TechCrunch Hacked - <AUTHOR> http://www.techcrunch.com/2010/01/26/techcrunch-hacked/ <comment><USER2> Well played, anonymous hacker. I even respect your lack of political posturing.

For when this gets fixed, right now techcrunch.com is an empty html page that contains <a href="<http://nottherealurl.com/> title="rapidshare downloads">rapidshare downloads

Edit: now it is a blank html page that contains only "hi". Someone from HN rehacked it? Or it's about to be fixed.

<comment><USER3> It was linking to dupedb .com when I looked a minute ago. Now all I see is text saying hi

<comment><USER4> Looks like it's switching around depending on what backend their load balancer throws you to. It's jumping around for me, which suggests they don't have any session affinity. Interesting, but I guess it's not required for their kind of app.

<comment><USER5> _site_ , for their kind of site.

<comment><USER6> These days, that's a distinction without a difference. All websites that couldn't usefully be delivered as PDFs are applications by definition.

<comment><USER7> Techcrunch could be delivered as a PDF. I get it on my Kindle.

Just as most new web sites are not startup companies, most existing web sites are not apps.

The distinction and difference is that a software application helps a user perform manipulation or transformation of data as useful work.

Most websites, despite simple interactivity (e.g. search), are still published as "content" for consumption within a content access application, not for manipulating work|play|creative output.

<comment><USER8> And the comments on the posts are built into a PDF?

<comment><USER5> Who reads TechCrunch comments? they're worse than youtube, at least youtubers are not self-promoting.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> It has just been hacked again....

The html: <title>LOL HACKED</title>

WHAT A FUCKING USELESS HACK ISN'T IT? BLEH.

<a href="<http://dupedb.com/> title="rapidshare downloads">[http://dupedb.com/

](http://dupedb.com/

);

<comment><AUTHOR> once you're lucky, twice you're good

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> One day too early, if they were going for maximum damage.

<comment><USER10> Yeah, he/she/they definitely should have done this on Wednesday at 10:00 AM (or whenever the Apple event is) if they were looking to cause any sort of damage.

<comment><USER11> Test run?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> I heard Mike Arrington actually developed all the IP for the hack. True fake story.

</comment><comment><USER13> At one point, the source said

</comment><comment><USER14> Hope they have backups and don't loose data. As much as I hate that their quality has gone down, I hate to see someone's hard work get killed by something like this.

<comment><USER15> Maybe people will finally stop using the duct-taped spaghetti called "wordpress".

<comment><USER6> What would you suggest as an alternative?

<comment><USER16> Jekyll outputing a static HTML blog, with Disqus for comments. I have a rule of no dynamic content on my webserver.

<http://jekyllrb.com/>

(Yes, my blog is currently hosted at wordpress.com, but I'm evaluating Jekyll as part of the next round of server migrations. I started with wordpress.com years ago when I didn't want to run WP on my own server, but wanted the ease of a blog.)

<comment><USER6> That's not a bad rule. I've actually been considering using sphinx <http://sphinx.pocoo.org/> for my blog reboot. Mostly because I'd like to offer visitors a choice of formats, read bits and pieces on the web or grab the whole thing as a PDF or reasonably priced e-book.

<comment><USER17> from my experience, wordpress itself is quit solid, most vulnerability are from third party plugins.

<comment><USER16> "It's safe because I haven't been hacked yet." Meanwhile, pretty much everyone in the security community running Wordpress on their own sites got hacked via it in 2008-9.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> <http://twitter.com/arrington/status/8230803684>

</comment><comment><USER19> Wasn't me: [http://www.jgc.org/blog/2009/07/techcrunch-skating-on- thin-i...](http://www.jgc.org/blog/2009/07/techcrunch-skating-on-thin- ice.html)

Will be interesting to hear the details. TC has done a lot to secure their site, but they were using WordPress.

</comment><comment><USER20> Correct me if I'm wrong.. but did I just see an interstitial ad page when going to that link?

</comment><comment><USER21> <http://www.techcrunch.com/wp-cache-phase1.php?plugin=shell> whooops?

<comment><USER22> That's very possibly the vector.

If you can place a .php file in the plugins directory located here: <http://www.techcrunch.com/plugins/>

And then if you call the script as per your example, then it appears that plugin is loaded (and evaluated).

Someone else more versed in PHP might want to cast their eyes over the wordpress plugin to see whether I'm right: <http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/wp-super-cache/>

But it appears it's a case of globals not being checked prior to use: <http://php.net/manual/en/security.globals.php>

So at first glance and with limited info... it's a plugin. Not that this surprises me, I still use vBulletin and I spend a lot of time code-reading the plugins for that before I use them. Mostly to make sure they don't do silly things like have SQL inside a loop over potentially lots of items, but also for the obvious security holes.

register_globals is an old one though, should be disabled: <http://drupal.org/node/222343>

<comment><USER6> They had register_globals on? @_@

I hope they go for the radical openness option and do a full public post- mortem. A teachable moment like this should not be wasted.

register_globals was known to be a bad idea in 1999 for crying out loud.

<comment><USER23> _phew_ I don't feel bad now. I wrote a HTML preprocessor in 1999 to allow PHP- like embedding of Perl in webpages. It did the equivalent of register globals. I still have it up on my website but with a big warning that says "this has known security issues, don't use it". At least someone else made the same mistake around that time :)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> About time they shifted to Drupal. WP seems to be going down on security pretty bad.

<comment><USER25> Does TC have programmers? Why then would they use Drupal? Drupal for programmers is some of the most horrible code I've ever come across. Hey let's look at this back trace of THOUSANDS of functions.

-Unfortunately responsible for maintaining a Drupal install at work...

<comment><USER4> Thousands of functions? Then you're doing it wrong. Drupal has the best documented API and tons of extensibility. Unless you're trying to change what Drupal is at its core, doing stuff is never impossible or even that difficult. Make sure you're using Devel: <http://drupal.org/project/devel>

<comment><USER25> Unfortunately I'm stuck with Drupal 6. And if you do a backtrace in any custom module there will literally be thousands of functions listed. It may have 'tons of extensibility' but at least Drupal 6 is a cluster mess. Sure it may give less experienced programmers ability to do things quickly but as a more experienced programmer I find the rigidity of it to be stifling.

<comment><USER24> As an engineer, I won't take your argument of "thousands" of functions in a custom module. Also, yes, Drupal is far more complex than any other CMS because it's _not_ a CMS. It's more like a framework you use to build your own mini-CMS. You can customize it to your needs a _lot_ more than WP.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> I am surprised this news wasn't posted on TechCrunch before... oh wait.

</comment><comment><USER27> Really? Let's call this "cracked," not "hacked" – we're only furthering the misunderstanding by using the incorrect term here, too.

<comment><USER28> How about hackers everywhere give up on reclaiming this term. It's not going to happen. That way I don't have to see this post on every single story about malicious intrusion that comes up on social news sites.

<comment><USER27> The difference is that this site is called "Hacker News."

