The number of Americans who say they smoke pot has doubled in the last decade - <AUTHOR> https://www.nlm.nih.gov/medlineplus/news/fullstory_155268.html <comment><USER2> Title of the article is missing an important prefix... "Reported". We have no idea if pot use has doubled. In fact, we know that it hasn't doubled. The real question is has it actually increased at all.

The majority of the article is about how the studies between 2002 and 2012 are difficult or impossible to compare to each other due to the changing attitudes towards marijuana use and the wave of legalization effecting participant reporting. This not drug testing results showing an increase in failures, this is face-to-face surveys with government officials, and people confessing to illegal (vs potentially now legal) drug use.

<comment><USER3> Dude, chill.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> I reluctantly became a (medicinal) user for nausea from chemotherapy. But I didn't want to smoke it - I'd rather use an edible or a tincture. (Some collectives also sell capsules of infused oils.)

I probably wouldn't bother if it hadn't become legal for medicinal use in my state. So I could've moved the needle in this study. (If anyone had asked me.)

That being said, I have no desire to get "high" and in fact one of the few times it made me feel that way, it was a miserable experience.

The problem is that with edibles, you never know what dosage you're getting. There are some consistent "brands" but the local collectives move through them, so, particularly with the tinctures you never know what the effect will be. One dropper for one brand, four for another, to get the anti nausea effect without the more psychoactive effects.

Honestly, I'd be perfectly happy if SquabMerCo came out with commercial product that had guaranteed contents.

</comment><comment><USER5> Drug industry on the march! Will be interesting to see where drug use tops-out as more states legalize and we see the emergence of real marketing and consumer education from the drug suppliers.

<comment><USER6> Is marijuana-related advertising legal anywhere?

The Netherlands has had de facto legal weed for decades, and the annual usage rate is really low, at 5.4%:

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

<comment><USER7> As one example, the metro (free newspaper) in san jose, ca has its back pages filled with marijuana advertisemets

EDIT: last months issue: [http://issuu.com/metrosiliconvalley/docs/msv1535/1?e=1164868...](http://issuu.com/metrosiliconvalley/docs/msv1535/1?e=1164868/15194011)

The advertisements for pot stores start on page 43, although there is a full page ad for the hempcon dab cup on page 13.</comment></comment></comment>


Is the Bitcoin network an oligarchy? - <AUTHOR> https://www.epj.org/epjb-news/1510-epjb-highlight-is-the-bitcoin-network-an-oligarchy <comment><USER2> I am well aware that most people on Hacker News hate Bitcoin and cryptocurrencies so a lot of these types of studies and articles that are negative end up making their way to the top.

It is strange that this study was from 2017-2018 and yet they only considered data from 2009-2013. Would be nice if there was an explanation as to why.

One thing I wanted to point out is this seems to be presented to shine a negative light on Bitcoin, but I have a feeling that if you were to plot the owners of _any_ equity you would find the exact same patterns. People who get in early will own a majority of the supply.

For example take a look at Morgan Stanley stock. 86% of the shares are owned by institutional investors and of that chunk, five institutions own 58% of them:

[https://www.nasdaq.com/symbol/ms/ownership- summary](https://www.nasdaq.com/symbol/ms/ownership-summary)

I also think these types of patterns with regards to transactions probably exist with other currencies as well, but it is just that the data is not available for the public to analyze.

<comment><USER3> > I am well aware that most people on Hacker News hate Bitcoin and > cryptocurrencies

It's not hatred of Bitcoin to think that it's more worthwhile as a white paper than as an investment vehicle.

<comment><USER4> It's not Bitcoin itself, it's just that most people on Hacker News hate fraudsters and charlatans perpetrating get-rich-quick pyramid schemes.

<comment><USER5> You arent a programmer right?

Or did you not know there are only 21,000,000 BTC ever ever ever? Have you heard of fractional reserve banking?

<comment><USER6> Fractional reserve banking is independent of the currency. You can implement a bitcoin fractional banking system if you have trusted party available (the bank) and as long as you consider bitcoins to be homogeneous. Although it'll be funny (and borderline eco-terrorism) to use bitcoins if there exists a trusted party (like CME for bitcoin futures, bitcoin wallets, bitcoin exchanges, your ISP, your hardware manufacturer).

Limited bitcoins doesn't make it any less vulnerable to being marketed (yes, there is a lot of marketing $ behind it) as a get rich quick scheme. In fact, the growth of fiat value of bitcoin is the biggest reason people see it as an investment vehicle. Bitcoin system might be helpful in countries with oppressive governments and no trustworthy party, but I don't see largest orders of bitcoins coming from North Korea.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Of course only small communities have a majority of btc. Too many people - geeks included - spent too many years believing the fud being broadcast about Bitcoin while others were collecting btc. I've seen the blistering scorn from some here on HN over the years.

When I first ran across Bitcoin in 2010, I thought it was a scam but was intrigued by the tech. After studying it for about a month, I realised it wasn't a scam (though scamsters abound in cryptocurrencies, as in all things money) and went around to my friends in the tech community in my city to show it to them. They know me to be literate in networks and cryptography but only one person in the ten or twelve I approached was equally interested. The rest poopooed Bitcoin, some outright laughing me out of their offices.

Institutional thinking is what kept a lot of smart people from even looking at Bitcoin early on. The findings in this study shouldn't be surprising. In five years, should the internet still be functioning, Bitcoin will be more spread out than it is now.

<comment><USER8> What are you basing this on, your gut feeling? If I look at where I can actually use bitcoins, or crypto currencies in general, the list is dwindling. A few years ago I could buy coffee with crypto, I can't today. A few years ago I could buy certificates (if I could also pass them) and other Microsoft products with crypto, I can't today. A few years ago I could rent an vacation home with crypto, I can't today. Hell these days I can't even conver crypto into actual money in my country.

Maybe it's not like that in the US, but the only useful thing I can spend crypto on as a Scandinavian is paying for my domains.

<comment><USER7> I'm basing it on eight years of experience in Bitcoin.

"Bitcoin for coffee" and the like is a waste of the tech, imo. Buying network services such as you described is a better use as intercountry payments with debit cards isn't always feasible.

Bitcoin's use is better as a transnational currency when traditional payment channels are cumbersome. To be frank, Bitcoin still has some work to do in the payment channel dept but Lightning Network is getting there.

In the US, there are more than a few places where you can trade out btc for gold/silver and sell the metal for fiat. It's preferable to selling on an exchange, imo.

If you can't spend now, hang onto your btc until you can. Saving is always a good idea.

<comment><USER9> >Saving is always a good idea.

Not really.

Bitcoin has lost over -50% of its value in the last 6 months.

<comment><USER7> Bitcoin has more than doubled in price in the past year.

On an even longer timeline, we're all dead.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> 2009-2013 is a long time ago, so maybe the title should be "Was the Bitcoin network an oligarchy?"

<comment><USER11> Unfortunately the answer is still yes, just a different composition of oligarchs.

<comment><USER12> That exact fact makes it not an oligarchy.

<comment><USER8> An oligarchy isn't defined by a set of stable oligarchs. There can be a shift in power in a oligarchy and there typically will be because the oligarchs aren't friends.

If you look to ancient Athens, it wasn't uncommon for an oligarch to be exiled. If you look to modern Russia, well, there is a reason a lot of former Russian oligarchs chose to live in London and not a Russian prison.

An oligarchy is almost always a turbulent place, most of them making the BTC powershifts look calm.

<comment><USER12> Churn at the top is the exact thing you want in a dynamic, robust economy. You don't want equality. You want movement. Sure, Russia and Athens had _some_ churn. But it was incredibly low.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> When bitcoin appeared, everybody was saying that "only retarded people would `invest` in such an obvious scam. you would be better to blow your money in Vegas, at least you'll get a free drink". Now the same people say "it's not fair that some got to buy it at such cheap valuations".

<comment><USER14> No we are still saying the same. Lots of people made money on pyramid schemes, that doesn't make them a good investment. The longer a pyramid scheme runs, the dumber it is to invest in it.

If you truthfully believe bitcoin will develop into a stable alternative to state run currencies, great, I wish you good luck.

I don't. To me it is like religion - they can't all be right and they are mutually exclusive. I don't trust myself to be able to pick the winner among all the losers.

<comment> dane-pgp The notes and coins for the euro were first issued in 2002, and the first bitcoin was mined in 2009. What makes one a pyramid scheme and the other not?

The answer surely can't be "every currency issued by a government is stable forever and every crypto-currency will collapse before 5 years".

What I'm saying is, there are a lot of currencies out there, and some are more stable and have a better track record than others. You may not trust yourself to pick a winner among the losers, but I suspect you do use at least one currency from time to time, so you have picked one by default.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> Pardon my ignorance, but how is it possible to track Bitcoin holders? I thought that it was really easy to create multiple Bitcoin addresses, so if a rich miner wanted to hide his holdings he could create a separate address for each transaction and he would in effect be untraceable right?

<comment><USER16> There is lots of other metadata to collect: You can monitor which nodes received the transaction first. Edge nodes can get IP address of sender. Who are the transactions with? Amounts, quantity, and time of day/week/month could all provide correlation.

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> Honest question: Is there an etherscan.io for bitcoin to figure out what the largest token holding addresses are?

If possible to figure out who the addresses belonged to, then the biggest coin holders could be known.

<comment><USER18> [https://bitinfocharts.com/top-100-richest-bitcoin- addresses....](https://bitinfocharts.com/top-100-richest-bitcoin- addresses.html)

<comment><USER18> [https://btc.com/stats/rich-list](https://btc.com/stats/rich-list)

<comment><USER18> [https://99bitcoins.com/bitcoin-rich-list- top100/](https://99bitcoins.com/bitcoin-rich-list-top100/)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> How do these users have political control like an oligarch would have?

