wanted to join a rocketship (literally heard that in an interview.) We wanted to help small businesses, very different motivations.

Pitch your impact. 99% of the time, you are not yet making a big impact. That's okay. Focus on making one, not making up a story as to why you're making one.

<comment><USER3> Man, why can't anyone on HN say that TechCrunch is useless without being karma-bombed?

<comment><USER4> TechCrunch is useless for many startups. I won't make a blanket statement that it's useless, because I think it does matter for some startups. If your "thing" is a new consumer facing web app or mobile app that needs to be presented to a lot of fairly tech-savvy "early adopter" types, then sure, TechCrunch is great, because those are the people who read TechCrunch.

But... if you're a B2B startup whose target customers are manufacturing companies, logistics companies, retail firms, finance companies, health-care companies, pharama companies, academia, etc., then TechCrunch likely isn't the _best_ place to reach your potential customers. Sure, their base of readership is broad enough that _some_ of your targets probably read it, but if I want to reach executives in the textiles industry, I'm better off getting something ran in "Textile Manufacturing Today" or a general purpose business publication like Forbes.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> There's some good stuff there, but this gets me:

        WHAT IS THE NEW ROUND OF FUNDING?
        (Required: Specify Seed, Series A, etc)
        WHO ARE THE INVESTORS?
        (Required)
        HOW MUCH FUNDING (in $) DOES IT HAVE IN TOTAL?
        (Required: Specify Seed, Series A, etc)

This suggests that really, the only thing they care about, is stories about people raising money. Like, that's the only thing that matters in the world.

In reality, who you're funded by is trivia. Yeah, I said it. It's fucking trivia. It's not going to make a difference in whether you succeed or not. IMO, to the extent that it matters, it's a microscopic factor.

You would _think_ that a news outlet would be interested in the _what_ of a company, less than "who's funding it?", ya know? I mean, if somebody has created a ground-breaking new app, (or something they think is ground- breaking) then the app either is news-worthy, or it isn't. You don't need to know who they're funded by, or if they're self-funded, to decide that.

I've said this before and I'll keep banging this drum until I drop... the goal of a startup is to make money, not to raise money. To the extent that you do the latter, it's in service of the former. But raising money is a tactical objective, not the end goal.

<comment><USER5> Mike is thinking about his readers here. TechCrunch is essentially a business- to-business publication, which provides market intelligence on technology companies. It might be 'sexier' than The Aluminium Times or Mining Today, but it's effectively serving the same role -- to inform the industry, and those working within it, about important sector news in a timely way.

People who aren't strictly working in the industry read it too because they're interested in tech more generally, or getting involved in it, or want to know the coolest things to download. For that reason, TechCrunch publishes the occasional entertaining piece. But it's primarily purpose is to brief tech entrepreneurs, C-suite executives and VCs who are active in the industry.

So, what are these people interested in?

They are /absolutely/ interested in who is participating in funding rounds, as well as the level of their contribution.

If I run a fashion start-up, for example, and spot on TechCrunch a story about another fashion start-up securing $5m in Series A funding, the first thing I'm going to ask myself is... who participated in this round? Then I can ping them an email to get on their radar.

Who is investing is crucial market information for tech decision-makers. It's certainly not just a bit of trivia.

<comment><USER6>
        TechCrunch is essentially a business-to-business
        publication, which provides market intelligence
        on technology companies

I couldn't disagree more. Most charitably, it's Sports Illustrated for technology.

        If I run a fashion start-up, for example, and
        spot on TechCrunch a story about another
        fashion start-up securing $5m in Series A
        funding, the first thing I'm going to ask
        myself is... who participated in this round?
        Then I can ping them an email to get on
        their radar.

Dear VC, now that you have skin in the game in this sector, please develop a conflict of interest by investing in my startup that competes with a company you've already invested in.

Here's an example of how/why this doesn't work: [http://www.bhorowitz.com/instagram](http://www.bhorowitz.com/instagram)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> The hilarious thing about this is that he's complaining about pitches not being concise enough, but his suggested template literally asks for a full- length essay. If you add up the suggested sentence limits, you get over EIGHTY SENTENCES and at least a dozen paragraphs. Jesus!

</comment><comment><USER8> Very good point! But for a text talking about how long-winded, somewhat rambling and hard to skim press releases are, I found it quite long-winded, somewhat rambling and hard to skim.

<comment><USER9> Especially WITH all of THOSE randomly capitalized WORDS!

<comment><AUTHOR> Welcome to Mike Butcher

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> > Many opening Hacker News posts are very simplistic titles which don't answer > basic questions, like "Use _this_ instead of press releases". Many even say > (WHY?!) "Would you like to read my entire rant about how important I am to > not have time to converse with humans about their heart-felt ideas?".

He could have titled this "An email template for best chances at reaching entrepreneurs" and removed the crap at the beginning.

<comment><USER11> I've witnessed some titles being changed to a very simplistic phrase. Perhaps moderation to let the best content rise on its own merits?

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> > I'm UTTERLY SICK and TIRED of dealing with MILLIONS of tech entrepreneurs > (these days there are a HELL of a lot of you) and (some) PR people who have > ZERO clue how to pitch me/TechCrunch/the media.

His business is writing about (or dealing with) tech startups. He make money doing this by being paid for advertising, etc. If he is sick of dealing with us, that's his problem to solve, not ours. Coaching us to target him better doesn't mean that we'll be successful with another reporter with the same approach. Asking us to improve the efficiencies of our pitches only serves to increase his own success - it doesn't actually raise the chances we'll get the exposure (given probability and math happens).

And yes, this general approach would work with PR firms, but then again we're paying them for that service. I had a call with a PR firm a few weeks back and they were struggling to understand what a container stack was and why it is important. They eventually got it, but it took some time. Sometimes complexity happens.

Instead of offloading his work onto us, why doesn't he figure out a way to scale what his is _suppose_ to be doing (listening) better? I have no idea how to solve this, but it doesn't start by telling us his is sick and tired of dealing with us and how we can do a bunch of work to make him not sick of us. That's just rudely blaming us for something that brings him suffering.

BTW, I totally get where he is coming from, but still. Tone it down a bit.

<comment><USER13> He addresses the tone you're referring to

>A final word:

> A lot of this may sound incredibly arrogant. Perhaps it is.

> I don't dig coal for a living and the Taliban doesn't shoot at me as part of > my job. I'm lucky.

> But Journalists have to parse a lot of information quickly now. It helps the > sender out if they are told, in black and white, the best way to get noticed > and maybe even read. That's what this exercise was about.

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> That first paragraph is a chore to read. Parentheses, caps, asterisks, hyphens, quotes, slashes... it's like bad ASCII art.

</comment><comment><USER15> This guy has a megaphone that you are trying to rent.

Why are you trying to rent TC's megaphone? It is TC's megaphone right? Dude's got quite a few asks for being a rando-pseudo-journalist. So, I suggest you take that time and pipe it to figuring out what your market/marketing channel is so you can invest those cycles better. Do some research on exactly how many useful signups TC drives (spoiler: nearly 0, craigslist is probably better (LOL!)[0] ).

Is your target market is even reading TC? Probably not. Which market segments, exactly, read TC? I barely read it. I doubt most people read it, much less for actual insight or anything resembling journalism.