<comment><USER29> I appreciate that whoever runs the site can call it whatever they like, but I wish they hadn't chosen 'Hacker News'. I know that it's my own prejudices at play here but it's simply embarrassing to have 'Hacker News' staring out from the top of my browser window. It's so ridiculous I can't even bring myself to say it, when I discuss links with a friend who also checks this site the conversation starts with 'did you see that article about X on the, er, the YCombinator news site?'.

<comment><USER30> Also note that it's possible for a single word to have multiple meanings depending on context, this includes even opposite meanings with opposite connotations. In the context of news.yc.com the term "hacker" generally has a different meaning than the term has elsewhere, especially in the context of unauthorized, malicious intrusion into a computer system.

Similarly a term such as "killer" may have an extremely negative connotation in the context of a grisly homicide yet the same word may have a positive connotation and a completely different meaning (dominant, superlative, desirable) in other connotations. Such is the dynamic, flexible, and adaptive nature of language (outside the realm of the pedant).

<comment><USER31> Main Entry: hack·er Pronunciation: \ˈha-kər\ Function: noun Date: 14th century

1 : one that hacks 2 : a person who is inexperienced or unskilled at a particular activity  3 : an expert at programming and solving problems with a computer 4 : a person who illegally gains access to and sometimes tampers with information in a computer system

Three out of four possible Merriam-Webster definitions are negative.

<comment><USER32> Only the 4th one seems negative to me... 1) is neutral (since hack has atleast 1 +ve meaning), is positive and 2) is as similar to inexperienced/unskilled whose connotation is context dependent(imho)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER33> Did Apache behind TechCrunch always add "X-Pad=avoid browser bug" header ?

Apparently few Apache 1.x installations use to send this header as part of some fix for few versions Netscape.

Edit: TC seems to acknowledge the hack now. Also, the header X-Pad is missing now.

"Earlier tonight techcrunch.com was compromised by a security exploit.

We're working to identify the exploit and will bring the site back online shortly."

</comment><comment><USER34> Visitors should be awake that visiting tc.com rightnow is equivalent to visiting an suspicious, untrustred site. It could serve malicious content that takes advantage of unknown vunerabilities even on fully patched systems... although i'd hope the hn audience is savvy enough to know this.

<comment><USER35> "Visitors should be awake that visiting tc.com rightnow is equivalent to visiting an suspicious, untrustred site"

Surely that's the case every day???

LMFAO

<comment><USER35> WOW, de-karma'd for that!

Someone needs to find a sense of humor.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER36> Who ever is behind this is changing the html page, 4 mintues ago it was <a href="<http://dupedb.com/> title="rapidshare downloads">rapidshare downloads. Now the source says "hi". Strange times.

</comment><comment><USER37> Is TechCrunch simply preparing to merge with Twitter, at last?

</comment><comment><USER38> well this sucks.

but i feel the hack was done today instead of tomorrow to let them know the hackers displeasure on something. but not to really hit them when it matters... (which is tomorrow for apple presentations )

maybe its just a warning perhaps.

I am sure techcrunch is working on this...

wordpress systems are pretty stable but all systems have a loophole.. on many systems, you can't avoid the hacking because it is the human errors (or negligence)

<comment><USER39> More likely it was an automated attack carried out by bots. I'm still putting my money on the recent rash of non-secure FTP exploits (client side).

<comment><USER40> This was no automated attack. The page was updated with a series of what could only be hand written messages as TC tried to overwrite what the hacker was uploading. At one point the whole page turned to "o_O".

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> Now it's back. Restored. Glad nothing disappeared.

<comment><USER41> all I'm seeing is "we'll be back shortly" it could be the hacker changing it

<comment><USER3> <http://www.techcrunch.com/page/1/> is working

<comment><USER42> Not from here

<comment><USER3> It was earlier before techcrunch went down the second time.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER43> I sure hope this isn't the case, but everyone saying 'outage would caused more damage Wed. morning' might get their wish.

</comment><comment><USER44> And.... We're back.

Now, how long til we get Arrington's spin?

<comment><USER45> 30 mins later, no we're not

</comment></comment><comment><USER46> No word from them: <http://twitter.com/techcrunch>

<comment><USER3> Daniel Brusilovsky is on the case: <http://twitter.com/TechCrunch/team>

</comment></comment><comment><USER47> back up. Looks like they even found the time to add interstital ads on techcrunch.com.. (Direct link: <http://www.techcrunch.com/welcome.html>)

</comment><comment><USER48> As of now, TC is back. There is no mention of what went wrong though.

</comment><comment><USER49> redirected me first time to <http://www.twply.com/> then it came up next time with "hi"

<comment><USER50> A page which politely invites you to enter your Twitter user name & pw. [ I politely declined. ]

</comment></comment><comment><USER51> now it says, "We'll be back shortly."

<comment><USER52> we ? "Tech Crunch" : "The crackers"

<comment><USER53> whoever wins I guess

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER54> Could be a widespread WP security hole..

<comment><USER5> Never attribute to a platform bug what can be explained by misconfiguration.

</comment></comment><comment><USER55> yep.

</comment><comment><USER56> Was techcrunch hosted in indonesia or is this a DNS attack ? <http://bit.ly/5QgDUa>

<comment><USER57> That is wrong.

</comment></comment><comment><USER58> That shows how bad security is on most places… The bad guys just need to find 1 mistake to get in, while we have to protect at all places.

That's why covering all angles is important…

\--dd <http://sucuri.net>

<comment><USER16> Advertise much?

<comment><USER58> yeah, yeah... couldn't resist</comment></comment></comment>


MyZone Social Network - <AUTHOR>

I am very excited to announce that our team at the University of Colorado at Boulder has developed a new peer-to-peer social network called MyZone.
MyZone supports many features available to you on Facebook and Google+ and more. You can post status updates, youtube and vimeo links, photos, audio files in mp3 format and video files in mp4 and flv formats on your wall as well as your friends'. You can also send out private messages to your friends. MyZone provides more user privacy by hosting user profile information on their own devices.
To achieve availability when a user is offline, users are able to ask their "most trusted friends" to replicate their profiles and host them whenever they are offline. There is also the possibility of having up to three devices as self-replicas on MyZone.
MyZone is very easy to install and it is supported on any operating system that has Java installed.
You can download MyZone from http://www.joinmyzone.com where there is a video tutorial on how to use it and a brief overview of its feature.
MyZone is in the developing stages and we would appreciate any feedback to improve it. We hope you give it a try. <comment><USER2> Wouldn't it be better to have a brief public profile online like name profile pic and basic info while keeping the user's share data on user's devices themselves. So on need to give your friends your profile. All the best for the project

<comment><AUTHOR> we actually maintain a user directory list with basic information and new users can choose to be listed on that directory if they wish to.</comment></comment>


Zune HD features Apple should steal  - <AUTHOR> http://news.cnet.com/8301-13526_3-10363037-27.html

<comment><USER2> The problem with wireless sync is you still have to plug in the device to charge it -- especially after using wifi to transfer gigabytes of data to the device. I can see how it would have some value for quick top off syncs but I imagine from Apple's perspective wireless syncing is going to cause more of a negative outcome to their users (battery drain, multiple syncing procedures for software updates, etc) People are buying iPods, and other Apple devices, because of the elegant simplicity. That may impose limitations to some folks but of course there's plenty of good non-Apple alternatives.

