Your job is not to tell us how to do our job - a-ghost-fart http://www.privatepaste.com/580c63478e

<comment><AUTHOR> _Does 2% of our user base use IE8 on Windows XP and the expected revenue from those sources is less than the cost of supporting that platform? Then I'm sorry, but they can fuck right off. That's not worth the time it takes to support._

That decision is absolutely _not_ the place of the developer. Failing to support a particularly market segment has implications far broader than simply the bottom line dollar value of each user. Even if those users bring in _zero revenue_ it can still be worthwhile developing the code base so that they're supported. This sort of thing is an example of something that you, as a developer, simply aren't equipped with the necessary information or knowledge to make decisions about on your own - it _has_ to be a collective decision informed by developers, marketers, product managers, and C-level managers.

A trivial example - the decision whether or not to go with a single page Javascript application design versus rendering pages on the server can be influenced by user demographics but have a _massive_ impact on _everything_ in the business from hardware costs to how you integrate payment reporting in to the workflow of the business.

Any developer who puts their needs in supporting particular users over the requirements of the company as a whole, frankly, probably ought to be shown the door. They don't understand how the whole business process works and they will almost certainly screw up something really important later.

<comment><USER2> The view that developers are just coders to implement business requirements shall simply follow instructions/specifications is dangerous. The attitude of "my way or highway" is absurd if you really understand how organization/team works. It's your job, as a project manager, to not only provide material supports for your engineers to do their work, but also translate business logic into clear, acceptable, feasible and inspirational vision to your dev team. Engineers, on average, are smart and reasonable people. It's your personal failure being unable to convince engineers on "why" questions (e.g. why support IE8 on XP).

btw, 90% of business fail. it means 90%+ of the so called "business requirements" are just bs. it doesn't hurt to explain your business to your engineers. Can you sell your ideas to team? if you can't, it's a bigger problem than couple of _naughty_ engineers.

Edit: delete the last line considered offensive.

<comment><USER3> The parent poster said nothing deserving of this rebuttal.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> "That's not worth the time it takes to support."

THIS is wrong. What missing is the dialog behind what determines what is or isn't "worth the time". If you're paid to dig ditches and you don't like digging ditches... well, perhaps you should get the fuck out of the hole and get some other job.

Realize, it's all about communication and that goes both ways. That it's tedious to support something is irrelevant if the target market requires it. That YOU don't like it, well, get out of that ditch. FAR too many "developers" fail to make this point effectively. Yes, at a certain point there's a diminishing amount of return. But not without actually having that discussed in language that ALL parties involved understand. THIS is often a LOT more tedious that the software support, at least for a lot of "developers". Yet failing to do this leads them precisely into the proverbial ditch.

</comment><comment><USER5> The author of this article does himself a poor service by exposing the limits of his knowledge and his unwillingness to learn from others.

Being a good coder is really nice, and you earn loads of cookie points with your team members and even some of your managers, I'm sure, but a valuable engineer (the kind who is trusted to make decisions about products) is one who understands how the scope of his activities affects the product perception for the clients and, ultimately, the bottom line for the company.

Want an example or two? Sure. 1) If 2% of your users represent ~20% of your revenue their concerns and requirements will be prioritized accordingly.

2) If you need to know a specific set of information that you don't have access to at any time, ask for it. If such information is not available, raise that concern and work with your team and the product manager to make a judgment call.

<comment> a-ghost-fart I'm not entirely sure what point you're trying to make here.

If you're insinuating that I don't think of the wider business value or the business as a whole then that is just false and what I have written is not meant to be interpreted as such.

Also your examples seem to be non-sequiturs, neither are relevant to the point I've made.

<comment><USER5> There's always a rift between what one means for other people to understand and what they actually do. Case in point, I thought I had made a clear statement that I thought your post was disingenuous and immature and did you a disservice by casting you as more of a coder than a valuable engineer.

I'm not saying I'm right and you are wrong, I just made a reflection of how you came across. Was that clearer now?

As for my points being non-sequiturs, I'll admit that I fail to see _any_ point in your post other than you don't know what a product manager _is_ and you feel attacked somehow, so there's a fair chance you are right.

<comment> a-ghost-fart It's a direct response to the original post, visit the link at the start. The point is answering the points raised in that product owner's post.

My point is that product owners should stop telling developers how to do their job, especially when the "advice" they offer is without value at best, and at worst insulting.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> I find both of these to be a little counter-productive. As it is, the tone of both of these posts just serves to alienate people from one another and to harden the lines in the sand by straight-up dropping anti-tank fortifications on them.

My answer to the original post would be this:

"" Some of the problems you are seeing sound fascinating and i have never ever seen them in any team i worked with. I would love to hear more about them. Some of the other problems you mentioned I have seen crop up, usually only when there has been a disconnect in communication between developers and managers.

This is an opportunity for both of us to learn some things, if we engaged in a dialogue on the matter.

You have chosen to post on two platforms where no useful manner of dialogue is offered, so it would need to happen elsewhere. If you're up for it, what would your preferred platform be? ""

</comment><comment><USER7> As a SW Engineer recently turned Project Manager, I find the original post of the "Product Manager" patronising, ignorant and offensive.

It seems to say "Your job is not to code, your job is to code and in addition to do my own job as well".

Technical/funcional requirements to satisfy, platforms supported, how to carry out changes made over the production environment, should be all decisions made by the product manager in agreement with sales, his boss, and of course the development team itself, to ensure that they are feasible.

If he has not the necessary technical knowledge or he cannot be bothered to take these decisions himself, he has no place as a product manager.

</comment><comment><USER8> > My job is to deliver robust solutions for the target users in the quickest > time possible, and if that means dropping support for a barely used browser > or something that's not financially viable, then I will argue tooth and nail > to drop it.

Eh. I am a SW engineer and guess I can't be the only one to be happy whenever I don't have to decide the cutoff point for web browsers.

I can be opinionated on this and other points yes, but I strongly disagree with the tone of the post.

</comment><comment><USER9> Response to a post from a _product_ manager is addressed to _project_ manager O_o

<comment> a-ghost-fart I realised this after the fact then thought, hey, my bugbears with project / product managers are fairly interchangeable.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> I was very surprised to learn that "focussed" seems to be a correct spelling/variation of "focused".

<comment> a-ghost-fart British English, innit. :)

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> Who else thought of this line in Fight Club?

"You are not your job, you're not how much money you have in the bank. You are not the car you drive. You're not the contents of your wallet. You are not your fucking khakis. You are all singing, all dancing crap of the world."</comment>


Too Lazy To Count Calories? Now You Can Just Take A Picture Of Your Meal - <AUTHOR> http://www.mobilecrunch.com/2011/04/05/too-lazy-to-count-calories-now-you-can-just-take-a-picture-of-your-meal/

<comment><USER2> This is OT, but I have a couple tips that can help people who are counting calories.

1\. You don't have to be exact on any given meal. It's OK to make errors that will be canceled out by other errors.

For instance, if you buy a can of soup, and it says it contains 2 servings of 200 calories each, and you are going to have half for lunch today and half for lunch tomorrow, you do not need to carefully measure out exactly 1/2 of the soup. Just eyeball it and count it as 200. You'll be off today, but you'll be off tomorrow in the opposite direction by the same amount.

2\. Once you've got into reasonably good eating habits, consider tracking calories by weeks or even months, rather than days. For instance, instead of aiming for about 2400 calories/day, aim for 16800 per week, or 73048 per month. (This works best if you are single, or at least if you can keep your food separate from that of other people).

If you do that, you can switch to accounting for your calories when you buy them, rather than when you consume them. For example, if you buy a carton of milk (8 servings x 160 calories/serving), just record it as 1280 calories.

3\. If you are trying to lose weight and you intend to remain at your new weight once you reach it you need to change habits. If you go on a diet, reach your goal, and go back to your old eating habits, you will go back to your old weight.

When you start begin by eating just like you normally eat but track everything for a couple weeks. You'll probably find some things that surprise you there. (My biggest surprise was just how many calories were in a #2 from Burger King).

You'll probably find several places where you can make an _easy_ adjustment and knock a lot of calories off. E.g., if you get lunch every day at fast food joints, you might find that you can downsize one item each day (single burger instead of double, regular fries instead of large, medium soda instead of large) and not notice any reduction in your satisfaction with the meal, but you'll save a ton of calories.

Once you have an understanding of where your calories are coming from, you can then slowly work on changing habits. The key is to go slowly. Make a change, become used to it, let your body recalibrate to where that is what it considers normal, and then make the next change.

<comment><USER3> One thing I was astounded at was when I counted calories (instead of of the weird food change diets like atkins/southbeach that I've done before) how MUCH I could still eat.

I started nutrisystem (which sells you a bunch of shelf stable, high protein, low calorie food to add to all your meals for the month for about 240). While I still feel like I'm constantly eating (all good diets seem to have this), I am astounded how much food ( in a good way ) 2000 calories is.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> The ranges are way to wide for this to be anything but a toy. 150-614 calories for a handful of cashews? That's a difference of nearly 25% of a 2000 calorie diet, that's very significant, to the point of it being useless.

</comment><comment><USER5> I had an idea of something exactly like this a few years ago.

I wonder if it just calculates calories or if it can calculate carbs too? My brother is diabetic and I can see this being extremely helpful for anyone needing to calculate their insulin.

