Why I Switched from Python to Clojure (2016) - <AUTHOR> https://www.bradcypert.com/why-i-switched-from-python-to-clojure/ <comment><USER2> It's interesting that the very things that attracted the author to Clojure was what kept me from moving to it from Python.

I enjoyed the syntax. Loved the immutability. However, I wasn't able to understand the structure of program data at a glance even when reading my own code. The reliance on lists and maps everywhere meant that the structure of data was encoded in the code of the functions that created it and sometimes you had to go several functions deep just to understand the bit you wanted.

In Python if I'm returning a tuple that's more than 2 or 3 elements long, I know that it's time for, at the very least, a namedtuple because I've had to deal with code in the past that has mysterious 5-tuples etc that just becomes too tiring to deal with.

To be clear, big collections in Python aren't a problem as long as the type of the contained data remains uniform.

<comment><USER3> The fundamental problem with S-expressions is that they are intended for (1950s) machine readability and human ergonomics takes a back seat.

<comment><USER4> sure, because Sure, because this (taken from React's JSX example page):

        <DashboardUnit data-index="2">

Scores

          <Scoreboard className="results" scores={gameScores} />
        </DashboardUnit>;

is more readable than this:

        [dashboard-unit {:data-index 2}
          [:h1 "Scores"]
          [scoreboard {:class-name "results"
                       :scores game-scores]]

Please tell me more about Lisp readability.

<comment><USER5> For someone familiar with HTML/XML, so any developer in the last 30 years, yes it is. Your point being?

I like the ideas behind clojure, I really do. I even wrote a non-trivial personal project with it. However, coming back to that code after two months was basically like the plot of Memento. I ended up rewriting it in JavaScript instead.

<comment><USER6> Almost anything (if not all) requires one to put in years of practice before one is adept. "a" non-trivial "personal" project probably won't cut it.

Comparing that to your 30 years practice of XML is not at all useful.

<comment><USER5> I didn't say anywhere I have 30 years of experience with XML. What I said is, EVERYONE is familiar with the syntax. JSX is especially suited for expressing HTML because it is, in fact, almost HTML.

As to your other point - maybe. I'm not seeing anywhere near enough potential payoff to invest years into it, though. Also, I'd argue that makes it a terribly impractical language if you're interested in getting work done.

To clarify, I don't agree one needs years to become competent in clojure. But if one did, that just makes it a worse value proposition.

<comment><USER6> I'd rather work with Clojure than the monstrosity we make with our 30 years of experience.

Sure you can get things done and ignore the maintenance horror later.

Anyways, in the 30 years we at least steadily transfer features from Lisp.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> My impression of Python is that it's a Fisher Price Little Tikes coupe with a few GE90 jet turbine hardpoints mounted on it.

It's a very simple language. Literally when things get made to be complex Guido says do it the simple way, because when unbreakable things break it's just that much harder to fix. This makes it very easy to debug, very easy to fix/patch, very easy to onboard new/junior developers in, and very easy to start using in production. It's literally a baby.

But man, you can do some crazy things in Python if you want. You can write C/C++ extensions sure. You can also use things like orchestration with `py4j` and `jpype` in order to execute IPC with a JVM dedicated to the Python process. In that sense all Python in your application becomes a request layer with the JVM or a binary acting as the data layer, and request layers don't require as much in performance because you only need to issue so many requests. Request layers may also need to change faster than data layers/pipelines, and in that Python's great because it's so flexible. Based on some performance testing our team did there's absolutely no reason to simply switch away from Python, though that may also be due to legacy reasons.

I'd like to stick to Python and maintain my Python proficiency going forward (though with Guido out as BFDL we'll have to see how the language evolves). I'd like to maybe add Rust or Elixir to my repertoire and see how they extend my capabilities in ways Python/C/C++ may not. But Python will always be my Swiss Army knife turned combat shovel. It gets the job done.

<comment><USER4> Are you implying Clojure is not simple? Have you ever watched Rich Hickey's "Simple made easy" talk? If you haven't, I highly recommend it. Disclaimer: It's not about Clojure.

<comment><USER7> I haven't watched it, but I have heard about it. In contrast to the simplicity of a programming language in the happy path, I'm talking more about simplicity in the case where things break. For example, Python doesn't implement tail call optimization in part to eliminate stack trace collapses. On the other hand, many reasons my current tool stops working is due to the underlying configuration of the JVM. Configuration management is a leading problem in distributed systems, and a fairly significant one given how it took down both Google and Facebook in two days. Clojure is a lisp on the JVM; I doubt it matters how pretty you write your code if you don't say allocate enough memory on the heap for the process, and if it implements tail call recursion when that happens you may get an incomplete stack trace.

This is more speculation, but I do hope it gives some insights into why you may choose one paradigm for a problem over another. Overall I'd say break your problem domain into subdomains and choose the best paradigm for each.

<comment><USER4> > I doubt it matters how pretty you write your code

Clojure it's not (just about) beautiful and concise code. There's a lot more to it. And JVM in my experience is not a problem. I was skeptical at first, but as it turned out - JVM is pretty stable and solid piece of tech. Besides - there's also Clojurescript (and less popular Clojure CLR). Depending of what you are trying to solve, you can go that route too. I may not convince you to give Clojure a try, but please do yourself a favor and watch/read Rich Hickey's talks. [https://changelog.com/posts/rich-hickeys-greatest- hits](https://changelog.com/posts/rich-hickeys-greatest-hits) They are perfectly applicable and do make sense even outside of Clojure context. Many developers characterized those talks to be "eye opening".

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> I can, and do, appreciate opinions on languages themselves. But my decision to continue using Python over Clojure is much less about the language's syntax and more about the available libraries. How do Clojure web frameworks compare to Django/Flask? What would I use instead of Pandas for data analysis? Are there keras-like deep learning tools?

Switching languages based on a comparison of idiosyncrasies between the two seems like moving to a new city based solely on the weather: a valid consideration, but nowhere near sufficient.

<comment><USER9> I'd argue that the JVM is a good move from python. There are a number of rich frame works on the JVM with great tooling. Also if you use PyCharm switching IDEs is easy with Intellij. I switched from python -> F# -> Kotlin.

I do agree the language is part of the battle. The other is tooling, and libraries. F#/dotnet was painful as a linux dev. The JVM works on almost any platform with great tooling.

For Libraries. I haven't found anything akin to django admin, but I don't really miss it. For me

SQLAlchemy -> Jooq

Flask -> Spark/Vertx

<comment><USER10> I like writing Kotlin, but I feel like I'm still struggling with the "functional" side it. I think I just like writing java too much.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> Sometimes I read these pieces and I wonder how much of the joy of the new language is just having become a better programmer in the meantime.

<comment><USER12> At least for me, it definitely factors in. Getting a new perspective on problems by using a language with a different toolbox (functional rather than OOP for example) can help with future problems. And it's just good fun to learn a new language just to challenge yourself a bit.

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> I have considered multiple times switching from Python to other alternatives. However, I instantly discard any language with a Lisp-like syntax. I just cannot work with it. Being a Haskell hobbyist, I would like Python to be statically type and have better support for pure functional programming, but Python has the libraries that I need.

<comment><USER14> Every person that I've talked to that seemed to have a strong negative opinion about parens never used it. They just think they won't like it but wouldn't take the minimal amount of time to give it a try with something like paredit. I was also in this camp for a long time until I figured I would give it a serious try instead of disparaging something I had not used. You might consider that creating and editing code with balanced parenthesis doesn't actually require you to insert them manually when you have an editor that will always keep the code data-structure balanced and makes structural editing simple.

<comment><USER15> I've been using Scheme as one of my languages for a decade. (Haskell, Python, Ruby, Bash are the main others.) I generally use a preprocessor for each language. The Haskell preprocessor treats indented as code, flush as comments, also supported by my syntax highlighting. Comment characters feel to me like a thousand Hitchcock birds shat on my car. They're so easy to avoid. It also introduces here docs; no language should be so full of itself that it can't embed multiple lines of another language verbatim.

I've gone through several period of straight Lisp parens, and several periods of using a preprocessor. I believe in committing to muscle memory before deciding; I've oscillated back and forth between Querty and Dvorak, for example. I'm more committed to psychological experiments than anyone who claims the parentheses haters are newbies who haven't tried.

Study counting in higher mammals: One finds that "one, two, three, many" is core to all of us, and higher systems are strapped on like the multiple layers of vision mechanisms. Humans can't deal with the tiger tails at the end of lisp expressions. But machines can? Yes, but machines can also handle inferred parentheses. The complainers about parentheses complainers want off-the-shelf support. Real programmers write their own support.

Lisp looks best with indentation to help infer parentheses. Use a pipe "|" to open a parenthesis that auto-closes at the next ")" or the end of the line. Use a dollar "$" (borrowed from Haskell) to open a parenthesis that auto- closes when the indentation returns. Lisp written this way is stunningly beautiful poetry, cleaner than any of the dozens of languages I've programmed in. The remaining parentheses actually matter, so one pays attention to them.

I've spent years each way, back and forth. Inferring parentheses is better, and one can write any tool to follow this syntax.

<comment><USER16> You would be interested in my old project using `$` as a way for reducing parentheses: [http://text.cirru.org/](http://text.cirru.org/) .

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> I notice this was written in 2016, but I wonder if the author's opinion has changed since dataclasses have been implemented in Python.

<comment><USER18> The author switched to kotlin from clojure, kotlin's interop with java is leagues ahead of clojure.

<comment><USER19> I do not have experience with Kotlin and it's interop with Java. Do you maybe have examples or articles which you'd recommend on the subject?