I would steer clear of accept-all startups du jour megaphones (signal:noise is crap) and instead concentrate on outlets your customers care about. BONUS: those will have less prima donna attitudes with silly headshots. GO!

[0] article referencing ironic LOL!. Enough internets for me for today :)

</comment><comment><USER16> I thought "this" would be a PR template, or a service or platform to issue good press releases for startups. What I got was a man screaming for attention.

-1 for the title

</comment><comment><USER17> A lot of the suggestions in this carry over to almost every human interaction.. in addition to his "Can I send you a press release?" gripe, I have a couple to add:

"Can you do me a favour?" Why don't you ask me to do something and I'll decide whether or not I want to.

"Can I ask you a question?" Really? You're asking me if you can ask me something? Just ask it.

<comment><AUTHOR> Completely true - Adam Grant recently wrote a piece on when people approach him asking if they can 'pick his brain'... simply ask what you want to know!

<comment><USER18> I think most of the time people just want to speak with that person. They don't know what they're looking for, just that this person is smart and hope they'll provide direction/insight/promotion.

Forcing someone to ask what they want is great because it forces them to actually think about what they want.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> "50% of being a startup is about communication" \- this is only true if you believe being a startup is about being in the tech news cycle, which I guess he does.

</comment><comment><USER20> Why doesn't he make this a Google Form and respond to all cold-emails with the form link?

<comment><USER21> We could turn this into an interesting side project. sign up with this stuff as a "profile" of sorts, then update your profile with anything news worthy. Charge for exposure to journalists.

<comment><USER22> Or, conversely, set it up as a form, have an Editor review the text, and only allow the submitter 3 "undo" edits before sending it through the portal. The submitter could pick a maximum # (3-5?) of targets from a list that has agreed to participate in the format (e.g. publication editors) so there's some element of exclusivity. Then the editors can respond within a timeframe of "interested" or "pass" and if more than one is interested, the first one who replied gets the opportunity, and if they don't capitalize within 3-5-7 days, it goes to the next (in an ideal world).

This way there's value added for the submitter (prompts, editing for errors and audience, pathway to exposure) and a buffer intake system for editors who want good, new, exclusive content of this sort.

I could probably sketch this out on a whiteboard in an afternoon, would be pretty fun.

...but since I'm writing this out publicly, as part of a group musing an idea, if I find anybody whole-cloth takes this concept and uses it without collaboration or any semblence of attribution, karma will catch you, and your future will be cursed and doomed in equal parts. Don't violate the Bill & Ted rule of "Be excellent to each other"

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> Tech journalists keep ranting about the bad pitches they receive. They publish tips and guidelines. But even if you follow those, they still don't read the pitches. And rarely have any idea about technology [http://web.bozho.net/?p=336](http://web.bozho.net/?p=336)

</comment><comment><USER24> I think the article is looking at it backwards - techcrunch is not a singular target audience for press releases. A press release is more like throwing spaghetti up on the wall to see what sticks. It is a grab for free marketing, blasted to anyone who might care, with the knowledge that many will ignore it.

Now, if people are writing up direct pitches to this guy and calling it a press release, then they are simply giving it the wrong label, and then his advice may be applicable. Or maybe he gave his article a bad label. Or he only gets crappy press releases. Whichever.

But declaring that the entire mechanism of press releases is outdated just because he doesn't like them... well, he did say that it was all incredibly arrogant.

</comment><comment><USER25> IOW, write my article for me, so that I don't have to do any actual reporting.

</comment><comment><USER26> TL;DR: doing the work for me has the most chances of being in my media

</comment><comment><USER27> If I wasn't a salty startup founder, I might be offended. But after my 500th rejection letter, with much more terse language, I can handle it. These are all good tips.

</comment><comment><USER28> Lots of "smart ass" comments, but effective :)

</comment><comment><USER29> This was straight forward and funny! :) Great!

<comment><AUTHOR> Yeah - delivery was a bit controversial and not too "entrepreneur-first" but the content was definitely insightful

</comment></comment><comment><USER30> If you send me something according to this template, you are very unlikely to get a favorable response.

Moral: Treat people as individuals.</comment>


Ask HN: What do you watch when you're stuck (in a loop)? - <AUTHOR> When I need creative inspiration I've been watching this video over and over. It helps that it's short and loops:
http://i.imgur.com/nqOOA3G.gifv
After a few viewings I come back to programming problem and usually have a new creative solution. <comment><USER2> I don't watch anything specific in response to being "stuck", but a lot of times when I'm coding and want something in the background for stimulation and to occupy idle moments, I'll put a movie on with the sound turned down real low. I like to use something I know so well that I can practically recite the dialogue, so I am not going to actually get interested in what's going on, since I already know it so well. So usually, that turns out to be _The Matrix_. Occasionally it's _The Social Network_ , _Tron:Legacy_ , _Hackers_ , or _Inception_. Something about having those going seems to help inspire me on some level.

<comment><USER3> I used to put The Social Network on in the background as well. Pi is another, but I also like Million Dollar Traders [1]. It's a great documentary, but it also provides a good office / working ambience.

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v6ciY8u04Kk](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v6ciY8u04Kk)</comment></comment>


Lyrebird merged with Descript, launches text-based podcast dialogue editing - <AUTHOR> https://www.descript.com/post/descript-podcast-studio-and-other-news <comment><USER2> I've used earlier versions of Descript and felt it was a little too early. I liked the transcription and text editing capabilities but making fine tuned edits was not as easy as a DAW. I'm looking forward to giving this new version a try.

The feature where you can write text to generate your own voice sounds both super cool and terrifying.</comment>


Cutting calculation accuracy can trim power needs of supercomputers - <AUTHOR> http://www.houstonchronicle.com/news/houston-texas/houston/article/Rice-scientist-sees-a-trade-off-Cutting-6239769.php

<comment><USER2>
        To continue reading this story, you will need to
        be a digital subscriber to HoustonChronicle.com.

Nope.

<comment><AUTHOR> Whoa, I didn't realize that -- sorry.</comment></comment>


The Government Did Cause the Housing Crisis (2011) - <AUTHOR> http://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2011/12/hey-barney-frank-the-government-did-cause-the-housing-crisis/249903/?single_page=true <comment><USER2> Here is some more on Fannie Mae and Freddie Mack and the housing crisis

[http://useconomy.about.com/od/criticalssues/a/Fannie_Cause.h...](http://useconomy.about.com/od/criticalssues/a/Fannie_Cause.htm)

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fannie_Mae#2000s](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fannie_Mae#2000s)

</comment><comment><USER2> The conservatives say the bubble and crash were caused by Fannie Mae, Freddie Mack, and the Community Reinvestment Act. But at the time the bubble was happening, they said housing prices were just great, and it was the liberals who said we were heading for a disaster. Then, after the bubble burst, the conservatives changed their story overnight.

For a good discussion, see: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Causes_of_the_Great_Recession](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Causes_of_the_Great_Recession).

<comment><USER3> Snippets from NY Times, September 30, 1999, "Fannie Mae Eases Credit To Aid Mortgage Lending", by STEVEN A. HOLMES ([http://www.nytimes.com/1999/09/30/business/fannie-mae- eases-...](http://www.nytimes.com/1999/09/30/business/fannie-mae-eases-credit- to-aid-mortgage-lending.html)):

In a move that could help increase home ownership rates among minorities and low-income consumers, the Fannie Mae Corporation is easing the credit requirements on loans that it will purchase from banks and other lenders.