<comment><USER6> In theory, if it could identify the food & quantity, it should be able to produce every useful food statistic. From daily nutrition, to calories, to a map showing which regions of the earth commonly grow the fruit and vegetables in it.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> According to the screen shot of the app, I am probably better off eating a chocolate bar than a handful of cashews.

I'm no nutritionist but that doesn't seem quite right.

<comment><USER3> Fat is incredibly calorie dense. Nuts have tons of fat. If you're trying to lose weight (which is the primary reason people look at calories), chocolate is often a better addition from a pure calorie standpoint.

Nuts have the added advantage of helping with curbing hunger, but if hunger is already under control chocolate can do quite nicely.

<comment><USER8> I would imagine that by chocolate you mean some 70% cocoa chocolate with minimal sugar, not a king size snickers or similar?

<comment><USER3> A snickers bar is not chocolate. It has chocolate as an ingrediant in it, but it is mostly nuts with other items.

I do mean, chocolate, or that stuff Hershey's calls Chocolate even.

Gross fact: Inside of oreos: Crisco and Confectioner's sugar.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> if the developers are reading this: integrate this with fitbit.com's api and you'll get a bunch of new users.

i've seen a lot of fitbit users asking for a way to scan barcodes to track calories on the site, but being able to take a picture of the actual food would be pretty neat.

<http://www.fitbit.com/forums/forum/4NSMKM6MNV3M6>

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> I think this is a really clever idea and would be massively successful IF it worked well.

My questions is: How accurate could this ever possibly be? The ranges in the screenshot are far too wide to be very helpful (150-614 calories). For the people I know who count calories, that's not going to cut it.

Still, love the idea.

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> It's really interesting to me that comment count > vote count for this story. Haven't seen that before here.

</comment><comment><USER10> Just what dieters need: a calorie count estimate with no significant digits!</comment>


Ask HN: Reasonable to ask for signup before Demo? - <AUTHOR> I'm being asked to sign up for a service before being shown a demo, this is kind of weird right? <comment><USER2> Don't do it. Send them an email telling them why you didn't sign up.</comment>


Trending at Instagram - <AUTHOR> http://instagram-engineering.tumblr.com/post/122961624217/trending-at-instagram

<comment><USER3> Differentiation between popularity and novelty? What a succinct explanation. Incidentally Twitter originally used popularity, but switched to novelty[1] because Justin Bieber regularly dominated the trending tweets list.

[1][http://mashable.com/2010/05/14/twitter-improves-trending- top...](http://mashable.com/2010/05/14/twitter-improves-trending-topic- algorithm-bye-bye-bieber/)

</comment><comment><USER4> Surprisingly, I've applied most of the mentioned algorithms on real world data while working on some side projects. Realized that even big organizations use fundamental Machine Learning algorithms to get their tasks done. This feels quite reassuring as you don't need a MS/PhD to solve such complex/interesting problems.

</comment><comment><USER5> Very interesting read, I wonder if Twitter does it in a similar way.

Anyone who knows where to learn more about the system design they use, with the pre-processor, parser, scorer, and ranker?

How do these interact? What's the respective input and output?

Links to some similar system with more in-depth on this area would be appreciated.

<comment><USER6> I would imagine its all closed source.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> Nice. I learned a ton with this. Definitely adding the various types of calculations to my reading list. I haven't googled for this yet, but is there an open source hashtag trends detector around? If not, would be pretty cool to use the teachings of this post to build one.

</comment><comment><USER8> This was quite good.

Interesting that most hashtags don't get more than 3 posts per hour - <USER2> breakdown would be a good graph to see! It's also curious that they don't apply some type of seasonal decomposition to the timeseries data; though perhaps that that makes sense with Instagram's particular data.

<comment><USER9> Google [zipfian], and I bet that's what the distribution looks like...

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> This is an awesome post! I really appreciate the level of detail they go into.

Also, I found a typo:

> ... to requests comping from the app

(I think that should be 'coming from the app')

</comment><comment><USER11> I couldn't help but notice S(h, t). Never the less it was a very good article.

<comment><USER12> I agree.

"Every few minutes, a line with the current value for S(h, t) is emitted."

Hard to believe the author didn't notice this...

Maybe just some humor for the trending classification overview?

<comment><USER13> I doubt it was done deliberately to be funny - using S for Score, h for Hashtag and t for time are about as standard as you could get.

<comment><USER12> True. I guess it's just coincidental humor for some readers.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Hacker News clone in 24 bytes - <AUTHOR> http://news.ycumbinator.com/

<comment><USER2> Am I missing something? All I get is "Unknown or expired link." when I open the link.

On a side note, sounds dirty.

<comment><USER3> I believe it's satirising the HN error message, m'lud.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> I clicked, I wondered, I laughed. Well done!

</comment><comment><USER5> This is brilliant and long overdue. :)

</comment><comment><USER3> Far too deterministic.</comment>


Fast Runner - Military Robotic Biped - <AUTHOR> http://www.ihmc.us/groups/fastrunner/

<comment><AUTHOR> Posted this partly because of the source code/simulator available [http://www.ihmc.us/groups/fastrunner/wiki/1793c/FastRunner_S...](http://www.ihmc.us/groups/fastrunner/wiki/1793c/FastRunner_Source_Code.html)</comment>


Live code music in GLSL shaders (Chrome & FF only) - <AUTHOR> https://fms-cat.com/wavenerd/ <comment><AUTHOR> It's amazing how untapped this field is. I know there's a certain cost when transferring audio data to GPU and back from it to CPU, but I can imagine particularly detail reverbs implemented on GPUs.</comment>


"Was just subjected to the most credible phishing attempt I've had to date." - <AUTHOR> https://twitter.com/DigitalLawyer/status/1181348689756864513 <comment><USER2> I don't get it. How did they get access to his other transaction data when all they'd done was trigger a password reset request?

<comment><USER3> they used the "Verification pin" to reset his password, then they logged into his account and could read the transaction data. they couldn't transfer funds tho because the account has a PIN.

<comment><USER2> Oh good point.</comment></comment></comment>


Ask HN: Newly Remote Workers – Where Are You Moving? - temp_-_ If you're in the fortunate position during this time to be both employed and able to move to another location--whether permanently or temporarily--I'm curious to learn where you may be planning to move and what factors are influencing this decision.<p>Stated more broadly to those who may not fall in this bucket: if location did not affect your career prospects and/or economic wellbeing, where would you move and why? <comment><AUTHOR> For me, this is the number one reason that I work remote. Here was my thought process:

\- Identify the thing you really want to do most in life.

\- Find the place in the world where you can do that the best.

\- Find a house there.

For me, as a rock climber, that meant moving to a little village near Fontainebleau, France, where they keep the best Bouldering in the world.

For you, it might mean finding the best concentration of snowboarding, a really good surf break that somehow has affordable houses near it (which probably means Puerto Rico, from my research), a cheapish southwestern Austin'y town with a good music scene, or if you're lucky in choosing your hobbies, a beautiful, unknown trout stream way up in the hills.

It could also turn out that the place you want to be is "The Road". There's something to be said for flying one-way to a strange corner of the world, and slowly making your way through it while working from the laptop (3G is ubiquitous nearly everywhere you'd expect it wouldn't exist). You might need to choose your spot carefully this year in particular, but this was what I did for 10 years or so before settling on that house.

The important thing is that it's actually somewhere you'd rather be spending your time, so make sure you really know what it is that you want out of life. Because if there's no reason to be near an office, it only makes sense to be near something better.

<comment><USER2> But what if the place you really want to be is... wait for it... the office. I get that's not a popular choice, but there's few things I love more than going to work. I know, I'm in a niche, but it's a thing. I am a passionate workaholic, I can do a lot of it from home, but I do my best work in the office with others and, damn, do I miss it.

<comment><USER3> That's fine, just dont expect everyone else to change their lifestyle to accommodate you.

<comment><USER4> This is a delicious reversal of common wisdom :)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Chattanooga most likely. My company is doing 85% base salary with no adjustment to RSUs. Tennessee is a great place to save money due to 1) no state income tax, 2) no capital gains taxes, and 3) low cost of living. I estimate I'll be able to save ~$100k more per year than I currently am in the Bay Area. Plus Chattanooga is known for having some of the fastest internet in the country, rolled out by the city a few years ago. Signal Mountain has great schools for when my kids are older, and it doesn't hurt that it's a naturally beautiful place as well ([https://i.pinimg.com/originals/66/c2/24/66c22405229f125fea23...](https://i.pinimg.com/originals/66/c2/24/66c22405229f125fea23b1769c855c11.jpg)).

I'd really like to move to Asheville or Charleston, but the taxes make it a bit too much of a premium over Chattanooga.

<comment><USER6> Chattanooga and EPB (our aforementioned fast internet) are both pretty awesome. I see a definite uptick in people from out of state moving here over the past 6 months, which is stretching the area's housing supply. We also had a tornado come through in April and damage or destroy several hundred homes. So if you do end up moving here, just beware the housing market is a little hectic at the moment.

<comment><USER5> I'm sorry to hear about the tornado. That's devastating. I hope the repair efforts are going well.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> We tried to move to Santa Cruz. My significant other grew up near there and desperately wants to be near her friends again. Turns out, all the Bay Area peeps wanted to do the same. Rents haven't gone down there and the competition is really fierce. ("Honey, what if you got a job at Looker/Google?! We could be in Santa Cruz forever!!!")

Started thinking about moving to Denver...