<comment><USER20> [https://kotlinlang.org/docs/reference/java-to-kotlin- interop...](https://kotlinlang.org/docs/reference/java-to-kotlin-interop.html)

[https://kotlinlang.org/docs/reference/java- interop.html](https://kotlinlang.org/docs/reference/java-interop.html)

[https://developer.android.com/kotlin/interop](https://developer.android.com/kotlin/interop)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> If you allow me to compare my very limited experience with Python (hacking SublimeText plugins) to my rather extended experience writing Java or Ruby (i.e class-based languages that traditionally newline-&-deindent closing parens rather than aggregating them in a trailing tiger tail like in lisps) ...

... I would say writing programs in Clojure leads me to writing 10 to 20 times less code on average.

I recently rewrote 15000 lines of Java (several weeks worth of effort split in several dozen files) down to 500 Clojure lines (in one weekend and one single file).

Anyone else with that kind of experience ? To me this is a tremendous advantage and any argument for code readability is really just argumentation about reading code at a small scale (say one file) that unknowingly makes trade off about reading code at bigger scales (say the readability of a whole project).

</comment><comment><USER22> > ...the "implied self parameter" on python methods turned me off.

If I had a nickel for every time I got the "TypeError: random_function() takes 1 positional argument but 2 were given" because I forget the "self" parameter I could buy myself a coffee. Probably a fancy one from the Starbucks even!

<comment><USER23> I always thought this made sense: a method, considered as a property of a class isn't yet bound to any particular instance while, considered as a property of an instance has an implicit parameter of the instance you're currently operating on: languages like Java hide this "this" parameter from you by passing it automatically while python makes it explicit so you can form a better mental model of what's going on

<comment><USER24> The problem is that Python is the exception here. Those of us that learnt other languages first already have a mental model and find this explicit self parameter weird. And it's more typing.

Yegge thinks that "self" is a wart and I agree. The article is a fun read but it's showing its age. I suspect Python might just have beaten Perl by now.

[https://sites.google.com/site/steveyegge2/tour-de- babel#TOC-...](https://sites.google.com/site/steveyegge2/tour-de-babel#TOC- Python)

I suppose Python's way there's one less reserved word. Are there any other advantages?

<comment><USER23> I also like how you can call the method on the class and pass self in explicitly. e.g.:

        class Foo:
          b = 4
          def foo(self, a):
            return a + self.b

        inst = Foo()
        inst.foo(3)
        Foo.foo(inst, 3)

I haven't written python in a while, but I really like that python makes this possible and obvious and I've found this behavior pretty handy when working in a more functional style.

<comment><USER23> Also, I find writing languages with an implicit self like Java, Kotlin and Scala really irritating because there's nothing to distinguish access to a locally-scoped variable or function from access to a class member. I've always appreciated how, in Python, `x` always refers to something bound according to Python's pseudo-lexical scoping rules while class members always have a `self.` to make them stand out.

These days, however, I mostly write Common Lisp and Clojure which, each in their own way, have explicit selfs: Common Lisp because it uses multiple dispatch and, consequently, there isn't one "self" and Clojure's protocols are designed to dispatch on the first argument, which is always passed explicitly.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> Willing to bet money the author switched to something else by 2017. For the overwhelming majority of developers Clojure is this tinker toy we fiddle with for 6 months to a year before getting bored and fed up with its limitations.

</comment><comment><USER26> I don't have a horse in this race but I find it interesting that in my career I've seen a lot of bad code but the worst clusterfucks I've met where all in Clojure while the community seems to be chock full of purists and in general people that takes craftmanship seriously at least at face value.

¯\\_(ツ)_/¯

<comment><USER27> "The worst injuries I've ever seen were in big factories with large, powerful tools -- not in home garages where people just use hammers and hand-saws."

Powerful abstractions are... powerful. They're more difficult to use correctly, and take longer to learn.

The conclusion shouldn't (always) be to avoid them entirely.

<comment><USER28> I'd wager good money the exact opposite is true.

Big factories should be better regulated and more professional leading to less accidents. It's the weekend dad with a beer in his hand trying to get something done quickly that saws through their tendon and fucks up their wrist.

Also python is definitely not as simple as a hammer and hand-saw.

<comment><USER27> Allow me to direct your attention to one of the internet's hidden gems:

[https://www.youtube.com/user/USCSB/videos?view=0&sort=p&flow...](https://www.youtube.com/user/USCSB/videos?view=0&sort=p&flow=grid)

Beyond that, these metaphors have gotten too out of hand to have a meaningful conversation :)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER29> Not sure if it's still a thing, but the slowness of starting the REPL was what kept me from moving to Clojure. Python is doing much better in that regard.

</comment><comment><USER30> `__setup__.py` is not a thing

it's `setup.py`

</comment><comment><USER31> I switched from Python to Clojure (because abstractions), and then to Go (static types; efficiency) and then to Elixir (because work) and then to Haskell (no more lame types and stupid nil errors).

I feel like with Haskell I have basically achieved perfection, and I'm more prepared to work on the other languages if the situation calls for it.

</comment><comment><USER32> "Why I Switched from Python to [Shiny Newer Language]" seems to be the thing on HN this week.

<comment><USER33> The really hilarious part about this one is that it's from 2016, and the author seem to have since switched from Clojure to Kotlin.

I think it's still interesting to read about people switching. I mean, I'll never understand why people prefer functional languages to OOP. I think it's just so much easier to maintain OOP in the long run, and you can frankly build most of the advantages of functional languages within OOP if you need to. But then you read an article like this and you get a reminder that freedom can lead to some really horrible stuff and that is especially true for Python in general.

I don't see this as "we should all switch from Python" sort of thing, but rather a "don't do these things with Python".

<comment><USER34> I write Clojure, Kotlin, and Scala all on a pretty regular basis. Truthfully, I do write less Clojure now than at the time I wrote this post, but that's predominantly because my current interest (and salary) are centered around Kotlin + Android.

I still write Clojure quite a far amount, but I don't blog about it as much as I'm not "exploring" the language as much. Sometimes, I'll find or create something cool and share it, but most likely that'll be Kotlin/Android related right now.</comment></comment></comment>


Snake oil can be beneficial for arthritis and other conditions (2007) - <AUTHOR> https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/snake-oil-salesmen-knew-something/ <comment><USER2> Python fat has been used to treat painful joints in Nigeria for ages and its effectiveness has also been proven in a scientific study.[1]

[1] [https://www.biomedscidirect.com/1195/python_fat_effect_on_co...](https://www.biomedscidirect.com/1195/python_fat_effect_on_collagen_levels_of_human_keloid_tissue/articlescategories)

<comment><USER3> Same in Myanmar. There, people with stroke are given small doses of Python liver/pancreas or some sort as part of traditional medicine. I'm quite surprised to see that there's some sort of medicinal application to snakes.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Well I guess the salesmen will be relieved

<comment><USER5> What I heard was that actual snake-oil was used for a number of things it actually worked on in china, but when someone tried to introduce it in the US, the salesmen figured it was complete bs and no one would notice if they just sold counterfeit oil.

<comment><USER4> Oh wow! I didn't know that, sort of reminds me of the olive oil market right now.

<comment><USER6> I thought the above was about object-oriented programming. Language is hard.

<comment><USER7> Another example of why explicit is better than implicit.

<comment><USER8> What do you mean by that?

<comment><USER9> _What I heard was that actual snake-oil was used for a number of things it actually worked on in china, but when someone tried to introduce it in the US, the salesmen figured it was complete bs and no one would notice if they just sold counterfeit oil._

Object Orientation was used for almost everything in Smalltalk, but when someone tried to introduce it in C-based languages, some programmers figured it was bs. Some "consultants" figured it was more programming industry bs/fashion and some marketers figured people would buy stuff if they just claimed everything was Object Oriented.

In the right context, OO can be pretty darn good, but it's not a panacea for everything. (And there is some good OO in C-heritage languages.)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Laughable.</comment>


Cryptography Is Dead? - <AUTHOR> http://rjlipton.wordpress.com/2013/03/02/cryptography-is-dead/

<comment><USER2> The article had this interesting item, not really related to cryptography:

 _"Dan [Boneh] also talked about some covert-channel work that he recently did. He has developed a method for identifying your cell phone via its hardware. He uses the fact that each phone measures acceleration slightly differently. His attack measures over many times the acceleration of the phone, and then compares the values. Since all phones—it appears–make slightly different errors in their measurements, he can convert this into a unique signature of the phone. Obviously there are ways to stop this: the simplest is to disallow any script from reading the values of the phone's acceleration measurements. But the fact that this is a viable attack is surprising to me."_

By the way, don't be deterred by the link-baity title. The article summarizes what four of the founders of the field of cryptography, including Rivest and Shamir, said at an industry conference. And the author, Dick Lipton, is a well-known researcher in the theory of computation.

<comment><USER3> Heh, first thing I did was head to HN comments ready to skip this article as "link-baity" indeed, after reading your comments I had a read and agree this is a good read after all.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> No.</comment>


Apply HN: AuthorInvestments – Trade Future Royalty Rights - <AUTHOR> I write books.
Here is my chart. http://imgur.com/WpdGsDK I want to sell 10% of my future royalties to whoever wants to buy it. So would a lot of writers with demonstrable growth. <comment><USER2> Three questions:

1) Are we talking royalties for (i) a single produced work? Ex. I get 1% of a particular book that you're writing or publishing. Or (ii) is it 1% of all future royalties from any written work that you publish? In the latter case, the legal framework will get rather convoluted because you'll need to define the _exact_ scope of what is and is not covered (what about monetized blog posts? what if you shadow write for another author? what if you write a screenplay? etc.).

2) Have you looked into SEC regulations regarding setting up such a structure? I'm not 100% sure how it works for films, which often option off royalty rights to all kinds of people, but (i) above would be a bunch of individual contracts in a similar manner. However, in case (ii) above it seems you would essentially be setting up a corporation for yourself that contractually owns your IP and receives royalties on it while issuing shares to others.

3) How much creative control do shareholders get in exchange for shares? Basically, are all shares non-voting, or if I own rights to 51% of your royalties do I get to tell you to stop writing alternate history novels for adults and hop on the sappy YA train instead?