<comment><USER20> Any entity that controls more than 51% of network capability (i.e. owns and operates a lot of expensive hardware) can, in theory, begin making fradulent transactions called "double spends".

Any common user of the network that is unfortunate enough to get caught up in this scheme would lose their money. And the long term value of the network would most likely plummet, but in 2013 it didn't for some odd reason :)

<comment><USER2> Unless I am missing something, this paper is referring to connections between addresses when it mentions the "Bitcoin network". Not actual mining nodes. It does not have anything to do with a 51% attack.

<comment><USER20> Oh, apologies! You are totally correct.

In that case, the select few owners of these coins could dump their holdings to buyers who are otherwise unaware of these large numbers of "hidden" coins. The owners make good money, the buyers overpay.

After that, it would be up to the core developers and the new holders of the coins to make the Bitcoin ecosystem a valuable place to exchange money. If they do that, then the coin will survive all that inflationary volume.

If the oligarchy never dumps, then they've just aided Bitcoin price support.

A coin does not equal a vote in Bitcoin version support, only hashing power does.

But de facto, I suspect wallet size is correlated with hashing power.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> Is this online "epdf" viewer by Springer running sluggish on purpose? Or is that just because of my dated notebook? Whenever graphs are rendered my CPU usage just spikes.

</comment><comment><USER22> With the emergence of electronic id cards in several countries (e.g. Estonia, Germany), there is the real possibility of equally distributing currency to card holders, even depending on properties such as current residence or birth date (dystopian version: names or only people with specific biometrics: eye color, heights or specific facial features). It is possible to create a signature scheme that guarantees privacy while avoiding double spending. One limitation to this is that organisations wanting to use signatures (at least in my country) must register with the government as a service provider, which might be a point of failure.

</comment><comment><USER23> I'm going to totally guess (having only read the article abstract) and say the circles they are observing are in large part due to the exchanges.

So the exchanges are the oligarchs?

</comment><comment><USER24> HN 2015: Bitcoin is bullshit, don't waste your money on it.

HN 2018: people who got in early in bitcoin have more of it, thus it's bad.

<comment><USER14> Those are not contradictions, you realise that right?

MLM schemes are bullshit, don't waste your money.

If you buy into Herbalife now you are truly not making a good decision, because there is already a huge pyramid of people above you.

MLM schemes are a bad idea at the start because they are unlikely to take off, and they are a bad idea when they are running because they are unlikely to be profitable for anyone at the lower levels due to the unsustainable structure of profit distribution.

It's just another hot potato game.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> >Leonardo Ermann from the National Commission for Atomic Energy in Buenos Aires, Argentina, and colleagues from the University of Toulouse, France, have examined the structure of the Bitcoin-owner community by looking at the transactions of this cryptocurrency between 2009 and 2013.

The study is 5 years old?

Guessing back then it was libertarians and drug dealers.

Also isnt this true of any early adoptor? The first smartphones were a small group too.

The bigger question is- Why is this news?

This seems to be agenda driven rather than a discovery. Who benefits from pushing anti-bitcoin ideas? These are not accidents, these studies are expensive to run. Why was this study completed?

</comment><comment><USER25> you and me can change that. instead of writing articles fire up full nodes and mine when you can

</comment><comment><USER26> Oligarchy means controlled by the few. Anyone with a Raspberry PI, decent network bandwidth, and a few terabytes hard drive can be a node and start validating and relaying transactions. Besides, Bitcoin is not proof of stake, so having a lot of bitcoin does not give someone more control of the network. So no, Bitcoin is not an oligarchy. All of these big addresses likely belong to exchanges like CoinBase, etc.

<comment><USER27> control requires hashing power</comment></comment>


Why Is Joe Rogan So Popular? - <AUTHOR> https://www.theatlantic.com/entertainment/archive/2019/08/my-joe-rogan-experience/594802/ <comment><USER2> It's because he doesn't silence opposing opinions, he welcomes them. More news organizations and websites should learn from this strategy.

<comment><USER3> It's funny when people try to associate him with whoever he brings on the show. One day he will be a neo-nazi and the next he will be part of Antifa.</comment></comment>


Word Source - The Social Dictionary - <AUTHOR> http://www.word.sc/ <comment><USER2> First Impression: great front page. I am not enthralled / don't understand the wordsource live stuff, however.

<comment><USER3> agreed. have the masses really been yearning to make friends and build a network around dictionary words?</comment></comment>


SEC Exposes Initial Coin Offerings Purportedly Backed by Real Estate, Diamonds - <AUTHOR> https://www.sec.gov/news/press-release/2017-185-0 <comment><USER2> Good riddance.</comment>


Damning Zuckerberg IMs confirmed - <AUTHOR> http://www.boingboing.net/2010/09/14/damning-zuckerberg-i.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed:+boingboing/iBag+(Boing+Boing) <comment><USER2> So at what age are you old enough to be held accountable for what you say? Maybe I'm old-fashioned, living in a world before the term "Emerging Adulthood" was coined and people were expected to be reasonably mature by the time they were old enough to graduate from college.

He deserves EVERY single piece of negative response he gets for those comments. Even then, he was being trusted with people's private information, a trust that he not only disdained, but he openly expressed a desire to abuse.

If that were the only insights into his personality, I'd agree that "context, age, blah, blah, blah", but when taken with everything else about him, it paints a picture of a guy that I would want nothing to do with.

The real question, though, IMO, is whether interacting with Facebook is really having anything to do with Zuck. I wouldn't want to actually have business dealings with FB, but, at this point, to what extent could Zuck "fuck them in the ear" (to use his eloquent phrase)? I think the answer to that is not so much (I do have an account) but enough that I'm not going to go overboard (minimal status updates; photos are backed up not stored on FB; no use of places or likes; etc).

<comment><USER3> I'm inclined to agree with you regarding accountability. But, I dunno, I really don't want my company or business ethics judged by stuff I said to friends in college... through IM. People say stupid stuff all the time.

<comment><USER2> If it were just generic stuff, I would completely agree. I say stupid stuff to my friends now.

However, he was talking about his customers, the people using his service. That gives much less leniency, in my book, especially when everything else is taken into account.

I guess I see it much the same as I'd see an investment advisor who open talked about screwing his customers out of their money. FB's financial value comes from the data that Zuck is talking about screwing people with.

<comment><USER3> Customers? I don't think anyone saw Facebook then as they see it today.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> The take home lesson here is that all your online activities can be used in court against you some day in unbelievable detail, so if you plan on being 'successful' start acting responsible today, no matter what your age.

Impressions matter, during a lawsuit evidence matters, this provides plenty of both.

<comment><USER5> I haven't asked Zuck personally if he made these comments. However I can say that after working with him on privacy and photo related issues that these comments definitely don't characterize his approach to the subject. He seems like a pretty normal guy just trying to make the world more open and connected.

I agree with jacquesm...this is a great lesson. Don't email, IM, text, etc anything you wouldn't want to read on Valleywag.

<comment><USER6> Don't use a search engine to look for it either, or visit websites related to it from a browser or location that could be tracked back to you.

And don't leave voicemails about it to someone with google voice, or talk about it to someone using google to call you. Don't talk about it internationally on skype, and don't visit untoward locations with your smartphone in your pocket. Don't drive there using gps, either.

<comment><USER7> Is there a plausible way to spread disinformation about your activity, such that if anyone ever brought up your past electronic activities you could show that there's no way to tell what's a true record and what's just random shit created by some service?

<comment><USER8> Well, there's always

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Off-the-Record_Messaging>

which gives "perfect" forward secrecy

<comment><USER9> I am not much of a crypto but I'd be curious to know if this is open to goverment monitoring. Do you know?

<comment><USER10> No, it's not open to government monitoring, unless of course they have the ability to break "unbreakable" encryption. And, if they do manage to magically brute force a single key, they only get a single message decrypted. Each message uses a different key, so compromising a single message doesn't compromise the whole conversation.

For a school project I (sorta) implemented this on Android 1.5 two years ago. I stopped before finishing the key rotation stuff, so ended up with just a encrypted text messaging client. Another company just recently announced an OTR text message program for android, you should look it up! Textsecure by Whisper Systems.

Clickable link: <http://www.whispersys.com/>

<comment><USER9> Very nice. This is reassuring that such stuff is still available, legal and protects us from the peering eyes of whoever is in power at any time...

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> This is just a few IM's of a kid joking with his college buddy about what was then nothing more than a side project. It's not like he could have known that in a few years it would have become one of the world's biggest web sites. It sounds like he's just having a laugh with a friend.

Honestly if I was in his position at the same time at that same age I would have joked in the same way. I doubt his views on the matter are the same now that he's many years older and his site has a dictionary entry. Give the kid a break.

<comment><USER12> I would have joked, but not in the same way. Calling his own users 'dumb fucks' for trusting him is insulting and implies that he's unethical.

<comment><USER13> You really seem to ignore the context. Sometimes, (the ability to be able) to do wrong can be "cool". Why do you think young people smoke?

<comment><USER14> Dude, calling your users dumb is fine. But saying you're going to 'fuck them in the ear'? When would that be cool? He wasn't 14 btw, when he said this...

<comment><USER15> "f them in the ear" was not in the context of users, it was in the context of ConnectU and competing websites. It's more obvious in the New Yorker article.

<comment><USER16> So he was talking about the company he worked for and probably stole the idea from? I'm not sure that's better...

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> I find it humorous that while Zuckerberg is:

* offering the information, but hasn't actually leaked it

* offering phonebook / directory type info, which is semi germane to the actual purpose of the site, especially in the early days

Meanwhile Boingboing is making public a recording of a private conversation held over IM.