<comment><USER3> They just need an inductive charger like the Palm Pre.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> A great deal? At 14.99 a month? So I spend $180 for a year of service, and at the end of the year I have... oh, nothing. I'll buy 180 songs from iTunes, so someday my kid can listen to my old skool Modest Mouse tracks, thank-you-very- much.

<comment><USER5> In a year, do you only listen to 180 new songs? Do you know which songs those will be ahead of time? Subscription is about discovering music, not owning it. For people who value that, it's a very useful and fairly priced service.

<comment><USER6> And I believe the article writer talked about ripping some of the songs? With that mentality it is a dream come true- no?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Wireless sync is a good feature.

The other problems can be solved by allowing third-party apps. (But not the way Apple does it with the iTouch/iPhone; those third-party apps don't let you do anything interesting.)

I am looking very forward to Archos' Android-based media player. Currently looks rough around the edges, but it has great potential.

<comment><USER6> I like the idea, yes- but I am worried about the part of "syncing even when the app isn't open on the computer" (not an exact quote)

That sounds like a HUGE security risk

<comment><USER7> I think with bluetooth-style "pairing" (key exchange) this is fine. If you break AES, you can download my music collection -- seems fair to me.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> The features for Zune Pass seem to already be covered by apps like Pandora and Rhapsody.

But some of these features would be nice to have.

</comment><comment><USER9> I thought we weren't going to do any of N things articles anymore.

On the other hand, if Apple takes his advice, perhaps they will increase their market share over zune.</comment>


Early-Stage B2B Founders: Avoid Selling into the Mid-Market First - <AUTHOR> https://www.jjellyfish.com/blog/early-stage-b2b-founders-avoid-selling-into-the-mid-market-first <comment><USER2> $50k isn't really midmarket, that's more like upper SMB. Which definitely has more churn and less durable deals. $100-200k is more like midmarket. $250k+, but especially $1M+, is enterprise. The problem with $25-50k is that SMBs with single digit millions in sales can't _really_ afford it. So they're going out on a limb, which means pressure for them and you. If the company is well into double or triple digit millions, it's less of a hole in the bucket, and probably less career risk for your point of contact.

<comment><AUTHOR> I don't disagree with you esp. for a mature product/startup, BUT the article is discussing acquiring early-adopting customers. I don't know many early- adopting SMBs that would pay $50K with unproven market value.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> Totally agree, thanks for writing. Mid-market is a mess for so many founders.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks <3 ... The bookends are stable ;)</comment></comment>


Popular Mac Developer Slams Apple for 'Sad State of Macintosh Hardware' - <AUTHOR> https://www.macrumors.com/2018/06/15/developer-slams-lack-of-mac-updates/ <comment><USER3> I think this is a combination of issues:

USB-C's ecosystem was confusing and good products never materialized, or if they did nobody could find them in the sea of junk.

The lack of hardware updates, which seems to have started with the 5-10% performance bumps Intel piddled out in the absence of competition from AMD from 2011-2017. Most of the CPU's and GPU's that could have been used frankly weren't much better than what they'd replace, so from that standpoint, upgrading the hardware was kind of pointless for an extremely minor performance benefit.

The keyboards situation is horrible. Failure prone and loud without much point.

Apple is making a lot of money in the iOS ecosystem. Success hides problems, and it seems like "if it's not broken, don't fix it" was used as an excuse to let the Mac languish.

As someone who did nearly all of Apple's IT-related certs in the mid 00's then watched them slowly decontent and destroy all of their OS X Server and related software almost immediately as iOS was on the rise, I don't see good things coming on the horizon.

If you're on a Mac, try to start using primarily OSS software and. Don't get stuck on a platform that might get abandoned tied to a workflow on software that isn't portable.

The silly thing is that Apple could (and should) invest in the Mac as it was pretty great, and could be great again. I'm not holding my breath.

<comment><USER4> What's wrong with USB-C?

It's seen a pretty wide-spread uptake over the last couple years, and you're hard pressed to find a new laptop from any manufacturer that doesn't use it for charging.

<comment><USER5> [https://marco.org/2017/10/14/impossible-dream-of- usb-c](https://marco.org/2017/10/14/impossible-dream-of-usb-c)

<comment><USER6> This sounds like an absolutely horrifying state of affairs. I did not know what a bullet I dodged by opting for the non-touchbar 2015-Mac that still has those regular old USB-A and HDMI/Mini-DP ports.

> Many Android phones support Qualcomm's Quick Charge over USB-C, which is > different — usually — from the official, better, newer USB-C Power Delivery > (PD) standard. Apple products, some Android phones, and the Nintendo Switch > use USB-C PD. Quick Charge devices don't get any benefit — usually — from PD > chargers, and vice versa.

... and this is just a small sample.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Mid-2012 MBP with SSD, retina, and 16gb here.

I've got an HDMI port, SD card reader, two USB ports, two thunderbolt ports, magsafe power, and a proper, reliable keyboard.

I despair at the current crop of mac hardware. If this machine dies on me before some decent mac hardware arrives, I'm not sure what i'll do - but it definitely won't involve buying a new macbook with the touchbar, stupid keyboards, and no ports.

<comment><USER8> I switched from Windows to Mac in autumn-2013. I really hope that either Apple get their act together or that Microsoft ecosystem finally get the simple things such as hibernate and trackpads working properly before this machine gives up the ghost.

<comment><USER9> > hibernate and trackpads working properly

I haven't had any problem with hibernation on Windows laptops - quite the contrary: MacBooks don't have a visible "I am powered on" indicator once closed, which means that if e.g. some Chrome tab or whatever random crap keeps the system awake I only notice it when arriving at work, pulling the MacBook out of the bag and having a superheated mess with empty battery in my hand.

The trackpads on the other hand... haven't seen _any_ Windows trackpad manufacturer that combines:

\- decent size (=2015-era MBP)

\- decent materials (=the metal/glass combo that Apple uses, instead of black plastic that grows INCREDIBLY nasty looking after 2 years)

\- decent functionality (reliable gesture recognition without having to worry at buy time if the included touchpad is Synaptics, Elantech or Alps, or a knock-off)

\- decent placement (=at surface level like a MBP, not 2+mm recessed which invites dirt to accumulate)

\- can tolerate wet/oily fingers (yes, I admit, I am one of those typical nerds eating pizza while working)

<comment><USER8> In the last few years I've had top of the line Dell and Lenovo laptops, neither got hibernate right. Both had a 15-20% chance of being empty in the morning.