In any case, I like the idea since it takes the concept of Patreon beyond the "well-intentioned benefactor" level.

<comment><AUTHOR> 1) I think both can work simultaneously. Either single works or entire catalogs. In the latter case, I'm thinking anything sold as a book, regardless of content. 2) Not yet, but I think for case (ii), I'd try to manage them as collections of case (i) instances to simplify things. 3) We will err on the side of writers. A shareholder can advise, but never dictate. Advice will be displayed to authors filterable by stake held. They can decide how to weigh things from there. We will do our best to make everyone happy on a case by case basis, but "Your advice might be ignored" will be displayed prominently throughout the purchasing process.

I appreciate your interest, and stake in my case (ii) is on a firesale if you would like to become investor zero and help me work out the kinks on the fly =)

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> It took me a minute, after reading your sparse description a couple of times, to figure out what you want to do. This is interesting I've never heard of this type of market. So would this be like the publisher houses of old where they would give an author an advance, they write and publish the book, then the author essentially doesn't collect (or collects less) from book sales until the advance is paid back? Is it somewhat similar to that? Is it in perpetuity or for a set period?

I tried searching around online but I couldn't figure out if anyone really does this today or not. Is there a market for this?

<comment><AUTHOR> It is somewhat similar to that, but also different.

For discussions sake, let's say my books bring in $100 a month today. As a self published author, I keep 100 percent of my royalties. I take 10 percent, and create 10 shares, offering each for sale for $100 a piece, each entitling its owner to 1 percent of my future monthly royalty payments for as long as they own the share. Right now each would be paying a monthly royalty of 1 dollar, assuming my sales stayed at the same level, more or less. As my stock as a writer grows, and I get more sales, those shares pay more, and maybe the original buyer resells them to someone else for more than they bought them for.

I think there is a market for it. I'd sell some of my future royalties for some cash to live on while I grow my author platform. I think a lot of authors would.

<comment><USER4> There may be a lot of authors willing to sell but no investors willing to buy.

<comment><AUTHOR> I won't know unless I try /super

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> This is interesting; it reminds me somewhat of the "Bowie Bonds" concept that has been going around in music. The Offspring just sold their catalog for $35M I think. If the royalty structure is lucrative enough and worth the long-term exchange for the buyer then I think you could definitely establish a market.

<comment><AUTHOR> Cool beans! It occurred to my as I was typing up the OP that the model could easily be extended to any form of artistry, music in particular, which I also do, I'm just a writer first, hence the focus. Plus, I had the chart to show.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> One suggestion: figure out how the buyer reports the income on their income tax returns! I would be hesitant to invest if I thought it would be a headache.

Also: I'd be hesitant to invest if I thought there might be the possibility of "hollywood accounting", i.e. if I own a percentage of all of of your future royalties, you could potentially structure a deal with a publisher where you get large "appearance fees" for book signings, and the royalties are basically zero.

Overall, I like the idea.

<comment><AUTHOR> It would be taxed like regular income made from investments, as it turns out the SEC requires me to register these as asset backed securities (in the works), but I'm not sure my market is the typical investor who already knows those ins and outs, so better believe there will be tons of hand holding in that regard, up to offering a free e-filing service in house, just to trim that barrier to adoption as low as possible.

As for being worried about Hollywood accounting, you won't have to worry, as the company will act as the exclusive publisher and copyright holder of the works belonging to the authors that want to join. It's the only way to insure against authors offering their works on other platforms behind our backs such that investors are defrauded of their cut (aside from costly monitoring and litigation), also, I can't depend on them to get their royalties direct deposited in their accounts, and then send us that portion belonging to their investors to disseminate it, rather, we need to receive said deposits, then distribute as needed. This limits the sort of authors who would be willing to join the platform to a certain sort of upstart writer, one with a small but growing catalog, and a small but passionate reader base, right at the cusp of getting on the radar of the mainstream publishing world due to their ebook sales. At least those are my thoughts at this time. I'd love to just trust authors to do right by their investors, but I can't ask the investors to be so trusting, and one author deciding to betray the company, if I leave the power in their hands, can tank the whole thing. I'm thinking owners transfer copyright of their works thus far and sign a contract to publish exclusively with us all works in the future, and in exchange they get 95% of the asset backed securities created for their books/future ten years of work, at which point they can then offer any amount up for sale like any other anonymous seller. The firm retains the other 5% for itself for its fee, and does the same. After ten years they are free to renew, or leave the firm to publish with others, but the firm retains the copyrights it paid for until they enter the public domain. Anything an author can make outside of royalties resulting from sales of their works either transferred to us or written under contract to us is their business, and in this case royalties refers to both royalties from sales, and royalties from kindle edition normalized pages read, as we're looking to have a special relationship with Amazon moving forward based on talks with them thus far.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> I like it. If I buy some futures, can I sell them to anyone else down the line? Would also be super cool if investors could have access to early copies to gauge quality/value.

What are the legal needs in order to sell these? what kind of investment instrument would it be precisely?

<comment><AUTHOR> Yes, you can sell them to anyone down the line. I agree that early access would be a cool feature. Investors would be taking a stake in a writer as a whole, almost like a race horse, and can help their own bottom line by acting as a beta reader for said writer, telling people about "their writer's" books, tweeting links to their storefront, providing editing, cover design, deal making. Mentorship. There's a lot one can do if you like someone's style enough to take a risk on them. Mine are for sale, back-alley way style. Free e-book pdf's available on request.

I don't think the legal needs to sell these are too complicated. A simple contract would look like "The holder of this contract is entitled to x percent of the monthly royalty payments paid to y author" and the investment instruments are instances of said contract.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> This is a cool and interesting idea! It's like a private community IPO, hopefully there won't be too much taxation involved!

<comment><AUTHOR> I appreciate your interest! I've started my sales sprint, lean start up style.

I've got this amazing author offering a 1 percentage ownership stake in her future royalties for just a hundred dollars, to get the ball rolling and create the need for what needs to be built. As for taxes, I'd get some help on that for sure, but I cut you a check for your earned royalties, you pay taxes on it, no different than the writer themselves would. I would think.

<comment><USER8> 1% is a good start, but since it's still early, maybe you can negotiate a 2% for $125-$150... Doesn't hurt to try ;)

<comment><AUTHOR> You know what, you seem like a nice guy, if it will get this company pizza profitable within 5 hours of it's conception, she's game via paypal at 2% for $175 email@example.com

<comment><USER8> Sorry, but I'm not interested! I was inputting some general ideas for you to use... Cheers

<comment><AUTHOR> Totally appreciate it, and hey, my first rejection. Eventually I'll get a yes =)

<comment><USER8> You're very welcome! We're both in the same boat, just trying to figure out the path...keep trying and feel free to stay in touch with any other questions or concerns!!! Cheers

<comment><AUTHOR> Will do!

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Interesting concept. Worry about the SEC getting involved with this.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks. Enough money flowing through the system to warrant SEC attention is a problem I'm ready to have. Until then, I'm in sales mode, and stake in myself is the product. Interested enough to bite?</comment></comment>


Choose your Browser before Opening any Hyperlink - <AUTHOR> http://web20.dreamcss.com/2009/09/browser-chooser-choose-your-browser.html

<comment><USER2> I wish I had this on my cell phone - most links I want to open in Opera Mini, but there's a few that I would rather use Skyfire or Pocket IE for.</comment>


Arq 4 is out – Mac backup to S3/Glacier - <AUTHOR> http://www.haystacksoftware.com/blog/2014/03/arq-4-is-out/ <comment><USER2> I discovered Arq a couple years ago and have been using it ever since. I highly recommend it. The thing that sold me was that the file format is documented and I was able to write code to read the backups directly. So even if somehow Arq does disappear, I can still read my data. [http://godoc.org/code.google.com/p/rsc/arq](http://godoc.org/code.google.com/p/rsc/arq)

<comment><USER3> Is this compatible with the latest version?

<comment><USER4> Mostly. I need to update it a bit. I will ASAP.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> As always, we're very happy to see that in addition to S3/Glacier/DreamCloudStartupOfTheWeek, Arq supports plain old SFTP.

This means that, of course, it works perfectly with rsync.net and that we have yet another chance to offer the HN readers discount, which you may email us to find out about.

<comment><USER6> Please try and contain yourselves when you see "backup" on HN.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> Quick endorsement: buy this. Arq has allowed me to be insanely careless about backups and has never failed. Makes the whole backup thing cost effective, too with Amazon being dirt cheap these days.

</comment><comment><USER8> Can someone using S3 Glacier as a backup destination please provide some concrete costs? Even if no retrieval is involved, I'd just love to see: "I pay $XYZ and am backing up ###GB worth of data."

I see the calculator floating around in the comments, but it's not formatted in a backup-friendly fashion / use case (ie. set storage size with XYZ% churn for changed files, or continuously expanding snapshots with aged snapshot deletion).

I've always been curious for usage for backup storage. The costs for retrieval are expensive enough (in the time frames I'd care to see for a personal computer) that I think I'll still avoid that aspect for the time being.

<comment><USER9> It's cheap until you have to grab a bunch of stuff back all at once. Then they have you by the short hairs.

<comment><USER10> I think if your house/company burned down and you loose yor main PC and the external backup, you'd be glad to pay 0.10 cents for every Gigabyte you can retrieve.

<comment><USER11> Or potentially higher than 20x that much, if you are downloading it quickly (are you actually aware of the Glacier pricing model? where did you obtain $.10/GB?).

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7337181](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7337181)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> Arq has been part of my backup systems since version 2. This upgrade looks very good. Especially the expansion beyond relying solely on Amazon S3 and use number of other services including SSH.

Having used the past Glacier support, the new S3 Glacier Lifecycle will be much better.

I am wondering about when (if?) the open source arq_restore and format documentation will be updated.

<comment><USER13> Do you mind elaborating what your total backup solution is? I've been looking at Arq but am not aware of what it does not do and what I would need to fill in the gaps. Currently I rely on time machine backing up to three different drives and keeping one of those drives in the office.

