Uber Said to Raise $1.6 Billion in Convertible Debt to Expand - <AUTHOR> http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2015-01-21/uber-said-to-raise-1-6-billion-in-convertible-debt-to-expand.html <comment><AUTHOR> Notably, this fundraising round is with Goldman Sachs' private wealth management clients, which sets the stage for Uber to go public in the next few years. (Goldman Sachs tried and ultimately withdrew a similar deal in 2011 for their private clients in the United States to invest in Facebook. Of course, this was prior to the enactment of the JOBS act.)

<comment><USER2> That's the way you get rich. Make apps, social networking..stuff like that. Or invest in already-successful, viral app companies like Uber, Snapchat, Tinder, etc. Why anyone would go the brick and mortar route is beyond me. I would rather invest $100k in successful web 2.0 companies (like the ones I listed) and double my money in 6 months than start a crappy regular business which has a 50% chance within five years of totally failing and taking all my money with it. Like the Dire Straits Song Money for Nothing, except it's apps and web 2.0 instead of music.

<comment><USER3> I know far more people who are making lots of money doing traditional, un-sexy businesses, and I can't think of anyone I know personally making money with apps, web2.0 etc.

<comment><USER2> but regular business takes work and risk of total loss of capital. I can double my money buying Snapchat and then do nothing but watch TV and eat Cheetos for the next 6 months as VCs bid it into the stratosphere

<comment><USER4> As many, many, many people have discovered - investing in startups has as great a risk of losing all your capital (actually, a much greater risk) than investing in a bricks and mortar - the major difference is that there is also a much greater chance of huge returns.

The reality is only 1 in 100 people are likely capable of building a great startup (in the PG sense of "Startup") that succeeds - but there is a huge part of the population that can build out a brick and mortar traditional company.

To put things into perspective, On the App Store, about 3,000 of the 1mm or so apps are capable of supporting a developer in the United states with the Median US Income ($53,800/year).

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> What am I misunderstanding about Uber's business model where it needs lots of capital to expand? It seems like it is just a middleman and doesn't need any capital assets to expand into a geography - what am I missing?

<comment><USER6> It needs to sell itself to drivers, for one. Manage drivers. Advertise...

<comment><USER7> Raising a ton of VC and spending it on banner ads is _sooooo_ 90s.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> [https://www.uber.com/jobs/list](https://www.uber.com/jobs/list)

I count 680 open positions in 145 unique locations posted there. Pretty impressive.

</comment><comment><USER9> "Convertible debt" \- what a gimmick.

 _The bond Uber placed with Goldman Sachs' private clients is a six-year bond that will convert into equity at a 20 percent to 30 percent discount to Uber's valuation at the time of an initial public offering. ... The convertible bond carries a coupon that increases over time if Uber hasn't gone public within 4 years._

The distinction between debt and equity is diminishing. Traditionally, debt has no upside, and in exchange, creditors are paid ahead of equity holders in bankruptcy. Convertible debt is secured debt if things goes bad, and equity if things go well. So, no matter what happens, convertible debt holders are at the head of the line.

They even get to deduct the interest paid up to the conversion. Then it's a long term capital gain. This is an argument for ending the deductibility of interest.

The question is, if Uber is so great, why do they need to raise so much cash? It's not an inherently expensive business to run. They don't hire the drivers or buy the cars. Uber is just an app, a scheduling back end, and a marketing operation. Is it that the original funders want to cash out?

<comment><USER10> > Traditionally, debt has no upside

Not really--if interest rates decline (either in the overall economy or if a bond's issuer is seen as becoming less risky), the value of a bond will go up. The 10 Year US Treasury bond increased by over 10% last year, for example.

Also I agree with you about ending the deductibility of interest (for other reasons as well), but I'm not sure why you say the distinction between debt and equity is diminishing--convertible debt has been around for a long time.

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> Smart move. If I were Uber I would be trying to siphon as much cash as possible from investors before the company starts hitting its inevitable roadblocks.

The fact is that government regulators will end up banning Uber in most countries. You can't continue to operate outside the law flouting vital safety regulations that protect the interests of consumers for long.

<comment><USER3> Doubt it. Eventually, even in the US, they will adopt the New York model - require TLC licensed drivers, cars, etc. but not medallions. Basically black/limo cars. That's the way it should be IMO, I don't think Uber should have full discretion in deciding who gets to pick up passengers. The ratings system is really a small part of Uber and can't be relied upon to filter out bad/dangerous drivers.

<comment><USER11> Sorry I should have clarified: UberX is the problem. It is already being banned in more and more countries as governments come to terms with the regulatory changes required.

And whilst Uber is popular in the US outside it still isn't a well known brand and what they do know is the questionable behaviour of its management team (there have been media reports). So I don't see them disrupting taxi services around the world to the same extent as the US.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> \+ more uber jobs \- less taxi jobs

What's the point for an European city to change regulation?

<comment><USER13> Because the numbers aren't the same.

In a given year, the number of taxi jobs is pretty much fixed. The number of Uber (or generally, non-regulated) drivers is not.

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> They need the money to grow their global network. They can afford to fight the regulators that are in the pocket of entrenched taxi businesses in the short to medium term.

In the not-so-far future, that resistance will be broken by the introduction of the robotaxi. Ueber will be spearheading that one. Too capital intensive for the current "big" taxi companies in the medium term. Too automated for the regulators to defend the taxi drivers working conditions.

<comment><USER15> I hear this a lot, but, given what I've read recently about the true state of self-driving cars, I think the "robocars as a replacement for taxis (especially in cities, Uber's main market)" is a REALLY long ways off, i.e a generation or more.

That is, it seems to me like the places fully self-driving cars will initially be most successful is places where access is limited or "messiness" is minimized - places like highways, where you could even have "self-driving car only" lanes - a huge boons for long commutes. In cities, though, there are a lot of Really Hard Problems, that from what I've read engineers are not even close to being able to solve, things like:

1\. Following detour signs 2\. Following a street cop when they are contradicting stoplights or other road rules. 3\. Dealing with construction signs in traffic, like when a construction worker has those signs they flip back and forth between "stop" and "go" (or heck, they just drop the sign and wave you by). 4\. Knowing the difference between stopped traffic where you should wait (i.e. traffic is just really slow) or move around (i.e. someone is unloading).

That is, it seems like the state-of-the-art will allow self-driving ASSISTED vehicles in the pretty near future, but completely self-driving vehicles, that can handle all the complex, messy urban situations that people can, is not on the near horizon.

<comment><USER16> I can understand where you're coming from, but that's also failing to realize that there are technical workarounds to the problems you've presented. Regulatory measures will be key in making these transitions smooth (and AFAIK, lawmakers have been proactively involved).

Things like standardized signs for cars to process and construction workers to hold would already solve 3/4 of the problems you've already mentioned.

<comment><USER15> I can buy the regulatory measures in certain areas, which is why I mentioned the highway. I find it very difficult to believe that these kind of regulations would be adhered to, 100% of the time, in the chaos of a busy urban center.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> can someone explain what happens when a company IPO vs being acquired? Which is more favorable?

</comment><comment><USER18> Maybe they can invest in teaching their drivers how to _drive_ and learn the city. I've had nothing but AWFUL experiences with Uber. Always having to coach suburban drivers around the city like lost fucking cattle. 1 star every single time.

Invest in customer service. There has to be a way to train people to be better drivers.

<comment><USER11> You mean people who are driving as a side job and are completely unregulated are bad drivers ?

I am shocked.

</comment></comment><comment><USER19> Uber will collapse, in my opinion. How much time will take for many others doing the same? Come on. Such investment is just nonsense.</comment>


Why Losing A Biz Plan Competition Is Better Than Winning - <AUTHOR> http://www.techcrunch.com/2009/11/28/winners-curse-why-losing-a-b-school-biz-plan-competition-may-be-good-for-your-startup/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+Techcrunch+(TechCrunch)&utm_content=My+Yahoo

<comment><USER2> In general, prizes awarded by judges in contests are not a very good predictor.

Judges are usually busy people. They're not going to work that hard to figure out who's the best. They'll tend to be fooled by superficial polish.

I was a judge at TechCrunch 50 this fall. A few weeks later we had YC interviews. I don't think I was any more slack than the other TC50 judges, but there was no comparison between how hard I worked to pick the best startups in the two cases. Not only was I going to have to put money into the YC startups, whoever we picked was going to become part of the YC community from then on.

In fact, after having interviewed so many startups under conditions where getting the right answer really mattered, I found I had to consciously suppress my tendency to ask probing questions. Even so I think I seemed unduly harsh compared to the other judges.

