Artists getting evicted in Detroit - <AUTHOR> https://www.bridgemi.com/detroit/thanks-making-detroit-cool-artists-heres-your-eviction <comment><USER3> I can only speak about the Midtown Detroit where I lived from 2002 to 2008. It was a group of students, artists, musicians and old-timer bohemians that made that area great and interesting. The only common denominator was that nobody had much money.

Once the suburban kids from more wealthy suburban families started to move in it was all but over. I visited recently and the rough edges and patina and unpredictability has been worn away by the safe suburban values and esthetics of the new residents.

I know it gets tiresome to hear, "You don't know what it was like, man." in regards to gentrification. But I can get over-stylized brew pubs, twee boutiques, foodie small plates and corporate sponsored street fairs anywhere. Those things where not there when it was deemed "Cool". My rent was $400 that I split, the same (rather shitty) apartment now goes for $1600. When the cost of living goes up like that, you've shut our a lot of interesting people looking for a chance to do something interesting.

People with money are chasing "Cool" and it's the one thing you cannot truly buy.

<comment><USER4> I was 'cool' for a couple of years or so in Seattle in the late 80s and early 90s. Lived in the last frame house in Belltown, made art and had lots of artist friends, saw Nirvana and four other bands for $5 at Squid Row, have pictures of my out of town friends at Jimi Hendrix' original grave, ate cheap soup for lunch lots of days at Pike Place Market, and generally was so much cooler than the people I left behind in the Midwest that it was impossible to quantify.

I don't miss those days. In fact, it seems like a gigantic waste of time 30 years later. Glad I got out when I did.

<comment><USER5> > last frame house in Belltown

Curious, was that the one on the 2200 block of Second, or the one on Lenora and Post Alley? If the latter, do You have any pics?

<comment><USER4> IIRC, it was between Broad and Cedar off of First, back on the lot toward Post Alley, across from the Labor Temple. Any pics I have are buried somewhere in storage, unfortunately.

Edit: It might've been between Broad and Eagle. It's been almost 30 years and the neighborhood has completely changed.

It was directly uphill from the Union 76 Superfund site, which might be the sculpture park now. I remember watching the trucks swoop in one day as they put up fences around the site. Our property was managed by a somewhat crazy SEIU member who was a direct descendant of a surviving male member of the Donner Party.

<comment><USER5> Thanks for the info and the great description ("...Donner party").

My partner at that time quite possibly was an over-seerer of the activities You described, she did superfund environmental impact stuff and I vaguely recall something about it. There was a small house I really admired on Post & Lenora, it was there until the early 2000's (I lived <50 meters away).

<comment><USER4> Ah yes, I was very likely wrong when I said it was the last one. It was certainly the last one I saw regularly. I moved to Wallingford after that, and then later to Squire Park, before I left the area entirely.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Being artists, old, hipster, gay/lesbian, etc shouldn't give anyone special rights to claim that they need to be specially immunized from the pressures of the world.

It's just a fact that people who make something, invent, come up with a good idea, make a place better, eventually are going to be disappointed by the masses who take up their ideas/places and lack the same reverence for what they created by replacing it with money.

Many of the inventors of, say radio/cellphones, medicines, technologies, or chefs, painters, architects, fashion designers, would probably be rolling in their graves with what the mass market has done with their original lofty ideas. It happens to everyone, and you move on. If you're lucky you take advantage of some of the value of what you created.

It's no different for people who own a house, live in a community that became hot. They created something (and, by the way, many did not, they just lived there), and now what they created is appealing enough that more people want to live where they live.

For those that owned property, they get plenty out of the deal. For those that don't and rented, well, gentrification is not the first time that someone who rents loses out compared to being a property holder. That's a wholly separate issue.

Feel free to suggest how to change human nature and the way people and the masses behave.

<comment><USER7> The machinery being critiqued is not the same thing as an individual asking for special treatments.

If most instances of a place growing desirable because human(vs financial) investment results in said place being overrun by an influx of wealth disparity that eventually restructures the space into a corporate-safe shell of its former self then there will be a chilling effect that stops the former from happening. You can show up to a place and not immediately outbid all your neighbors for the most desirable spots. Having wealth is not the same as exercising wealth.

Nor is gentrification a single instance, its the accepted mechanism that those with more wealth employee to claim the non-tangible identities created by those with less. It's the emergent result of this socialized desire for something "cool and authentic"(whatever that nonsense means) buckled up with tools afforded by a normalization of conspicuous consumption.

We are eroding the individual identities of American cities, the people who are being displaced do lose something more than the opportunity to live in a geographic location, and pretending it's inevitable/"just how things are" will eventually result in a nationwide reduction in non-financial investing in cities. It stinks for everyone, even those doing the gentrifying. Where will one move too when all the cool places are gone?

I know I sound like Jimmy Carter telling everyone to wear a cardigan and turn the heater down, but we all just need to learn to let things be. Even if they are exciting, especially if they are exciting.

<comment><USER6> You speak as if the one and only important metric of a place is how many street murals and tattoo parlors there are. And that coolness of a place should be enough justification to prevent anyone else from enjoying its benefits. Loss of coolness == bad, huh?

What about gentrification as a force for reducing crime, raising property values in a place (yes, actual uncouth $ value for people who invested, even unwittingly, and now receive value beyond just being able to get a good burrito), and housing people who previously were searching and couldn't afford to live elsewhere?

Just because gentrification comes with some corporate associations doesn't mean it isn't supporting and benefiting millions of actual people. People who, yes, probably aren't fluent in a 2nd language, can't make a good empanada themselves, and are more boring than the people they replace. But who bring stability, more prosperity and resources, and safety margin of not falling back into urban decay?

Who are you to say that their use of a community is less worthy than the former occupants? Who gets to decide? Who gets to decide, day to day, and house by house, when someone living there dies or moves, who is "worthy" to move in to replace them? Or are you also suggesting that no one ever be allowed to move in there unless they pass some sort of coolness test?

And, by the way, do you mourn the one-before occupants who were displaced by the current creatives / "desireables" so concerned with gentrification now?

<comment><USER8> Gentrification seems to be a form of domestic tourism. It at least grows from the same vine as the travelers lust for authentic experience of a culture. A few tourists here and there do little harm but mobs of them can completely skew the local economy towards servicing their needs.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> "The irony of a group fighting gentrification by committing one of its most brutal acts – eviction – isn't lost on Lee."

A non-profit that works against gentrification is the one evicting the artists! Oh, the irony!

<comment><USER10> I feel like the article was playing this point up so much that it bordered on unfair to the new owner, they're being painted as hypocrites, but they did buy the building and they do need space to work, and according to the article they tried. It's a no-win situation, but the people being moved just had their expectations set too high. Some groups that face this situation form co-ops and buy the place themselves.

<comment><USER11> I think it's a lesson for everyone. The world doesn't work on idealism. From time to time you have to deal with reality. This is one of those times. Perhaps they all learn some perspective from this.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> I grew up in Cleveland and since moving out every city I've lived in has had an issue with gentrification (Boston, NYC, SF, Portland).

While I empathize with the individuals affected, part of me can't help thinking of it as a good problem on the city level. Growing up there were places where the copper piping was more valuable than the houses. Even now there's plenty of properties to buy sub $20k, close to mass transit, farmer's markets, and places like Case Western University.

Maybe some of the affected in Detroit will move down to Cleveland and one day I too will have the luxury of complaining about gentrification.

</comment><comment><USER13> > "It sucks that our vision has to come at the cost of artists who have used > and loved that space," Lee said. "There's no way around it. It absolutely > sucks."

No way around it? Was this the only building in Detroit?

<comment><USER14> It was the only one they could get. They kept getting outbid by buyers with more cash.

Which doesn't excuse it. They apparently got the building in part because they were expected to let the artists stay.

It sounds almost like a bait and switch. They probably were not consciously and intentionally trying to scam anyone, but they took the deal and then changed their mind after the fact about how they would handle everything.

