Ask HN: Is USA that bad when it comes to health insurance, etc? - <AUTHOR> In Sweden we annoyingly socialist and have completely ridiculous taxes. Any discussions on this subject with swedes usually results in the other person saying something like "What do you want, a society like the USA where people can't afford healthcare and you have homeless people everywhere?" Now, how accurate is that? Is it actually a problem to pay for premium insurance and save up to your childrens college degree, etc? <comment><USER2> Recomendation: Come check out Vienna Austria first.

I am a "U.S. Citizen", "born in the USA", whose parents were also "born in the USA". I moved my family to Vienna, Austria 8 years ago. I have for 4 years, owned and operated my own business, a GmbH here.

Vienna. The #1 city in the world 2 years in a row.

<http://www.mercer.com/qualityoflivingpr#City_Ranking_Tables>

First U.S. City, HONOLULU is at #31 with San Francisco at #32.

Insurance: US versus Austria

Three years ago, my daughter, at the age of 14, was diagnosed with morbid Juvenile Rheumatoid Arthritis, a life threatening condition. She spent 4 weeks in a hospital, with the total out of pocket cost of 280 euro for her meals. 100 % of the hospital costs and medical procedures was covered by insurance which costs my family 2400 euros per year.

In the U.S., in 2003, we paid $15,000 per year for insurance, with a $5500 per person deductible. My wife had her Gaul Bladder removed, and it cost us $11,000 deductible + all of the customary procedures which the insurance companies routinely refuse to pay until you take them to court.

My daughters hospital stay, and continuing medical treatments in the U.S. would certainly have led to a filing for bankruptcy (70 percent of all bankruptcy filings are due to medical bills). Instead, the annual costs of treatments in Austria is 240 euros per year, continuing hospital visits, and Methotrexate Injections.

FYI: Higher education is 100% taxpayer funded in Austria.

As long as a large majority of the U.S. voting public continue to believe that taxes are "theft" rather than paying their "fair share" of the "high financial costs of personal freedom and safety", and continue to refuse to admit that affordable healthcare is a basic human right, staying in Europe is a much better option in my opinion.

<comment><USER2> I fully expect the Republicans to come into the majority in the November elections, and for McCain and Mitch McConnell to keep their shrill promise to gut the Obama healthcare law of its protections. And oh yes, I am a conservative republican.

<comment><USER3> I find your comment confusing. Do you believe they should be trying to gut the Obama healthcare laws?

<comment><USER4> I think that anyone who uses the word "shrill promise" to describe something usually doesn't agree with what they are saying.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Even after all other factors that are mentioned already, the one significant difference I feel (having come to the US from the UK) is one of constant fear. Can I afford to go to the doctor with my co-pay? If something bad happens to me, will my insurance company look after me, or do whatever they can to ensure they don't pay out? If I get a terminal disease, will the co-pay for the medication I need to live as long as I can bankrupt my family?

With the NHS, while the Brits like to complain about it, the fear isn't there. You will always be looked after if you need to be. Here... I'm not so confident.

<comment><USER6> Yeah, this is the biggest issue for me too (as an American who hasn't lived anywhere else). In particular, the tying to your employment status makes everything complicated and coverage uncertain for everyone except career employees who stay with one firm. For example, I switched from a full-time student to part-time for one semester in grad school. Oops, this means I don't get the student health insurance anymore and have to buy gap coverage. So I had to research gap insurance, fill out a bunch of paperwork, wait to be approved, and then still hope that I don't really have to use it, because now the recent change in insurance gives them excuses to claim things were preexisting and thus excluded.

And I don't even have any major chronic conditions! People with major chronic health issues are pretty much required to stay in their current job forever, because if they lose their health insurance they're screwed. The whole employment-tying thing puts a huge drain on entrepreneurship, imo, because lots of people who would start companies are scared of losing their health insurance, and even if you can figure it out, it's a huge bureaucratic hassle. One area where the private sector has managed to gallantly out-bureaucratize any government.

In short, I really, _really_ wish that health-insurance was completely decoupled from employment. It would reduce a lot of friction in the economy, imo.

<comment><USER7> Can't upvote this enough.

On NPR an economist said that one thing that makes the US economy different (in a good way) from the EU economy is the extreme mobility of our workforce - that when times are tough, a reasonable portion of US people can and will pack up and move to a state where they can find jobs. If that is true, conversely isn't the effect of having health insurance so tightly coupled to employment equally _detrimental_? I mean it just blows my mind that we tie employment and healthcare together.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> College degree is probably not too bad if you settle for local community college -- about $5,000/year or so. Private universities and colleges can easily get to $30,000/year.

As for healthcare, it IS that bad. Most working people have reasonable coverage (some of then even at reasonable price, as a percentage of income). However, it ties the worker to the employer. If you get fired, you lose your health insurance. If you quit, to move to another job, you lose your health insurance and have to get a new one (and at least until the recent healthcare laws, they didn't have to accept you -- sucks if something happens during your first job, because it's a "pre-existing condition" for the new one).

The end result is that employees are often held captive by their job because of the (essentially unrelated) health benefits. A friend of mine married 6 months earlier than planned to get coverage because she lost her own job.

Job mobility is much harmed.

There's COBRA -- an insurer must let you keep paying for one more year. However, the employer subsidy is gone, so people who pay $200/month all of a sudden find themselves having to pay $1200/month after quitting their job (or being fired).

</comment><comment><USER9> I used to be self-employed in the US and left in part because of the expense of health insurance. At the time, I had a family of three. When you declare yourself self-employed in the US, you are immediately projected into the highest tax bracket of (if memory serves correctly) 37.5%. Decent health insurance for three cost worked out to be around 40% of that at the time. So, to be self-employed with healthcare cost me around 52% of my then gross salary. And that is just for the plan - there is still a huge excess as well as a plethora of things that the insurance companies won't cover. If memory serves correctly, something like 40% of those in the US are without healthcare. At costs like that, little wonder why.

As for poverty in the US, 1 in 8 are in poverty if you use the CIA-polished statistics. I say CIA-polished because the CIA also says the US spends 12.5% of its GDP on healthcare. According to the OECD, it is more like 15.3%. By comparison, France (top healthcare in the world according to the WHO) spends around 9.5% or so. Canada, number 6 in the world, spends something similar, around 9.7%. The UK, which is somewhere around 20th on the WHO rankings, spends 6.25%. For its 12.5%/15.3%, the US ranks 33rd - just above Cuba.

As for saving up for children's college, university educations are an increasingly well-known bubble in the US. It is not uncommon to have 70 or even many more students packed into a single auditorium for lectures. Even in advanced degrees, there is not as much small group or singular education as there is in Europe. But the costs are nevertheless huge. If I recall correctly, American University in DC currently tops the charts with tuition at $50k per year. That is tuition ONLY. It does not include, books, dorm, clothes, etc. A four-year degree thus has a base cost of $200k. It is nothing anymore for universities to charge $25-30k per year just for tuition. Given that this is the case at a time when many people are losing their houses because they can't make the payments and others can't get on the property ladder because they can't afford the down payment, I would say it is damn hard in the US to pay for things that people in Sweden take for granted.

Just my 2¢. YMMV.

<comment><USER10> > As for poverty in the US, 1 in 8 are in poverty if you use the CIA-polished > statistics. I say CIA-polished because the CIA also says the US spends 12.5% > of its GDP on healthcare. According to the OECD, it is more like 15.3%. By > comparison, France (top healthcare in the world according to the WHO) spends > around 9.5% or so.

Note that US GDP is also significantly higher.

Also, healthcare costs are affected by things that healthcare can't actually affect. Consider obesity.

Also, the existence of working govt programs in other countries does not imply that the US govt could do as well with comparable programs. For example, the US govt spends about as much per person as France does. Since the US govt services appear to be significantly worse ....

No, military spending doesn't account for the difference.

<comment><USER9> >Note that US GDP is also significantly higher.

Maybe I am missing something, but this should mean that the US can afford to do more. No?

>No, military spending doesn't account for the difference.

I didn't say anything about military spending. Where is that coming from?

<comment><USER10> > Maybe I am missing something, but this should mean that the US can afford to > do more. No?

It implies that spending a larger fraction of GDP on healthcare can be acceptable, but you suggested that spending a larger fraction of gdp on healthcare was a bad thing.

So, what do you have in mind by "do more"? (Of course, being able to afford to do more and actually doing more are very different.)

> >No, military spending doesn't account for the difference.

> I didn't say anything about military spending. Where is that coming from?

"military spending" is the typical reply when someone points out that the US govt spends as much per person as "high tax, high service" countries yet doesn't provide the same level of services.

Spending money may be necessary, but it isn't sufficient.

<comment><USER9> Okay, I think I see where you are coming from. Let me clarify what I said.

> you suggested that spending a larger fraction of gdp on healthcare was a bad > thing.

I was probably in a rush when I wrote 'do more' and so apologise for any confusion. My meaning was not communicated well. If the data say anything, it is that the way the money is spent counts more than how much money is spent. That being said, getting the medical establishment and Big Pharma to take a pay cut is a Herculean task.

> "military spending" is the typical reply

I suppose for some it is, and the US does spend plenty on war. But I would agree with what I understand as your underlying point: The money needs to be spent better before more money is spent on anything.

<comment><USER10> > That being said, getting the medical establishment and Big Pharma to take a > pay cut is a Herculean task.

Apart from the obvious cases of fraud (which seem to be concentrated on govt programs) and reducing some of the monopolies (including things that should be OTC), it's not clear that they're significantly overpaid. (Yes, I know about the "marketing" argument, but that includes free drugs to poor people and it's how folks find out that what they have is treatable. I see both as good. And allowing old people to have sex is a good thing.)