<comment><USER18> I've read all these IMs before. IIRC, they were in the trial transcripts.

I believe at least one of the "FRIEND"s is Adam D'Angelo, former Facebook CTO and now founder of Quora.

In any case, it's not as if Boing Boing hacked into Zuckerberg's computer to get these. They're freely available.

<comment><USER19> Actually, they were under seal in ConnectU, Inc. v. Facebook, Inc., and Mark's attorneys fought very hard to keep them that way. They're only freely available now because they were leaked.

Given my personal stake in it all I'd like to know what the rest of the still- unpublished ones say.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> I'd hate to have people criticize everything I said or did when I was 19 years old. I said and did some pretty immature things, hell I had only been living away from my parents for a year. 19->23 was a time of big change for me and I think it is for most people.

Poor Zuck.

</comment><comment><USER21> You mean there are still people out there who who have doubts whether Zuckerberg is a sociopath with zero ethics? Why would that be?

<comment><USER22> I don't know about other people, but I have doubts. I'm actually willing to bet Zuckerberg is very far from being a sociopath. Most of the "damning" stories about him are of the same caliber as this story. And this article, IMO, proves nothing.

So he joked around about privacy in IMs 4 years ago. We don't have any context, we don't know almost any of the surrounding circumstances. In fact, since people are publishing these IMs but _aren't_ publishing reports of him leaking actual data, I'm willing to bet these IMs really were just jokes.

Other stories are similarly void of content.

The truth is, I know almost no one who I'd consider a sociopath with zero ethics. The chance against Zuckerberg being one is pretty small. The chance is much higher that the media have chosen to focus on him because he is: a) rich b) powerful and c) made some moves that some people didn't like in regards to privacy.

<comment><USER19> You're wrong.

There are, in fact, published reports of him actually breaking into Crimson reporters' private FAS (Harvard) e-mail accounts with information he gleaned from Facebook. [http://www.businessinsider.com/how-mark-zuckerberg-hacked- in...](http://www.businessinsider.com/how-mark-zuckerberg-hacked-into-the- harvard-crimson-2010-3)

You don't know anyone you'd consider a sociopath with zero ethics because the vast majority of people aren't. Just the same, the people who up hugely successful by most people's standards, which is to say "rich," have a much higher probability of having gotten there at someone else's expense.

<comment><USER23> _Just the same, the people who up hugely successful by most people's standards, which is to say "rich," have a much higher probability of having gotten there at someone else's expense._

You're wrong. Or at least, we have no reason to believe that you're right, other than small-mindedness borne of jealousy and self-righteousness.

<comment><USER19> There are countless stories of well-known and incredibly wealthy software CEOs such as Bill Gates and Larry Ellison crushing their competition, sometimes in ways that went beyond what was necessary to merely succeed. Outside of software, you only need to look at the financial sector to see rich people who got to their present position at the expense of others.

I don't think my comment was small-minded at all!

<comment><USER23> There are also countless stories of rich people who are very nice and got where they are through hard work and creating a lot of value for their customers, investors, and employees. But you didn't choose to focus on them. Why not?

<comment><USER19> "There are also countless stories of rich people who are very nice..."

Enterprise is great--I'm a capitalist, too--but who are you kidding? If all it took to get rich and create value was niceness, I'm pretty sure Hacker News would be largely unnecessary.

<comment><USER23> Seriously? You're going to make the leap from me saying that there are lots of rich people who are nice and create value to accusing me of saying that niceness is all that's required to get rich and create value? You really can't see the vast gulf between the two statements?

I take issue with your original statement because I think it's bullshit based on nothing. The laziest thing to do is just assume that all rich people got that way by screwing someone over. There are bad people at all levels of society, and I have no data to lead me to believe it's any more prevalent at higher levels of wealth. I doubt you have any data either. Feel free to post it if you do, but otherwise, this just seems like another empty, jealous rant against the rich.

<comment><USER19> I totally agree with you that there are some rich people who have earned their wealth. I never disputed that. My point, if you read carefully, is that they're rare. You asked why I didn't focus on them, and it's because it's hard to think of any examples of business titans who are known for their hard work ethic and nothing else. For example, I might have said Michael Dell, but it turns out that he just paid off the SEC to remain CEO of his company after it was discovered that 75% of Dell's 2007 (I think) revenue came from illegal anti-competitive payoffs from Intel to not use AMD chips.

What I said (which also happens to be what I meant) was that there was a higher probability that someone with a vast sum of money had reached their level of wealth by harming someone relative to someone without that same level of wealth. I didn't say "all rich people." And I gave some examples to support my point.

An example to support your point would be someone like Warren Buffet, who doesn't have the kind of reputation that Gates and Ellison have earned for themselves. He proceeded to amass his fortune, to the best of my knowledge, slowly and as ethically as one could hope for. I have a lot of respect for hard-working and successful people like Buffet, but also those who are worth a fraction of what he is.

On the other hand, I generally don't have a lot of respect for people who start off on the assumption that I am small-minded and jealous, and then go from there. If you want to make a point here that's fine, just don't pretend like I've said something that I didn't.

<comment><USER23> Maybe the difference in our opinion is our definition of rich. If you define rich as only those who are in the top 10 richest people in the world, then maybe you have a point (though I'm still skeptical). If you use a more widely accepted measure of rich or wealthy (say $5m in liquid assets) you include hundreds of thousands of people in this country alone. And you never hear anything about almost any of those people. They live quiet lives, building their business and spending time with their families. Who wants to write about that? So journalists cover the flashy bastards instead, which skews your perception. Read some research that's been done on the wealthy as a group before you go making conclusions based on a handful of the most extreme outliers at the top.

<comment><USER21> I suppose this has validity, but on the other hand, there are plenty of cut throats in the '2nd largest car dealership in Idaho' level.

<comment><USER23> Yes, but are there more than in the general population? That's what we're debating. And I'm skeptical that's the case, but even more skeptical that the claimant has any data to make such a strong claim.

<comment><USER21> Sure, I think that's how they get to these positions. Aggressive ambition and a lack of concern for the wellbeing of others relative to one's own wellbeing pays off. It seems pretty obvious to me.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> I read this more as a young kid said something stupid over IM, maybe to be cool, maybe not, but people -- especially young people -- say dumb shit all the time to be cool, even if they don't mean what the say. Yes, he's now the CEO of a hugely influential company, but to apply those comments to his current situation is to take the comments somewhat out of context.

Are they relevant? Sure. Are they as relevant as if he said them two weeks ago? Not even close. People blow this stuff way out of proportion. Does anyone REALLY think that he'd leak personal information now the way he talked about in these IMs?

He has had to grow up a lot faster than most people his age, and he has handled it pretty well, as far as I'm concerned. People love to flip out over this stuff. Sometimes it's worth flipping out over. I don't see this as one of those times.

</comment><comment><USER19> More IMs:

<http://www.thinkpress.com/authoritas/timeline.pdf>

<comment><USER25> UGH. Read the thing in its entirety and that Aaron guy comes off as too helpful and naive.

Fuck, you can tell from the tone Zuck takes with him. Zuck is nice when he needs something, and cold as ice when he knows he did something.

Pretty fucking sad and annoying at the same time. UGH!

[Edit:

Oh, the parent is ThinkComp/Aaoron! My sympathies dude. Too bad, you're a typical flat-footed computer programmer; how come you haven't seen this guy for what he is the moment he told you to take down the ads featuring his site? then he returns to you, repeatedly, for advice, help, testing, feedback and insight. Why did you allow that?]

<comment><USER19> I am "that Aaron guy," and it was my job to be helpful. At the time, I ran the only entrepreneurship club at Harvard available to undergraduates.

In retrospect, I was naive, but so was Mark. Ironically, I think he underestimated the value of having friends, and the negative value of having enemies.

<comment><USER25> Alright,

I see you settled for $65MM, that's about fair, even if the lawyers take half of it.

Next time, please get yourself a human hound to sniff out people. You seem like an all too nice and too trusting person.

<comment><USER19> I was not part of ConnectU so I didn't settle for $65 million, actually. I settled separately.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment> daniel-cussen Irony is, between the lawsuits, the disclosures, and the movie, now nobody has more embarrassing information about them available to the public than Mark Zuckerberg.

</comment><comment><USER26> I'm a nice guy, but honestly, if I was a kid with that much power, I probably would have acted the same. People were feeding him their emails, photos, personal info straight to his servers. And they still ARE!

Still, he might have still been treating Facebook as a goofy side project at this point. And IM chat doesn't express jest or joking around.

Call a spade a spade.

<comment><USER19> This is a really weak argument, to say the very least.

For one thing, just because a lot of kids are immature doesn't mean that they have a license to break the law. Joking obviously isn't a violation of the law, but breaking into private e-mail accounts is (18 USC 1030).

For another, Mark had already been formally disciplined by the Administrative Board for Facemash when he wrote these, so he clearly knew better.

Aruging that Facebook has the right to misuse people's content just because they provide it is clearly wrong.

In addition, there are five people including myself who ultimately filed legal action against Mark and/or Facebook, Inc. because of what happened at Harvard.

Lastly, at roughly the same age, I ran the same core product at the same time in the same place with the same name with the same people's information, and I didn't do that. I didn't joke with my friends about it, I didn't make fun of my users, I certainly never intended to abuse people's trust, and I never did. One of those users was Mark and I have his SHA-1 password hash sitting in my database, as well as his cell phone number--but I'm not going to share it with anyone, nor have I ever. Clearly it's possible to run such an operation in a different way than Mark.

"Call a spade a spade" indeed.

<comment><USER27> Maybe he dropped out of Harvard before he took Business Ethics.