Touchpads are a joke. They're either tiny or they constantly register phantom movements (random cursor jumps). I wouldn't be surprised if that's something which Apple solve in software to be honest; if it was in hardware you'd expect other brands to have caught up already.

<comment><USER9> > if it was in hardware you'd expect other brands to have caught up already

I think it's possible that Apple leverages knowledge from the iDevices lineup there. After all Apple has had a massive headstart in capacitive multi-touch sensoring... and a boatload of patents to match.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> The most dangerous thing here is that the public is increasingly getting the message and idea that Apple's mac hardware is decomposing.

They really need to make this a priority. I fear that the success of the iPhone is blinding them to the importance of the mac. And you can tell because they're kicking ass when it comes to iOS devices. They're so far ahead in certain areas, it's not even funny.

This is reminding me of the Steve Ballmer years at MS. The financials looked GREAT, even though the company completely stagnated when it came to technology (with some exceptions like the Developer Division).

Similarly, the Mac division's strong imbalance now of choosing form over function (the designers have taken over the asylum, removing ports, making keyboards thinner that nobody asked for), is going to continue hurting them until they change course drastically.

Hopefully we see it soon. Meanwhile, I am clinging on to my MacBook Pro from 2015, still the best MacBook Pro I've owned.

<comment><USER11> > They're so far ahead in certain areas, it's not even funny.

Honestly asking, not trying to throw punches; what are they ahead with? From everything I've seen/read/heard it's all software, and the hardware itself has stagnated or is behind by a few months/years of other vendors.

<comment><USER12> Not sure where exactly they're "so far ahead".

Cameras? Google is on par if not better with the Pixel. Screens? Samsung.

The only area where I could conceivably say Apple is destroying the competition is the A11 chip.

As an overall package though, I'd say the other major players (Samsung, Google) are on par with Apple for phones.

<comment><USER10> Yes I was actually mainly talking about their processors (and other silicon), and the additional performance gains you get from tight hardware/software integration.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> Apple needs to differentiate it's lines further. The MacBook can be 2 mm thin and light as a feather for those who value those features. However, the MacBook Pro should be a true pro machine with a great keyboard, great screen, necessary ports, and built like a tank. Thinness obsession has gotten a bit far IMHO.

</comment><comment><USER14> Like someone else said in another comment, the grass is not green on the other side. I tried every windows flagship option out there from Asus convertibles to XPS 15 (still have this) and my experience was not even close to what I had hoped for. From big issues like coil whine on the XPS 15 to little issues like battery randomly dying, it seems like no other manufacturer cares about quality control and human user experience at all.

Ended up getting a 2017 touch-bar 15' pro and could not have been happier. At least with MacBook I do not have to think about the machine getting in my way while I am trying to do something productive.

The keyboard situation is bad but I am sure at one point they are going to have to do a recall or offer free repairs (Apple has done this before, look at the GPU issues).

The touchbar issue is overblown. Once I adjusted my workflows to use touchbar and customized the touchbar for the apps I frequently use I have definitely been a little more productive than my old macbook. People do not like adapting to changes.

USB C is not a problem anymore, since most of my devices are using USB C already I can usually get away with just couple of cables (usb c and lightning) while traveling.

<comment><USER15> Get an x1 carbon, install FreeBSD with gnome. Hardware and software blow windows and macOS out of the water. I can't fathom how people think MacOS has angood desktop is — everything is a struggle with their os.

<comment><USER14> I have not tried x1 carbon but literally all lenovo laptops I have tried have horrible trackpads (palm rejection issues on linux, weird tracking).

MacOS is a good OS because it has a very human centric UI and it makes me very productive. Virtual Desktops that work flawlessly with trackpad, shortcuts like control command f to switch apps back and forth between fullscreen help me easily focus on task in hand, app quality is miles ahead of windows (scaling issues anyone?) and linux just doesn't have enough software available for anything other than development (video editors, graphics design etc).

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> The keyboards. The failure rate makes them a risky purchase. You could be just out of warranty and locked out of your machine. This is happening and driving people away. I personally am really going to miss that perfect trackpad as it's not going to be another MacBook Pro for me until this is fixed.

<comment><USER17> Touch bar as well, the theoretical upsides were few and didn't really pan out. It would have been an interesting and possibly useful _addition_ to function keys (especially at a $300 markup) but it's just awful as replacement.

<comment><USER18> I concur. Buying my MacBook with touch bar add-on was a decision I regret every day. And every day I miss the old function keys.

In addition, Apple replaced my keyboard (all of sudden, the 'b' key ceased working) and managed to damage the Touch ID part of the bar, replacing which led to replacing the entire logic board. The keyboard has been so bad that I'm expecting it to go again soon, and next time, it won't be in warranty.

Apple, please sort it out. You're still ahead of the pack if you can (a) fix the quality/bugs, and (b) stop making bad and very experimental design decisions.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> Discussion of the actual article this piece addresses from 4 days ago (over 300 comments): [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17312588](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17312588)

</comment><comment><USER20> Interestingly for me, the annoyances of the new MacBook have faded into the background (no escape key, worse keyboard). I learned to hit ctrl+[ in vim, and don't mind the keyboard until a key sticks for a little while.

Meanwhile I can't imagine going back to the thicker form factor.

I don't mean to downplay people's issues, and Apple definitely didn't do a wonderful job here.

But I do find that my day to day experience is net positive. Humans are very adaptable.

<comment><USER21> It may be unpopular, but I agree. I held off as long as I could, but finally ended up with a 2017 MBP. It works fine. I like the keyboard feel. It is a bit noisy though, and I worry about failures, but good so far. USB-C means I plug less into the computer than I used to. The dongle situation is a bit overblown. My 2014 MBP already had special cables for mini-display port and a dongle for gigabit ethernet.

I am annoyed that Apple cannot seem to just do simple upgrades though. Not every release has to be some out of this world new design.

</comment></comment><comment><USER22> Is there any indication that Apple is taking these complaints to heart?

I suspect that the lack of updates may be indicative of Apple switching to an ARM based CPU for their laptops and desktop machine. If this is the case it probably wouldn't make sense for them to invest a lot in designing a new laptop around an Intel processor. It would also explain the delays since they would both need to get to grips with the hardware design AND provide a solution for running software compiled for x86 on ARM.

While they have done this before, the task is much bigger this time as there is considerably more software available for the Mac that would need to work on the new architecture.

Of course, this still raises questions. The first being how long it would take to stabilize the platform again. The second whether Apple will be sufficiently interested in the desktop/laptop market to deliver more consistent and meaningful product updates going forward.

If they are indeed going to ignore the desktop/laptop market the interesting question would be how this would affect the sales of their other products.

My guess is that if they manage to break up with developers, through inaction or otherwise, there is probably going to be a slow decline that nobody gets particularly worried about until it can't be compensated for with cheap sales tricks.