<comment><USER12> I will ignore what I do for server backups, and I will focus on my MacBook. I run my web development business and my personal life off of this system.

The software I use: CrashPlan, Arq, DropBox, Carbon Copy Cloner.

CrashPlan: I have backing up my data, configuration /Users, /Library. I have a bunch of regex restrictions to not backup various files such as caches, VMWare images, etc. Crashplan backups up to their cloud servers every 15 minutes. When I am at home (where I work from) it also backups to a local copy of CrashPlan on a server.

Arq: I am doing daily backups to Arq. These are now being done to Glacier for long term / last resort backups. This only backups my /Users with heavy restrictions on which files.

DropBox: I have many of my documents stored in Dropbox with the PackRat feature to keep copies of every version and deletion. I don't consider DropBox to be backup by itself, but I often find it is much faster to find and restore something via Dropbox than other methods. I also take care about the types of data I put on Dropbox.

Carbon Copy Cloner: as I mentioned in another part of this thread, I think SuperDuper is better for most people. However, I do use CCC's ability to remotely do a boot able bare metal backup to my home office server. When I travel, I typically take an external backup drive with a current mirror of my system.

I don't use Apple's Time Machine. I think it is a good choice for most home users. As Apple has added more features to Time Machine, I do think about adding it to my mix.

That covers most things. I do have somethings under SVN or Git which could be considered another layer of backup.

Currently, the biggest pain point for me in backups is VMWare images. I currently have 4 Linux and 3 Windows images on this system, and they can cause a huge amount of data needing to be backed up every time they are used.

<comment><USER14> > Currently, the biggest pain point for me in backups is VMWare images. I > currently have 4 Linux and 3 Windows images on this system, and they can > cause a huge amount of data needing to be backed up every time they are > used.

This is where a sector-by-sector backup program shines.

I don't know what to recommend on the Mac, but on Windows, ShadowProtect is pretty wonderful. It backs up only changed sectors - update 10MB in a 10GB file and it only copies that 10MB - and it's insanely fast.

Even with a file-by-file backup, one thing you can do for VMware images is to take a snapshot. After you take a snapshot, further changes to the VM don't go into the large .vmdk file you just snapshotted, they go into a new, potentially much smaller .vmdk file, so your next incremental backups may be much smaller.

<comment><USER15> Why not just setup backups from inside the VM's, while having the base VM image backed up somewhere (once) as well?

<comment><USER12> I have sometimes done this with Linux VM's that I use for local development.

Usually, the VM disk images are some where between the need to backup Applications and configuration files, and not as important my work and data files.

The problem with VM's is not just the quantity of data that needs to be backed up, but the overall size of the data that needs to be evaluated. I think that CrashPlan does a pretty good job of just coping the changed data of the disk image, but it has to do a HUGE amount of processing with every backup. Therefore VM's are hard to fit in with the remote versioned backups of CrashPlan and Arq.

I do backup these up via Carbon Copy Clone when I mirror the entire drive.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> Wonderful piece of software - highly recommended. Awesome upgrade also, have been waiting for S3 alternatives for a long time.

It's unfortunate a few things appear to be backwards - why can you include wifi APs, yet not exclude them - despite the example suggesting you exclude from tethered devices.

Likewise, why can you email on success, but not failure.

<comment><USER17> Seriously? There's still no way to get notified if a backup fails?

<comment><USER4> It emails on both success and failure.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> Could you change the upgrade system on macs please? I got a message telling me to install the latest update -- so I did. I was on a paid version of Arq 3, and now I'm on a trial version of Arq 4 :-/

<comment><USER4> Didn't the upgrade text explain that it was a paid upgrade? I tried to make that as clear as I could.

If you want to stick with Arq 3 you can. Delete Arq 4. Download Arq 3 ([http://www.haystacksoftware.com/arq/Arq_3.3.4.zip](http://www.haystacksoftware.com/arq/Arq_3.3.4.zip)). Launch Arq 3. You'll have to find your old backup set under "Other Backup Sets", select it, and click the "Adopt This Backup Set" button. Sorry for the hassle.

<comment><USER19> Agree that this should have been presented differently - something other than the normal update mechanism, which becomes routine over time. This is a major update with a fee associated - the 'upgraded' user is presented with an 'unlicensed' copy of Arq4 and continual purchase dialogs until they get out their credit card and pay again.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> I've regularly been curious about this, but Crashplan has a stable reputation and seems much less expensive for large backups. For those who have researched Crashplan, why did you choose Arq instead?

<comment><USER12> As I have replied to several questions in this thread and said that I use both CrashPlan and Arq for remote backups let me give my rational.

CrashPlan: I have used since soon after they first appeared for Mac. They have really strong compression and de-duplication to minimize and speed data transfers. I personally use their consumer and small business solutions. However, I also maintain their CrashPlan PROe enterprise backup for several clients. The fact that they have a very strong enterprise product, provides me with a great deal of trust in the quality of CrashPlan's work. I think they have be best solution I have used for a notebook that is on the move. I backup to both their remote servers and to my own home office server. Thus, I have the option to quickly restore from my own local server, their much slower remote server AND I can have a CrashPlan Next Day send me a copy of my data on a disk drive. I do wish they could get rid of the Java dependency for their Mac Client software since it is a RAM hog. CrashPlan rates very well at saving Mac OS X meta data.

Arq: I like the approach to backing up to Amazon S3 which I know is a very reliable storage environment, and Glacier has made it dirt cheap for last resort archival backups. I like the fact that at least through Version 3 there has been an open source software GitHub hosted restore. If Haystack software disappears there are still options to restore. I believe Arq is one of the very few Mac OS X remote backup systems that preserves ALL meta data.

I have used lots backup software over 30 years. Every backup system has failings and bugs. And the operator (normally me) is capable of making mistakes. That is why I use multiple products to do backup.

I am interested in exploring Arq new features especially using SSH/SFTP which will allow me to self host, and may cause me to re-evaluate my overall backup approach.

<comment><USER21> I've talked to the CrashPlan folks recently, and they have been working on native clients for a while now. They wouldn't tell me a release date of course, but it's in the works :)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> Pretty awesome to see this. When I used a Mac for work, I used Arq and set it up on my coworkers' computers (they were completely non-technical). It was very easy to use.

I'm curious what backup tools people use on Linux if they want to back up files on Glacier. I use git-annex[0] for certain files (it works well for pictures and media). The rest of my backup process is a fairly rudimentary (though effective) rsync script, but it doesn't use Glacier.

My current setup works fine for me, but I imagine there are better tools out there.

[0] [https://git-annex.branchable.com/](https://git-annex.branchable.com/)

<comment><USER23> I use my own script.

It tars a directory, naming the output with a hash of the original directory name. Then it encrypts it with gpg and breaks it into small parts (100M) so I can pace any needed Glacier restores so as not to break the bank. Then it runs par2 on each part, to make it more likely that I can recover from any file corruption. Then it uploads each part and the par2 files to an S3 bucket which is set (via the S3 admin web dashboard UI) to automatically transition the files to Glacier.

The shortcoming is it's not a whole-system backup. Also it doesn't do differential backups, though that's not a problem for me because I organize things such that old stuff doesn't change often if ever. It's dirt cheap, one- command simple, and feels pretty reliable... though I must admit I haven't tested a restore!

<comment><USER24> Do you mind sharing the script this with us? I currently have a NAS that I backup to and a couple external drives that the NAS backs up to (the most important backups). This is all painfully manual and I may write my own script sometime.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> I'm using Arq since 2011 to backup my most important data to Amazon S3+Glacier and can highly recommend it.

Today v4 has been released and comes with new storage options (GreenQloud, DreamObjects, Google Cloud Storage, SFTP aka your own server), multiple backup targets, unified budget across S3 and S3/Glacier, Email notifications and many more clever features.

</comment><comment><USER25> I love the addition of SFTP, and I hope to buy the update soon.

Can anyone recommend a SFTP backup provider?

My Arq backups are designed to be worst-case. I have other, local backup options in case of failure. I was using Glacier, but I ran into Arq3 sync problems and I need to re-upload all my data. Glacier is very slow from where I live. I assume SFTP will be a bit faster.

<comment><USER26> I'm not a customer anymore, but was very happy when I was. rsync.net is the perfect service for this.

<comment><USER5> arq (or any SFTP based client, including sshfs) will work perfectly with rsync.net.

The new-user-HN-discount is 10c per GB, per month, and there are no other (traffic/bandwidth/usage) costs. Our platform is ZFS and there are 7 daily snapshots for free.

We would be happy to serve you, as we've been serving thousands of users since 2001.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER27> BTW, another great product from the same developers have recently become available:

It's called Filosync and is like Dropbox but secure and with your own (or with Amazon) servers. Check out [http://www.filosync.com/](http://www.filosync.com/) for more information. And be warned, it's pricey!

<comment><USER28> My personal solution is to use the free Boxcryptor Classic [1] on top of Dropbox. I've actually replaced my entire Documents folder with a link symlink to its version in my Boxcryptor instance (something I was leery of doing directly in Dropbox, for privacy reasons). So now I get transparent encryption and sync on both of my computers. It's been working amazingly for about 6 months now.

[1] [https://www.boxcryptor.com/en/classic](https://www.boxcryptor.com/en/classic)

<comment><USER27> I did a test with BoxCryptor last year and was not too pleased. For enterprise use with the necessary master key, it's expensive too, and you still have the disadvantages of Dropbox. On the other hand, if you are a Dropbox user and willing to pay for BoxCryptor, the solution works flawlessly.

<comment><USER28> What do you mean by the disadvantages of Dropbox?