We want people buying Cadillacs (and Mercedes) because that's how we get good things in Toyotas.

A lot of US health spending is triggered by things that are outside the healthcare system. The only thing that the healthcare system can do is refuse coverage, and no one will admit to that.

<comment><USER9> >A lot of US health spending is triggered by things that are >outside the healthcare system.

Can you give examples of this?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> My family nearly went bankrupt from my mom's cancer treatment even though we had health insurance. Until the recent healthcare reform, yearly and lifetime limits and the ability to deny coverage due to pre-existing conditions after enrollment were allowed. My cousin who is healthy but has severe asthma has been unable to attain health insurance on his own since graduating college. He works two part time jobs, but does not have employer sponsored health insurance. The American system is broken and the people who'd benefit the most from fixing it are more concerned about "death panels" that don't exist than looking out for one another.

</comment><comment><USER12> If you work for a typical company, health insurance isn't a huge deal, mostly because the company picks up most of the tab. Its part of the benefits package. You will still typically pay $100-400 a month out of pocket depending on if you have family and kids. That also may include dental and vision. Dental is common, vision is not.

If you are self employed or work at a small company, then insurance is a big deal. I'm going to pay $6K a year for crappy insurance and I'm still going to pay $7k out of pocket expensive this year because my son had to have surgery and our deductible is 7500. So I think the insurance situation sucks. And I got a notice yesterday that they are raising my rates again. For small business that want to cover the health insurance for their employees it is also a big expense and one that keeps rising. It amazes me that insurance companies can raise rates 15-40% a year and get away with it.

As far as saving up for college education, that is not as difficult because it is a matter of living within your means. Make it a priority and save. That said I have different views on fully paying for 4 years of college vs. having my kids pay part of their way. My parents put me through my first year of school and then I was on my own. I tended to work hard at school (to get it finished) than those I know who's parents were footing the bill.

</comment><comment><USER13> I've been in the US for almost 10 years, and its been only the last 6 years that I have had health insurance.

If I were still in Ireland I would pay about 1600 Euros a year to give full coverage to me and my family (wife + 2 kids).

In The US I pay just under $400 on every paycheck (my employer also pays a hefty amount), so thats aprox $4900 a year. That does not include dental, or vision.

I would also add that while my plan isn't bad, its not as good as the Irish equivalent - hard to compare though.

 _Side Note:_ You should prefix the title of this with "Ask HN:"

</comment><comment><USER14> Like pretty much everyone has said, the health care situation is Not That Bad if your employer covers it, and if you don't get seriously ill or have an expensive chronic condition.

But health insurance is one of the few ways in which the US really discourages entrepreneurship. Individual health insurance, particularly if you're older, have a family, or have some kind of risk factor, costs a fortune.

The conventional wisdom on homeless people in the US is that the vast majority of the homeless got that way because of mental health problems and substance abuse. I believe it's more of a public policy issue than strictly a lack of money.

</comment><comment><USER15> I've heard too many horror stories (and from people with supposedly good insurance) to consider moving from Canada to the States. Illness in the family is hard enough without a serious likelihood of bankruptcy. The Canadian system certainly has issues, but for the most part I think it works okay.

Can any other Canadians comment on their experiences? Are there any who would prefer American-style healthcare?

<comment><USER16> Pfff...are you kidding me? Let me give you an example I have mid to mid- premium insurance. I went to a new dentist a while back and he tells me he needs to take xrays which seems normal, only this time the xrays go on, and on, and on. He takes 32 x-rays of my teeth (while I am asking if this is absolutely necessary and he continues to say 'yes, yes it is'). My insurance company denies the bill, passes it on to me for $10 per xray (they covered 8).... Another time I went to the doctor for an ingrown hair, had them give me a cortizone shot and got a bill for "surgery" for $200. It's highway robbery and there's nothing you can do about it. Most Americans just put up with it because they don't know what else to do. You pay for insurance and then the insurance doesn't even cover basic stuff like it should, they try to get you to get so frustrated that you'll give up and just pay it. It's a broken, horrible, frustrating system.

<comment><USER17> I recently had something similar happen to me. I've got an individual PPO plan and my "routine checkup" was over $400. It was less than 15 minutes long... insurance company notified me that I am responsible for $171 beyond the $30 co-pay that I was required to pay at the checkup. I'm not sure sure whether to blame the insurance or the doctor, as both are clearly screwing people out of money.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> You have to read:

[http://blogs.msdn.com/b/michkap/archive/2010/03/21/9982732.a...](http://blogs.msdn.com/b/michkap/archive/2010/03/21/9982732.aspx)

Written by the programmer who got multiple sclerosis in U.S. How he suffered because of the system. A good example of something "only in America" (from the Europe perspective of course).

</comment><comment><USER19> Yes. But the more important thing is the non-negligible possibility of losing coverage completely due to job loss.

</comment><comment><USER20> Note to fellow HN readers in the U.S.: Please ensure that you have at least some basic health insurance even if you are self-employed or unemployed or you do not have access to health insurance through your employer. You should be able to find a relatively cheap policy if you are single and elect a high deductible. While the likelihood of a major medical illness is relatively low for healthy, young individuals, you never know when medical catastrophe can strike. I know couple of young individuals who were tragically diagnosed with cancer and did not have health insurance. You do not want to find yourself in such a position. Thank goodness Congress enacted health reform earlier this year. While the bill is not perfect, I personally am pleased that it includes a health insurance mandate.

</comment><comment><USER20> Agree with other posters. If you do not work for a sizable private or public employer, health insurance can be costly. I have a fairly good deal with the health savings account I have - about 150 / mo and 1200 per annum deductible - for a PPO plan with very good preventive, major medical, and prescription drug coverage.

On the other comment, yes there are some parts in the U.S. that are very poor off, especially in parts of the older cities and in rural areas. My parents just returned from a visit to a very high per capita income European country and were somewhat surprised with how clean and orderly and relatively well off all of the cities / towns they visited were.

</comment><comment><USER21> I am trying to move to Canada for health and business reasons. I was recently apprehended for helping a man with psoriasis obtain medical marijuana for his condition. Now I face 3 felonies and cannot leave the country for 5 years.

Thank you America

</comment><comment><USER22> I'm not American, so I can't really say anything on the subject, but one thing that always shocks me is that while American's health care is strictly bounded to their jobs, yet lots and lots of them seems to have no or little savings, and some even use credit for relatively small purchases.

If I were to live without enough money in the bank to sustain myself for at least a couple of years without a job, i'd be truly scared, even here in Italy where the health care is all paid. I assume it's mostly just a different social behaviour/mindset, nobody can really tell if it's better or not.

</comment><comment><USER23> The part that sounds really bad to me is you (or your wife/child) getting some kind of long term disease and you losing any health coverage if you're forced (say by losing a job) to move from one insurance policy to another as it will then be classed as a pre-existing condition on the new policy.

It's the kind of thing that won't affect everyone, but if it affects you then it's truly life-changing in the bad sense.

I'm not actually in the US so can anyone there comment on this scenario?

<comment><USER24> Currently, if you are continuously covered by health insurance, you can usually move from one insurer to another without being disqualified for a "pre-existing" condition. If you let it lapse for any period, you're in deep trouble.

Disqualification due to pre-existing conditions are regulated out of existence by 2014 under the recent health care law; some classes (e.g., children) are protected earlier (as early as this fall, if memory serves). One of the major drawbacks of the bill is that it is so complicated, almost no one understands it.

</comment></comment><comment><USER25> I transitioned recently from my parents' insurance which they pay for themselves as small business owners to the insurance my employer provides, which is probably the best insurance situation I could possibly be in. I pay about $16 a month on my paycheck for no deductible, very high lifetime limit, essentially unrestricted healthcare coverage, and pretty decent dental and vision as well. I'm lucky I love my job, basically, because being in my parents' situation where they paid thousands of thousands of dollars a year for practically no preventative coverage would be pretty awful if anything actually happened.

Basically, if you work for a large company and are in a large insurance pool, life's probably pretty good. If you're a small business owner, fresh out of college, unemployed, or have a preexisting condition that can't get covered for whatever reason, you're potentially quite screwed.

</comment><comment><USER26> Health insurance costs me a little over 200 a month(pre income tax) to cover my family(full health, vision and dental).

The homeless people thing is much harder to quantify. What do you mean by homeless people everywhere? I was 30 before I ever ran across anyone actually sleeping on the street. There are however homeless shelters were anyone can walk in off the street for a place to stay temporarily.

<comment><USER27> Where were you living before you were 30?

<comment><USER26> Texas( various cities including a few big ones like Dallas).</comment></comment></comment>


BLUF: A military standard to make writing more powerful - <AUTHOR> https://www.animalz.co/blog/bottom-line-up-front/ <comment><USER2> I appreciate that the first line of the article says:

> BLUF is a military communications acronym—it stands for "bottom line up > front"—that's designed to enforce speed and clarity in reports and emails.

...thus following its own advice. One sentence in and I know what it's talking about.

<comment><USER3> > One sentence in and I know what it's talking about.

And that's were I stopped reading, because I don't believe there is anything more interesting for me after that inital sentence. For me it's a win, I learned something new in almost no time. Now for the author or publisher it's a win too if they solely want to inform their readers.

If the intention is to keep the readers on the site as long as possible it's completely different though. Good long-form articles that keep the suspense till the end have their place too.

Where it gets muddy, and this is my opinion the majority of blog posts nowadays, is when the authors can't make up their minds. I understand that a lot of authors have a journalistic background or at least some journalistic training, where the _" Inverted Pyramid"_[1] (which is similar by idea to BLUF) is held in high regards. On the other hand they are pressured by the metrics to keep readers on the site. Add to that the common SEO wisdom that Google loves long pages better than short ones[2] you end up with Chimera articles where one half want's to build suspense and the other is afraid to bury the lede.

