British Prime Minister Suggests Banning Some Online Messaging Apps - <AUTHOR> http://bits.blogs.nytimes.com/2015/01/12/british-prime-minister-suggests-banning-some-online-messaging-apps <comment><USER2> Honestly, why do people think that a terrorist attack like this requires any dramatic changes to society? The fact is that some guys got guns and shot up a building, in the name of a currently popular, violent ideology. When will we ever be able to completely eradicate this? The number of people killed per year in the Western world due to terrorist attacks is incredibly low. Perhaps we don't need a routing of our security apparatus and freedoms to prevent what, without the inclusion of radical Islam, would be seen as an violent crime.

We got two wars in the wake of 9/11, and I don't think there was any actual increased terrorist threat.

<comment><USER3> Because shocking attacks get the public's attention. With all eyes on the TV screen, it's the perfect time to introduce public policy changes that strip people of their rights.

All the better if I can defend my statements by inciting a sense of nationalism or publicly shared responsibility for preventing future heinous crimes.

This is the raw video of the shooting of the French policeman: [http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=bc6_1420632668](http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=bc6_1420632668)

Here it is in slow motion, zoomed in: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v_c4IUO6h7w](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v_c4IUO6h7w)

We are told this is footage of a 7.62mm round fired into a target at point blank range.

With no recoil exhibited by the rifle, no blood present anywhere on the scene, and no violent head or body movement on part of the person "shot" at point blank range, it's very possible that blanks were fired and that this is yet another deep event meant to mislead the public into accepting a hidden agenda.

<comment><USER4> Are you for reals calling false-flag on the Charlie Hebdo attack?

<comment><USER3> Quoting Dr. Paul Craig Roberts:

> Among these purposes is bringing France back into Washington's orbit. The > French president had recently said that the sanctions against Russia should > be terminated.

> Hollande was allying himself with French economic interests instead of with > Washington's hegemonic foreign policy.

> Another purpose is to stifle the growing European sympathy for the > Palestinians and to realign Europe with Israel.

> Another purpose is to counter the rising opposition in Europe to more Middle > Eastern wars. The American neoconservatives have not completed their agenda. > Syria, Iran, Hezbollah, and Saudi Arabia are still standing.

> And there can be other purposes not apparent to me.

> My recommendation is that you not believe the print and TV media, but think. > The failure of Americans to think is why they are 13 years into war and live > in a police state.

Dr. Paul Craig Roberts was Assistant Secretary of the Treasury for Economic Policy and associate editor of the Wall Street Journal. He was columnist for Business Week, Scripps Howard News Service, and Creators Syndicate. He has had many university appointments. His internet columns have attracted a worldwide following. Roberts' latest books are The Failure of Laissez Faire Capitalism and Economic Dissolution of the West and How America Was Lost.

[http://www.paulcraigroberts.org/2015/01/11/suspicions- growin...](http://www.paulcraigroberts.org/2015/01/11/suspicions-growing- french-shootings-false-flag-operation/)

<comment><USER5> Let's be honest with ourselves - there is not one shred of evidence in there. Yes, for the reasons you state, America _could_ have staged a false flag attack. But that's just a list assembled after the fact to suit the narrative the author has already created.

 _" And there can be other purposes not apparent to me."_

Oh, well, why didn't you say? Wrap this one up as a one and done case, then!

It goes without saying that he is also a 9/11 Truther:

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_Craig_Roberts#September_11...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_Craig_Roberts#September_11.2C_2001_attacks)

<comment><USER3> Paul was presenting the information in a politically correct format. The US would never carry out such a cowardly act of state sponsored terror.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> I'm surprised to find that this story has hit me pretty hard emotionally. The stuff Cameron and Theresa May are saying these days is really quite extreme. I feel totally abandoned by politics and genuinely, deeply frightened about the direction our legislature is headed. Is this a part of growing up? The mainstream is so far away from my own views that I don't have any voice. I'm really starting to see why a lot of libertarians in the US are so hyperbolic and full of panic.

<comment><USER7> _Is this a part of growing up?_

A bit off topic: Ive asked myself this question in general for the past couple of months. People dying from wars and incidents that happened a couple of days ago makes me anxious, miserable, lost and helpless.Maybe its media amplifying everything, I don't know but its truly unpleasant.

<comment><AUTHOR> I completely relate to what you're saying, and I'm sure a lot of us here are burdened by the painful feelings you've expressed. Thank you for sharing. I think the primary cause is the 24/7 news cycle bombarding us incessantly with negative and depressing information. It's extremely unpleasant to bear, particularly when you're sensitive or vulnerable to the sufferings of humanity. I've found it's best to take vacations from it all--to tune it out completely for intervals--and focus entirely on work or the things you love. If you perchance have trouble avoiding news sites or social networks, as I have in the past, I've found an extension like StayFocusd to be really helpful ([https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/stayfocusd/laankej...](https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/stayfocusd/laankejkbhbdhmipfmgcngdelahlfoji?hl=en))

<comment><USER7> Thanks for the reply, I do agree its the negativity everywhere being thrown at us, it really takes a toll on people who really care about these things.

I already do avoid news sites and news papers when possible, thanks for the advice and the extension recommendation

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> David Cameron wasn't just arguing against encrypted messaging apps; he would like to ban secret online communication in general. It will be interesting to see how he squares this with bolstering cybersecurity, which he'll be discussing with Barak Obama later this week.

How can we explain to politicians the extent to which modernity is built upon tools like encryption? How can we explain the brute fact of the possibility of secret communication, whether they approve or not? And can we guess how much damage they'll inflict in these Canutian escapades?

<comment><USER9> _It will be interesting to see how he squares this with bolstering cybersecurity_

With a lie to placate the people, if he tries at all. Government (like the snooping corporations before them) only want "nobody but us" levels of security. Some countries have already manged to get it from some services (off the top of my head BBM and India).

</comment></comment><comment> k-mcgrady This after attending the march in France for liberty and freedom of speech. Hypocrite.

It's also worth mentioning the Mayor of London's thoughts on this:

"I'm not particularly interested in this civil liberties stuff when it comes to these people's emails and mobile phone conversations. If they are a threat to our society then I want them properly listened to."

<comment><USER10> One only needs to watch Boris Johnson (mayor of London) in his top gear appearance several years ago (just the driving part is enough) to understand how utterly stupid this man is.

He is a trained seal that performs for treats.

<comment> k-mcgrady I used to think that but I read somewhere an ex-employee said that it's all an act. If it is clearly it works because he's liked by too many people. The worry of course is that it's likely he'll end up running for Prime Minister someday soon.

<comment><USER10> Whether he's an idiot who acts like an idiot or a genius who acts like an idiot so people like him, he's still acting like an idiot.

Just further evidence that politicians are inherently crazy, by their nature of wanting to be politicians

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> I don't anticipate Brits will be hitting the streets in the name of right to privacy and net neutrality as the French have done for right to free speech, though. We are a cowardly, dull bunch, with little regard for our liberty, I'm afraid. We are matched in this only by our leaders' outmoded worldviews.

<comment><USER12> I want so very much to disagree with you here, but I can't find the words to do so.

This probably means you're right. I suggest we start a mass exodus to another country with equally melancholy weather and the guarantee of a Waitrose nearby.

<comment><USER13> Don't bother with the typical UK-expat landing zones: Australia, New Zealand, Santa Monica. These spots are already usurped by the fascists alas...

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> > Yet in a sign that tech companies are coming under increased scrutiny, > British lawmakers blamed Facebook in November for failing to tell the > country's authorities about specific online threats made by two men, who > later killed a soldier in London in 2013.

That seems misleading. From what I remember they were accusing Facebook not of "refusing to give them the info", but for "not warning them" about those guys' communications. So they essentially wanted Facebook to do the policing for them, because they failed to do the policing themselves.

</comment><comment><USER15> According to Snowden and subsequent whistleblowers considerable resources are tasked to obsessing over political opponents , groups such as Occupy , anti- fracking and even competing business interests are targeted.

In Britain the Security Forces have long been seen as a bit too obsessed with lefties.

There is inneffective Security Theatre at airports - a political sop. What else is inneffective? Are there innefective secret things ?

I would like to see any journalist ask : Are the security services watching radical Islam enough or wasting their resources on what the electorate would consider the wrong targets ?

Will the Security Services having decryption keys to my communications make them more insecure to non-government agents ?

Will how secure the keys are be secret ?

What other governments , agencies and contractors will the keys to our communications be shared with ?

What oversight will there be ?

</comment><comment><USER16> I wonder if I were to locally encrypt a message using AES and then send it via email to a friend, using a pre-shared key, whether I would be breaking the law or not, in Cameron's Brave New World?

If the answer is yes, then how about the Vigenere cipher? The Caesar Cipher? 1337 speak? Writing my message backwards? Making spelling mistakes?

<comment><USER17> Heaven forbid you use a one-time pad...

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> Already discussed at [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8874624](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8874624) although I think that one is being negatively scored for the high number of (low upvote) comments.

</comment><comment><USER19> That's a fine whitelist of messaging systems to use if there ever was one!

<comment><USER20> Snapchat at least is already known to be vulnerable to simple attacks, so I wouldn't put too much weight behind this list.

He is likely just using common examples that people recognize, and the law will be applied broadly to apps like RedPhone and SilentText.