Also, keep in mind that Boxcryptor and Boxcryptor Classic are two different products. If sharing files in an encrypted way with other people or having a master key is part of your use case, Boxcryptor Classic is not a great choice. But if you just need a way to store your own files in the cloud, with seamless sync between machines, and without privacy concerns, Boxcryptor Classic has worked very well for me.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER29> Site is down/slow for me. Google Cache: [http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:http://...](http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:http://www.haystacksoftware.com/blog/2014/03/arq-4-is- out/)

<comment><USER4> Should be better now.

<comment><USER29> Way better. Thanks!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER30> I like the idea of using Glacier as a Backup solution for ones devices. However one thing worries me: Looking at the Glacier pricing table[1] there is a section 'Request pricing'. This looks to me like there is a price of 5.5 cents per 1000 upload request. Considering Arq will upload multiple times an hour, this looks like it could amount to quite a bit. With two uploads per hour I arrive at 5$ per month, but there could be significantly more uploads. Even 5$ would already be a 50% price increase compared to only the storage pricing for 1TB of data.

Could anyone clarify whether my calculation is wrong?

[1] [https://aws.amazon.com/glacier/pricing/](https://aws.amazon.com/glacier/pricing/)

<comment><USER31> 2 uploads an hour = 48 uploads a day

48 a day * 31 days a month = 1488 uploads a month

5.5 cents per 1000 uploads

so this would cost roughly 1.5 * 5.5cents, so about $0.0825 a month.

There would be data and storage costs but I'm just going by your upload request calculations.

<comment><USER30> damn, I had a factor of 60 in there, for some reason I calculated 2 uploads per minute instead of per hour. Alright then, seems to be a fair price.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER32> What I couldn't find is whether Arq encrypts the data client side before uploading it. This has prevented me from using several other backup tools. Does anybody know?

<comment><USER33> Yes, it does. "All encryption is done before your data leave your computer" \- [http://www.haystacksoftware.com/arq/index.php](http://www.haystacksoftware.com/arq/index.php)

</comment></comment><comment><USER34> How does this compare to say using Tarsnap (apart from cost)?

<comment><USER35> Tarsnap's privacy policy is pretty terrible. Tarsnap reserves the right to "at their sole discretion" share your information. Even in the case where authorities don't go through due process. This is completely unacceptable to me. Privacy policy for a service like this should be "Warrant or GTFO".

[https://www.tarsnap.com/legal-why.html](https://www.tarsnap.com/legal- why.html)

</comment></comment><comment><USER36> Am I the only one that would like to be able to setup a time range when it's allowed to use my bandwidth?

I'm traveling in hotels with shitty wifi most of the time. It's hard enough to browse so I'd really only like to backup while I'm sleeping. Also, in the interest of not hogging all the bandwidth I'd like it to stop by say 6am so that as guests are waking up they can use the bad internet.

<comment><USER37> _> Am I the only one that would like to be able to setup a time range when it's allowed to use my bandwidth?_

You can. After you setup a target open the Preferences window. Select the target therein and click the "Edit..." button.

The dialog that follows has an option to "Pause between [00:00] and [00:00]", where [00:00] is a drop-down which lets you pick the top of any hour of the day.

</comment></comment><comment><USER38> Big fan, the inclusion of DreamHost's DreamObjects is a huge improvement also. In most cases they are cheaper than Amazon's S3 storage. Still more expensive than Glacier...but DreamObjects doesn't have any of the crazy slow retrieval times or costs that Glacier does.

</comment><comment><USER27> Two questions for Arq users:

1\. In former versions, it was difficult to see what was actually part of the backup. Has that changed?

2\. Is there any reliable way of calculating how much an Arq backup will cost? Storage costs are easy to calculate but with Amazon S3, changes etc. are a major cost factor.

</comment><comment><USER39> Can someone tell me why I shouldn't be using BitTorrent Sync as a multi- location backup plan?

In other words, can someone sell me on the idea of paying for AWS storage when I have dirt cheap storage around my house and even a remote location that I can stuff a huge drive in.

<comment><USER40> If deleting/modifying a file at one location results in deletion/modification of a file on the "backup", then it's not a backup.

<comment><USER41> Certainly. I remember learning early on that RAID != backup, and an easy conceptualization of Sync is RAID 1 at the file/folder level.

I'd recommend that someone using Sync for backup purposes take snapshots of they're syncing for backup purposes.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER42> I was looking at Arq the other day and couldn't find if it had a bootable backup feature (like CC Cloner). Anyone know something about this?

<comment><USER12> Arq does not have bootable backups. It is primarily for long term off site versioned backups. Look at SuperDuper or CCC for a full metal bootable backup.

I generally prefer SuperDuper for its simplicity, and recommend it to most people.

CCC is not really harder to use, but presents a bunch more options which most people don't need and with which they may get into trouble. One great feature of CCC is the ability to do bootable backup to a remote volume. I have my MacBook set up to backup to a server in this fashion. However, this requires you to configure your remote server with _root_ SSH access via certificates.

<comment><USER43> I pine for a Mac backup service that would let me backup from anywhere, and in the event of failure, I could fire up a new Mac, point it at the service, and boot to restore all over the net.

<comment><USER12> The problem with bootable backups is that you need root access to do the types of low level disk writing required. Thus, you need a very trusted environment.

That said, you can also use CCC and SuperDuper to backup to a disk image file. This would not be directly bootable, but it can be copied to a new hard drive which would then be bootable. Backing up to remote disk images is much slower than the root method to drive method.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER44> Anyone using duplicity or duplicati as open-source alternatives to arq?

</comment><comment><USER23> The purchase link is incredibly well hidden. Anyone find it?

<comment><USER4> That's not good! :) (It's my site) Here's the link: [https://store.haystacksoftware.com/store?product=arq4](https://store.haystacksoftware.com/store?product=arq4)

<comment><USER45> Had no trouble finding it earlier, but I just clicked the Store button in the nav and skipped the product page entirely.

[http://www.haystacksoftware.com/arq/](http://www.haystacksoftware.com/arq/) links to ?product=arq3 though, text "per computer for Arq 3".

Please consider integrating or linking [http://liangzan.net/aws-glacier- calculator/](http://liangzan.net/aws-glacier-calculator/) (as found in the HN comments somewhere around here), it's been invaluable when talking with people about Arq today.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER46> But... Tarsnap...

<comment><USER47> I love Tarsnap, but $0.30/GB for Tarsnap backup is very different from $0.01/GB for Glacier cold storage.

For my own Mac I backup to a sort of off-site NAS with TimeMachine, which is fine for all but the worst-case, meteor to the city situations. However, Glacier makes a perfect option for me to deal with this actual worst-case scenario.</comment></comment>


Hot take: resumes are a waste of time (for everybody) - <AUTHOR> http://blog.codefights.com/time-kill-resume/ <comment><USER2> I've been looking for a job for 14 months now. I've had exactly one potential employer that looked at my github repos and personal web site and linkedin profile rather than take a quick glance at my resume.

Resumes are a waste of time, but you can blame that waste on HR departments. They're married to resumes, they fetishize resumes. And all because they can just match keywords rather than apply any judgement. Fuck 'em.</comment>


What I Learned About Julian Assange While Working Alongside Him - <AUTHOR> https://www.buzzfeed.com/jamesball/heres-what-i-learned-about-julian-assange <comment><USER2> "All of this is the cocktail of ingredients that produces 2016's incarnation of WikiLeaks. Julian Assange mistrusts the US government, dislikes Hillary Clinton, and has spent years trapped in a small embassy flat in west London, in declining physical and psychological health, monitored minute-by-minute in reports filed by his wary Ecuadorian hosts."

I'm not sure about Americans but I would say the majority of the the world mistrusts the US Government. While I'm not saying Assange doesn't have flaws, this isn't exactly a point in time I would believe anything I read about him, Wikileaks or his character, this _is_ the time for character assassinations.

We also need to keep in-mind (as the article states) the guy is practically in jail, him and other whistle blowers are being seriously screwed over by the US Government, so IMO most of these profile pieces are going to paint a picture of someone who isn't in a great place right now. I often here people complain about the state of Wikileaks, but what do people expect?

On character assassinations, another example I could give right now is Trump, maybe it's just because he is low hanging fruit, but boy is the media giving it to that guy like I've never seen, it's to the point where I've pretty much stopped reading the news in Australia right now because there are just constant trump bashing articles, it feels like the work of "The Ministry of Truth" in 1984. Yeah he is controversial, but is he worthy of so much attention ? From what i understand Hillary is far from flawless also.

To conclude my rant, I'm taking this with a grain of salt :)

<comment><USER3> You said _US Government_. Both America and the US Government are actually held in some regard around the world.

[http://www.pewglobal.org/2015/06/23/1-americas-global- image/](http://www.pewglobal.org/2015/06/23/1-americas-global-image/)

<comment><USER2> I'm travelling in Asia and have just been in Europe and something very different is happening lately. When I meet Americans, young and old, the majority of them tell me they're ashamed or embarrassed of being American, some of them tell me they usually tell people they are from Canada!

I don't hear people from anywhere else doing that to be honest.

<comment><USER4> It's really weird because even people with dictators will say they are proud of their country even if they hate the dictator or the poor conditions of their country.

You don't get many Haitians saying "I'm ashamed of my country" or Russians saying "I'm ashamed to be Russian" It's predominantly a section of Americans who feel that way. I've met Mexicans who have become citizens of the US who still consider themselves "Mexican" in every way --except that they live outside Mexico, while they decry the corruption and lack of opportunity back home --but never ashamed.

<comment><USER5> Maybe it's because the US used to have such a stellar reputation. It used to be the leader of the free world, was founded on important liberal principles that have inspired the world. Around international conflicts, the US used to insist on lofty principles that they now trample at every opportunity. The world got used to holding the US to a higher standard than Russia or some petty dictatorship.

The US itself definitely helped to paint this image of being better and more noble than other countries, even other freedom-loving western countries. And now they're falling so far short of that ideal, that it is really embarrassing to everybody who can see what's been happening.

I'm not even American, and I'm ashamed of the US.