Also:

 _But Allied Media's staff grew by 40 percent, another tenant needed more space and the City of Detroit wouldn't allow the building to claim partial tax-exempt status as a nonprofit if it housed for-profit artists, Lee said._

<comment> crooked-v I wonder how viable it would be to set up a one-person non-profit corporation that pays its owner-operator a reasonable wage off the proceeds of sold art.

<comment><USER14> Probably impossible given that non-profits require a board.

But I do wonder what other creative solutions might have been possible and either weren't explored or weren't pursued agressively enough to succeed die to lack of resources yadda.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> 4th generation Detroiter here.

The murals and commissioned graffiti around the city are very, very cool. The Dequindre cut alone is an outdoor art museum.

With that said, though, all the cool street art in the world isn't going to bring this city back. Investment and land development will though and that means higher rents. I hate to see what is going on in Eastern Market for instance.

What outsiders and visitors may not realize is how geographically big Detroit is. Boston, Manhattan, and San Francisco would all inside the city limits of Detroit, for instance. Detroit is safe in _pockets_. Downtown, midtown, cork- town, belle isle, Eastern Market, Hamtramck and a few blocks on the east side (and others) are all ok to go visit for the suburbanites. But you don't cross from one to the other without your car.

I have heard it said that Detroit isn't a city that was forgotten, Detroit is a city that just doesn't give a damn. Go 1 block outside of any of those pockets and you'll see what I mean.

My dream is those pockets touch, and we get a subway or some real mass transit and we'll feel like a whole city.

Here's what it's like to enjoy the city as a suburbanite. You get in your car, drive straight to your destination (probably downtown) go to your event, maybe hit a nearby bar or restaurant, then get back to your car before it's too late and drive out of Detroit back to the safe neighborhood you live in outside of the city limits.

It sucks. It has sucked for a long time and it's just now getting better. You can see it happening, downtown and midtown are basically contiguous now. We have 3 new sports stadiums and downtown is actually fun now.

I know it sucks that rent is going up, but that is a small side effect in my opinion. Riots in the 60s, systemic, chronic, oppressive corruption (including an ex mayor who is still in federal jail), the city declared bankruptcy a short 6 years ago and it wasn't that long ago you could literally golf the length of Detroit.

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-9uzDelNvDg](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-9uzDelNvDg)

I'm a big street art fan, but, I for one welcome our new landlord overlords.

</comment><comment><USER16> That's the market. It is savage to the naive and ill-prepared. Charitable property owners will eventually be out-competed by ruthless ones.

<comment><USER17> > Charitable property owners will eventually be out-competed by ruthless ones.

While true, the primary virtue of being an _owner_ is that you're free to do whatever you want with your property, even if there is a different, more profitable, use. These evictions are entirely the property owners' choice, and have not been forced by competition.

What we have here is a demonstration that they are _capitalists_ , and not _philanthropists_. I don't think that comes as much of a surprise to anyone.

<comment><USER18> That's the primary reason I'm opposed to real-estate taxes (at least for small to reasonably large lots) - they force you on a hamster wheel just to keep what you have. If they're pegged to property values (not just area) they act as eminent domain - you either use your property in some market-driven way, or be forced to sell it as keeping it becomes unaffordable.

No room for sentiment or tradition - develop or die.

<comment><USER19> But, if they're not tied to property values, you get what's happening in California: Older people, simply by virtue of them being here first, end up being able to enjoy million-dollar neighborhoods while paying $hundreds in taxes. While younger people pay 10X more in taxes to live in 0.25X the neighborhood.

It's like domain squatting but with homes.

<comment><USER20> It doesn't make sense to me how people who oppose gentrification pushing poor residents out of areas would be fine with higher property taxes pushing old people out of areas. Maybe it's ageism. Both seem bad to me. It's not even like California's budget is suffering - they have a huge surplus.

<comment><USER18> I think it's because the connection to one's home has been devalued. That there is no legitimacy in wanting to live where one grew up. That it's somehow entitled to expect to stay without paying for it - 'it' being taxes, since the house was already paid for.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> > "What's going on now in Detroit is gentrification, stuff with no meaning."

I can only assume that someone being so stereotypical is deliberately being ironic.

</comment><comment><USER22> properties are so cheap in Detroit, you can afford one working at McDonalds provided you don't have significant debt. If artists want to live in Detroit, they can.

<comment><USER23> Tangential to your point, why are artists uniquely carved out as a privileged group ( or under-privileged depending on your read on things ) here as opposed to other similarly suffering groups?

Isn't a HVAC-technician with a small family just as not affected by sky-high rents & the displacement that follows gentrification?

I don't get why artists are owed a 'quota', as such.

<comment><USER24> HVAC-technicians could become a privileged group too, if they had more friends working in journalism.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> I though there was lot of vacant properties in that area?

<comment><USER22> There are tons of "cheap" properties, the smart thing would be for these artists to buy their own right now while they can still afford it. Unfortunately they are going to have to move locations as the "hip" areas are now expensive.

<comment><USER25> If their belief is that their work is makes the place hip then it would make sense to buy up a few cheap properties and benefit from the growth.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> Renting property sucks and comes with a lot of risk.

<comment><USER26> Please don't post shallow dismissals here.

[https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html](https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html)

</comment></comment><comment><USER27> This is hacker news?

<comment><USER26> Anything intellectually interesting is welcome on HN. This article is as detailed and well-written as many others that interest people here.

[https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html](https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html)

</comment></comment><comment><USER28> Happening in Portland too. Wonder which will drive the yuppies out first - <USER2> boredom of New Los Angeles, or the bad weather.

They seem to like the New Los Angeles as long as they can tell their friends they live in Portland or Detroit. So I'm betting on the weather.</comment>


Photos for your next project, that you won't see on everyone else's site - <AUTHOR> http://filterandformat.com

<comment><AUTHOR> So, I'd really love some feedback on this project. The premise is that there is a certain amount of value in knowing that an image you are using won't end up all over the place. But traditional rights-managed photos end up costing a ton of money.

We are hoping to find the sweet spot in between mass sales of royalty free images and high cost of a completely exclusive license.

What do you think of the price and how much value would you put on the limited sales? Would 10 sales at $50 an image be more appealing. Would an option to "buy out" all the licenses be useful.

Please let me know if you have any questions. I'm really curious to know what you guys think. Thanks.</comment>


NASA's newest cargo spacecraft began life as a Soviet space plane - <AUTHOR> http://arstechnica.com/science/2016/01/nasas-newest-cargo-spacecraft-began-life-as-a-soviet-space-plane/ <comment><AUTHOR> _" The HL-20 would be replaced as an emergency escape vehicle by the Russian Soyuz capsule, which did not land on a runway but rather thudded into the steppes of Kazakhstan upon return to Earth."_

This is linked to this article on the new Russian spaceport, Vostochny cosmodrome ~ [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11687445](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11687445) 80M rent per year for the Baikonur cosmodrome and less access to Kazakhstan.

</comment><comment><USER2> It doesn't look particularly Soviet. NASA studied lifting-body spaceplaces long ago too.</comment>


Using Scheme for iPhone apps - <AUTHOR> http://jlongster.com/software/iphone/scheme-iphone-example/ <comment><USER2> Spidermonkey easily ports to the iPhone as well. I can definitely say that developing an app in JavaScript is far more pleasant than Objective-C. Unfortunately I'm not aware of any real bindings yet, you may need to roll your own to something like Cocos2d.

<comment><USER3> If I'm not mistaken, JSCocoa runs on iPhone <http://inexdo.com/JSCocoa>

<comment><USER4> JSCocoa does run on the iPhone.