<comment><USER28> Heh. Sorry for all the downvotes, I thought it was funny...

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER29> Meh. I canceled my Facebook account years ago.

But these IMs are just typical of the immature little kid he was back then. We all say and do stupid things when we're that age. It's not a big deal.

</comment><comment><USER30> relax everyone, diaspora's developer release is tomorrow!

"Addendum (8/30): To clarify, September 15 will be our open-source developer release. At that time, we will open up our github repository, publish our roadmap, and shift our development style to be more community oriented. We intend on launching a consumer facing alpha in October. Join our mailing list to get an invite." via <http://www.joindiaspora.com/2010/08/26/overdue- update.html>

</comment><comment><USER31> Nothing to add about those IMs. His friends suck though.

</comment><comment><USER32> To be fair, it is slightly dumb to give some site your real name, university e-mail, your address, etc.

I remember back when I signed up with a fake username, to be requested to sign up with my real name and uni e-mail, etc. No wonder I haven't really used Facebook much at all.

But, whatever he said in the IMs is just "normal" that is, just something we all might have said. So, I do not think that the lesson here is as jacquesm suggests, but rather that we might be entering an age and time when the gods of politics, commerce, science, and whatever other field are shown to be just normal people more vividly.

</comment><comment><USER33> I don't think they're 'damning'. 22-year-olds say silly things. People use facetious language and braggadoccio in private conversations that shouldn't be taken literally.

And even if his statements are taken literally, if the student info had been volunteered without a promise of strict single-purpose confidentiality, students should have expected their info might be shared for any legal purpose at the discretion of the site proprietor. That's why explicit privacy policies are important; at least in the US, without a promise to the contrary, almost anything goes.

</comment><comment> loup-vaillant To sum up in 5 words what many here said in more: "Great Powers imply Great Responsibilities."

At 19, Zuck had big powers and no responsibility. It's not excusable, and I'm not sure it's forgiveable either.

Now, Mark Zuckerberg has _immense_ power. I doubt that he's responsible enough to make up for it. I even doubt that _anyone_ can be responsible enough.

And if the responsibility needed to wield the power of Facebook doesn't exist, well, maybe wielding it _at all_ is not excusable, or even forgiveable.

</comment><comment><USER34> Bet Zuckerberg is wishing that Schmidt's "let kids change their names" idea was implemented a few years ago.

<comment><USER35> Really? Personally I'd guess Zuckerberg will never even read this story... and if he did I doubt he'd care.

<comment><USER34> No, not really.

I was just pointing out that Schmidt's comment has some credibility to it. The only reason it doesn't apply to Zuckerberg specifically is because of his powerful position, however the situation is the same.

<comment><USER35> Ok, fair enough :)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER36> I'd just like to say this: instead of immediately "going to fuck them", he went and created one of the largest websites in the world. Sounds like a much better outcome (at least for him) to me.

</comment><comment><USER37> Where is the confirmation? IMO, he would have to admit he did it. Maybe I missed that in the article.

IMs are not PGP signed or anything like that. It could have been someone pretending to be him. Maybe he left his laptop unlocked and a roommate or friend typed those words as a joke. There are hundreds of things that may have happened. Zuck may have nothing to do with it.

Don't rush to judgment. Anyone can pretend to be anyone on the Internet.

<comment><USER38> In Vargas's story, Zuckerberg admits he wrote the IMs and says he "absolutely" regrets them.

[http://www.businessinsider.com/embarrassing-and-damaging- zuc...](http://www.businessinsider.com/embarrassing-and-damaging-zuckerberg- ims-confirmed-by-zuckerberg-the-new-yorker-2010-9)

</comment></comment><comment><USER39> I think that this is a warning to all of us. Please, be a respectful and civil net citizen. If you troll around like crazy it may come up in the future and come back to hunt you. P.S. I have done my share of occasional trolling and silly comments. I don't think that they were offensive though.

</comment><comment><USER40> These are 22 yo words, at the time he was still uncertain of the future as all of us have been at some point in our lives. It will be wrong and kinda unfair to hold these words against him.

</comment><comment><USER41> I've said much worse things, both online and offline. These are a teenager's IM's. Nothing to see here, move on.

</comment><comment><USER42> Were these IMs obtained from server logs, or from participants in the conversations?

</comment><comment><USER43> Haven't these been circulating for years?

</comment><comment><USER44> I've really wanted to avoid joining the list of friends who have expunged their Facebook identities. This makes it very tempting to jump ship, though.

<comment> brown9-2 Why? Either you are comfortable with the amount of personal information you are publishing on Facebook's systems or you are not.

If you are comfortable about the personal information you are giving them then I don't see why out-of-context IMs from years ago change how _you_ feel about _your_ actions.

If you're not comfortable with your own sharing then what the heck are you doing?

<comment><USER44> The temptation to leave Facebook is motivated by principle, not pragmatism. Of course whatever personal information I have submitted to websites over the years has been snooped at some point or other. That doesn't make mean we should meekly accept such behavior.

EDIT: To clarify -- I am comfortable with the personal information I have shared. Such comfort does not imply permission for the holder of that information to snoop it.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER45> remembers me the latest xkcd comic: <http://xkcd.com/792/>

</comment><comment><USER46> I've definitely joked around just like that. This means nothing about Zuck's character.

</comment><comment><USER47> Can anyone explain the context and relevance of the IMs? Is he being sued for privacy violations or some such, so is it just a random/in general smear?

</comment><comment><USER48> Leave him alone already!

</comment><comment><USER49> I hardly call the IMs "Damning" considering how he's continued to grow into one of the most powerful people in the tech industry.</comment>


Ask HN: Which tech conferences will you attend in 2014? - <AUTHOR>

<comment><USER2> I'm hoping to make it to GopherCon, Google IO, WWDC, and RubyConf.

</comment><comment><USER3> Pycon and Hadoop Summit</comment>


First Large Format Video Camera - <AUTHOR> https://fiddleoak.wordpress.com/2017/12/29/large-format-video/ <comment><USER2> The article links to a video ([https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0ZixDTrQdzo](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0ZixDTrQdzo)) and the creator's explanation starts at 1m12s. It's pretty slick.</comment>


Is T-mobile intercepting DNS? - <AUTHOR> https://twitter.com/netik/status/674327366995345408 <comment><USER2> They're doing this shit in Germany on their DSL customers too (the "search suggestor"). It can be turned off via some obscure setting in the customer control panel, and upon a reconnect your router gets a different set of DNS servers.

<comment><USER3> T-Mobile USA and Germany's T-Mobile are completely separate entities.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Yes, I noticed this several months ago when I switched to T-Mobile. Hoping this gains traction...

<comment><USER5> I've been a T-Mobile customer for about two years, and they've been doing it for at least that long as far as I can recall. It hasn't bothered me that much since it's not very often that I mistype a URL while using my phone without wi-fi, so I've only seen that stupid search page a handful of times, but yeah… they do it.

<comment><USER4> I ended up just installing OpenVPN client and using my existing PIA VPN subscription. You can gain a lot of metadata MITMing DNS queries...</comment></comment></comment>


Donald Trump Elevates the Role of Chief Adviser on Cybersecurity - <AUTHOR> http://www.wsj.com/articles/trump-namesthomasbossert-chief-adviser-on-homeland-security-1482852680 <comment><USER2> I went to bypass the WSJ pay wall. A Google search on Thomas Bossert reveals that every other news source is reporting that he has been appointed an advisor on Homeland Security, not Cybersecurity.

<comment><AUTHOR> From the article:

"The Trump transition team announced Tuesday that Thomas P. Bossert will serve as an adviser to Mr. Trump on national security, terrorism and cyber issues, putting him on the same level as the powerful incoming national security adviser, Michael Flynn."

...

"That arrangement gives Mr. Bossert an "independent" status in the new White House, rather than making him subordinate to the national security adviser, Mr. Flynn."</comment></comment>


Toyota Prius software fix may reduce fuel efficiency, experts say - <AUTHOR> http://www.latimes.com/local/california/la-fi-toyota-prius-defect-20180218-story.html <comment><USER2> There's always the question how they asked. If they asked users if they had worse economy after the software update, a lot of people might respond yes, because of the loaded question. I mean I barely know any cars that actually have the stated economy.</comment>


A Modest Proposal for the Copy and Paste School of Code Reuse - <AUTHOR> http://www.codinghorror.com/blog/archives/001257.html

<comment><USER2> You should copy and paste code so rarely that this shouldn't be a problem. The author of the article proves this point effectively with his snippet example; the correct way to fade out a window in Cocoa is with an NSAnimation and the NSViewAnimationFadeOutEffect on an NSWindow. His code blocks the thread directly and could cause problems, especially if called from a routine that responds to an IBAction (GUI event).

There's a reason good developer documentation calls example code Listings or Illustrations: you're supposed to read and understand it, then write it yourself in your own application. Copying and pasting code verbatim is always a bad idea, even for simple things like short regexps.

Don't copy and paste code that you don't understand or couldn't write yourself.

<comment><USER3> Copy, paste, and modify is one of the ways I managed to learn web development in the first place. Sometimes, understanding doesn't come from reading alone. You need to feel the clay in your hands to mold it into the pot you want to make.

<comment><USER4> Ever think that it actually slows your learning down? Honestly, you learn code much better if you actually type it yourself. Even if you have a working example, retype it manually, it'll make you appreciate doing proper reuse via function calls much better. Copy and paste is a bad habit, code is not clay, and treating it as such hurts you.

<comment><USER3> I'm not saying I do this today, I'm saying it was integral to my learning process when I started, years ago. Typing it out doesn't help solve the issues of learning the subtleties of syntax. You need to start with something that works and then start seeing the ways your poor typing breaks the code.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Err .. I am the only one with this view or did anyone else also think that the article wasn't provided any new insight or point of view. He just basically iterated everything that everyone knows about the pros and cons of copying code ?!