[1] [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inverted_pyramid_(journalism)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inverted_pyramid_\(journalism\))

[2] I don't know and don't claim it's true.

<comment><USER4> kek

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Like everything else in the US military, there is a written standard to support this style. See Army Regulation 25-50, Section IV "The Army Writing Style" [https://armypubs.army.mil/epubs/DR_pubs/DR_a/pdf/web/r25_50....](https://armypubs.army.mil/epubs/DR_pubs/DR_a/pdf/web/r25_50.pdf)

> Army writing will be concise, organized, and to the point. Two essential > requirements include putting the main point at the beginning of the > correspondence (bottom line up front) and using the active voice (for > example, "You are entitled to jump pay for the time you spent in training > last year").

<comment><USER6> That's the passive voice! The explanation for why their example of the active voice is in fact the passive voice is right below, in section "e". That's pretty funny.

<comment><USER7> It's not really a passive sentence, even though it has all the attributes the Army apparently deems necessary and sufficient to declare it as such in section e.

But a passive sentence is one where the subject is absent - but in this sentence, the subject is 'you'. 'Entitled to jump pay for the time you spent in training last year' is an adjectival phrase. The sentence makes an active statement about the recipient:

You are entitled to jump pay for the time you spent in training last year.

is no more passive than

You are a fine soldier.

A passive version of this sentence would be more like

You are being granted jump pay for the time you spent in training last year.

<comment><USER8> The subject of the verb "to entitle" is that which grants entitlement. The recipient is the object. I think we can legitimately read the sentence as passive.

Active; "applicable regulations" are doing something:

 _" Applicable regulations entitle you to jump pay for the time you spent in training last year."_

Passive; "applicable regulations" are still doing something:

 _" You are entitled by applicable regulations to jump pay for the time you spent in training last year."_

Still passive; vague about what's doing something:

 _" You are entitled to jump pay for the time you spent in training last year."_

As you point out, "entitled" is often used as an adjective. I think you're right that the sentence can be read that way, and in that case it is indeed active.

After consideration, I think the passive read is more correct, but I can't yet put my finger on why.

<comment><USER9> Isn't the subject you, the verb "to be" (are) - and the reminder a describing clause?

You run quickly.

You are a good boy.

You are entitled to receive praise.

?

Ed: but "you qualify for pay" might be better active voice here?

Ed2: I see jameshart made a similar point more eloquently about "adjectival phrase"

<comment><USER8> "Quickly" modifies the verb, "a good boy" is a noun phrase.

"You are smart" is a better analogue, clearly active voice. "You are hit" is another analogue, clearly passive.

I still believe that we can read the original sentence in the latter way - with "entitled" a verb used passively. I remain unsure as to whether we can read it the other way - with "entitled" as adjective.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Academic abstracts are very similar but evolved to serve a slightly different purpose. Papers take time to read and there are a lot of them coming out all the time, so researchers need to know if a paper has something they're interested in it before investing the time to read it. I've grown accustomed to this consideration from people who want my eyeballs to read their words. If you send me messages, etc. similar to what this article uses as "before BLUF" examples, it's very likely going to piss me off.

There are a decent number of long-form articles posted on Hacker News that don't follow this standard and don't have a last paragraph (or two, or three...) that's any more helpful. They typically have an intriguing click- bait title that fails to fully parse and I wind up clicking on them just to figure out what they're about. I read three or four paragraphs in and it becomes clear the article is going to do a painfully slow reveal of it's point, if it even has one. So, I scroll _alllll_ the way down to the bottom, noting that it will take a good twenty minutes to read that far, and find the last few paragraphs to be utterly unhelpful ramblings rather than a summary or conclusion. Giving up, I read the comments here and it is frequently the case that a lot of people are just commenting on the title without having figured out what heck the article is about either.

I find this absolutely infuriating.

I apologize for venting.

</comment><comment><USER11> This is a sore spot for me, someone sending an IM with a quick "Got a minute?", which pulls me out of my thought zone. And once I answer back, I have no idea how long it is going to take for them to tell me what their issue is (could be 30 seconds, or a couple minutes -- I've often waited for 10 minutes, then got up to go for a meeting, and they get upset when I don't answer).

I'd much rather them just tell me what problem they are having up front, so I cat least give them an answer and get back to work.

<comment><USER12> I think about this a lot, and I call it "atomic messaging" in my head. You need to be able to address the message in full as if it were a pop up. (As messages often are via notifications) If the message requires follow up for clarity it's not atomic enough.

Example:

Did you ask him if what the results were? -> Did you ask Jim what the results of the 2019 Survey are?

It's really helped me avoid being that person, and I've asked it of others with varying results.

<comment><USER13> Yes! This applies just as much to email correspondence.

I think of it as resolving all references.

(Can I make up a new TLA? RAR!)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> My dad was career military. So was my ex husband.

This military communications standard probably goes a long ways towards explaining why people seem to either think I'm _rude, crude and socially unacceptable_ or _refreshingly direct with no BS._

<comment><USER15> BLUF is completely disarming to sensitive people. Consider it a subcultural impasse.

BLUF, as a generalized communication style, is a way of thinking that impatiently violates the social pleasantries of socializing for the sake of being social.

<comment><USER16> BLUF is for communication between military personnel. Sensitive people who join the military "get over it" pretty quickly.

As in all communications, knowing your audience and their norms is of utmost importance to avoid miscommunication or giving offence.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> The perfect three section military email: (typically from a subordinate to a superior)

1) BLUF statement of the subject at hand.

2) Details section that gives in-depth explanations and references to relevant military regulations as to why BLUF statement is correct / best course of action.

3) "The Way Ahead" section that gives recommended next steps or possible future issues to be aware of.

</comment><comment><USER17> Former journalist here. This structure is also known as "inverted pyramid"[0]. CIA has a book[1] that details the process to apply the structure recursively to build an article.

Beware of the potential pitfalls of "stating the key first":

1\. The key point might be complex and requires a build up – rushing to the point could confuse your readers;

2\. What's "most important" depends on the reader and if you write for a wide audience, it is not always obvious;

3\. If you design your writing to be "modular", readers could be more likely to abandon your work prematurely;

4\. Sometimes the most important detail is that you are taking the time and being patient to communicate, and making a point with little context could alienate;

5\. You could feel lazy and not control the complexity of your article because "I already made it easy for the readers to skim and skip!".

[0] [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inverted_pyramid_(journalism)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inverted_pyramid_\(journalism\))

[1] [https://cdn.ymaws.com/www.scip.org/resource/resmgr/White_Pap...](https://cdn.ymaws.com/www.scip.org/resource/resmgr/White_Papers/Analytic- Thinking-CIA.pdf)

<comment><USER18> It's funny that this has even a name and is so wide-spread. One can also apply this principle to talking and I used to work with people that were obsessed with this style. I totally agree with you that there are pitfalls and probably one could even add more to the list.

Probably there is a good reason why people usually talk the way they do: build up a context, make the listener (or reader) familiar with what is going on and why we are talking about this. And then explain what we are _actually_ talking about.

This inverted pyramid talking style is so artificial and makes me question whether the advocates of it are just using it as an excuse to not read or listen to anything. It makes people indeed just hurry through communication.

<comment><USER17> Writing formulae are like design patterns. They give us names to think and talk about structures, but too often become dogmata.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> This mode of writing has its strength, unfortunately it also encourages a lazy and low detail mode of communication when applied to places it doesn't belong.

I have had the experience of working in an environment with ex-military folks installed in leadership positions, the BLUF style of communication was standard issue.

One problem this style of communication has when applied to a non-military work environment is that top-down communication ends up taking the form of commands, as opposed to actually conveying information that would enlighten the reader.

<comment><USER20> >> taking the form of commands, as opposed to actually conveying information that would enlighten the reader.

That's a key observation. BLUF is most used when officers are talking to non- officers. The assumption is that the non-officers need to know what to do, but do not need to know why they need to do something. Between officers, BLUF is not nearly as common. The assumption is that officers shall have wider latitude, the ability to even disobey the specific instructions, and so need greater background information.

Captain to corporals: All pickup trucks shall carry a fire extinguisher. [BLUF]

Captain to Warrant Officers: Provide fire extinguishers in all the pickup trucks because local law requires it. [BLUF + context to encourage compliance]

Captain to lieutenant: A new law was just past that looks to require fire extinguishers in all pickup trucks on public roads. Please make sure none of our trucks leave the base without one. [No BLUF. Explanation of situation and commander intent. Specifics of implementation left in hands of reader]

<comment><USER21> >The assumption is that the non-officers need to know what to do, but do not need to know why they need to do something.

I spent almost 2 decades in the Army. Its a terrible assumption. Except for combat situations, other emergencies, or really trivial tasks, everyone should know why they are doing something. It is physically impossible to make a non- stupid person care about a thing of which they have no knowledge. From my experience, the one thing that has the greatest impact on a person's ability to do a good job is a genuine desire to accomplish whatever their objective is. If they don't know what that objective is, they simply aren't going to give a shit. They might get it done adequately, but the military is a self- proclaimed meritocracy, so one would think that isn't enough.

It has been at least 50 years if not 100 since the majority of enlisted people didn't have a decent education. Now its incredibly common for enlisted Soldiers to have an undergraduate degree. Education isn't a guarantee of competence, intelligence, or even anything remotely useful, but that goes for officers and enlisted personnel.