A warning, though : contrary to OSX, JavascriptCore is a private framework on the iPhone. So if you use JSCocoa in an iPhone app it might get rejected by the App Store.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Related: Nu, a lisp implementation on the Objective-C runtime

<http://programming.nu>

(I haven't used it, just know of the project)</comment>


Monaco-React: Monaco Editor for React Wrapper for Integration Without Webpack - <AUTHOR> https://monaco-react.surenatoyan.com/ <comment><USER2> Yes, @ingo_ :) It supports 56 languages; Python as well. Also, you can write your own language, with custom formatter and with custom logic of tokenizing.

</comment><comment><USER3> Does it support Python?</comment>


Better User Experience With Storytelling - <AUTHOR> http://www.smashingmagazine.com/2010/02/11/better-user-experience-through-storytelling-part-2/ <comment><AUTHOR> That is Part II of the series. You can find Part I here - [http://www.smashingmagazine.com/2010/01/29/better-user- exper...](http://www.smashingmagazine.com/2010/01/29/better-user-experience- using-storytelling-part-one/)</comment>


Ask HN: What apps/software do you love? - <AUTHOR> I was having an interesting discussion on growth yesterday with a friend and he said something that really resonated with me:
"Growth hacks are catalysts, not determinants. If your product sucks, they won't help. Users will just churn out, or worse, never even come back. If you build a product users love however, they will work like a charm."
Then the discussion turned to what defines loving a product. And we agreed a good proxy was when a user wants to pay for it.
So I ask the HN community - what apps/software do you love so much that you're currently paying for them? Or would pay for them if they existed? <comment><USER2> I'm paying for sublime text (related [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15403943](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15403943)) while many other editors are free.</comment>


Ask HN: Why is Google Analytics free? - <AUTHOR> What does Google gain by offering Analytics for free? Do they harvest each users' sites' usage information? <comment><USER2> Google Analytics is a way for Google to buy massive amounts of web traffic data in exchange for some pretty charts.

They use the data if sharing is enabled, which is the default mode: [http://www.google.com/support/analytics/bin/answer.py?answer...](http://www.google.com/support/analytics/bin/answer.py?answer=87515#0.1.1_4)

It's strategically useful for them to have so much visibility into the web.

</comment><comment><USER3> I read an article pertaining to a similar topic to this about why, for the most part, all the services that Google offers the public are free and it really is the fact that Google, at its heart, is a marketing firm first. Every feature they offer you is designed not to generate profit so much as it is to keep you with them. By giving away their services for free it obviously increases their brand name, encourages brand loyalty, but also levels the playing field. They set the bar by offering these services for free. No one will pay for a service that is at least comparably offered for free. For this reason if Google makes gmail free then every other website has to offer their mail services for free, the same goes with Google Calendars, and all of the other apps they offer. Why would they want everyone to offer their apps for free? Because then the difference between them and Yahoo or Bing or any other site is on marketing abilities and few companies in the world come close to challenging Google's marketing capabilities.

</comment><comment><USER4> Allegedly they don't take information from analytics. (Most of the important metrics they could probably get from something like G-bounces (when you press the back button and go back to the results page) or other sources like data from Chrome or social data.)

It's free b/c it helps marketers measure and optimize their Adwords spend, and justify it to their managers. (Most search advertising requires cumbersome custom tagging - in Google Analytics, Adwords is basically integrated automatically or with one click.)

</comment><comment><USER5> It gives them direct insight into a whole lot of websites that don't/can't/won't use AdSense.

I don't know if they actually use the data for anything but I've read it's not used at all for search results.

</comment><comment><USER6> Brett Cosby (founder of Urchin / Google Analytics) was interviewed by the Stanford Entrepreneurial Thought Leader seminar. He touches on why Analytics is free, as well as a weath of other interesting information:

<http://ecorner.stanford.edu/authorMaterialInfo.html?mid=1905>

</comment><comment><USER7> It drives sales for AdWords.

</comment><comment><USER8> To sell more ads. That's the answer for why most things online are free.

</comment><comment><USER9> Because they mine the everliving shit out of the data for improving ranking algos and getting people to buy more ads</comment>


I think I saw this on southpark - <AUTHOR> http://www.usatoday.com/money/autos/2009-04-06-puma-segway-gm_N.htm

<comment><USER2> Is there any reason why one would prefer this over a bicycle? The articles stipulates that this is a big leg up from bicycle, although it doesn't provide any support for that claim. I personally don't see how this is any improvement over a bicycle, except possibly for those with disabilities.

</comment><comment><USER3> "GM, Segway team up on 200-mpg 2-seater"

Miles per gallon of WHAT exactly? Gallon of electricity?</comment>


Job Boards suck... What would make them better?  - <AUTHOR>

<comment><AUTHOR> The biggest suffer because they are too popular: it's like trying to read through my Yahoo Mail - too much spam, recruiters making huge lists of keywords, etc. It must be just as bad on the receiving end: imagine how many terrible responses you must get to a C++ developer post on Monster.

The blog based ones are more focused, but almost to a fault. There must be a better way for people who don't want to start companies to find companies with similar interests. LinkedIn sort of helps, but there's so many recruiters on there that it feels just like Monster.

Just looking to see if anyone has any thoughts or insights. I've found all my jobs through friends...

<comment><USER2> hmm bulls eye and thats what we were trying to solve :)</comment></comment>


Ask HN: Why is Go lang so popular for cloud infrastructure - <AUTHOR> Why there are so many tools built on top of Go now-days and not in other languages like Java, Rust, C# or C/C++ ?<p>What motivates people to pick Go instead of the others which are more stable and seasoned or more performant ? <comment><USER2> Go is a decent language, with some really good built in protections (great concurrency model), a massive standard library, and a single binary output that's immensely portable (compared to pretty much anything other than C/C++/D, etc).

Those are some of the main reasons... it's great for pushing data with relatively low overhead, and relatively high safety.

Compared to Rust, you could do very similar, but the language is a much larger break from what most are used to.

Compared to Java/C#, you don't have a relatively large runtime to install, not nearly as portable. I really like C# myself, but it's not for all use cases, and the framework need make it a poorer choice for infrastructure tooling. Also the concurrency model is more transparent in go... in C#, for example, you can use pooling techniques, but they take more thought and planning. Java has a history of huge overhead and tooling as well.

Compared to scripted languages, not worth even considering.

It really depends on your needs, but the fact is that Go and Rust are fairly new, but build with specific needs in mind and do most of them better than other options, with better safety and more transparent ease of use. Go tends to be better for networking/communications, and Rust tends to be better with interacting on system internals.

This is from a conscientious observer. I haven't had a good use case for either, but may have one for go coming up, so looking forward to that.

<comment><USER3> Compared to Rust the compiler is also really fast.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> I think the 1.0 compatibility promise, the simplicity of the language, and great standard library let people focus more on the problem than other languages.

I wrote my own zero allocation xml parser in Go the other day and it is 2-3 times faster than the standard library. It was not difficult to do mainly because I could reference what the standard library was doing. The code is easy to read and understand.

</comment><comment><USER5> As someone that's not a developer I like Go because I'm able to start fast and get binaries for any major platform without having to install external dependencies.

I code and test on a Windows box and I deploy to Linux without any changes.

You could say the same about Python, but not really. With Python I have to maintain the Python environment anywhere I want to run my software. With Go I only have to maintain it where I compile the code, so the final machine where it's deployed could even not have Go installed and still run my Go silly tools.

</comment><comment><USER6> Golang is cross-platform unlike C#, doesn't have a large start-up time like Java or C#, is more mature than Rust and higher level than C/C++. A large part of its popularity was that it was picked up by the python and ruby community, many of whom highly dislike Java, C# and C.

</comment><comment><USER7> IMO go is all about simplicity with a decent stdlib. Fast, single binary to distribute... Can't go wrong really.

</comment><comment><USER8> Rust is less seasoned.

C# is fine on Windows, Linux support is second priority.

C/C++ takes a bit more work and skill (IMO).

Java is probably very widespread, but less popular from a publicity standpoint.