...

Fannie Mae, the nation's biggest underwriter of home mortgages, has been under increasing pressure from the Clinton Administration to expand mortgage loans among low and moderate income people and felt pressure from stock holders to maintain its phenomenal growth in profits.

In addition, banks, thrift institutions and mortgage companies have been pressing Fannie Mae to help them make more loans to so-called subprime borrowers. These borrowers whose incomes, credit ratings and savings are not good enough to qualify for conventional loans, can only get loans from finance companies that charge much higher interest rates -- anywhere from three to four percentage points higher than conventional loans.

...

In moving, even tentatively, into this new area of lending, Fannie Mae is taking on significantly more risk, which may not pose any difficulties during flush economic times. But the government-subsidized corporation may run into trouble in an economic downturn, prompting a government rescue similar to that of the savings and loan industry in the 1980's.

"From the perspective of many people, including me, this is another thrift industry growing up around us," said Peter Wallison a resident fellow at the American Enterprise Institute. "If they fail, the government will have to step up and bail them out the way it stepped up and bailed out the thrift industry."

Under Fannie Mae's pilot program, consumers who qualify can secure a mortgage with an interest rate one percentage point above that of a conventional, 30-year fixed rate mortgage of less than $240,000 -- a rate that currently averages about 7.76 per cent. If the borrower makes his or her monthly payments on time for two years, the one percentage point premium is dropped.

Fannie Mae, the nation's biggest underwriter of home mortgages, does not lend money directly to consumers. Instead, it purchases loans that banks make on what is called the secondary market. By expanding the type of loans that it will buy, Fannie Mae is hoping to spur banks to make more loans to people with less-than-stellar credit ratings.

<comment><USER2> But once Bush became President, the bubble started, and the Bush administration backed it because the recovery from the 1990 recession was slow, the conservatives stopped talking about Fannie Mae and Freddy Mac. They told us it was good home ownership was rising, the prices were sound, and there was no chance they would suddenly collapse, much less cause the economy serious financial harm.

I know because I am rather independent and think the conservatives have a lot of good points on economics, and so I listen to both sides.

Which leads me to ask you, rskar, what was your position during the boom, and what did you think when the conservatives suddenly changed their views immediately after the bubble burst?

<comment><USER3> I think the sort of people who ran (and run) the financial industry leveraged the political sentiments behind the Community Reinvestment Act for their own personal gains. It should be noted that the CRA got legislative changes in 1999 (enacted November 12, 1999, Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act, a.k.a. "Financial Services Modernization Act") that are co-incident with the repeal of the part of the Glass–Steagall Act which prohibited a particular bank from offering a full range of investment, commercial banking, and insurance services since its enactment in 1933.

It's quite eye-opening to see all that the Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act did ([https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Community_Reinvestment_Act#Leg...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Community_Reinvestment_Act#Legislative_changes_1999)) in terms of rolling back the standards for CRA compliance, forms of allowed banking under one roof, and failure to give to the SEC or any other financial regulatory agency the authority to regulate large investment bank holding companies.

I don't know the particulars about Fannie Mae's pilot program in 1999, but it and Freddie Mac, while both Government Sponsored Entities, were both expected to operate much the same as any commercial for-profit enterprise. The people who ran (and run) them come from the same talent pool that runs the rest of the industry.

Just my opinion, but it seems to me that much rides on how much "churn" a financial company can do. Churn as in sales in financial services which include the repackaging of other financial "products" into a new ones. Compensation for most of the people involved is a straightforward percentage of sales, independent of actual profitability or long-term sustainability for the company (let alone their clients).

By "the Conservatives" I'm (safely) assuming you mean mostly GOP politicians. I'm also assuming you well understand the connections between politics and money. Their apparent changes in their collective views are nothing more than the usual specious talking-points one has come to expect from political animals. Their choices of talking-points are regularly "re-balanced" with the political winds.

The political timeline is quite simple. Before the Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act, the CRA was doing no favors for the financial industry, hence the decries from representatives who "feel-the-pain" from that segment of their constituency. Then the Act is passed, regulations are dropped, allowable banking services expanded (CitiGroup is now legal!), subprime mortgages spur even more home ownership (that's what the CRA was about, right?), Wall Street gets to do the Fannie Mae/Freddy Mac thing but in their own inimical ways (liar loans anyone? but, shhh, nobody knows anything about that yet) - so it's churn! churn! churn!

So for a while the financial industry was making big bucks, banks can originate subprime loans profitably to "satisfy" CRA, poor people and minorities can now get houses - so what's not to love? So the Gramm-Leach- Bliley Act is a smashing success, and it is very much a GOP idea. What GOP type is going to make noises about Fannie Mae/Freddy Mac now when their buddies in finance are doing rather much the same thing?

And then the 2008 crash, and fingers are pointed at the culprits: It was the CRA! (a half-truth); It was the repeal of Glass–Steagall Act (3/4 truth). Mostly I see it as the consequence of rolling-back or repealing so many regulations, restrictions, and standards that have accrued over the decades in response to various crises of the past. The industry mostly wants to do as it pleases and will push to be as unfettered as it can get. I'm guessing we're in agreement here.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> This is another one of those situations where people made non-obvious tradeoffs against systemic stability and resilience in favor of other goals (specifically, economic growth and home ownership).</comment>


The Death of Agile? - <AUTHOR> https://www.oreilly.com/radar/the-death-of-agile/? <comment><USER3> Agile has long been a caricature of itself but a very profitable one. Tools like Rally and Jira will make most experienced developers long for the days of reasoned waterfall. SAFE, Jira and Rally add so much overhead that a methodology for efficiently navigating that bureaucracy will be its next "revolution". In my experience hour-long standups are routine. Sprints are "timeboxed" deadlines. Customer interaction is as rare as finding hen's teeth. Communication ends the first time anyone on the team realizes its blowback. Agile delivery trains are usually runaways. The effect of daily standups has become the equivalent of Prisoner of War torture techniques; wake up! what have you done! what will you be doing! How many story points? How much time? on and on... every F'n day. Agile dead? No, its being refactored in the Gitmos of Silicon Valley.

<comment><USER4> I may be in the minority, but at my last job I had some pretty great project managers that had us using Jira in a way that was simple and helpful.

I think part of that was they had experience and political capital. So they chose to use only about 10% of the functionality, and allowed almost no one to augment their minimal workflow.

<comment><USER5> At the first 'Real IT' job I had we started off as Waterfall using Jira.

We eventually did transition to agile, and while it was painful, having an Agile coach on contract worked out GREAT. Their job was to teach us agile in 6 months and be out.

Once we had switched, our Jira workflow was simple. I think it was the same scenario you outline above though; they had enough experience with Jira in waterfall that they knew what to use and what not to use. Which for us was Epics/Stories/Tasks/Tickets/Bugs, Attaching things, linking together (i.e. being able to track that a story was assigned to a ticket submitted by a user/customer was great for communicating with the business about priorities.) But that was about it.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> I once worked on an "Agile" team for a year and never met the Product Owner. All her wishes were passed to us through two analysts. I'm not sure how often they had contact with her, their boss actually drove the decision making. He would meet with her, summarize for the analysts, who would write the stories for us. Which would be communicated in daily 30 minute stand ups.