Yet the military still insists on operating like they did in olden times when the average enlisted person was an illiterate farm hand. Their primary business is the physical enforcement of political interests (AKA combat), so in some ways it makes sense for them even though it also hurts them. However, businesses should be careful when evaluating their methodologies for civilian use, because there are certainly a ton of drawbacks.

The reason the US military is one of the most capable fighting forces in the world has more to do with technological sophistication (created by civilians) and a near unlimited budget than it has to do with the leadership of the military, the horrific bureaucracy that the leadership created/maintains, or the frequently alleged magical, inherent superiority of the American soldier.

<comment><USER20> You are overthinking the problem. It isn't that there is no advantage in explaining things, but often times the enlisted really don't want to listen to some officer drone on about why something is being done. For the trivial stuff, stuff like my example above, they really have no immediate interest in why something has to be done. That can come later. The published SOP, the checklist in the guard shack, doesn't need to include the history behind the decision.

One thing that most leaders ignore is that explaining a decision to people who have no real input into that decision can often be really bad for moral. It makes the decision maker look less than confident, like they are seeking reassurance in their decision by explaining all the background behind it.

<comment><USER21> I agreed above that for trivial things an explanation is unnecessary.

> It isn't that there is no advantage in explaining things, but often times > the enlisted really don't want to listen to some officer drone on about why > something is being done.

From my experience this mostly happens when the explanation is either blatant lying, or if its true and reveals that incompetence at a higher level than the officer delivering the message has generated a bunch of unnecessary work for the unit.

More commonly I hear Soldiers saying "This is stupid, why are we doing this?" to their comrades and NCOs. Usually followed by the Soldiers doing whatever it is to the minimal accepted standard.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> I naturally write in an inductive style, data+evidence followed by conclusion. And gosh darn, don't I just feel brilliant when, after I've laid out all my evidence and my deserving reader has been inevitably led to the only possible conclusion, mine, they agree with the only possible conclusion, mine. My reader is so lucky to have me as a writer.

Well, at least I was made aware of this particular conceit by some rhet profs at Berkeley. But really, anyone, myself included, who writes inductively in a professional setting should be fired for having wasted their readers' time. Luckily, HN is not a professional setting.

<comment><USER23> That was an inductive style comment itself? :- ) at least not BLUF (it didn't start with "they should be fired")

</comment></comment><comment><USER24> The author is writing about advertising and bulk mail copy, not "communication". This is the classic advertising concept that ads should include a call to action.[1] Also, this came from Harvard Business Review in 2016.[2]

[1] [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Call_to_action_(marketing)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Call_to_action_\(marketing\)) [2] [https://hbr.org/2016/11/how-to-write-email-with-military- pre...](https://hbr.org/2016/11/how-to-write-email-with-military-precision)

</comment><comment><USER25> I wish more news site articles would practice this. So many times I'm scanning the damn thing for the bottom line to decide if I want to read all the waffle or not.

<comment><USER26> Back before the Internet became users' most important news source, newspapers used to do have a hierarchical structure to their stories. The headline would tell you a fair bit, then the first paragraph or two would tell you all the salient points, and each subsequent paragraph would add details.

Now it seems that the important things are buried at the end of the article. The idea seems to be to hook you in and make you keep reading. You hope to find what you're looking for, and in the process stay longer on this page, possibly getting distracted by ads and (intrasite) links.

<comment><USER27> or make you view all the ads that appear in the page :)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER28> Sounds like [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inverted_pyramid_(journalism)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inverted_pyramid_\(journalism\))

</comment><comment><USER29> From one of the article's comments: "Question: would you use BLUF in every blog intro? Storytelling intros can be inspiring, for example."

If every blog intro followed BLUF, then maybe I'd be actually interested in reading them. Storytelling intros only inspire me to lose interest immediately and close the tab.

</comment><comment><USER30> I came across this recently, when writing a blog post about a puzzle I solved. I wasn't sure whether to structure the post "chronologically", telling a story:

        1. Here's an interesting puzzle.
        2, 3, 4, 5. These are the steps I took to solve it.
        6. Hence the solution is X.

or using BLUF:

        1. Here's an interesting puzzle.
        2. I found the solution is X.
        3, 4, 5, 6. These are the steps I took to find that solution.

I'm still not sure which structure would be the best choice in which situation. Are there any guidelines?

<comment><USER31> Teach a person to fish. 1 maps to 2. And how it got there is [3,6]. This is absolutely (that word) the right way to go.

</comment></comment><comment><USER32> I have a boss who would treat the subject line of his emails like SMS. The body of the email is often blank. I have adopted that. It makes BLUF look slow and awkward.

<comment><USER25> I use to do this (with an "EOM" on the end) but gmail doesn't lend itself well to this.

<comment><USER31> this was a common msft corp email technique in the 90s. it worked really well<eom>

<comment><USER23> We did this too at my first job, and I also included SOM and MOM for start and middle.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER33> Yep. More than a decade ago, I formulated this rule: if it doesn't say what it wants in the first 3 sentences, I ain't reading it.

I'd also suggest one more thing: do not send emails on which you expect a response on Friday evening. It'll be gone and forgotten by Monday. Send it on Monday morning instead. OTOH if you'd like to bury some mildly bad news, Friday evening is a perfect time to send it out, for the same reason.

</comment><comment><USER34> Makes sense, depending on complexity my email sections tend to be.

Executive summary: Summary: In general: Specifically:

Now I feel all sorts of validated for being pedantic about the whole thing.

<comment><USER35> Yes.

In most of the companies I work with, there tend to be large email threads. It's not uncommon for a dozen people to be on a thread once I get snowballed into it. There are not only engineers but usually C-level folks as well.

By the time I make my reply, I usually end up writing "bottom up" just like you are saying... I write the detail, then summarize it above and then try to answer the top 1 or 2 questions I know the top-level folks will want answered at the bottom—even if it's just "we know what the problem is and it's been fixed or will be fixed shortly".

I think it's comforting for the top-level folks to see the respect that answers their questions quickly and it also makes them feel good that additional detail is available for those who care.

</comment></comment><comment><USER36> I appreciate a detail of this author's writing that is not pointed out. It lacks a concluding paragraph.

I think this is a relic of gradeschool essay writing rules (i.e, Say what you are going to say, say it, say what you said).

I almost alway stop reading an article once I sense I've reached the conclusion. That means I've learned what the author wants me to learn, and all I'm going to get next is a pithy sign off.

<comment><USER37> I always try to give my essays horror-movie-style conclusions, which creepily undermine everything that went before.

</comment></comment><comment><USER38> Funny, this is more or less exactly how we write our reports. But I've never heard of 'BLUF'. It seems to be the most logical way in which to write a report given that attention decays over the reading of a piece and that active voice trumps passive voice when writing about real world events and situations, it simply makes the writing more compelling.

</comment><comment><USER39> It reminds me of the format for git commit messages; where the first line is short and sweet and to the point of what it is, and the content following it is supporting details and more verbose.

It's interesting to see known patterns applied in different environments and named differently but the essence is the same.

</comment><comment><USER40> true story: a number of years ago I used this acronym in conversation. None of my coworkers had heard of it. They quickly googled it and ended up here: [https://www.bluf.com](https://www.bluf.com) which _really_ confused them.

</comment><comment><USER41> Also look at Inverted pyramid (journalism): [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inverted_pyramid_(journalism)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inverted_pyramid_\(journalism\))

</comment><comment><USER42> Legal writing has a similar concept, though it's not as standardized as BLUF. It goes by various abbreviations: IRAC, CRAP, CRAC, CREAC. They all follow the same general format: state your conclusion (C) or the relevant issue (I), recite the rule (R) of law that applies to the facts, explain (E) how the facts apply (A) to the rule of law, and finally restate your conclusion (C) or predict (P) which way the ruling body will decide. Like BLUF, the legal writing format assumes the reader will read only the first part of a communication, and will continue only if he or she needs more detail.

</comment><comment><USER43> Tactics like BLUF are the sad sign of times. We put too much emphasis on hacks, efficiency, and tactics instead of learning and practicing age old rules for good writing or whatever else we need to master.

<comment><USER44> Often times people like to hear themselves speak and everyone forgets the point of communication.

<comment><USER45> Communication can also be for relationship and community building

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER46> I've been doing this for a while and didn't know it had a name. Sometimes I add an explicit snarky heading like this:

TL;DR: <Main point>

<Long explanation>

However, when writing comments on HN or other forums I go for what I call a "fireside chat" approach. Complete with metaphors, euphemisms and lots more sarcasm. Mostly because I find it more entertaining and enjoyable.

</comment><comment><USER47> BLUF is great until you realize that people just want you to write "BLUF: ipsem lorem" and that is all they read, and then then you get the same problem of having to explain your email body to someone over and over again. I can't stand BLUF for anything besides the most simple asinine events that happen.

</comment><comment><USER48> I reverse the order of every email I write before sending it. As in, I write it then put the last thing I wrote first, because it necessarily has more thought put into it. Same with paragraphs.

BLUF works when the power relationship between the speaker and listener/reader/writer was established prior to the communication.

</comment><comment><USER13> I think this style is great when action is required.

The "purpose at the top" principle could be useful even for scientists or artists, though.

For example:

Purpose of email: evaluate yesterday's experiment.

Unfortunately, yesterday's experiment's results were bullshit, because I forgot to recharge the carbon dioxide canisters ... (etc).

</comment><comment><USER49> Sadly most sorce code follows the exact opposite convention - starting with legalese, followed by boring initialisation. I wish more source code would come to the point right at the start, and I am thankful for the new acronym BLUF that expresses this concept quite clearly.

<comment><USER50> Maybe in languages without declaration hoisting, you could go with BLOB: Bottom Line On Back.