But, I don't really want to move yet. See - the thing is - I'm in the Bay Area because I want to make it. I came here because I needed /a/ job. Then I got sucked in and decided I wanted /the/ job. I want to get the big $$$ and be able to afford that nice house in Los Gatos with a 911 in my driveway. Doesn't mean I would pull the trigger if I had the money - I won't know until I'm there. But moving away - well, it means that's definitely never going to happen. I'm not ready to accept that level of failure yet. After all, I'm not even 30 yet. I got a few days left. Tick. Tock. Tick. Tock.

<comment><USER8> What's "the" job? Are we talking founder or corporate ladder? How much does this dream house cost?

<comment><USER9> Pretty sure the writer's being sarcastic.

<comment><USER7> There's comedic embellishments in there but it's all painfully true...

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> I'm not newly remote as I made the move a little over 3 years ago. That said, I moved to Northern Georgia specifically to work remotely. I have an incredible (inexpensive) house that gets fiber internet, live in an inexpensive area, have luxuries pretty close (Apple store, Wholefoods, Tesla, etc), 45 min south of the mountains, live just off a lake and I'm only an hour outside of Atlanta.

There are very few places in the country that can give me all of these things I want at a bargain value. Even though I'm 100% remote, I always have Atlanta to fall back on if remote work dries up. I can't stress how important that peace of mind is (pun intended). I've lived and worked in the Pacific Northwest and just couldn't make it work financially.

<comment><USER11> It took me up to Wholefoods to realize you're talking about the US state & not the country of Georgia :)

<comment><USER10> I have family in tech that live in Serbia so I probably should have known better.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> Moved to Reno, NV. Already sold all my property in the bay area and went back to renting. No state income tax in NV! and we have lake tahoe close by. I sold my property because I'm figuring that the bay area is going to be less appealing from a property investment stand point, so I cashed out while prices are still high.

I honestly don't see companies going back to in-office stuff, at least not as much as it was in the past. I could see meetings and stuff like that being in- person. My company has already basically transitioned to 100% online and our productivity has increased overall so no way we are going back to in-office working exclusively.

<comment><USER13> What are you going to do if your company makes an adjusted cost of living to your compensation? My company is already advising people to come back near our address due to tax reasons.

<comment><USER14> If you get a cost of living adjustment, you still live in a place with much lower cost of living which gives you way more flexibility.

If 50% of income goes to rent, you burn right through your savings if you want some time off.

<comment><USER15> Or, you change jobs :)

<comment><USER16> I would file my resignation immediately if my employer tried to do "regional" pay. An employee is worth what they are worth, locale shouldn't effect that.

<comment><USER14> What's your definition of 'worth' though. Dev salaries are way inflated in very specific regions due to high demand and low supply. If location becomes less important, salaries will normalize... which means down if you're from the Bay area.

<comment><USER16> I'm all for normalizing pay, then all the talent won't go to the Bay, stack cash, then move back to middle America? Worth it determined by the market, of course.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> I moved to suburbs in a mountain state. In a few years may move to a rural area if gigabit is available.

Most people have ZERO idea what this country is, how vast and unpopulated it is. You can have a mountain to yourself in many areas. The west is essentially empty. You can have 360 mountain views in a beautiful agricultural valley. You can live on a uninhabited part of a lake or river. You can live in an area that looks like a national park. Just need stable power, water, and internet which is/will be easy with solar and sat internet.

<comment><USER18> What do you do for groceries / food? Are there any restaurants near by? Any problems with online deliveries?

<comment><USER17> I don't live rural yet, but I would just drive to the grocery. I would say most people living rural live close to a highway. If it is interstate you will be going 85 MPH, so even if the nearest grocery is 50 miles away it is 30 minutes away. I would probably buy $200-300 of groceries at a time. Rural places are usually going to have a large freezer, backup generator, fuel supply. Rural areas are probably not going to have many restaurants, but if you are in a resort/vacation area such as around a national park like Yellowstone there are going to be more restaurants. People I have known had no problem with online deliveries if they are within a certain range of a town, say 10 miles. I will probably deliver to an Amazon locker or UPS store and pick whatever it is up there.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> Not moving at all because I'm remote temporarily and I'll likely have to move back to a big city in a few months.

Another thing to consider is that if you're young and don't have a family yet, moving to a remote location where you'll be completely alone just so you can pay less for rent seems kind of dumb.

Yet another thing - nobody's job is all that secure right now. Even if attitudes towards remote work have changed, a big city is still your best chance of finding work. So if you're laid off in near the future, living in the middle of nowhere will only make things worse.

<comment><USER20> > moving to a remote location where you'll be completely alone just so you can > pay less for rent seems kind of dumb.

I'm sorry but this just strikes me as an extremely black-and-white view of the world. I for one moved to a village after college, work remotely for about 10y, and couldn't be happier. I have a decent sized house, my backyard is the start of a small forest, and I'm in a city in about 1h of traveling.

To each their own, I guess, but I can equally make a case why moving to a city to pay high rent prices seems kind of dumb.

<comment><USER19> > but I can equally make a case why moving to a city to pay high rent prices > seems kind of dumb.

No one moves to a city to pay high rent prices. The higher rent is a tradeoff that you make for certain benefits of living in a big city (which may or may not be worth it for each individual). My point was that when you move to a remote location purely for the lower cost (which people do), you're making another set of tradeoffs that are often ignored.

<comment><USER21> It seems the people making out most are the ones moving back in with their parents. Rent free and social interaction.

<comment><USER22> I don't think social interaction with parents is what young people are after.

<comment><USER23> Social interaction outside one's household is banned and will remain banned for a long time. You could meet people illicitly but I'd expect a selection bias against conscientiousness in the pool of people up for meeting strangers right now. That doesn't bode well for stable relationships.

<comment><USER22> What area are you in where you're not allowed to meet your friends? It's not banned where I am. You're just supposed to wear a mask and maintain distance.

<comment><USER23> San Francisco. Some outdoors activities are permitted if you wear a mask and maintain distance from other groups, but within your group it's only supposed to be members of your own household.

Obviously no one is going to check whether a couple is actually cohabitating or whether a group of friends are actually roommates. Compliance is low. But that's why this mess is dragging on forever.

<comment><USER22> There are health officials (I don't know what to call them) going around Mission Dolores Park handing out masks to groups sitting together that don't cohabitate. Banned implies they would have park rangers instead going around issuing tickets like they do for having glass, etc.

While I agree that lackadaisical response is making this drag on, I don't think San Francisco contributes much to that.

<comment><USER23> The public health order says "recreating only with people in the same household" [0]. I have seen similar signage for outdoor dining

Prioritizing harm reduction interventions (e.g. handing out masks) over punitive enforcement (e.g. tickets) is more of a general San Francisco policy. Still illegal.

[0] [http://sfrecpark.org/AlertCenter.aspx?AID=June-1-Health- Orde...](http://sfrecpark.org/AlertCenter.aspx?AID=June-1-Health-Order- Facemasks-Required-N-21)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> You would have to be insane to move because you've recently been given remote work privileges, especially in the middle of a recession caused by an ongoing pandemic.

Companies provide remote work options all the time and once you move they ask you to come back into the office out of the blue thenlay remote workers off if they cant come back into the office.

The other thing you need to keep in mind is a lot of the places you want to live have people who don't want you living there. If they find out you work remote and don't need anyone they will start screwing around with your life.

If you move and work remote be extremely careful, dont assume you're welcome anywhere in the countrh a lot of places are filled with backwards luddites who hate anyone in STEM fields. Yes, this is a real thing.

<comment><USER25> > If they find out you work remote and don't need anyone they will start > screwing around with your life.

I've lived in po-dunk farmlands in flyover states and actual swamp towns of 900 residents during my time as a remote software developer, and have never experienced any of this. I don't understand why it would ever come up. Can you elaborate?

<comment><USER26> If you start a trend and the cost of living goes up, it will cause some tension.

<comment><USER24> Exactly, a lot of people move into small towns and then unintentionally create tension with locals because they have purchasing power that is 3 to 20x anyone in the surrounding area. Most people don't factor in envy when they move someplace.

<comment><USER27> They also don't realize there could be some cultural differences and push for changes that the original people don't want.

<comment><USER28> It's common sense but spending time listening and learning before spouting opinions will probably help smooth relationships with the locals.

<comment><USER27> Absolutely.

On a side note, I have a neighbor that decided to run for local office the first year he moved to our town. I found it interesting that someone would want to run for office before getting to know the people, not to mention that's a pretty quick time to form opinions about the town's politicians to the point of wanting to take their office. I guess it doesn't matter since he wasn't elected.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER29> Either coastal Carolinas or Hawaii. We like living near the ocean and access to good outdoors activities on land. Coastal Carolinas is much more affordable than Hawaii and more access to certain outdoor activities (hunting and freshwater fishing). Also not as isolated as Hawaii.

But Hawaii looks incredible. I hope to visit them both and make a decision when more things are open in both places to get a feel for them.

I think both are probably close to tech wastelands so will need to have employment that allows remote from those states to do it.

<comment><USER30> I live in Hawaii. I've found that even though most companies are used to working across Pacific through Eastern time zones, they still want me to be online earlier, even though they don't expect someone in California to be online for an East coast morning. It feels unfair.

And you're right, it's definitely a tech wasteland here. And the predominant culture of locals and hippies is anti-intellectual. But it's great to live near the ocean, hiking trails and one of the safest places in the US (if you're not directly in Honolulu)

<comment><USER31> Are you on the Hawaii Slack? [https://www.hawaiislack.com/](https://www.hawaiislack.com/)

It's a small community but not totally a wasteland

<comment><USER30> Thanks I didn't know about that!