Go is equally stable on Win and Linux, decent standard library, easy to pick up for Python, Ruby, Java, C or C++ devs, has a simple deployment model, had a good concurrency model, and provides fast builds. It has its detractors due to features not in other languages, but fits the need for a wide variety of others.

<comment><USER2> I think for infrastructure tooling, the single binary output is probably a _really_ big thing over Java (and C#), which have a separate, huge runtime that switching versions on a system is problematic for.

<comment><USER9> From a practical perspective, building your java app into a single fat jar isn't much different. Yeah, you need java installed... big deal.

<comment><USER2> Installing Java is a pretty big deal... multiple versions, bigger deal... Also, the runtime is relatively huge. I don't think you'd want to do CoreOS/etcd/Kubernetes tooling in Java.

<comment><USER9> I disagree, based on my own experience having worked with Java off and on since 1996. It was a big deal then. Today, not so much.

Multiple versions? The JVM is generally backwards compatible. It's pretty rare where an "old version" it is actually _required_. Plus. Java 8 has been out for over 2.5 years, which is practically an eternity in development time. In the event you _do_ actually need multiple versions, setting JAVA_HOME and maybe your PATH is hardly rocket science.

<comment><USER2> You don't have to worry about Java_home or the clr being installed _at all_... also, you can build it and deploy it wherever... with Java/.Net built with newer tooling, then install it on a server that wasn't updated? That isn't a problem with go...

There's a _HUGE_ class of problems that you simply don't have by using go...

Don't get me wrong... I really like C# (not a fan of Java), but I wouldn't consider using it for a lot of the places where Go or Rust are used very well. Frankly, I'd just assume use node for any higher level stuff, Go for anything node isn't a good enough fit for, and Rust for anything system (Ie os/hardware) related.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Why I chose Go for a network application, in no particular order:

\- easy concurrency with CSP/channels

\- decent documentation

\- cgo makes it almost trivial to link to C dependencies

\- strong UTF-8 support, native distinction between bytes and "Runes"

\- multiple return values make it easy to deal with return values and error codes in the same function instead of having to resort to a by-reference parameter to capture one or the other

\- has a lot of the simplicity of C, with a lot less of the ambiguity

\- gets a lot of love from Google, substantial improvements in almost every release

</comment><comment><USER11> Performance, easy concurrency, and because the language itself is very "straightforward".

</comment><comment><USER12> It's incredible standard library is probably the thing that motivates me the most. Beyond that, fast builds, good package availability, easy to compile for multiple platforms and great community support.

</comment><comment><USER13> There is probably more C# and Java tools than Go. There has been more time for libraries to build up.

But to the general thrust of your question, because that's the problem Google was trying to solve? The built in libraries make it quite easy to write applications that speak HTTP/HTTPS in a reasonably scalable way.

Rust will probably be comparable in the future, but isn't quite there yet. C/C++ remains a bit difficult, although it should become a lot easier if the C++ networking TS makes it in.

</comment><comment><USER14> C# lol. Anyway its fast and the library is made for the web it just fits perfectly and even has many libs to extend existing applications in other languages easily. Like making stuff in Go for rails apps just works

</comment><comment><USER15> Because it seems like Java without having to deal with JVM.

Like Java, it is not a good choice... but people stick to what they know.

<comment><USER9> I'm curious... what is a good choice?

<comment><USER15> Depends of your goal. For low level stuff : Rust.

For scripting systems that are simple to write, Python or Ruby are quite great.

If you want some OO but better, Scala or OCaml are around for a long time and deal with concurrency better.

If you really want concurrency and parallelism, Elixir/Erlang are there and Pony is growing slowly.

They are all better than Go at what Go aim for, without the hurtful decisions. And they are better supported on a wide amount of systems.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> Lots of technical choices are made based on cool-factor, not technical or business merit, especially in startups. Go is often a perfectly reasonable choice... but is often chosen for the wrong reasons.

<comment><AUTHOR> Can you please elaborate and provide some context?

<comment><USER16> You can read some of the comments here, e.g. "Java is probably very widespread, but less popular from a publicity standpoint." Java is objectively vastly more popular than Go (just do some Googling), and who cares about publicity when writing code? It's about business results. I don't care what language the website I'm using is written in, I want it to do what I want and be fast and have good UX.

So translated into objective facts that statement is just "Go is cooler than Java."

At DockerCon EU a couple years ago someone who worked in VC firm mentioned that every startup they were talking to was choosing Go. Go is better than Python in some cases, better than Java in others... but in many cases you could just use Python or just use Java and it'd be just fine. Often Python is better (much more libraries) or Java is better (much more libraries, and has generics unlike Go's "let's reinvent all of Java 1.0's faults" design).

But Python and Java aren't _trendy_.</comment></comment></comment>


Commons: Reuse of PD-Art Photographs - <AUTHOR> https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Commons:Reuse_of_PD-Art_photographs <comment><AUTHOR> Every time something about public domain art comes up people argue about whether reproductions of 2D art are in the public domain. This is more comprehensive than anyone can or should write in an HN reply, so I figured it would fit in here.</comment>


14 Years of Waiting Have Come to an End: Duke Nukem Forever - <AUTHOR> http://www.nytimes.com/2011/06/18/arts/video-games/duke-nukem-forever-is-released-after-14-years.html

<comment><USER2> FWIW, I put up a fairly extensive review of Duke Nukem Forever[1]

I, much like burgerbrain and others though the general shenanigans and debauchery (bewbs!) would keep me entertained and while they were certainly highlights, the core shooting mechanics and level design in the game (what makes up the other 90% of your time in there) is SO mediocre and uninspired that the game just feels like a drag at parts.

There are absolutely highlights (relative to the rest of the content), a few fun levels, some solid texture work, 1 or 2 cool bosses... those are all fun, but when you average all together, the whole experience is like a 7-10hr experience that drags on.

Had the core mechanics (something I address in the review) been modified a bit and felt better, the game would have been much more solid.

It is sort of like having a cool movie with a great premise, but the two lead characters are TERRIBLE actors and you can't stand them... no matter how cool the topic is or how awesome the CG is, overall you won't enjoy the movie because you can't stand those actors.

Even if something else had sucked in the game, for example the graphics were worse, but the core mechanics were better, the game would have reviewed better. The problem is just that the glue that holds the whole thing together is weak and unenjoyable.

Rent it, you can grab it from RedBox for $2/day now that they are renting games.

[1] <http://www.thebuzzmedia.com/duke-nukem-forever-pc-review/>

</comment><comment><USER3> There must be something wrong with me. I haven't been a "gamer" for a little over a decade, but the more of these "negative" reviews I read, the more I want to play this game. Not ironicly.

<comment><USER4> it's better than people are making it out to be. if you enjoyed the first, you'll enjoy the nostalgia. it's a little uneven in terms of fun and pacing (as such a frakenstein'ish project with multiple hands and such a long development cycle will lead to), but i think it's worth playing.

<comment><USER5> Seriously? I've been watching some playthrough videos and it just looks BORING. Long, long stretches with no enemies, the enemies themselves are canonfodder and in sparse supply. It looks like a sketch of a game that's highly derivative of Half-Life.

I'm gonna save my money for Serious Sam 3.

<comment><USER6> Yeah I have to agree - I really thought I was up for a return to the past, a good classic action FPS, a great piece of history that will go back to the classic FPS formula...but it looks and plays like a mod of Hexen or Quake or SIN. A very boring, half assed Hexen mod. It manages to take everything people HATED about FPS games back then (ie. long boring puzzles, long areas with no enemies, confusing jumping puzzles, the "run around the room mashing the use key to figure out what to do" gameplay) and put it in one package. So while it's certainly a return to the past, it's also a return to a style of gameplay that got killed off because it was boring as buggery.

<comment><USER7> Having finished the game and gone thru all the extras you see that very little has changed at all since the original conception in '97 apart from the engine changes over time.