<comment><USER4> I guess... but there also aren't many Spaniards, or French, or Belgians (citizens of countries presently with democracies but with colorful pasts) who are ashamed embarrassed of their countries. They might be opposed to some policies and disagree with some of their past history but seldom are ashamed. Imagine a Chinese person or Japanese person saying they are "shamed". It's a very hard thing to come by.

<comment><USER5> Some people are ashamed of some things their countries have done. But none of them were ever the champion of freedom the way the US used to be, and few slid down as hard as the US did while still claiming moral superiority.

Though I can imagine Belgians having been pretty ashamed in 1908.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> > "Assange's approach has taken WikiLeaks from the most powerful and connected > force of a new journalistic era to a back-bedroom operation"

This assumes a false dichotomy. Wikileaks was never not a bedroom operation - that's the very core component of the "information revolution" the author is pining for. A young queer kid in Boston stole some very shocking videos from his IT job and gave them to a man in a chat room, who published them online. That's all it takes to change the world now.

If anything, all of WikiLeaks' problems come from trying to stray from this model.

<comment><USER7> Wikileaks had a chance to be more than a bedroom operation, and it would have made them far more powerful than they are now. Building a network of aligned journalists and political allies would have increased visibility, attracted more leaks with localized impact, and made it much harder to shut down discussion of contents with "this was stolen", as the Democrats are now doing with complicity of much of the US media. But as we saw with the author's NDA story, Assange is the #1 enemy of that ever happening. He reflexively accuses anyone with their own publicity approach of being a careerist or worse, then logs into twitter to align not just himself, but Wikileaks the organization, with the most extreme possible opponents of his enemies. The impact that the leaker wants to make, the stories good journalists could write, even most third party mining of leaks is ignored in favor of Julian Assange's personal agenda. I think the world would be better off with a bigger, broader Wikileaks that promotes journalism instead of mistrusting it.

<comment><USER6> I think you've proved my point by missing it.

> "Building a network of aligned journalists and political allies would have > increased visibility, attracted more leaks with localized impact, and made > it much harder to shut down discussion of contents with "this was stolen", > as the Democrats are now doing with complicity of much of the US media."

What you're describing is called "starting a newspaper." This happens all the time. The Intercept is a good example of what you're talking about, there are hundreds of others. BuzzFeed, HuffPo, Drudge, take your pick. It's not the same thing. I can explain the difference if you'd like me to.

<comment><USER8> Exactly. What do we want? Tips on stories inside banks from the likes of journo Chris Giles at the FT who is utterly wedded to the status quo, along with tens of other "journalists"?

Our media is like a sieve, only instead of finding the unusual and challenging thinkers it weeds them out and retains the unthinking dross whose only ambition is to join the establishment and kick back.

<comment><USER7> Just because you can think of one journalist you wouldn't want handling financial leaks doesn't mean they're all rotten. Were the Panama Papers (ICIJ) not well handled? Even the Los Angeles Times apparently had the guts to publish a story that took the side of low level bank employees, eventually bringing down the chairman of Wells Fargo.

And what's the implied better alternative, anyway? When Wikileaks does a data dump, most people aren't poring over it all night, it's usually people in the same media you decry who bring important revelations to mass attention. Giving them a head start to potentially write a great story doesn't seem like something that should be wildly controversial.

<comment><USER8> As the parent post suggested I don't want wikileaks merging/'empowered' with our largely supine press.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> If you found this interesting, you might like the (much longer) account written by the ghostwriter of an autobiography Assange backed out of:

[http://www.lrb.co.uk/v36/n05/andrew- ohagan/ghosting](http://www.lrb.co.uk/v36/n05/andrew-ohagan/ghosting)

</comment><comment><USER10> What I see when I look at the whole Wikileaks/Assange situation is a guy who started off well-meaning and really did want to make a difference who through a stroke of right-place-right-time happened to receive at the time the largest leak of classified documents in history.

I honestly feel that being suddenly thrust into the spotlight as the most notorious person in the world at the time put Assange in a position he was not physically nor mentally equipped to deal with, and everything that has happened since then is a combination of not being able to deal with the fame and notoriety he gathered and an ego that prevents him from asking for help. He had isolated himself in a self-created cocoon of paranoia and ego long before he did so literally in the Ecuadorian embassy.

In some ways, I feel bad for the guy, his intentions were well-meaning, and I respect the hell out of a guy who would stand up to the most powerful nation on earth and call them out for what they were doing, but Assange is his own worst enemy, and his current situation is of his own making.

</comment><comment><USER11> I just want to remind everyone that the Clinton campaign has been proved at least twice (according to the Podesta e-mails) to plant stories in the press. Keep that in mind while reading this: you don't know how much of it was written by the person whose name it comes under.

<comment><USER12> Could you link those Podesta emails?

And anyway, this article isn't really anti-Assange or pro-Clinton, as far as I can tell. It does seem to be anti-Russia, but not pro-US.

<comment><USER13> It seems implicitly anti-Assange to me.

<comment><USER14> It eloquently conveys the fact that Assange is an asshole.

<comment><USER15> That may be so. But should we not refrain from shooting the messenger? The message he brings is important.

About Assange's anti-Hillary bias: it may be a personal affair, but there is something also of objective interest. Of course, Trump is a monster/clown. And probably Russia does not want Clinton. However, I am sure Saudi Arabia prefers Clinton. How many wars are going to worsen? That's not very comforting to me.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> > he doesn't see the world in the way many Americans do, and has no intrinsic > aversion to Putin or other strongmen with questionable democratic > credentials on the world stage.

These two statements can be unrelated. You can see the world differently from "average American" point of view, yet have intrinsic aversion to questionable rulers.

Sorry for nitpicking.

<comment><USER17> This is double standards 101. I would have hoped a stronger leadership by Assange to set higher political standards. Now I feel this is just leak pornography.

<comment><USER18> You are on the verge of voting a women into office that is likely the most corrupt politician in US history that has ever run for this office. How on earth is exposing this bad for your country, you want to be ruled by people who steal and lie to you about what they are going to do? How did she earn $250 million dollars while in public office?

Oh and Assange is not a US citizen, why would anyone expect him to think like one, let alone make it a requirement.

<comment><USER19> I'm not against publishing this stuff in general. And in a normal election, it would be totally disqualifying.

There are mitigating circumstances, however.

1) Her opponent is totally unqualified for the presidency, and is basically a fascist, and a bigot, and obsessed with revenge.

2) The information was obtained via espionage by a foreign power, attempting to interfere in the US election. I can only imagine what kind of stuff we'd find in RNC emails.

As far as I'm concerned the correct course of action here is to elect Hillary, and then have congressional hearings into both the contents of those emails, and the methods by which they were obtained.

Hillary is a crooked in the usual way that politicians are. We can survive another crooked politician in the White House for four years. Trump would be the end of the republic.

<comment><USER20> > Trump would be the end of the republic.

That's not exaggeration? To me, it's insulting the people who founded this country to imply that all it takes to defeat an intricate system of governance they founded to ensure the preservation of their country is an uncouth man becoming president.

<comment><USER21> Michael Dell wrote, that every time Dell doubled in size they had to reinvent their processes.

The good ol' USA has grown by orders of magnitude. And we're still trying to use the same rules that worked for horses and written letters and muskets. We've rarely even revisited the rules, much less rewrite them.

Yes I think its a fragile thing, that depends upon the good will of the people executing the processes. When they brag about how they're going to twist the rules for personal vendettas, then we should all worry.

<comment><USER20> There are parts of the constitution that show their age (The second amendment being written in a time before modern weapons, nuclear arms, and drones where the people really could keep a government in check), but I don't buy the concept of a president without absolute power has eroded so far that one "bad president" could bring about the end of the US.

Are you seriously considering what that'd even mean? What would "the end of the republic as the GP mentioned even mean?

The president has more power than ever, but Trump will not be the end of the United States because the system of governance we have limits the harm he could do.

I honestly think Trump would be less likely to bring about WW3 (the only barely realistic way I could see the fall of the US happening) than any other candidate if only for his lack of sophistication.

<comment><USER21> They've steadily eroded checks and balances until they have essentially no checks now.

Presidents now wage war without Congress' help. Fire nuclear missiles. Enrage world opinion through careless remarks and insults, through instantaneous media (radio, tv, internet). Call out the National Guard. Declare martial law. Enforce or fail to enforce laws selectively. Appoint Federal judges exclusively by emergency appointment between sessions (started with Bush).

That's a lot of scary stuff.

<comment><USER22> >Fire nuclear missiles.

Sorry... what?

Was there a unilaterally declared American nuclear strike I'm not aware of?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> More of the same political tactics. Feel dirty having read buzzfeed.

There should be an Onion article titled, "Challenger to status quo is racist, anti-Semitic, transphobic, misogynist, possibly gay, rapist, pedophile, terrorist, bogeyman."

Yawn.

Writers like that are why people are backing the republican nominee.

</comment><comment><USER24> Buzzfeed? Like seriously? Next should be CNN with their 'technical problems'. Does someone there really think this kind of propaganda piece will make anything in the Podesta e-mails less real? Can you get anymore obvious? This is some Soviet-level shit

<comment><USER25> > Podesta e-mails less real

As we can see from the polls, if there was something damaging here people don't really care.

<comment><USER26> People were distracted by the pussy thing - which was not coincidentally released on the same day.

Most people have no idea what was even in those emails and most of the media I read made a point to say that there was nothing damaging in there (cherry picking the most mundane things they could).

There wasn't anything too surprising to people who hate Hillary Clinton (yes, she's in the pocket of wall street) and supporters and most of the mainstream media (MSNBC, CNN, NYTimes, etc.) didn't pay any attention.

<comment><USER27> I read a bunch of the emails and there wasn't anything significant in there unless you count cherry-picking quotes and willful misunderstanding. At best there are some ambiguous things that could be interpreted certain ways.

tl;dr: There is no smoking gun. People say things in private emails they wouldn't discuss in public, NEWS AT 11!!!!!