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Left my $500k TC job because my remote offer got rescinded _mid-move_ when a new VP abruptly took over our BU. He didn't "believe" in colocated teams. This was right before COVID hit and everyone was forced remote. Wish I could laugh in his face over the fact that the pandemic doesn't give a shit about his opinion on remote workers.

<comment><USER32> I'm so sorry that happened, were you able to find something else in that range quickly?

</comment></comment><comment><USER33> Staying in Brooklyn, but without a commute. New York is still a nice place to live, and rent prices seem to have come down 10-20%.

Let's see how things are looking come winter though. Could be pretty grim without bars/restaurants to go to.

<comment><USER34> In Brooklyn too and this summer's been great. Don't have to take the subway. All the bars and restaurants have patios, and my friends and I can get together for hikes and BBQs every weekend. However, I'm worried the QoL is gonna tank once the weather stops being so nice because I every one of these pandemic-resistant activies is weather-dependent

<comment><USER35> Wow - are we living in the same borough? Brooklyn has been a nightmare for me. It's gone downhill fast in my area - horrifyingly dirty streets and sidewalks, junkies laying around everywhere, there's even a pile of stolen belts being watched over by homeless people on my corner. This is in an area where a 3BR apt is at least $3k/month.

I can't wait to get out. Been here ten years, working remotely for the past five. Can't really justify it anymore unless things improve quickly. Got randomly assaulted outside my own building a few weeks back - the guy didn't even try to take anything. Just punched me in the face five times and ran off. I went through a similar wave in the late 80s as a kid, I don't like the looks of all this.

It may get bad for you quickly as well. Consider being ready with a plan B.

<comment><USER36> What do you think the reason is? I assumed this would happen.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> We're now selling almost everything we own on the East coast. We're planning a six month stop in Austin, TX, on our way to our final destination: Yucatán, Mexico.

The financial leverage of USD is great there, and the last few years have led me to believe I'm not a good culture-fit in the US.

<comment><USER30> That's very interesting. What made you choose Yucatán specifically in comparison to other parts of Mexico or Central/South America?

<comment><USER25> My partner has family in the area, and the infrastructure (ISPs, city-wide wifi, power grid) is supposedly some of the best in Mexico (which would probably make it on-par or better to where I currently sit.)

Tourist and expat investments have brought money to the area, and the city we're headed to is considered notably safe for North America generally, let alone Mexico.

<comment><USER37> Do you have any concerns about Crime and corruption on the rise in Mexico?

<comment><USER25> Not really.

<comment><USER38> Doesn't the Yucatan have a similar topography to Florida? Are you concerned at all about sea level rise?

[https://ss2.climatecentral.org/#7/18.579/-91.967?show=satell...](https://ss2.climatecentral.org/#7/18.579/-91.967?show=satellite&projections=0-K14_RCP85-SLR&level=5&unit=feet&pois=hide)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER39> Newly remote here. I'm a "Sr. BI Programmer Analyst" working in Walnut Creek, CA paying about $2,700/month for an apartment. I plan to move to Pittsburgh, PA and move in with my little brother into his newly purchased house where I'll make more money due to much lower state income tax and rent that will fairly be about a third of what I pay now.

The motivating factors for me are money and family (though I would argue that my brother more importantly means friendship to me).

<comment><USER22> 4.5-6% (depends whether you're within city limits or not) flat tax between state and local is not much different than CA's progressive (but stupid high) tax, especially for incomes in the low hundreds.

</comment></comment><comment><USER40> Was working in Toronto, covid19 happened, moved back to Montreal, and work agreed I could permanently stay there even after covid19.

</comment><comment><USER41> I bought a boat and made the driving license right when the lockdown started in March. Put solar panels up, big batteries and a 4G hotspot. Been living on the boat ever since. Best decision ever.

<comment><USER42> How cool!

Would you mind sharing your experience with 4G connectivity? Where do you get service? Is it good enough for video conferencing?

<comment><USER41> Yes, completely. Running on a t-mobile world flat. None of the people I talk to has any clue where I am. I tend to not show video.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER43> I was already remote, but I'm moving from Seattle to Denver.

Combination of family and a more favorable climate. The somewhat lower cost of living doesn't hurt, but it's not like Denver is _cheap_.

<comment><USER44> What about the climate in Denver is better than Seattle? Less rain, or at least rain less often? (Not saying you're wrong, I just wonder.)

<comment><USER45> The best summer in north west is in Seattle.

<comment><USER46> hence why they all vacation in Vancouver, BC, right? ;)

<comment><USER16> Lived here my whole life, don't know anyone who goes to Van for the summer. Must be a new thing?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER47> I work at a non-profit and all back-end office workers are going to be WFH for the foreseeable future.

My MIL has been living on her own for a while now, so my wife and I will be moving in with her to help her out, be close to family, and save $.

My quick estimate is that it'll save us ~24K/year. I used to be able to justify rent and other expenses but it's never seemed dumber to me. If/when we move back to the city where I work, we will do so when we can buy a house/condo.

We will use this saved money to pay off debt, save, and help out our family.

P.S. I should clarify that we are moving from a large city to a very small town in a nearby state where COL is significantly lower.

</comment><comment><USER48> I'm surprised no one has mentioned Phoenix yet. Folks are definitely flooding in that's for sure. Housing prices were already climbing for years but now they're rocketing. Maricopa County is the fastest growing in the US.

<comment><USER49> Phoenix is great for about six months of the year, but man is it hot in the summer. It is a dry heat, yes, but 115 is 115, humid or not.

<comment><USER48> I think it's great 8ish+ months! Very hot right now but it's what kept things great. But I think more people are starting to trade bitter cold Minnesota winters for hot summers. It's also a quick hop back to California when needed.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER50> I live on an island on the coast of Norway. It's kinda weird with all the bird life and postcard-like views. Also, there is a family of grouses (is this the right word?) living in the bushes outside!

A little bit lonely, too. But, the cities are too expensive and everything is so compressed. Maybe if I could afford an actual house in a city that would be OK.

</comment><comment><USER51> Company offered permanent remote work, thought through career trade offs and whether we wanted to stay in the Bay Area forever.

Picked suburbs between Denver and Boulder. Good tech jobs, similar sunshine and outdoor activities as the Bay Area (but with snow also! we'll see how that goes), affordable housing and better COL.

<comment><USER52> Welcome to Westminster?

</comment></comment><comment><USER37> No where. My company came out with remote pay tiers and it's much more lucrative for me to stay put. They say there is a potential savings by moving away to lower CoL but I can actually save more absolute $ per month by living here. I'll move away _after_ I've stashed some money.

If location did not affect my career I probably would move around a lot. (Sans covid19) I'd like to go to Mexico, Italy, SE Asia ... many places in the US too.

</comment><comment><USER53> I work remotely and have done so for a couple of years. Recently moved to the country side of Sweden. I have fiber connection, cheap housing and lots, and lots of space.

It affects my well being in a very positive way. I can walk my dogs without breathing in polluted air. I sleep great since it's very silent and get to do other stuff than just sit by the computer.

</comment><comment><USER54> Nevada. No state taxes. Friendly gun laws. Less BS.

Also - companies that are doing salary "adjustments" because employee wants to move to another location needs to be publicly shamed.

</comment><comment><USER55> Temporarily moved from Seattle to Camano Island, abt 60 miles N of Seattle. Telecommute from my office with a picnic table and a wrought iron chair under a soccer shelter served by an indoor access point sheltered under a green plastic bucket. Walks on the beach instead of another cup of coffee. Heaven to me!

</comment><comment><USER56> If I could, I would move to Medellín, Colombia. It's beautiful modern city with friendly people and there seems to be a lot of digital nomads there to connect with.

And since I would only get to stay 180 days per year in Colombia, I would probably spend a few months in Costa Rica and in the Peruvian Amazon.

</comment><comment><USER57> Florida or TX, no state tax and relatively warm weather than NY where I stay now.

<comment><USER58> There might not be any state tax, but the property taxes are nuts.

<comment><USER59> 15k a year for me. Approx 7.5 to the various Governments and the other half to schools. Those 5 million $$$ sports complexes and artificial turf football fields at the middle school (Grade 5-8) aren't going to build themselves....

Meanwhile they can't create a decent online curriculum so kids can learn from home.

It's a joke. Teachers and the School Districts get whatever they ask for because voters are too stupid to figure out what it costs them. I guy I work with doesn't even know how much he pays in tax every year since it is in escrow with his mortgage payment. He just votes yes because it's for the kids you know.....

<comment><USER60> Not looking forward to the dystopian future when the econ theory of "price discrimination" is adopted by state and local governments, and they target people who pay property taxes through an escrow account. Once the mortgage is paid off just bump up the property tax to match the amount of the previous monthly mortgage payment and see who notices. Instead of a 30 year mortgage, it can be called in infinite mortgage at which point 99% of people will all effectively be renters

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER42> Las Vegas, Nevada!

\- super cheap cost-of-living

\- no state income taxes

\- cheapest flights in the US

\- no natural disasters

\- close to Los Angeles (where all my friends/family live)

\- no grafitti or litter in most places

\- reasonable traffic

\- plenty of things to do (shows, Red Rock, conferences)

\- friends from across the US will visit once or twice per year

\- lots of open space

\---

But I guess the REAL reason I moved is because I wanted a chance to reinvent myself. My friends weren't helping me grow, I developed some terrible habits, I felt "trapped", etc.. Changing cities gives me another chance to be intentional about my time, career, and relationships.