</comment></comment><comment><USER21> This sort of thing seems a bit like banning Napster. Eliminating the products doesn't eliminate the technology - although I expect the bigger players like Facebook to push back on this so as not to be out competed by smaller companies that care less about adhering to such 'blunt force' laws.

</comment><comment><USER22> It'll never get any traction, the porn filters got through because pretty much no voting adults were bothered by it.

Very different scenario when it's something that people actually use, especially with elections coming up.

</comment><comment><USER23> This is good news!

By watching which messaging tools are banned in the UK, we will have a canonical list of which messaging tools GCHQ cannot breach.

Thanks David!

<comment><USER24> It's more likely that it would be a blanket ban even covering applications that are not particularly hardened simply because they don't have any official wiretapping capability.

</comment></comment><comment><USER25> If most of the UK didn't already think Cameron was an arse this could really damage his reputation.</comment>


Show HN: Compare local Docker images with ones in registry - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/ivanilves/lstags <comment><USER2> Now if we could just get some sort of hash consensus around what is in root.tar.xz. I feel like we are all blindly trusting large binary blobs as the core of our systems without any reproducible builds or peer auditing.

<comment><USER3> You might be interested in distroless[1] base images.

The repo links to a talk that goes into more depth, but the basic idea is to a use minimal language-specific base for your runtime instead of e.g. statically linking all of ubuntu into your image.

The base images are built with bazel's docker rules[2], so you get reproducible builds.

[1] [https://github.com/GoogleCloudPlatform/distroless](https://github.com/GoogleCloudPlatform/distroless)

[2] [https://github.com/bazelbuild/rules_docker](https://github.com/bazelbuild/rules_docker)

<comment><USER4> I've even been using these rules here to work on making the Debian distro rootfs.tar.xz times we provide for Google Cloud Platform reproducible.

The same source should lead to the same tarball, and anyone should be able to clone the repo and verify that.

github.com/GoogleCloudPlatform/debian-docker

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Would be great if there was a Dockerfile, so it could be run from Docker for Windows.

</comment><comment><USER6> I was looking for something like this just this week. Awesome!

<comment><AUTHOR> Glad it helped!

Feel free to submit issue or PR or some other form of feeback ;)</comment></comment>


Study: 39% of Kids Believe Everything They Read Online - <AUTHOR> http://newsfeed.time.com/2010/10/05/study-39-of-kids-believe-everything-they-read-online/

<comment><USER2> 1 point for irony. But seriously, this is a FUD headline. The statement that 39% of kids surveyed agree with is: "The information I find online is always correct."

It's no stretch that this statement allows for children to silently consider it to be assessing their own assessment skills - easy to translate to "I know not everything online is true, but _I_ know how to find the accurate stuff."

I wouldn't be surprised if some of the children who answered yes were thinking of the question in those terms.

</comment><comment><USER3> Why should I believe this? Just because I read it online?</comment>


The care and feeding of social network trolls - <AUTHOR> http://fvrit.com/archive/2008/02/19/the-care-and-feeding-of-social-network-trolls.aspx <comment><USER2> " You know the type. They make negative comments that will make the veins in your forehead pulse, and cause you to say things that you never ever say aloud. "

I believe this is due to a lack of maturity of the person who posted (on an open forum of all places!) and now doesn't like that someone disagrees. The so called "troll" must be evil because the poster just could not be incorrect in any way... no that would never happen.

Exploring all sides or playing the "devils advocate" is what gets you called a troll, The bully is usually the one saying "troll".

Articles saying otherwise are just an exercise in trying to legitimize why everytime when someone disagrees with you, they must be a troll. Now get all of your bully friends together, call that person a troll until they go away.</comment>


Nasa proves its space helicopter can fly on Mars - <AUTHOR> https://www.engadget.com/2019/03/29/nasa-proves-its-space-helicopter-can-fly-on-mars/ <comment><USER2> _While the unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) only logged a total of one minute of flight time at an altitude of 2 inches above the ground, the scientists were able to get the data they need to be able to say that it will work on Mars. "The next time we fly, we fly on Mars," project manager MiMi Aung said._

I realise it's just a concept test for future missions, but this doesn't seem like a particularly rigorous test. I assume they are they under a lot of time pressure.

<comment><USER3> They (endgaget) were treating that test as the first and last proof. In reality, that project has been full-speed-ahead with flight tests for a while.

The difference is more like that this is the first untethered, full-flight- system, full-environment test. The data from which is compared to the huge batch previous tests with partial systems, w/ and w/o gravity offloads, etc etc.

Logging a lot of flight time with the actual hardware is a really bad idea, sort of like "testing in production."

<comment><USER4> > _Logging a lot of flight time with the actual hardware is a really bad idea, > sort of like "testing in production."_

We test in staging environments set to mimic production 100% (or as close as possible) all the time.

After an initial period where they're under development, un-maned aerial vehicles should obviously be tested a hell of a lot in actual end environment, with their whole actual hardware, too.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> It's really cool. I am amazed they're able to fly a helicopter in what is effectively almost a vacuum to us.

But what about power? How long can a 4lb drone fly? a few minutes?

Presumably there's a way to recharge this thing, but that would require a base-station with solar or nuclear power source. I am not understanding how this drone would be effective in a mission!

<comment><USER6> Something I don't think people appreciate is how slowly things move on mars in general. Curiosity, a huge success, has moved a total of 20.38 kilometers as of two days ago. That's after 2359 martian days.

It's hard for me to imagine a drone not being effective!

[https://mars.nasa.gov/msl/mission/whereistherovernow/?ImageI...](https://mars.nasa.gov/msl/mission/whereistherovernow/?ImageID=9942)

<comment><USER7> To be fair, though, a lot of that is by choice. What advantage is there in moving quickly and taking on all of the associated risks when there's lots to see and do while moving slowly and spending extended periods of time parked at specifically interesting sites?

<comment><USER8> By having alternate crafts that can move quickly, we might be able to better guesstimate if it's worth the time of the slow rover to change course and investigate a blip on the map. Alternatively, fast craft could fly around and drop beacons on areas of interest to be investigated at a later time. Beacons that could be sensor probes returning data of interest.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Side note: anyone tried to change his privacy settings on engadget.com? There seems to be a lot of bad ux at play.

<comment><USER10> Whenever I see the Oath pop up, I just close the site.

<comment><USER11> Same here. It's way beyond unacceptable; it's atrocious. I hope someone has the time and energy to pursue a GDPR complaint against them, as at least some Oath sites are clearly targeted at EU-based users.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> > They also had to use a gravity offload system in the form of a motorized > lanyard that tugged at the helicopter as it hovered above the ground

This sounds like something that could make the helicopter more stable. Could a physicist please explain why it's still a good test?

<comment><USER13> They were probably just testing the thrust it puts out in that atmosphere by measuring the force applied to the tether.

They could also test the stability by trying to maintain a constant force on the tether (by not simply pulling as hard as possible), but I imagine they have different ways to test stability.</comment></comment>


Ask HN: Reposting an old Ask HN question - <AUTHOR>

I posted a question a couple days ago (http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2042898) that didn't get any answers.  Is there a way to re-submit a question without just copy/pasting it into a new submission?  Or would it be better for me to assume that there's no good answers or it was an unpopular topic, and just leave it?<p>Thoughts? <comment><USER2> I think it's ok to repost. First thing I'd do is try a different time to post. That's probably the most important factor to what response you get.

<comment><AUTHOR> Sure, thanks for the advice. Do you have any thoughts on my original question that prompted this post? <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2042898>

<comment><USER3> Free online eBook + sell PDF/ePUB, or just sell PDF/ePUB eBook?

When words like free and online come together it all feels like spam, that could be the reason IMHO.

<comment><AUTHOR> Ok, I just retitled it to: "Ask HN: Marketing and Pricing Advice for Self- Published eBook". Maybe I'll see some advice now...

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Thanks for asking this question. I myself was also wondering what the policy was on HN on reposting when a past submission does not get attention.

I submitted a link to my new project (hackerlunch.com), but it failed to get any attention. Perhaps I should try posting it again at a different time, with a different title.</comment>


Ask HN : As an Early Employee | Equity vs ESOP? and how much? - <AUTHOR>

I have been working in a startup for quite some time now. Recently they have raised seed capital so now going to formalize stuff. They have given me an option to choose between Equity or ESOPs.
I am confused, what should I choose? Points to consider are : Equity are subject to dilution in later round of financing, but gives more control (i think), where as ESOP have some strike price associated with it?
Please tell me the parameters on which I can take a decision?
Secondly how much is the acceptable range of equity for first few employees in a web startup? <comment><USER2> Equity may get diluted on number of shares but the firm gets cash for selling the shares, so each share is worth more than before.

Things to consider are vesting period, option expiration, strike price, price per share.

Personally I would choose equity. Options may be out of the money and never be exercisable. Valuing options for a private company is difficult. You probably don't get to look at financial statements, so you have no idea what the underlying stock is really worth. Without this it's impossible to correctly value the options.

if the company is sold at a low pps, at least with equity you would get something.</comment>


Jumping out of a Google's bubble. It's more than just a matter of self-respect - <AUTHOR> http://oleginspired.zecamp.com/c1otdqmWfdAS4f <comment><USER2> 4 years ago when I told my non-techy friends about the risk of using Facebook, Google, allowing full access to photos/camera/location etc, I was a tin foil hat man. I don't blame them.