<comment><USER6> That is what Jeff does. I really don't understand how every one of his inane posts makes the front page of HN.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> There already is a globally unique identifier, although not necessarily a "GUID", on things you get from the web:

It's called a URL.

</comment><comment><USER8> If one had a database of code snippets, then, given a specific code snippet it would be possible to find "similar" code in the database: code that had been changed or improved from some original version. One could even create an evolutionary tree for each snippet, if one were so inclined.

The pertinent algorithms are already in heavy use in bioinformatics.

</comment><comment><USER9> If there were only some way to give code snippets on the web some form of universal resource locator, you could skip the guid...

<comment><USER10> The existing problem (for Jeff) is that it is hard to find modified or improved versions of the same snippet. Whereas a URL points to an inidividual snippet, the GUID could point to different versions. The same GUID could also be used for the same snippet in a different language.

Obviously you could also group related snippets on a site, but that formalizes it too much. Snippets are mean to be copy/pasted and passed around on forums, blogs and sites.

<comment><USER11> But ... you can still Google for the URL.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> Jeff Atwood is essentially describing git/github.

</comment><comment><USER13> Finding copy-pasted pieces of code that have been modified in place is actually a rather difficult problem. I've been working on a tool for this in my spare time over the last several months, and I hope to release it sometime this summer. Pinning down what's "similar enough" is subtle, and if you go too far, it complains that boilerplate-y code in e.g. Java is unnecessarily redundant. (While this is certainly _true_ , it's not useful.)

I look forward to the upcoming structured programming revolution. Some day, people will _use subroutines_!

</comment><comment><USER14> Oh my god, I can almost see some noir company disabling Ctrl-C/Ctrl-V on programmer's laptops.

</comment><comment><USER15> I think it needs a system, not simply developers do it like that.

May be a new startup that takes care of snippets

<comment><USER16> Like the ones he linked to?</comment></comment>


Some Reflections on Being Turned Down for a Lot of Data Science Jobs - <AUTHOR> http://tdhopper.com/blog/2017/Mar/06/some-reflections-on-being-turned-down-for-a-lot-of-data-science-jobs/ <comment><USER2> I manage a data science team and revamped the hiring process pretty substantially about a year ago, to good results. Nothing in here is particularly original, but here's what we do:

1\. Break down "data science" into several different roles–in our case, Analyst (business-oriented), Scientist (stats-heavy), Engineer (software- heavy). Turns out that what we mostly want are Engineers-Analysts, so our process screens heavily for those.

2\. Figure out which types of people can be trained to be good at those roles, given the team's current skillset. I opted to look primarily for people with strong analysis skills and some engineering.

3\. Design interview tasks/questions that screen for those abilities. In my case, the main thing I did was make sure that the interviews depended very little on pre-existing knowledge, and a lot on resourcefulness/creativity/etc. E.g. the (2-hour) takehome is explicitly designed to be heavily googleable.

4\. Develop phone screens that are very good at filtering people quickly, so that we don't waste candidates' time. By the time someone gets to an onsite interview on our team there's something like a 50% chance they'll get an offer.

On the candidate side, when I'm applying I try to figure out first and foremost what a company means by "data scientist", usually by networking & talking to someone who already works there. This filters out maybe 90% of jobs with that title, and then I put more serious effort into the rest.

<comment><USER3> I've been looking for a job, and I've found how vaguely organizations define their data scientist and analyst roles in their job postings really frustrating. They tend to have a short description of the role, which is generally filled with buzzwords, followed by a list of requirements. I wish organizations would talk about what they wanted to do with their data instead.

For instance, a common description might say the candidate will be working with "big data" to help with "data-driven initiatives" and the requirements will be something like "knowledge of Excel, with a Masters in Statistics, or equivalent experience".

It's really hard to tailor a cover-letter or a resume to a job posting like that. For one thing, I can't even imagine what kind of work they are doing if they are using Excel for "big data". Second of all, I currently have a job, and writing cover letters and creating resumes takes a lot of time. By the time I get to the phone screen I've probably already spent at least a couple of hours applying. Plus, in the interest of keeping my cover letter and resume short, I have to leave off a fair amount of my experience and performance metrics.

Honestly, at this point I think I'm just going to start reaching out to people in the fields I'm interested in and asking them if they know of any roles that would fit my skill-set. The way I see it, I'd at least have a chance of getting feedback from someone who can view my skill-set holistically, rather than HR, who will let me know that I don't tick all their boxes (or vice versa).

<comment><USER4> >>I've been looking for a job, and I've found how vaguely organizations define their data scientist and analyst roles in their job postings really frustrating.

I lead a Data Science team and part of the struggle with writing sensible job descriptions is that there are too many people providing input into the job description. HR can also put their hand in the pot when they try to use buzzwords (e.g. Hadooop) to internally justify why a role with 2 years of experience needs to be paid like other roles (e.g. traditional Excel based Analyst) with 5-10 years of experience.

>>They tend to have a short description of the role, which is generally filled with buzzwords, followed by a list of requirements. I wish organizations would talk about what they wanted to do with their data instead.

One major challenge for Data Scientists is how hyped the role is, leading to people in an organization believing whatever they want about Data Scientists. Are you a leader who wants a business analyst who can use software and interface with IT? Data Scientist. Are you an engineering manager who wants a person who can interface with the business and use machine learning? Data Scientist. Are you a VP who thinks big data and ML is the problem to your bad or non-existent data? Data Scientist. Do you want somebody who can exhale the maximum amount of hot air while still sounding like a tech and math genius? Data Scientist.

Also add in that business people with minimal experience in modern Analytics are trying to build up Data Science and Analytics capabilities in their own part of the organization because they realize Excel is not the answer to every question. I've spent a lot of time speaking with people to help them understand the type of people they need to hire. Sometimes people are sensible and sensible job descriptions and expectations come from that. Other times they are adamant about what they need (even if they are wrong) and the end result are convoluted job descriptions that are either never filled or filled with the wrong person.

<comment><USER5> how do you choose candidates for an interview?

I can't even get a call back for an interview lined up. I have done NLP, got a masters degree in computer science from Penn, plenty of experience with big data such as hdfs and hive, spend my free time doing what ever data science I can. but obviously doing something wrong.

any suggestions? Here is my linkedin account: [https://www.linkedin.com/in/karl- dailey-02557b65](https://www.linkedin.com/in/karl-dailey-02557b65)

<comment><USER6> May I offer a couple of quick suggestions? I've never hired for Data Scientist positions, but I've hired for plenty of other ones.

1) Change your profile picture to something serious. Get a collared shirt and a nice background outdoors. No tie. People will unconsciously judge you on your picture, so you want something that shows you're a professional, but you're confident and happy in life.

2) Think hard about your job titles. Your latest job is far more than just a "Data Analyst". It seems closer to a Scientist or Engineer role, even if your company doesn't call it that. "Analyst" makes people think of entry-level positions. Your DBA-Programmer position is more like a Software Engineer/DBA/System Admin position. If you can't pick one, generally those all-in-one positions can be known as Systems Engineers. Whatever you do, make sure that DBA isn't the primary thing people see. In general, sell your previous positions more. Like "IT". That's not a title, that's a department.

3) Expand on your projects section more.

4) Make sure your resume matches your LinkedIn. People absolutely look you up on there. I did it all the time. When the two didn't match, I was suspicious.

Good luck.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> So you're at least occasionally getting actual _feedback_ from some of these discussions. That's quite something, actually.

BTW, as to some of that "feedback":

 _Honestly, I think the way you communicated your thought process and results was confusing for some people in the room._

"Okay, pal - let's put your people up in a room full of strangers (some of whom show through their body language and/or constant phone-checking that they pretty much don't really want to be there in the first place), make them answer some made-up questions (which may or may not be coherently presented; or even particularly relevant to the job description) -- combined with the background stress of being unemployed, and/or stuck in job they absolutely HATE, and can barely stand another day of -- and see how they do."

 _Quite honestly given your questions [about vacation policy] and the fact that you are considering other options, [we] may not be the best choice for you._

Great -- so they're basically accusing you of being a slacker (not really into the work, only interested in what's in it for you, etc). Which is quite a presumptuous attitude to take in response to a _perfectly reasonable question_ about the value proposition they're asking you to consider (a question for which it might be in better form to wait until the later stags of the negotiation process to bring up... but that's a very minor style point that you definitely shouldn't be dinged for).

"Quite honestly" that attitude sucks. And you don't need to feel bad about being "rejected" by people like that.

<comment><USER8> > Honestly, I think the way you communicated your thought process and results > was confusing for some people in the room.

Wow, get similar rejection lately: this is a fast paced company and the way you explained your thought process was confusing and might slow us down, so good luck with your job search.

<comment><USER9> Did you ask them what was confusing and how it would slow them down. Did they tell you? Because ultimately if I'd hear that without anything to help me improve it's a bit of a catch-all "we don't know so out you go" kind of thing.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Many recommend setting up an online portfolio for these types of positions. But I've applied to a number of Data Analyst/Scientist jobs recently and I am immediately rejected almost every time despite highlighting my blog/portfolio ([http://minimaxir.com](http://minimaxir.com)) and my GitHub with open-source code/Notebooks for each and every post ([https://github.com/minimaxir](https://github.com/minimaxir)), both of which have topped HN on occasion.

Internal recruiters have hinted that my Software QA Engineer background + no CS degree implies I have no technical skill.

<comment><USER11> I wonder if you are less impacted by the lack of CS degree than by your "Software QA Engineer" label.