<comment><USER7> I've seen proposals that state the developers will have as little interaction with the users as possible. Needless to say those projects never went well.

<comment><USER5> I've worked at places where that was the norm.

The development group was actually Agile, mostly. But the first warning sign of siloing was shortly after I started there.

Even in the development group, we had a 'bugfix' team, a 'feature' team, and a 'Development Manager's Delusions of a Startup' team. _The teams were discouraged from collaborating._ This lead to such joys as one team having problems they spun their wheels months on, until eventually 'the deadline' was missed multiple times and said manager had to abandon what could only have been an experiment for a future blog post or conference talk. In every case someone from one or both of the other teams had the right skillset to fix the problem in a sprint or less (which they eventually did.)

Eventually this manager was ousted, as he had given a number of presentations to the higher ups but there was never any real movement towards the goal. Additionally, the Dev team had a lesser revolt over the lunacy of what we did.

So, we fixed that. Once the silos in our groups were gone we really were agile. We still had two teams, but they were free to collaborate and work with each other.

However...

The rest of the business still had a silo mentality. We could not just go interact with the users (other employees, typically in the same building/floor.)

As an extreme: We dealt with a lot of documents. and a special piece of print software for barcodes. However, if we wanted to test a document change, we had to:

1\. Send the word doc through the PDF engine. The word doc had special headers defined on specific pages, in certain spots.

2\. Print a copy and confirm the dimensions match what the print room said was required.

3\. Send PDF to print room for testing.

4\. Wait 0-21 days for the results.

5\. Get the results from the printroom and pray. The software they use will randomly edit the PDF elements to move things around. If it doesn't work, sometimes just another linebreak will work. Other times, you have to play with margins. But, you do that, and then...

6\. Go back to Step 1 till you're done.

Multiple times the developers requested 'Just let us use the print software so we can do our jobs, for goodness sakes!' But to no avail. The bureaucracy did not think that was something developers _should_ be able to do.

If the entire organization isn't Aglie, there's going to be an impedance mismatch between the parts that are agile and the parts that are not.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> I think projects are dying because most projects are products in disguise and with products you need the entire team, not just a business analyst or pm, to be able to talk to the end users. Ask yourself why most projects end up with adoption issues even the the internal ones? Because it's another instance of "if you build they will come". The same reason you don't build a full fledged product in a startup - you need lots of iteration and end user feedback to succeed. Agile and project management wants to skip the whole product phase because it assumes whoever is running the show knows what's needed - <USER2> doesn't usually work this way.

</comment><comment><USER9> Agile needs to be married with OKRs for mid-long term strategy. This gives product development more "why" to complement the "what."

As a technical PM, I have taken a step back from agile in setting quarterly OKRs. It has allowed me to focus on the customer and market needs with great success.

However, as the team gets looser with agile I see deliverables slipping, overengineering, user-less features, and development becoming a black box creeping in again.

Agile on its own isn't enough. So if you want less, think again.

</comment><comment><USER10> My first Agile project was in 2007. It was fun and collaborative. We were all reading books/articles and experimenting together. It's never been like that again. It worked kind of as intended on one project where we all had to be in the same room all day. Everyone seemed to be excited for it to end, though.

</comment><comment><USER11> In every one of these articles I see people complaining about agile but also admitting they aren't doing it. If you are having hour long dailys (instead of 15 minutes) and don't talk to your customers, then you aren't doing agile. It sounds like you love agile but just aren't doing it.</comment>


Robots Are What Makes This Solar Farm Super-Efficient - <AUTHOR> http://nocamels.com/2014/03/robots-are-what-makes-this-israeli-solar-farm-super-efficient/

<comment><USER2> the 'robots' wipe the glass</comment>


Coffee and Caffeine Help Prevent Alzheimer's - <AUTHOR> http://www.alphagalileo.org/ViewItem.aspx?ItemId=120795&CultureCode=en

<comment><USER2> Reading the paper, it appears that there is, indeed, a statistical & effective difference between the coffee/caffeine drinking set and the non-drinking set.

It's also worth noting that these trials were targeted at senior citizens.

It appears they did check vs. aging effects.

However, there are limitations:

 _We also did not ask participants when their last caffeine intake was prior to coming in for the initial visit/blood sample. As well, we did not ask subjects about their long-term caffeine/coffee intake habits, although it is likely that subjects with high plasma caffeine levels are habitual/moderate coffee drinkers. Additionally, complete data on ApoE status, education level, ethnicity, dietary habits, and lifestyle choices were not available for all study participants, so none of these can presently be eliminated as contributory to the results observed. Finally, the follow-up time of 2–4 years was relatively short for establishing causality and reverse causation (i.e., subjects with poorer cognitive performance may have reduced caffeine/coffee intake) is possible._

Essentially, they sampled twice and compared cognitive capabilities. However, there appears to be a existing body of knowledge indicating there is a strong linkage.

[http://health.usf.edu/nocms/publicaffairs/now/pdfs/JAD111781...](http://health.usf.edu/nocms/publicaffairs/now/pdfs/JAD111781.pdf)

<comment><USER3> _"Additionally, complete data on ApoE status, education level, ethnicity, dietary habits, and lifestyle choices were not available for all study participants, so none of these can presently be eliminated as contributory to the results observed."_

Background on ApoE: [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apolipoprotein_E#Alzheimer.27s_...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apolipoprotein_E#Alzheimer.27s_disease). I'd be interested to see how participants' ApoE status relates to these results.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> _"We found that 100 percent of the [mild cognitive impairment] patients with plasma caffeine levels above the critical level experienced no conversion to Alzheimer's disease during the two-to-four year follow-up period"_

These are truly amazing results, in my opinion.

 _Alzheimer's mice given caffeine alone or decaffeinated coffee had a very different immune marker profile._

I wonder what makes the combination of coffee and caffeine different than either of them individually.

 _A study tracking the health and coffee consumption of more than 400,000 older adults for 13 years, and published earlier this year in the New England Journal of Medicine, found that coffee drinkers reduced their risk of dying from heart disease, lung disease, pneumonia, stroke, diabetes, infections, and even injuries and accidents._

I find the decrease in injuries and accidents particularly interesting. My guess is that it's because coffee makes us more alert, but I'm still surprised it can make such a difference.

About a week and a half ago I gave up drinking coffee due to the withdrawal symptoms I experienced if I went a day without it (fatigue, headaches). It feels a lot better not to be addicted, but now I'm not sure whether I should resume.

<comment><USER5> `It feels a lot better not to be addicted, but now I'm not sure whether I should resume.`

I feel the same way. Skeptical of this research after the wine/resveritol controversy. [http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2012/05/120501134209.ht...](http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2012/05/120501134209.htm)

And Spain's research into the benefits of alchohol: <http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/health/8367141.stm>

Would less than three cups a day work as well?

`I wonder what makes the combination of coffee and caffeine different than either of them individually.`

Caffeine and antioxidants? Grounds for more research for sure.

<comment><USER6> FTA: _"Alzheimer's mice given caffeine alone or decaffeinated coffee had a very different immune marker profile."_

> _@hendler: "Grounds[sic] for more research for sure."_

I fresh grind coffee beans for each cup, with a coffee maker that has a bean bin, so it's not convenient to swap types of beans.