Today those same people are the ones discussing and raising their concerns.

I think privacy will be the next big selling point of any platform and there is already one company that figured it out; Apple.

<comment><USER3> You mean one company that figured out _marketing_ that before the rest. Apple is no saint.

<comment><USER4> We can hope that Apple is just as ahead of the curve now as they were then. Apple may have figured out marketing, but let's not equate that to selling you as a good to other corporations a and governments. There's a lot I don't like about their model. I think it's completely Disingenuous to claim that Apple is paying the App Store developers, as opposed to users buying goods. However their privacy stance is something that should not be subject to whatBoutisms.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> > _Google use your personal data to put you in a bubble of your own interests. > Creating illusion of objectivity, it narrows our perspective down and slows > down the process of personal development._

I don't agree. People want this. Long before computers, let alone Google, people had no problem in absorbing themselves in themselves and their interests.

But, wait, really? Google uses my personal data to put me in a bubble of my own interests? A large chunk of the results for anything I search for are SEO-d garbage and many are irrelevant in other ways. _That 's_ supposed to be a bubble consisting of my interests?

> _Google ignores websites privacy. Even if the website owner doesn 't want to > expose any content for search engines, Google will come, get it, and show it > on its search results and will make money off it._

Absolute, unadulterated nonsense. The Google spider identifies itself via HTTP headers. It's trivial to refuse service to specific clients.

Example log:

      188.8.131.52 - - [23/Jun/2019:15:36:58 -0700] "GET /robots.txt HTTP/1.1" 200 66 "-" "Mozilla/5.0 (compatible; Googlebot/2.1; +http://www.google.com/bot.html)"

I could easily set up a filter to turn that into a 404 based on the request coming from Googlebot. Also note that it's accessing robots.txt. I don't have a link to that anywhere; it is spontaneously doing so; why would they if they had no intention of honoring the content.

I sometimes put private content on a URL to make it easily from somewhere. No links to it exist; you have to know the URL. I've never had such a thing accidentally indexed.

If people leave documents in searchable directories, don't use robots.txt and don't filter out the Google indexer, they shouldn't be surprised if those documents end up indexed.

<comment><AUTHOR> > Google ignores websites privacy. Even if the website owner doesn't want to > expose any content for search engines, Google will come, get it, and show it > on its search results and will make money off it. Absolute, unadulterated > nonsense. The Google spider identifies itself via HTTP headers. It's trivial > to refuse service to specific clients.

Google spider ignores rules in robots.txt and show results from closed directories. I could write a distinct article about how we fight against it.

<comment><USER5> If that is so why does the indexer bother fetching these files at all? It's a waste of bandwidth and cycles to be doing this extra fetch of robots.txt for countless sites.

<comment><AUTHOR> Kidding me? The average size of robots.txt is 500 bytes for one web site! Average web page size is 2Mb. So if a crawler respectfully downloads a robots.txt it could significantly save more bandwidth not downloading protected pages.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> I'm still in the (long) process of de-Googling my life.

Does anyone know of a list of addresses that I can plop I to my hosts file to block Big G's tracking on non-Google sites? Something that is updated regularly?

<comment><USER7> Privacy Badger by EFF should do the trick. On top of that I can recommend Firefox + uMatrix.

If you want DNS-based, Pi-Hole indeed. If you want hosts based you're going to have to modify that manually (AFAIK, there are probably managers which auto update it for your OS). DNS-based is going to be network-wide, including Android TV or your wife's smartphone or... you get the idea. I got my DNS server available via WireGuard VPN. It also does DNS over TLS which adds security.

Put Google in its own Firefox Container via Google Container extension.

You still need some other measures to avoid tracking and fingerprinting. Using these will increase the amount of capcha's you're going to have to solve. I can think of e.g. CanvasBlocker, and setting privacy.resistFingerprinting to true.

There's also a Firefox extension which removes UTM from URLs. That would be Tracking Token Stripper. Not sure about avoiding AMP.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> I'd like to completely de-Google but the thing is that I have sites that run AdSense and I'm happy with it. Not that I wouldn't mind for a viable alternative.

</comment><comment><USER9> Anybody know why this fell off the front page so quickly?

<comment><USER10> A massive pro-Google bias.</comment></comment>


The Shady Money Behind America's Sports Stadiums - <AUTHOR> http://www.psmag.com/business-economics/the-shady-money-behind-americas-sports-stadiums

<comment><USER2> The spending on sports, whether crooked or not, should be equally matched with spending on the arts and music.</comment>


Ask HN: Thoughts on cyclical content refreshing?  - <AUTHOR>

I spend a fair amount of time consuming content from various sources - feeds, HN, twitter, reddit - dedicatedly and in between activities. While obviously a personal commentary, I was interested in why I end up spending so much time - despite understanding full well that I had a ton of other activities I could productively engage in, and what could I do to overcome it.
My theory is that random reinforcement is the culprit, at least in my case. I'll find a few gems once in a while, unpredictably, and I'll be scanning my sources looking for the next gem.
My proposed solution is to create personal cyclical patterns of consumption, so that users are only exposed to new content at regular cycles chosen by them - increasing the predictability of finding great content, and reducing the addiction. This is somewhat similar to the noprocrast option in HN, but I'm imagining a broader user controlled layer between the content creation and content consumption, and possible native integration within a site's features.
I wanted to get some quick thoughts from the community on this? Does this affect you? Do you think such a solution would be helpful? I would be happy to flesh this idea out in more detail and discuss more if there's interest in the community.
Thanks for your thoughts! <comment><USER2> I'm interested in this. Random reinforcement definitely had an effect on me in the past. The hardest part is IMHO recognising the problem. I once read an article about how games were made addictive using random reinforcement. After that I could spot the behaviour in my own online activities and I cut back. I now check e-mail and news sites only three times a day on set hours instead of all day long (once in the morning, once at lunch and once at the end of the day).

But, I have never had to use technical solutions to help me with this. Once I understood the problem and could spot it, changing my behaviour and sticking with it wasn't hard for me. But it took a while before I really understood the problem.

</comment><comment><USER3> I agree with you. One very simple technical solution that I used a few months back was to use a firefox addon which blocks my facebook, orkut, twitter for 15 minutes after I have used it for 15 minutes . Will that work for you?</comment>


Strangling the life out of Software Testing - <AUTHOR> http://geekswithblogs.net/MarkPearl/archive/2012/11/21/strangling-the-life-out-of-software-testing.aspx <comment><USER2> take some real world project and learn</comment>


Show HN: We're building homeownership where banks don't go - <AUTHOR> Hi, I'm John.  My co-founder Jada and I are helping people in the Midwest buy houses worth $80k or less through a shared ownership structure that enables residents to accrue protected equity in their homes with each monthly payment - https://www.hurryhome.io/impact-investing-real-estate
Nearly 1 in 5 houses across the country are worth $80k or less.  In many Tier 2 and Tier 3 cities, this stock makes up 10-30% of the available housing (in South Bend, IN where we live, the median house value is $78k).  But these houses are still inaccessible for a lot of working families who want to be home owners - instead, they typically end up renting the same housing and miss out on the primary way Americans build wealth.
what's stopping people from buying these houses?
Banks aren't interested in making mortgages below $80k due to their profit structure.  When a bank makes a mortgage, the majority of its revenue comes from the fees it charges to originate, typically a percentage of the total loan value.  But since many mortgages are sold to the secondary market (Fannie and Freddie), it costs the bank the same amount to make a $50k loan as it does a $500k loan.  If they are servicing the loan for Fannie or Freddie they'll earn a fraction of the interest, but how much money that equates to still depends on the size of the loan while again having fixed costs.  So if it costs a bank at least $800 to make a mortgage, they'll lose money on every loan they make worth less than $80k - https://www.wsj.com/articles/small-mortgages-are-getting-harder-to-come-by-11557394201
This is the problem we're solving with Hurry Home.
We work with individuals looking to make investments for passive cash flow while still making an impact on people's lives.  Investors can buy homes for as little as $25k and earn a predictable return.
Excited to share this and would love to know your thoughts and suggestions <comment><USER2> Interesting idea. You're attacking a genuine problem, and kudos for doing so.

But just this week, Thomas Cook went bankrupt, and left a bunch of people stranded. My question is, if I send you $25k, and you go bankrupt, where am I? Where is the home buyer?

You need a clean exit mechanism that doesn't leave everybody trapped in some nightmare if you go under.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thank you! And if you work with us as an investor, you retain ownership of the title of the house, and your owning entity is on contracts with the buyer (recorded with the relevant county). If Hurry Home was to no longer exist, your ownership in the asset would remain, as would your relationship with the buyer. As part of our exit mechanism in this situation, we would set you up with a property management company who would earn the fee we typically would, and they would handle collection

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> > _and earn a predictable return_

Assuming that the clients don't default the mortgages. How do you calculate the risk profile?

<comment><AUTHOR> We look at: \- income over the last two years \- rental & utility bill history over the last two years \- evictions, foreclosures, bankruptcies, judgments, liens in the last 5 years \- DTI (debt to income; their monthly debt obligations divided by their gross income) \- We don't have income mins or maxs, but we can only have their housing payment to be 30% of their income, so there are incomes that would be too low for us considering that</comment></comment>


Ask HN: Any projects that need an Android version? - <AUTHOR> Do you know of any projects that need an Android version (e.g. BeMyEyes), preferably projects that can't afford developers and are open source? <comment><USER2> We (Neoart Labs) are building Hacker Experience 2, an online hacking simulation game based on it's MVP, [https://hackerexperience.com](https://hackerexperience.com).

