Philadelphia Poised to Ban Employers from Asking Hires About Salary History - <AUTHOR> http://www.wsj.com/articles/philadelphia-poised-to-ban-employers-from-asking-hires-about-salary-history-1484838062?mod=e2fb <comment><USER2> An important detail: Comcast, backed by the local Chamber of Commerce, has threatened to sue the city over this law. On what basis? The corporation's Constitutional First Amendment free speech right to ask the question:

[http://www.investopedia.com/news/comcast-threatens-sue- city-...](http://www.investopedia.com/news/comcast-threatens-sue-city- philadelphia/)

Are these the same free speech rights the Supreme Court recently bestowed on the corporations? I remember that at the time legal analysts said it would make it hard to regulate corporations. How can you regulate, for example, what goes in a prospectus issued to shareholders if the corporate has free speech rights?

<comment><USER3> Are all employers corporations? And even as such, this is just outlawing information. I do not understand how so many on the left support such a measure.

It's a question -- outlawing questions, especially between private parties in a consensual relationship (applicant and employer), is backwards. You can choose not to answer it; you can lie; you can choose not to work for employers that ask the question in the first place, especially if they coerce you into providing records. This will just undermine the efforts of companies that have differentiated themselves with noninvasive hiring practices and set them back on the same playing field as less scrupulous employers.

Why is free choice so difficult to understand?

<comment><USER4> Probably because there is a very large disparity in power and information. A few points:

1\. You will always need the job more than Comcast will need you (unless you're unusually skilled, most workers aren't)

2\. Comcast knows how much the pay every one of their employees, you the job seeker do not.

3\. Comcast is only asking so they can figure out the lowest pay you'll accept. You have no way to figure out how high they are willing to go, so you start out at a disadvantage.

4\. Limiting a company's ability to ask intrusive questions in no way impinges on individual liberty, you are not a company, and a company is not a person.

5\. If you choose to not answer, they likely will not hire you, if you lie and they find out, they will likely fire you. If they lie the you about the pay range and you accept, you have no recourse but to quit if you catch them in that lie, which brings us back to point #1.

<comment><USER3> > You will always need the job more than Comcast will need you

Where is the evidence for this? This is by no means an obvious claim. No one in the world needs "the job," even though most people need "a job." Do companies exist that are more moral/popular/friendly than others? Of course. And some of them are successful in part because people want them to succeed due to their aforementioned characteristics. That is freedom. There is a market for moral hiring practices, just like every other kind of morality.

> Comcast knows how much the pay every one of their employees, you the job > seeker do not.

Actually, this is completely false. You have a pretty good understanding of what they pay employees in similar positions (if you've ever heard of Glassdoor), whereas they have very little understanding what you were making in a past life, especially if you worked at lesser known companies.

> Comcast is only asking so they can figure out the lowest pay you'll accept. > You have no way to figure out how high they are willing to go, so you start > out at a disadvantage.

Of course, their goal is to get a deal, just like your goal is to get a big sale. Sounds like a free market at work. What's the problem?

> Limiting a company's ability to ask intrusive questions in no way impinges > on individual liberty, you are not a company, and a company is not a person.

What if I am a consultant, sole proprietor, prime contractor, etc.? As I already mentioned, not all employers are corporations. It DOES infringe on freedom. And it's not like there is this nebulous, evil entity named Comcast that wants to ask the question -- it's the _people_ in the business making business decisions, who decide to ask the question to better inform their offers (whether this is a poor decision is subjective, both morally and otherwise).

> If you choose to not answer, they likely will not hire you

Sounds speculative -- I need data for such a broad generalization.

> if you lie and they find out, they will likely fire you.

Sounds _really_ speculative -- would you think it's common to go back in time and try to find old salaries? I appreciate that you're putting "likely," but I would like to see some evidence that it is indeed likely (defined as more than 50%).

> If they lie the you about the pay range and you accept, you have no recourse > but to quit if you catch them in that lie, which brings us back to point #1.

I think it's pretty universal that you know your compensation in the contract before you accept the job -- it's just as much your fault if you take a job for the salary that they say you might see in a future promotion.

As you can see, I'm extremely unconvinced by any of your arguments here. I'm open to seeing another side of this if you have more compelling arguments, but I hope you can see that the world has not fallen apart thus far without this regulation in place, and I don't think there is any benefit to outweigh the losses/loss of freedom. If you can somehow show that employers are infringing on peoples' freedoms by asking this question more than the freedoms of the employers would be impacted by not being allowed to ask certain questions, then that would be compelling. But I don't see it.

<comment><USER5> >> > You will always need the job more than Comcast will need you > Where is the evidence for this?

It does not require a great deal of imagination to understand that a large corporation and single prospective employee are not equal parties. If you fail to get a job, you will starve. If Comcast fails to hire you, they most clearly will not face an existential crisis.

This is most certainly _not_ a free market at work. Comcast wants this power because it will give them a significant negotiating advantage and result in lower wages. Eliminating this advantage is one small step in leveling the playing field between the two unequal parties.

<comment><USER6> >It does not require a great deal of imagination to understand that a large corporation and single prospective employee are not equal parties. If you fail to get a job, you will starve. If Comcast fails to hire you, they most clearly will not face an existential crisis.

Is Comcast the only company hiring people? If you don't get a job with Comcast you get a job with a different company. That is a market, many sellers of labor, many buyers of labor. The buyers look for the best labor and the sellers look for the best price.

<comment><USER5> Comcast is simply the example here. Yes you can look for another employer, but if they are doing the same thing -- requiring disclosure of salary history -- then in aggregate this will put more negotiating power in the hands of employers and thus reduce workers' incomes.

<comment><USER7> Do you think market will forget this ? Govts seem to forget that despite being big, they are market actors themselves. And it wont be the Comcasts but many SMBs.

In todays volatile world, noones existence is certain. And govts need to realize this soon before they spend all of their capitals like this.

<comment><USER8> I'm not sure I understand what side of things you're coming down on, but personally I'm in favor of tilting things somewhat more in favor of labor than they are now.

Partly this is because I don't think a market _can_ function justly on a principle of enforced asymmetry and imbalance. As I see it, if we allow people to pool capital together to gain greater collective leverage than any of them would have individually, and reap greater returns as a result (also known as a corporation), we must also allow people to pool their labor together to gain collective leverage and reap greater returns (also known as labor unions, worker protections, etc.). Having one without the other does not appear ethically justifiable to me, and rigging laws to strengthen one significantly at the expense of the other is similarly unjustifiable.

Partly this is because of the relevant history. Much of what people have convinced themselves constitutes a "free market" was in fact deliberately rigged to artificially preserve and benefit one side (capital) at the expense of the other (labor). Look into employment law from the 1800s, for example, and it's very clearly designed to prevent competition between companies in the market and ensure they each can comfortably remain immune to several important market forces. But somehow we've idealized that period as one of "laissez- faire" and "free markets" despite it being nothing of the sort, and then whenever an attempt is made to un-rig the system we hear that it's bad for business, will kill business, will hurt business, is anti-business, etc. -- being in business for business' sake is not an end worth pursuing in itself, and if a business can't survive without the market rigged in its favor, well, the true free-market position is that that business shouldn't survive.

<comment><USER7> > _we must also allow people to pool their labor together to gain collective > leverage and reap greater returns (also known as labor unions, worker > protections, etc.). Having one without the other does not appear ethically > justifiable to me, and rigging laws to strengthen one significantly at the > expense of the other is similarly unjustifiable._

And free-market does not stop them in any way. In fact FM give them most freedom. So FM favours/disfavours none.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Interesting that various people here are horrified by restrictions on what you can ask in an interview. In the UK there are various restrictions on what you are allowed to ask, such as a candidates age. Actually the main risk to a business from this is a careless interviewer asking by mistake.

An enlightened employer should not find any of this restricting at all. All of the worst interviewers I have faced have always asked about my salary, and recruitment consultants always do (they also tend to lie about your expectations to potential employers in order to get interviews). It is a deliberate attempt to screw you down and is totally unnecessary.

<comment><USER10> I personally know of a case where someone got rejected because they asked for too much compared to his previous salary, even though the person who got hired was offered more money(but it was a smaller increase percentage wise over his previous job). Basically guy was brilliant in the interview, engineering team said they want him, but HR rejected him because he said he wants 80k, while he was making 60k previously(he worked outside of London before). HR instead hired a guy who interviewed much worse, but he only asked for an increase of 5k(from 90k to 95k).

<comment><USER11> Wow, that HR sounds utterly incompetent.

<comment><USER12> That HR sounds like all HR departments I have ever had anything to do with.

<comment><USER11> Yeesh, that's super depressing. Not that I know anything about running HR departments, but that betrays such basic inability to uh, think that I can't really imagine how that could be ubiquitous.

<comment><USER12> I really think HR is a job that nobody should ever do full time. It should be a responsibility that is only ever allocated to someone who has another job to do - ideally someone who has to deal personally with the consequences of HR idiocracy.

<comment><USER9> Amongst the worst HR practice now is 'keyword searching' CV's against a job spec by people who have no idea what those terms mean.

An acquaintance told me he saw a downturn in contract work offers due to X qualification becoming widespread in his sector. He changed his CV to say 'I don't have X but..' and found traffic returned to normal!

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> Massachusetts already passed a law that bars companies from asking potential hires about their salary history until after they've made an offer.

(The law is signed, but doesn't go into effect until June.)

</comment><comment><USER14> I answer what I deem unethical/ unfair lines of questioning with any answer I feel necessary to advantage myself in negotiating. Others should do so as well.