</comment><comment><USER23> Previous conversation: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17312588](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17312588)

</comment><comment><USER24> I'm having a deja-vue. 25 years ago Apple was facing a similar decline in product diversity, innovation and novelty. With Steve Jobs gone forever I don't think Apple will survive that one. By a long shot Apple will burn through their cash very fast, with mediocre products and no innovation in the pipeline. And I don't see another innovation genius like Steve Jobs with a determined vision to come around at Apple these days. Good luck with that!

<comment><USER22> Actually, Apple had too much product diversity and one of the things Jobs did was to simplify the product lineup and make sure that each product counted.

Apple have maintained a relatively simple product lineup when it comes to the computers, the problem is that they no longer know how to make products that deliver where it counts.

(Of course, they do have boneheaded products like the dead end stovepipe Mac Pro, which completely misses the point of what power-hungry users with generous budgets need, but it appears as sort of a tradition to have the odd boneheaded computer to satisfy the egos of designers. Given the past history of Apple I think it is safe to say that high end users have never been a great priority)

</comment></comment><comment><USER25> Hear, hear! I type this on a "Late 2013" MacBook Pro that I would have upgraded years ago if the replacements were desirable and they can't even keep those up to date.

<comment><USER26> I'm on a mid-2012 with a failing battery, some keys don't work unless - <USER2> we say - you push them with conviction, and just a few weeks ago it had a bit of a tumble and the LCD panel is now cracked. I'm debating whether I should buy a 2015 15", or wait for October to see if anything shows up in the next refresh. -_-

</comment></comment><comment><USER27> I sadly gave up on the Mac. My next personal device is a Dell XPS.

The platform is great, and I liked the (declining) 3rd party ecosystem, but if the company doesn't give a crap about the platform, why should I?

It's probably too late, but Apple needs to break the industrial design team's stranglehold on the platform. You can only focus on things that the customer doesn't care about for so long. I pulled the plug when my colleague had to spend about $350 on magic dongles for his $2k laptop.

<comment><USER28> >> I sadly gave up on the Mac. My next personal device is a Dell XPS.

Switching is a mixed bag.

I notice (at least on HN) that there are two types of people on Mac.

People who are highly sensitized to details and those who are not. If you're sensitized to stuff like touch pads, coil whine, etc., you may not find pleasure in switching to a PC, because PC makers don't spend a lot of time on those details.

If, however, you're not sensitized to small details, switching to PC is a pretty painless process.

<comment><USER29> > If, however, you're not sensitized to small details, switching to PC is a > pretty painless process.

There's another category to consider: Those who use mostly open source apps and those who prefer a better user experience. Switching is easy if you're the former. Not so much if you're the latter. The Mac app ecosystem is hands down the best there is. Mac apps are not just easy to use, but pleasant. Windows apps are ugly and often difficult to use. Heaven help you on Linux.

<comment><USER28> >> The Mac app ecosystem is hands down the best there is.

That is an individualized thing, as different people use different stuff.

There is a lot of great stuff on the Mac. iLife, iWork, Coda, Pixelmator, Transmit and other apps are great on the Mac, but those aren't apps that are necessarily used by everybody.

For the most part, I don't feel like I'm missing out after switching to Windows. I use Affinity products, Sublime Text, DxO Photolab, and they're pretty much the same as on the Mac.

Go to any platform (including MacOS and iOS), and easily 90% of the apps are ugly and difficult to use. The top 10% tend to not have that issue.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER30> I switched back to a Linux workstation, after being "all mac laptop" since 2003 (!). My current Macbook Pro is from 2010 and my professional Macbook pro from 2015. The newest Macbooks with their stupid keyboards and USB-C only are total garbage, IMO. Sad.

<comment><USER31> I ended up buying a new 2017 15 inch MacBook Pro and it's really been not that bad. Yes, you have to use a USB-A to USB-C dongle here and there but at least for my daily use, it's not been terribly inconvenient. The machine is light and thin and I enjoy it immensely, although I'm a little scared about the keyboard (so far no problems). Touchbar?... meh. Neither like not dislike.

I don't know. I understand the new MacBooks are not perfect for everybody but for me it has been more than OK, and I love the huge trackpad. I feel like a lot of the criticism seems excessive or are complaints that could very well be applied to the sad state of the PC industry as a whole.

<comment><USER32> Needing a dongle "here and there" means that now I need to carry it with me at all times. And that means both USB-A and HDMI dongles. More things I need to worry about to make my 3500EUR machine useful. This is a clear usability regression and the "USB-C" only future doesn't seem to be happening until end of lifetime of this machine.

The keyboard feels bad and my space has started failing. This is also a clear regression with no benefit over previous model.

Touchbar is still useless with pretty much no features over function keys (excluding TouchID on the power button). Pretty much no 3rd party apps use it well and the fact that it can't hold global app shortcuts make it significanly less useful than the previous keys. Another clear regression.

It's not that the new Macs are bad machines, it's that Apple made a few baffling decisions which make the user experience worse over previous models. With pretty much no benefits.

<comment><USER30> > With pretty much no benefits.

It sure is thin! And nice looking! Marchitecture, IMO.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER33> Completely agree. Reliability has plummeted with almost every release since the retina MBP. Crashes are a regular thing and most of the physical "improvements" outside of compactness and weight have been unwanted. The touch bar in particular is just a dead appendage.

But my previous and extensive experiences with Linux and Windows ecosystems tell me that the grass is not greener, so I stay and put up with the problems.

<comment><USER34> > Crashes are a regular thing and most of the physical "improvements" outside > of compactness and weight have been unwanted.

I feel like the 3D touchpad is completely underrated but it really is amazing. It does everything that the mechanical one was doing except better. 2 years after getting it, I still can't believe it is not mechanical.

<comment><USER33> It's neat when you realize it doesn't actually move, and it is definitely an innovation, but it doesn't really improve the experience in any considerable way. But I'll give you that. It's also less likely to get stuck in any way.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER35> I am a former Mac user who has "come home" to Linux and BSD in recent years.

Between the sad state of the Mac ecosystem (I like both the hardware AND software less today than I did 7 years ago) and the repost about desktop Linux UX this morning, I feel like the F/OSS and Mac communities have missed a golden opportunity.

If I had a time machine and a magic wand, I'd certainly have blessed the GNUStep project to build the desktop many of us wish we had today. Had some hypothetical GNUStep desktop captured the mindshare of the majority of Linux desktops, I could imagine living in a world today in which Mac and Linux software were more or less a recompile away from portability. I could imagine a world in which some developers prefer building Mac software with GNUStep tooling. And I imagine a world in which Apple's focus, priorities, and missteps weren't an existential threat to people trying to make their living on the Mac.

</comment><comment> at-fates-hands I know a lot of people I know have seen this coming and in the past few years have either switched to Windows (creative types) or to Linux (developer types).

It's fascinating to see Apple's fall from grace. They were once considered the go to hardware vendor in nearly every market segment, are now being easily passed by their competitors.

<comment><USER36> The figures don't show that, Mac sales are continuing to rise whilst the rest of the industry is in decline.