Ironically the final boss battle is the most Duke3D like gameplay moment of the entire game.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> >In the pantheon of artistic endeavors ruined by a combination of hubris, too much money and too little discipline, Duke Nukem Forever now joins the likes of "Ishtar," "Waterworld," and "Spider-Man: Turn Off the Dark."

It's actually funny that the author chose to compare computer game to two movies and a play. There are better (okay, more relevant for gamers) examples that pop into mind, like Daikatana or Doom 3.

P.S. And Waterworld is actually a quite entertaining movie.

</comment><comment><USER9> At least Axl Rose can feel a tad less bad about Chinese Democracy now.

</comment><comment><USER10> Rape and abuse of women as a plot point? Lost me there. Take your money and buy Dragon Age 2, which brings a refreshing new take to gender dynamics in video games. [http://jezebel.com/5785846/video-game-lets-players-slap- wome...](http://jezebel.com/5785846/video-game-lets-players-slap-women)

<comment><USER11> >Rape and abuse of women as a plot point? Lost me there.

You were never the target market of the series. Duke Nukem 3D's job was to parody 80s and early 90s action movies and it's not meant to be taken seriously in any way; Forever is, obviously, just like it.

Also, Dragon Age and Duke Nukem aren't even remotely similar games and weren't even made to appeal to the same audiences. I don't intend to sound angry or anything, but few people play games for how progressive they are with depicting gender and sexuality. Games exist for one purpose: fun. If someone likes crude humor, then Duke Nukem is probably fun, but I don't think anybody is going to take any life lessons out of it because _they're not supposed to_.

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> The "Chinese Democracy" of video games [edit: argh someone beat me to it]

</comment><comment><USER13> related: <http://www.xentax.com/?p=303> \- "Duke Nukem Forever exposes crap reviewers - 100 reviews compared"

<comment><USER14> Has the author of that post looked at the distribution of reviews in other cases at all? From everything I've seen a bimodal distribution in reviews is not at all uncommon in the real world, especially for a product that is trying to be edgy.</comment></comment>


Ask HN: Are you a web tech consultant? - <AUTHOR> I'm wondering if it would not really be pheasible to be a general-consultant with regard to people coming to you and saying "Here's what I want" and you say "Oh yeah, that would fit in this category using this stack." Then you can help them pick out a person/group to help them with their site.
It seems like you'd need to be able to develop on the different technology out there to be able to do that.
I also picture weirdly in my mind an office they walk into and have brochures that they flip open with glossy covers looking at website samples like they're real estate property or something.
I'm helping a client pick a future developer to replace myself and it is interesting this "dynamic?" of a person not knowing much about web tech and trusting/depending on you and me being able to pick out people that are competent/not competent/fake.
I am curious if anyone is a "web tech" consultant. Granted I'm no superstar myself, despite my capability I'm using old technology and closer to novice/intermediate. <comment><USER2> Yes it is, it is what I do :)

buzz me

<comment><AUTHOR> I wasn't so much asking for your help, more like I was interested in people's experience doing this for a living. Like how much do you have to know to be able to do this. Think like deploying the same app on Heroku/whatever AWS/Node/etc etc... that seems like knowing a lot, like I only use LAMP at this time and I will start to learn other stacks, I'm a full stack dev, but yeah... it seems like a lot to know to be able to consult for people and know what you're talking about. (no offense to you I don't know anything about you/how many years you have) I'm just saying that out loud / in general.

edit: holy crap I see your account is new (green name) not sure how new. I wonder if I can scrape hacker news and see when people post about something and tell them "hey I do that hire me" haha. Just an observation.</comment></comment>


What are some BitPay alternatives? - <AUTHOR> What are the Bitpay alternatives you recommend? My consulting company is helping non-profits add Bitcoin to their accepted list of payment methods.<p>We plan to add BitPay for them, but we also need a backup method in case, BitPay fails. Our gateway routing infra is already in place, so it will be trivial to route payment request elsewhere incase of downtimes. <comment><USER2> Hello, CoinGate here! We'd love to help out with collecting donations for non- profits. The added values of our service are 50+ supported currencies and real-time conversion to fiat with weekly settlements directly to the company's bank account. Please reach out to firstname.lastname@example.com and we'll set you up in no time!

</comment><comment><USER3> 1\. Blockonomics — Be your own bank

Pros: Blockonomics is aligned well with the Bitcoin philosophy and is a permissionless, Direct to wallet payment gateway. Transactions are charged a cheap 1% fee for unlimited transactions, with your first 10 transactions are free. They also accept numerous cryptocurrencies using a built-in integration with Shapeshift. Blockonomics is also a leader in segwit adoption in bitcoin space — making it a must if you're having trouble with customers unhappy with high miner fee. Payments go direct to your own wallet too — letting you own your Bitcoins instead of holding it at an exchange.

Cons: Blockonomics does not allow for instant fiat conversion upon payment delivery, meaning you'll have to send it to your local bank manually.

2\. CoinGate — Fiat friendly

Pros: CoinGate holds a similar fee structure at 1% transaction fee for as many transactions as you'd like. Similar to Blockonomics, they do allow you to accept 50+ cryptocurrencies beyond Bitcoin using Shapeshift. CoinGate merchants are also Segwit compatible for optimal mining fees and speed. Also, incoming Bitcoins can be converted to fiat in real-time.

Cons: Payments you've received are held in CoinGate's wallet until you're ready to transfer them out.

3\. BtcPay — BitPay's bandaid

Pros: Since Bitpay appears to have an excessively long cons list, BtcPay has arrived to help solve some of those inefficiencies. BtcPay is a layer over Bitpay using their invoice API — which is super simple to migrate to for existing Bitpay users. BtcPay also makes purchases Segwit ready, and is built on an open source platform. Their support efforts are also top notch.

Cons: While it fixes many of the problems that Bitpay users face, they are experiencing a low adoption rate. Mainly because it still requires you to setup/manage your own bitcoin node. Setup is technical and require installation of several libraries/packages, though the founder Nicolas Dorier is very helpful. Not for the weak hearted !

4\. CoinPayments — Cheaper than your average

Pros: Proving one of the lowest transaction fees, Coinpayments offers a 0.5% transaction fee to merchants. They also allow direct conversion to fiat from over 100 cryptocurrencies. Plus, they're Segwit compatible.

Cons: Like most payment processors, your incoming Bitcoins are held by in their wallet — with an additional transaction fee if you're looking to send it to your personal wallet. Also, support appears to be lacking for some of their merchants with inquiries.

5.PayBear — The new Kid on the block

Pros: PayBear is relatively new in the space with the pulic beta being out recently in Oct'17. They have a good eye for design and the UI is easy on the eyes. Unlike Blockonomics, their payment system is not direct to wallet. They have some pretty interesting introductory offers up for grabs and they also support multiple currencies.

Cons: API integrations are still not released and only supports Woocommerce, prestashop and Opencart at the moment. They have plans to introduce crypto to crypto conversions in future but is not available as of now. Funds from customer's wallet are sent to Paybear which is then sent to merchant's wallet, this is a security risk and adds extra network costs for payment forwarding</comment>


What a Newfound Kingdom Means for the Tree of Life - <AUTHOR> http://nautil.us/blog/what-a-newfound-kingdom-means-for-the-tree-of-life <comment><USER2> dup of [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18710486](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18710486)</comment>


Making 20% Time Work - <AUTHOR> http://begriffs.com/posts/2016-01-29-making-twenty-percent-time-work.html <comment><USER2> Wow I would absolutely hate this.

I'm not doing 20% time to trend shit for YOU on GitHub so that YOU can feel like you're doing something as a manager; intruding on and micromanaging "free time" until it's anything but "free".

I'm doing it to answer a burning question I have about something and do some exploration whether YOU think it's useful or not.