<comment><USER9> I have chosen to answer that it is irrelevant. I claim I am not driven entirely by money, and therefore I would consider any offer on its total merits, not just salary. A few employers have taken exception to this, luckily I don't have to move jobs right now.

The point is when I was younger I would have told them, under pressure to seem open. Ban it, it is scummy

</comment></comment><comment><USER2> Most innovation and progress now is at the city level (I'm not the first to say it). Name the last thing government achieved at a national level in the U.S. - there's health care, but that's now looking shaky.

The priority of one major party in the U.S. is to shut down government as much as possible; that party can block progress everywhere but in cities, where they have no power for now. However, they are trying to pass 'pre-emption laws' in many state governments which block cities from doing anything the Republicans in the state capitals don't like. So much for the belief in liberty and local control.

<comment><USER15> If cities and municipalities are our hope for good governance we're are all pretty screwed. Cities across the country basically bankrupt and state and local governance is rife with corruption.

<comment><USER16> I believe state and local governments are unable to run a deficit. If the federal government had to play by the same rules it would be bankrupt as well.

<comment><USER2> > I believe state and local governments are unable to run a deficit.

That's true in at least many places, but they still can borrow from the future by issuing bonds, or by pushing off massive costs like pensions. They underfund pensions now and let the next mayor/governor deal with it; this process repeats until they can't meet the cash flow needed to pay current pensions and are effectively bankrupt.

Remember when Detroit went bankrupt: According to an article I read about it, there were at least two main causes: 1) Going back to at least the 1990s their pensions were overfunded because they would need that money to pay future pensions when the ratio of current workers to retirees would drop. Instead of saving the money, they distributed it to pensioners as a '13th month'. Detroit also invested in some financial engineering instrument sold to them by Wall Street that the city couldn't pay off.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> Good. Put the negotiating power back into the hands of the employees. Get an offer. See that it's too low based on previous compensation and then say so. And then proceed from there. I've burned my own ability to negotiate by sharing current salaries before but that was with recruiters.

</comment><comment><USER18> A society truly run by the people, ala individuals, would have banned this long ago. Just think about it: for an average person, what benefit do they receive by allowing employers to ask about past or current salary information? None.

Wouldn't be surprised if there have been measures to ban this that were ultimately struck down by business people.

The less information that's shared with employers, the more employers will have to refine their actual process for vetting people. Whether this means more accurate metrics, that correlate to actual employee performance, or something else, who knows. Either way, I believe it's good for the people. However, we will have to be careful, if we go this route, to not slip into nepotism (well, more than we already have).

<comment><USER19> > A society truly run by the people, ala individuals, would have banned this

I'm libertarian-leaning, and statements like these bother me deeply.

If I'm an employer, why ban me from asking some question to a prospective employee? It's a restriction on the employer's freedom.

The job applicant has a right to decline to answer my question (and I have a right to decline to offer a job). Regulating what questions I can ask (i.e. my speech) is a restriction on my freedom.

I recently interviewed for a job, and they asked me what (minimum) base salary I was looking for, and I didn't answer their question, and said that I wanted them to make an offer based on what they thought I was worth. As a result, I ended up getting a higher base salary than I'd expected.

But that detracts from the main point. The reason I oppose such laws and regulations is that I feel like it's an infringement on personal freedom. Employers are made up of people, and regulating their speech and their actions is a limitation on their personal freedom.

<comment><USER5> > If I'm an employer, why ban me from asking some question to a prospective > employee? It's a restriction on the employer's freedom.

Please see ch4s3's excellent itemized response to an earlier thread for a concise summary of the reasons why this can't be framed simply as an issue of free speech.

The key point is the power differential. While you may be lucky enough to be highly skilled and have enough cultural capital to refuse intrusive questions like this and still find suitable employment on your own terms, many people in our society simply are not in that position. Allowing large powerful corporations to insist that prospective employees disclose their earnings history will simply place downward pressure on wages.

I sympathize with the sentiment, and it is always important to question any limits on speech. But once you factor in the issue of power, pure libertarian ideals will cause greater exploitation of those who have less power to begin with.

<comment><USER20> There is a power differential but it is not high. You can find another employer (just don't apply to employers that ask these questions).

Indeed, if most people refuse such employers, the employers will have to raise their wages or stop asking that question.

They're only able to ask this question because some employees are fine with it. So let both voluntarily discuss that question.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> It is bizarre that so many people tolerate this behavior by employers yet also cling to ideas about compensation being linked to the value of the work being performed (things like 'work hard and you will make more'). If compensation is determined based primarily upon the value of the work being done, prior salary could not be more irrelevant.

But of course, what people are paid has nothing to do with the value of their work any longer. Computers and software unfortunately make that socially untenable. They make employees so abundantly productive, and increase that productivity so quickly, that it would have to translate into very high salaries and high annual raises for many, if not most, employees. It doesn't take a genius to look at the average profitability of corporations overall since 1980 to see the meteoric rise coupled with total wage stagnation for non-executives.

Get 2% more productive, then a 2% raise is acceptable. Get 100% more productive, then a comparable raise is unacceptable. Especially if "the computer is doing all the work."

<comment><USER22> Nobody who actually thinks about salary thinks that salaries are set by the MPL. The _ceiling_ on salaries is set by the MPL. The level is set by the available supply of labor and negotiations during the hiring process.

</comment></comment><comment><USER23> I understand the goal of this law but don't see how it solves it. I usually ask people what their current salary is now. I want to offer them (at least) a modest raise to come here. I want them to be happy and excited. I also want to not waste a ton of time negotiating salary if they want 50K more then I have available in my budget.

You are worth whatever you can get someone to pay you. Some people may come in with a lower ask but then you have yourself, are they a bargain or are they just less talented? If they come in high, are they overpriced or are they just that good?

I also think this only works for the employee if there is a shortage in this field and employers are desperate (but the market will force those prices up) or if you are trying to just get more than your experience might warrant. Let's say you are a knowledge worker making $80K and hoping to go to $90K. So, in the new rules, the employer asks for your expected salary and you say "give me your best offer". The employer will either get annoyed and work with the candidate that said $85K in response or they low ball you at $60K because they can play games too. You say "no" and they ask what you are looking for, rinse and repeat. It seems like you still end up at the same place with the same result except the negotiation process sucked. As a candidate, I don't see the downside of saying I want X+ dollars. I'd rather know about the job and culture and other things than $5K more or less.

<comment><USER24> I usually respond to this question with a question of my own:

"Are you asking this question because you don't have faith in your own ability to interview and value employees or because you are trying to lowball me?"

<comment><USER23> I understand what you are saying but I personally don't think any amount of interviewing will ever tell me exactly how much value an employee will give me in the next year.

[Serious] Do you think this is possible? I can think of no way except to put them on a 3 month contract to see what they are really worth and I don't think that is what candidates are looking for.

<comment><USER24> Yes, I got this from what you said:

"Some people may come in with a lower ask but then you have yourself, are they a bargain or are they just less talented?"

 _shrug_ I have faith in my interviewing skills. I was interviewing for a position for about 5 months for a very picky employer. I interviewed a lot of people who were good but expensive and even more who were cheap but not so good. Eventually I spotted a bargain and they snapped him up.

I don't really believe in bargains though. It takes a lot of time and effort to find one and they tend to leave quickly once they've figured out that they underpriced themselves.

Most places I've worked I've done so initially on a short term contract. I prefer it mainly because I can charge more.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> There are two things that spring out instantly.

First, the motivation is to close gender pay inequality. Assuming such a thing exists (women get paid less for the same job), where is the evidence that this policy would reduce the supposed gap?

Second, they're prohibiting you from asking, not prohibiting employers from not choosing you for failing to answer with the truth.

It's part of negotiation. Would it be legal to ask "what's the least amount of money we can give you for you to accept the job?" (Which, btw, is the question they're indirectly asking you.)

Why are they trying to outlaw negotiation skills for a somewhat unproven premise and an unclear cause and effect relationship?

</comment><comment><USER26> I support this, but I also think employers should be banned from requiring a credit check for employment. There are regulations on discriminating on race, gender, etc. The one missing piece is discriminating against the poor (which indirectly tie back to race, gender). It's still amazing to me that this is a practice that's still allowed for a society that purports to value social mobility.

</comment><comment><USER27> It always amazes me when I hear about people asking this question. Don't these hiring managers consider for a second how intrusive and rude it is? Aren't they concerned they may come across as douchebags for asking it? And yet I've been asked this several times by people that act like it's no big deal, like asking how was the traffic on the way in. Are they under pressure from the top? Or are hiring managers in general lacking in scruples?

<comment><USER28> I think it actually plays both ways - it's a way for me to give them an idea of what I'm expecting.

</comment></comment><comment><USER29> > Councilman William Greenlee, a Democrat, who sponsored the bill, says the > measure wouldn't prevent employers from setting a fair salary, bar salary > negotiations with prospective hires, or keep job candidates from voluntarily > sharing their pay history. But if passed, violators who quizzed would-be > hires about salary could face fines up to $2,000.

Even if passed, the penalty hardly seems disincentivizing.

<comment><USER30> A proportional penalty based on the salary of the position would make more sense. If you're hiring at McDonalds at minimum wage, $2000 is a bigger penalty than if you're hiring an engineer.

</comment></comment><comment><USER31> Asking doesn't hurt anyone. However giving certain answers could.

What prevents employees from claiming that this information is "confidential" (polite version of "it's not your business").

Or outright lying about it?

<comment><USER32> My employer asks this question. I refused to answer when asked in person/phone. As we got further in the hiring process they asked as part of the form they fill in to setup the background check. Again I refused to answer this question. I failed the background check due to this.