There are clearly some vocal critics here, that isn't real evidence though.

<comment><USER37> I think rising Mac sales are masking the problems for Apple.

From Apple's perspective, rising sales demonstrates that the criticisms are coming from a tiny discontented minority.

From my perspective, sales may be rising for many reasons, but these criticism don't bode well for the future. All these new Mac users will face the same problems, and that will slow replacement rate.

<comment><USER36> But they will know what the statistics are for returned faulty hardware. If the reliability rate is as bad as implied then I can't imagine them ignoring it.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER38> I've been repeating this point over and over but: if you are a software developer AND your target platform is non-Apple Unix -- in other words if you're developing for Web or Android -- there isn't a single reason to choose Mac over a solid PC running Linux. I've used Mac for years before switching to Linux, and two years ago had the chance to revisit Mac as the primary development machine for about 10 months, and my opinion only became stronger.

That doesn't mean that MacOS is not a solid system, and even Apple hardware is quite good -- I've recently bough a 2013 MacMini (the one with an optical drive) as my main home theatre and am quite happy. But as a software developer, I find using the same platform I'm developing for a very important detail.

</comment><comment><USER39> I have an early 2013 MBP that I'm going to hang on to as long as I possibly can. It is truly a wonderful machine. I'm long out of warranty and just opted to pay $600 for repairs rather than upgrade. Really hope apple can turn things around before it finally kicks the bucket for good. Pretty amazing and sad how a company can take something so good and completely ruin it. To be fair it probably doesn't help that our culture is so obsessed with constant new-ness in tech, expecting huge advances every single year which puts pressure on companies to come up with shiny new features all the time. If it ain't broke...

</comment><comment><USER40> I don't get the hate about the MBP. I have the 13-inch 2017 model without the TB and I absolutely LOVE it. It's such a master piece, I simply love it and use it as my daily driver. I also don't have any problems with my keyboard, I only can tell good things about it. The 2 ports suck, but I never was in need of more, I only use the power adapter and the USB C to HDMI/DP cable that goes in my 4K screen and that's it. Havn't used any regular USB devices for years anyways.

The only thing I hate about it is the super slow CPU, but that's only partly because of Apple.

<comment><USER41> "I don't get the hate because I don't need more ports anyway."

See how this is anecdotal? Pretty sure if you were to have different use-cases you'd like your MPB a lot less.

<comment><USER42> I don't think it's necessarily reasonable to expect everyone to only communicate some consensus view. I understand my opinion here is only a sample-of-one, but I generally need a collection of individual reports before I can aggregate them.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER43> "sandworm101" commented[0] in the prior discussion that:

> Given Apple's grip on users, they may even see laptops as a competitor to > their iPhone business. Time on the macbook is time not on the iPhone.

You can't get very much free / OSS software for your iPhone. You can't get around Apple's 30% cut on paid software.

At least subconsciously, I believe this thinking explains a lot.

[0] [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17313613](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17313613)

</comment><comment><USER44> What can't they just take the old non-touch bar 15 inch MBP chassis, put a decent CPU in that and go to 32 GB using regular DDR4? We'd still have decent enough battery life.

<comment><USER45> That's what I wonder too. There's so much love for the machines of a few years ago with all the ports and the old keyboard. Why not just update that machine?

</comment></comment><comment><USER46> Recently got my Mac Book Pro nicked by a kid on a moped - mid meeting.

Sadly am not impressed with the touch bar, lack of USB, keyboard failures and the hardware is definitely due an update - or a price drop. There's only so long I'll hold out and wait for an update.

Am currently thinking of getting an iMac - then a chrome book for meetings (so when it get's stolen again it's not too brutal). Anyone else got other recommendations?

Assume windows isn't the blue screen mess I remember of days gone past.

<comment><USER47> > Am currently thinking of getting an iMac - then a chrome book for meetings

This is exactly what I did. It's a great combo.

The current iMac 5K is amazing value if you consider how much a 5K monitor costs.

I agree with most complaints about the Mac, except for the 5K iMac which IMO is the best Mac ever made.

</comment></comment><comment><USER48> The MBP is a dead horse at this point, so I took a look at the current iMacs (I'm used to working on a 27 inch display and 5K tempts me; a standalone high quality display isn't much cheaper than going with an iMac).

All stock models still come with HDDs.

I hope someone finds some Enron-level accounting trickery at Apple and the whole thing comes crashing down fast, and some other company can take the role Apple had from early 2000s to early 2010s.

</comment><comment><USER49> I was excited about the Touch Bar, but it turns out function keys were entirely adequate. Anyone actually using it for more on a regular basis?

Touch ID on the other hand is incredibly useful, although much like the iPhone, it seems inevitable we will see Face ID sometime soon (which critics may point out just means Apple has caught up with Windows Hello).

<comment><USER50> I was excited to try leveraging it for something useful when playing our computer game (SimAirport) but I basically hit a dead end (or at least an undocumented end) when trying to interface with it from Unity.

Within a month of the purchase I ended up having keyboard issues & returned it; purchased a refurb 2015 instead. It'll be my last Mac laptop (after >10 MBPs lifetime) unless they really get their act together.

</comment></comment><comment><USER51> I remain pretty sure that Apple's Mac line is going ARM. Their own custom, highly performant version.

However, I don't believe this excuses current circumstances.

And a chip swap doesn't address the other, current hardware problems.

I am not a Mac person, so my opinion doesn't carry much weight, on that basis. Nonetheless, having been reading what's going on, I'd say:

If your career depends on Mac, and you can afford it, I'd buy a 2015 MacBook Pro before they're gone. Even if it feels like a "waste of money", weigh that against being without an acceptable machine until Apple gets it together.

I'd also spend for the longer term AppleCare, to try to guarantee having a working machine until same.

If things don't improve, soon, I wonder what the second-hand market for these will end up looking like.

</comment><comment><USER52> August 15th is the date I am concerned with because that is when the iMac was introduced. That is such an ideal date to release the next upgrade to the iMac line. There have been rumors floating about of a new chassis which would provide separation from the new iMac Pro.

I am still one of those dreamers who would love a headless Mac with some ability to add drives and even swap a video card. however Apple has not even bothered with a new display in ages so I doubt they would have a new headless mac without one.

Still happily using my 2013 iMac 27 780M video, last of the models that is not Retina

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

</comment><comment><USER53> I - a web developer - am very content with my 2016 MacBook Pro without the Touch Bar. The only beef I got is that the keyboard gets dusty and spongy over time.

I'm hoping that Apple will at some point release a 15" MacBook Pro without Touch Bar.

</comment><comment><USER54> For years and years, I've advocated that Apple should just release the OS like Windows. It runs fine on a lot of PC hardware you can buy off the shelf (I've built a few PC's that do just this). And, with the Nvidia drivers that were released a year or two ago, most graphics cards people want to run are available.

I realize that there's a lot involved with suddenly trying to support an array of hardware. But, maybe release with a set of suggested hardware, and a "no guarantees" sort of license.