To control caffeine intake while enjoying coffee, I use decaf beans, and take an aspirin+caffeine tablet with the first cup of decaf but not with subsequent cups.

This lets me regulate caffeine, gives me the RDA of aspirin, and lets me enjoy as many cups as suits a given morning without risk of jitters.

That said, I can certainly understand why the researchers would think to check caffeine alone vs decaf alone, while not checking caffeine + decaf. I suspect my use case is unusual.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> How have they proven causality? Coffee intake can be effected by other lifestyle choices. It's not unreasonable to suspect that people tend to drink coffee because they want to do perform better mentally.

For instance, a study of the cross section of the participants of this study against those who do regular mental exercise (Sudoku, balancing the checking account, playing cards) which induce caffeine intake, would be interesting.

</comment><comment><USER8> As interesting as these results are, I don't want to play the game of keeping score of what foodstuffs, activities etc. cure and cause various illnesses. I will try to have a balanced diet and keep active in mind and body. Beyond that, I have yet to be convinced that power playing my lifestyle according to such research papers as happen my way would provide a statistically significant improvement to my long-term quality of life.

I hope doctors are able to make more effective use of these results than I am.

</comment><comment><USER9> My dad has been a huge coffee drinker his entire life - He was recently been diagnosed with early onset alzheimer's. Obviously this doesn't rebuttal any large-scale scientific study, but this topic is of particular closeness to me.

<comment><USER10> Best wishes to him and the rest of your family.

<comment><USER9> I appreciate it, thank you.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> my grandmother drank 3 pots of coffee a day for over 50 years. it did nothing to help her alzheimer's. I haven't seen any causality in this study.

<comment><USER12> Does Alzheimer's run in your family?

My mom drinks at least 3 big cups of tea daily. There's no way she doesn't have Alzheimer's or some other form of dementia. Although her mother had Alzheimer's also, so maybe caffeine isn't enough to overpower genetics.

I wonder if tea has the same effect as coffee in this case. They both have caffeine.

<comment><USER13> It was mentioned that the affects of caffeine or decaf coffee alone don't seem to do the same work as caffeinated coffee.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> Correlation does not imply Causation

<http://xkcd.com/552/>

</comment><comment><USER15> A minimum of three cups of caffeinated coffee daily for these results. I would never sleep again, even with Ambien. I don't believe it....some one's promoting coffee?!?! And I guarantee there's a lot of money being paid by the coffee industry.

</comment><comment><USER16> Am I the only one to find a research saying coffee is good for xxxx one day and after a month another research comes and says coffee is bad for xxxx because ...

</comment><comment><USER17> Coffee keeps winning.

</comment><comment><USER18> No P-value?

</comment><comment><USER19> Devil's advocate: Are we sure these studies aren't somehow paid for by the coffee industry?

<comment><USER20> From the article:

 _The USF-UM study was funded by the NIH-designated Florida Alzheimer's Disease Research Center and the State of Florida._

Presumably these government agencies have records of the grant proposals and funding criteria.

I would also guess that this experiment will be independently valided by other research groups. That may have happened already to some degree. You could find out by examining the manuscript once it comes out. I note with approval that this news aggregator has thoughtfully provided complete bibliographic information.

</comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> COFFEE! The life's blood of any IT shop!

<comment><USER15> After having just read that Nestle has paid The American Diabetes Assoc. to say that there is no correlation between sugary sodas and candy to Diabetes; and that Dannon, and Kraft Foods, are in bed with the Dairy Industry, I'm very suspicious that the coffee industry is funding these researchers at FSU. (I'm a certified plant based nutritionist....eye-opening, to say the least!)</comment></comment>


Ask HN: How to secure your "random wifi connections" found whilst traveling - <AUTHOR>

Just wondering how you safely connect to your servers, email, ftps, etc... while connecting from a mcdonalds or cheap motel whilst on the road.
Do you create your own VPN? Do you rent a VPN from a service?
I am just about to make a massive cross-continent trip and want to be able to keep my HN and root server passwoworrds safe whilst checking my work for explosions on vacation. <comment><USER2> Either set up OpenVPN on one of your Servers, or use SSH Port Forwarding. Either method can afaik be considered pretty secure.</comment>


Ask HN: Why OR based search is still used? - <AUTHOR> Instead of reducing the results by adding keywords, it increases them exponentially making it hard to find what you are looking for.
1. Docker Hub chrome -> ~3800 results desktop -> ~1200 results "chrome desktop" -> ~5000 results
2. Udemy aws -> ~2300 results docker -> ~750 results aws docker -> 2600 ~results "aws docker" -> 0 results "docker aws" -> 8 results
What is this form of search still a default way on some places? <comment><USER2> Good question.

The dominant paradigm for search today is the "vector space model".

The rough idea is that you start with "OR" and then score the documents so:

* the more words occur, the higher the rank

* the more frequent the words are in the document, the higher the rank

* less common words contribute more to the score

* tuning has to be done so that small documents are not privileged relative to large documents or vice versa (that turns out to be difficult, the first good algorithm for this was discovered 25 years ago, but it is hardly used commercially because nobody can be bothered to tune it for their specific text corpus)

Given that you aren't going to read 5000 results for "chrome desktop" (unless you're researching patents) it is not a problem so well as the results at the top of the ranking are good.

Google has very different concerns than most. If you have a small collection the immediate problem is that one of the documents means "chrome desktop" but uses some other words to mean that, so you miss the document. So you need tricks to find those documents. If you have a huge collection then there is going to be some document where somebody used the same language as you and you'll be satisfied.

If AND were the default, you'd find that ordinary users would frequently find nothing and give up.

Recruiters, professional patent searchers, and other people who do nothing but search all day collect large collections of "boolean strings" that help them in their work. The best search engines, based on the VSM but using additional tricks such as autoencoders, perform comparably. The typical web search engine is worse.

<comment><AUTHOR> This sounds very logical explanation and makes lot of sense.

The way results are presented in this OR based setup can probably be improved. For example, by showing which of the keywords each result contains, or filter out based on ranking or number of keywords, or specifying that results must contain at least that specific keyword. This should reduce the number of results significantly.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> An 'or' search doesn't increase things exponentially.

In the simplest model of an 'or' search, each keyword returns a postings list, and the result is the union of those lists. This is linear.

The size of the resulting list is at most N times the largest posting list.

In practice, the merger uses a weighting scheme so that documents with (say) 5 words of the 7 come before documents with (say) 3 of the 7.

And documents with all terms should be on the top of the list.

The merger is at worst N log(N) for the sort.

Most people only look at the first page, or first few pages of results, so it doesn't really matter, does it?

<comment><AUTHOR> Ok. It's not exponential instead it's the sum of all n's. 3 keywords with 10 results each on its own, provided no other keyword was part of the result, will return 30 results when used together.

<comment><USER3> And ranked. Plus, "Most people only look at the first page, or first few pages of results, so it doesn't really matter, does it?"

<comment><AUTHOR> If there are hundreds of results then sure I will not bother going through many pages. But if i am looking hard and see that there are only 2 pages, I might checkout all of them.

<comment><USER3> It simply doesn't matter how many pages are returned as a count.

Most people - indeed, nearly all - only look at the first page or two, no matter what. (PaulHoule pointed out that "researching patents" is one exception.)