HE2 will be open source as soon as we release it (it's being currently developed privately, in-house). You can keep track of it's development at our blog[0] - and here is our stack[1].

We were waiting the React Native release for Android, but we are open to native apps. We have no funding yet, so the mobile apps are being delayed, but I'd be happy to negotiate equity with a helping hand.

If you enjoy the idea, and like the fact of developing open source software, consider talking to me at firstname.lastname@example.com

[0] - [https://leaks.hackerexperience.com](https://leaks.hackerexperience.com)

[1] - [https://leaks.hackerexperience.com/presenting-our- bleeding-e...](https://leaks.hackerexperience.com/presenting-our-bleeding- edge-stack/)

</comment><comment><USER3> There's a project called Tulalens (www.tulalens.org) that could use help making an android app.

They're building "yelp for low income people in the developing world". They surveyed pregnant women in low income areas around Hyderabad (India), found what hospitals they went to, and asked them rate their experiences. Some women were having to pay bribes to get seen, and others reported a low quality of care. Tulalens was then able to compile the data, and go back to the women and tell them the best hospitals in the area. Many women switched as a result.

For now, they want to build an app to scale up this process, and give results to users in real time. There is some open source code already.

If you're interested, email email@example.com.

</comment><comment><USER4> The XScreensaver project is in the process of being ported to Android. A number of the screensavers (or "live wallpapers") already work on Android, as well as some of their settings. If you're interested, download the source code ( [http://www.jwz.org/xscreensaver](http://www.jwz.org/xscreensaver) ), and contact the e-mails in the /android/README file, we can tell you how far along the port is beyond what is in the last code release.

</comment><comment><USER5> [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RetroShare](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RetroShare)

Retroshare is an encrypted communications network that uses asymmetric key pairs and webs of trust.

I don't know if an Android full client is even possible, but Retroshare also has a web interface. Maybe one could set up a Retroshare web interface on a computer at home and connect to it through an Android app?

</comment><comment><USER6> This could be out of date, but last I checked, there were no good ways to fill out writable PDF files and sign them on an Android. I ran into this problem more than a year ago, never found a solution, gave up on it after a while.

I mean, parts of it can be done, but, god, was it painful. Very, very painful. And I eventually gave up on it.

</comment><comment><USER7> I'd love it if somebody did even an unofficial port of Day One or Taskpaper (that can read the same data as the official versions). Obviously not open source, but maybe a good opportunity for somebody.</comment>


Compiler basics (5): LLVM system calls - <AUTHOR> http://notes.eatonphil.com/compiler-basics-llvm-system-calls.html <comment><USER2> Explaining llvm's infinite SSA register file while sidestepping extra baggage readers might associate with local variables from other languages/computational models can be a challenge, but I think I like the approach in this tutorial (local variables with no address).

Side note: I haven't programmed in Javascript for nearly 10 years now, so I had to check the github page before I knew what language I was looking at (the javascript tag at the top, oddly, wasn't something I understood). It looks a lot nicer now. It's just a shame the language I do remember is probably still there.</comment>


Show HN: Tool to track Twitter followers with minimal permissions - <AUTHOR> http://unfollo.ws <comment><AUTHOR> I built this simple tool to track Twitter followers after taking a look at the alternatives. I felt like they requested way more permissions than necessary (examples: [https://imgur.com/a/irCmBzo](https://imgur.com/a/irCmBzo)) and I didn't feel comfortable signing in.

Let me know what you think! Would love to hear some feedback or other pain points that I could address.</comment>


Show HN: Programmable Recipes with Markdown, JavaScript and Handlebars - <AUTHOR> https://programmablerecipes.com <comment><AUTHOR> Lockdown side project whilst I've been learning to bake!

I'm pretty forgetful so I wanted to be able to scale recipes up and down but still see ingredient amounts inline and hide information in collapsible panels.

I like to write my recipes in a minimal, military style so I can just execute them. Unfortunately I couldn't find a great tool to do this.

</comment><comment><USER2> This is brilliant. How do you use this though? I am not from JS background. A video tutorial on how to use this on my own website would be great.

<comment><AUTHOR> Hi - Glad you liked it!

Start with the examples linked above, my recipes are also linked - you can remix them! If you have questions or need help with anything you can email me directly (email address on the site!)

At the moment you can't embed a recipe on your own site - but its something that makes sense if enough people wanted it!</comment></comment>


Trump plans to end giving citizenship to children of unauthorized immigrants - <AUTHOR> https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/trump-plans-executive-order-to-stop-granting-citizenship-to-children-born-in-the-us-to-noncitizen-parents/ar-BBP6dmB <comment><USER2> If we must accept the combination of "closed borders, with safety net for all warm bodies within" instead of its superior alternative, then this seems like a reasonable way to prolong this status quo. Most unfortunate.

<comment><USER3> Which "superior alternative", and do you have proof that it's superior? This is a very divisive topic and I wasn't aware there was consensus on the "superior" solution.

<comment><USER2> Open borders, and mold all other policy to match: i.e. limit all safety nets and the franchise, abolish the federal minimum wage, remove the indenture from H1Bs, etc. The benefits of open borders far outweigh the costs of doing it right. (And those policies have their own merits anyway.)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Plans to unilaterally eliminate part of the Constitution? Even Republicans that have generally backed him in Congress have pointed out that this is far outside of the power of the Presidency.</comment>


Why Samsung Ditched Google In Its New Smart Watch - <AUTHOR> http://www.businessinsider.com/samsung-gear-2-tizen-2014-3

<comment><AUTHOR> _> Android isn't optimized to run on wearable devices like smart watches_

Nonsense! I've had a Pebble since it came out and it is running Android.</comment>


StarCraft is now free, nearly 20 years after its release - <AUTHOR> https://techcrunch.com/2017/04/18/starcraft-is-now-free-nearly-20-years-after-its-release/ <comment><USER2> Previous discussion [1].

[1] [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14144193](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14144193)

</comment><comment><USER3> This game is and always will be an integral part of me.

The number of hours I've spent fighting the Zerg, the screams and shouts of my friends from the other room and the subsequent conversations after the game ended...

"If I'd brought some lurkers over there... " or "There was no way your hydras could break through my siege tanks".

I still play it today from time to time - against the brilliant AI - which is still very very good and can kick your ass. Unless you have Battlecruisers. Nothing gives you as much confidence as 24 Level 3 Battlecruisers going out for a walk on the map :).

Somehow this game reminds me of those years - when I was younger and free.. Friends, girlfriends, LAN parties... Starcraft was part of our subculture back then.

Starcraft is a masterpiece and will remain so for many years to come.

</comment><comment><USER4> It would have been nice if they had done a 'id software' and released the source, and thereby possibly encourage more people to take an interest in game development.

<comment><USER5> It would be nice if everyone did this, with any independent software that is no longer sold/supported. Independent as in major parts of it are not used in newer products.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> I remember originally attempting to pirate Starcraft from an FTP I had access to from some IRC channel I used to frequent. Even with all the music stripped from the game, my 28.8kbps modem was unable to download it overnight and for whatever reason that FTP did not allow resumption of transfers. I had to get my friend with a 56kbps modem to download it and then transfer it zipped to a zip disk. My friends who were in college at the time had access to the computer lab so we would pass the zip disk around to install it one at a time and at the end of the night we would uninstall it to cover our tracks. Good times.

</comment><comment><USER7> The download is only 3Mb. Is there an offline installer?

<comment><USER8> Yes - I believe the download is just a loader.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> Will online play be possible between people using this and their remastered version i wonder?

<comment><USER10> I think it will be and that's one of the reasons behind the patch. If I'm not mistaken, I think the remastered version is mostly new art work on top of this patch.

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> It's also on macOS now.

<comment><USER12> It ran on Mac OS in the late 1990s, shortly after it was released for Windows.

<comment><USER13> What's changed here (for osx atleast) is that there's an Intel build. There was starcraft for MacOS (or 'classic'), and then a carbonized starcraft for OSX-ppc. But ppc support ended in 10.6, and this is the first time there's been a mac-intel build.</comment></comment></comment>


Sometimes Crowds Aren't That Wise - <AUTHOR> http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/sometimes_crowds_arent_that_wise.php

<comment><USER2> Crowds are never wise, since they promote the status quo intelligence, which today is frightingly low.

<comment><USER3> Actually, thats not true. When a crowd operates according to certain constraints (see "The Wisdom of Crowds" by James Surowiecki - <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Wisdom_of_Crowds>) they don't promote status quo intelligence, but rather gather the knowledge of individuals composing the crowd.

<comment><USER4> Sure, but those constraints pretty much rule out most Web (2.0) apps, and certainly fail in the Digg case in the original post. (Cf. the "too imitative" heading in the link you provided.)</comment></comment></comment>


Show HN: We finally launched our site/sweet WebGL Particles - <AUTHOR> http://typecode.com Last week we (Type/Code) finally launched a site, and with it, an updated particles demo - this time in WebGL!
Check it out, and lemme know if find any bugs or typos!
A <comment><AUTHOR> Oh, and also: we're hiring. I've left a comment in the hiring thread! (<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4596697>)</comment>


Britain's first Bitcoin heist as trader forced at gunpoint to transfer currency - <AUTHOR> http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2018/01/28/britains-first-bitcoin-heist-trader-forced-gunpoint-transfer/ <comment><USER2> Wait... I thought they banned guns in the U.K.