I've always enjoyed MacOs, but the hardware has been a joke for some time now. My old G5 Mac Pro was the pinnacle of Mac desktops, imo.

<comment><USER55> Apple did to that long ago with MacOS 7. It didn't work so well, since they undercut sales of their own hardware. Jobs killed the licensing when he returned to the company.

Today, OS X is good enough that is still gets people to buy their outdated hardware. They'd be crazy to license it and give up that lockin. It's not a good situation, but we're not going to see OS X licensed to other manufacturers anytime soon.

<comment><USER28> Those clones weren't too bad though. And IIRC, Power Computing did way more to evangelize the Mac platform at the time than Apple did. Their ads were great.

<comment><USER56> The clones were great. TOO great, they were a superior value to what Apple was selling on the high end, which was why they had to go.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER57> It would be heartening if someone from Apple at least said they were hearing the complaints. Number one, IMO, being this idiotic keyboard. Then the ports, then the touchbar fiasco. Stagnation is not nearly as big an issue as those issues. As others have said, change in technology in general has stagnated. If I HAD to buy a new laptop today, I might buy a Macbook, but I'd have a hard look at the state of the competition's trackpads first. Then probably go with the older MBAir with the better keyboard....

</comment><comment><USER58> Original link to the author's article:

[https://weblog.rogueamoeba.com/2018/06/14/on-the-sad- state-o...](https://weblog.rogueamoeba.com/2018/06/14/on-the-sad-state-of- macintosh-hardware/)

which was discussed earlier:

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17312588](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17312588)

</comment><comment><USER43> Ben Thompson at Stratechery may not have been the first to suggest this, but he has made a strong argument that Apple should spinoff the Mac business. Either to a subsidiary or to a 3rd party.

I see a lot of risk and potential downsides, but with each new disaster of MBP released or eternity between updates it becomes more attractive.

The tight integration with the iPhone (phone calls, messages, handoff) might suffer and that would be painful.

</comment><comment><USER59> My biggest issues is the lack of memory past 16gb in the "pro" line of macbooks.

Right now I'm working on some integration tests with 5-6 different codebases and I have an intellij window for each. Then I have a couple of dozen chrome tabs open, a bunch of terminals and (most importantly for memory) a whole stack of docker containers and virtual machines.

16gb is a major blocker.

</comment><comment><USER60> If you want a real MacBook Pro, I don't understand why they axed the 17" line. Those machines were beasts. Everyone I know who got one in college is still running them almost a decade later. For really doing work, a full keyboard and screen real-estate is king.

</comment><comment><USER61> Previous discussion from a few days ago: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17312588](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17312588) (331 comments)

</comment><comment><USER62> Personally I'm in love with my MacBook Air.

Any similar ultrabook alternative at $950+-?

</comment><comment><USER63> Isn't the bigger issue for Apple that iOS is run by devs on the Mac platform? If devs start moving away from Mac computers, it becomes less likely they will develop for the App Store.

</comment><comment><USER64> If only we heard from someone inside Apple. Maybe there's strife in the company? Jony Ive dragging his heels on a design? Some middle manager obstructing progress? Supply line issues?

<comment><USER65> Well, they fired Scott Forstall a couple of years back. I really think its because a COO is now the CEO and the biggest concern for the Mac line is maximizing profit margin in the supply chain by producing older models or making questionable quality affecting decisions. Operations running your company seems to be worse than Marketing. I miss Product People.

</comment></comment><comment><USER66> From a business standpoint, it's hard for Apple to justify investing in a product like that contributes a small and diminishing fraction of their revenue.

<comment><USER25> What a ridiculous statement. It's over 9% of their (giant) business, it would be a Fortune 500 company itself if not part of Apple.

<comment><USER66> 9% is small - and it is shrinking

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER67> Why don't you get a decent laptop and put Linux on it?

<comment><USER68> Because some people care about user experience.</comment></comment>


What 1970s to 1980s home computers had their graphics chars added to Unicode 13? - <AUTHOR> https://retrocomputing.stackexchange.com/q/14099/1932 <comment><AUTHOR> See also [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22544798](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22544798) .</comment>


Aaron Swartz: How I Hire Programmers - <AUTHOR> http://www.aaronsw.com/weblog/hiring <comment><USER3> I'm not aware of all the details of Aaron's career, but I was not under the impression that he has been in a position to hire that many people. Knowing who he was hiring for what size organizations and in what capacity would be useful information.

<comment><USER4> You're right, that would be useful information. However, Aaron was one of the reddit founders and I imagine gained a few pennies from that. Perhaps the project he's hired for is openlibrary.org?

From <http://openlibrary.org/about/people>: "Aaron Swartz, Former Project Leader. The Open Library wouldn't exist without Aaron. He wrote the backbone of the system you see today. He has also worked on specs like RSS, startups like Reddit.com, and software projects like web.py. He worked from San Francisco to architect the site, _put together the team_ , and attempt to keep things organized, and we couldn't have come this far without his crucial expertise."

<comment><USER3> "Gained a few pennies" goes without doubt, but that doesn't necessarily translate into hiring. For instance, 'our very own' PG has probably _hired_ fewer people than many people here, although I'm sure he's interviewed way more than most of us have.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> The best "interview" I've ever had consisted of me spending an entire day hanging out with the team. We essentially pretended that that it was my first day working there. They asked me to keep coming back.

Even if they hadn't hired me I would have been happy to do it. It was enjoyable and I learned a lot of interesting stuff. I know some people would say it's unfair to ask this, but I really wish it would become the industry standard method.

<comment><USER6> Did they have you sign an NDA?

It seems like it'd be hard, using this tactic, to protect trade secrets in companies where that's important.

<comment><USER7> Facebook makes everyone who walks in the door sign an NDA, including visitors and people coming in for interviews. It literally takes 15 seconds to do.

<comment><USER8> Really? How can you read a legal document that quickly?

If I was signing something that could get me sued in the future, I'd make darn sure that I read it thoroughly before signing!

That's just common sense:)

<comment><USER9> Few people read contracts they sign any more. In most of our (U.S., at least) culture, people no longer view a contract as an agreement between party A and party B, but as a paperwork step that has to be signed as a formality. I think most people don't even read their own employment contracts; they just sign however many places it calls for and move on.

With EULAs and click-through "contracts" devaluing the term, the average person probably signs hundreds of contracts a year, and reads none of them.

<comment><USER10> I mostly agree with you, but I think it also depends on the types of contracts we're talking about. I definitely read all 20+ pages of my apartment lease before I signed it, but not a word of the iTunes EULA when upgrading it.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> I think this is a terrible way to interview. I've encountered, again and again, candidates who appear to be very intelligent, you can have a great discussion with them, terrific rapport, they understand everything, they give interesting suggestions, and when you ask them to write a simple piece of code they absolutely cannot do it. Not because they're stressed etc., you can actually see they can't write code. Sometimes the incongruity between their confident appearance and convincing talk versus their inability to write code is mind-boggling.