\---

If there are any other current/future Vegas locals out there, I'd love to meet you! Feel free to reach out with an email or DM.

<comment><USER61> I just dropped my group of friends of 25 years because all they talk about is going out drinking. Even the one that just bought a house, is married, has small child and another one on the way. All they want is to hanh out drinking beers. like multiple times a week. That shit ain't normal lol. And I agree, Vegas ticks all the boxes.

</comment></comment><comment><USER62> I moved back to Austin, Texas when this all started. Family, breakfast tacos and more living space were all factors.

<comment><USER63> I moved out of Austin, Texas because it's pretty awful on rent these days... $2100 for a 1 BR in the Domain... oof.

I mostly lived around the city center in a house until the high rise condo developers came.

<comment><USER64> Fucking hell, I grew up in NW Hills, are those garbage Domain Apts really $2100 for a 1Br? That's absolutely bonkers!

I like visiting Austin, but after spending time in Boston and NYC Austin is flat out boring and self-centered.

It pains me, but for the past 2-3yrs I candidly refer to my home-town as quote "a shittier less cool version of LA that somehow manages to try harder".

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER65> Staying in Bay Area for now. If I move away, I am concerned that my career progression will stagnate - not just at my current company, but also the opportunities that would be available if I decided to switch companies.

My plan is to work here for a few more years. If the trend continues and remote working proves itself, we are dreaming about moving to Asheville NC. Cheaper CoL, beautiful scenery, and a microbrew scene that is awesome. Also close-ish to Charlotte if you want to go to a "big city" for the day

<comment><USER66> Same here. Staying in NYC to have access to headquarters and better tech opportunities. If remote continues after Covid passes, the Research Triangle sounds fun.

<comment><USER67> I've been working in the RTP area for a few years now. There are decent tech opportunities, relative to the lower COL. However I got bored of the area pretty quickly - my goal is to move somewhere closer to outdoor recreation like AVL.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER68> If it were just me and I could go anywhere:

In US, I would get somewhere with a lot of land. Montana, ND, Wyoming, something like that.

Outside US, Probably Norway for a while. Would also love to try out New Zeland or SE Asia.

<comment><USER69> Montana, ND and Wyoming are pretty seriously different than Norway or New Zealand.

<comment><USER68> If I am staying in the US, want somewhere with a lot of land and outdoors. With a real winter. And affordable prices so that's just geographically what fits the bill. Norway is for family history, and New Zealand is probably mostly appealing because of how well they have handled the current situation.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER70> Probably Porto, Portugal.

</comment><comment><USER71> I just drove home from cleaning out my office. I'm now officially remote. I don't plan to move. I live in Washington DC, and I found a job that would let me stay here after graduation. The rise of remote work opens up more job opportunities for me, but I'm staying here.

</comment><comment><USER72> Coolangatta, Queensland - Australia. World famous surf spots + easy going lifestyle + affordable real estate by the beach.

<comment><USER73> Didn't expect to read this in this thread. I was there yesterday! Are you from Australia? Why not Gold Coast further north?

<comment><USER72> Born in Brazil, settled in Australia. Coolangatta is a suburb from Gold Coast, but it does feel like another city. Just a different vibe, feels like a smaller town, with all the perks of having everything close enough. I lived in Sydney for five years and moved here a month ago.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER74> I'm not newly remote but have been remote since pre-COVID in San Antonio, Texas.

Relative to the Bay Area and other major Texas cities, it has a really low cost of living. We also have great parks, great food, less traffic than Austin, and it's only about 2 and a half hours from the beach. In non-COVID times the social life is pretty great too.

There aren't a lot of tech companies, but there are enough jobs for me not to worry if for some reason I couldn't do fully remote in the future.

It's generally just a laid back place to be, and I enjoy living in a place where the cost of living is low enough that people in a variety of non- corporate careers can do pretty well.

The only downside for me is the brutal heat, but you kind of get used to it.

<comment><USER75> I've been in San Antonio for the past 5 years and love it, even the heat. I actually got a job in NYC and was planning to move up, but my first day was the day they started wfh.

</comment></comment><comment><USER76> I was on Bali when it all started and I am still here :)

Indonesian government allowed to stay everyone until the end of the pandemic even though the country is closed.

</comment><comment><USER77> Saugerties, NY (already moved). Close enough to Boston, NYC, Philly to make day trips if necessary. Cut cost of living by 50% over where I was. Employer has cut 75% of office space in NYC already, holding onto remainder as hot desk space.

<comment><USER78> I'm jealous. My in-laws live in Woodstock and I love visiting that part of NY, especially when it's not Winter.

<comment><USER77> It's not too bad most winters, just either have 4WD or pick a place with minimal hills / decent plowing.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER79> I am not who you are asking about because I went almost completely remote like ten years ago.

I am from San Diego. It took me awhile but I eventually got the courage and circumstances to move to Tijuana a few years ago. I couldn't really afford to stay in the US anyway unless I got a different job.

Its a tiny startup and very low pay but I have plenty of energy on the weekends etc. for my own projects and it's low stress. Also have the ocean a block away and convenience store downstairs and very low rent.

If I had a real salary I would probably move back to the US though. Somewhere that they don't turn the water off multiple times during the summer.

</comment><comment><USER80> I started working remote 2 years ago. Last year I moved to the Greater Sacramento area. I grew up in the bay area and worked in SF tech cos for 10+ years before this, so I still have lots of friends and family in the bay. Sacramento is a great balance between moving away to somewhere with more space, less crowd, less expensive, and still being close enough to drive to see friends and family. COVID happened soon after I moved and sheltering in place here is much easier than the bay given that outdoors/parks etc. have so much less crowd.

</comment><comment><USER81> Dallas. Have friends there, wife went to college there. I'm in the PNW right now, and I'm not really that confident that this area will manage the recession very well. Plus home prices in Texas are way more reasonable (and logical, imo), and no state income tax as well. Have talked to a realtor, but kind of hard to actually see something in the current environment. If I was to pick my dream house and location it would be a ranch in South Dakota or something.

</comment><comment><USER82> Montana would be nice however my company refuses to announce any firm dates on when we possibly might need to return to the office which makes signing a lease troublesome

<comment><USER83> Bozeman is great if you can make it happen.

<comment><USER82> Only a matter of time :) Thanks for the tip, it's exactly where we're thinking!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER84> Hawaii if flying didn't feel risky(virus) and logistics were easier. The 2 week quarantine makes a hard move harder. I'm not sure I actually want to be in a hotel. I am "settling" lol for Santa Cruz. I really thought I wanted to live in so cal for awhile too but watching the reactions to blm and covid makes me second guess that. Actually made me really unsure where I might want to live. Also thought about Florida in the future.

<comment><USER85> Isn't Florida, in most places, worse than SoCal in terms of response to BLM and Covid?

<comment><USER86> Your definition of "worse" may be other peoples' definition of "better".

<comment><USER60> but based on tayo42's initial comment they'd probably regard FL on the "worse" end of the spectrum. It's fair to say much of Florida is Orange County, CA on steroids (with all of the rage and none of the potential covid prevention benefits)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER87> I moved to a different part of SF. Around the same price for rent, bigger space (I have a home office now!), and it's not the TL. :) I'll have added ~15min to my commute when we go back in, but the other benefits are worth it - especially the home office, it's good to be able to separate my work space from my relaxation space. I don't want to move extra times, and I'd rather just lock in the ideal place now.

</comment><comment><USER88> No where. My partner's job only extends her remoteness every 3 months and has made it clear that there will be no full time remote available post covid.

I honestly would not be surprised if they do layoffs at the end of the year. I'd flip out though. Ideally, we'd like to move to Austin to save $2k per month on rent and 13% of our salaries on state income tax.

</comment><comment><USER89> To be honest, I'd like to move back to Europe from SF. The time difference probably makes it a bit tricky to get the Silicon Valley money from there though. If I had to move somewhere else in the States, I might go to San Diego or Denver. Living in the middle of nowhere just for the money doesn't sound too enticing.

</comment><comment><USER90> [https://nomadlist.com/](https://nomadlist.com/) is a good resource.

</comment><comment><USER46> Vancouver BC.

3/4 of the Engineers on my team have moved to the 'west end' neighborhood in the last couple years. And i'm now the 4th. Incredible nature w/ healthily- managed high population density & safety. And it's incredible being in close proximity with your team (e.g. hike/ski-meetings)

</comment><comment><USER91> Sad irony that Thailand is definitely an amazing place to relocate, but also it's currently not letting anyone in

<comment><USER92> That's more of a coincidence than irony.

But as I've said in other threads where this comes up: Working from Thailand _legally_ is not the easiest thing in the world, and doing it long term is even harder.

</comment></comment><comment><USER93> Think about America's heartland... Montana comes to mind, after two straight months of detailed R&D I think I put together a solid picture that make it very clear why it called America's Heartland, its perfect.. check it out search sidneymontanapropertyforsale.com ... #sidneymontanapropertyforsale

</comment><comment><USER94> Big White mountain village in B.C., after my work confirmed I could continue to work remotely permanently.