<comment><USER3> Handguns are banned.

Shotguns are relatively easy to obtain a license for (albeit with a reference check, medical history check, criminal record check and in-home-interview by police).

Bolt action rifles (generally only .22) licensing is more stringent.

Anything beyond that is theoretically possible but in practice not.

Some 580k people possess such firearms licenses in the UK[0].

Depending on who you believe estimates of illegal gun ownership range from a few thousand[1] to half-a-million[2].

That's dwarfed by most other countries, but none of those figures are anywhere near zero.

Gun crime is still generally considered to be a Big Thing and reported as such in the media. Something like this story is juicy enough to sell page impression and print newspapers.

[0] [https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/firearm-and- shotg...](https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/firearm-and-shotgun- certificates-in-england-and-wales-financial-year-ending-march-2017/firearm- and-shotgun-certificates-in-england-and-wales-financial-year-ending- march-2017#headline-figures)

[1] [https://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/sep/28/rising- number-...](https://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/sep/28/rising-number-of- guns-being-smuggled-into-uk-metropolitan-police-say)

[2] [https://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/4-million-guns-uk- stre...](https://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/4-million-guns-uk- streets-7598164)</comment></comment>


Apple pulls map app used in HK protests - <AUTHOR> https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2019/10/apple-hklive-hong-kong-protest-map-app-track-ambush-police.html <comment><USER2> Same story:

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21210678](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21210678) (658 comments)

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21213694](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21213694) (3 comments)

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21211971](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21211971) (99 comments)

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21213581](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21213581) (4 comments)

The mods have moved some comments around to concentrate the discussion, but I'm sure there are still more submissions.</comment>


Netherlands, Finland, Luxembourg, Poland and Italy Oppose EU Copyright Directive - <AUTHOR> https://www.permanentrepresentations.nl/permanent-representations/pr-eu-brussels/documents/policy-notes/2019/02/20/joint-statement-regarding-the-copyright-directive <comment><USER2> What the hell, where's Sweden and Denmark? Or the much-hyped E-stonia? (Not that it would've made a difference.)

<comment><USER3> The lack of Estonia seemed curious to me as well, given Estonia's voting history regarding Article 13. Then I looked up the voting history for all these countries. [1] The votes against Article 13 have been as follows:

      Poland      72% (36 vs 14)
      Netherlands 71% (17 vs 7)
      Finland     50% (6 vs 6)
      Italy       38% (25 vs 41)
      Luxembourg  33% (2 vs 4)

      Sweden      100% (18 vs 0)
      Estonia     83% (5 vs 1)
      Denmark     17% (2 vs 10)

Looking at this frankly raises more questions than it answers. Has there been a big change of heart in say Italy suddenly? They've been voting in favor of article 13 thus far.

\--

[1] [https://saveyourinternet.eu/act/](https://saveyourinternet.eu/act/)

<comment> Tuna-Fish What you are looking at are the views of the MEPs. MEPs represent specific people living in the country, not the country as whole. This statement was issued by the _countries_ , meaning the representatives of the governments currently in power in those countries.

<comment><USER4> Of the listed countries, 6 of the 8 - Netherlands, Finland, Luxembourg, Sweden, Estonia and Denmark - are all 1 constituency countries, so the MEPs represent the entire country

MEPs may well decide different things to the government though, just as the U.S. House could have a different view to the Senate.

<comment> Tuna-Fish Proportional representation.

The MEPs don't represent the entire country, they represent the specific people who voted for them. The fundamental principle of who people represent under PR is very different from FPTP.

Under FTPT, the people living in a certain area vote for a "winner", who then represents the entire area. If 51% of the people vote for candidate A, and 49% vote for candidate B, then the wishes of 49% of the constituency go unheard in the parliament.

Under PR, the idea is not to pick a "winner" who takes all and then represents everyone in the parliament, the idea is to match everyone's vote to some candidate(s) according to their preferences, as best allowed by sizes of constituencies, so that as many people as possible have someone they voted for in the parliament. Then the people in the legislative body only represent the people who voted for them.

<comment><USER5> So I vote for a party in the EU as a whole, and if enough people in my country or other countries do too, some candidate from some country gets elected?

<comment><USER6> No. For the EU parliament you vote for a representative (from your country, that usually belongs to some political party).

<comment><USER7> That is true, but in the EU parliament as in many other systems there is an incentive for representatives to vote in favor of the (EU) party they are in - as huge majority of representatives have on this case despite of their own governments showing displease to this particular ruling.

I will not personally be voting for any of the representatives that voted for this particular ruling as none of them they gave no satisfactory explanation why they actually voted this way anything other than that their EU party wanted it to pass. My country being Finland, and we definitely have been opposed to this from the start.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> What does this mean procedurally? Is this a veto? A statement that is likely to effect an upcoming vote?

<comment><USER9> We'd need either 13 countries or any number of countries that represents 35% of the EU population to oppose this law.

Last time, it was 8 countries representing 27% that opposed it. A handy voting calculator[0] gives us about 23.88% of the population using the countries listed here.

This is (was?) a less-likely scenario to stop it. One final attempt will be when all the MEPs get a chance to vote on it.

[0] [https://www.consilium.europa.eu/en/council-eu/voting- system/...](https://www.consilium.europa.eu/en/council-eu/voting- system/voting-calculator/)

<comment><USER10> If the vote is before brexit it's 23.88% after brexit it's 27.42%.

<comment><USER11> You raise a very poignant point, should votes that are borderline, that the UK MEP's have voted recently be reviewed?

<comment><USER12> Only if the vote is 51.89% to 48.11% on an overly broad decision made against the backdrop of lies, finance illegality and interference from external actors.

I'm totally not bitter though honestly.

If the worst comes to the worst I'll just marry my partner (she'll still be an EU national after March) and take my skills (and taxes) abroad.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> The issue I see with the EU, is that it's essentially centralizing all the "countries" into "states". Where by, each of the states will simply answer to the two countries with the most power. Namely Germany, followed by France.

Personally, I think it's sad. It's as if we're watching the destruction of all the national identities. Only to be centralized by powers who are only interested in their own national identity.

This is similar to the struggle the U.S. faced at the start. You cannot have a centralized government making laws without invasively deciding everything. A federation of the EU made sense. Shared currency, shared military, etc. But by trying to manage the economy (which copyright is an extension of), they are essentially going down the path of ever increasing centralization.

With that, countries like the U.K., who have a strong national identity, can and should leave - if they want to be an independent nation.

<comment><USER14> The pedestal contemporary people put national identity on is just that, contemporary. National identities didn't arise naturally. Many of them were very thoughtfully and intentionally invented. For most of human history, the idea that people over a geography the size of Engalnd would see themselves as one people would've been ridiculous.

It's really only in the last 200-400 years that people have accepted the nation as their identifying place. Previously people's place identity came the much smaller geography of their county, kingdom, principality or hamlet. Joining these smaller identities into larger national identities was a big win that came with many benefits. Of course it meant that these places had to give up some autonomy. Just as there are many benefits of nations giving up some autonomy to act collectively in a regional power structure.

It's only our contemporary bias that tells us that the subordination of the political will of the hamlet to the nation is good and that the subordination of the national will to a continental or regional will is bad.

<comment><USER15> > The pedestal contemporary people put national identity on is just that, > contemporary.

As opposed to the pedestal people put supra national institutions such as the EU? Rome? Napoleon's Empire? all failed eventually.

> National identities didn't arise naturally.

Neither did the European Union. All societies are man made constructs, what your point?

> It's only our contemporary bias that tells us that the subordination of the > political will of the hamlet to the nation is good and that the > subordination of the national will to a continental or regional will is bad.

Well, the EU is more power concentrated in the hands of fewer people. By nature it will always be less democratic than governance at a smaller scale. And these structures tend to seek even more power as time goes, not less.

What is better? more tyranny,bureaucracy or more democracy?

Ignoring local cultures and socio-economics specificities by trying to impose arbitrary rules to an entire continent? In that case there will always be winners and losers.

<comment><USER16> I think the parent comment is trying to make the point that nation state identity is equally as arbitrary and artificial as a continent identity.

People like identifying with a group. It seems like an innate craving of humanity. I think we should learn to be careful not to be exploited for this craving. Whether it is a nation, the EU, a religion or a soccer team, one should be very very careful.

<comment><USER17> "nation state identity is equally as arbitrary and artificial as a continent identity."

I would disagree.

Nation states are formalizations of ethnic groups and they did arise naturally. They are not arbitrary.

'Sweden' is where the 'Swedes' live, essentially. And they have for a very long time.

There is not much arbitrary about the nation states of Europe, they mostly have clear historical orientation.

The Habsbourg Empire - now that is an 'artificial state'. Spain, Netherlands, Austria, Hungary etc.. It faded ultimately because it was arbitrary.

WW1 - which has it's roots in turmoil within the Austro-Hungarian Empire (read: the succession of Habsbourg dynasty) - was caused at least in part by this 'arbitrary' mapping.

'Europe' is surely where 'Europeans live' \- but - the 'EU' is not Europe. Many citizens (in some cases majorities) voted against the Treaty of Lisbon which gave the EU it's most powerful legal status, and most citizens didn't really have a vote.