<comment><USER3> Aren't they two entirely different formats? In one, you're asking probing questions but it's a small group setting and with your longtime partners. In the other you're in front of an audience and judging with folks you may or may not know. You've also screened the applicants for YC for ideas you'll want to probe deeply whereas the contest seems more about general business models and fit to markets. You'll invest your money just based on one meeting whereas the contests seem more like a chance to simply get a second meeting. It's the difference between rational dissections in YC versus blink assessments in the competitions. I don't see very many parallels, actually.

 _In general, prizes awarded by judges in contests are not a very good predictor._

Do you know of specific data here or is this your general impression? Some contest winners and close losers have seemed very impressive to me. And that's not just at TC50 but also from the DFJ and MIT competitions too.

<comment><USER2> They're definitely different formats. That's why I toned down my questions for TC50. But it's interesting that both took about the same amount of time. That means we could have dug a lot deeper at TC50 if that had been the point of the event.

<comment><USER3> You mean the actual "interview", right? As a judge were you also expected to review and filter applications?

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> I did four B-Plan competitions (had success in all four) in the spring of 2008 and the experience was useful. I would HIGHLY recommend and HN'ers in the Boston area sign up for this years event, which is going on now.

The good things:

1\. Great networking: The MIT 100K competition has a lot of support in the Boston area. It is a great way to open a door to almost any company that has any affiliation with MIT.

2\. Business issues: I know the prevailing ethos here is build something people want and the rest will take care of itself, but these competitions do force you to think about how you will sell you product, the importance of barriers to entry etc. As PG said he is even rethinking the mentoring aspect of YC to more richly incorporate this kind of info.

3\. Money - These competitions are serious cash cows. 35 team at MIT get $1k, 7 get $10K, and at least 2 get $100K. In addition there are special prizes for mobile and other areas. If you have a half decent idea it is a way to get YC caliber money with no dilution. All you need to do is find a student at MIT to participate, which is trivially easy.

The downsides of these competitions (in addition to what the author said):

1\. Wrong teams: Often the teams are comprised entirely of MBA's. Even though many were former hackers, they were at school to become managers not makers. I'm not anti-MBA, but the big problem is the fact that by the time you win a competition the MBA is a month from graduating and is on the hook for $200K in debt which dampens the entrepreneurial enthusiasm.

In any case I think the process is well worth it.

</comment><comment><USER5> Other possible interpretations of the data:

\- People who have the patience to court a jury with a business plan, perfecting their pitch, etc. at such an early stage – while they could be working on their product – don't make the best entrepeneurs.

\- The judges are teachers who've been entrenched in the academic world for too long to pass valuable judgement on a startup's viability; Their judgement is either counterindicative of success overall, or they may simply weigh factors that are only important for a more mature business too heavily for the judgement to have anything to do with startup success.

\- Most startups fail, including those that come forth from these competitions, there's no measurable correlation.

Take your pick ;)

Any judgement of a startup's possible success that's based upon business plans rather than founders' personalities misses its goal because it does not account for the amount of change to the plans that is required for success, but which will only happen if the founders have sufficiently flexible minds.

A final point then: Does hearing a respected jury tell you your plans are the bee's knees make you more hesistant to change them or throw them overboard when things aren't taking off?

<comment><USER6> Good points. But I wanted to respond to the last:

> A final point then: Does hearing a respected jury tell you >your plans are > the bee's knees make you more hesistant to >change them or throw them > overboard when things aren't >taking off?

Maybe, maybe not. But having that same jury tell you your plans are bad __and why they are bad __is extremely useful. So I wouldn't write off these competitions entirely.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> Dave and I (along with a classmate Dom) won the Chicago Booth (MBA) business plan competition for Bump before entering YC. It was good because we were in school and got credit for spending time thinking about and working on Bump (rather than taking a class that was wholly distracting this one was only partially distracting), met some alumni that have become valuable advisors, and greatly improved our presentation skills (which helped a lot when we were raising money). It was bad because we knew had to work on two things in parallel 1) the real business and 2) the "business plan" business (if we had said what we really wanted to say we would not have won that competition, which at the end of the day is what it was). Overall it was net positive for us I think because priority #1 was the real business and we made instead of planned (we started on Bump 7 months before the competition and launched before it started). In fact, the top 2 companies were the only two that had product in market at the finals. When my Booth ex-colleagues ask me for advice in the business plan competition I tell them to build a product and get in in customers hands, otherwise you are spending too much time guessing what customers will think.

There are plenty of companies that came out of business plan competitions that have done really well. One of my favorites is SunEdison that won the HBS business plan competition. A few years after winning they were just bought for $200M. Not bad...

</comment><comment><USER8> I've participated in 3 pitching competitions at Edinburgh University. I won one of them and lost at the other two. The value I gained from them came in 3 categories:

1.) Networking 2.) Awareness among local startup scene 3.) MacBook Air ;P

Seriously though, the contacts I've made at these events have been infinitely more valuable than the cash and assortment of juicy Apple products that I've won.

</comment><comment><USER9> The biz plan competition at our school is very clear on this: it is _just_ about the business plan. They do not care about execution. In fact, they recommend that the prize money be distributed equally between the team members as opposed to being used for the company. I am having a hard time digesting this, nonetheless I appreciate their clarity.

</comment><comment><USER10> Also, Jon Burgstone came in second place for the HBS business plan competition with his idea for SupplierMarket and then started and sold the company for over a billion dollars within a year. Now, he and his former co-founder offer a special (and larger) cash prize to other 2nd place participants of the same contest.

<comment><USER11> Good point. Business plan competitions are good indicators of who can succeed in cashing out during dot-com bubbles. Essentially, you presenting a business to group of clueless individuals. If they buy your pitch, you are more likely to be able to either con a clueless internet-bubble company's board into buying your company or fool collectively clueless merchant investors into buying into your IPO.

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> I was co-lead organizer of the MIT Clean Energy Prize last year, a national biz plan competition with a $200k cash grand prize (and partner to the MIT 100K). We never thought ourselves capable of designing a competition where the winner was in any way assured of "making it"- the free market is the only force capable of determining that. But that wasn't the point; the post is correct that the perceived ancillary benefits of forming a strong team, making deadlines, and meeting/facing potential customers and investors turn out to be what make the whole thing worth it (and not necessarily for the success of the business being pitched but for the skills built by the students). As pg implies, the judging is not "for real" since it's with OPM, but compare that to the usual indicators given at universities (grades) and it doesn't look so bad.

The vast majority of the teams realize this too, and the ones who don't are not the ones who go far. Winning the grand prize is basically a bonus for the the team who gets it...

Is a b.p. competition for everyone? Probably not. I'd definitely prefer being a part of YC before winning the 100k (dreaming up a web app); YC community >> 80k. But they are not mutually exclusive and the b.p. application is only 2 pages and 10 slides.

And a big success who actually won such a competition? How about EnerNOC, a $600M public co that won the Dartmouth competition in 2002. They do load balancing for electric utilities (big customers go low-power during peak demand). Probably doing more good for the world then all the apps in the app store.

</comment><comment><USER13> I'm a student at NC State right now and we have one of these coming up in the spring. I will say that both the companies and the judges are somewhat in the dark for ideas that are even remotely complex with niche markets; however, it doesn't take away from the fact that there is cash involved that we're after and we're gonna give it a decent shot. I'm a graduating senior and I'm staying as far away from jobs as possible. Money from our business plan competition could keep me afloat for another 6-months or so while I bootstrap my idea.

I like that the author pointed out that no home-run companies have won business plan competitions, but it's not to say it won't happen. My observation is that it's going to need to be in a sexy category. The three winners from our competition last year were tuberculosis testing, biodiesel from trap grease, and college admissions...surprise surprise. The teams were good, I have to admit, but I would bet that an equally good team with a sub- trillion-dollar market wouldn't have had a chance. Akamai could have had an awesome business plan with great market research, it probably just didn't excite the judges.

</comment><comment> bjelkeman-again I have participated in several business plan competitions, not so much to win the competition, but to have a reason to finish writing the darn thing under pressure. My biggest success didn't win any prices (but we participated with it) and the business plan/idea which did win a price I shelved immideatly after, as it wasn't that interesting to me and it was too niche to make a really big impact, from my point of view.

</comment><comment><USER14> I have to ask, I know ideas aren't worth anything until you execute, but doesn't throwing your idea in front of a large audience of other entrepreneurs and industry leaders potentially lead to a lot of extra competition? This sounds really cool to me, but I'm a bit hesitant. I like getting feedback, but usually from people I can trust (which I know is a biased sample).

</comment><comment><USER15> The whole idea of a business plan contest is screwy. Ideas are a dime a dozen, it's all about execution. If I were to start another startup tomorrow, I'd just scrape TC for the newest and hottest set of startups for an idea, tweak with my own twist and attack head first.

<comment><USER16> The business plan contains more than the idea, it should contain the planned execution. For instance, how will you promote your product? Partnerships? Media campaigns?