And before you whinge and bitch that I'm there to serve the company, a) if that's what you want then don't fucking act like its free time because it's not, and b) irrelevant disconnected ideas and the curiosity to pursue them are not only the indicators of your smartest and best employees they're also a precondition to keeping them happy and keeping them at all.

This time benefits me. There have been plenty of HN articles that breakthroughs come from tying together these previously thought irrelevant ideas. And in my experience researching some side project always comes to provide needed knowledge somewhere else eventually, always.

Just not perhaps in the short 30 second timespan and timescale of an idiot clueless irritating manager.

<comment><USER3> I also had the same initial reaction, but also keep in mind that these guys are paying your salary. You are literally there to serve the company in exchange for money. If your manager wants to make your 20% time more structured, then so be it. It's not free time, it's just a block of time set aside for research, experimenting, and innovation. You're still being paid for it, and it's not like you're being asked to work overtime or during your lunch break. If you want a lot of free time, then you can find a part-time freelance job and work from home.

<comment><USER4> >If your manager wants to make your 20% time more structured, then so be it. It's not free time, it's just a block of time set aside for research, experimenting, and innovation.

Then don't call it 20% time. Fold it in as a "spike", in the normal sprint planning process.

The visceral reaction you're seeing to this system stems from the disconnect between the promise of "20% time" \- that I get to work on something that I think is cool, without having to justify it to the company - and the reality, which is that it's just normal sprint work by another name.

If 20% time is subject to the normal planning and prioritization processes that the company uses for planning out the rest of its work, it raises the question of why you're placing that time into a separate bucket in the first place.

<comment><USER5> > If 20% time is subject to the normal planning and prioritization processes > that the company uses for planning out the rest of its work, it raises the > question of why you're placing that time into a separate bucket in the first > place.

A cynical answer: Other companies have heard that Google does this cool thing called 20% time, and they want to be hip too, but don't want to give up any actual employee-hours to institute it. So instead they just rebrand some portion of their normal work as "20% time".

<comment><USER6> But who can resist the lure of paying down technical debt during one's allocated "20% time" that was accrued in their job vs all the other things not necessarily related to their job that one may find satisfying and might make them more valuable as an employee or to other human beings outside of their job?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> We have successfully pulled off 20% for 5+ years now at Kiva, doing some of the things suggested here.

However, the key thing we do is actually make the 20% be a full two-week sprint, it just happens every 5th sprint. That way, you can have the time to do some planning, suggesting, and documentation before setting out to build something and you get the full amount of time you needed to build it. We purposefully do try to keep features limited to something shippable during that time period, though some folks will spread it out over a few for bigger efforts. It's pretty great and a key part of our culture that I'm happy we've been able to keep. It's also produced some of the best features Kiva has (as well as served as a great time for engineers that like to tidy things to clean up the codebase).

[http://pages.kiva.org/buildkivablog/2011/02/10/kiva- engineer...](http://pages.kiva.org/buildkivablog/2011/02/10/kiva-engineering- innovation-iteration)

<comment><USER8> If a developer places an idea up requiring only 4 points, can they pin their own 4 points to it and work on it alone without having to answer to anyone?

The entire point of the 20% concept to me is that _I get to work on my own idea_. I do not like your version that makes it a popularity contest between developers and their separate ideas. Most of the fun that can be found in 20% is the lack of constraints and oversight. The 20% should not have to be justified to anyone, let alone planned out and required to fit within a single sprint.

To be fair, I despise agile (or is it capitalized Agile?) in all its bullshit incarnations. The most interesting aspect of a 20% project is that the business keeps its filthy hands out of my time. Applying agile into the 20% makes me sick.

<comment><USER9> Out of interest, could you elaborate on what is it about agile methods that you dislike/despise?

<comment><USER8> I've been through the agile process at 5 different companies, and it has never been successful. My biggest issue is with the people who are brought in to implement it. The scrum masters always try to spin the whole thing as a positive for both the development team and the business. Both the team and the business's management are supposed to be disciplined. But the scrum masters always wind up being _scum masters_ , always bowing to the will of the business's management. Meanwhile the team is left with nobody to defend their right to have the process respected.

The primary selling point is always the removal of the "old waterfall method". And yet every single sprint, 20-40-80 hours worth of "more urgent tasks" get dropped in without proper grooming or advanced planning. Whether or not other tasks get removed from the sprint to equalize the incoming work does nothing to alleviate the frustration.

Every agile process I have seen always winds up being the same old bullshit of management having no discipline to actually follow the rules. We call it agile, but it's still just waterfall glossed over with a name - with none of the actual principles being taken seriously.

<comment><USER9> Ok, I can see why you might be jaded about it! I've had very different experiences, and, as you say, it probably depends on the people who are implementing it - the discipline is very important, and perhaps we were fortunate in that regard without realising it, because it was something we implemented as a group rather than being imposed on us from above.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> How to make 20% time: Just do it. Don't tell anyone. Tell that asshole trying to control your work to fuck off. When you've got something, tell the right people about it. Watch the other assholes at your job trip over themselves as they trash your work that you already got buy in from from the right people. Publish it. Launch it. Put it on your resume. You'll probably get fired because the assholes will resent that you're not under their control. So what? Make getting fired part of your career progression plan. Start your new, better job, rinse and repeat.

<comment><USER11> So, if I'm understanding you correctly, you think the way to advance your career is to spend 20% of your time working on unsanctioned side projects in work time, writing code that will be owned by your employer that you can't publish legally without permission, all the while taking longer to do your assigned tasks and looking like you slack off for a day a week? And you think that if that gets you fired you'll move _up_ your career ladder? Would you seriously hire someone who'd done that?

I wouldn't do that. I'd take some of my spare time, a few weekends, to document the idea and maybe hack together a prototype, and take that to "the right people". If they're going to be happy with the project then it's better to do it without pissing off everyone else.

<comment><USER12> I agree with GP. Can't really answer the hiring question (because I am not interested in being anyone's boss), but why not? Do _you_ think that the way to advance your career is always do what you're being told? GP's suggestion, at least, makes life a lot more interesting.. And people willing to take risks and make their own projects typically will have better CVs.

I would rather see somebody genuinely advance in the organization by genuinely improving something (and taking some risk), while taking time from a stupid project, rather than by taking credit for work of someone else (but that never happens, right?). And in fact it's the latter people who get angry, so for that really doesn't matter on whose time you do it.

As for your suggestion, why is it OK for employer to steal employee's free time and not OK for employee to steal employer's time? We are talking about improvement to the employer's business, after all.

<comment><USER11> _I would rather see somebody genuinely advance in the organization by genuinely improving something (and taking some risk), while taking time from a stupid project, rather than by taking credit for work of someone else (but that never happens, right?)._

What you don't seem to realise is that _there are no stupid projects_. Someone in the business believes that the "stupid project" is a good idea that's worthwhile paying a developer to work on, and they've persuaded the people higher up that this is the case. If you just decide that it's not worth your time and something else is more important then you're effectively telling everyone who has agreed to let the "stupid project" go ahead that they're all wrong and you know best. That is not the best way to further your career.

Open a dialogue. Provide evidence. Don't just say "I know best!" and forge ahead while ignoring everyone else's input. If you're right then people will listen.

No one _ever_ succeeds on their own.

<comment><USER13> I have at times needed to keep projects "secret" because I knew that there would be a 95% chance that the idea would be shot down immediately in any meeting due to being infeasible, politically/personally tricky in some way, difficult to explain, and so on. So I have worked on these ideas sometimes at off hours, or while also making progress on other tasks. Thus far, these skunkworks have been very successful. There is an element to it in many things I do... I often prefer a bit of vagueness around what I am actually doing, since it gives me more freedom to consider solutions that might not be in line with what everybody would expect. Which sometimes makes me wonder if I am being a "cowboy coder" or something. Some of it is due to my skills of persuasion and communication—if I were better at that, maybe I wouldn't need secrecy. But I also just know that some good ideas will not fly in a group meeting before a prototype exists. Then my duty and passion for the product and company override my duty to clear everything with the whole team, I feel. It's not an easy question.