When we discussed it they said it was necessary so they could verify if I had lied about my salary when I'd given it previously. I pointed out that I had never given this information. HR insisted that I must have since they require it. Round and round we went for a while.

Eventually they let it go and hired me anyway.

So to answer your question. Companies will typically call up your previous employer and ask if the salary you provided them is correct.

Lying on your application form is almost always cause to fire. So if they ever find out you lied you about your previous salary you can be fired on the spot.

<comment><USER33> > So to answer your question. Companies will typically call up your previous > employer and ask if the salary you provided them is correct.

Very unlikely. I don't know a single company that would reply to that request. That's sky high in terms of liability.

> Lying on your application form is almost always cause to fire. So if they > ever find out you lied you about your previous salary you can be fired on > the spot.

You drank the HR FUD too much. A company doesn't go through all the troubles to hire someone just to get rid of him the next week for some stupid forms that noone cares about.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER34> [Edit: if a potential employer asked my previous salary] I would have zero qualms (zero) saying any number I wanted. If I was asked for paystubs I would say I'll get them later and add that the number may not have been exact, it could be off substantially I want to be upfront about that. If I have to put a number in a form and sign that I swear it is accurate, I would put an asterisk and explain that it is indicative of what I want them to think.

I don't see ethical problems with this behavior. It is practically what I actually would do.

If HR absolutely cannot start without my notarized sworn copy of pay stubs then I would not work there, and their loss. For anyone else, HR's job is to find qualified people, they are not going to kick you out once they've started onboarding you.

You don't have to lie, but you don't have to answer their questions any more than they have to ask yours about their company - HR doesn't work far from payroll, if as part of your interviews you asked to know the CEO's salary, would they tell you? Or the ratio between then lowest and highest salary at the company? (2.5x, 3x, 5x, 10x, 50x, 100x)

Things don't have to be hard and fast. If they don't like how I roll they can hire someone else. If I don't like their level of transparency I can refuse their offer.

Plus they're free to fire me if they don't like me.

You should answer illegal questions the same way. e.g. in an interview, how old are you. Say whatever you want, just add "I don't like to give am exact age just use that". If they're surprised that a 55 year old shows up too bad for them. Fire you if they don't like it. You're not paid to be 25 and you're not paid to have a certain salary history. You're paid to do a certain job - everything else is just friction.

Say whatever you want, as long as you can do the job. Don't lie about degrees or credentials.

Don't practice law or perform surgery without a license.

<comment><AUTHOR> > and add that the number may not have been exact, it could be off > substantially

Beyond pure monetary compensation, there are various non-monetary parameters - quality of health plan, quality and employee cost of dental plan, parental leave policy, 401(k) matching, mobile phone or Internet reimbursement, employer stock purchase plan - that any random number feels like a good ballpark estimate.

E.g. how does one value a health PPO with monthly premium $298 per family vs Kaiser HMO at $152 a month? A 5-day vs 3-week parental leave? The answer is highly dependent on personal circumstances, such as distance from home to the nearest Kaiser facility and whether or not someone in the family is expecting. The value of either might be $0 if interviewee plans to stay covered by spousal health plan and does not plan to have children.

<comment><USER34> I'm not sure if you got my meaning - I added the part you quote at the top of your comment as a "CYA" (cover your ass.) For example say someone is a 22 year old very expert programmer with a degree from a top school who for some reason is only making $35k. I would advise them to have zero qualms to lie and say they are making $75K (with the cya line that this number could be off substantially) if they were interviewing for a job paying $80k. Because they are being paid to do a job, not to be of a certain age or have a certain salary history. That's my opinion anyway.

If what you've given is further cya points - then by all means, use them.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER35> Massachusetts did this last summer. Seems like a strange trend. Not necessarily bad (though it makes things harder for me as a hiring manager) but I wonder what group is pushing for this. Laws don't tend to get passed unless they're backed by special interests.

<comment><USER36> How does such a law makes things harder for you as a hiring manger?

<comment><USER37> Because you have to get someone all the way to an offer until you know what their salary expectations are.

I think it's a good rule, but it is harder for managers. Especially managers who want to find a cheap hire.

<comment><USER38> There isn't anything stopping you from asking expectations. Just history, which removes some of your leverage (arguably a good thing).

And people looking for "cheap hires" deserve to be hit hard by this the most IMHO.

Leveling the playing field with information asymmetry is a good thing.

<comment><USER35> I'd say that preventing potential employers from asking questions about salary while allowing applicants to ask whatever they want is creating, not removing, assymmetry. In both cases, parties are free to refuse to answer questions.

One could argue that the potential employer is in a position of power and should therefore be constrained but I don't see that as the case at all these days, at least not in the tech industry.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER39> Can we go a little further than this? Can we require employers to post the details of the compensation package that comes with each job? That would save a lot of time for all involved and obviate the need to even ask this question.

<comment><USER40> No. It will stop us from bargaining and pushing for biding wars.

<comment><USER39> You'll just front load the "bidding war". You will still be able to negotiate incidentals like PTO, signing bonus, etc. When recruiters from e.g. Japan or some European countries reach out to me it's easy for me to dismiss them out of hand since their comp is stated up front. This is also more fair to demographics which don't like to negotiate, and women in particular.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER41> I added 10k to my salary last time I was asked.

<comment><USER26> You may have stumbled upon a solution here. Make it legal to ask the question, but also make it legal to lie about the answer (including doctoring paystubs, etc). Seems like a uniquely libertarian solution.

<comment><USER42> I don't think it really solves the problem. Making it legal to lie means employer can't sue you for fraud, but they can still fire you if they find out.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER43> I'll either politely refuse to answer or if I have thought about it beforehand then I'll give a number that guides them towards the salary I am looking for this time around.

I don't really mind the question. It's a little rude and it's only asked to get a gauge of salary expectations so why not ask what the current salary expectations are directly.

<comment><USER38> I've actually flat out said "that it isn't really relevant, but can you share your range and we'll see if that makes sense once I learn more about the role?"

It has worked a few times. Some get surprised when someone tries to flip that on them. The ones that balk get dropped from consideration.

<comment><USER33> They'll always consider the low end of the range while you'll always consider the end.

It's not a practical reply.

<comment><USER38> That's always a possibility. I usually frame it as something more like "I still need to learn a lot more about this role in order to tell you an amount that would make sense for me, and you still likely need time to learn more about what value I can add. If you can share your range, we can make sure we're at least in the right ballpark, and if it makes sense to move forward I'm confident we can arrive on a comp package that works for everyone."

Very often this question gets asked on initial screener calls. They don't know how to really evaluate you or what you bring to the table, and you know whatever high level thing the recruiter was told about the role. The purpose of the call is to determine in the quickest amount of time whether it makes sense to move forward to a deeper, more formal discussion about the opportunity with the people actually qualified to discuss the role at that level (hiring manager, etc.). Make it clear that you are interested in the entire comp package and not just salary. I haven't really had that much resistance to this.

At the end of the day it is on you to do your research on what they need to pay you for this to make sense, and be happy with that number. If they won't go for it, you tell them what that minimum happy number is, and if they won't get there one way or another (extra vacation, etc.), then you need to pass (assuming that is a realistic option for you).

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER44> That's too bad. My salary history tells a good story about me, that employers have found me more valuable than average. It's a pretty tangible and direct signal. In an interview it's convenient for them to ask and for me not to have to awkwardly bring it up.

<comment><USER45> I should think it would be easier for you to avoid the awkwardness and bring it up anyway than it is for people to resist the pressure of having to answer the question now.

</comment></comment><comment><USER46> Most people don't realize that companies can get salary history from a number of sources. ADP actually provides this as a service to larger customers.

<comment><USER47> Are you saying ADP will give my salary information to a company I might apply to? That doesn't seem ethical. Do you have a source on this? I am surprised to hear it.

<comment> nommm-nommm When you give them permission to run a "background check" on you then they most likely will consult with a database that may have your employment information in it.

[http://www.annualmedicalreport.com/do-a-total-background- che...](http://www.annualmedicalreport.com/do-a-total-background-check-on- yourself-annual-consumer-reporting-agency/)

>The Work Number (a service of TALX / Equifax Inc.) – The Work Number is a paid employment verification database operated by the TALX Corporation (owned by Equifax Inc.). The Work Number database contains more than 192 million entries and is used by by over 50,000 organizations to verify employment data... Your Employment Data Report contains (1) employment and income information from your employers who send data to The Work Number, (2) information about lenders, credit agencies, and other verifiers that have received your data, and (3) any messages, alerts, or statements you have requested be put in your data file

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER48> Paywalled, so I can't read it. Curious if this would ban asking about even current salary. That will make things interesting in Philly.

<comment><USER49> Try hitting the "web" button under the link and navigating in through google.

If that doesn't work, I made you a pastebin of the raw text: [http://pastebin.com/kS5QPEiF](http://pastebin.com/kS5QPEiF)

<comment><USER50> It seems like the WSJ has closed the HTTP Google referer paywall loophole. I've tried a couple of browsers/OSes over the last week and I can't view any articles. TY though for the pastebin.

<comment><USER26> The trick is opening the search result link in an incognito window (if you're using Chrome). It's a pretty nutty loophole, surprised it's gone on as long as it has.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> Every regulatory hurdle to hiring decreases the propensity of businesses to hire marginal candidates. The easier you make it to hire and fire people the more marginal candidates will be given the chance. There is no free-lunch here.