Of course, the business plan is just a stack of paper. You may have brilliant execution on paper, but who knows if _you_ will be able to pull it off.

 _Insert mandatory quote about military planning being necessary but not surviving the first contact with the enemy_

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> How's that old quote go? Something about winning by not playing?

</comment><comment><USER18> In 20 years, there is going to be a wave of concern that we aren't praising our kids enough.</comment>


Israeli Cronus "Imitates the way computer hackers think" - <AUTHOR> https://cronus-cyber.com/ <comment><AUTHOR> I wonder if there are pattern-based behavior analysis and statistics on machine-based penetration testing in comparison to human penetration tester habits and results. I'm generally suspicious of AI and even more so of machine-based automation that works without a traditional AI engine. The suspicion is not a commentary on AI itself, but my own failure to anticipate (occasionally) an AI's next move since modern AI has moved far beyond imitation of "human" models and can be quite cagey :-)</comment>


The Spy Who Fired Me - <AUTHOR> http://harpers.org/archive/2015/03/the-spy-who-fired-me/?single=1 <comment><USER3> "Y.T.'s mom pulls up the new memo, checks the time, and starts reading it. The estimated reading time is 15.62 minutes. Later, when Marietta does her end-of- day statistical roundup, sitting in her private office at 9:00pm, she will see the name of each employee and next to it, the amount of time spent reading this memo, and her reaction, based on the time spent, will go something like this:

Less than 10 min.: Time for an employee conference and possible attitude counseling.

10-14 min.: Keep an eye on this employee; may be developing slipshod attitude.

14-15.61 min.: Employee is an efficient worker, may sometimes miss important details.

Exactly 15.62 min.: Smartass. Needs attitude counseling.

15.63-16 min.: Asswipe. Not to be trusted.

16-18 min.: Employee is a methodical worker, may sometimes get hung up on minor details.

More than 18 min.: Check the security videotape, see just what this employee was up to (e.g., possible unauthorized restroom break).

Y.T.'s mom decides to spend between fourteen and fifteen minutes reading the memo. It's better for younger workers to spend too long, to show that they're careful, not cocky. It's better for older workers to go a little fast, to show good management potential. She's pushing forty. She scans through the memo, hitting the Page Down button at reasonably regular intervals, occasionally paging back up to pretend to reread some earlier section. The computer is going to notice all this. It approves of rereading. It's a small thing, but over a decade or so this stuff really shows up on your work-habits summary."

\--Neal Stephenson, Snow Crash

<comment><USER4> One thing I fail to understand is, why don't these people unionize? That's what organized labour is for: to protect a workforce from abusive conditions in the workplace. Why let the sociopaths win?

<comment><USER5> To unionize you need to have time to interact with your co-workers. You have to convince everyone that unions are not evil. And I'm not even sure unions are legal in the US any more. In the article they feature UPS as an example, yet UPS _has_ a union - the Teamsters. Does it do anything except feed off of the workers it is suppose to represent? I'm not sure. I was in a union once and it was worthless and expensive. We need something else with a new name that actually does work.

<comment><USER6> How about "Labour Law"? Federally-mandated rules of employment, applying to people who work as little as one hour per month up to 175 hours per week.

<comment><USER4> How can you work 175 h a week? That's more than 24 hours a day.

<comment><USER7> That's the proverbial 25 hours a day, times 7. But then again, you'd be surprised how people sometimes have to work two jobs _at the same time_.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> I'm always amazed when articles like this don't even mention the labor protections that other countries provide. It is hard to imagine a better way if you don't believe one exists, or haven't ever experienced it. It's not just that some people have union protection, entire nations have banned practices like these. Entire nations have guaranteed vacations that dwarf anything seen in America. Whole peoples have collectively said that the needs of life are more important than the needs of business and aligned their laws accordingly.

<comment><USER9> >Whole peoples have collectively said that the needs of life are more important than the needs of business and aligned their laws accordingly.

While others with the capacity for critical thinking have realized that the economy is what enables a good life. Greece has been pretty good about guaranteeing 'the needs of life' for government employees and look what good it did them.

<comment><USER10> This is the famous libertarian cognitive vice, assuming that the quality of government is constant:

[http://marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevolution/2006/08/the...](http://marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevolution/2006/08/the_libertarian.html)

Your theory needs to account for how e.g. Germany, the Netherlands, Denmark, Sweden, Norway, etc. also provide "the needs of life" with economies which are rather different than Greece. It's just possible that quality of implementation matters as much as the original idea.

<comment><USER9> What are you talking about? I was showing how ridiculous the strawman is that it's a simple 'people vs business' decision. People and business are ultimately one and the same.

There is not one single country that has a terrible economy with a good life for its citizens. Unless the country is just riding on massive natural resources, the people have to work enough to sustain the lifestyle they live. Other countries aren't going to support them indefinitely.

<comment><USER10> You haven't shown anything of the sort. iandanforth made the factual observation that various countries define the worker:employer relationship differently and you responded with a facile assertion that only foolish people would fail to put economic interests over people and a single cherry-picked example, which itself was too simplistic to be of use[1].

Now you're going on with some narrative about how people don't want to work which is straight out of right-wing talk radio and which you've failed to supported even with an anecdote this time. It's absurd to claim that poor countries are poor because they provide too many benefits to workers at the expense of business when we regularly hear reports about the brutally unforgiving lifestyles of sweatshop workers, subsistence farmers, etc. Conversely, you've failed to even show awareness that some countries have both strong economies and significant social support – Germany provides significantly more for workers than the United States but it would be absurd to claim that this depends on other countries to "support them indefinitely".

So … could you start over and explain precisely the principle you believe is in effect here, and how it holds true across e.g. the G-10 countries?

1\. Greece's economy wasn't exactly great before but their immediate crisis was caused by corruption aided by malfeasance by major banks, not inefficiencies which they've had for generations. Absolutely none of it had to do with benefits to workers or people being lazy.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> "Many retail workers now clock in with a thumb scan. Nurses wear badges that track how often they wash their hands. Warehouse workers carry devices that assign them their next task and give them a time by which they must complete it. Some may soon be outfitted with augmented-reality devices to more efficiently locate products."

This is straight out of Manna. [http://marshallbrain.com/manna1.htm](http://marshallbrain.com/manna1.htm)

<comment><USER7> I have a problem with everything in this quote _except_ the nurses - <USER2> hands is something workers tend to not care about. Things that are directly related to safety of third parties - like washing hands in hospitals, or like driving regulations - should be enforced with a jackboot.

<comment><USER12> If only doctors also had to wear such badges…

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> Unreal. Recently at work, I've been having a problem with packages delivered while we were out: the FedEx driver leaves them at random offices in our building or even across the street but never leaves a delivery notice. I go to the FedEx site and it will be signed for by "George" or whoever but there's no clue where it is...so I walk door-to-door down the street to find it. I was mostly just pissed at the driver until I read this article today. Now I think I'm more pissed at FedEx and America's (and that includes me) insatiable appetite for cheap shit bought on the Internet and delivered quickly. The end result of all of this is injured delivery drivers, rich factory owners in China, and piles of clutter in our garages and attics.

<comment><USER14> Rich business owners and well-rewarded management in the United States, you mean. That was the source of most of the changes, including outsourcing to China. Least Fedex did plenty of good things for its workers, too, at least in Express and at the office. I know few people who don't brag about working there. Used to pay people for whatever ideas made the company more money, too. Recently they were doing cuts and I believe they paid people to leave rather than spontaneous layoffs.

I hear UPS sucks across the board. My company sucks as badly. I can only imagine it would be worse without the unions.

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> "You can't manage what you can't measure"

If you don't want this software turned on and used against you, then stop the creation of it before it gets started. We laughed at HAL 9000, yet people are willing to treat each other like trash because, "the program told me too". The dictators of the past and the ones to come are going to "love" your new software!

Stand up and get this stopped. Where are the SOPA and PIPA blackout folks? We need them now more than ever. Bloggers need to talk about this. People are going to "hate" programmers if this is what we unleash on the world. Stop it, just stop it.

To technologist who gather on this forum, I charge you to not create this despicable future. Golden rule (Matthew 7:12), do unto others as you would have them do unto you.

</comment><comment><USER10> Anyone interested in the history of this school of management might be interested in reading about Frederick Taylor and "Scientific Management":

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

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

Although it's fallen out of favor the unwarranted contempt for workers has been quite enduring.

</comment><comment><USER16> > "Anything you do with a piece of hardware that's provided to you by the > employer, every keystroke, is the property of the employer. Personal calls, > private photos — if you put it on the company laptop, your company owns it. > They may analyze any electronic record at any time for any purpose. It's not > your data."

I simply can't imagine working under conditions like that. Or in an environment where it is legal.