P.S. It wasn't "that pussy thing". It was Trump bragging that he pushes women into sexual encounters he knows they don't want and gets away with it because he's famous and rich. I like how the right pretended everyone was upset about some foul language though or that it was just "locker room" talk. If Trump had said "oh she's so hot, I'd love to fuck her" no one would have cared because that _is_ locker room talk. What Trump said was in a different league.

<comment><USER26> Smoking guns:

* She admitted to having a "private" (real) policy position and a "public" one (lies).

* Bits of her speeches to Goldman came out and she basically said "we were way too hard on you guys" and "we need to listen more to you guys to help prevent another crisis".

* She mentioned that she basically wanted a hemispheric free trade & freedom of movement zone.

Of course, apparently it's not the done thing these days to talk about policy scandals that actually affect us during a Presidential election.

<comment><USER28> * She mentioned that she basically wanted a hemispheric free trade & freedom of movement zone.

...That sounds wonderful, if a bit too good to be true. Is it supposed to be bad?

<comment><USER26> That depends. Are you a fan of NAFTA, CAFTA, the TPP and TTIP?

<comment><USER5> I think she's more alluding to something like the EU common market. NAFTA, CAFTA, TPP and TTIP don't do anything about freedom of movement, and do a lot about a ton of other things that have nothing to do with that.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER29> > _he doesn't see the world in the way many Americans do, and has no intrinsic > aversion to Putin or other strongmen with questionable democratic > credentials on the world stage._

Why should he? America has much more "questionable democratic credentials" than Russia. At least the latter is constrained in its immediate back yard, it doesn't invade countries to "bring democracy", getting oil and leaving behind chaos, mayhem and civil war, nor does it bully or stronghold most of the world's governments.

<comment><USER11> Number of US overseas military bases: 600+

Number of Russian overseas military bases: 2

I wonder why people paint Russia as if it was some aggressive power like the US.

<comment><USER29> Because Americans are so used to being told they are the good guys, "the shit", and the world's only saints. Their media (even "serious" media, like the NYT) is the most patriotic in the whole western world. Of course it helps that there's a trillion dollar defense industry to benefit from all of that too.

So, when they meddle 10.000 miles from their borders it's their right and they do it "for democracy".

But when another country (let's call it R) tries to meddle in a place where actual pro-fascists toppled a voted-for government in a country in its borders, where tons of people with R ethnic origins live -- then they don't have the right.

People speak about communist countries propaganda art portraying their leaders as "heroes" \-- and it's indeed idiotic. But then again, the US is the only other place where they can produce and watch movies and shows where the President is a hero fighting bad guys with his bare hands (from Air Force One to numerous tv/cable series).

And people watch that with a straight face -- in any other western country this would be considered only acceptable for comedy.

<comment><USER30> Free speech means you can make a movie where the president is the hero as much as you can make a TV series where he is the murdering villain (House of Cards).

Neither is state produced and neither got the creators thrown in jail.

That's the difference.

<comment><USER31> The CIA has clandestinely produced cultural propaganda throughout its existence.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER32> Sadly, this is very much in line with what I've been seeing from WikiLeaks in this past year. Assange is growing increasingly vindictive and conspiratorial, and any future WikiLeaks data dumps need to be viewed in this light. (Which is to say: even if the documents are genuine, their curation and any theatrics surrounding them should be heavily scrutinized. WikiLeaks seems to no longer be an equal-opportunity leaker, but instead focuses its attention on Assange's political enemies.)

</comment><comment><USER33> FYI, no proof has been given that Julian is still at the Embassy since the episodes last Sunday (no sightings at the window or balcony, no picture or clips). The WL subreddit in general believes there's been fishy activity on their twitter since then.... they just now tweeted the long awaited "prove Julian is OK" tweet, but unfortunately it is just some sentences of text. I think at the minimum there is cause to raise an eyebrow.

<comment><USER14> This just seems like an attempt to generate drama.

<comment><USER33> I'll remove it if it's too sensational, but there has been a steady stream of panic threads on certain subreddits over the last week, and I was trying to give an objective, short rehash. Anyways I'm not advocating a jump to conclusions, just to keep an eye on it.

<comment><USER34> Helpfully fueled by some of the Wikileaks crowd, who are active tin-foilers.

For example, Gavin MacFadyan, a WikiLeaks staffer, was diagnosed with an illness a while back.

A few weeks ago, WikiLeaks said as much, and sent him best wishes in a Tweet.

He died the other day.

WikiLeaks response was to go back and delete the tweet, and now the flames of his "mysterious and sudden death" are being fanned in those subreddits - "how long before JA dies from a sudden and mysterious illness?"

Not to mention the other wing nuts:

"There is a wireless telephone bug .This has been caught by my bug detector. Active on the frequency 400 kilo Hertz. Other people also have verified this. This needs stopped immediately check out my timeline. This signal is all across the U.S.A."

This is just after the claims of the military raid on the embassy in broad daylight that no-one could get photos of because (they couldn't decide): a) the military were telling people they'd be prosecuted if they did, or b) the military were using technology to "obfuscate" any photos people did take.

<comment><USER33> You're probably right to an extent about the tin-foil, but I would say WL fueled the Gavin thing themselves by tweeting "It's been a bloody 6 months for WL [list of 3 who died, incl. Gavin]". Either way for them I think it's mainly the uncharacteristic if not bizarre language, as well as particularly partisan tweets of late. That and JA being MIA.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER35> A well-drawn profile.

Edit: see below for reasons. I accidentally posted this sentence early before finishing more of a post. Now I've instead made a response to the question below

<comment><USER36> How so? It's nothing more than character assassination.

<comment><USER35> I think this is a fair article, and no hatchet job. The writer has decided not to like Assange from working with him and experience.

Some pull-outs that show thought over partisanship :

'Assange is routinely either so lionised by supporters or demonised by detractors that his real character is lost entirely. 'Far from the laptop- obsessed autist he's often seen as, he's a charismatic speaker with an easy ability to dominate a room or a conversation.'

'Assange often trusts strangers more than those he knows well: He dislikes taking advice, he dislikes anyone else having a power base, and he dislikes being challenged – especially by women. He runs his own show his own way, and won't delegate. He's happy to play on the conspiratorial urges of others, with little sign as to whether or not he believes them himself.'

'once you have fallen foul of Assange — challenged him too openly, criticised him in public, not toed the line loyally enough — you are done. There is no such thing as honest disagreement, no such thing as a loyal opposition differing on a policy or political stance.'

' Assange would not, in my view, ever knowingly be a willing tool of the Russian state: If Putin came and gave him a set of orders, they'd be ignored. But if an anonymous or pseudonymous group came offering anti-Clinton leaks, they'd have found a host happy not to ask too many awkward questions: He's set up almost perfectly to post them and push for them to have the biggest impact they can.'

<comment><USER11> > But if an anonymous or pseudonymous group came offering anti-Clinton leaks, > they'd have found a host happy not to ask too many awkward questions

Why would he? That's the whole point of WikiLeaks, to publish information about those who have the power in so called democratic systems.

<comment><USER37> Well, if those awkward questions concern the authenticity of the documents, _and_ WikiLeaks wants to provide a journalistic-like service to the world, then WikiLeaks _should_ ask those awkward questions.

If WikilLeaks doesn't care about the authenticity of what it publishes, then what is its goal?

<comment><USER38> To impose a secrecy tax on conspiratorial organizations. [1]

Even if the documents are misinformation, publishing them damages the ability of the organization to carry on its conspiratorial activities, eg, make and carry out secret plans. Internal, private communications (eg, emails), a powerful tool, also have a PR liability. Secrecy tax.

[1] [http://cryptome.org/0002/ja- conspiracies.pdf](http://cryptome.org/0002/ja-conspiracies.pdf)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER39> >The WikiLeaks founder is out to settle a score with Hillary Clinton

...

</comment><comment><USER40> This is so transparently a hit piece that it's sad. A weak attempt to divert criticisms from leaked emails with "They're just trying to settle a personal score against Hillary!".

</comment><comment><USER12> Would it be fair to say that Assange is currently on a mission to expose the American government's dirty laundry at all costs, even if it means cooperating with other bad governments?

Could we expect him to focus more heavily on the Russian and Chinese governments in the future?

<comment><USER18> It doesn't work that way, he doesn't hack the US, Russian or Chinese government and he doesn't direct other hackers, he only gets to leak data that was given to him by whistleblowers.

So your calls for Assange to specifically expose Russia and China to somehow "be fair" is quite senseless. I have to wonder how you think this actually works?

<comment><USER12> I understand how Wikileaks works, but keep in mind he holds onto things for a while and waits for an opportune moment to release them. You can't doubt that the leaks of the past few months have been very politically motivated to inflict as much damage as possible (which is not necessarily a bad thing), and not just a mere passing-on of what others gave him.

Are we to assume he's never been contacted by any Russian or Chinese dissidents? Maybe not, but if he has, I'd definitely like to see a proper release.

<comment><USER41> Their twitter is complaining that if they had the Podesta emails earlier, this might've been Sanders vs. Trump.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> >>Then it was a darling of many of the liberal left, working with some of the world's most respected newspapers exposing the truth behind drone killing, civilian deaths in Afghanistan and Iraq, and surveillance of the top UN officials.

>>Now it is the darling of the alt-right, revealing hacked emails seemingly to influence a presidential contest, claiming the US election is "rigged", and descending into conspiracy. Just this week on Twitter, it has described the deaths by natural causes of two of its supporters as a "bloody year for WikiLeaks", and warned of media outlets "controlled by" members of the Rothschild family – a common anti-Semitic trope.