</comment><comment><USER51> All of my employers are already banned.</comment>


India unveils world's cheapest tablet computer for $35 - <AUTHOR> http://www.ft.com/cms/s/2/9e714b34-ef53-11e0-918b-00144feab49a.html#axzz1ZutezTLV <comment><USER4> > The Indian government put out a tender for the tablet to be developed, and > plans to sell 100,000 units of Aakash

My comment a year ago: <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1600780>

Same thing. 'unveiling' a tablet for a price is nothing until a tablet is actually sold for that price on the market. This times two in a place like India, which is plans-heavy and implementation-light. This really doesn't mean much.

</comment><comment><USER5> It is not a Government's job to make tablets.

If they can only fix their corruption, bureaucracy and the totally broken governmental system, thousands of entrepreneurs can emerge and create millions of gadgets...

<comment><USER6> In a country where the GDP per capita is around $1300? You can play up the "market will solve all ills" all you like, but if everyone is too busy scrambling to get enough calories to get by then they probably don't have enough to buy the latest iPad.

Subsidized government programs exist because this is where the market fails and governments have a larger and more important mission than just maximizing profits and putting on fancy keynotes for drooling fans.

<comment><USER5> //In a country where the GDP per capita is around $1300? You can play up the "market will solve all ills" all you like..........governments have a larger and more important mission than ....

GDP per capita is around $1300 precisely because the governmnet always felt it had a LARGER and MORE important mission than (simply doing their job with no corruption). And these larger and more important missions almost always end up channeling tax payer's money into politicians via some crazy project like this

<comment><USER7> You're mixing up two different issues, corruption and socialist tendencies.

While corruption in socialism is bad, corruption in capitalism is just as bad. Even the most developed capitalist countries have failed to remove corruption. (hence the 2008 subprime crisis)

To India's credit, its socialist tendencies kept the country unaffected from 2008 subprime crisis.

<comment><USER8> > To India's credit, its socialist tendencies kept the country unaffected from > 2008 subprime crisis.

No boom, no bust....

> While corruption in socialism is bad, corruption in capitalism is just as > bad. Even the most developed capitalist countries have failed to remove > corruption. (hence the 2008 subprime crisis)

The 2008 "subprime crisis" wasn't capitalist corruption, it was govt corruption. The US govt decided to subsidize home ownership via various means, which created a property bubble. Bubbles eventually pop, and the govt then decided to "socialize" the losses and try to restore the bubble.

The Irish govt went one step further - it decided to guarantee all bank losses.

That's not capitalism.

<comment><USER9> That looks a lot like an instance of the "no true Scotsman" fallacy.

<comment><USER10> At first glance, you're right. The problem is, though, that the word "capitalism" has different meanings for different people, and has also undergone a general shifting of the meaning of the word. This is not unlike the word "liberal" (as in politically liberal), which has changed in a similar fashion.

This snippet from the Wikipedia entry for capitalism synthesizes it pretty well: "Classical liberals such as Mises, Rand, and Rothbard define capitalism as a market system with no interference by States (laissez faire). Some define capitalism as a system governed by capital accumulation regardless of the legal ownership titles."

anamax is referring to what could be referred to "classical capitalism," while you, ramchip, seem to be referring to "state capitalism".

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> Again? The 'Indian Government' makes an announcement like this every three to six months. There is really really weird politics surrounding this vs the OLPC project in India. Start believing in these releases when you have consumers purchasing them, and/or deployments greater than 100.

<comment><USER7> Isn't this how most elected politicians behave around the world?

First announcement: _"we'll do it"_.

Status update: _"as announced it is on course and will be completed 'soon'"_.

Launch: _"as promised here it is for the public"._

Media just publishes each statement as major news item and people feel it's already overrated.

<comment><USER12> Yes. But you forgot about the delays and cancellations often happening between these steps.

<comment><USER7> Of course. I was just more critical of the relation between media and people's perceptions than government's efficiency in my last comment.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> As posted in my other thread - the subsidized cost to customer is $50 (cost of manufacture is $35). The blurb: [http://tech2.in.com/news/tablets/indias-very- own-35-tablet-t...](http://tech2.in.com/news/tablets/indias-very- own-35-tablet-to-launch-tomorrow/245822)

Will be available for purchase in November.

The specs are:

Android 2.2

Wifi, 2 USB Ports

7'' resistive display, 350g

366 mhz processor

256 mb RAM

2GB flash

microsd support

2100 mah battery

can play 1080p video

<comment><USER14> _can play 1080p video_

This is a big surprise to me given the low specs. Can it do this well?

<comment><USER15> I doubt it. I've used one of the $80 Chinese tablets with ostensibly better specs and the thing was barely usable. It really depends on the details though. 366 MHz doesn't tell us what type of processor, nor whether it has hardware decoder chips in there too.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> Consumers will be able to buy a retail version for about $60.

<comment><AUTHOR> Correct. It is $35 for only to the students after government's subsidy.

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> The lack of keyboard means that it is a terrible tool for students.

Without a keyboard you cannot create. (Ok you can draw imprecise pictures and type really slowly)

Without creating/doing you are not learning. You are just absorbing data.

Tablet/touch screen users never add new content to the world, they are just an audience.

<comment><USER18> I have written a lot of text (and enjoyed doing so) on my tiny smartphone touchscreen so you are wrong.

<comment><USER19> I can agree. On screen keyboards will probably become an equal standard at some point. Besides it will be a lot better than no device at all.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> The article switches tense from "on sale" to "will have", which is a similar uncertain time detail to other articles about vaporous sub-$50 computers that have been published in the past.

Is this device shipping at the claimed price right now or not?

</comment><comment><USER21> But what do you do with a $35 tablet with WiFi when there is no electricity, let alone internet.

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rural_electrification#India>

<comment><USER22> They run on battery, no?

My bad. Downvote me to oblivion.

<comment><USER23> In a video about this tablet, the researcher behind it (or so I believe) said the goal is to have power-consumption be low enough to ultimately allow it to be solar-charged.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> Regards the Nano, why would people rather walk than be seen in the 'world's cheapest car?' Given the funds and the availability I'd grab one in a moment ---a mountain bike in a snow storm makes a very convincing argument that there must be a better way! Is this a cultural thing---if so move the market to where such hangups don't exist would be my suggestion...

<comment><USER25> I see that the context is missing. The alternative is two wheeled vehicles (scooters and motorbikes). In India a big percentage of people use two wheelers for commuting. Nano seems to be a slight upgrade from two wheelers. However with rising gas costs, moving from a two wheeled vehicle to the cheapest car does not make much economic sense. Also with Nano being branded as the cheapest car, it does not make much social sense either.

<comment><USER26> I think the cheapest car model really stigmatises it. Not a smart move. I would still like a Nano, I don't think it looks half bad.

<comment><USER27> Anyone who remembers the initial events would remember very well that the Nano was overbooked initially. So it is not the price point that led to lowered sales.

Cheap in price is in general associated with cheap in quality as well - <USER2> psychology. People buy it only when they feel it is good enough. Nano having been already branded and popularized as cheap in price got severely damaged by a few glitches and got rebranded as cheap in quality.

Essentially, production delays and a few unpopular news items made people reconsider their choices and before Nano could recover the market is filled with cars in the small segment made by Honda (who thought of a Honda car in small segment), Maruti/Suzuki, Ford, Hyundai...etc. Also remember that it was Nano which spawned a new generation of small segment cars by various manufacturers who would otherwise have not considered the option at all.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> I really want to know what the plan is? How will poor people who cant afford a decent computer have access to WiFi? Its not like India has free Wifi spots in many of these locations. Is there a plan to provide Wifi in the schools where these kids go? I wish this article had more information regarding the whole plan

</comment><comment><USER28> How worlds cheapest 35$ android tablet aakash is made possible [video] - <http://bit.ly/pN4hi6>

</comment><comment><USER29> But the question is, is it google approved? i.e. will there be android market, gmail, updates, etc.. (highly doubt on updates though)

</comment><comment><USER30> Yeah in 10 years time when inflation will make $35 look like pennies and moore's law will make this device feasible to sell at $35.

</comment><comment><USER31> Now every Indian adolescent boy can watch 1080p porn in private.

Seriously, I hope this gets put to good use by schools for textbooks too.

Boys will be boys.

</comment><comment><USER32> yet another world's cheapest [insert gadget] announcement. time to step it up, waiting for the day i hear world's best...

<comment><USER33> It will really help if they provide affordable or better free WiFi countrywide

</comment></comment><comment><USER34> Anyone ever laid hands on one of these ultra-cheap tablets?

</comment><comment><USER35> How long until Microsoft comes to screw it up for them and make the price $75?

<comment><USER36> Assuming you are implying they will sue over patents, they can't - <USER3> software patents are not legal in India.

</comment></comment><comment><USER37> But... will it blend?</comment>


Miss a Payment? Good Luck Moving That Car - <AUTHOR> http://dealbook.nytimes.com/2014/09/24/miss-a-payment-good-luck-moving-that-car/?_php=true&_type=blogs&_r=0

<comment><USER2> [https://hn.algolia.com/?q=miss+a+payment#!/story/forever/0/m...](https://hn.algolia.com/?q=miss+a+payment#!/story/forever/0/miss%20a%20payment)

</comment><comment><USER3> this sounds so orwellian. Should my dealer have told me if there was such a device in the car I recently bought. If not, is there a way to find out. Not that I'm in danger of missing payments, but it seems like I should be informed of such a device in the car

</comment><comment><USER4> But it is not her car. It is owned by the lender and she failed to meet the contracted payments.

These people need to buy cheaper, used cars.