My own experience was that my initial position as a software performance engineer resulted in a perception that I was a "tester" without technical skills _despite_ having multiple CS credentials and published code in practitioner-oriented sources.

Overcoming recruiter biases was such a struggle that I now routinely counsel students and early career programmers to carefully consider whether job role perceptions would negatively affect their future prospects. I also tell them, when financially viable, to not take on roles where hiring orgs cannot give them a day-to-day job description that directly matches their desired career path.

This advice seems quite challenging or maybe misguided for data science careers though. It seems like just getting an entry-level data science job might require a dedicated MS in either CS or stats, with a healthy set of projects in whichever of those two subjects you didn't spend grad school working on to prove yourself . . .

<comment><USER12> I had a similar experience. My first job out of college was for a Developer Role (building testing frameworks, maintaining and building browser extensions) but the job was titled 'QA Developer' so I had a hell of a time the first time I tried to find a new job. Never mind that I wrote thousands and thousands of lines of application code, lots of recruiters would deny me on the basis that my background didn't fit.

<comment><USER13> Did you try dropping the exact title from your resume for a more general description of the role?

<comment><USER12> Yes, but it was hard to entirely obfuscate the fact that I designed/coded testing frameworks. Part of my job was running and analyzing big batches of regression scripts, so it would have been disingenuous to pretend like it didn't happen.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> I was coming from academia with no real competitive background in machine learning/predictive analytics/statistics when I started applying for data science positions. I was coming from a post doc in computational neuroscience, and had done ML/your run-of-the-academic-mill stats as part of my thesis, but never had formal training in it. I landed a lot of interviews (and applied for an ENORMOUS amount of positions), but it took me a while to land a really solid offer. So just keep at it.

Once I got that offer and 'data scientist' was listed as a position on my resume, I've had at least one or two recruiters reach out to me each week. Not just your 'bulk tech recruiter', but individual hiring managers/team leads from companies who had no interest in me prior to the title change.

Hell, I had a manager I had already interviewed with from another company (and got rejected) reach out to me TWICE to come back in. To be honest, I'm not entirely sure he remembered that I had interviewed there only a month earlier.

All after I had the title change on my resume. What I'm getting at, is for me, the title change really opened up doors. I figure 'data science' is such a huge buzzword now, recruiters look more for that buzz word than they do for the actual content of what you've done on your resume. I'm sure it will die down at some point.

This may be more prominent outside of silicon valley where I am, and (in my opinion without any facts to back it up), where I feel more weight is given for the title than the substance.

<comment><USER15> I still feel grateful for an otherwise-pretty-terrible employer for gifting me with a 'developer' title. Regardless of how much experience or aptitude one has or can demonstrate programming or building software, titles _are crucial_.

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> I don't have much Data Science job hunting experience, however I have applied to and been hunted by over 100 startups, 24 enterprise companies, and 12 large "startups".

I've had the following:

      - 106 Rejections
      - 39 Offers
      - 24 Refused
      - 15 Contemplated
      - 5 Taken

Roles Applied for:

      - Software Engineer (55rj, 8o, 6r)
      - Product Manager (5rj, 6o, 5r)
      - Senior Software Engineer (31rj, 23o, 22r)
      - Product Lead (0rj, 1o, 1r)
      - Senior Product Manager (9rj, 3o, 2r)
      - VP of E (2rj, 1o, 1r)
      - CTO (0rj, 1o, 0r)

It's been a journey. I don't keep an exact list so this is from looking at my calendar and doing some basic math. This certainly doesn't include all of the role changes within companies.

Things to note:

      - People conflate Agile & Scrum a lot.
      - Make it easy for people in the room to know what you personally accomplished during your career.
      - Make an impression, don't overdo it however.
      - Make your descriptions easy to understand.
      - Don't just list tech stacks on your resume, list achievements.
      - Stay consistent.
      - Ask questions.

Also Note:

Regardless how impressive your Github & Stackoverflow accounts might be, you will still be asked to do a stupid code challenge. It irks me. I understand the reasoning for it when you don't have a viable pool of information on the individual, but when you do... It's just disrespectful.

Few places I have been rejected by:

      Salesforce, Atlassian, Trello, Twitch, Segment, AirBnB, Twitter, OKCupid, LinkedIn, Shippo,  and many many more.

Some places I have been offered by:

      Amazon, VMWare, Oracle, Google (twice), Apple (twice), Venmo, Auth0, Discord, Youtube, Hitbox, Steam, Pusher, Cloudflare

<comment><USER17> This is a really interesting set of stats you have here. Heartening in the sense that rejection is a common and overwhelming likelihood and shouldn't be a source of dejection, but also kind of depressing in the sense that it's clear many, many companies (including some big ones) have a terrible hiring process.

<comment><USER16> Yes, for example some take months with everyone loving you the entire way, for a single person to interview you and reject you without a reason.

I'm glad I had those interviews early on, so now when I see an interview start to drag on, I cut it short as it doesn't look like a priority on their end.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> > "Quite honestly given your questions [about vacation policy] and the fact > that you are considering other options, [we] may not be the best choice for > you."

I had a very similar experience. Job offer was basically on the table and then they balked because I mentioned that I had another offer (at a larger company, which they seemed shocked/annoyed with) and I had a question about parking at their new offices. The current offices had free parking, so I had simply asked if the new ones would too. The response was very cold (must have a been the source of internal strife, I guess?). An hour later I got a call saying they were no longer interested.

<comment><USER19> Mentioning that you had another offer can be tricky. Did they ask you if you were seeing other companies? Did you just put it out there? Did you put them on a deadline?

Mentioning that you have another offer is seen as a negotiating tactic. Then they have to compete/bid against the other offer, and you are removing some of their leverage/power. A strong reaction to such a move can be to cut off the interview, so to regain back their power.

<comment><USER20> Yes, you're correct. But it's best to walk away from companies who try to own you to that level. If a good company respects and wants you, they are completely OK with giving up some of their leverage in order to gain your trust as well as they can.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> This is a bit off-topic but one thing I'm curious is how the author manages to interview with these companies while holding down a full-time job and keep up- to-date with the latest developments. Interview for a data science position is typically a drawn-out process, with multiple rounds of interviews and possibly take-home projects. I found them to be very time and energy consuming.

To share my story, I also had a difficult time transitioning into a data scientist role after leaving academia (pure mathematics), and I always thought the root cause was my lack of experience and competency. So instead of keeping on applying, I spent over a year just to sharpen up my skills. It paid off in the end.

How can one develop his/her skills and cultivate expertise if one is job- shopping all the time (possibly aimlessly)?

<comment><USER22> I think being a good DS requires focused learning. For example, when I started out, I didn't know much about neural networks and their different architectures. I tend to find time outside work to go over papers, thesis, or watch lectures on youtube to keep myself up to date so that now I can describe cnn and rnns to tech and non-tech people.

</comment></comment><comment><USER23> > Quite honestly given your questions [about vacation policy] and the fact > that you are considering other options, [we] may not be the best choice for > you.

Dodged a bullet on that one:

\- PTO is a touchy subject?

\- They are looking at more than one candidate, why would any candidate limit themselves to one potential employer?

<comment><USER24> Yeah, that's just weird. Paid time off is part of the total compensation package; it would be strange if a candidate _didn 't_ ask about it.

<comment><USER25> And if they are touchy about it probably also means that they won't pay it out if you leave ... that's the law in California but not in other states like Washington.

I was shocked to hear that, apparently it is somewhat common in retail jobs not to get paid out. Happened to me at a company that claimed to be more of a technology company. Maybe they don't think word gets around. Or that smarter employees will just take a lot of time off before quitting, which does a lot more harm to the company than if they just paid out the time owed to the employee.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> The too many jobs knock I can understand...I'm just plain old Midwest developer guy, so maybe I don't understand the nuances of a market like Silicon Valley or the like that is inundated with software jobs. Still, when I read HN I often get the impression that there is more focus on getting that next great offer than actually doing a given job...so much so that the ability to be perceived as valuable at interview/screening time seems like the mostly highly focused on or developed skill for some people. It seems like there are many professional interviewees out there these days.

I have a hard time understanding. At least for what I've seen/done, it would take about a year of experience to be of any real value. I'd say you start seeing real dividends from an employee near the three year mark. I think the primary exception would be where you have a big gaping hole in an organization...like building a data science program or something from the ground up. But if you've got software and customers long long past the 1.0 stage to support, and someone is going to (someday) understand/contribute to the core? Think about Google's monolith or the Linux kernel...sure most software isn't that mature/grand, but there are many projects out there that are closer to that than greenfield. And it's not just the code, it's the developed relationships/rhythm with coworkers and customers.

Maybe I've explained it to myself, I don't know. The difference may be startup companies or projects versus mature ones. At least in the latter case, it seems to me that if a company retains an engineer for less than 2-3 years, they've almost certainly lost on that investment.

<comment><AUTHOR> You may well be right.

</comment></comment><comment><USER27> _You never really know_

That's actually the only correct answer. Having been on both sides of the table for many years, I can pretty much guarantee that whatever reason the candidate is given is nowhere close to the actual reasons.

There may not be any specific reason why we didn't pick you, but we'll give you a tiny sample anyway. So you think that's _the_ reason - it's not.

In other cases, we have a strong reason not to pick you, but it's embarrassing so we feed you a bogus reason instead.

And in more cases than I'd like, there is no problem on your side, we are having internal issues that we can't reveal anyway. Any reason you hear from us in that case is completely irrelevant.

By the way, when you evaluate people in interview, you really need to figure out a _vector_ : where they are today in terms of knowledge and experience, but also in what _direction_ they are going (fast learner or not, high potential, etc.). Which is why sometimes you can hire someone who has less relevant experience, but you think they'll learn fast and are very smart, and sometimes you are looking for the perfect match to the current position, but don't care too much whether they can pick up new stuff or not.