<comment><USER17> Most companies will have a "reasonable personal use" clause (e.g., shopping Amazon on your lunch break, etc) with regards to company PCs. I never assumed that they weren't logging EVERYTHING, especially once everyone was forced to switch to MS Lync for internal IM.

The last BigCo I worked for had a hard-coded login screen on the Windows machines that stated the company use policy in large text and that user activity on company equipment could be monitored at any time and no expectation of privacy was to be assumed.

Being in IT, I was told by the security and proxy guys (who I worked closely with) that they only usually had to pull up logs when it was necessary to fire someone - stuff like oilfield workers browsing kiddie porn from drill sites and such. It happened a lot more than you'd expect.

<comment><USER16> A clause to the effect that "no expectation of privacy" is to assumed, would be null and void most places in Europe. That does not mean monitoring it not allowed, but there are substantial carve-outs.

E.g. in Norway (which does have some of the more extensive privacy protections), the general rule is that surveillance of employees personal e-mail etc. is outright illegal, there are substantial restrictions on monitoring web usage, and that employers right to access an employees address _on the employers mail server_ is also limited, and can easily violate privacy laws.

Generally, for an employer to access employee e-mail addresses, there needs to be a compelling need (this could be as simple as needing access during an employees vacation, so it's not like it's safe to assume employer will never have reason to access it), or suspicion of serious violations of employment terms or laws (e.g. your child porn example would certainly qualify, as long as there'd be some evidence to support the suspicion; as would e.g. collecting evidence following claim of harassment of co-workers or similar).

In terms of web access, since most of these rules are based on privacy laws, you can typically do generic monitoring e.g. of sites being accessed, but run into problems if you tie them back to individuals. One place I worked they dealt with extensive access of porn sites in working hours by publicly posting a list, with a warning that it needed to stop on grounds of concerns over harassment etc., without collecting any data on who accessed what, and access dropped drastically, and that was that.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> Hopefully this is the learning stage for how to handle detailed metrics. It feels like customer satisfaction and worker satisfaction are isolated from these metrics, so the picture they produce guides managers to focus on a gamut of minute gains that are mostly uncontrollable or unrealistic rather than produce long term sustainable practices. They also seem untethered from human psychology.

Slight tangent from the article but related: when someone starts parroting _fiduciary duty_ you know that business is in for the short haul. You can't have a sustainable business if you don't complete the job wholly and professionally, nor have workers who respect the organization they work for. Like squeezing a stress ball, the bulk of the fluid will move from where your grip is tight to where it is not. Grip it tight from all sides and it'll eventually burst. Be firm but fair and always use the Golden Rule.

</comment><comment><USER14> I've worked under several of these systems. They have the negative effects mentioned in the article. Cheating, fraud, and intentionally not serving customers were always pervasive while things looked good on paper. For that, I don't trust the accounting or performance data in any company doing it. One used Kronos, too, which I'll help the article by saying is utter BS: predictive stuff doesn't work at all and managers + workers had to cheat it, too, to prevent major damage to bottom line.

The shit should be used very carefully and with legal safeguards. I still advocate embedding or realistic simulations to estimate true performance, spot issues that throw it, etc. Then, combine that with data gathering and predictions with humans in the loop to decide on staff allocation. One can still keep labor down and flexible while not turning the situation into a disaster for workers.

</comment><comment><USER19> Reading this article made me really sad and pensive. This is slavery. "It's like when they whip animals. But this is a mental whip.". We see lots of articles on HN, on how AI is going to take over, reading this article it felt like this is the first step towards that. Of course in those (overtly AI) articles we discuss a super-human entity suddenly taking over humans. But over here as well a significant portion of the workforce, is enslaved, by a software, built by Kronos like companies, so it can be a first step.

I see the word 'Union' mentioned a lot of time, even in the comments to this article on HN. I think that is a bit regressive and unmatching response. What we need perhaps is a counter-culture software, may be titled worker dignity, worker freedom, or something. Which can even start in a trivial (not so overt conquering the world form). May be a small step to make physical workers feel in control of their lives. Could just start by letting them keep a record of their work life. Perhaps their productivity metric of income-generated/hours- put. Provide them with competing metrics of brands of which offers a better average metric for a worker. etc.

</comment><comment><USER20> Wow. So I guess this has already happened: [http://marshallbrain.com/manna1.htm](http://marshallbrain.com/manna1.htm)

What's funny is that a ton of the issues in this article are all classic stupidity with numbers. Let's sample some metric every 15 minutes and react to it then! Rather then average it out and say "right, what does this tell us in aggregate?"

<comment><USER7> Yeah. I was going to say, that's what happens when you give data to people not trained to understand it, but then again - some of them do understand it perfectly. They just don't care about people under them. They can keep literally torturing workers until they break, because there's always more to replace those who were fired.

</comment></comment><comment><USER21> Really scary how little these managers view their employees as human, constantly pushing for better margins even if it means unsafe practices.

<comment><USER22> Human "resources". My background is in engineering; a resource is something you use up, discard and get a new one.

</comment></comment><comment><USER23> We as a civilisation are evolving from human labour to automated labour, these are the growing pains of that transition.

It is reasonable to expect that within a century, human physical labour for reward will be considered such a backward practice. Humans are capable of so much more than completing repetitive physical tasks, why not give such work to machines?

Every time we choose to buy a hand-made garment instead of one produced by a machine, because our conscious tells us that people need jobs, not machines, we're only treating the symptoms and not the cause. It's an inevitable process that automation will begin taking jobs, it already has as we already know. It starts at the bottom, working its way towards ever increasingly difficult-to- automate tasks. The only one safe is the programmer, he who works to put himself out of a job.

The only question is, what do all the jobless people do?

For a good read, I recommend: [http://marshallbrain.com/manna1.htm](http://marshallbrain.com/manna1.htm)

</comment><comment><USER24> If workers cooperating for better conditions is seen as evil, of course businesses will squeeze workers with impunity. Look at other countries to see that it doesn't have to be this way.

Libertarianism: the idea that the perfect society must run on unchecked prisoner's dilemmas, and enforcing cooperation is a crime. "I'm sorry that your vase broke, but we must put faith in the invisible hand of gravity."

The real question is where the left-wingers are in all this. Their job was supposed to be helping the worker class, organizing strikes and unions and such. I guess they stopped giving a fuck sometime in the 20th century, because blue collar workers are too "socially backward".

<comment><USER25> The left wingers already lost because they don't have the money and power. There's never been a lot to gain in making things better for the people who need help (the goal of left wing ideology), and a lot to gain in making things better for people who have money and power (the goal of right wing/libertarian ideology). Large corporate interests are largely right wing and extremely politically active. There's nothing comparable on the left (possibly the copyright lobby which has aligned themselves with the democratic party generally but is orthogonal to the whole debate really)

Corporate interests shape the political spectrum so we steadily move to a more and more pro-corporate political scene.

The country has shifted so far over to the right that right-wingers from 20 30 years ago look like radical leftists of today, and the leftists from 20 or 30 years ago are laughed out of the political arena.

We are entering a new gilded age, which will be followed by a new great depression (we narrowly dodged one recently), which will be followed by the resurgence of progressive ideas until corporate interests wrest back control of the political process and the cycle begins again. But given how internationalized things are I suspect if we enter a great depression and liberals take hold the rich will simply leave and move to a country willing to bow to their interests.

<comment><USER22> _There 's never been a lot to gain in making things better for the people who need help (the goal of left wing ideology)_

If you help them and they become middle class they might not vote for you anymore. That's why left-wing politics fails, because of this paradox it can never deliver. Whereas right-wing parties prosper when their supporters prosper - the interests are aligned.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> The only solution working in this environment is to leave it as soon as possible. I'd rather be homeless than work in such an environment.

What the MBA folk fail to understand is the driving the last gram of productivity out of employees is a loosing game as the curve is gentle on one side and falls off like a cliff on the other (I've been trying to find the mathematical name for such a curve, if anyone knows the formal mathematical name, please speak up). A lot of things in the world have curves similar to this. You need to stay reasonably down the curve on the gently sloped side to have a stable system.

</comment><comment><USER27> UPS clearly hasn't got all their inputs hooked up to all their outputs. I have repeatedly had packages reported as delivered, and the driver hadn't come up my driveway, which is long enough to make it clear whether they were near my house or not, never mind there are only a handful of properties along my road. Amazon may want to offer UPS some help with their monitoring and delivery reporting.

<comment><USER28> If you are relying on GPS positions, then with AGPS I believe it is accurate to about 8 meters, and cellular GPS is about 600 meters and GPS itself is about 10 meters.

So basically, a driver doesn't have to go up your driveway. He just needs to pass by your house. And there is no way for UPS to ever know, unless they have video but I'd never allow them to video on MY property.