<comment><USER5> I guess here we need to talk about different definitions of "mine". At least people tend to say "my house" and "my car" in many situations similar to this.</comment></comment>


An (unofficial) update and AMA (by former Boosted Boards founder and CEO) - <AUTHOR> https://www.reddit.com/r/boostedboards/comments/g2spte/an_unofficial_update_and_ama/ <comment><USER2> Shit. I was finally planning on getting one. From what I hear, none of the competitors are as good and all have drawbacks.

<comment><AUTHOR> I have an older v2, and it is an _amazing_ experience. Really unfortunate that they weren't able to scale and make a sustainable business.

Really hope Lime does something with the IP, and bring back the skateboards someday.</comment></comment>


New programming language delivers fourfold speedups - <AUTHOR> http://phys.org/news/2016-09-language-fourfold-speedups-problems-common.html <comment><USER2> These press releases are terrible. It took me quite a while to find the original paper:

 _Optimizing Indirect Memory References with milk_

[http://dl.acm.org/citation.cfm?id=2967948](http://dl.acm.org/citation.cfm?id=2967948)

(seems to be available without paywall)

</comment><comment><USER3> What were they thinking when they chose this 'cheesy' name? Oh yes, how to milk the memory. :p</comment>


John Le Carré, the Art of Fiction No. 149 (1997) - <AUTHOR> https://www.theparisreview.org/interviews/1250/john-le-carre-the-art-of-fiction-no-149-john-le-carre <comment><USER2> Smiley's People (the movie), despite being of much lower production value, is every bit as good as Tinker Tailor for those of you looking for more.

<comment><USER3> Thanks! I just got finished enjoying the 1979 miniseries and I'm very happy to learn that there is another one to follow it up.

<comment><USER2> It's insanely slow to start but it pays off.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Half paywalled but a good read</comment>


Getting Started with Event Sourcing in Postgres - <AUTHOR> https://www.backerkit.com/blog/getting-started-with-event-sourcing-in-postgres/ <comment><USER2> Before anyone goes building their very own eventstore based on this blog article—even calling this implementation of the pattern eventsourcing is a stretch. You don't "query" the event stream. Your projections subscribe to it. (Also, there's no projection in this.) And while its not the first time i've heard of someone using a table per event type, its definitely something I'd regard as an antipattern.

There are MUCH better articles out there about eventsourcing, even in Rubyland where its still fairly uncommon. This one is just cargo-culting, poorly.

<comment><USER3> I'm currently writing a book on this (ES/CQRS), but I have come to the conclusion through some of our projects that a "subscription" model is actually less ideal as you end up falling back to keeping a lot of state in the application heap.

We rather prefer to have a subscriber who re-runs the projections which are purely functional, and dump their state.

This mandates that you have some way of querying relevant events from the underlying store. Sometimes the best store for this is a DBMS, sometimes it's something simpler like CAS linked lists in Redis or similar (lists of hashes pointing to keys, similar to git's ref/tag model)

Either way, this idea that you subscribe to a stream makes reconnection and place-holding (cursor) semantics difficult, and simply calling as-frequently- as-makes-sense your update function is simpler to reason about, and helps highlight performance issues by making it easier to see the perf of frequently called short lived processes vs dealing with any VM bloat of your choice of language's runtime managing long lived subscribers.

Caveat: naturally this is all very subjective, just my 2 ¢

<comment><USER4> >Either way, this idea that you subscribe to a stream makes reconnection and place-holding (cursor) semantics difficult

This is true. It's also a problem if you drop a packet - you need to build up state again on the client side.

If you're writing a book about event sourcing, I should think you'll spend a good deal of time covering trading systems and order books since these are an area where event sourcing (AIUI) has been used for decades.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> All this "event sourcing" stuff is fun to watch. I've been using essentially this paradigm in production for years. The difference is that I use a simple custom append-only database for it. The consumer side can read, parse, and handle well over 1M events per second on a single core. Take that, Postgres. If the code wasn't such a mess, I'd open source it.

I'm a bit mystified as to why it's called event sourcing, though. Everything sources events. The difference is that this data model has everything consuming events instead of consuming state.

<comment><USER6> I'm not sure but the term is pretty old.

[https://martinfowler.com/eaaDev/EventSourcing.html](https://martinfowler.com/eaaDev/EventSourcing.html)

This is an article I have from 10+ years ago and its still roughly the same way I do it now. I've never needed to scale it beyond something like Postgres or Redis.

<comment><USER4> Isn't Event Sourcing the same as anything using a Write Ahead Log (WAL)? i.e. it's been around for decades.

<comment><USER2> No, a WAL is an implementation detail of a database—you could only consider that to be ES if you're building a database. ES refers to the primacy of domain-related events as the source of truth about your application state. Your application consumes event from individual streams (events belong to one or more streams—usually one) and changes state with each event. You can think of it as a functional data pattern.

<comment><USER4> >you could only consider that to be ES if you're building a database.

I poke around in the guts of databases, so that's what I meant. The WAL is ES in the context of databases. So I guess ES is the generalization/abstraction(?).

<comment><USER7> Probably more appropriate to think of ES as relying on a WAL for managing an ordered event stream. When getting the current state of a business object e.g. "SELECT * FROM table WHERE pk=313", you would replay the event log to get current state and discard it when you're done. Mutation is only done by adding an event to the stream.

It's not uncommon to see RDBMS's still used to improve read performance (but not as a source of truth, just a cache with SQL).

<comment><USER4> Right, and then, if the domain allows it, you can compact the logs into the current state so the compacted state is the single source of truth. e.g. HDFS works this way by having an fsimage and the edit logs. After a compaction, the fsimage is the HDFS namespace. The RDBMS that you mention is just a coarse tool for doing the same thing (IIUC).

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> I see a lot of event sourcing tutorials are based on ordering by timestamp. If events (state transitions) are generated concurrently that would lead to huge problems reconstructing actual flow (and breaking state machines). For example when user has multiple sessions open and makes concurrent changes in both sessions.

Wouldn't it be better to store identifier of previous state and reconstruct the event tree using CONNECT BYs/WITH RECURSIVEs?

<comment><USER9> If your event payload contains the whole updated state of the system, then yes, you need to know the ID of the original state in order to detect concurrent updates to the same original state. But if you want to keep things smooth for the user you'd have to merge those concurrently updated states, which may well be a massive pain, depending on your data model.

A better option is to only include the changes in the event payload, in which case you don't need to know the original state and you can simply project them all in order - and if one makes the next impossible, it's first come, first serve. Again, though, depending on your data model, generating an event payload that only includes the changed elements may also be a pain.

<comment><USER8> But you do not necessarily need to merge events. Contrived example, but say you have some kind of transactional flow (e.g. accounting) that is in the end signed/sent/processed by a central authority/job. There are two concurrent transactions modifying the same object. If the flow is to commit the latest state, then user1 can accidentaly commit user2's edits. This can easily happen if accountants connect with company credentials.

\--- edit addition ---

For example there is an error in submitted (not yet committed) invoice for green and blue pens - invoice is for 5 boxes of blue and 5 boxes of green pens, but the courier departed with 11 total boxes, because it was a quick call directly to warehousing. Accounting does not particularly care for pen colour and get request to modify the invoice to total to 11 boxes. Accountant 1 modifies green pens count to 6, accountant 2 modifies blue pens. There is now high chance to sign the invoice with 12 boxes.

I understand that problem in example is solvable with checks and full state changesets, but it is a problem nevertheless. That's why I am proponent of history trees.

<comment><USER9> In your example, I think ending up with a 12-box invoice is absolutely the correct behaviour for the program.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> The CTE in the final query seems like it should be replaced with a subquery (or view?) because the CTE is an optimisation fence, so it's going to seq scan email every time, even if there's a where condition which could use the message_id index.

</comment><comment><USER11> I've inherited a project with CQRS+Event Sourcing but I can't wait to get rid of it. It's genuinely depressing to work with the code.

<comment><USER12> Could you elaborate about what you don't like about it

<comment><USER11> It's to do with the fact that the original implementors decided to apply this design pattern for the entire system, including places where it's not really useful like CRUD.

A lot of redundant plumbing in the code with classes mapped to other classes. The data structure they chose does not allow inheritance so there are a lot of classes that look exactly alike where sub-classes would be useful.

This notion of Command that generates an Event that generates more Commands that can generates more Events asynchronously with code for eventual consistency. Lovely concept but database records don't exist. You can't just query a database. You have to build your views based on playing back your events. I just find it completely confusing.

Frustrating as well because certain things that are trivial in an RDMS end up costing an incredible amount of development time in CQRS+Event Store. I must admit unfamiliarity with the architecture is definitely a factor - except that my predecessors wrote everything from scratch down to the JSON format of the data structure. One mistake and the microservices crash causing the data to be in an invalid state. In order to fix the data, you need to replay all the events - and there are millions of them. Nothing ever gets deleted because a 'delete' is a new event.

pffff ....

<comment><USER2> I don't blame you for being soured on it—sounds like there are a lot of antipatterns in play there!

> including places where it's not really useful like CRUD.

Probably the most common mistake made by architects doing it for the first time.

> You can't just query a database. You have to build your views based on > playing back your events.

Its pretty common to have projections that build database tables so you can do exactly that. It sounds more like the original architects violated (or had poor delineation) of service boundaries, which just creates a tightly coupled set of microservices, which is worse than the monolithic architecture it seeks to replace.

> In order to fix the data, you need to replay all the events - and there are > millions of them. Nothing ever gets deleted because a 'delete' is a new > event.

Its also common to archive streams periodically and "declare bankruptcy" with an initial state setting event, proceeding forward from there. Snapshotting is also a thing.