</comment><comment><USER95> Based on a lot of responses here, Santa Cruz seems really popular.:) I bet surfer dudes are getting a little nervous. I actually moved from a SF to a East Bay suburb in the Bay Area, and bought home on a 0.5 acre land. Great school, only 25 mins to SF, and all the nature

<comment><USER96> which suburb?

<comment><USER95> Lafayette

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER97> I work in Paris where i can't really do what I enjoy the most in life : surfing and skateboarding.

My future plan is to identify a place where I can find good dev projects, next to skateparks and surf areas.

Any recommendations are welcome !

<comment><USER98> Les Landes?

</comment></comment><comment><USER99> I started off in Austin, TX but took a job just outside of Los Angeles about 6 years ago. When the pandemic hit I couldn't move back to Austin fast enough! CA just wasn't for me...

</comment><comment><USER100> Ukraine or Colombia until Summer 2021, if I can't find a good deal in So Cal.

<comment><USER101> What are your requirements? Any chance of staying in the US?

<comment><USER100> Honestly just hooked on dating foreign women and want to pay $1400 for a 2 bedroom space in a quiet decent neighborhood. Born and raised in So Cal, but feel less connected and tired of the high cost of living here. Maybe if I had a fiancé that was willing to run the race with me, but I can't seem to connect to local women anymore after being international the last 6 years.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER102> Nowhere, my friends all live here and I like the town I live in.

</comment><comment> blaser-waffle Montana, probably one of the bigger cities or nearby. Already in the region, but would like to be closer to the mountains.

</comment><comment> throwaway-blr Haven't moved yet but I am planning. Hopefully somewhere warm where the cold/moisture/pollen triggered allergies don't have me pinned for months every year.

I am in Bangalore so I guess I'd be Hyderabad or Chennai. On the plus side I will also get rid of atrocious rents and traffic of Bangalore.

1-2 year plan also involves exploring options outside India. Somewhere where if something like COVID-19 hits again I won't need a politician's phone call, or a powerful bureaucrat relative's clout to get even a test done (though I've neither), let alone a hospital bed. Yeah, it's that bad here.

Maybe years/months later when real numbers come out (if it happens) the world will see on what scale it was going on in India. Is there a word for this - something like a genocide but not really genocide in literal sense?

[NSFW/L] [https://www.thenewsminute.com/article/andhra-pradesh- shocker...](https://www.thenewsminute.com/article/andhra-pradesh-shocker-dogs- found-chewing-covid-19-patient-s-corpse-hospital-130587)

</comment><comment><USER103> Moving to Santa Cruz temporarily!

</comment><comment><USER104> North.

</comment><comment><USER105> Ask HN: Newly remote workers... Are you so dumb as to make two major life changes at once?

<comment><USER105> Ask HN: Newly remote workers... Do you work an 8 hour day and give the same effort 5 days a week, or do you lack discipline and are going on a spending spree... Hopefully you don't have a family

<comment><USER106> I'm sure you're trying to make a point but it's pretty well hidden under a mountain of what I assume is supposed to be sarcasm.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER107> If by February there isn't a vaccine or I don't have a physical office I'll be moving back to Texas and live with my parents.

It's 100% worth the money IMO, however, I've also strongly considered New Hampshire, Utah or Nevada.

</comment><comment><USER108> nowhere, i like it here.

and maybe the market will normalize enough for me to be able to buy in!</comment>


Ask HN: selling a web site - <AUTHOR>

Can the HN crowd give some advice on selling a web site - where to sell it, how to prepare etc. I have a site with no traffic but a great idea, I just have no time to market it.<p>I tried searching HN but the most recent ask's I could find were 3 years old. <comment><USER2> Flippa.com is probably the best place to sell. Check out the other listings there to get an idea of how to "market" it...

<comment><USER3> I'll agree, Flippa is pretty popular. I follow it rather closely, so I see a lot of things that make sites sell better or worse. Most of all, you can really affect how much your auction brings in with the description you use for your site. It takes a bit to make your site stand out among all of the crappy autoblogs and such on flippa. Spend a few hours describing your site well.

There are other places, like ebay or digital point. They're OK, too.

Or, work on a private sale. Approach a competitor or customer or someone you know who may want the business.

Finally, you can drop me an email with some numbers about revenue, growth, technology, prospects, and such. I'll probably make you a fair offer.

Good luck!

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> No traffic? No revenue? Is it a good domain? Or some sort of application?

<comment><AUTHOR> It is a subscription based app - castmyclips.com, but I have a couple more that are similar - good idea (I think) but very low traffic. The domain names are just ok though - nothing great.</comment></comment>


Python Machine Learning - <AUTHOR> https://www.packtpub.com/big-data-and-business-intelligence/python-machine-learning <comment><USER2> I bought this book awhile ago and I can't recommend it enough. My machine learning club will go though this starting in January.

Is this part of a Christmas season special, or do they regularly do giveaways? And do they send emails about the free book of the day?

<comment><USER3> They give away one book per day. They don't send an email, but I have a script that scrape their site and send myself an email. I'm happy to add to a mailing list if there's interest.

<comment><USER4> A site that's pretty good at that is Change Detection [1]. You even get daily emails and change logs for free.

[1]: [https://www.changedetection.com/](https://www.changedetection.com/)

<comment><USER5> Thanks for the tip. I just implemented it and it said 44 other people are monitoring that page haha.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Upcoming AMA with the author on 12/10/16:

[https://datahack.analyticsvidhya.com/contest/ama-with- sebast...](https://datahack.analyticsvidhya.com/contest/ama-with-sebastian- raschka/)

</comment><comment><USER7> I recently bought this book because I found Andrew Ng's course to be a bit too theoretical and mathematical. I quickly found out that this book is VERY math heavy as well though.

Does anyone have any resources to get into ML without having to understand a lot of maths? I just want to understand the concepts, the pros/cons of the different algorithms, and how to use them with some common libraries/services that exist today (TensorFlow?).

</comment><comment><USER8> Funny, Just discovered and bought it yesterday :-) Seems like a very good book just by glancing at contents as well as the way the material is presented and taught. Noticed the Amazon reviews are also very good.

<comment><USER6> Me too. :)

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> Are there any prerequisites one should have before attempting to read this book? I have no experience with ML but I am interested in learning.

<comment><USER10> I would recommend knowledge in Python. If you don't know Python prior to reading this book, then you won't learn it here.

The Linear Algebra presented in the book is easy, but if you aren't familiar with Linear algebra then it would be a benefit to learn some basics before reading.

Familiarity with mathematical notation and mathematical reasoning is also a must. If you don't have a basic understanding of being able to follow mathematical arguments, then some side comments (that aren't explicitly stated) may seem mysterious to you.

This book is very suitable for someone with a background in Python and basic Linear Algebra/mathematical reasoning knowledge.

The point of this book is to understand the math/algorithms and not treat the algorithms as blackbox solutions. You'll learn about processing your data, dimension reductions, etc., etc.

You may have to do some outside studying depending on your background, but the author provides those resources for you in the text. Overall this is a very good book and the author did a good job at writing it.

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> Why just limit one book a day? You are giving the book away for free, give all. I missed the python book.</comment>


Ask HN: Make makes nginx so fast ? - <AUTHOR>

I'm currently developping a network service and would like to know what makes nginx so fast ? Is there a document (whitepaper) describing its working principle ? <comment><USER2> <http://www.kegel.com/c10k.html>

<comment><AUTHOR> Excellent reference. State Threads looks very attractive.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> It's an "event based" server written in C, meaning that it uses select or poll or some other 'event based' mechanism to do its work.

Erlang might be an interesting choice for your network service, as it allows you to write this sort of code very naturally. It depends on what you're doing, though... Python has some frameworks that work this way, although none so smoothly as what Erlang gives you. Tcl has also had this capability in its core for years, although, like Python, you have to be careful about writing 'blocking' code, something that you don't have to worry about so much in Erlang.

<comment><AUTHOR> The network service I'm developing is CORBA/ICE/RMI/... like. The difficulty is the request processing, not the I/O. I assume nginx may benefit from the fact that the different requests it has to process are predefined and limited in number.

<comment><USER3> Yeah, being fast is really easy if all you do is spit out files. When you actually have to do processing, things get a bit more difficult, and a system like Erlang becomes more compelling.

It all depends on what sort of compromises you want to make in terms of speed, ease of programming, and the expected amount of traffic, though.

<comment><AUTHOR> I'm not sure about Erlang. I don't know this language and the protocol I designed uses binary encoding. Support of JS and python is planned, especially on the client side, but come with a performance overhead which is not very attractive when it comes to service performance.

<comment><USER3> Using a language you know is probably a good idea: better to get something up and running and worry about making it blazingly fast when you know you need to. Erlang handles binary data quite well, but if you don't know it, you don't know it.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Yes, being event based helps a lot, but the reason nginx is faster than other event based webservers is that it tries very very hard to add as little overhead as possible; For example not copying memory around unless absolutely neccessary.

<comment><USER5> (expanding on this) nginx uses a buffer-chain architecture internally. This means that if your data comes in chunks when you read it in (remember, nginx is event based) then it's stored internally in fragments that correspond to those reads. Almost all the operations on it work on those chains so often times the data never has to be copied until it's written (I believe using iovectors) back out. Memory is managed in request pools which minimize memory fragmentation, and are just faster/safer than calling malloc/free directly.</comment></comment>


Confrontation With TSA Agent Leaves Grandpa's Ashes On Floor - <AUTHOR> http://www.theindychannel.com/news/31224633/detail.html

<comment><USER2> flagged

</comment><comment><USER3> WTF does this have to do with hacking?