</comment></comment><comment><USER51> A good video on writing that talks about similar ideas is [https://youtu.be/vtIzMaLkCaM](https://youtu.be/vtIzMaLkCaM)

This video is geared more towards academic writing, but, I've found it helpful even outside of that space.

</comment><comment><USER52> This style is critical for effective remote work. I might steal or link it for our internal documentation.

So much time wasted 'handshaking' before an actual point is made before I can determine if I can spend time on the query or need to pass it on.

</comment><comment><USER53> There's a lot to be said for this style of writing, but I just hate the name. It should be Bottom Line Up TOP. Ok, that's pedantic, I know. But a standard for _clear writing_ should not be named with a mixed metaphor, dammit!

</comment><comment><USER54> So like, some sort of introduction that summarizes the rest of that paper? Next you'll be telling me they recommend organizing paragraphs according to argument or point and to end it with some sort of conclusion!

</comment><comment><USER41> That is how also news articles should be written.

</comment><comment><USER55> There should be a startup that uses machine learning to convert arbitrary fluff from the internet to BLUF format as a service.

</comment><comment><USER56> I like emails that start with "If you are not interested in X, you can stop reading now."

Just like the early returns in programming.

</comment><comment><USER57> The USAF has a similar manual. Google for "USAF Tongue Quill" and the PDF is the first result.

</comment><comment><USER58> Great for 'red' type personalities. But for a green/yellow like me this is horrific

</comment><comment><USER59> Doesn't sound too much different than traditional inverted pyramid news style.

</comment><comment><USER60> Kind of ironic that a style meant to lay the cards on the table is called bluff.

</comment><comment><USER61> 1) be concise 2) give context

Write better, and be widely read. Good article.

</comment><comment><USER62> This is gold. Forwarded to all friends.

</comment><comment><USER63> v/r

</comment><comment><USER64> It's not a standard, it's the same as TLDR. The only difference is that it's before the content instead of after.

<comment><USER32> Yes, the key difference is that tl;dr is, by placement, a sort of self- effacing, humorous admission of self absorption while BLUF is all about teaching every member of a multi-million person organization to write empathically. Not bad for 4 letters. But, yes, if you just move the tl;dr to the top, that would be a great first step.

As a participant in this arena, I can say my observation has been that the real experts often omit the term BLUF because it gets in the way of their message. Omitting BLUF is not a sign of expertise. Far from it. But the really expert empaths know when to break the rules.</comment></comment>


Global variables are bad (2013) - <AUTHOR> http://wiki.c2.com/?GlobalVariablesAreBad <comment><USER4> Are they really? I agree that global variables are horrible in a language like C where they are truly "global" because of the lack of namespaces. But in a language like Python, they are tolerable because they are not truly global — they are restricted to the particular module. I am not saying they are great, but they are not as horrible as they are in, say, C. Of course, care must be taken to ensure that they are abused, but that is true of any programming construct.

If module global variables are considered truly horrible, the same can be said about instance variables inside classes. They are as good (or bad) as module globals in the sense that they represent shared state and can potentially be mutated by any method/member function in the class.

Of course the functional programmers among us will say that shared state of any kind is bad, and I agree. But we are not talking about that here, are we?

<comment><USER5> I don't think anyone argues variables with module scope. Because as you say they are not global.

<comment><USER6> Mutable variable that have exactly one instance (globally) cause some of the same issues, which is why people might casually lump them in with "global variables". (It would be nice if everyone used more precise terminology, though.)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> It's funny how much I dislike the top two alternatives to globals, at least how they're typically implemented today. For me it's a case where the cure is worse than the disease.

I've worked with a codebase where the global state was passed around as a configuration object, and that made heavy liberal use of dependency inversion. No other code base I've seen was so obtuse...it was nearly impossible to know what a line of code did but looking at it.

Dependency injection and configuration objects certainly can be useful, but the bad design they seem to encourage makes me think very carefully about using them.

<comment><USER8> It is still global state, albeit better boxed and automatically attached to places that need it.

If it is mutable, you have even more problems.

About the only way to deal with this is to strictly enforce contracts and completeness when using and implementing such a thing.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> I'll play the devil's advocate. Global (shared) variables are fine when they represent non-instantiable program state and have descriptive names, with a clear semantic contract for mutating their state. Essentially, something like `the_world.rotation_speed` is a good example.

<comment><USER10> What if you, one day, want multiple worlds for some reason?

I'm developing a game in Unity, and the programming culture around it encourages globals and singletons to an unhealthy degree. I pushed back against them heavily in our project. As a result, it was very easy to add a previously unplanned split-screen mode one day, thanks to the codebase (e.g. the UI and input modules) not assuming that there's only ever one local player.

<comment><USER11> > What if you, one day, want multiple worlds for some reason?

Write code for the application you want, not the set of all applications you might hypothetically want someday. Incur the cost of new features after you decide you want them, not before.

<comment><USER10> In general I fully agree, YAGNI and all that, but from experience, mutable globals, unless used _very_ sparingly, rigidify the codebase to a surprising degree and make it more error-prone, often for very little actual gain.

As with any software engineering guideline, there are exceptions. E.g. Java- style loggers are so ubiqitous and "not that mutable", that it's generally good for them to be global.

Edit: also from experience, suddenly wanting two of something where before there was only one, is not that uncommon.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> What is with all this contrarianism against basic software best practices in tech circles these days? First the thread about how great copy pasting was, and now people praising the use of global variables. What's next - <USER2> advocacy? Segmentation faults as the preferred error handling technique?

<comment><USER13> gotos are fine.

people are tired of guidance being turned into rules and then into dogma.

<comment><USER14> I wouldn't say gotos are fine, but they're sometimes better than alternatives. I'll take a "goto" to an error-cleanup cascade at the end of a function over ten nested three-line functions, a mini state machine, or lots of little state variables (the most common alternatives) any day. If the language has destructors or deferreds or anything else that automatically triggers when leaving scope that's probably even better, but some older languages - <USER3> C - don't, so dogma often leads to worse alternatives.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> I guess this is pretty basic, but it creates tight coupling between unrelated code, as described here:

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coupling_(computer_programming...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coupling_\(computer_programming\)#Types_of_coupling)

</comment><comment><USER16> I use global variables, though usually as constants, to hold the command line arguments to my programs.

I don't know if this is "good" or not but it seems to work OK.

<comment><USER17> Then those would be global constants not global variables.

<comment><USER18> In many programming languages, "constants" are compile-time and therefore cannot be used for holding command-line parameter value.

<comment><USER17> The only invariant of a constant is that it remains constant. The way that abstraction is represented is implementation specific.

Compiler generated constants can still change, because registers and memory are mutable.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> Global variables are fastest, least memory intensive way to transfer state. If you need thread safety, atomic variables are still faster and more efficient than any alternative. You can create pseudo-namespaces in C like Global_ and avoid name clashes too.

</comment><comment><USER20> > Really Bad Reasons to Use Global Variables > "I don't want to pass it around > all the time."

This is not a bad reason at all. I think this is the best and most used reason. And no alternative is provided in TFA.

<comment><USER21> I disagree. Passing around variables, while unpleasant, at least makes dependencies explicit.</comment></comment>


So You Want to Trade Crypto  –  Volatility (Part 2) - <AUTHOR> https://blog.alpaca.markets/blog/2018/5/24/so-you-want-to-trade-crypto-volatility-part2 <comment><AUTHOR> This is our 2nd piece to enter into trading Crypto assets with the experience of trading traditional asset class.</comment>


Voyager 1 spots new region at the edge of the Solar System - <AUTHOR> http://arstechnica.com/science/2012/12/voyager-1-spots-new-region-at-the-edge-of-the-solar-system/ <comment><USER2> _> Researchers suspect it may take several years for Voyager 1 to clear this area entirely, after which it will finally reach interstellar space._

The RTGs in Voyager 1 are only good until about 2025 iirc, ~12-13 more years. Here's hoping it makes it through in time.

<comment><USER3> Strictly speaking, the RTGs will continue generating power past that time -- it just won't be enough to power any of the instruments or the radio; the thermocouples also degrade, which further impacts the power produced. _(tomato, tomahto)_ Attitude propellant is also an issue. Around 2020, they'll start to turn off instruments until they don't have enough power to run any of them anymore. Apparently, they haven't picked the shutdown order yet -- but they have 10 years to decide, so no rush. =)

NASA's timeline for the Voyager lifetimes: <http://voyager.jpl.nasa.gov/spacecraft/spacecraftlife.html>

<comment><USER4> It would be cool if they could shut it down for a long time then have it wake up and send some data back with the remaining power.

<comment><USER3> Neat idea, but I don't think there were any onboard batteries -- AFAIK power was just fed straight from the RTG thermocouples, more or less. Batteries would have just added weight, would have had a crappy recharge capacity after a while, and wouldn't have made much sense for a deep space probe which relied on an RTG instead of solar panels.

Also, the RTG might be powering instrument heaters, keeping them at warm enough temperatures to prevent failure. If that's the case, once those are shut off, there's no turning those instruments back on.

EDIT: It appears that Voyager 1's ultraviolet spectrometer instrument, at least, is pretty tough: as of January 2012, it has survived having its heater shut off for power conservation: [http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/voyager/voyager20120117.ht...](http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/voyager/voyager20120117.html)

That's one hardy spacecraft! =)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Oh man I get so excited every time I hear news from the Voyager program.

What an amazing achievement to do what those guys did back in the 1970s.

<comment><USER6> Don't diss the 70s. The 50s went to space. The 60s went to the moon. The 70s left the solar system. Progress...

<comment><USER7> The 70s went to space. The 80s shifted right.