UPS are stupid if they think that such micromanagement is good for their business. There problems appear to be:

1\. They set unrealistic deadlines,

2\. They don't treat their workforce with much respect. This leads to unintended consequences - like for example you not receiving your package, or higher levels of car crashes, or people jay walking, or increased injuries from strain and fatigued workers.

Honestly, in a system that tracks this many variables, it doesn't take much for an employee to figure out how to game the system! An example is given in the article - the employee who buckled the seatbelt and then sat with it behind his back!

This is honestly a manifestation of an idea that Bruce Schneier made some time back - the more you add restrictions or monitor someone, the more they will attempt to bypass your systems in order to get their job done (or more likely - meet your metrics). The employee does it because the risk of losing their job for non-performing is less than the penalty for getting caught. [1]

3\. This is a great way to unionise your workforce and get strike action taken against you. This level of micromanagement tends to be favoured by control freaks and power crazed managers who misuse the data. It also causes problems when the data is followed without knowing a more holistic view of the system. I've seen thus in call centres - the best ones I've seen have had no KPIs, the ones with strict call time KPIs have led to dreadful customer service as the entire goal of the operator is to get you off the phone, not resolve your problem. In that situation, they tell the customer literally anything in order to keep them happy but make them hang up.

Giving this level of metrics to lower level managers is a bad idea, instead I truly believe it should be kept with people who know how to handle data and interpret the results correctly.

\---

Footnotes:

1\. [https://www.schneier.com/essays/archives/2009/08/people_unde...](https://www.schneier.com/essays/archives/2009/08/people_understand_ri.html)

<comment><USER27> My house is more than 200M from the road, and the road is a lightly traveled side road. It is unlikely the driver was within a mile or two of my house when misreporting deliveries.

UPS's customers, the retailers depending on UPS to meet premium delivery times, are being badly let down by UPS's failure to detect such misreporting.

<comment><USER29> > My house is more than 200M from the road

You expect UPS to have precise cöordinates for your actual dwelling building? They will tie your address's location to the road your driveway departs from.

<comment><USER27> Yes. You can get the house, the lot lines, and my driveway in commercial geospatial data.

<comment><USER28> In that case I stand corrected in the GPS issue.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER30> Much like when the 1997 government in the UK added targets for everythning people gamed the system in all sorts of ways.

</comment><comment><USER31> It's just a matter of time, and probably not too much more time, before those same executives and supervisors will succeed in replacing all those human drivers with machines. They don't really want messy, frail, undependable humans having an impact on the size of their next bonus.

<comment><USER32> of course those same execs aren't smart enough to realise that then their jobs will be the next ones replaced

<comment><USER14> It won't happen. They're likely to be affected most by outsourcing and only the less critical ones. The CEO's, COO's, board members, and so on use their connections and clout to maintain both their jobs and high pay. They'll exempt themselves from whatever trend exists just like they always have.

Middle and lower management, on the other hand, have plenty to worry about.

<comment><USER33> Dont be silly, the main reason you have legions of people is to manage other legions of people, and to be local brains for you, which you then automate out.

Really, why would a business need more than one person/idea nexus in a world where robotics and true AI exist? So you can have a financial strategy?

To help advise you on something like a complicated financial instrument, which a computer intelligence would find as simple as a toy?

To give you legal interpretations?

<comment><USER14> Only one of us is being silly suggesting that any existing or near-term AI can replace C-level executive's skills. Those include management of scheming managers, business analysis/strategy, bribing/wooing politicians, overseeing negotiations like TPP, PR against the masses, and especially keeping Directors happy on the golf courses.

Far as your financial instrument, computer intelligence wouldn't understand it at all because it's not good enough. Instead, you'd likely have a system whose inputs are curated by humans, using rules/algorithms made by humans, and whose output is checked by humans. Like Blackstone's Aladdin. ;) So, keep dreaming about this fictitious world where machines come close to the skills of big boys on top or Wall St.

They're only useful if it's something expert systems or machine learning can handle. That's really narrow. There's money in it, though, in case of HFT or BPM consulting.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> I guess that puts the "slavery" into "wage slavery". It's funny how Zynga is reviled on HN, while something like the Work Diary or UPS' management software is considerably more dangerous. What kind of person do you have to be in order to implement that?

</comment><comment><USER34> So after excessive background checks and such, it still looks like employers don't trust their employees to do their daily jobs well hence such stringent measures. A bit extreme and just not necessary. Really worrying.

<comment><USER35> This would indicate to me that they don't trust their managers to manage.

<comment><USER36> Neither one of these is true. The software and systems are intended to do exactly what they're doing, driving people to their limits until they break. There will always be people coming up behind to replace them, and the broken people do not cost the employer anything.

<comment><USER14> a3n is spot on. This is called an externality in capitalism: an effect of something that benefits them which becomes someone else's problem. Businesses focused on bottom line try to do anything they can to get more revenue or reduce costs. They don't care about the impact unless it impacts them and for more than the gains. Plus, with existing labor practices, there's plenty of people desperate for a job to scrape by on their bills despite what they endure on the job. Add the fact that many companies are doing it and it's like a self-reinforcing system.

The companies peddling this surely know about this. They don't care: avoiding it would hurt their sales pitch. And they too focus just on the bottom line.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER37> This is scary.

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> Readable with incognito window.

<comment><USER38> works fine without for me?

<comment><USER34> Works fine for me also..

<comment><USER7> Charitably, 'signor_bosco was just making a statement of fact.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER39> Very L. Bob Rife of these employers.</comment>


An introduction to machine learning with Apixio - <AUTHOR> https://www.apixio.com/technical-post/introduction-to-machine-learning/ <comment><AUTHOR> The first in a two-part blog post about one of the methods the healthcare data science company, Apixio has employed to help us make the best use of our training data. It gives a brief introduction to some basics of machine learning and a couple of the problems we face. The second post will be a more in-depth look at a technique we've used to try to improve the results of our models.</comment>


New Exoplanet Discovery Is Life Imitating Star Wars - <AUTHOR> http://www.wired.com/wiredscience/2011/09/new-binary-star-exoplanet/

<comment><AUTHOR> more detailed:

[http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=tatooine- pl...](http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=tatooine-planet)</comment>


Tutorial: Play Framework, JPA, JSON, jQuery, & Heroku - <AUTHOR> http://www.jamesward.com/2011/12/11/tutorial-play-framework-jpa-json-jquery-heroku <comment><USER2> This article covers Play 1.2.3. Play 2.0 is now in beta <http://www.playframework.org/2.0> and is a rewrite of the application in Scala. I was able to easily deploy a Play 2.0 app written in Scala, to Heroku with no problems. Some outlying features are still missing but all the basics are there and seem solid.

<comment><USER3> I'm working on a similar blog post for Play 2. But I can't do what I wanted to with the Play 2 beta because it doesn't have direct JSON support. However the latest on github does. :)

<comment><USER4> It will be great if you'll do a similar tutorial for Play 2. Now Play 2 lacks documentation. By the way, will you do your tutorial in Scala or Java?

<comment><USER3> I've thought about actually doing one for each. :)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> this is the first time i am reading about the Play Framework. Are there any good ressources on how it compares to other frameworks like Rails and Django?

<comment><USER4> I could point you to few stackoverflow topics:

[http://stackoverflow.com/questions/5083292/playframework- vs-...](http://stackoverflow.com/questions/5083292/playframework-vs-ruby-on- rails)

[http://stackoverflow.com/questions/1706146/playframework- and...](http://stackoverflow.com/questions/1706146/playframework-and-django)</comment></comment>


Show HN: QPage.one – End to End AI-Powered Recruitment Automation Software - <AUTHOR> https://www.qpage.one/ <comment><AUTHOR> Hey! I'm building QPage [https://www.qpage.one/](https://www.qpage.one/) \- public beta phase An end to end recruitment process automation and would love some feedback besides our Mom tests (even though their feedback is pretty brutal :)) It's all about bring the whole chain and services required in hiring process in one platform all built-in. From data consistency to remove cognitive unbiased decision to high quality assessment tests (Psychometric to Expertise Tests) and even video interview tool. Offering free lifetime basic plan, so don't hesitate to sign up and start automating your recruitment process.

</comment><comment><USER2> A stone solid team behind this product makes it something you can easily rely on. How they employ AI in such a product is also very interesting.

</comment><comment><USER3> How do you use AI in it?