<comment><USER4> I suppose it is somewhat related to physical security and the general mistrust of TSA agents by some HN readers. I agree with you though - not quite HN worthy.</comment></comment>


A CEO's Sequoia Meeting Notes - <AUTHOR> http://blog.weatherby.net/2008/10/a-ceos-sequoia.html

<comment><USER2> There are bigger things in the global economy than the opinions of Sequoia. This may not be very popular to say here. It is likely companies like Sequoia got burned worse than many other businesses. Money that funds them comes from investments like the stock market which has lost ~ 2 trillion dollars in value in the last few months. On top of that the last thing most big companies are thinking about are acquisitions - let alone IPOs. I understand their pessimism but I don't think it necessarily applies to the whole economy over the next 15 years.

<comment><USER3> I was wondering if I were the only one that wasn't terribly concerned. Certain assets that were overvalued are readjusting to a reasonable valuation. Even the stock market's average P/E could look reasonable again. We'll have a short period of slow growth in economic aggregate statistics, then the singularity will hit and we'll do just fine.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> _We are in the beginning of a long cycle, what we call a "Secular Bear Market." This could be a 15 year problem._

Really grim news if it turns out to be true.

<comment><USER5> Here's some great reading for those who might be tempted to believe the doombaya message.

[http://www.cnn.com/2008/POLITICS/10/09/eichengreen.depressio...](http://www.cnn.com/2008/POLITICS/10/09/eichengreen.depression/index.html)

Excerpt:

 _Barry Eichengreen is George C. Pardee and Helen N. Pardee Professor of Economics and Political Science at the University of California, Berkeley._

 _Every time the economy and stock market turn down, financial historians get predictable calls from reporters._

 _Could this be the start of another Great Depression? Could "it" possibly happen again? My stock answer has always been no._

 _The Great Depression resulted from a series of economic and financial shocks -- the end of a housing bubble in 1926 and the end of a high-tech bubble in 1929 -- but also from truly breathtaking neglect and incompetence on the part of policymakers._

 _It couldn't happen again precisely because policymakers know this history. Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke is a student of the Great Depression. Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson remembers the mistakes of Andrew Mellon, Herbert Hoover's treasury secretary._

<comment><USER6> This is flawed logic, which goes like:

"The biggest economic problem we know about is the Great Depression. Policymakers know how to deal with that; therefore we are fine."

Maybe the new global economy contains challenges which current policymakers _don't_ know how to deal with. And if these challenges aren't met, we might end up with Great Depression _effects_ , due to a different set of initial causes.

Or, maybe everything will settle down in a week or two.

<comment><USER7> Insightful. "Fighting the last war" is one of the more popular ways for generals to utterly fail.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> _Operations review: Engineering: Since you already have a product, strongly consider reducing the number of engineers that you have._

:(

<comment><USER9> This bit of "advice" soured the whole thing for me -- a shining example of MBA wisdom.

To be fair, maybe the advice was mis-communicated, or maybe the speaker was talking about VC-funded monoliths who had grown too quickly (and hired poorly), but it seems kind of foolish to fire engineers at a tech company, just because you think you "already have a product".

<comment><USER10> I'd say follow it if you hired quick/not-solid engineers in a quick bid for growth.

But you should fight _very hard_ to keep talented/experienced engineers around and happy. They very much could become your strategic advantage while everyone is cutting things!

<comment><USER11> Agreed. Much like the stock market crash has led me to start thinking about bargain hunting, and to move some of my capital into stocks, I'm viewing this advice as a sign that I'll be able to hire great engineers at a good rate in the not too distant future, as competitors without our profitability run into problems and begin to extend their runway by reducing their headcount (and since they've "already got a product", they don't need those pesky engineers any more).

Then again, I believe that a team of three great engineers lightly managed by another engineer (with some management skills) can outproduce a dozen or more mediocre developers managed by an MBA, so I've always planned for our company to produce more code in less time and for less money than our competitors.

<comment><USER12> "Then again, I believe that a team of three great engineers lightly managed by another engineer (with some management skills) can outproduce a dozen or more mediocre developers managed by an MBA, so I've always planned for our company to produce more code in less time and for less money than our competitors."

\--- I fully agree with this. Best managers are the ones that are really strong technically, and that still do some/little coding. They know exactly what's going on, and reward competence over arse-kissing.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> The whole "forget growth and get to positive cash flow" push sounds a lot like the 37signals business plan.

<comment><USER14> No, sounds a lot like 'fundamental business logic'. Nothing 37signals does is new to the traditional business world (just VC funded 'exit strategy' startup minded folks)

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> The speakers at that meeting don't need to worry about survival. They're probably all ultra high net-worth individuals. It's the CEOs who they want to make tough choices and live tough. In the end, the downturn just has status and reputation implications for these partners, and making sure they feel the pain of (or with) their comrades, or at least appear that way, like they are here.

</comment><comment><USER16> I just sent these notes to many of my founder friends. Please do the same. I don't think I'd ever bet against Sequoia.

Even if they're wrong, most of what they said is a good practice regardless of economic state.

<comment><USER17> That's not true ... if you define 'good' as what will lead to maximum growth then you would not want to follow these survival tactics in 'good times'

<comment><USER16> That's why I said "most".

Focusing on profitability, becoming cash flow positive, trimming fat & reducing overhead are good practices always. Some of the other ones, especially if you're trying to attract and retain talent, are not.

You'd think this would be common sense, but based on how many companies are run, it's not.

<comment><USER18> I don't think that focusing on profitability is always a good idea. If you extend the argument to what you work on personally, then there's no way to ever start a product company, or a new line. And in the last bust, Google didn't focus on profitability until much of the storm had already passed. They're doing fine now.

The difference was that they had time. Lots of runway. We might very well not, and the goal is to extend that runway.

<comment><USER16> I wasn't talking about what I or anyone works on personally; I was talking about Companies.

Google is the exception, not the rule.

<comment><USER17> Statistically speaking, most startups ventured have a poor chance of being a Google, but must dollars earned have a good chance of being a Google's.

Don't discount their type of business strategy just because it doesn't suit your personal risk preference.

<comment><USER16> I'm trying to understand what you're saying.

 _"but must dollars earned have a good chance of being a Google's"_

Are you saying that the few companies "make" the portfolio (i.e. the anomalies and hits carry the return) or? If so, I agree, but the hits aren't all run like Google.

My personal risk preferences have nothing to do with this argument.

<comment><USER17> Just to set things straight, you are suggesting companies shouldn't start like Google where they are focused on a technology that has no obvious way to make money (at the time). You agree the high growth long term strategy has its place, but claim companies should not just start down their runway before making sure there is even a profit to be made there.

I was talking past you because in my mind I wasn't seeing a distinction between having a long term, high growth business and being unsure of how to monetize.

While your stance is prudent, most of the greatest tech company success stories of this decade were from companies that didn't know (for certain) how to monetize, because they were so far into uncharted territory. And even though there are only a few of those companies, they seem to be earning most of the money between companies started in this decade. So being more focused on technology than profitability is a valid business strategy, as long as you have runway. That's what I'm saying, and what I think you disagree with.

<comment><USER16> Thanks for putting everything in one paragraph.

 _"So being more focused on technology than profitability is a valid business strategy, as long as you have runway."_

Yes, I agree with this. Which is why I don't really have a problem with companies like Twitter (you can debate the technical merits, but it's certainly _different_ ). They've kept their team lean and haven't taken gobs of money right away and all at once like some of these other startups

My comments were more aimed at investors & companies that spend money just to spend money on either me-too ideas (e.g. many many ad networks, social networks) or overcapitalizing companies that aren't ready for it. They and their brethren aren't investing in the development of cutting edge technology at all, they're doing something because everyone else is.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> This whole line of thinking is great for companies as a whole. If it forces more companies to be more responsible and efficient with capital, I don't see a problem.

<comment><USER5> Some of it is good thinking for any startup or small company -- it's so easy to be lulled into parting with cash unnecessarily.

But the full recipe seems like it's designed for stasis, not growth.

<comment><USER20> Absolutely. My deal was going along pretty well until all this crap made the investors look like a herd of spooked wildebeests.

My deal includes a mix of startup and acquisition (with cash flow). The M&A investors I've worked with are hardly vision-oriented, and their schemes are just variations on the house-flipping theme. So guts and vision are just not part of their makeup or mission. Their latest analogy is the ship dropping anchor and waiting for the fog to pass, but this sounds more to me like they think they're in quicksand and just don't want to move for fear of sinking more.

There will be a "Next Big Thing," but this current crop of investors (if exemplified by who I've worked with) will not be a part of it.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> It makes sense. The credit markets are imploding so it's going to be harder to borrow. Basically you need to survive by not borrowing, so get cash flow positive.

I think this crash is analogous to the long depression:

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Long_Depression>

But I doubt it will take as long to recover as it did in 1873.