You might find this helpful in dealing with some of those issues: [https://leanpub.com/esversioning/read#leanpub-auto- status](https://leanpub.com/esversioning/read#leanpub-auto-status)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> For those of you who use event sourcing: how do you scale horizontally? Do you have a single process that handles all events sequentially? Maybe I'm overthinking this but I'm worried this might become a bottleneck eventually. Otherwise, how do you deal with concurrency issues (e.g. 2 different visitors who signup with the same username concurrently)?

<comment><USER2> The first rule of eventsourcing is don't eventsource EVERYTHING.

Eventsourcing requires really, really detailed analysis of your boundaries (and no small bit of experimentation) to get right, even when you've done it before. It should really only be applied to the areas of your application that are going to see a real benefit from it. My proxy for measuring this is "how much money does this group of features make for me?" If the answer is some version of "none" or "none, but its a requirement to have it anyway" then I don't try to apply ES to that area of the application. I _never_ use ES on user records anymore, for example.

I'm sidestepping your actual question, but mostly because your use-case is something I consider to be a bit of a canard. To answer it though, as others noted, "it depends"—I model projections with actors, which means all events DO come through a single process handling events sequentially (and this is a very common way to do it.) But because I've got tons of these actors (one per stream that's actively running), there's no real bottleneck—this is also one way you guarantee ordering within a stream.

Higher up in the stack, at the eventstore level, you'll probably have a pool of processes handling writes and routing events to the correct handlers/projections, but this is an implementation detail that can vary widely. The advice to not get bogged down in the details early on is good—the thing i see almost every developer new to ES do is get mired in the basic "how do i implement this" question, and that's really not what's going to kill your project. Not understanding nearly as much about your business and the software boundaries in your system is where most projects go wrong.

<comment><USER14> > The first rule of eventsourcing is don't eventsource EVERYTHING.

I've heard this rule so often now, but never what exactly it is that you _can_ safely event source. I'm afraid it's something you can only get a feeling for by doing it a few times and making mistakes, but that way of learning is hard to justify in real projects.

<comment><USER2> > I've heard this rule so often now, but never what exactly it is that you > _can_ safely event source. I'm afraid it's something you can only get a > feeling for by doing it a few times and making mistakes, but that way of > learning is hard to justify in real projects.

see above:

>> My proxy for measuring this is "how much money does this group of features make for me?"

That said, i think you're also correct—there's a lot of trial and error in developing your instincts for this architecture. That's also true of monoliths, web MVC, or really any architectural style. Experience, as they say, is that thing you only get AFTER you needed it.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> Is this the same as what datomic does by default?

</comment><comment><USER16> Maybe I'm missing something, but the final query in the article seems complicated/inefficient for no apparent reason. IMO this one should be better:

      SELECT DISTINCT ON (message_id)
        message_id,
        status
      FROM emails
      ORDER BY message_id, created_at;

<comment><AUTHOR> Great feedback! You are right and the post has been updated to reflect this feedback!

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> It's late and I'm tired and far from a SQL expert, so this may be a silly question, but why is the dense_rank needed instead of just using the event's timestamp directly in the 2nd query?

<comment><USER18> To break ties when there are multiple events with the same timestamp, I would guess.

<comment><USER19> With or without a dense rank a second sort order would be necessary to break ties.</comment></comment></comment>


Signs of Changes Taking Hold in Electronics Factories in China - <AUTHOR> http://www.nytimes.com/2012/12/27/business/signs-of-changes-taking-hold-in-electronics-factories-in-china.html <comment><USER2> Henry Ford was the Foxconn of his day. When the average turnover at his factories dropped to 9 months because people would leave over low pay and bad work conditions to go work at another automaker, he implemented the $5 day. It roughly doubled pay for the workers at the time but it came with a cost. The workers had to have their home life inspected, couldn't be drunks, drug users or abusive to their spouses, their kids had to be in school - essentially he used the wage increase to give license to tighter screening of employees lives both at work and home.

It worked, productivity went up, lots of free press, and sales went up. The common belief was the raise was about the worker being able to buy his own car, but there was more to the story. I recommend "Wheels for the World" as an excellent book about this. [http://www.amazon.com/Wheels-World-Company- Century-Progress/...](http://www.amazon.com/Wheels-World-Company-Century- Progress/dp/B000BZ99PQ)

<comment><USER3> It was progressive compared to the attitudes of a century earlier:

"Poverty ... is a most necessary and indispensable ingredient in society, without which nations and communities could not exist in a state of civilisation. It is the lot of man – it is the source of wealth, since without poverty there would be no labour, and without labour there could be no riches, no refinement, no comfort, and no benefit to those who may be possessed of wealth." — Patrick Colquhoun, 1806

Also, there was a simpler argument against a decent wage: If you give Those Sorts any more than the bare minimum needed to keep body and soul together, they'll just squander it on loose women, drink, and riotous behavior, leading to the decay of the family and the end of our Christian society. Fighting for the eight-hour workday amounted to fighting against this perception.

> The eight-hour day, another said, would encourage "loafing and gambling, > rioting, debauchery, and drunkenness."

<http://www.dickmeister.com/id368.html>

<comment><USER4> I.E "i'm rich because you are poorer than me". It's not about wealth , it is about human nature , domination and power. There is enough wealth in this world for the rich to be still filthy rich and the poor to live a decent life and have an education. But wealth is a mean of domination, by keeping people poor you can make them desperate and enslave them.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> This is great news, and is what progress looks like.

Even if you look back towards the start of these factories, the jobs they have been offering are better than subsistence farming. They're not pleasant by Western standards, and they're not something you'd want people to have to do, but they are progress. That's why foxconn has no trouble finding staff.

Now, as these industries have been built where seeing standards improve. This is progress, and this is capitalism lifting hundreds of thousands (if not millions) out of poverty.

<comment><USER6> [http://www.spectator.co.uk/the-week/leading- article/8789981/...](http://www.spectator.co.uk/the-week/leading- article/8789981/glad-tidings/)

"In 1990, the UN announced Millennium Development Goals, the first of which was to halve the number of people in extreme poverty by 2015. It emerged this year that the target was met in 2008. Yet the achievement did not merit an official announcement, presumably because it was not achieved by any government scheme but by the pace of global capitalism."

For some, this is a very uncomfortable fact.

<comment><USER7> That's because some draw the conclusion that capitalism does not exist with a progressive tax rate, environmental laws, unions, or universal health care. It's a ridiculous proposition, but that's what some people believe.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> For comparison: [http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2012/02/mac- mcclelland-f...](http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2012/02/mac-mcclelland- free-online-shipping-warehouses-labor):

"Even more than you are hurting the company, a voice-over intones as animated people do things like accidentally oversleep, you are hurting yourself when you are late because you will be penalized on a point system, and when you get too many points, you're fired—unless you're late at any point during your first week, in which case you are instantly fired"

*There are transition points in the warehouse floor where the footing is uneven, and people trip and sprain ankles. Give forklifts that are raised up several stories to access products a wide berth: "If a pallet falls on you, you won't be working with us anymore." Watch your fingers around the conveyor belts that run waist-high throughout the entire facility. People lose fingers."

10+hour shifts, net $60 a day, in the USA.

<comment><USER9> $60 a day would be a dream wage in China.

<comment><USER10> Right, but food etc. costs of China would be a dream in the US.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> Will be interesting to watch the fallout from these changes.

<comment><USER12> I don't think it will be perceptible to most people - the cost of goods will rise relative to their usual decline, but it will still be a decline.

<comment><USER13> The cost of goods might not even rise. Employees who are stressed, overworked and in pain probably have higher defect rates and turnover than employees who are treated more humanely.</comment></comment></comment>


Box faces Make-or-Break Moment - <AUTHOR> http://www.nytimes.com/2015/04/20/technology/box-provider-of-cloud-computing-services-faces-make-or-break-moment.html?_r=0

<comment><USER2> Every time someone mentions Box, I find myself obligated to quote one of the funniest passages in recent tech history: the Risk Factors chapter from their S-1 IPO filing:

        ## Risks Related to Our Business and Our Industry ##

        ### We have a history of cumulative losses, and we do not
        expect to be profitable for the foreseeable future. ###

        We have incurred significant losses in each period since
        our inception in 2005. We incurred net losses of $50.3
        million in our fiscal year ended December 31, 2011, $112.6
        million in our fiscal year ended January 31, 2013, and
        $168.6 million in our fiscal year ended January 31, 2014.
        As of January 31, 2014, we had an accumulated deficit of
        $361.2 million. These losses and accumulated deficit
        reflect the substantial investments we made to acquire new
        customers and develop our services. We intend to continue
        scaling our business to increase our number of users and
        paying organizations and to meet the increasingly complex
        needs of our customers. We have invested, and expect to
        continue to invest, in our sales and marketing
        organizations to sell our services around the world and in
        our development organization to deliver additional features
        and capabilities of our cloud services to address our
        customers' evolving needs. We also expect to continue to
        make significant investments in our datacenter
        infrastructure and in our professional service organization
        as we focus on customer success. As a result of our
        continuing investments to scale our business in each of
        these areas, we do not expect to be profitable for the
        foreseeable future. Furthermore, to the extent we are
        successful in increasing our customer base, we will also
        incur increased losses due to upfront costs associated with
        acquiring new customers, particularly as a result of the
        limited free trial version of our service and the nature of
        subscription revenue, which is generally recognized ratably
        over the term of the subscription period, which is
        typically one year, although we also offer our services for
        terms ranging between one month to three years or more. We
        cannot assure you that we will achieve profitability in the
        future or that, if we do become profitable, we will sustain
        profitability.

[http://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1372612/0001193125141...](http://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1372612/000119312514112417/d642425ds1.htm#toc642425_2)

<comment><USER3> Isn't that just standard language for basically all S-1 filings?