<comment><AUTHOR> Well, AI is giving plenty of services from automating job description suggestions to Resume Parsing, Candidate Matching and many more

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> One of the best</comment>


When the Revolution Came for Amy Cuddy - <AUTHOR> https://www.nytimes.com/2017/10/18/magazine/when-the-revolution-came-for-amy-cuddy.html <comment><USER2> duplicate post.</comment>


MineCraftWebGL - <AUTHOR> http://danielribeiro.github.com/WebGLCraft/ <comment><USER2> Pretty cool but another thing missing from this is the dynamic lighting. If you make an enclosed space it's just as bright inside as daylight. The lighting in minecraft is simple but extremely effective. Here's a nice demo/test from Notch from when he was working on that:

<http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xnvqvFsNkq0>

<comment><USER3> I like Minecraft Classic's binary lighting, personally. Slightly darker if shadowed, full brightness if not.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> If only there were an API for mouse capturing.

Is there any reason why it couldn't work if it were implemented like full screen mode (displaying a message telling the user to press escape to reclaim the mouse)?

Edit: Actually it looks like this is being worked on after all – [http://dvcs.w3.org/hg/pointerlock/raw- file/default/index.htm...](http://dvcs.w3.org/hg/pointerlock/raw- file/default/index.html)

<comment><USER5> This exists in Firefox as of 14, currently in Aurora, so this will be in a stable release in a few weeks.

It also exists in recent Chrome versions, however it seems to be disabled by default for some reason, but you can enable it in the flags menu.

No reason why this cool site can't use it on those browsers, there are lots of demos on the web that do. Mouse lock is very important.

<comment><USER6> > _This exists in Firefox as of 14, currently in Aurora, so this will be in a > stable release in a few weeks._

Firefox 14 is scheduled for release on Tuesday.[1]

[1] [https://wiki.mozilla.org/RapidRelease/Calendar#Future_branch...](https://wiki.mozilla.org/RapidRelease/Calendar#Future_branch_dates)

<comment><USER5> Even better ;) Thanks for the correction!

<comment><USER6> No problem. I looked it up last week because I thought this was the release that was going to have the new fix for add-on-related memory leaks[1], but it turns out that's not coming until Firefox 15 next month.

[1] [http://news.softpedia.com/news/Firefox-15-to-Fix-All- Common-...](http://news.softpedia.com/news/Firefox-15-to-Fix-All-Common-Add- on-Memory-Leaks-269898.shtml)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> It's tiring to see that WASD is always used to control movement, regardless of keyboard layout. On a French keyboard, this is how WASD is laid out: <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:KB_France.svg>

Needless to say that it is highly impractical… Why not bind the arrow keys?

<comment><USER8> The arrow keys are usually at the right of the keyboard, next to the mouse, which makes playing with two hands awkward. You also need to move the hand on the keyboard to push pretty much any other key, which makes it difficult to do other actions (reload, open inventory, sprint, etc.)

Of course the better solution is to give the player the choice...

<comment><USER9> > You also need to move the hand on the keyboard to push pretty much any other > key

\- cost of binding arrow keys: ~0

\- benefit to non-wasd compatible layouts: ∞

(did you know that my keyboard can actually _move_ to where arrow keys are comfortably used, or that left-handed and right-handed-who-use-their-mouse-on- the-left-because-it-makes-sense-with-a-numpad-and-makes-RSI-bearable people exist? ;-)

<comment><USER10> The main reason is there are no keys around the arrows, making it useless for many games. The layout issue is completely different thing.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> Very, very nice! Possible feature: would it be possible to generate unique individual links a la pastebin?

Just a "generate link button" that stored all the current values of the variables and spit out a link like:

      http://danielribeiro.github.com/WebGLCraft/7vDq0hGh

Though I suppose for pastebin et al. those are just database links. There is too much data here to store it in the actual url string itself :(

Maybe just an export/import to json button then?

I would use this, like, immediately to share designs and pattern ideas with friends.

Also possible tweak: I just built a very tall tower and jumped off. But it doesn't quite "feel" like Minecraft gravity over long distances. The acceleration or maybe just the terminal velocity feel too slow.

<comment><USER12> If you wanted to generate the same terrain, then you could save a particular seed for the random function which could be appended to the url.

That wouldn't include all the player made modifications to the terrain but it would give people the same world.

<comment><USER13> How would you generate which seed to use?

<comment><USER12> The seed could be generated using the default random function of your platform without specifying the seed (the default seed is likely based on some timestamp component).

You would then take the value the default random function gives you and feed it into the overloaded constructor which allows you to specify the seed.

That way you could still record the seed's value which was used to generate your terrain.

<comment><USER13> But the terrain wasn't generated using an rng, it was generated by the user placing and deleting blocks.

<comment><USER12> If you read my first comment in this thread, I stated that by recording the seed it would allow you to save the terrain generated by the game not any modifications or alterations a user added to it with their own block placement.

This is used frequently in Minecraft for players to share interesting maps which have randomly generated.

<comment><USER13> Sorry, I misunderstood.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> Really nice looking impl in JS, though I'd add that doing perlin noise over a limited grid is a pretty limited subset of what Minecraft does.

Minecraft's terrain generator does a couple of passes (last I read about this, things may have changed) that generates cave systems, the surface level topography, forests, etc. [http://notch.tumblr.com/post/3746989361/terrain- generation-p...](http://notch.tumblr.com/post/3746989361/terrain-generation- part-1)

Still, definitely a cool project.

<comment><USER15> Yeah this is a very limited subset of what Minecraft does and arguably the implemented bits are the low hanging fruit. I wrote a "game" in my teens that covers this functionality, though in C++ not JS on a browser.

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> It makes me sad when cool things like this don't support keyboard layouts other than QWERTY

<comment><USER17> Someone who goes out of their way to learn other keyboard layouts should probably go the extra step in having a way to map keys for stuff like this.

<comment><USER18> This is a terribly ignorant statement. Plenty of people live outside of English-speaking countries where different keyboard layouts are used.

<comment><USER17> I apologize, the context made me think along the lines of Dvorak.

EDIT: Even so, most OSes now make it relatively easy to switch layouts based on country, so I feel as though my point still stands.

<comment><USER19> _"most OSes now make it relatively easy to switch layouts"_

The problem is that the physical layout is unchanged, so you need to memorize the keys...

<comment><USER20> If you have to look at your keyboard to write things that is unefficient anyway? I never look at my keyboard unless I have to type some weird character that is never normally used.

<comment><USER21> That's an extremely simplistic look at the problem. The issue isn't looking at the keyboard, it's the extra mental effort of doing the keymapping every time you run into a new application which has stupid defaults that don't take alternative layouts into account.

<comment><USER20> That is true. Wouldn't mapping specific keys (physical, on the keyboard) to actions/events better than mapping actions to the characters pressed? I thought that was how things worked now.

Nobody using Dvorak will want WASD as movement controls for a game for example, but they will most likely want to use the same keys, right?

<comment><USER22> The closest semantics I found were the location hints: [https://developer.mozilla.org/en/DOM/KeyboardEvent#Key_locat...](https://developer.mozilla.org/en/DOM/KeyboardEvent#Key_location_constants)

The problem is, only the keyboard hardware knows where the keys are physically located. The OS knows the layout and could probably expose the QWERTY- equivalent keys, which would be sufficient for not-too-exotic keyboards, but I don't know if that is available to applications in a way that is sufficiently portable for browsers to expose it.

Chromium seems to expose this to Pepper plugins; here is the bug for making it an experimental js api: <https://code.google.com/p/chromium/issues/detail?id=119362> Getting the lowlevel keycode is nonportable (I didn't find the implementation, but found switch cases and fallbacks if it doesn't exist). Conversion to a portable usb- hid-equivalent keycode is left as a stub in the patch that introduced the Pepper feature.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> I wonder if the author is wondering why there is a sudden influx of traffic after 6 months.

There is more interesting discussion on the ~7 months passed HN thread: <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3376620>

</comment><comment><USER24> Nice, but it seems to busy wait: my CPU is pegged at 50% even when I am not doing anything.

<comment><USER25> Last I looked, the vector math part of 3D wasn't handled by webGL, this uses Three.js to handle that, and looks to be the main bottleneck. Until you can do matrix/vector math using hardware, webGL is pretty much useless.

<comment><USER26> That is pretty much about right. I wrote a bit about the implementation[1], and the discussion went over how to optimize this (including, but not limited to, using shaders to do the drawing and not relying on Three.js so much).

[1] [http://metaphysicaldeveloper.wordpress.com/2011/12/20/implem...](http://metaphysicaldeveloper.wordpress.com/2011/12/20/implementing- minecraft-in-webgl/)

<comment><USER25> Would be interested if its worthwhile/possible using shaders as a wrapper for three.js. All I got when I was searching was there was a mozilla bug report and a hacked patch to expose SIMD through js[1], and a project to add SIMD support to vectors in Dart[2].