Google reports "532 000 000" results for 'chrome desktop'. Yet Google is pretty popular.

People still use Google since the results they want are usually on the first page. Indeed, that's why people switched from AltaVista to Google; AltaVista often required trawling through tens of pages to find a good match.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


White House officials examining ways to punish Russian hackers - <AUTHOR> https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/the-white-house-is-scrambling-for-a-way-to-punish-russian-hackers-via-sanctions/2016/12/27/0eee2fdc-c58f-11e6-85b5-76616a33048d_story.html?hpid=hp_hp-top-table-main_cybersanction-1040am%3Ahomepage%2Fstory <comment><USER2> A quasi public organization fell for the lamest possible type of fishing attack which allowed for the most honest campaign information we've ever seen and now at the highest level of government we're beating the drums of war. How does this possibly make sense? It's double dumb to be broadcasting your intent too!

If public facing government action is needed it seems that it should be around mandating better/effective security practices.

<comment><USER3> Could be a red herring... open eyes & ears, make an announcement, see who moves. Expect it to be the guilty party.</comment></comment>


Google may exit China on 4/10 - <AUTHOR> http://news.cnet.com/8301-1023_3-20000757-93.html

<comment><USER2> Not June 4?</comment>


California man fights DUI charge for driving under influence of caffeine - <AUTHOR> https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2016/dec/24/california-dui-caffeine-lawsuit-solano-county <comment><USER2> I overtook an off-duty police officer, who was driving his personal truck, whilst on holiday in California a few years ago (from the UK).

At the next town, I was pulled over by a police car (bull horn, hand on gun, full film-level drama). I had no idea why at the time. It was explained to me that the off-duty officer was annoyed, and called the police station in the next town.

I was told that the highway I was on was "not the autobahn" (I have never travelled on an autobahn), and given a ticket for crossing a solid lane marker. I hadn't at any point crossed a double yellow line marker. Not living in the US meant fighting it was hard, so I paid for fear of not being allowed back in the country on my next visit.

Lesson learned: people in positions of power, like this off-duty government agent, will happily use that power if someone pisses them off - and systems are in place to allow it. These systems need to be tested, fought, and abusers penalised. I'm just sorry I didn't fight harder in this instance.

<comment><USER3> It's worth noting, you may have crossed a solid white line, instead of a solid yellow line. That being said, the exact status of the solid white line in California is annoyingly unclear.

Reference: [http://www.mercurynews.com/2012/09/28/can-you-cross-a- solid-...](http://www.mercurynews.com/2012/09/28/can-you-cross-a-solid-white- line-on-a-california-road/)

<comment><USER2> I actually overtook when there was a broken line (apologies, would edit my original comment if I could!), which my understanding was meant to state "you can overtake if safe" \- the same in the UK.

I didn't go over the speed limit, and it was a super clear road (beautiful in fact!) - my car just had more acceleration (not being a large truck).

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> _Abrams insisted the case was "never about caffeine," and she insisted that Schwab had to have been under the influence of another drug that didn't show up in the test. Not all drugs do under standard rounds of testing._

To paraphrase: we didn't find anything to justify the charges, but we're still going to tell everyone that he is guilty.

<comment><USER5> No, telling that someone is guilty can only be done by a court. Prosecutors can say that they believe he could be guilty. In this case, they dropped that and said that he's likely innocent.

The unfortunate thing in the US is just that most cases don't make it to court, and a lot of people plead guilty to get a deal. This is not how the system was designed, and not how it works in most other democracies.

<comment><USER6> This just shows significant parts of the government are rotten to the core. It's an issue most likely to affect people who are unable to afford good representation.

Let's be honest: courts in most western countries are only really accessible to upper middle class and/or wealthier people. If you do not have proper representation, you will probably lose in cases like these.

The fact that some random smuck is given this much power is shocking.

<comment><USER7> The issue of plea bargaining isn't so simple as it's made out to be (by people who don't have any idea of what the justice system actually does).

The _overwhelming_ majority of people that go through the justice system are guilty. For every ambiguous charge, there are a dozen instances where someone was caught with drugs on their person,[1] clearly identified in a security tape robbing a store, etc. That's the bread and butter of the justice system.

Like every system, the courts have been optimized for the common case. That certainly has costs in the uncommon case--as optimizing for the common case always does. Maybe those costs are too much to bear. But it's not a simple issue of government being "rotten to the core."

[1] Whether you think having drugs should or should not be a crime is an entirely separate issue.

<comment><USER8> >by people who don't have any idea of what the justice system actually does

legal system, we do not have a Justice system it is a legal system

>The overwhelming majority of people that go through the justice system are guilty.

Guilty of victim less violation of legal Statutes that are not crimes at all. A Crime requires a complaining victim.

In order to seek justice there must be a person seeking said justice thus the need for a victim for there to be a crime. For example Growing the wrong plant does not produce a victim thus should not be considered a "crime"

>[1] Whether you think having drugs should or should not be a crime is an entirely separate issue.

No, far from it. It is the issue, the reason the courts need to be "streamlined" is because they have been over burdened by these non-crimes, as such they needed a process to shortcut due process and extort people into signing their legal rights away so they can persecute more people for more non-crimes

<comment><USER9> > No, far from it. It is the issue, the reason the courts need to be > "streamlined" is because they have been over burdened by these non-crimes

Very true. If we had to actually have a trial it would interfere with the profitability of the criminalization cycle.

> shortcut due process and extort people into signing their legal rights away

Yeah, the prosecutors aren't in it to increase society's safety, or even to enforce laws, they're in it for their conviction stats. They'll do anything to game those numbers higher and it's easier to win convictions for strict liability crimes (possession, etc) so they focus on that.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> I am intimately aware of the prosecutorial aggression of the Solano County DA.

There was a young father who worked at the sugar factory that lived in a poor neighborhood. The owner of the house next door had rented it to ex-con meth addicts who liked harassing the mother when the father wasn't home.

Calling the police in this area didn't work because they wouldn't show up. The young man had a felony on his record for doing donuts then running from the police as an 18 year old which precludes him from owning a firearm legally, but out of fear for his family he purchased one.

On a particular bad day three men were stalking the house with his wife inside, he rushed back from work to find them harassing her on his lawn. One looked like he kept reaching for a gun behind his back.

The young father got his firearm and told them all to leave (note the police won't come at this point). The man with a "gun" gets more aggressive and as things escalate, during another sudden movement, the father shoots him once in the side.

Now that a gun has been fired the police come. The man dies on the front lawn. The officers, aware of the degree of harassment, tell the father that he was justified and that it will be okay. They all file reports to that effect.

The Solano County DA prosecutes the father for the manslaughter and felon in possession of a firearm. As a leveraging tool the manslaughter charge is dropped but the felon with a firearm puts him in the penitentiary for 7 years. He had a 6 month old and a 4 year old when he went in.

The Solano County DA knew they could win so they did, there was no benefit to the community. Solano is full of poor people that can be easily victimized, it's a heartbreaking environment.

<comment><USER11> Why didn't they call the county sheriff if the local police were not responding? Why didn't the father have his second amendment rights restored prior to purchasing a firearm?

<comment><USER12> I'm assuming they must have been in unincorporated/county jurisdiction as it was the county DA prosecuting and not the city one. County police are also far more likely to fail to respond in many places as county departments have vast amounts of area to cover with ever shrinking amounts of manpower due to budget constraints.