<comment><USER4> The most recent one that comes to mind for me is New Relic's S-1 ([http://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1448056/0001193125144...](http://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1448056/000119312514406260/d709327ds1.htm#toc709327_2)):

> We have incurred net losses in each fiscal period since our inception, > including net losses of $7.5 million, $22.5 million, and $40.2 million in > the fiscal years ended March 31, 2012, 2013, and 2014, respectively, and > $18.6 million and $19.4 million in the six months ended September 30, 2013 > and 2014, respectively. We had an accumulated deficit of $100.8 million at > September 30, 2014....

Seems more or less word for word the same to me

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> The whole premise of the article is centered around a single quote from a Morningstar analyst. Does Box really face a make or break moment right now?

<comment><USER6> This seems to be on par for tech journalism. Take a quote from some analyst, accept it as truth without doing any further research, and then write a story around it.

<comment><USER7> Seems on par for most mainstream journalism these days, tech or otherwise.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Maybe they are losing money because they have 1200 employees. Do they really need that many?

</comment><comment><USER9> I work near their Los Altos office and I see a lot of Box employees (How do I know? They wear the Box tees,shirts hoodies, caps etc.) roaming around the San Antonio shopping center and surrounding areas (Which begs to question what am I doing outside the office? Ha! I have a large floor to ceiling window overlooking El Camino and the SA shopping center). I know it's totally anecdotal, but it looks like their employees have given up too. Do they really need 1200 employees?

</comment><comment><USER10> What happens to all the data if a big cloud provider goes under? They must give their clients time to move the data, no?

<comment><USER11> they will give time, e.g Ubuntu One file services closed shop and gave some time and even free migration services to another provider.

<comment><USER12> This was because the company behind Ubuntu (Canonical) shut down the service, they didn't go under themselves.

If the cloud infrastrucure is Box's, and they cannot pay the maintenance fees anymore, I would start seriously worrying.

In a way, committing to a company whose main business is cloud storage gives you more guarantees they won't shut down the service out of the blue (since it's their only, or main, source of revenue), while committing to a big company with their eggs in more baskets (MS, Google) gives you more guarantees that if they shut down the service you'll be given some time to react.

<comment><USER13> Is there insurance coverage for this sort of thing?

"In case Company X goes under, Insurance Company Y will pay $Z to cover hosting costs for AA months so that customers can download their data"

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> backblaze is 5 bucks a month for unlimited. box is 6 or 7 bucks a month for 2 GB. why would anyone use box?

<comment><USER15> Yev from Backblaze here -> bit of a different use-case. Box isn't a backup service, and Backblaze isn't a syncing/sharing/collaboration service. But you're right, if they are paying to house their data somewhere, that gets expensive. We can charge so little because of our own infrastructure that we rolled out, but it's not designed for the type of stuff that they are doing. Though, I suppose if you design it right it could be.</comment></comment>


Ask HN: Programming books that are more like math books? - <AUTHOR> So lately I've been trying to learn to program. It's quite clear that the best way to learn will be by doing. What I find odd is the structure of programming books (or educational materials) don't support this notion. Even the most interactive resources I've found (why's Try Ruby, Eloquent Javascript, etc) follow a structure like this:
1. describe concept
2. demonstrate application (sometimes)
3. provide a related exercise (sometimes) with solution (sometimes)
A typical (basic) math book, and what I'd like to find in a programming book, goes something like this:
1. describe concept
2. demonstrate several applications
3. provide 30-50 related exercises of increasing difficulty
4. provide solutions (with explanations[1]) to most or all of the exercises
[1]Math books usually don't provide explanations, but I think they would be helpful in a programming book.
It may not be pretty, and math books often use terrible exercises (especially the "real-world" exercises), but if you sit down and work through all of them, you will learn.
Programmers often say, "Just start a project." I've found that's a good way to learn how to do a particular project, and a good way to learn how to piece together frameworks and plugins and libraries, but not necessarily a good way to learn how to program (I understand all of that is part of programming, but I think there's a self-sufficiency that I'm looking for that is separate from the piecing together of things).
At any rate, does anyone know of a resource that's closer to the math book style (preferably Ruby or JS)? Is there a reason why programming books aren't written in that format? <comment><USER3> Anything by EWDijkstra or CAR Hoare or David Gries.

The Science of Programming by David Gries was very good, it covered some maths needed for programming such as set theory and then it used its own programming language (based on Dijkstra's) to discuss programming language concepts that may come up. It had a great little section about deriving conditions based on loop invariants. Also there's a section on Predicates. Basically it covers all the stuff you'll need to know when using _any_ programming language and that programming language tutorials fail to discuss.

You can see a preview at Google Books: [http://books.google.ca/books?id=vv5pot- ySsEC&lpg=PP1&...](http://books.google.ca/books?id=vv5pot- ySsEC&lpg=PP1&dq=the%20science%20of%20programming&pg=PP1#v=onepage&q&f=false)

There's also A Discipline of Programming by Dijkstra and I love that one too. He has examples of great algorithms and the way he develops them is awesome: [http://www.amazon.com/Discipline-Programming-Edsger-W- Dijkst...](http://www.amazon.com/Discipline-Programming-Edsger-W- Dijkstra/dp/013215871X)

The reason books like that aren't written is because they're too academic for some peoples' tastes. Unfortunately, books like Head First or whatever else, sell like hot cakes because they appeal to the lowest common denominator of programmer, the one whose eyes glaze over whenever there's math involved (that's usually the North American programmer, Europeans (at least the French and Dutch) don't mind the math).

I also think a lot of people dislike books with several exercises because they add way more pages. You don't need 3-5 pages of exercises, older math books only had 0.5-2 pages of exercises. Older math books are also not cluttered like the modern textbooks.

You could also do what Dijkstra did, which was _write_. Think and write about your experience, think and write about how you will approach a problem and explore alternative solutions, etc. Make up your own little notation for programming so you can free yourself from worrying about some obscure syntax or library call in a language.

</comment><comment><USER4> I learned many concepts by spending years designing, building, redesigning, and rebuilding many... many... many... times. Then I got this book:

3D game engine design: a practical approach to real-time computer graphics By David H. Eberly

and my universe was changed forever. Pick a project that _you_ think is worth it and go through the pains of building something that _you_ think is beautiful. This is how you become a good programmer because your art will drive you.

Keep in mind, to become a professional is to put away the art brushes and grab a shovel because most of the problems professionals deal with are not programming related but rather drama-driven-bullshit.

</comment><comment><USER5> Two good books which are in the sort of style you seek are:

 _The Little Schemer_ <[http://www.amazon.com/Little-Schemer-Daniel-P- Friedman/dp/02...](http://www.amazon.com/Little-Schemer-Daniel-P- Friedman/dp/0262560992/>); and

 _Clause and Effect_ <[http://www.amazon.com/Clause-Effect-Programming- Working-Prog...](http://www.amazon.com/Clause-Effect-Programming-Working- Programmer/dp/3540629718/>).

Also a help is that the languages they use ('use' is a more appropriate word here than 'teach') — Scheme and Prolog, respectively — are much more mathematical in nature than typical mainstream languages are.

<comment><USER6> I second _Clause and Effect_. (The Little Schemer, too, but CAE doesn't get much attention.)

Sterling and Shapiro's _The Art of Prolog_ is also excellent, though you'll probably be better off reading _Clause and Effect_ first if you've never used Prolog. CAE is all about getting a feel for how Prolog operates, step-by-step* , while TAoP is about the logic programming paradigm, interspersed with project case studies and comparisons between Prolog (as an LP implementation with various compromises) and "pure" LP.

* This is the main thing it has in common with The Little Schemer: both begin by stepping through their respective languages' evaluation at a micro-level, until the semantics feel totally clear. This is especially helpful since Scheme and Prolog are both very different from the typical imperative/OO languages people know.

FWIW, _The Little MLer_ is written in the same style as TLS, and is a good, lightweight introduction to ML's type system / static typing.

<comment><USER6> Also, if for whatever reason you have a hard time grokking Prolog, there's also an excellent chapter on LP and Prolog in CTM.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Most language books and language tutorials are NOT written for beginning programmers. They assume you get concepts like flow control (branching, looping, etc), functions, recursion, and data structures. Even if they cover (e.g) "what is branching" it is almost always from viewpoint of "here are the specifics of my language". Basically, they assume a certain level of programming knowledge.

Advice like "just do a project" is good, but again, it is geared towards people with a certain level of understanding. However, it also works for novices, albeit more painfully. A lot of what you say about 'piecing together' vs 'self sufficient programming' is a perception problem, namely the missing ingredient for you is experience. The rest is learning about algorithms, how to make them, how to understand them, etc.

One thing, here, before getting too far, is that the language doesn't matter as much as outsiders think -- sure it is important, but a good conceptual grasp is far more important, because at some point picking up languages is fairly easy. (not trivial, but..)

So all of that being said, I don't know of any programming books which follow the format you describe, but I can recommend a couple of resources that approach the concepts instead of the language. The first is a series of books called "How to think like a computer scientist"[1]. The second is the MIT scip lecture series[2]. Neither is in your preferred languages, but both are great intros.

[1] <http://www.openbookproject.net/thinkcs/>

[2] [http://groups.csail.mit.edu/mac/classes/6.001/abelson- sussma...](http://groups.csail.mit.edu/mac/classes/6.001/abelson-sussman- lectures/)

<comment><USER8> I'd like to second SICP and specifically the accompanying book - <USER2> online at <http://mitpress.mit.edu/sicp/full-text/book/book.html>

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> I don't know how likely you are to find "math book style" Ruby or Javascript books. Some language communities have academic (Haskell, ML, Scheme) and/or mathematically savvy (APL!) cultures, and some just don't.