The EU is a body politic, a rather undemocratic one, it's not quite the same as 'Europe'.

The legislation in question should be a pan-European concern, and I believe it belongs at the level of the EU, even if the EU is oddly constructed and has way too much power.

I don't think it's really a national issue in any sense, there doesn't seem to be any clear boundaries on this.

There are ideological advocates on all sides, and very specific economic forces from a few different nations acting as impetus.

<comment><USER18> You're assuming that ethnic nation-states were the norm in human history. They were not - most states originate from _rulers_ that unified them, and their original citizenship was basically people who swore fealty to that ruler and not the other. Most modern nations didn't exist then, either, except as numerous separate tribes that had to be forcibly unified, and their distinct identities erased, to make them into those nations. We see the legacy of this process even today, e.g. in how many European countries treat their various regional languages and dialects.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> I had no idea the copyright lobbying was so strong in Germany. We absolutely suck.

</comment><comment><USER20> As long as France and Germany like it, that's all there is to it. Arguing will get you nowhere.

<comment><USER21> Yep, just like Germany building Nord Stream 2 to bypass another EU country at the bidding of Putin.

</comment></comment><comment><USER22> That's it? Less than half a page to make their argument?

<comment><USER23> The detailed argumentation is made elsewhere, in a longer format. For a declaration, I think half page is just right. Happy with my government for doing this (but very unhappy with the union).

<comment><USER24> Save your being unhappy with the union for when the MEPs don't vote this down. Until then, be outraged at the lobbyists that nudged elected governments to support this, while keeping in mind that these elected governments' heads of state are the ones that nominate the head of the EC.

<comment><USER23> I am unhappy if the civil servants and the machinery of EU keeps preparing bad proposals, even if they are torpedoed by MEPs. This seems to be a constant case of pressure to which organisations then yield at some point.

Yes, both elected and unelected officials should be better at resisting lobbying.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


We Need to Make Tech Uncool Again - <AUTHOR> http://www.betabeat.com/2012/01/29/we-need-to-make-tech-uncool-again/

<comment><USER2> Meh. Let the people have their fun. They're not taking any real programmer jobs and would just be seeking narcissistic ends somewhere else if it wasn't in tech. At least the heightened attention brings work along with the unnecessary gloating of tech entrepreneurship.

</comment><comment><USER3> I wasn't cool when tech wasn't cool, and I'm still not cool now that tech _is_ cool. Maybe I need to start wearing sunglasses when I code.</comment>


Why Silicon Valley is all wrong about Apple's AirPods - <AUTHOR> https://medium.com/chris-messina/silicon-valley-is-all-wrong-about-the-airpods-8204ede08f0f <comment><USER2> This article read like wanker fluff - it doesn't say anything about why AirPods are worth $150 dollars or how theirs are any different than the $20 you can get on Amazon. I have a pair of bluetooth headphones that has voice control - and I've had them for over a year. And I use them every day.

But its not revolutionary because "Apple did it." The argument was more sex selling and shmarmy feel goodness, but it didn't enumerate WHY its a better experience.

I'm also not convinced that people will start talking to themselves because they bought $150 headphones. That makes you look like a "dickwad."</comment>


Google Posts - <AUTHOR> https://www.google.com/posts/ <comment><USER3> It is scary how much power and influence Google now have in setting the agenda for public discourse. When this opens up to other "prominent figures and organizations", it will be at Google's discretion who is worthy of the public's attention and which issues and areas will get this treatment.

This seems a step beyond simply organising the world's information. Even if it's with the best intentions, the fact is that they will have a significantly influence on the discourse itself.

<comment><USER4> The potential for Google to therefore decide who gets to speak, and therefore who doesn't, is terrifying.

<comment><USER5> Terrifying? I assume you're living in a constant state of fear then, because television networks already have and use that power.

On the contrary I'd say that in this field the more players there are, the better.

<comment> k-mcgrady There are thousands of television channels. As far as most people are concerned, when it comes to search, there is only Google.

<comment><USER6> There are not thousands of television channels in the US that will broadcast political content such that presidential candidates can push their message across them.

The average American household has access to just 150-200 TV channels, total. Most of those would never carry anything related to the election. The vast majority of those are specific content carriers: movies, music, on-demand, sports. You're down to having a few dozens channels (ABC, NBC, CBS, FOX, CNBC, MSNBC, local affiliates etc) that a candidate can push through.

There are 2,200x tv stations in the US. Most of those are small, local stations with zero national or regional reach.

There are thousands of online sites and platforms that _at least_ have as large of an audience as those stations. All of those sites can be reached by almost anyone in the US, which is not true of the local TV stations.

Further, there is nothing even remotely like: Reddit, Twitter, Wordpress, Tumblr, Facebook, et al. in the television realm, where just about anyone can reach a national audience if their message resonates (and do so for free). There is also nothing like the app options that are available online, whether Snapchat, Instagram, or voter reach apps like NationBuilder.

<comment><USER7> More importantly those 150-200 channels or few dozen political content channels are owned by a VERY small number of very large corporations. Five or so.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> I wonder if this is open to all 1,649 presidential candidates, or just 2 or 5?

[http://www.fec.gov/data/Form2Filer.do?format=html](http://www.fec.gov/data/Form2Filer.do?format=html)

On another note, I wonder if this has anything to do with Medium who has been positioning itself in Washington and C-suites as the "default place for people to go when they have ideas of consequence."

[http://www.politico.com/story/2016/01/how-medium-is- breaking...](http://www.politico.com/story/2016/01/how-medium-is-breaking- washingtons-op-ed-habit-217230#ixzz421zzVeTc)

<comment><USER9> There's something comical about that list of candidates.

Why haven't heard of these guys before?

Does this happen every year?

<comment><USER10> As far as I know, yes.

For that matter, read your ballot carefully. There's more than just Republican and Democrat that make it to the final ballot. If nothing else you can pick up some terms to Google and learn about. Mostly for your intellectual curiosity, since generally the other parties manage to pick up little more than low- dozens of County Dogcatcher-level positions per election in the entire nation.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> It could be that this is massive, and has little or nothing to do with the US presidential election. They're going to try to force their way into social by grafting social media posts onto the one thing basically everyone uses - <USER2> search page.

<comment><USER12> Or it could be a desire to provide maximally relevant search results. Sometimes a cigar is just a cigar, Dr. Freud.

Not-a-disclaimer: I'm spending the year at Google (as a visiting scientist; I don't own stock and have no financial interest in its success). You might be surprised by how strong the desire is to do the right thing by users and make it easy for them to find what they're looking for. There's not always an ulterior motive -- happy searchers made Google what it is today.

<comment><USER13> "Gut gemeint ist das Gegenteil von gut!" German saying! Even with the right motive, you can make - in Googles case: systematic - wrong decisions.

<comment><USER14> The literal translation is much stronger: "good-intentioned is the opposite of good".

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> This is the Google version of Twitter's little 'verified' checkmarks, just for whole web pages instead of tweets. The presidential election is actually a great place to roll out that kind of service given him much domain squatting goes on (e.g. [http://www.tedcruz.com](http://www.tedcruz.com)), but it's clearly of general applicability. If it takes off, it makes Google the place to go to for establishing a page as the 'official' version.

</comment><comment><USER16> Some examples of these seem to be:

[https://www.google.co.uk/search?q=hillary+issues](https://www.google.co.uk/search?q=hillary+issues)

[https://www.google.co.uk/search?q=bernie+issues](https://www.google.co.uk/search?q=bernie+issues)

I'm referring to the postings with the photo and the checkmark and the "On Google" text, not the ones pulled from news sources, like the ones for "trump issues"

<comment><USER17> I'm thrilled to report that uBlock Origin completely strips out this spam on the search results page. I was worried that it might take some time to filter out this noise from the search results page, but apparently not!

<comment><USER18> So uBlock is actually blocking a site's own content? I've heard a lot about false positives but this takes the price.

<comment><USER19> No content is hidden from my side[1] -- I am using default filter lists. Poster must have some custom filters, or using some other 3rd-party filter list which causes this. The logger would tell why content is blocked on his side.

[1] [http://i.imgur.com/2M1D6Uj.png](http://i.imgur.com/2M1D6Uj.png)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> This infuriates me as a Twitter stockholder and user. Has everyone at Twitter fallen asleep? How could they not have the jump on Google on this.

<comment><AUTHOR> I think part of it is due to the fact that Google has greater access to a broader audience. Not everyone will search Twitter for "Donald Trump" but they will certainly search Google - so Google is providing a way for the candidates to take advantage of what is already happening probably millions of times every day.

<comment><USER21> Agreed.

I'd argue further that Twitter has done close to nothing to make their search a useful feature in the first place, which is why people aren't searching Twitter with "Donald Trump". If I was Twitter, this would be very worrying. All they've managed to do so far is "firehose search", which is only useful for realtime events unfolding. They probably should have been thinking about "topic search" and "person search" for a while now...

<comment><USER22> Yeah, the inability to search your Twitter feed is simply infuriating. This is an embarrassingly parallel problem, so the issue isn't scale slowing the development of Search down. Twitter just doesn't give a shit.