That said, I have no idea how CA'slaw enforcement/county government/judicial/legal system might differ from that of the states I've lived in.

<comment><USER13> > I'm assuming they must have been in unincorporated/county jurisdiction as it > was the county DA prosecuting and not the city one.

This assumption is based on false premises; to wit, that there is such a thing as a "city DA" with a different geographical focus than the District Attorney of the county in which the city is located, such that offenses in city limits are prosecuted by the "city DA" and those in unincorporated areas are prosecuted by the "county DA". In California, however, DAs offices are county offices which cover all of the county, both incorporated and unincorporated areas; no city has its own DAs office (well, except San Francisco, but that's because the City and County of San Francisco is one entity.)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> I read about the case.

They dropped the DUI charges but are still going after him for reckless driving.

[http://www.sfgate.com/crime/article/Prosecutor-drops-DUI- cha...](http://www.sfgate.com/crime/article/Prosecutor-drops-DUI-charge-on- man-who-tested-10826042.php)

<comment><USER15>
      "Without a confirmatory test of the specific drug in the
      defendant's system that impaired his ability to drive, we
      do not believe we can prove the charge beyond a reasonable
      doubt," said Krishna Abrams, the district attorney.

I'm bothered by the "armchair conviction" here by the DA. I get this is probably standard lawyer boilerplate, but she's insinuating his guilt in the court of public opinion. Is there a libel/slander case here? (Probably not.)

Second, I'm confused whether he was charged with reckless driving at the time of arrest, or if this is a later charge. Also confused about the "charges were not brought until... nearly 10 months after incident" line in the original article.

I'm _assuming_ the story goes like this:

Man was pulled over for driving erratically (e.g., weaving through traffic). He is given a field sobriety test and fails. He is charged with DUI and reckless driving. The initial blood test reveals no known (i.e., testable) substances of which he could have been under the influence. The sample is sent for a second, more intensive round of testing. It reveals no new information other than caffeine. The DUI charge is not immediately dropped, and the defendant uses the opportunity to push the "charged for DUI for caffeine" story. The DUI charge is finally dropped. The reckless driving charge continues, and will go to court this year.

My _opinion_ is that the DA really wanted to prosecute the DUI charge ("he had to be under the influence of something!"), so they took their sweet time trying to find an angle.

<comment><USER16> He wasn't pulled over by a cop, he was pulled over by an unmarked non traffic related officer of some sort.

This one screams to me that his main offense was pissing off someone with authority in an unmarked car who went on to do everything possible to make his life miserable.

If I had to bet I'd suspect he got into some mild road rage incident with this state employee, flipped her off or something, and this is the payback.

Just a theory, read the story again and read between the lines of the initial reported incident.

<comment><USER17> This seems most likely. I've known ABC agents to be a bit overzealous -- plainclothes agents drew pistols on (and cuffed) some girls in my hometown. Their offense was carrying a case of sparkling water that I guess looked like alcohol?

[http://www.nbc29.com/story/23909588/virginia-abc-agents- viol...](http://www.nbc29.com/story/23909588/virginia-abc-agents-violated- policy-in-clash-with-uva-students)

<comment><USER9> "Violated policy". Wowza. Pointing a gun at someone during false-arrest for something that isn't even a crime, is a mere policy violation.

Then the court seals the records to hide this, and the main policy change is that a uniformed cop must be present during this (these were undercover cops who'd pulled the guns) instead of - you know - not arresting someone at gunpoint for the pointless crime of buying bootleg liquor even if it was actually liquor.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> > He was arrested and charged with driving under the influence in Solano > County, but investigators found no alcohol or drugs in his system. Fairfield > resident Joseph Schwab, 36 did test positive for one substance: caffeine.

Such a strange insistence in journalism to use obtuse, inconsistent, useless definitions for the word "drug", often that change within the same article.

Anyway, at the end of the day, if the dude was driving recklessly, which the LEO says he was, then charge him with that. This is a great example of why it doesn't make sense to attach criminal liability to blood/brain chemistry.

<comment><USER19> Because unless you're being a pedant, any reasonable person with a decent reading level would understand the context of "drugs and alcohol" to mean impairing drugs, not caffeine and tylenol

</comment></comment><comment><USER20> _"...The agent said Schwab had cut her off... The charge of driving under the influence is not based upon the presence of caffeine in his system," she added."_

You sure as hell got that right...

<comment><USER21> Sounds like a case of road rage by an "agent" who abused her position.

</comment></comment><comment><USER22> This is borderline "fake news". The driver was arrested for suspicion of being under the influence of a drug, yet the tests did not find any drugs. The defense seems to be claiming "he was arrested for caffeine" yet it has nothing to about caffeine.

The DUI charges were dropped subsequently because they had no proof of drugs. The article is sensational, trying to imply that one can get arrested for caffeine use.

<comment><USER3> I don't think it was fake news at the time it was published. The article was published on Dec. 24, and charges were only dropped several days later.

Reference: [http://abc7news.com/news/solano-county-da-drops-dui-for- caff...](http://abc7news.com/news/solano-county-da-drops-dui-for-caffeine- charge/1677999/)

</comment></comment><comment><USER23> The news here isn't that the justice system in California has corruption problems and an "us against them" mentality. It's that they're not even ashamed to let the world see that.

</comment><comment><USER24> I can't believe the caffeine charge even got that far.

<comment><USER18> There was never a caffeine charge.

The prosecution believed (and maintains) that he was under the influence of some other, unknown drug.

This is the reason that an impairment standard, rather than a chemical standard, makes more sense for criminal liability.

If someone's driving ability to impaired such that they are, say 70% more likely to cause an injurious or fatal accident, what does it matter whether it's because they were on Drug A or Drug B or talking on their phone?

<comment><USER25> That makes sense, but is there a way to quantify that? I've always had the notion that something like a roadside sobriety test is rather subjective. I know that if I were in the situation of being suspected of a DUI (which I hope I never am), I would want a clear, quantifiable test, with a low margin of error.

<comment><USER26> You can refuse to submit to the test, get arrested, and then do breathalyzer at the station. Police also have a portable breathalyzer you could submit to roadside.

I have an eye condition that makes the gaze test, in my opinion, unreliable and the two times I've been pulled over after drinking, the police noted this prior to my doing the test. In both instances I did fine in the one-leg test and the walk-a-line test (at least I assume I did fine). To avoid inconvenience, I did decide to allow the portable breathalyzer one of those times and I think the reading came up 0.0015. I knew I wasn't seriously impaired or over the legal limit and had only had 2 or 3 beers over a 3 or 4 hour period. If you're not sure if you're over the legal limit or not, I wouldn't submit to the roadside breathalyzer (obviously though you shouldn't be driving if you're not sure or think you're impaired).

<comment><USER27> Be careful. Depending on where you live, refusing the breathalyzer or roadside test results in a mandatory 1 year license suspension regardless of what comes up in the test at the police station. Arizona here.

<comment><USER28> Interesting! Can you at least opt to go straight for the breathalyzer?

If you've not been drinking, it seems a bit of a waste of time to have to stand on one leg (etc.), when you could just use the breathalyzer and have the question answered straight away.