This critique curiously echoes the two main propaganda attacks on Jeremy Corbyn:

1) Insinuations and manufactured accusations of anti-semitism:

* [http://news.sky.com/story/damning-report-condemns-jeremy-cor...](http://news.sky.com/story/damning-report-condemns-jeremy-corbyn-over-leadership-on-anti-semitism-10619435)

* [http://www.bbc.com/news/uk-politics-37656197](http://www.bbc.com/news/uk-politics-37656197)

2) "We used to support him but it's become clear that we can't any more":

* [http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/entry/zoe-williams-brands-je...](http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/entry/zoe-williams-brands-jeremy-corbyn-incompetent-claims-he-cant-unite-more-than-12-people_uk_57a21946e4b0ce499248f526)

* [http://labourlist.org/2016/08/i-used-to-support-corbyn-but-o...](http://labourlist.org/2016/08/i-used-to-support-corbyn-but-owen-smith-has-the-vision-young-muslim-women-like-me-need/)

* [http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/entry/billy-bragg-jeremy-cor...](http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/entry/billy-bragg-jeremy-corbyn_uk_57b2d4dce4b02fb3274b7a2b)

I don't doubt the next anti-establishment figure will be met with the same response "yes, we used to think they were great until it became clear that they're an awful Jew hater".</comment>


On valuing people - <AUTHOR> http://benscofield.com/on-valuing-people/

<comment><USER2>
         It is wrong to treat other people simply as a means to some end or goal.

I'm not sure what exactly this means. How do you interact with someone besides as a means towards an end (even if the "end" is just a fun conversation, or perhaps your own sense of altruism).

<comment><USER3> This reminds me of Kant.

Typically the argument is that social interaction is naturally engaged upon by both sides for a purpose -- that is, as means to an end. However, it can be said to be immoral to treat other humans in the same way you would treat, say, a tool.

Basically, you can engage in mutually beneficial interactions, but once you begin to interact with people in a way that neglects them (i.e. is _only beneficial to you_ ), you cross the line into immoral behavior.

For example: a typical job is a mutually beneficial arrangement. One party agrees to work and the other party agrees to pay. In this sense both parties are respecting the others' decision-making capacity. Neither is using the other in a one-sided way. However, in the case of slavery, we see a one-sided relationship in which the slave does not benefit at all, and into which he would never rationally enter. This is a case of treating someone as purely a means to an end.

<comment><AUTHOR> It should: I referenced the second formulation of the categorical imperative in the post.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> I don't want to by accusatory but could it have something to do with your interviewing ability? I've interviewed a pretty extensive amount and EVERY interview I've ever had has been a conversation. In fact, I'd feel I failed as a candidate if it didn't feel like a conversation. I want to hear what you think I'll be doing, I want to know how much autonomy I'll have, tell me about my room for growth, tell me about whats in your pipeline, etc.

Interviews go both ways, its your responsibility to ensure that's the case. While I think the interviewer should try to hear your perspective, if you don't speak up or ask questions I can only hold the interviewer so accountable.

<comment><AUTHOR> I ... suppose? I like to think that I've interviewed and been interviewed enough to know when the other side has any interest at all in having an actual conversation, though.

<comment><USER5> Some people are really smart, kick ass on the job, and would be an asset to any company they join -- but they happen to be terrible interviewees. Maybe they're shy. Maybe they've had a rough flight out to BigCo the previous day. Maybe they've got bitchy resting face. Etc. Traditional interviews are unfair to these people.

But it goes the other way, too. Some really smart, hard working, great hiring managers are really bad at interviewing people. Maybe they're distracted by work. Maybe they don't have a lot of time to be doing interviews, and a giant stack of candidates to go through. Maybe _they_ dislike the script they're being asked to follow as much as the person they're interviewing dislikes it. Etc. Traditional interviews are unfair to these people, too.

This is why turning the interview into a conversation, to whatever extent possible, is an imperative. As the interviewee, you have to jump through the necessary hoops to establish your qualifications. You have to check the boxes the HRbots demand. But once you've done that, you should steer the dialogue off-script (in a friendly and polite way, of course).

Once you and your interviewer are ad libbing, shooting the shit, being honest with each other, you do each other a favor. You're allowing one another to get a real sense for the role and the fit. In that phase of the conversation, someone on the other side with "[no] interest in having an actual conversation" will very quickly reveal as much. But just maybe, he or she will surprise you.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> True on some abstract ethical level I guess, but under the modern corporate mindset also plainly irrelevant. They don't make a point of referring to us as "resources", after all, for a lack of a reason.

 _It is wrong to treat other people simply as a means to some end or goal._

</comment><comment><USER7> @bscofield

What would your impression of the experience have been if your flights had been on time, and you had a smooth travel? or conversely how did the travel experience affect your impression of the process used by BigCo?

<comment><AUTHOR> Had the flights been issue-free, I would have started out neutral. Had BigCo had someone watching out for me and fixing problems proactively, I would have started out with a hugely positive impression of the company. Either way, the in-person part would have done a good bit to reduce those feelings, as it was formulaic and role- rather than person-focused.

I should also mention that BigCo gave me one of the worst phone screens I've ever experienced (bad for the same lack of regard for me, personally), so I thought seriously about declining the in-person visit.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> Very few firms actually just want a body. Sometimes HR acts that way, but very few hiring managers truly feel that way. If they did, they would just hire a contractor.

<comment><USER9> I liked the author pointing out that the process itself is often geared to disregard what the potential employee wants. The people hiring for the firm might care what the potential employee wants, but it's easy to forget or fail to fully investigate in the course of the standard process.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> I started reading it excitedly but you discuss your trip experience almost more than the subject line. Started nice, but it could have had more depth.

<comment><AUTHOR> Sorry you didn't enjoy it! In all honesty, the travel is what stuck with me more than anything else about that entire process, though, and it's what started solidifying my thoughts about all of this. Hiring has a user experience like everything else, and in a lot of cases travel will take up more time than you ever spend talking to someone.</comment></comment>


RE: BASIC (Or, The First Programming Book I Ever Read) - <AUTHOR> http://stevejohnson.posterous.com/re-basic-or-the-first-programming-book-i-ever

<comment><USER2> Could have been Commodore 64 - Introduction to Basic Part One, or many of the many Usborne books available at the local libraries.

Or perhaps one of the "The Bytes Brothers" books I had: "Compute a Clue" and "Input an Investigation"

Edit: Geez there were a lot of books around encouraging kids to code back then. Do such things still exist?

</comment><comment><USER3> If you want an introduction to making Scheme games in a graphical environment that lets you iteratively code and run, you might try DrScheme combined with this book draft:

<http://world.cs.brown.edu/1/>

Note to Steve: your comment section does not seem to work.

<comment><AUTHOR> It was a Posterous bug which was fixed after a brief email exchange.</comment></comment>


[video] China's MMA Club for Poor and Orphaned Boys - <AUTHOR> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PFDBQ590DXI&t=526s <comment><AUTHOR> Some of these orphans have been sent back: [http://www.scmp.com/news/china/society/article/2104016/orpha...](http://www.scmp.com/news/china/society/article/2104016/orphan- fighters-mma-club-be-sent-back-school) because the fights are seen as child abuse by viewers which is also right. This is definitely a grey zone.</comment>


Vault of Satoshi - <AUTHOR>

We've been testing on TestNet with Bitcoin and Litecoin since May and we're ready to open our doors for sign-ups.. Source (http://www.reddit.com/r/Bitcoin/comments/1c7u0k/new_btcltcppcnmd_exchange_toronto_bitcoin/) Should mention that you will not be able to see any orders unless verified, however we're working on this now as it just doesn't make sense! We have also created an API and it is available for use once you are verified. The documentation can be found here: https://vaultofsatoshi.com/api <comment><USER2> It would be wonderful if the submitter included any sort of description of what the 'Vault of Satoshi' is, rather than what technologies they're using and links to APIs.

<comment><AUTHOR> We're a virtual coin exchange based in Canada.. sorry about the lack of info :/</comment></comment>


Ask HN: Which laptop is immune to Meltdown and Spectre flaws that I can buy now? - <AUTHOR> I am in the market for a new laptop, knowing the recent Meltdown and Spectre flaws, I would prefer to buy some laptop which is not susceptible to these flaws. I will be mostly running Windows and having at least 8GB RAM and 256GB SSD is a must. <comment><USER2> Any laptop is fine, these issues are mostly mitigated in software by browser, OS, and microcode updates. To the extent that they're only mitigated and not fixed -- there doesn't yet exist such a laptop. So if that's what you're after, wait a year or so for the new processors to come out.

<comment><AUTHOR> Any processors which do not degrade in performance significantly after the fix? I read in some articles that the AMD processors are mostly immune is there any truth to it? I couldn't find any reliable sources.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> Meltdown is fixed by applying updates, Spectre is not fixed on any x86 machine, but will be getting better by applying mitigation updates over the next months.</comment>


SPDY: An experimental protocol for a faster web - <AUTHOR> https://www.chromium.org/spdy/spdy-whitepaper

<comment><USER2> Hadn't this been superseded by HTTP/2 formalised just last month?</comment>


Introducing Measurement Lab - <AUTHOR> http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2009/01/introducing-measurement-lab.html <comment><USER2> Can someone who is familiar with CAIDA quickly comment as to whether this is game-changing in any way?</comment>


Cinema Peer Review: Douglas Fields Reviews 'Lucy' - <AUTHOR> http://www.worldsciencefestival.com/2014/07/cinema-peer-review-lucy/ <comment><USER2> There are multiple philosophical conversations that the author omits from the review entirely.</comment>


Computer World Interviews Digg's Jay Adelson - <AUTHOR> http://www.computerworld.com/action/article.do?command=viewArticleBasic&taxonomyName=internet_business&articleId=292772&taxonomyId=71&intsrc=kc_feat <comment><USER2> Three pages filled with off-topic crap outside of the article. Read the print version instead: [http://www.computerworld.com/action/article.do?command=printArticleBasic&articleId;=292772](http://www.computerworld.com/action/article.do?command=printArticleBasic&articleId=292772)</comment>