<comment><USER23> *twitter does not have the systems in place to be able to give a shit.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> I do find it amusing that all comments are focused on the US. There are hundreds of countries around the world were TV stations are black boxes and presidential / prime ministerial hopefuls have no platform to express themselves. Having access to a platform that can promote and answer content as users are searching for answers on them (at least how it reads on face value) seems incredibly important. I do however agree that transparency around who gets access to the platform is critical for user trust.

</comment><comment><USER25> This seems like a bad idea in that it allows the powerful to completely control the messages that are affiliated with them. Suppose celebrity x does wrong to a regular citizen, and they have Google posts at their disposal while Jane Smith does not.

On the other hand, this seems like something Rick Santorum might have been grateful for.

<comment><USER26> I can imagine the popular, rich and powerful to love it. Imagine avoiding all the abuse, threats, snide remarks, witty rebuttals, imaginative memes and uncomfortable truths that Twitter gives them as a platform. People want something more sanitized as a platform. It's quite an interesting development.

<comment><USER14> Isn't that what ads are for? If you want to speak and not listen, just use a traditional broadcast medium like TV.

<comment><USER27> I think the intended purpose is to blurr that line.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER28> Could be an interesting way for candidates to get in front of third-party spin. When you Google "Bernie Sanders" you could be greeted with rich content from the Sanders campaign explaining his positions, rather than links to hit pieces and other info-detritus.

Of course, either way you're getting somebody's propaganda.

<comment><USER29> My concern is then the composition of the rich content when Google offers itself as the platform. "Welcome, to our podium, Canditate A. We've already constructed the stage and backdrop, too, with these accompanying articles, images, and layout."

It sounds, initially, like Google's role is very passive, but I think control over what surrounds the podium has the potential to be very active. "Hey, Candidate B has better lighting!"

Google as active medium becomes the active message? Thoughts?

</comment></comment><comment><USER30> I can imagine the development of the use case for this story:

"As a presidential candidate I want a platform that every one of my constituents can use to follow my ramblings..."

</comment><comment><USER31> "I am Hillary Clinton, and I approve this search result."

</comment><comment><USER32> Wow, when Google makes this available to businesses they're going to be able to charge whatever they want and every business is going to have to use it. This is not good.

<comment><USER33> Is that so different than the advertising space that they currently sell? Everyone that has posted screenshots of the new feature is using ad-blocking, so maybe we just don't even think about the ads any more?

[0] [http://i.imgur.com/mkTaMJo.png](http://i.imgur.com/mkTaMJo.png)

</comment></comment><comment><USER34> Can I get the opposite of this; where the latest political circus news is excluded from Google?

<comment><USER35> You could avoid searching for those topics. Just a thought...

</comment></comment><comment><USER36> Google already does something a little like this with Google plus pages. Let's say someone google's for my website name, and I have a Google plus page associated with it. If I have recently posted new content on my Google plus page, this post is displayed in the top right hand side of the Google search results.

I wonder if these new posts will appear in the same place or actually embedded in the main results.

</comment><comment><USER37> Too bad no candidate is worth listening to. :P

<comment><USER38> Like it or not, one of them is going to lead one of the world's most powerful nation. Educating yourself on their policies is worth it imo.

</comment></comment><comment><USER39> Ars Technica analysis: [http://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2016/03/google-posts- embeds-a...](http://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2016/03/google-posts-embeds-a-one- way-social-network-directly-into-search-results/)

(Found via a Google search sadly enough.)

</comment><comment><USER40> This could be even more dangerous than Facebook's walled garden in that it further defines Google as "The Internet."

Why is this necessary if Google Plus already exists? Couldn't they just add the features to Google Plus and include them in the search results?

</comment><comment><USER41> Is Google building a version of Facebook news feed in Google Now?! For many people Facebook is for getting updates from their news source and use less social material

</comment><comment><USER42> While there would be a lot of fear of Google interfering with public discourse, it is key to point out that there are over 1,600 presidential candidates. How many of them do you even recognize? How does the country know that there isn't another great president who just didn't make enough to have public impact?

This can actually decouple correlations between spending and winning. Maybe then we would have a government by the people, not by the big corp.

</comment><comment><USER43> "Join the waitlist" Really? There are only, what, 10 candidates?? Srsly Google?

</comment><comment><USER44> This seems like a terrible idea. If given access you can now completely control the primary message regarding search terms of yourself. Kinda defeats the purpose of using search as discovery, no?

</comment><comment><USER45> No problem here.

</comment><comment><USER46> Wow. This is terrifying.

</comment><comment><USER47> So... Twitter?

<comment><USER26> without the opposing views, trolls, abuse, other points of view, memes, snide remarks, outrage, support and morsels of truth and without a Safety Council, perhaps, yes like Twitter.

<comment><USER48> And with the clever twist that behind the "Tweet", there is an actual article. With actual information.

So yes, like Twitter. ..if you only use it to share Medium posts.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER49> Twitter?

</comment><comment><USER22> Just like Google. Give people no reason to use something, just put it out there, and hey "We're Google!" and they will come.

Except no, they don't.

<comment><USER50> It's worked multiple times for them in the past, most notably with search.

<comment><USER51> Yeah Yahoo clearly saturated the market..

<comment><USER22> Obviously I'm talking about social networks.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER52> how did The Onion hijack a Google URL?

</comment><comment><USER53> How long until Google deprecates this feature?

<comment><USER23> In a big way, it's extremely beneficial that they remove features. Organizations that don't die of bloat.

</comment></comment><comment><USER54> this is like having a real time stream of every psychological profile in the DSM

Thanks, Google, but I need more space, not less, from this madness

<comment><USER26> I believe it's a voluntary service, not mandatory.... currently.

</comment></comment><comment><USER55> Is this really an intentional product launch? Being late on a Friday evening seems quite strange.

</comment><comment><USER56> Does anybody go directly to "google.com" any more? Most search is through the browser's search box.

<comment><USER57> Mine is through my browser's search box ... which has defaulted to DDG for years.

</comment></comment><comment><USER58> Is this like twitter meets google ads in my search? I've moved to Duck Duck Go already, It's about 90% effective, but worth it.

</comment><comment><USER59> Doesn't Google already have Blogger.com? Is this an April Fools joke posted early by accident?

</comment><comment><USER60> Maybe I'm being nitpicky here, but perhaps blue is not the best choice for this page, if they want to stay neutral (or perhaps they dont?).</comment>


18% speedup by replacing o.f() with (0,o.f)() - <AUTHOR> http://mrale.ph/talks/goto2015/

<comment><USER4> Why does this require JS (to the point of giving a blank page!) for something that can be trivially done without? A bit of tweaking to the source later, and I have something readable. Now, about the actual article:

Also:

Can someone explain to me why it has to assume that arr.length could change? It states it does, but I don't see why. That seems like a pretty obvious optimization flaw: you should be able to safely assume that something won't change if the only cases where it could change is if it already has changed. In other words, why is this:

        var sum = 0;
        for (var i = 0, L = arr.length;
             i < arr.length;
             ++i) {
          if (arr.length !== L)
            H.throwConcurrentModificationError(arr);
          var item = list[i];
          sum += item;
        }

not optimizable to remove the whole business with L and the if check?

Also, this is one of my frustrations with optimizers in general. Far too many of them end up with global (or at the very least) side-effects of trivial changes (or worse, changes that shouldn't do anything!), to the point of making optimization a fool's game. (I optimized this method, but now the change in function alignment changes cache aliasing such that the program runs slower. Hey look: A runs substantially faster than B. But if you add a comment here, B runs faster than A.)

<comment><USER5> > Why does this require JS (to the point of giving a blank page!) for > something that can be trivially done without?

This is a slide deck (not a blog post or article) hence its dependence on JS.

(though even blog posts I write usually depend on JS to provide proper syntax highlighting and diagrams)

> Can someone explain to me why it has to assume that arr.length could change? > It states it does, but I don't see why.

If you don't know where `throwConcurrentModificationError(arr)` goes then you don't know what it does, e.g. it can do something like this:

        H.throwConcurrentModificationError = function (arr) {
          arr.push(10);
        };

(contrary to its name - but JITs don't optimize based on names)

That's why JIT has to assume global side effects from the `throwConcurrentModificationError` call - unless of course it emits an unconditional deoptimization right before it which is what happens in the (0, o.f)() case.

<comment><USER4> As I said:

The only case that arr.length could change, and hence the if statement taken, is if the if statement had already been taken - i.e. arr.length had already changed. This seems safe to optimize.

It doesn't matter what H.throwConcurrentModificationError is - it can only be called iff it has already been called. Which means that as soon as you're through the first loop iteration, you know that arr.length hasn't changed that loop, and it won't change any other iterations through the loop.

And as for JS - there are plenty of slide decks that work perfectly fine without, or at the very least degrade gracefully. So that's not a good excuse.

<comment><USER5> > The only case that arr.length could change, and hence the if statement > taken, is if the if statement had already been taken - i.e. arr.length had > already changed.

Fair point. I misread your original comment. To see this you need a more sophisticated analysis pass than V8 is capable of performing - <USER2> similar in spirit to sparse conditional constant propagation, V8's LICM just assumes that all blocks are reachable so it takes the union of all possible side-effects.

> So that's not a good excuse.

I am not making an excuse, I am simply stating a fact: this is a slide deck, it needs JS to operate. As simple as that. If there is an easy fix - <USER3> send me a PR[1], I will gladly take it

[1] [https://github.com/mraleph/mraleph.github.com/tree/master/ta...](https://github.com/mraleph/mraleph.github.com/tree/master/talks/goto2015)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> This was a very, very interesting and entertaining slide deck. Thanks for taking the time to make this.