<comment><USER14> Asking forgiveness is usually easier than asking permission. Also, it's harder to justify shaving the yak when you deliver it pre-shaved.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> The method seems interesting from the "help people be aware of what's out there and how other people are working" perspective...However, personally, I get lost on one major point in two ways:

\- Organized 20% time

First, for me, twenty percent time is that thing I work on when I'm blocked on something, have an inspiration, or just need a distraction from my major project.

Second, I can respect the organizational aspect and helping people understand how to contribute, etc, but really formalizing it in a table / chart and meeting to discuss it?

Maybe I am taking too strict of a view, but 20% time for me is that thing that is fluid and fills in the gaps or gives energy when I need a break from the day to day tasks.

<comment><USER16> Exactly. I take 20% time to make my 80% time at least 25% more productive, whether that's by tooling, using new approaches or frameworks, or just need a small break.

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> This isn't bad, per se, and it's good to think about, but I want to throw it out there that the only reason 20% time works decently at Google is because of Google's culture. By virtue of empowering employees to find problems and solve them, and being supportive of career dev & internal transfer, and making boatloads of money, it makes it easy for the org to tolerate the slack this forces in defined teams. Almost none of the kinds of things that encourage 20% projects at Google typically exist in large enterprises, and when those companies try things like this it typically ends up being much more forced and much less organic, for better AND for worse.

I'm glad to read this post. I tried instituting 20% time in my previous job and almost no one took advantage of it. They just didn't have an adequate level of trust in exec mgmt that diverting their attention from core responsibilities wouldn't cause adverse personal reactions down the road. So sad. :(

</comment><comment><USER18> 20% doesn't even work at Google. The reason being, if you care about your career, it ends up being 20% _on top of_ 120% you're already putting in. And I don't know about you, but I'd rather the company did not know about anything I do on my own time and with my own resources, so that they couldn't lay any intellectual property claims to it.

<comment><USER19> > 20% doesn't even work at Google. The reason being, if you care about your > career, it ends up being 20% _on top of_ 120% you're already putting in.

From what I've heard from close friends who work at Google, this depends a lot on the team you're on and the manager you have. If you Google around a bit you'll see a lot of mixed feedback on the idea for this reason.

> And I don't know about you, but I'd rather the company did not know about > anything I do on my own time and with my own resources, so that they > couldn't lay any intellectual property claims to it.

They don't need to know about anything you do on your own time to lay IP claims on it. In California at least, there are very clear rules [0] that state that an employer can lay claim to IP under a number of conditions, none of which is that the employer knew it was happening at the time.

If it's anything worthwhile, it's likely to come up on your employer's radar at some point. It's better just to be upfront about such things instead of sneaking around. If you can't trust your employer you should probably find a new one.

[0]: [http://www.leginfo.ca.gov/cgi- bin/displaycode?section=lab&gr...](http://www.leginfo.ca.gov/cgi- bin/displaycode?section=lab&group=02001-03000&file=2870-2872)

</comment></comment><comment><USER20> Googler please chime in, but as far as I read it's been dead for years. [http://qz.com/115831/googles-20-time-which-brought-you- gmail...](http://qz.com/115831/googles-20-time-which-brought-you-gmail-and- adsense-is-now-as-good-as-dead/)

<comment><USER21> iTerm2 is my 20% project.

<comment><USER22> Hey man, I cannot understate this, iTerm2 is the best part of my dev environment. I cannot thank you enough for this.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> Another thing we did that really helped - make Monday 20% day not Friday.

On Friday there are always too many things remaining in the sprint, and 20% time gets pushed off and continually forgotten about.

</comment><comment><USER24> Having worked at both Google and Facebook I prefer Facebook's strategy of "hackathons" and "hackamonths" to encourage people to sometimes work on different projects than they usually do, to mix it up. Hackathons (1-3 days at FB) are cool because they really encourage you to work with a new set of people. Hackamonths are usually tied to, "this project is with a different team and if it's going well I would join this other team". I think that is cool because they make it explicit that maybe your side projecty thing is going to turn into your real project. The setup is aimed at a similar thing to 20% time and I think it is overall more effective.

</comment><comment><USER25> There are IT departments inside of non-IT companies that would love to have this sort of luxury. But with department heads that would have their heads explode if you try to explain this to them.

 _sigh_

<comment><USER26> Also, slightly off topic, but for similar reasons I can't figure out why bosses want IT workers that mostly sit at their desk on a computer to work at the office (instead of remote locations) for a full 40+ a week. It's like there is distrusting management who thinks if they didn't walk the hallways once per week at random and see people staring at their computers then the same work wouldn't happen. Let these people work alot more wherever they want if their work isn't location dependent.

<comment><USER2> I saw a fascinating comment a few weeks ago that, why does a company think it's fine for you to "work from home" when you're on call all the time to fix their problems; but not the rest of the time when you're fixing their problems?!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER27> I love this BASEDEF acronym. I have an IRC bot that I've been working on for 3 years on Github. I've also tossed it on up-for-grabs.net. About 7 people have submitted contributions, I think because of up-for-grabs.

I think that acronym perfectly describes what a successful open-source project needs to thrive.

</comment><comment><USER28> I have 80% time, i.e. I only spend about 20% of my time on my clients.

To hell with this wage employment bullshit. Keep your productivity and the fruits thereof for yourself. Don't give them away for a pittance to an employer, who probably also made you sign an agreement that they get to take anything you make, whether you made it on their time or not.

</comment><comment><USER29> As an IT manager; the biggest problem with 20% time I've seen is people using for 80% time stuff. Like, critical training they should have gotten as part of normal work, etc.

That sucks, that's not 20% culture.

</comment><comment><USER30> There's a certain irony in the title, as this reads to be a how-to guide to making 20% time _work_.

</comment><comment><USER31> There are many, slightly different ways to describe innovation.

I have found that 20% of the time project is about personal motivation to show on something different (than my usual tasks) that I can do it or make it better. Managers only need to enable it, and shall not force it. If the individual is not motivated to show that it can do better, let it be, because they may be just fine with their normal work.

Groups working on things together for a week (~yearly 20% time) is more about exploring the team's creativity, exploring business or product ideas. It can be called internal pitch or demo days.

Some ideas need time to get some exploring, some trial and error, some fiddling, some long discussions, and may not be doable in a week (wall clock time). Due to their different nature, they will result in different products.

I have written a couple of other points that are related about product development (e.g. moonshot, 10X, competitions), you may find them useful:

[https://drillio.com/en/2016/best-practices-in-product- develo...](https://drillio.com/en/2016/best-practices-in-product-development/)

Re: article. I think the author is using the 20% projects as a team building exercise. It could be working for that purpose, and maybe for some incremental changes, but will not explore innovative ideas.

</comment><comment><USER32> Creative processes actually CAN be well-organized and fun at the same time. Just look at hackathons, which teams get stuck halfway and which teams are productive and take the prize home?

If you only care about code and learning new APIs, that's your right. (I'd say do it at home.) If you want to ship something real with 20% company time? Get your project organized.

</comment><comment><USER33> I don't get it...

They give you 20℅ 'off' to do stuff they need?!

Either they want me to solve their problems and plan this with me to do it like normal work, which IT IS or they want me to do my own thing and don't bother me if they can't use this......

Sounds like all this crap loke pingpong, Snacks and billiard tables to me :D

<comment><USER34> Many jobs give you 28% time to do stuff _you_ need. It's called the weekend.

<comment><USER30> Jobs don't _give_ workers 28% time to do what they need. Workers _exchange_ 72% of their time to jobs for income, and retain that 28% to do as they wish. It's worth noting there's a difference. Said your way, it's as if workers ought to be grateful to their jobs for _allowing_ weekends. And that is fucked.

Either way, it's still fucked that working and living isn't an even 50% split. It should be.