<comment><USER8> The 1970s essentially carried on from the 1950s and 1960s. The Vietnam war, resource shocks, etc. seem to have killed any real innovation during the 70s (in government/aerospace -- obviously it was better in other fields like microcomputers), and then the shift toward military in the 80s went even farther.

(there was a shift right overall, but it was mostly just a shift down in space funding, I think)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> I was trying to visualize the so called 'magnetic highway' and found this along with further explanation.

[http://phys.org/news/2012-12-voyager-encounters-region- deep-...](http://phys.org/news/2012-12-voyager-encounters-region-deep- space.html)

</comment><comment><USER10> > _A few models did have a feature like this, but it was only a transient one > that appeared at certain times of the solar cycle._

How transient is transient? 30 days is not a large fraction of an 11 year solar cycle.

<comment><USER11> I'm wondering about that, too. Shouldn't the article say something like, "The new data lend support to models predicting that a region with the observed properties will appear during certain parts of the solar cycle." Is that statement not true?

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> So instead of a hard delineation between solar wind and cosmic rays we're seeing something more like velcro?

</comment><comment><USER13> How fast is Voyager travelling? Could we send out a Voyage X at a faster speed and with better tech to catch up and surpass it?

<comment><USER14> Catch up and surpass something we launched decades ago, travelling (according to Wikipedia, entry was last edited .. today) 3.595 AU per year [1].

The question you're asking is hard to answer: When do you want to catch up? If we send a new object to space today, which travels 5% faster, is that good enough? It won't pass Voyager 1 for a looooong time, but will eventually.

Is that what you're aiming for? Why? Or are you asking for a magical way to cross that distance (35 years of traveling) 'instantly'?

1: [http://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=3.595+AU+per+year&d...](http://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=3.595+AU+per+year&dataset=)

<comment><USER15> Considering c is 63,198 AU/yr, and Voyager 1's only about 123 AU away, there's still a lot of room left for future engineers in increasing the speed of our devices to very quickly surpass it. Will we achieve even a hundredth of c within the next 100 years? Depends.

<comment><USER16> Just wondering, is there any technology we've seen actually used today that could produce a hundredth of c within the next 100 years? Would this be something we could see with ion propulsion for example?

<comment><USER17> Not used, but planned. Nuclear propulsion. No real limit on speed, apart from C, although as you go farther/faster you need REALLY big ships to carry enough fuel. c.f. project Orion.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> I wonder how hard it would be to do purely private (or maybe university- consortium) deep space probes. I assume almost any of the standard rockets could accommodate an extra stage to do escape, especially if you just need earth escape and can steal mv from other bodies to escape the solar system.

The expensive part would be operating it indefinitely, right? I assume you could outsource to a satellite TT&C facility.

</comment><comment><USER18> What I find most interesting about Voyager-1 and 2, that these crafts went to the outskirts of our Solar system because of funding cuts for Mariner program (Venus and Mars research). Marvelous what you can achieve even when you are given less money.

</comment><comment><USER19> I have mixed feeling every time I read this kind of news. I envy those people who made it happen 35 years ago, they produced stuff that's still sophisticated by today's standard, while I'm here writing crappy websites. Man, I feel small.

</comment><comment><USER20> Could it be instruments degrading? 35 years in the cosmic wind is a long time.

</comment><comment><USER21> I had to double check when I read that the Voyagers started their mission 35 years ago, it's hard to believe.

Why aren't we sending more of these, in every direction?

<comment><USER22> Well the ESA is going to send one, but the answer is simply budget. It takes money to run one of these missions, it competes with other missions. Not only is there the space craft cost, the launch cost, and the team cost, since its going to take a long time to get out there you've got to have 50 years of time reserved on the deep space network etc etc.

A good question would be "Why are the space sciences so under funded?" and that policy question is best addressed with your legislators. Lately I've been positioning space as a 'back up plan' [1] for the Global Warming crisis.

[1] Motivating politicians is hard, especially if they can't point at what they've done and say "See how impressive is that!" Space sounds like a 'waste' to a lot of voters, so I've been taking the tack, "Global Warming is a crisis, and we don't yet know how to control the climate on our planet, we may get to a point where we are seriously thinking about moving off planet and this information will be invaluable, there is also the asteroid threat which space craft "out there" where the most likely earth killing asteroids are hiding (the Ooort cloud) would be a tremendous early warning, you might be saving the entire human RACE by funding these projects at NASA, how cool is that?!"

<comment><USER23> It's not just budget ,the Voyager program took advantage of a favorable planetary alignment that wouldn't recur for 175 years: <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Planetary_Grand_Tour>

I have no idea how favorable this was, i.e. whether you could get the same effect today with more propulsion, but it's quite possible that we don't have the technology to do this in any reasonable timeframe today.

<comment><USER24> They do: <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_Horizons>

<comment><USER25> "New Horizons was launched on January 19, 2006" ... "with an estimated arrival date at the Pluto–Charon system of July 14, 2015"

<comment><USER26> Holy shit! Only 9 years to pluto? That's waaaaayyyy shorter than I would have imagined possible with our current technology.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER27> > Today's announcement clarifies that the confusion was caused by the fact > that nature didn't think much of physicists' expectations.

LOL

</comment><comment><USER28> Maybe it's V Ger! Look out Capt Kirk!!!</comment>


How Do Interruptions Affect Productivity? - <AUTHOR> https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007/978-1-4842-4221-6_9 <comment><AUTHOR> "Field studies suggest that higher frequency of task switching is associated with lower perceived productivity [34, 38]. Several explanations have been proposed for this relationship, including the depletion of cognitive resources used in attending to interruptions, the redundancy of work when reorienting back to the task [34], and that a polychronic workstyle may be contrary to what most people prefer [5]."</comment>


The Victorian Demagogue: 19th Century Words on a Modern Danger - <AUTHOR> https://mimimatthews.com/2016/08/11/the-victorian-demagogue-19th-century-words-on-a-modern-danger/ <comment><USER3> This is an odd article because the main "demagogue" featured is John Bright who was more regarded as an economic and social reformer and great parliamentary orator.

He may have aroused strong passions but was far from a populist having lost his seat opposing the then popular Crimean War.

Just because a newspaper - presumably a politically opposed newspaper- once called him demagogue doesn't make him so. Especially odd as the article ends by defining demagogues as unable to face their opponents in debate - the very talent that John Bright is historically remembered for.

<comment> chestnut-tree Ironically, today it's the national newspapers in the UK that play the role of the demagogue. Headlines that shriek at readers in hysterical tones. Foaming- at-the-mouth outrage deliberately manufactured to inflame public opinion. Lies, deceit, distortion - it's the stock in trade of newspapers both left and right (although our right wing press are particularly vicious and nasty). Honest, truthful reporting is barely to be seen.

<comment><USER4> "Under the spreading chestnut tree I sold you and you sold me: There lie they, and here lie we Under the spreading chestnut tree."

So, if not in the Proles, where does our hope lie?

</comment></comment></comment><comment> V-2 In the classical "Amusing Ourselves to Death" Neil Postman makes a case that politics, and the quality of political debate, has deteriorated a lot from 18-19th century standards.

Back in 1850s, Stephen A. Douglas and Abraham Lincoln debated with three hours speeches each. It wouldn't sit well with the attention span of modern audience.

<comment><USER5> .. whereas the _outcome_ of the process seems to have (unevenly) improved in the 20th century.

Lincoln had to persuade people that slavery was a bad idea. We have now, largely, climbed that particular hill and are working on the next society-wide injustices.

Also, that three hour debate would be all you got. We have 24 hour rolling news now.

(I have to admit that Trump is contradicting this thesis rather badly)

<comment><USER6> I'm not so sure about that. Nowadays politicians have to convince people that banning gay marriage is a bad idea and scientists have to convince politicians that blasting all those greenhouse gases into the atmosphere might not be a good idea.

It's always easy to look back and say "Why did this issue even need an argument?!".

<comment><USER5> Equal marriage is very much an example of the process working, from homosexuality being illegal within many people's lifetimes. Social change always takes a long time as it involves gradually changing norms, not just legal process. Persuading people that the alleged "harm" is entirely mythological.

GHG on the other hand is a problem where lots of people's incomes depend on ignoring it.

<comment><USER7> As an equal marriage (and general civil rights) proponent, I think it's less that "the process works" and more that we have gotten very lucky that the Supreme Court has accumulated far more power than it was ever intended to have and has largely used that power to override the democratic will of the majority in cases where it has been oppressive to various minority groups. If we had to wait for the "right" laws to pass through legislatures, I don't believe we would have nearly the level of civil rights that we do today.

<comment><USER8> I think the courts and bureaucracy being unresponsive to popular opinion, social norms (social stare decisis if you will), and the regular rules of American democracy (i.e., actually amending the Constitution when appropriate) has resulted in the rising popularity of figures like Donald Trump.

It's hard to argue that the system isn't rigged when the rules of the system aren't as important as the outcome that relatively powerful decision-makers want to see.

<comment><USER7> I agree with you that populist movements are a natural result of systems like ours that are not fully democratic. Whether or not you think the system is "rigged" depends on what you think the system is. If "the system" is the form of government we've had since at least the end of the civil war (but really, since close to the beginning), with a strong non-representative bureaucracy, a powerful judiciary, and powerful private political parties, then it isn't "rigged", it just has components that don't answer directly to the people at large. But if you think "the system" is a pure democracy, then yes, it has been "rigged" from the start. Personally, I'm a much bigger fan of our system with all its checks and balances between competing interests than I would be of the more democratic system that a lot of people seem to think we have.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Demagoguery vs literal oligarchy (rich donor dictating to SecState: Https://wikileaks.org/Clinton-emails/emailid/28972 ), take your pick.