[1] <https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=644389>

[2] [http://www.altdevblogaday.com/2012/06/18/bringing-simd- accel...](http://www.altdevblogaday.com/2012/06/18/bringing-simd-accelerated- vector-math-to-the-web-through-dart/)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER27> Prior HN discussion on this topic: <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3376620>

</comment><comment><USER28> Does anyone know of a JavaScript (or CoffeeScript) library that will read the latest version of the Minecraft files? I wrote some JavaScript code that worked with the old version and then updated it for the version that came after that but haven't had time to get into the new version. Was thinking maybe someone already did it.

</comment><comment><USER29> I made something similar a while ago but more with a focus on the world gen and larger worlds than the crafting aspect. If someone wants to hack on it or look at code, be my guest: <https://github.com/mitsuhiko/webgl-meincraft>

</comment><comment><USER30> I wonder how this was created? (tools, libraries) Been thinking about learning WebGL for a while now.

<comment><USER31> <https://github.com/danielribeiro/WebGLCraft>

(not trying to be a dick, I mean, at least to your libraries and tools question: it is all there)

<comment><USER30> Yeah, for some reason every time I looked at it, it would have an error. Thanks though.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER32> There's a bug in this, on 2 adjacent sides you can walk one block further then you can create. The world isn't as big as it looks so this is easy to test.</comment>


Digital Signage: It's all around us [Infographic] - <AUTHOR> http://www.digitalsignagetoday.com/infographic.php?id=1 <comment><AUTHOR> The arrows through the graphic kind of remind me of Family Circus.</comment>


Chief of China's Stats Bureau Under Investigation - <AUTHOR> http://www.usnews.com/news/articles/2016-01-26/chief-of-chinas-stats-bureau-under-investigation <comment><USER2> If the allegations in the article are even close to being true this is huge, HUGE, and very bad news in terms of the potential impact on the global economy...

Rumors of an eventual and inevitable slow-down have been around for years; unsustainable growth, corrupt officials pocketing money from government- subsidized make-work projects throughout the country, etc...finding out that conditions might be much worse than outsiders have guessed would be disastrous for financial markets...

Will be interesting to see what develops, especially, in the unlikely event that Chinese officials publicly disclose results from the investigation...</comment>


Show HN: Android virtualization on ARM processors - <AUTHOR>

This is our MVP (took ~2 years to build): http://vimeo.com/21889466
We run virtualized instances of Android/Linux on multicore ARM processors.
I am the founder, 29, we are a small team. I would welcome any feedback, suggestions, improvements... A great help would be improving our plans on who to approach with this. There may be people/companies which we didn't think of.
I will be in Mountain View from 10th April onwards and happy to meet in person anyone interested in the technology. (also looking for housing in the MV area). <comment><AUTHOR> Clickable: <http://vimeo.com/21889466></comment>


MEAN's great, but then you grow up - <AUTHOR> https://rclayton.silvrback.com/means-great-but-then-you-grow-up <comment><USER2> >Express

> Limited extensibility, Eran felt strangled by the middleware (Connect) > implementation, particularly when he needed multiple components to > coordinate together [3].

I'm able to leverage the full power of javascript/node, which is fairly powerful.

> Poor isolation of the server from the business logic which prevented the > reuse of services for purposes like batching operations (you don't want to > have to go through the Express middleware chain for an internal request) > [3].

Yeah none of this makes sense. You're doing something wrong. Express doesn't limit you here.

> Code instead of configuration, Express emphasized using code (imperative > programming) instead using a more declarative model when wiring up > middleware and defining routes [3].

And code is in fact more configurable and extensible which negates the first point made.

>These developers tend to be spoiled with a wealth of tools like IDE's (with syntax highlighting and code completion), debuggers, VM monitoring tools, etc. Node.js does not have this sort of support.

Vim supports a lot of that.</comment>


Ask HN: How to get a programming job after a year away? - <AUTHOR>

I would like to take a year away from programming to write a book. It's sort of about programming, but not really. Is there a way that I can ensure that I can get another programming job when I'm done? <comment><USER2> I've taken a couple 2-year breaks from programming - once to start a company, and another time for personal reasons. Like you, I didn't not know how the time gap itself and the reasons for it would affect my conversations with potential employers. Well, turns out it's a non-issue. I've never had a conversation about it one way or another - every employer that I've talked to only cared about my skills. In particular, I had thought that being a former startup founder would raise some red flags (would she fit in at a "desk" job etc) but like I said, it's never even come up. That's one of the perks of being a programmer I guess - if you have the skills, you have the skills.

Just out of curiosity - what is your book about?

</comment><comment><USER3> I don't anticipate it being an issue at all. I've been involved in the hiring processes, and I don't care about gaps. What I care about is skill set and personality. It doesn't matter to me if you took 10 years off, if you had the skills and personality I wanted, I would hire you.

</comment><comment><USER4> you'll be fine. the underlying skills and abilities that make you good at coding won't disappear with disuse.

just be honest to future employers about what happened during that time, and if you feel its necessary, start doing some personal projects to ramp up your skillset again and have some recent coding experience/examples before you interview.

</comment><comment><USER5> If it gets published, you'll have no trouble at all. If not, say you were "traveling".

</comment><comment><USER6> Start an open source project related to the book.</comment>


Ask HN: Updating a Mid 2012 MacBook Pro OS X 10.8.5? - <AUTHOR> I'm interested in taking a Udacity course, but the technology course requirements state that the operating system for Macs should be OS X 10.11 and higher.
I was always content with leaving my MacBook Pro at OS X 10.8.5. I'm a little bit hesitant about what will happen with my machine after updating. Will it run a lot slower, or should I be fine? Also, should I update to OS X 10.11 or higher?
Thanks. <comment><USER2> I'm running Mojave (10.14) on an Early 2013 MacBook Pro, and it's seems to run just like when it was new. That said I do have the quad-core i7 model, so YMMV if you have a dual-core or i5 model.

<comment><AUTHOR> I should have mentioned that in my post. I have a dual-core i7 model.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> I have my 2012 macbook pro at 10.14 and it seems totally fine.</comment>


Ask HN: What was your first ramen profitable app? - <AUTHOR>

<comment><USER2> My first profitable app was a ruby/rack based CMS I built for my affiliate sites.

I had to make something ridiculously secure, simple to develop, easy to maintain and extremely fast - all while keeping uptime as near to 100% as possible. It ended up evolving into the product I use today across all my systems and gets better with each revision.

I consider it profitable as even though no one besides myself uses it, it has more than repaid the time I spent developing it and the sites it runs provide a large chunk of my company's revenue.

<comment><USER3> I'd like to ask you some questions in private. Can you share your email or if you got a minute, can you please email me?

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> A friend and I built a Facebook arcade app (similar to MindJolt) that paid well for a while (a few months) until Facebook made changes that reduced the virality of games.

</comment><comment><USER5> Mine is <http://www.zuupy.com>, an SaaS daily deal platform.</comment>


France uses emergency laws to place climate activists under house arrest - <AUTHOR> http://www.slate.com/blogs/the_slatest/2015/11/28/france_uses_emergency_laws_to_place_climate_activists_under_house_arrest.html <comment><USER2> And so it begins. Anything is justified thanks to terrorism.</comment>


Lessons from Inside Apple: Why Focus is Horrifyingly Scary - <AUTHOR> http://swaaanson.tumblr.com/post/25005539624/kindle-notes-inside-apple-by-adam-lashinsky

<comment><USER4> >"Arguments at Apple are personal and confrontational. This began at the top, and it is part of the company's culture."

That sounds like a terrible environment.

<comment><USER5> It's a terrible environment, but I bet being a supreme court Justice is also a terrible environment. It also brings out profound conclusions and vision.

When Apple says that battery-life is important in mobile devices, they _mean_ it. If Samsung says it, maybe a year later they will turn around and bring out an eight-core phone that you can play a game on for forty-five minutes before having to plug it in again.

Apple isn't just opinionated: it's opinionated on hugely difficult technical issues that don't even exist in the wild yet. (As when they release a new category.) You only get that through violent discourse with egos on the line.

edit: a similar thing happens at Google, but not when it comes to ergonomics or user interfaces and usability with the same hardware devices Apple makes, but instead when it comes to solving certain problems on a massive scale. The result is that Google can't really release a laptop that's as usable as a Macbook in the same domain, and for everyone, and Apple can't really solve the ops issues that it would take to bring out a Google Search competitor. There is huge amount of discourse (of a radically different nature) at both companies.

<comment><USER6> > When Apple says that battery-life is important in mobile devices, they mean > it

No, they don't. They mean battery life is important in mobile devices as long as it doesn't get in the way of making them thin (among other things). After all, the modern smartphone with the best battery life is the Droid RAZR MAXX (soon to be dethroned by its international sibling the Motorola RAZR MAXX, which doesn't have the battery-life handicap of an LTE radio).

<comment><USER5> Apple would never release a laptop with a 1.5 hour battery (wifi web browsing). an unimaginable number of such laptops are brought out by every major brand _other_ than Apple.