<comment><USER34> Hours of commuting and working per week: (2 + 8) * 5 = 50.

Hours of living on weekdays per week, exclude sleep: 6 * 5 = 30.

Hours of living on weekends per week, exclude sleep: 32.

Total hours living per week: 62

Total hours working per week: 50

You're right, it's not an even 50% split.

There's 6 hours of free time a day, plus 32 hours on the weekend.

Three nights a week I watch a movie or a couple of episodes on netflix (90 minutes), I play an hour or two of games (90 minutes), I write code for another hour or two (90 minutes), and the rest of the time is spent eating dinner.

Two nights a week, I forgo gaming and netflix to hangout with family and friends. I still manage to code. It may be on the train, but I do it.

And there's the weekend.

You know what? I have a good life, and fucked or not, I _am_ grateful for it.

If a company is paying you for your time, what do you expect to be doing, if not to do what the company wants you to do?

If you want to not do what others want you to do, and still receive a regular pay check, that's called taking on welfare.

<comment><USER30> Now you've moved the goalposts from your original 28% figure (2 days out of 7) to trying to defend a stupidly made point by drilling into a hourly breakdown. You can't have it both ways.

An even 50/50 split would be working no more days than you live--taking the day itself as the unit of measure. By the week, that means recognizing there's something inherently off with the notion that it's at all balanced to exchange 5 days to an employer so you can get 2 days to yourself in return.

If you want to make yourself feel better by counting how many hours you can squeeze out of a day for yourself, that's fine. I doubt I'm the only person who thinks that is no way to live.

In contrast to your example that, to me, seems insanely driven by the tyranny of the clock, a different take:

There are 365 days per year. When I decided years ago I wanted to achieve work-life balance, that left 182 days for working. By the typical American work week, if I was working a job, I'd be expected to surrender 251 days (for 2016). That's 70 days too many.

So, there are 183 days of free time per year.

Some of those days, I binge-watch Netflix. I don't even know how much time that totals.

Some days, I play games all night until the sun comes up.

Some days, I dabble with some code related to something I want to play around with, experiment, learn, rebuild, whatever.

Some days, I see the computer and say, "Fuck you, computer. It's gorgeous outside."

I wake up whenever by body wakes up. I shower. Grab some food or a meal shake. Head to the gym for a couple hours. Maybe take a nap, read, or just sit and breathe.

Some days I'm just sick of being at home, so I leave. I'm not counting any hours here, so I call up some friends out of town and say I'm coming their way for a couple days. I head out of state. I leave the country. I think of who I haven't seen in a while and get together with them.

> _If a company is paying you for your time, what do you expect to be doing, > if not to do what the company wants you to do? If you want to not do what > others want you to do, and still receive a regular pay check, that 's called > taking on welfare._

That's an oddly binary and ideologically ridiculous notion you have there. As if there are no other ways to exist and subsist besides welfare and doing what others want you to do to receive a paycheck. I mean, come on. This is HN. _This place exists for people who don 't want to do what others want them to do in exchange for a paycheck._

P.S. I never said you shouldn't be grateful for having a good life. I think it's great when people recognize how good they have things, and are genuinely grateful for it. I was picking on a very subtle but important nuance in your original statement that I felt important to highlight. It's fine if you don't get the nuance, or don't care for it. For me, I like to remember where the agency and empowerment lies in my life. I'd never be able to stand a situation in which I actually had to think that an employer _gave_ me a couple days of _my life_ on the weekends before coming back to work.

<comment><USER34> I agree with you, 183 days definitely is a more relaxed way to live. My point was if people wanted to work on their company's stuff 4 days a week and improve their technical knowledge 1 day a week, they ought to negotiate a 4 day work week rather than demand they be paid for the time they're doing their own things. I understand you don't like the sound of 'employer _gave_ you. But what I said was _jobs_ give you two days off. If you can find one that gives you 183 days off then, great!

Main point aside, I think it's important to realise our entire lives are _given_ to us by the circumstances and fate of the universe itself. My job is one part of the universe.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER35> I read this less as the company trying to control your 20% time, and more as the company making your 20% a first-class citizen among its other projects, by using the same resources and processes.

</comment><comment><USER36> 20% time is important because not everyone has a ton of free time to improve their skills and do whatever they want to.

People with families, hobbies (that aren't programming), classes to take, or even extra-long commutes are not overflowing with time to devote to side projects.

</comment><comment><USER37> I already do that, and My boss is aware. When it is necessary to fix things quickly or do scouting or in general problem solving your time invested returns, but you are faster.

</comment><comment><USER38> Love the idea of trying to a) make 20% time better and b) encourage it to be open source. Wonderful stuff!

</comment><comment><USER39> I work in a big corporation and I am doing 90%. no one seems to care and I am enjoying it very much

</comment><comment><USER40> Making 20% Time Work? But the 80% is already work.

</comment><comment><USER41> I've seen this tried in a few ways that didn't really work out and one that worked well: (edit - this is always highly dependent on the people and small differences, this is only my experience of 10/20% time that I've actually participated in and the issues that appeared at my workplace)

# One day a week:

Cons: people are off more on fridays, feel like they're missing out. Some things need more than one day, other priorities pop up a lot on fridays. Hard to force people to suddenly switch for one day.

Pros: Simple, everyone gets time together. Easier to actually 'enforce' and not see it just disappear.

# One week/similar per longer time period:

Cons: Lots of time to stop everyone working, doesn't line up with all schedules, etc.

Pros: Longer to do things, everyone available together. Same pros as one day per week.

# Organise it yourself, completely freestyle

Cons: People don't actually do it most of the time, seems like they're taking time away from their main project.

Pros: Timing issues pretty much disappear, but things can always be put off. Easy for it to just be forgotten.

\-----

The way I've seen it work well had these properties:

No fixed time or schedule, you booked off time to work on what you wanted.

Your manager can't indefinitely say "no", but if you're trying to book off the day of a release when you're planning a big release then they'd ask you to wait a bit.

To get it you have to say what it was you wanted to do, but this only needed to be a brief sentence on a wiki somewhere (could be "play around with X" or "try and make a Y"). You also needed to say if there was anything you required, and they'd help you sort this out.

The time is considered like holiday. You don't pull in workers from holiday to help out, you can't pull them away from the time they'd requested for the project.

You were encouraged to go and work in a different building/office if you wanted so you're not surrounded by people asking "quick questions".

You were required to put any code in a particular place.

You needed to briefly say how it went.

You had to be reasonably willing to say what you did in the next all-hands.

This was all fairly lightweight, booking time off wasn't a difficult thing and getting approval was just a quick chat about what you were planning. You could grab a few days or an afternoon, and they'd help out if you needed other equipment/etc.

Overall I think what will work varies massively on your workers and current workplace, it's vital to try a few different things and tweak as you go.

</comment><comment><USER42> I've never met anyone who has this luxury, quick poll: Do you have 20% time?

<comment><USER43> Not 20%, but I got the manager to give us 2 hours every Friday. I guess that would be 5% time. I was doing C# enterprise work at the time, so I would use those 2 hours on totally different stuff; like brushing up on C++, or dicking around with Perl.

<comment><USER44> Are you joking? 2h is the time I need to just switch language/framework contexts to write anything morecomplicated than helloworld, never mind understand some code I've written a week ago.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER45> Just keeping it 100: if you come up with a really good idea, (orthogonal to the companies business) that can make a lot of money in 20% time and give it back to your company rather than starting your own shit with it, you're stupid. Or just have low testosterone.

<comment><USER46> A lot of ideas fit somewhere between viable startups and obvious new features. If you think in terms of the next 20 years being able to put, developed X could easily be worth a few million. Even if X can't really be done as a startup.

IMO, the biggest benefit from a companies standpoint is people can try out new things without cluttering up the main product. Boring but works is often best for a company and terrible on peoples resumes.</comment></comment>