<comment><USER7> That link does not appear to work.

<comment><USER10> Presumably, he means this one: [https://wikileaks.org/clinton- emails/emailid/28972](https://wikileaks.org/clinton-emails/emailid/28972)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> It's not only the technique of the Victorian demagogue that's still at play. Many of the irrational societal prejudices of the Victorian era still plague society. These are just as simplistic and pernicious as the Victorian idea that "wolves are bad." (Which caused the mismanagement of US national parks.) Curiously enough, the political left and the right object to different ones, or at least spin them differently.

</comment><comment><USER12> If people feel that their "democracy" is rigged, then they'll rally behind a demagogue as a means of bringing the system down. Like most sideways assaults on Trump, it completely misses the point.

<comment><USER13> It's not just Trump. It's also Orban, Kaczyński, brexiters, and probably others from countries I don't hear about. It seems last few years people everywhere decided to "show the establishment" by electing irrational politicians.

<comment><USER14> Dan Carlin has a good take on this in his Common Sense episode "Revenge of the Gangrenous Finger". There's a largely neglected segment of the population, and they're getting angry enough to burn everything down.

<comment><USER12> Will check it out. Thanks.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> As much as I agree with the general prescription (a better educated public to deal with demagogues), part of the problem has very little to do with education. Many well educated persons are susceptible to the right kind of demagogary just by human nature - certain issues or concepts just cause people to get drummed up a lot easier than others, and it's not a fault of education, but a fault of passion.

We can see this with the "gotcha" videos that are all over social media where you ask voters about the actual issues, completely disassociated from any candidate or rallying cry, and almost all the time you'll end up with more moderate and carefully considered positions.

Education doesn't really have an impact on how susceptible or gullible we are - that's something else that has to be trained and practiced, and the individual has to recognize their susceptibility and be willing to act on it. Education alone does not solve this - consider all the smart persons who believe conspiracy theories - their education in these cases only serves to help them define what they see as logical connections, whereas someone less educated might not be as steadfast because they have less to rely on.

I think James Randi has offered an idea to the effect that "scientists are the easiest to fool because of their education." When someone registers and makes sense in their mind, a mixture of pride and their reasoning process drives them to stick to their guns when they reach a conclusion. Not to pick on anyone in particular, but look at Eric Raymond (ERS) and his blog - <USER2> a bright guy by many metrics, but believes absolutely crazy things.

Finally as an aside, one additional problem with education is that the instructors can add their own bias; often people understand this politically, so to use that as an example, consider left or right leaning politics entering education. Instructors speak from authority - what happens when political leanings are attached to actual facts? You have students walking away conflating opinion with fact from an authoritative source, sometimes unable to tell the difference. Omission of what is taught and what is not also affects this.

Demagogary is a complex issue and a bit of education isn't a complete solution. The issue is that people, even educated ones, can choose what they want to listen to, and that is truer now more than ever. Though echo chamber is bandied around as a buzzword now, it is really easy to fall in on that with how current trends for online discussion go. The integration of the social media aspect, voting systems, etc make having plain conversations very hard. Even on HN, which I do enjoy very much since the community by and large is willing to keep discussions civil but honest, has topics where any dissenting opinion is simply dimissed, not discussed.

<comment><USER11> _Education doesn 't really have an impact on how susceptible or gullible we are - that's something else that has to be trained and practiced, and the individual has to recognize their susceptibility and be willing to act on it._

The biggest factor in determining whether someone listens to a demagogue, is how well their message aligns with the listener's self interest. This applies to all levels and kinds of education.</comment></comment>


FDA is cracking down on biohackers - <AUTHOR> http://gizmodo.com/the-fda-is-cracking-down-on-rogue-genetic-engineers-1791760888 <comment><USER2> So, does anyone know whether Ishee could just give his GMO dogs away for free?</comment>


OpenCovid19 Initiative: develop cheap, open-source tools to fight the pandemic - <AUTHOR> https://app.jogl.io/program/opencovid19 <comment><AUTHOR> Current face mask challenge: [https://facebook.com/groups/opensourcecovid19medicalsupplies...](https://facebook.com/groups/opensourcecovid19medicalsupplies/permalink/678554919621570)

Current face mask database: [https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1e81ceSrVT6Bl4UaS1SxI...](https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1e81ceSrVT6Bl4UaS1SxIUUUzgZAdkIstU7Hzot08Ld8/edit#gid=0)</comment>


Ask HN: What to $600 AWS credit only valid for 7 Days? - <AUTHOR> I don't have any active project to host but got this promotional credid. What will be the best use of it ? Trying to do some POC around kubernets and MySQL but I doubt I would be able to spend that much within 7 days. <comment><USER2> GPU mining. You should be able to burn through that in a few hours.

<comment><USER3> How much could one expect to get out of $600 of AWS GPU mining?

$500? $10?

<comment><USER4> 30 to 40 cents.

Just kidding, 600 (USD I'm assuming) will get you a GPU instance for nearly a month. That might net you 100-200 if you pay attention and mine the most valuable cryptos

<comment><USER3> Interesting, thanks.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Sell it to someone for $500</comment>


Hacker scripts for a number of tasks (Based on a true story) - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/NARKOZ/hacker-scripts <comment><USER2> Repost of a repost of a repost</comment>


[2019] Linux Journal Ceases Publication: An Awkward Goodbye - <AUTHOR> https://www.linuxjournal.com/content/linux-journal-ceases-publication-awkward-goodbye <comment><USER2> I've been writing for LJ since 1996. I just got up and saw this.

I'm very saddened by the news. And yet, LJ lived for two years beyond its original obituary.

Here's what I had to say then, all of which still applies: [https://lerner.co.il/2017/12/01/sad-day-end-linux- journal-2/](https://lerner.co.il/2017/12/01/sad-day-end-linux-journal-2/)

<comment><USER3> I've greatly enjoyed your work these years.

<comment><USER2> Thanks _so_ much!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> I added [2019] to the title to distinguish this from news concerning the 2017 almost-closure.

I'm sad to see it go, I had fond memories of reading it from when I was a beginner learning systems administration. But over time the articles became less and less relevant to me, and while I remained subscribed I rarely read the magazine.

<comment> em-bee good call. i would have surely thought that this might be a reshash of an old post otherwise.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Very saddened by this. I very much enjoyed LJ even though I didn't "deep dive" into many of the articles. Honestly the original appeal for me was the PAPER publication - I can't stand staring at a screen if I'm not working... Have spent enough of my life staring at the screens.

Even after LJ went online-only I kept the subscription going because I didn't want to lose a publication that was so focused on something that is so important to me, and hopefully, all of us: Pure Linux and cool new open source software.

Best wishes to Kyle and the rest of the team and thanks for giving it another go!!!

</comment><comment><USER5> Yeah when I saw the email I was kind of sad. kind of because I saw it coming. When my subscription ran out in June I didn't renew. So i guess I am partially to blame.

</comment><comment><USER6> I have been a subscriber all these years, this goodbye is pretty sad but many many publishers are struggling these days, LJ is not alone, it's probably about time, sigh.

I wish someone can keep site read-only for years to come, still there are gems in those articles and could be hit by google.

<comment><USER7> someone will buy the content and domain.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> I still have an issue from around 2008 laying around somewhere which introduced Android to me.</comment>


Got my react-native app running on macOS via Apple's Project Catalyst - <AUTHOR> https://twitter.com/brunolemos/status/1185636022346043392 <comment><AUTHOR> This is a react-native app that has nested scrolling and swipe gestures using react-native-gesture-handler. Both of this worked great when running on macOS, which is amazing.

What didn't work for me: \- Development mode (only Release mode, because of the failing WebSocket module) \- Firebase \- Deep linking

Overall impression: \- Amazing to be able to reuse the same code across iOS, Android, Web, macOS and Windows \- 99% of the layout looks correct, noticed only one small part breaking \- Some performance are great and some are worse than the iPad version, need to investigate \- Bundle size: 9,1MB (compare this to the Electron version: 181,1MB)

Steps: \- Upgrade your macOS to Catalina \- Upgrade Xcode to v11.1+ \- Upgrade your app to react-native 0.61.2+ \- On Xcode, at the General tab, enable the "Mac" device target \- Build \- You will get some build errors. Go to the Pods project, search for the failing Target, tap Build Phases > Compile Sources and choose only "iOS" instead of "macOS + iOS" (temporary fix)

</comment><comment><USER3> This is really exciting, I'd love to try out a build if you're able to share at some point. Nice work!

I experimented with running a React Native app on desktop earlier in the year. react-native-macos didn't seem ready for prime time and the app looked completely different to how it did on mobile - might be OK for simpler apps but the app I was porting had a very bespoke look and feel, most of which react-native-macos seemed to ignore in favour of default macOS widgets. I didn't take a proper look at react-native-windows, and using ReactXP would require rebuilding the whole UI to use their widgets.

What ended up working surprisingly well was using react-native-web to render the app to a browser, then running this in Electron (so that the app could communicate over IPC to a native backend for audio playback, more or less sending the same messages you would over the RN bridge over IPC instead) - <USER2> was pleasantly surprised how 95% of the UI "just worked", the only real changes I had to make was adding "onMouseX" handlers in places where I was using "onTouchX".

But for well documented reasons, Electron apps aren't always ideal, so being able to run RN natively like this would be really cool! I wonder if react- native-windows enables you to do more or less the same on Windows, and if there is a Linux equivalent? If not, the Electron approach would probably still win out for my use case, but definitely an area I'm excited to see development in.

<comment><AUTHOR> That's what I did as well, tried react-native-macos but that didn't work. I also have an Electron version using react-native-web, which works great.