(likewise apple has its standards in a phone, which is not the standard you cite, but not 45 minutes either.).

Apple is opinionated on every part of the user interface and design, on usability and ease-of-use. They then go on to put their money where their mouth is, and practice what they preach. (For the most part.)

It's very hard to find design decisions at Apple that seem to have 0 thought or discussion behind them. This is the norm at other companies.

<comment><USER7> The 1.5 hour battery laptop serves (for me) an important niche. You see, I don't actually need a laptop. I need a portable desktop with built in battery backup, which is what the 1.5 hour battery laptop is.

Of course, it's entirely within Apple's prerogative to ignore that very niche market (I would if I were them) and it seems to be working well for them, but every odd ball computer configuration you see was created to meet the needs of at least one market. You are not the target market for the desktop replacement laptop. I am.

<comment><USER8> In college I loved my desktop replacement. This was before wifi was campus- wide, so bringing my laptop to class didn't give me much more benefit than bringing a pad of paper, so the laptop stayed firmly put on my desk all semester. What was really important to me was being able to haul my computer out of the dorm in one trip. A desktop would require multiple trips and would need to be shut down to move (the laptop lasted and hour on battery and 5 hours in sleep mode). A desktop replacement offers almost all the benefits of a desktop, but with a built-in UPS and a one-piece form factor.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> "High-performance teams should be at each other's throats" is how one person with relationships with multiple Apple executives summarized the culture. "You don't get to the right trade-off without each person advocating aggressively for his position."

How ironic -- when I was at Apple in the 90s, our meetings were scattered creampuff things and this is how I imagined Microsoft would be. Now that I'm at Microsoft it's the other way around . . . :-)

<comment><USER10> it's interesting how company cultures evolve. i work for google and have a friend at microsoft, and remarked to him once that our team meetings tend to have the underlying theme of "how can we make the user go 'whoa! they did that?!'". he noted that his team meetings tended to be more along the lines of "how can we crush the competition" (not in a monopolistic sense, just a very competitive view of technology). he actually felt that that constant sense of competition made microsoft a more interesting place to work at than google, whereas i really love how google wants to get things _right_ rather than just better than anyone else (that's a side effect). both of us agreed that we would never work at apple, but i can see people of the right temperament thriving in that culture of obsessive secrecy and constant urgency.

<comment><USER11> Not working on Android or G+. I infer.

Not fixing that typo, because my Android keyboard is insurmountably glitch.

<comment><USER10> no, working on search. i agree the android and g+ teams have a somewhat different focus, if only because they're attacking entrenched market leaders rather than getting to lead the market.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> At my last company we had one project everyone knew was in crisis, but it was 'strategic' and mandated from on high. At one meeting the product manager wanted to focus us on the highest priority issues - it turned out to be a list of more than 10 poorly defined issues. Great job, great people, but management wanted everything and they wanted it now.

Nine months later and I've just finished my probation period at a small, scrappy startup with a very specific market niche. Focus is really hard and it has to be driven by leadership from the top.

<comment><USER13> My guess is that when things really get critical it is easier for some people not ot focus on them. And not because focus is scary but what you will see when you focus is.

These are the moments where you see if your management consists of (war) leaders or administrators. I say leader for lack of a better word for it. What I have seen is that there are some people that are really good in tough, critical situations and others in the routine day-to-day situations. It's more than just rare that you have both abilities in one person.

Maybe that's why some tribal culture have different leaders for war and peace time.

<comment><USER14> Yes, the military does this too. It is called situational leadership.

</comment></comment></comment><comment> brown9-2 I hope people don't read things like this as advice for things they could recreate at their own companies. There are lots of others way to be successful without being outright mean or vindictive.

<comment><USER15> I honestly am surprised that there are so many intelligent people who are willing to put up with this sort of environment. I really like Apple products but I'd be out the door in a flat second if I was working there and experienced the kind of culture described. Life is too short.

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> "Focus is scary. It means not hedging your bets. It means going all-in. If you're not scared, you're not focused."

<comment><USER17> Ribbonfarm has an excellent set of articles on the real world dynamics of organisations (starting with the sociopath/clueless/loser categorisation) but also introduces various kinds of "language" used:

[http://www.ribbonfarm.com/2009/11/11/the-gervais- principle-i...](http://www.ribbonfarm.com/2009/11/11/the-gervais-principle-ii- posturetalk-powertalk-babytalk-and-gametalk/)

"If you're not scared, you're not focused" sounds like "Babytalk" - <USER2> language that sociopaths and losers use to speak to the clueless - <USER3> actually take these statements at face value.

<comment><USER18> Part I of the series: [http://www.ribbonfarm.com/2009/10/07/the-gervais- principle-o...](http://www.ribbonfarm.com/2009/10/07/the-gervais-principle-or- the-office-according-to-the-office/)

It's a great, intriguing read - certainly one that was genuinely new and unexpected to me.

<comment><USER13> I finished to read the whole series so far. And it#s just plain impressive! While you can certainly argue some of its points, you can witness most of the points in real live.

Funny to classify co-wokers and bosses accordingly. or not so fun, that depends... :-)

Certainly one of the best reads on organizational psychology I know.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> Sounds like a massive exercise in ball waving ego' nonsense, I am pretty sure this is not how real progress is made... It's not as if anything Apple did was truly original (suit on), they are great finishers but I believe true innovation comes from co-operation.

<comment><USER20> I fail to see how turning around a company from nearly bankruptcy to the largest in the industry isn't progress.

<comment><USER19> I meant progress as in 'the idea that the world can become increasingly better in terms of science, technology, modernization, liberty, democracy, quality of life, etc.'

<comment><USER21> As a matter of interest; what do you think the phone market would look like today if the iPhone hadn't come out. And what about the iTunes Store? Do you think you'd be able to buy a single track from album, yet?

<comment><USER8> Thought: what would we _gain_ from a phone market without the iPhone? You'd be able to buy a phone with a stylus if you wanted (some people do want one) and a phone you can use with gloves or wet hands. Keyboards would be more common (rather than being a very small niche). There might be more mainstream hardware variety, rather than flagship phones all looking exactly alike. We might have seen true pocket computers (this is the road Palm and Windows Mobile were going down) instead of pocket _devices_. We might not have a concept of "jailbreaking", because smartphones prior to the iPhone were generally not restricted so.

As for the iTunes store, ever heard of Rhapsody? It launched in 2001. iTunes store was launched in 2003.

<comment><USER18> Wonderful reply. Apple won the smartphone market, and certainly raised overall ease-of-use standards in the market, but that doesn't mean that smartphones would have been objectively worse otherwise - just different, possibly better or worse. We would possibly have much more freedom in terms of app stores.

The fact that Apple stamped its mark on the global phone market and is making huge profits is absolutely not an inherent reason to be thankful for them. They won most of the market and now enjoy a massive network effect advantage (larger market => more developers developing for iOS => improved and cheaper app offerings => larger market); why respect them for doing the equivalent of what Facebook did in the social networking arena (make the most popular UX in the market)?

To be sure, a few companies deserve actual respect - for me, those are the companies that treat their customers well, are highly socially responsible, encourage openness, and play fair with all. Even better if they go beyond immediate profit goals to genuinely drive innovation. Most companies just want to make a buck by winning the market - nothing wrong with that, but that doesn't inherently deserve respect.

<comment><USER22> Before the iPhone, the smartphone was still a very niche device though. The closest thing to mainstream is the BlackBerry, but it was mostly used for texting and email. There was already a marketplace, but the user experience was horrible. The web was barely usable. Thing is, everything has been in that state for quite a while. The smartphone market had a chance to evolve, but it wasn't really going anywhere.

<comment><USER8> So we went from having a very low end computer in our pocket in a market that appealed to the people who really needed a smartphone to having a powerful toy of questionable real value to the original smartphone audience.

I'm not saying the iPhone didn't change the market. I _am_ saying I don't believe it changed it for the better, where "better" means improved for the original smartphone owners. Look at the casualties from the iPhone: Blackberry, Windows Mobile, Palm, Nokia. 4 devices made for business, durable and professional.

Has there been any more substantial advancement in the smartphone market in the 6 years the iPhone has been on the market than in the 7 years between Windows Mobile and the release of the iPhone? Sure the iPhone changed the market... half a decade ago. And ever since, all its influence has brought us is more of the same.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> Gosh, some websites still have not realized that they can have mobile visitors.

<comment><USER24> Dude it works fine on mobile. It's a Tumblr page.

</comment></comment><comment><USER25> I heard Adam Lashinsky speak on a recent Stanford Uni podcast. Pretty remarkable insights on Apple and Steve Jobs. Jobs turned the place into a pretty unique organisation.

Podcast: <http://ecorner.stanford.edu/authorMaterialInfo.html?mid=2931></comment>