<comment><USER28> HR Departments have also groomed hiring managers not to ever give a reason why they say no. Every reason you provide is grounds for speculation and potential law suits.

</comment></comment><comment><USER29> At least you have been told the reasons, even if they are true or not. I recently had many tech/behavioral interview with team and passed, but after a review with VP of X, saying we decided not to move forward is way worse than this. I still keeep wondering 'What is wrong with me?' even after years of interviews. I have some suspicions, but never a promising answer. If I oneday found a company, first company policy would be to tell the candidates to tell why they were not hired in a polite way.

<comment><USER30> > first company policy would be to tell the candidates to tell why they were > not hired in a polite way.

And your lawyers would _strongly_ advocate against that.

In most cases they can't/won't tell you because it could open up legal liability. If they say a reason for you, but then hire someone else to whom that reason also applies and you find out, you could sue them. Or you could find a way to twist it into something against a protected class. Too many ways for the company to get screwed.

That's why they all say "we've decided to go another way" or something equally generic.

<comment><USER31> This is part of why I dislike employment anti-discrimination laws. They probably worked better for manual labor jobs. Of course, there is also firing where the laws vary by state. I think CA is one of the most strict, right?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER32> The real reason you were rejected, or anyone applying in a highly competitive field: an oversupply of qualified candidates.

<comment><USER33> In this particular case (data science) it is more an oversupply of candidates (qualified and not), plus difficulties defining and measuring "qualified", plus buzz.

It's a difficult enough field to hire in when you understand what it is (and isn't) - and lots of companies are trying to do it with far more vague goals.

<comment><USER34> Why do you think candidates for data science jobs aren't qualified relative to other positions?

<comment><USER35> I've probably interviewed about 70-100 such people in the past year and a half. Exactly 1 such person was qualified (I hired him). The issue in my view is the following: people who know both statistics and computer science are extremely rare.

People who actually understand statistics are rare. I can probably weed out 1/3 to 1/2 of candidates simply by asking what a p-value is, or what precision/recall are (this includes people who said they worked in search).

Of the ones who know basic stats, most are neither good at nor interested in programming. They just want to use existing libraries to crunch numbers in a Jupyter notebook, then hand that off to the developers.

Finding a person who can come up with a predictive model, understand what they did, optimize it without breaking it's statistical validity and deploy it to production is very hard.

(If you can do this, I'm hiring in Pune and Delhi. Email in my profile.)

<comment><USER36> Ignoring what a p-value is does not mean that you don't know statistics. p-tests are not some inherent statistical property, they're just a useful model for significance. People coming from a CS background most likely didn't have to deal with p-values, but they can still be good at linear algebra or bayesian statistics.

(not sure I can defend somebody that does not know what precision/recall are)

<comment><USER37> Regarding precision/recall, I've a background in financial econometrics and this is the first time I encounter the terms.

<comment><USER38> It's literally the first thing you learn in data science / machine learning coursework about evaluating model performance. It would probably be better to ask the candidate to whiteboard a set of metrics for evaluating model performance rather than ask for the definition of a pair of words, but the concept is practically the for-loop of data science.

Edit: note that I'm not saying you need this to add roi as an analyst for a business!

<comment><USER37> I haven't taken a lot of data science classes but I'm not sure that's true. If you start with linear regression the mean squared error would make more sense. I actually searched through "The Elements of Statistical Learning" and the word 'recall' is not used in this sense at all.

<comment><USER39> People don't pay for linear regressions. They pay for discrete things: what is my best option among my three clear courses of action. Linear regression can be a tiny piece of a larger argument in favor or against one option or the other, but that alone doesn't make money.

<comment><USER37> That's obvious but not at all what I responded to in my post.

I responded to the claim that ML courses start with the definition of precision and recall. In my admittedly limited experience those courses start with linear regression and mean squared errors. After that, there is so much generalization possible and that doesn't include precision/recall.

You make money by solving someone's problems, making money by stating definitions is only done on TV quizzes.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER40> _Companies often use interviews as a time to figure out what they 're really looking for._

For startups, this transcends data science. It might be the one time that week they focus on that need.

 _Networking is still king._

Exactly and this also argues against wanting to get hired to work remotely.

<comment><AUTHOR> Not sure networking is contrary to working remotely. Opportunities for networking online are far bigger than in-person.

<comment><USER40> You may be talking about contracting and the OP is talking about hiring. Moreover while the opportunities for networking online are countably infinite they can be thin opportunities. I know Joe from HN doesn't carry the same weight as I know Roger from Google. It carries weight just not nearly as much.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> My analytical thought process on DS interviews:

\- Signal is still quite low among noise, even with long multiple interviews, take-home homework, coding challenges, etc. Most relevant data is still hidden and takes months-years to come out.

\- Companies seek to minimize false-positives much more than minimizing true- negatives.

\- It's a numbers game from both ends because the probabilities are low, due to above 2 points.

<comment><USER41> Woe betide the company that asks for a take home project, especially one that isn't just 50 lines of an algorithm (I'm talking one that I recall that asked for parsing Apache logs from a stream, displaying moving averages for URLs, aggregates, having high water mark "alerts" and resetting when rolling averages dropped below that, some unit tests and docs...

And doesn't bother to respond after you submit. I'm certainly not the world's best coder, but my solution met all those requirements in a reasonably elegant manner, and took several hours (10-20?) to make comprehensive.

That gets you on my shit list, and people I know get to hear about it, too.

<comment><USER22> Same FireBeyond. Even worse, I've gotten feedback on a take-home project where the solutions had errors in it and I had the correct response! This, btw, was from one of the huge tech-companies in SF. Since it was the recruiter who went through the solutions, I couldn't nor cared to correct their mistakes :)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER42> Is there a typical path for getting into Data Science? Posts like this make it seem like it's the wild west

<comment><USER43> I've had a few DS jobs. And I've been a hiring manager at two of those jobs. I can confirm that it's roughly the wild west still.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> I can't even get a call back for an interview lined up. After hearing people get tons of unsolicited mails on linkedin from recruiters (while I got none), I tried adding more words in my linkedin to show up on searches, but still nothing.

Does anyone have any suggestions? Here is my linkedin account: [https://www.linkedin.com/in/karl- dailey-02557b65](https://www.linkedin.com/in/karl-dailey-02557b65)

</comment><comment><USER44> "Networking is still king"

My takeaway from it.

<comment><USER45> I think that just "networking" would be the wrong takeaway, though. The author[0] is pretty active on Twitter / the blogosphere and, even though I don't follow him personally, his writing has popped up on my feed a number of times. He's likely meeting people and having interesting conversations ("networking") because he has interesting things to say.

[0] [https://twitter.com/tdhopper](https://twitter.com/tdhopper)

<comment><USER46> Not just blogging, but Tim is also active in terms of attending / speaking at various industry conferences and what-not. Whether he is doing it simply to "build his brand" or because he genuinely enjoys it, or both, is something I can't speak to. But I think he's definitely "meeting people and having interesting conversations".

<comment><AUTHOR> Hi Phil!

<comment><USER46> Oh no, I've been outed!

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER47> Clicked hoping he was going to do data science on his failed interview data

</comment><comment><USER48> I looked at this resume. it looks good but his job history is a major concern. Of course, some might say why even invite him to an interview, perhaps they gave him a chance only to discover in the interview process that he's really impatient and not willing to stick around for long?

There is a ramp up time for new hire, which could be a couple of months. So durations of a year or less doesn't look good. I personally like to see minimum of 2 years for each job. Of course, too long can be a concern too unless they really grew in their role.

I agree with his conclusion, Network is king, but I also believe in listening to the universe. If everyone is "wrong", maybe you are the problem. If lots of people don't wish to hire you after you have solid experience in the industry, something is wrong with you and you are being stubborn by refusing to recognize it and fix it.

</comment><comment><USER49> Ok, this is a little worrying. I've read through the all the conversation here but is it really that difficult to get jobs for people who already are involved in Data Science? Here I was thinking if I do a course on Data Science fundamentals of computer science online, I would on tract of getting a computer science/data science job.

My future really rests upon this. I have a degree in mechanical engineering with irrelevant experience. My only regret is not doing bachelors in computer science.

I wouldn't lie if all the post got me little tensed and made me thinking, "what am I doing with my time". About to finish introduction to Computer Science using Python on Edx.

</comment><comment><USER50> That sucks.

That said, what is this?

a) "I cannot do X" b) "But here is some advice on how to do X"

I mean... why would anyone listen to the advice that is proven to lead to failure? Serious question.

</comment><comment><USER51> Well, it also seems like he applied to a lot of jobs (he worked for 5 companies since 2012, for many only under a year!). He must be constantly looking for a new job.

I know switching jobs is common here, but i would think that sticking at least 1 to 2 for a job would be normal (assuming it works out).

</comment><comment><USER52> > you rarely truly know why you were turned down.

Bit of a silly article. You could say this about anything. And I don't see what the problem is with never being contacted, if someone doesn't want me for whatever reason, I don't really want to hear from them again.

<comment><AUTHOR> K

</comment></comment><comment><USER53> While I find it reasonable, I would still not ask about vecation policies in the interview, but rather when they decided they want me and we go through the details. Why would you ask before? (honest question)

<comment><AUTHOR> I actually had an offer in hand, and it was rescinded after I asked about PTO.

<comment><USER53> Than it's good you weeded that one out :)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER54> "Quite honestly given your questions [about vacation policy] and the fact that you are considering other options, [we] may not be the best choice for you."

You wouldn't want to work there.