There are some great suggestions here already, and I'd also recommend Pierce's _Types and Programming Languages_ and Knuth et. al's _Concrete Mathematics_.

Also: <http://projecteuler.net/>

</comment><comment><USER9> _Elements of Programming_ by Alexander Stepanov and Paul McJones (Hardcover - June 19, 2009) might be what you are looking for. Read the Amazon reviews.

And, of course, there is always Knuth's _Art of Computer Programming_ in any of its many editions.

</comment><comment><USER10> K&R2 is the best example that comes to mind. The solutions to the exercises are not included in the book, but there are many websites with various solutions and discussion.

</comment><comment><USER11> A lot of learning is by rote - doing something over and over again until it is drilled into your little f'ing brain.

With math, the end objective is to learn the material for the sake of learning the material. If you love math, that may be a reward in of itself, but I think that for the majority of people, this means that we're drilling it into our heads with no other objective than to pass a test, complete the course, and prepare ourselves for the next class that further builds upon the concepts. We usually don't have a real world application for our newly acquired math knowledge.

With programming, on the other hand, there is a real world application of our knowledge. Applications! _(Pun kind of intended.)_ So the learning by rote that we do, is going out and applying the knowledge to the development of real software programs. If you're really excited about programming, once you're introduced to the concepts, you want to create something of your own, not labor through a bunch of (often tedious) mock examples.

</comment><comment><USER12> Some classic AI books sort of take this approach, introducing concepts followed by small programs, followed by more concepts, followed by building up more complex programs, etc. They aren't mainly PLs books, but they serve as Lisp intros as well. Traditionally, teaching Lisp and teaching AI was done as an integrated process, which is an approach that gives the PL side some built- in, non-contrived examples to use. However, the focus is admittedly very much on the AI, and Lisp gets introduced sort of in passing, when needed.

Two examples (code examples/solutions linked) are _Paradigms of Artificial Intelligence Programming_ (<http://www.norvig.com/paip/README.html>) and _Building Problem Solvers_ (<http://www.qrg.northwestern.edu/bps/directory.html>).

</comment><comment><USER13> Programming as a discipline is still a largely of an experimental nature. This is not a value judgment one way or the other. But padding out books in order to look more comprehensive is an old trick and is not really the same discussion topic. That has largely been addressed by many things including those publishers who are successful precisely because they do the opposite. Other than that this seems to be a blanket generalization and criticism causing other generalizations and criticisms to spring to my mind, _Ivory Tower_ is one of them ;-)

Having said that, I think that you might be missing the point that the reason for all those examples, even if they are weak in many cases and reasonable to subject to great criticism, is because the practice of programming _is_ how you learn how to program. Reading a book is not oh young rabbit.

</comment><comment><USER14> Based on the title I thought you were going to complain about algorithm descriptions that are written in math notation (like where loops are written as summations, and there are lots of greek symbols).

I know these always bugged me in school. I guess some people think in this notation, but I always preferred pseudo code.

</comment><comment><USER15> I think you might be more interested in textbooks. In the programming world, the 'start a project' or build a software, it's more like a math theorem, not an entire branch of math. You find the solution to a problem, which basically in math you do by applying 1 or more theorems/solutions that have been found before.

Unfortunately I don't know of any programming textbooks (for programming languages, similar to math books), but CS texts: Structure and Interpretation of Computer Programs (as mifrai suggested); better to follow courses [http://ocw.mit.edu/courses/electrical-engineering-and- comput...](http://ocw.mit.edu/courses/electrical-engineering-and-computer- science/)

</comment><comment><USER16> For general programming concepts, there are many books with exerices, like sicp, essentials of programming language, etc. For books about specific programming languages, there are many quizzes online that you can use, just search for "language quizzes". Also project euler and similar websites may help.

<comment><USER17> Project Euler is a great start if you want a corpus of exercises with answers.

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> SICP, EOPL, Lil/Seasoned/Reasoned Schemer</comment>


HTML to PDF converter with custom resolutions for presentations and screenshots - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/gfmio/html2pdf

<comment><USER2> I may have missed something but isn't this just a (very small) wkhtmltopdf wrapper?

<comment><AUTHOR> It is at the moment, but it provides the right config ;) Plus, I'm planning to expand it to provide more general document layouts, so you can create "print" documents of different kinds in HTML and simply export it.

I just needed this for myself and wanted to share it with people :)

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> Nice. I've been looking for a way to turn Pandoc HTML into PDF without going the LaTeX route.</comment>


In Support of the lodsys Patent Lawsuit Defendants - <AUTHOR> http://wanderingcoder.net/2011/06/02/lodsys-patent-defendants-support/

<comment><AUTHOR> One idea I thought was great: boycott of East Texas by tech companies, the larger the better.</comment>


Ask HN: Does this exist? - <AUTHOR> I have an idea for a service.
Basically, a bot you can voice chat with, in a language you're trying to learn.
The thing is that it would use AI to learn the vocabulary you know, and try to create sentences using only words you know, throwing in a new one knowingly every once in a while, accompained by a dictionary card with the definition.
Compared to reading, you get used to hearing and speaking the language, and it helps build confidence.
Compared to doing conversation with a human being, you don't have to worry if the other person gets bored, and you build confidence gradually even if you're self-conscious. Also, the bot would only use words you know, and allow you to make progress little by little (or faster if it sees that you can master new words quickly). <comment><USER2> The biggest problem I see is language recognition. Dialects where once a major problem and I can imagine having a heavy accent will be a problem here too. Another problem would be grammar. You are not just learning vocabulary you are also learning a new grammar and will make mistakes. Maybe this can be corrected by knowing what the original language of the learner is.

I like the idea. But this is a hard problem and I doubt there exists a functioning version of this.

<comment><AUTHOR> Definitely a hard problem. I was looking to leverage any existing API I can use. I've tried Google Vision for text and it's amazing. If there was something for audio...

I told a friend of mine who's into machine learning and AI.

I think that it's possible for the program to get to know how you pronounce things via machine learning. I'm not an expert in this space, though.

I could start with learning English, since from my experience software often works better than with other languages.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> This might be the closest thing:

[http://bots.duolingo.com/](http://bots.duolingo.com/)

If they had an API (which, they do not), somebody could build a TTS + voice recognition wrapper for this functionality, creating the experience you mentioned.

</comment><comment><USER4> Even if it exists, since you don't know a dominant brand in this space, effectively, the market is wide open for you, if you come with a superior technology

</comment><comment><USER5> I like your idea. Like John I doubt such a thing exists.

<comment><AUTHOR> Probably not.</comment></comment>


Kids from Around the World Photographed with What They Eat in One Week - <AUTHOR> https://www.boredpanda.com/kids-surrounded-weekly-diet-photos-daily-bread-gregg-segal/ <comment><AUTHOR> Book website (Daily Bread: What Kids Eat Around the World) and thumbnails are here [1]

(I'm not affiliated; I just like the initiative.)

[1] [https://www.greggsegal.com/P-Projects/Daily- Bread/1/thumbs](https://www.greggsegal.com/P-Projects/Daily-Bread/1/thumbs)</comment>


Techno/Drum and Bass to hack to - <AUTHOR>

Hi there, I don't hack in your sense of the word, more meditational hacking with music from time to time, so I can get that I might seem weird to you.
Still though, I really value your opinion as I have massive, massive respect for hackers in the conventional sense of the word. Was just wondering : what techno/drum and bass music any of you use to hack to?
This is the latest track I've found works really well for what I'm doing, and there's a lot of others by the same guy if you check youtube : http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EnPu2ILD4iE
Thanks if any of you can help with your own stuff, and I hope things are going well for you all. <comment><USER2> Probably obvious, but a lot of Aphex Twin and Orbital. I especially recommend Aphex's 'Surfing on Sine Waves' (done under the nym Polygon Window).

There is a guy who goes by Lichens who does some beautiful stuff - here is one from him <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DfMjJ2oMXI8>

Not strictly drum&bass or techno, but I'll additionally recommend: Explosions in the Sky (everything from them, but especially 'Those Who Tell The Truth Shall Die, Those Who Tell The Truth Shall Live Forever'), Godspeed You Black Emperor ('Lift Your Skinny Fists Like Antennas to Heaven' and 'F#A#infinity') and My Morning Jacket (especially Z).

<comment><AUTHOR> Awesome, thanks. Will try to check all of those out.

</comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> You need to give that tune until 1:26 to kick in by the way.

</comment><comment><USER3> Bassdrive.com is always good

<comment><AUTHOR> Cool stuff, have bookmarked it, cheers!</comment></comment>


Xeros bead washing machine system set to save water and energy in the home - <AUTHOR> http://www.theguardian.com/business/2014/oct/19/xeros-bead-washing-machine-system-save-water-energy-home

<comment><USER2> How do they prevent you from ending up with pockets full of the cleaning balls?</comment>


Your email. Reimagined. - <AUTHOR> http://pingapp.com

<comment><USER2> It's said time and time again - some kind of demo or tour of a version of your product would be immensely helpful.

I don't know what your convergence numbers are, but I internet-guarantee they would be higher than what they are now with some sort of explanation/demonstration of what your service does.

If you're worried that people can steal your idea just from seeing a picture of it/seeing it in action, then maybe the fruit you're reaching for should be a little higher

</comment><comment><USER3> Could you tell me a little bit more about you guys? Like, what do you do? Why should I give you my phone number? Why not just get an email?

</comment><comment><USER4> Why link to something with no content?</comment>