<comment><USER26> It's dependent on the officer. In Ohio, you can be charged with a DUI automatically if you refuse the breathalyzer. I'm not certain if this extends to the roadside test. My original comment was more that you might be able to refuse the roadside test, get arrested, and then agree to take the breathalyzer at the police station so you'd have stronger evidence.

The roadside tests are only accurate to a certain degree, whereas a properly calibrated breathalyzer provides much stronger evidence.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER29> In Texas, they are allowed to give you a DUI even of you pass all sobriety tests; they leave it up to the officer to determine intoxication even if there is none present. Another fun fact in Texas: you don't have to be driving to get a DUI; they can nick you for intent OR they can determine that you are in "control", which could mean sleeping in your truck bed with your keys in your pocket.

</comment><comment><USER30> People understandably get hung up on the social/legal status of caffeine, but I think there's nothing intrinsically wrong with the notion of a DUI charge for it. In several important ways it acts like a milder form of cocaine or amphetamine, and with high enough doses it can cause similar behavioral problems ("tweaking", paranoia, mania, even psychosis).

<comment><USER31> I feel like you'd have to drink a lot of coffee...

<comment><USER20> In a small segment of the population, a few cups of coffee may be enough to cause mild forms of the mentioned symptoms. But this is more of a genetic anomaly / over-sensitivity.

In an "average" adult, it would require _a lot_ of caffeine to trigger these symptoms -- dozens of cups over a very short period of time. Caffeine pills or powder would be a far more likely explanation. And yeah, driving after popping a significant number of caffeine pills is probably as dangerous as driving after ingesting a small dose of cocaine. TBF if the caffeine concentrations were such that this were a likely explanation, I bet we'd be hearing about it.

<comment><USER32> When my tolerance is low it doesn't take much to make me twitchy and impair my thinking.

<comment><USER20> _> twitchy and impair my thinking_

I'm not sure how dangerous those symptoms are in the context of driving. Someone should do a study.

I was referring to these symptoms, which are unarguably dangerous in the context of driving: _" tweaking", paranoia, mania, even psychosis_.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER33> >California vehicle code defines a "drug" as any substance besides alcohol that could affect a person in a manner that would "impair, to an appreciable degree" his ability to drive normally.

There's your problem. When you have vaguely defined laws, you have a system that can criminalize even the most ordinary and innocent behaviors.

<comment><USER34> Totally agree. Sadly, however, it's not a bug, it's a feature of the legal system in the US. When the target is everyone and their everyday activities, such vague laws serve that purpose extremely well.

</comment></comment><comment><USER35> There is a high probability of finding H2O in his blood as well, if they found C8H10N4O2.

<comment><USER36> 100% of criminals were caught under the influence of the dangerous chemical dihydrogen monoxide.

</comment></comment><comment><USER37> [http://www.snopes.com/man-charged-driving-influence- caffeine...](http://www.snopes.com/man-charged-driving-influence-caffeine/)</comment>


All children must learn to code - <AUTHOR> https://www.iafrikan.com/2020/01/08/all-children-must-learn-code/ <comment><USER2> No, they don't. That's an insane concept. And future trend is "codeless 'programming'" where AI builds stuff for you. So leave children alone please.

<comment><USER3> I respectfully disagree with you. Learning the basics of programming is as important as fundamental math nowadays. Everybody must develop a basic understanding of how computers work. That's common knowledge these days. "AI does it for you" is a similar argument as "Wikipedia knows it for you". That's just false belief in technology. Hand writing and learning stuff by head did not get out of fashion, too.

<comment><USER2> It's like saying every programmer should know assembly or know how to punch machine instructions on cards. Or in order to be able to jump-start your car you need to learn how to build car batteries from scratch. Silly right?

We progress by abstraction. Everything you are using right now is a complex abstraction of the base materials and instructions. AI that builds stuff for you (and possibly itself?) will be just another level of abstraction for "programmers".

<comment><USER3> Traditional imperative programming has been there since almost 50 years and it will be there in 50 years. Programming languages come and go, but the general spirit is the same since the early days of computing. I like your car example: One day or another, you need to refill gas or the oil, change your tires, fill up the windscreen cleaning liquid, or understand that your V-belt broke. You can pass all this on a very surface level, just as a driver. But you will be much more confident when you learned that your car has a motor and gears and all that. That's the very reason we learn math today despite we have calculators since decades.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Telecom giants give GCHQ unlimited access to networks, develop own spyware - <AUTHOR> http://rt.com/news/spy-agency-telecoms-access-966/

<comment><USER2> There is currently an online petition in the UK for a public enquiry into this: [http://epetitions.direct.gov.uk/petitions/51959](http://epetitions.direct.gov.uk/petitions/51959)</comment>


Self promotion of our ideas and side projects should be celebrated - <AUTHOR> www.nextcept.com is a place to talk about yourself, what you're building, and it offers a honest method for finding others to work with. <comment><USER2> Invalid ZIP

so what if I'm not in the US? (I'm in London)

I put in a random number just to get in. Now it says I'm in Austin Texas.

Then I saw "All searches are based on your location"

so I quit

<comment><AUTHOR> Well, I could understand that. I'd say the "all searches" should be changed to - "optional sort by location". We'll be adding international support soon. Thanks for checking it out and if you want to try again you should be fine with using a zip code other than your own for the time being.

<comment><USER2> Ah shoot - the wording made me think it was not going to work for me.

I love the idea, have bookmarked

<comment><AUTHOR> Very cool. We're going to be adding the job posting piece in the next couple of weeks. We've been focused on the network and the functions to help people find each other. If you're signed in, you can go from question to question and seeing people's answers. It's pretty cool how it works. We had the idea but we weren't sure what it would be like. Once you find an answer you appreciate, you can then learn about the person, jump to others, etc.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


The Employable Web Designer - <AUTHOR> http://www.andyrutledge.com/the-employable-web-designer.php

<comment><USER2> I'm curious if most web designers that people here interact with do HTML and CSS.

At my last job I worked (on a small team) with a programmer who happened to have a knack for design, so after we discussed how the UI would look/function, he would do the detailed design and CSS/HTML implementation, giving me the classes/elements to use in my code.

At my current job (larger team), there is a FT designer just does mockups in Photoshop, and its up to me to implement the CSS/HTML and make sure it works in all browsers. As a developer I find that a pretty big waste of my time.

I say this, since if I am ever in a position to hire a web designers, I'd make working with the tools of the trade (HTML, CSS) a must-have requirement. It'd be OK if they don't know major browser quirks and need some help, but they should be able to do the majority of the design themselves.

<comment><USER3> I've always assumed that's just a HR thing. Finding graphics designers is comparatively easy. Finding ones that know the technologies well enough to be productive in them is much harder. Likewise finding web developers is easy, but ones with a design sense much harder.

Unless you're a "rock star" employer (Spolsky, 37signals, etc...) who can choose from an enormous pool of candidates, you're going to have an easier time staffing teams of unitasking employees than you are finding generalists. It's not that either side "can't" learn the techniques of the other, it's that in practice they don't, so the ones that do are hard to find.

You go to release with the team you have, not the team you want, basically.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> With all due respect, many of the required traits listed take years to develop and are never expected from entry-level designers.

It's an interesting wish list. Almost 37Signals-ish in attitude.

Link bait?</comment>