" but the team has decided to keep looking for someone who might have more direct neural net experience."

Fair enough - but this has to be slim pickins. How many AI jobs are there out there? Realistically, very few.

</comment><comment><USER55> > "Honestly, I think the way you communicated your thought process and results > was confusing for some people in the room."

We got confused, and then we stopped. The end.

</comment><comment><USER56> ironically, the unwashed masses that data science has 'targeted' for 'optimization' go through the exact same process and feel the exact same emotions.

apply for 100 jobs, get zero response, and zero reason why.

be told illogical things.

be told out right lies.

welcome to capitalism. welcome to the workplace that is run entirely by data. (or by people who only care about data). welcome to the future of humanity.</comment>


Military Expert: Virtual Reality a Health Hazard and Should Be Banned - <AUTHOR> http://vrtalk.com/forum/showthread.php?3078-Military-Expert-Virtual-Reality-A-Major-Health-Hazard-amp-Should-be-Banned <comment><USER2> When did military experts start to care about health hazards?</comment>


Rethinking the American consumer - <AUTHOR> http://www.economist.com/blogs/freeexchange/2009/10/rethinking_the_american_consum.cfm

<comment><USER2> Housing is a necessity. A given house is not. I find this article hard to wrap my head around, as it really seems to be based on slipping in the idea that it is impossible to cut your housing costs and then going from there to "panic!", but that's not true. You can cut housing costs. You can control the costs of quite a few "necessities" nowadays; very, very few Americans are truly buying the absolute minimum "necessities". My wife and I have managed to cut quite a bit of "necessity" out over the past few years, and economized on several other "necessities".

<comment><USER3> If your mortgage is under water (i.e. the principal is more than the value of the house), you can't sell your house. And a large percentage of American mortgages are now under water.

<comment><USER2> Foreclosure is an option. If it's your only option, it sucks, but it is a way to cut costs. Is it expensive in itself, given the damage it does to your credit rating? Well, yes, but that doesn't mean it's not there, or sometimes the best choice. Should you not have ended up in the position where that was the best choice? Well, yes, but if that's where you are, that's where you are.

It's important to separate the ideal fact that you shouldn't be in that position from the practical fact that it is indeed an option.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Just because we spent as much yesterday as 20 years ago on consumer goods doesn't mean that our spending _wasn't_ frivolous. Our essential costs skyrocketed. We should've cut back.

</comment><comment><USER5> Housing costs are not always a necessity. The mean sq. footage of a house in the United State went from 1,655 to 2,215 between 1978 and 2008. Did people develop the necessity for larger and larger houses? Or did they _want_ larger and larger houses?

I'll wager on _want_ over need. American culture is too often focused on coveting what others have, and showing off success through the display of material goods. The one case that can be made for larger houses is the number of persons per household increasing from a mean of 2.67 (1987) to 3.88 (2008). What do you all think?

True, it's harder to cut down the cost after making the mistake of buying more house than can be afforded. Myself and plenty of other Americans instead chose to buy more affordable, if less desirable, houses. For us, a large house is not a necessity. (I live in a 900 sqft condo)

Sources: [<http://www.census.gov/const/C25Ann/sftotalmedavgsqft.pdf>] [[http://www.census.gov/population/socdemo/hh- fam/cps2008/tabA...](http://www.census.gov/population/socdemo/hh- fam/cps2008/tabAVG3.xls)] [[http://www.nytimes.com/1987/04/15/us/average-size- of-househo...](http://www.nytimes.com/1987/04/15/us/average-size-of-household- in-us-declines-to-lowest-ever-recorded.html)]

<comment><USER6> "American culture is too often focused on coveting what others have, and showing off success through the display of material goods."

Agreed, but its not just American culture that does this. The type of conspicuous consumption you refer to was one of the major ideas behind the economist Thorstein Veblen's The Theory of the Leisure Class. He claims that it is human nature to emulate those of a higher economic class through wasteful spending. Interesting stuff.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> It was nice to hear that American consumers are not quite as prone to frivolity as is commonly believed. At the same time however, this gives me a sinking feeling -- the consequence is that individuals will find it far harder to cut budgets on housing, transportation, and healthcare than on impulse purchases like big televisions. We are, in fact, in worse trouble than we thought. If you have seen suburbia recently, it shouldn't be too surprising to find out that the 'necessities' have become more expensive; the past few decades have seen bigger cars, homes, and commutes than ever before. In order to downscale costs, there is going to have to be some serious downsizing, and this is something that does not come easy for those in the land of the supersizes (especially with regard to living in higher density/urban areas and sourcing locally).

For me, the big take-away from this article is debt-financing. For many years, the U.S. government and its average citizens has been spending beyond their means - acquiring now and hoping to meet the mounting payments in the future. This has certainly demonstrated itself to be a losing strategy, and a habit that is especially difficult to kick. I am interested to see how this country will rise to meet these challenges.

</comment><comment><USER7> "[A]s Elizabeth Warren has argued, the idea that most Americans have been spending frivolously on consumer goods actually isn't true. Instead, a hefty chunk of the increase in consumption in recent decades has been the result of higher housing prices"

I don't disagree, but past 1-2 decades have seen commoditization of housing, housing and related products started to resemble more and more like consumer goods in the U.S. than in any other country.

</comment><comment><USER8> Spending on health care is often frivolous. It's just that consumers have no better alternative than to trust their doctor when their doctor tells them that it's prudent to order an MRI, or that an expensive brand-name drug has advantages over a generic alternative.

</comment><comment><USER9> The article doesn't bring up the fact that a majority of the people in developed countries have plenty of resources to afford their needs. A house is not a necessity. A car is not a necessity. And as one of the commenters pointed out, the rising cost of health care must be in part attributed to _better_ health care. It makes a difference, since many OTC drugs that we take for granted today would be considered life-savers in the 1930s.</comment>


How Baboons Think - <AUTHOR> http://www.nytimes.com/2007/10/09/science/09babo.html?em&ex=1192334400&en=4c284334784fef12&ei=5087%0A

<comment><USER2> You're diluting news.yc, man. Take it to reddit. What makes yc news /valuable/ is that it's not diluted with off-topic stuff. You weaken that when you make non-startup, non-code-related posts.

<comment><USER3> _The focus of Hacker News is going to be anything that good hackers would find interesting. That includes a lot more than hacking and startups. If you had to reduce it to a sentence, the answer might be: anything that gratifies one's intellectual curiosity._

<http://ycombinator.com/hackernews.html>

<comment><USER2> When the news.yc becomes one more place to post the stale material going around, it'll be useless.</comment></comment></comment>


The Revised Prehistory of BOFH - <AUTHOR> http://www.bofharchive.com/BOFH-Prehistory.html <comment><USER2> Man, I love the BOFH. These columns, along with User Friendly, Slashdot, and Sluggy Freelance, were some of the first things I latched onto when I got a 'net connection for the first time. And as chance would have it, my first "real job" was as a System Operator, so these struck a chord with me. It's probably just sentimentality, but even now I feel like there's something special about the BOFH columns, a certain "je ne sais quoi", that is lacking from most of the rest of what's out there.

I still go back and re-read the entire archive (or most of it) from the beginning once every couple of years or so. To anybody who hasn't had the experience of entering the world of the BOFH, the PFY, the Boss, the Head, Mad Ron the Sparky, and the rest of the crew, I can't recommend it highly enough.

<comment><USER3> Although the BOFH stories never clicked with me, I hazard that the je ne sais pas of your reflection could be - I speak for my own recollection of the genre - the immeasurable catharsis and balm I certainly felt, as a release from every excruciating situation in which I so dearly would have loved to have retorted, "Have you switched it off and turned it on again?"[0], toungue firmly in cheek or not, without fear for my unappreciated job.

[0] The IT Crowd, UK Channel Four, available in whole on 4OnDemand, for anyone who has been deprived.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> I've never liked the BOFH stories, even when I first encountered them in the early 90's I never thought they were particularly funny, and as I've since become a more experienced sysadmin I've actually come to despise them and the attitude they symbolize. Sure, the stories are parodies and written in an exaggerated manner, but the underlying humor seems to be saying " _Isn't this what we all really think? Isn't this how we would all wish we could behave?_ ", which is an attitude I find deplorable.

I've elaborated about this here in the past, first here:

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10320829#10322378](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10320829#10322378)

and later here:

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16724962#16725937](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16724962#16725937)

<comment><USER5> The relatableness of the BOFH seems to rest on what's often called the "structured violence" of the work world. In the US, someone with the BOFH's skills would have eventually taken his PFYs and went and started his own business, and, well of course he wouldn't have been able to be a bastard anymore.

But no, the BOFH is stuck in a world (the UK corporate world) where he has to make the most out of the limited opportunity he has. And everyone around him knows he's stuck there with nowhere really to go. So they give him a ton of crap just because they can. I can see how this might have gotten missed by some readers. You're expected to see BOFH as a hero because he beats them at their own game.

You wouldn't be able to laugh at the stories if you didn't feel like the victims had it coming. It's a classic morality play.

<comment><USER4> > _You wouldn 't be able to laugh at the stories if you didn't feel like the > victims had it coming. It's a classic morality play._

As I recall the stories, it was very hit-and-miss whether the victims of the BOFH deserved it, or if they were just hapless people who the BOFH thought it would be funny to be cruel towards. And even if they deserved something, what the BOFH dealt them was always way out of proportion. Imagine if Judge Dredd has been played as a comedy, with mostly horribly disproportionate violence and death for minor offenses.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> > All the power and none of the responsibility.

That tradition still lives on. Look at any TOS, EULA, or standard disclaimer.

I appreciate the BOFH as an entertaining parody. Just don't try any of that at home.</comment>