<comment><USER22> Yep, finding a business model that generates revenue quickly seems to be the emphasis across the board. The get users, find cash later, models of the past are certainly out for the most part as long as this economic cycle is with us. Back in are real business models that actually make money.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> Counter this doombaya ceremony with these (wiser) comments (pulled from a CNN economic report), below. Most salient point: _This is a financial panic, not an economic one._

QUOTE:

 _The weak dollar is boosting demand for our goods abroad, and lower gas prices are making Americans feel more flush. Add in the cash that the Fed has been hosing into the banking system and we are bound to see growth in 2009. "If all this stimulus has no effect on the economy, that would be a rarity indeed," says Paulsen._

 _Standard & Poor's chief economist David Wyss expects a mild recession that ends next spring. "Gradually we will regain confidence in the market. Lower oil prices and a falling trade deficit will help," he says. "This is a financial panic, not an economic one."_

 _Of course, that could change if the financial panic doesn't abate soon. If banks remain too scared or broke to lend, would-be home buyers will be frozen out of the market. If that happens, home values could fall even more, crimping confidence and putting the brakes on the economy's greatest engine: the consumer._

<comment><USER8> I think that the benefit from "hosing money into the banking system" is front end loaded. That is to say: we've been living above our means for a while now and we've done the (inter-)national equivalent of kiting checks for the last 5 years. Now that there are some calls on this money (via defaults in the mortgage field) we're seeing that all of that leveraged money isn't quite as useful, real, or protected as we thought.

"demand for our goods abroad" is barely a consolation prize. The effects from that are so long term and abstract that while they might help us climb back out, they certainly don't fix the immediate problem, which is businesses having to cut back because they don't have the cash to operate _today_. It's like saying you get to take a tax deduction because you had a big loss. Sure it might help but it's not nearly as nice as not having the loss in the first place. Same deal with oil.

Financial crisis + time becomes an economic one. Financial crisis means that employers are considering layoffs (it's even in the article). Risk of job loss is the biggest thing controlling my _personal_ confidence level, and I certainly can't be alone in that regard. Discretionary spending drops (things are already hurting in tourist towns), and the layoffs continue.

I suspect the depth and breadth of this depend on the health of the remaining financial institutions. I feel unprepared to speculate on that, since I don't understand the complexity of what we're already in, but things sure aren't looking good right now. :/

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> Smacks more of abject panic than it does common sense. If a company has to work _that_ hard to survive, then it would never survive a 15-year (?? unprecedented and hyperbolic) depression anyway. Better to sell everything off and close the doors.

Seriously. If things are as bleak as the Sequoia panickers are saying, then most of their companies should probably just cut their losses by selling off capital assets and closing their doors. Better that than going down in three years with nothing left.</comment>


Centralized Logging With Rsyslog - <AUTHOR> http://blog.urbanairship.com/blog/2010/10/05/centralized-logging-using-rsyslog/

<comment><USER2> I've had much better results from using Syslog-NG along with php-Syslog-NG.

Syslog-NG can already split your log files into subdirectories with the hostname of each server, but it also has the capability of redirecting messages to named pipes. This is great because you can pipe it into mysql and stuff all of your log messages in a database. Combine with a php front-end and now your developers and sysadmins can search logs intelligently across multiple servers, and get really fine-grained on their search strings. Want to tail the output from all Tomcat servers in your app server pool looking for a specific string? Go right ahead.

</comment><comment><USER3> One big advantage of rsyslog over syslog-ng is that you can spool messages to disk if the remote syslog server is down (syslog-ng only offers this in their 'enterprise' paid version).

</comment><comment><USER4> I've been pushing to implement this for our application, but I'm told that we used to, and had to turn it off because it would saturate the IO of the logging server.

Has anyone else experienced this? Is it just a simple configuration tuning problem?

<comment><USER5> _it would saturate the IO of the logging server._

Rather unlikely unless your deployment is very large or you're doing extraordinarily expensive filtering/binning on the sink-host.

The first bottleneck is normally disk _space_ , not disk I/O. Those logs pile up very quickly, depending on how long you retain them.

The raw network and disk I/O, however, are rarely of concern. Before you approach either limit you're already logging to the tune of ~300G per hour - and have probably switched to a distributed architecture of some sort long ago.

Writing broad streams of sequential text is very cheap.

Making sense of what you wrote, ideally before actually writing it, but at the very least before being forced to purge it due to storage constraints, is the difficult part. ;-)

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> Protip: Use syslog-ng.

Besides longer log message (arbitrarily long, with a recompile) and reliable delivery, it obviates my main use for logrotate, since it can be configured to write to a filename (including directory) based on time, date, or other variables.

<comment><USER7> Protip: look at rsyslog, syslog-ng, and splunk and decide what is right for your environment.

<comment><USER6> The "pro" that I am is sysadmin, and I'm asserting that evaluating all three is a waste of time.

Splunk, given its cost and complexity, is almost never right for startups.

Non-ng syslog is, on the other hand, so simplistic that it's not worth the effort of fancy configuration. Is there some kind of compelling advantage that I've been overlooking?

I never quite understood the conceit that every environment is a precious-and- unique snowflake requiring careful evaluation of any given tool.

<comment><USER7> Turns out I am a sysadmin as well, and I'm asserting that each has various strengths. I have used syslog-ng as long ago as 2001, so I have some experience with it. Today I would recommend rsyslog. It is the default logger in Ubuntu 10.04 LTS and Fedora is also transitioning to it:

<http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Releases/FeatureRsyslog>

Further, I think that RELP and on-demand disk spooling of messages are compelling features. Its performance and reliability are good enough to feed your web-server access logs through.

I wouldn't overlook rsyslog, but I'm also not saying "just use it" because syslog-ng is certainly worth evaluating as well.

Edit: see also [http://www.linuxjournal.com/content/centralized-logging- web-...](http://www.linuxjournal.com/content/centralized-logging-web- interface)

<comment><USER6> This more in-depth discussion has more value. Thank you.

 _I think that RELP and on-demand disk spooling of messages are compelling features_

I think we're coming at the question from different perspectives. One of my primary goals is to avoid wasting my time. Since I've already evaluated and experimentally proven syslog-ng, switching means a large time investment.

As such, features like REPL and, arguably misfeatures[1], like disk spooling, fail to compel such an investment.

Once rsyslog has matured, something that I expect will be accelerated by its inclusion in major distros, it may be a no-brainer.

For my "money," there are far more interesting and productive problems to work on than logging, which is why I do give the "just use it" advice.

 _Turns out I am a sysadmin as well_

By choice or necessity? Just curiosity on my part.

[1] I have yet to encounter an environment of non-trivial size where the risk of losing logging outweighs the risk of disk filling up and/or performance degradation from additional contentious I/O. For me, it's a killer feature of centralized logging: elimination of a particular source of failure/degradation.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Has anyone tried Facebook Scribe?

<comment><USER9> Yes, and it works pretty solidly. We used to use syslog-ng, writing to named pipes, but you have to be sure that there is something reading from the pipe before you start writing to it, otherwise it blocks. You don't really want to use the syslog protocol (via the syslog(3) library call) for random logging because you may end up hitting the upper bounds of the log lines. I wanted to use rsyslog, mainly for the local buffering, but it ONLY seems to support the syslog format/protocol, including prefixing all lines with a date and time and a hostname.

We use scribe and we have a stdin2scribe program (python) that can be used to hook into any log output (like apache access and error logs). We have it set up in a two tier system, all systems that we'd want to log from run a "scribe leaf" on a port on localhost, and this forwards all logs to a "scribe aggregator" (behind a load balancer), with a buffering space on the local disk when the aggregator can not be contacted. It's a pretty solid system and I recommend it.

We also have services, and command line and library interfaces to those services, that let you grab all the logs that came in on a certain time frame, or tail all the data coming into the aggregators in real time (one of them is a wrapper around a more generic tool that just tags the logs, the wrapper takes grep-style filtering arguments and the output is pipped to a pretty printer).

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> If you're interested in more volume and flexibility, check out Flume, a new open-source project from Cloudera (the Hadoop/logging experts). Solid software and community behind it. <http://archive.cloudera.com/cdh/3/flume/UserGuide.html></comment>


Why top Ivy Leaguers are the best sellers - <AUTHOR>

Was having this convo with some friends of mine, who all agreed with this...
They sold themselves ever since they were 14 and starting high school. Selling admissions officers of their achievements, selling teachers and counselors of their desires and passions... that's the hardest part in the admissions process. The rest (getting a high GPA and high SATs) is secondary (since most applying to HYP have 4.5s and 2300+ SAT anyway - need differentiation) and honestly, pretty darn easy to obtain if one simply tries. And while they're about to graduate out of college, they're continuing to sell, sell, sell, branding and marketing themselves for consulting and banking positions.
Have to hand it to them, it's an awfully important life skill to have in this world. <comment><USER2> _Selling admissions officers of their achievements, selling teachers and counselors of their desires and passions..._

Wow. I guess I'm just so glad that I got to grow up in a completely different universe.

Where no one cared about "selling teaches and counselors of their desires and passions..." - we cared about our desires and passions quite a lot, thank you, _but for their own sake_. And couldn't give a rat's ass about selling an admissions counselor on them. Even if in fact we were busting our chops to get into the best school we possibly could -- this would have seemed like an incredibly vain and superficial approach to getting to go where we wanted in life. Like trying to game the system somehow, because that was the only way to get ahead. Or flattery.

And the thought of nurturing a portfolio of extracurricular "desires and passions" for the sake of impressing these kinds of people -- let alone for the supposed brass rings that would supposedly be within our reach, after years and years of such compounded drudgery and self-abasement -- really, now. Who has time for any of that?</comment>


British Columbia Securities Commission requires the latest browser technology - <AUTHOR> http://www.bcsc.bc.ca/Redirect.htm

<comment><USER2> I wonder if it actually works in Netscape.

Makes is a little tricky to raise capital in BC.</comment>