The angry face you use reminded me a lot of Ally Brosh's style and made me laugh out loud.

Love this style.

</comment><comment><USER7> o.f() and (0, o.f)() have different semantics - the latter is closer to temp = o.f; temp().

For that reason the optimisers see the code being function-call vs. method- call. Given the usage of function and method calls are generally different the compilers make different optimising decisions.

<comment><USER5> Yes, you are absolutely right - semantics is quite different. But that's not what changes perf here - the difference comes from whether there is an explicit property load or a property load is an implicit part of the method call. This change is also made in the code that never executes during the benchmark run - which adds to a conundrum.

There is a very V8 / Crankshaft specific thing going on here - slides try to explain it.</comment></comment>


Twitter's Chief Operating Officer to Step Down - <AUTHOR> http://www.nytimes.com/2016/11/10/technology/adam-bain-twitter-chief-operating-officer-step-down.html <comment><USER2> They need to do more than get rid of the higher up executives. If they aren't that good, then everyone from middle management up needs to be cleared out. What they do instead is regularly clear out others and it results in nothing but a weaker environment and more fear-based maneuvering (which is probably what's desired given how weak Twitter's management is).

Twitter gets fairly good ratings on Glassdoor overall, but settles on a 3.2/5 for senior management (ie, even Google's 3.9/5 rating is reflective of poorly regarded senior management). In order to think of management as good (according to Glassdoor), they need a 4.0/5\. If they get a 4.2/5 or higher, then they can be considered elite or special.

That is, they need to get rid of their crap middle management that's likely getting in the way of everything and driving it all (slowly) into the ground, then use the space that creates to get people in who know what they are doing and that are about progressing forward.

<comment><USER3> > They need to do more than get rid of the higher up executives.

Adam Bain built Twitter's ad business from scratch to a respectable ARPU on a product that many thought was not conducive to it. It's arguably one of the only achievements at Twitter since the original concept was born.

He is the fall guy for flattening revenue while user growth and product remain stagnant, while other execs increase their own spending by $1.5B a year and make zero improvement to either of these metrics.

 _They_ are the ones who need to go - that they're not being held accountable is bad.

<comment><USER4> With excessive focus on ads, he was also responsible for a weaker product and also a weaker platform for developers. Can someone who worked at Twitter chime in?

<comment><USER5> Twitter was always a weak platform for developers and I don't think ads had anything to do with the many developer-unfriendly decisions that Twitter has taken over the years.

<comment><USER4> Well, your engineering team can either focus on optimizing the platform for ads and doing integrations with third parties or focus on building a great product.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> When is Dorsey going to step down? Running two successful, public businesses is damn near impossible. Running two public companies that are both in dire straits? Get outta here.

It was incredibly irresponsible of the board to allow him to come back in the CEO role, and they need to put an end to it.

<comment><USER7> I blame the board for Dorsey and for most of the other problems. (Yes, I know he's a member of the board...)

It's inevitable that a lot of executive positions get filled by personal connections, and it's inevitable that board members reward their friends, etc. Despite that, many businesses end up being run pretty well. However, the Twitter board has extremely irresponsible and negligent -- far more so than is normally the case.

I don't think any executive reshuffles or new CEOs will help, because the board contributes as much to the problem as anyone else.

<comment><USER8> Did you read Hatching Twitter?

I was appalled at the board's mismanagement and ineptitude throughout the company's life.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Will December 1 see Twitter posting an executive position under HN's "who's hiring?" post?

<comment><USER10> I really wish the restrictions can be reduced or removed so board of directors (like @pmarca) and CEOs can tweet more on public companies, which is part of what I mean by "Yishan-style CEOs".

<comment><USER11> Seems like tweeting would be more of a liability than positive for the company.

<comment><USER10> That is the problem that should be fixed, for all public companies.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> Not much accountability from the CEO for stagnant product vision and direction. I guess if I founded Twitter I wouldnt fire myself either, but if I was their board I would think about it.

</comment><comment><USER13> Seeing the rise of Noto as other executives and leaders fall away, are removed, or otherwise leave Twitter makes me wonder how much longer Dorsey can hold on to his job, especially after the embarrassment of the failed acquisition talks. It's like watching Game of Thrones, but in real life.

<comment><USER14> I don't understand why you'd want to rise in Twitter. It seems to never work out for anyone; they clear house constantly.

<comment><USER15> I can think of a few reasons.

1 - they might give you big bags of cash

2 - they think they can be the ones to turn it around (what, execs, big egos? unrealistic expectations? complete faith in their self as savior of mankind? surely you jest.)

3 - their career doesn't end at twitter

<comment><USER16> And of course if (2) falls down and they can't steer the ship, they can leverage their new position (3) and big bags of money (1) to go move somewhere else.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> While change is always hard I think Twitter can use some new and hungry people to drive it in a new direction. Its such an important service and I really wish them all the best.

</comment><comment><USER18> Twitter and facebook is supressing peoples opinions/comments/articles and deleting they accounts when they ideology is not mainstream "suitable". For me both medias are big disappointment.

<comment><USER19> Do you have some examples of the kinds of things they are deleting?

<comment><USER20> Only one I can recall in recent memory was Milo Yiannopoulos.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> twitter is a saudi company now. It cannot be trusted.

</comment><comment><USER22> This has to be good news for Twitter.

Twitter suffered enormously under his leadership. It lost users, potential revenue, potential profits, and people.

He seemed to not care about all the trolling and abuse problems.

This is good news.

</comment><comment><USER23> Do you guys ever get tired of Twitter stories?

Do you guys ever get tired of me pointing out that it will still be a Unicorn when it trades at 1/10th of the price and has a sustainable business model? We call those success stories, but lets be honest, its the share price you are worried about.

</comment><comment><USER24> :face_palm:

is there hope? can anyone confirm?

</comment><comment><USER25> I still do not understand why twitter needs one. Fire everyone, bring on a skeleton crew of engineers to fix bugs, and maybe 4 product engineers, a couple managers and a couple designers. Boom, instantly ultra profitable.

<comment><USER26> And no one to work the advertising deals?

You're leaving money on the table with zero sales staff.

<comment><USER27> You probably need dedicated account managers too. I imagine the White House Twitter account is willing to pay for support.</comment></comment></comment>


Signs that you're a good programmer - <AUTHOR> http://www.yacoset.com/Home/signs-that-you-re-a-good-programmer/

<comment><USER2> I read both the "good" and "bad" programmer articles, and must now confess:

1\. I'm a "fantastic" programmer who is "destined for more."

2\. I'm a bad programmer.

</comment><comment><USER3> The number-one sign appears to be: You're like the author

</comment><comment><USER4> Sign that you're a bad person (pronounced 'karma whore'): Relinking something that is already practically linked at the top of HN. Seriously, this is linked at the top of the article currently at the top of hn ([https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9167008](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9167008)). You don't have to link us and this is a clear and dumb grab at stupid imaginary points.

The number of slots on the front page are limited at a given time. This is already effectively on the front page, so re-posting it is effectively wasting a slot.

<comment><AUTHOR> _" Seriously, this is linked at the top of the article currently at the top of hn"_

Nobody in the original thread has commented on this other article yet, and I thought it was different enough and interesting enough that it could provoke a discussion of its own. Sorry to have offended you, but I post stuff because I think it contributes to HN, not to get points. Also, if an article doesn't get upvoted, it falls off the front page very quickly.</comment></comment>


Ask HN: Starting a new job on Monday, still haven't seen the contract - <AUTHOR> I'm a little worried about this new job because although it looks like a great opportunity, there's been a few warning flags.
1) It was roughly 24 hours between submitting my resume, interviewing, and being told I had landed the job and they want me to start straight away.
2) The job listing specified 'flexible hours' and 'contract', but they keep asking me if I can go full time and they are quite insistent. Even going so far as asking if I can do my other work during my weekends.
3) They want me to start Monday, and they haven't even sent a contract or anything for me to look at. I don't want to arrive at a new job with out reading the contract, which I presume they will get me to sign before starting.
Is this as unusual as I suspect it is, or am I just anxious?
Thanks! <comment><USER2> From the other side of the internet, I see two likely causes:

1\. A company that is highly disorganized.

2\. A company that is shady.

Roughly, I would associate the first with newness or recent high growth. I would associate the second with an established ongoing concern. Neither inspires full confidence in regard to getting paid fully and on time.

That said, it's really more of a spectrum. There are established slow growing companies that are highly disorganized. There are new fast growing companies that are shady. Pre-recession I worked for a Fortune 100 corporation expanding in pace with the housing bubble. The hiring process was more chaotic than it might have been in other economic times.

Having interviewed with and researched the company, there should be some basis for evaluating where on the spectrum it falls. My advice is to go with your gut and I suggest that continuing to explore other employment options is worth consideration even if the contract is acceptable and you go to work there.

Good luck.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for the input brudgers, I think you're spot on. After a few days there, it seems they are definitely in the first category.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> You _should_ make acceptance of a contract conditional on actually reading the contract.

I know is sounds obvious but I took lots of jobs over the years before I actually read the contract. Live and learn. :-)

</comment><comment><USER4> Not seeing the contract so close to the start date is extremely unusual.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks, thought so.</comment></comment>