Now, with Apple Catalyst, things got really interesting. Try it on your project and let me know how it goes, specially the performance. I haven't tried react-native-windows yet but that's on my radar. I don't think we have a high quality alternative for Linux.</comment></comment>


Show HN: Career Finder – A quiz that gives you career recommendations - <AUTHOR> http://shobia.com/career-finder <comment><USER2> Your results show you are a problem solving thinker

This means you like work where your main focus is on dealing with problems that you need to think about and find solutions for. You might enjoy being a computer programmer or a mathematician.

<comment><USER3> I am a mathematician, but it suggests that as a practical realist I might want to be a construction engineer. Or a medical scientist, _except_ epidemiologist. Or a physicist. I kind of do string theory, but I don't think that makes me a practical realist.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> I feel like an idiot whenever I take things like these. I never have a straightforward answer for anything. I always think: "I want to like doing [x] but I am bad at it so I guess I should choose like...but what if they mean would I choose doing that over something I am good at? In that case it should be a dislike, or maybe. Shit! I don't know!"

or when given this one:

>A sick person has some difficulty walking and needs to go up a flight of stairs. You help them do so.

"I think that would make me feel good to help someone, so I'll choose like. Although is that what I would want to do for a job? If so then I would definitely dislike that job. I guess I would maybe like to help someone up the stairs."

Gahh!

<comment><USER5> it sounds frustrating to answer these questions with "should's" in your mind. it's more straight forward and ultimately satisfying to go with what your gut/heart/self really wants. i'm not saying that is simple to figure out, just more worthwhile and pleasant.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> "Your results show you are a practical people person."

Fairly correct.

"This means you like hands-on work that is focused on dealing with other people and helping them out. On the job, you probably want to combine being social with being productive."

I could agree with this. I really enjoy helping new people out with programming problems in the office.

"You might like being a occupational therapist or an athletic trainer."

This doesn't feel right :(

Not really into the medical profession at all. Been a webdev since the late 90's. Learned and re-learned several times over. Never really shined, just got shit done. Lost the love many years ago but still love the tech and problem solving. Been looking for some kind of horizontal career move but am currently stumped.

I am not the kind of person that wants a start up but I think it would be great to help someone achieve something important and amazing (i.e. working for Elon Musk is way more attractive to me than being Elon Musk). I'd take a pay cut for that feeling again. To have the sense that my work has meaning.

</comment><comment><USER7> Scored as an "Artistic Thinker", but there are no artistic endeavors listed! Here's a quote from the synopsis of my test: "You might enjoy coming up with original music lyrics - or with new mathematical theories." However there aren't any musical or mathematical kind of jobs listed - half of them have to do with psychology/psychiatry and another quarter have to deal with tutoring/therapy. About the closest thing to what I actually do for a living, software engineering, is Industrial Engineer - listed at the very bottom. I think you need a little more diversity in the career choices you pull especially for something qualitative like "artistic thinker."

<comment><USER8> Got categorized as that as well. The suggested careers are pretty good in my case, many of them are ones I'd been interested in reading about, particularly mathematicians, physicists, and medical research.

It took me a long time to realize that art and engineering are not as divergent as mainstream culture would have you believe, particularly when you get into the research side. Every interesting field gets a bit weird as you get into it.

<comment><USER7> Yeah I know art and engineering are fairly intertwined - it was really all of the medical choices that showed up. I'm interested in psychology but not so much that half of the career choices shown should be that haha.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> It would help to understand the results if it also gave a list of careers you should avoid, and a list of careers that are in the middle.

</comment><comment><USER10> I've been finding these tests are like a lot of "personality" tests where they're highly dependent upon mood and such, except for this it's moreso a function of "what do you like to do these days?" or rather "what would you rather be doing?" For some people this is pretty stable and for others it changes constantly. The ones that try to match your personality to your career may do a tad better but it's still only so accurate I'd presume. I do like how this isn't really a personality test at all though and just asks what you like to do. Most career recommenders are glorified Myers-Brigg topology tests I've found.

Got business thinker when I've been mostly a software engineer. What's interesting is that on the suggestions list they have technical and/or likely software centered careers like physicist, VC, quants, and actuary but nobody actually writing software or systems as their primary job. Not a single software developer type career listed but industrial engineer and geneticist are higher recommendations with economist at the top? I dunno if the results are telling me that I probably wouldn't enjoy writing code primarily or if this type of thinker shouldn't be writing code.

But really, none of this means you'd be any good at it. Maybe there needs to be more of an assessment of different skills instead of the usual self reporting to contrast with these types of tests.

</comment><comment><USER11> Hah! I'm a big loser!

        Our in-depth psychological assessment shows that you
        might like a career as a cheese taster, scuba diver
        or professional TV show watcher.

To be fair, it does list some alternatives. E.g., I could be a political scientist. But, then, I'd get fired and be downvoted into oblivion.

I could be a user experience designer or an online reputation manager [watch it!], but that sounds far more like a supplier than a job description.

I suppose I could be an epidemiologist. But I'm lazy, so that would only work for really interesting diseases. Gotta stay motivated, don't you know!

I could be an animal scientist or trainer. Maybe that would work if I could be as sensitive as another recently posted author (octopuses). But I seriously doubt it, I being a slacker!

I could be a cartoonist, except I can't draw worth shit. I could be a lyricist or a poet or writer. But that takes talent. Which I don't have.

I could be stonemason or a plasterer or a stucco mason. But, did I mention, I'm a slacker!

Baker. Getting warm. Bread being baked does smell nice. Yeah, that's promising. Except I'm too rich.

</comment><comment><USER12> > Our in-depth psychological assessment shows that you might like a career as > a cheese taster, scuba diver or professional TV show watcher.

Nicely done! :-)

</comment><comment><USER13> Your results show you are a business interactor

This means you like interacting with other people, especially when it is in a professional work setting like in a company.

 __ __

Been a coder, and now run a startup and look to have a BizDev guy join me so that I can focus more on the startup.

and yes I do like Biz interactions and talking to folks and poring over data bore me while I like to solve problems.

</comment><comment><USER14> Well, the two that stuck out to me were "economist" (something I'm interested in but haven't devoted much time to studying), and software developer, which I happily do for a living. Pretty accurate.

<comment><USER11> Do carry on in software development.

But save enough of your income to interest your economist side.

One morning, you will wake up and realize you made over 50% of your income before you tumbled out of bed!

Carried to an (eminently achievable) extreme, this is called "fuck-you money". Some achieve it suddenly, but many gradually.

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> "artistic thinker", what is that suppose to even mean?

That said, I'll bit, I'd love to know about more of the inner workings of the match. How many possible outcomes are there? How does the scoring working, are they questions weighted evenly? Are the jobs preset for a specific match, or are they dynamically selected based on the questions? How were the jobs profiled to meet the aforementioned criteria? What is psychological basis for the questions and their formations... give me the dets yo.

</comment><comment><USER16> I majored in CS but was always intersted in psychology. "Your results show you are a focused people person

This means you enjoy dealing with other people while also being able to work hard and get things done. A good career fit likely means a good amount of social interaction that has a goal and purpose, like being a nurse or a genetic counselor.

Psychiatrists Healthcare Social Workers Registered Nurses Recreational Therapists Audiologists"

</comment><comment><USER17> This is somewhat similar to something I have been working on at, but which is focussed more on finding the right "next move" within the technology industry.

Essentially you rank your skills based around enjoyment and experience and it tells you what types of roles might be of interest to you.

[https://www.msgooroo.com/career/skills- editor](https://www.msgooroo.com/career/skills-editor)

<comment><USER18> Would like to be able to play with it before I have to join anything.

</comment></comment><comment><USER19> 'Practical thinker' it is.

Fairly accurate. I've been a coder and entrepreneur. I love solving problems and building stuff.

</comment><comment><USER20> Practical Thinker --- Engineer or Technologist. That's pretty appropriate. I've been told I would be an engineer since age two or so. For a while, I thought I was going to go into the humanities/arts. I'm now an entrepreneur and (applied) mathematician.

</comment><comment><USER21> Practical thinker - engineer/technologist

;)

<comment><USER22> Hands-on engineer though, note. Civil Engineering, Materials Science/Engineering, that sort of thing.

Distinct from many (most?) readers on HN.

<comment><USER23> I got practical thinker too, and I'm a Mechatronic Engineer (I like building things)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> "Oh geez, no." was my thinking for most of those questions.

</comment><comment><USER18> Thinking helper - But I have to say there's not a job there I would enjoy. I think I prefer a more mixing of being a programmer creating stuff that helps people.

<comment><USER25> Me too - I must say though, I've found myself being more and more interested in Psychology etc. as time has gone by. Diplomat also sounds interesting.

Still, I definitely identify with being a programmer who creates stuff that helps people!.

</comment></comment><comment><USER26> I came out as thinking helper. With the promise that I could enjoy becoming doctor. What a coincidence - I dream of becoming doctor :)

</comment><comment><USER27> I got recommended into the medical fields. Interesting, as I've always dreamed of being a doctor when I was young.

</comment><comment><USER28> Your results show you are a problem solving thinker

You might enjoy being a computer programmer or a mathematician. :D :)

</comment><comment><USER29> When I finished the last question it just sent me back to the homepage.

<comment><USER30> Happened a couple of times here too, just hit back and go on.

</comment></comment><comment><USER31> How many possible career outcomes does this quiz generate?</comment>


Show HN: Que – Distributed Job Processing in Elixir with Mnesia - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/sheharyarn/que <comment><USER2> One thing I had always heard about Mnesia is that it was prone to split brain with the occurrence of network partitions. Is that still a concern?

<comment><USER3> Pretty much yes. There's some ways, like Ulf Wiger's unsplit.</comment></comment>