Now I consider any interview process incomplete and utterly unreliable if it doesn't include writing actual code, however simple and straightforward.

<comment> tsetse-fly What sort of programming problems are you giving them? Did these candidates have experience with other projects and were they able to fluidly explain their involvement with them?

It must be pretty rare to find a person who can describe a complex project in detail but is unable to write any code during an interview.

<comment><USER11> I thought it was rare too until I started interviewing a lot.

Yes, these candidates would typically be able to explain their involvement with previous projects, to give a technical overview of what they'd done. They would totally pass my bullshit filter. I thought I had a well-tuned bullshit filter. I was wrong.

The programming problems are typically very simple, an order of magnitude simpler than an algorithm or design question that might be a part of the same interview. I don't want to give specific examples, but maybe implement one of a standard algorithms on an array or a tree (I'm not talking balanced trees, way simpler). Maybe do something that requires a nested loop and some bit- twiddling, or careful thinking about entries in a two-dimensional array, or a bit of smarts to hold some sparse data - but again, nearly trivial from the algorithmic point of view. There are many possibilities.

What you want to check is whether the candidate can think through their own code, whether they know to check for edge cases, whether they think of test cases, how they deal with off-by-1 possibilities, how they debug their own code, do they have a reasonably clear style.

What you tend to see when a candidate fails such an assignment is people who don't remember the mask to fill a byte with 1's, who can't get a nested loop right because they can't seem to keep two counters in their head at the same time, who don't have the instinct to check for an off-by-1, who can't trace through their own code visually with sample arguments, etc. etc. Sometimes they had just impressed you a lot a few minutes before with a nice technical summary of what they did in their previous project.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> I think this is a great technique. To all those who think programming IS a job done under pressure, really think hard about your specific job and your specific situation. We all like to glorify our careers (to the point of fooling ourselves) and imagine scenarios where something mission critical breaks and it HAS to be fixed in five minutes (something like you'd see on the show 24).

But has that ever happened at your job? If so, instead of hiring high pressure programmers, could you take steps to eliminate the high pressure scenarios, e.g., unit testing, back up systems, roll back plans?

I know everyone will have counterexamples of this high pressure thing that happens.. but is it really typical for your job, really?

</comment><comment><USER13> My favorite hiring process I've been a part of was with a AI startup. The initial phase was a list of maybe a dozen questions in an email. Fairly open- ended questions about how I perceived aspects of intelligence, ontology, and general philosophical concepts. Then a day at the company talking with the founder and the team, walking through their concept, long two way discussions about it, and a discussion about the direction of AI in general. Didn't get into a lot of coding details, it was assumed if I could participate in the conversation at a sufficient level that I'd be able to work the rest of it out. Which was true. Great process, completely appropriate for that situation.

</comment><comment><USER14> Something else to consider ...

There are a lot of developers that "get stuff done" without accomplishing anything of use to the company.

<comment><USER15> I think that's mostly their manager's fault.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> Inspired no doubt by Joel Spolsky's famous (in some circles, anyway) article: [http://www.joelonsoftware.com/articles/GuerrillaInterviewing...](http://www.joelonsoftware.com/articles/GuerrillaInterviewing3.html)

Their objectives are basically the same. The difference is in the ways of proving the "getting things done" part.

I never assumed the programming questions in an interview were really about getting the right answer in ten minutes or however long you spend on it, but more about giving the interviewee an opportunity to explain their thought process and problem solving approach to the interviewer. I don't agree that asking interviewees to solve programming problems in an interview is useless, but obviously looking at code samples from other work is great, too.

<comment><USER16> >"I never assumed the programming questions in an interview were really about getting the right answer in ten minutes or however long you spend on it, but more about giving the interviewee an opportunity to explain their thought process and problem solving approach to the interviewer."

That's what they say. But do you know anyone who failed the questions and still got hired? My experience has been that even when I nail the algorithmic questions, I miss a few trivia questions and don't get called back. Nuance cannot be replicated at corporate scale.

<comment><USER17> Well, I can say on the flip side I've been involved with hiring decisions where the interviewee did not nail every single answer, but we hired anyhow.

It should be pointed out that I structure the interviews to try to avoid that case anyhow. If your interviewee nails everything, it either means that you've got a class-A programmer, or your interview difficulty tops out too soon. I've become a big believer in gradated interviews. I've got a pretty good SQL series that starts out where the answer is literally "SELECT * FROM some_table" (though I find it occasionally trips people up to simply omit the where clause) and goes up from there on this little two-table schema. I've got some good HTML generation series that starts out with a simple "can you dump out a table from a 2D array or equivalent structure?" (since I try to do language-agnostic interviews) and go up through "do you know about escaping" and "can you handle optional parameters" and so on. Over time I've been selecting for the series that produce more gradation.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> I'm surprised nobody has talked about pairing interviews in the comments yet. I spent years clumsily hiring developers crapshoot-style. I shared the misconceptions that people get so nervous during technical interviews that it obviates their usefulness and that it doesn't really matter if a candidate writes code or not during their interview. My current employer, Pivotal Labs, hired me after a first interview that consists of interview-y conversation and a short pairing exercise followed by a second full day of pairing with the team on an actual project.

I know pairing is sometimes controversial around these parts, but for interview purposes its benefits are pretty evident.

</comment><comment><USER19> On one hand, I have always looked forward to and enjoyed Aaron's writing, and was really curious about what he had to say in this post.

On the other hand, this is a subject near and dear to my own heart, and while I appreciate a lot of his methods, I don't think his model scales well. In order for it to work the way he wants, _he_ has to conduct the interviews himself.

A few thoughts...

 _Programming isn't typically a job done under pressure, so seeing how people perform when nervous is pretty useless._

Not my experience. Actually, quite the contrary.

The single biggest difference I have ever seen (over and over again) between a good programmer and a great programmer is how they respond under pressure. Given enough time, lots of programmers can code something that works. The problem is that there are many occasions where there simply isn't enough time. Can you hit a deadline? Can you stay awake all night if you have to? Can you resolve this problem that's holding everything and everyone else up? Can you settle down that user or customer who's up in arms? Can you figure out what wrong decision was made 4 steps ago that is causing big problems now? And can you do it _now_?

Understanding how well someone performs under pressure (and whether or not that makes them nervous) is hardly useless. I can't think of too many more things that are useful to know.

 _So I just request a code sample and a demo and see whether it looks good._

There are too many cases where this doesn't work at all. What if they've never contributed to an open source project? (Whether or not you like this has nothing to do with their skill as a programmer and is another subject). What if they're prohibited from sharing someone else's proprietary property? What if they're bound by someone else's (illogical) shop standards? What if they salvaged someone else's shitty architecture with great workaround code? If they wrote something as part of a team, which part was theirs? How much of the analysis, design, architecture, testing, and deployment did they do? For that matter, how much of the actual programming did they do? Lots of posers share something they "worked on" but could never build in a hundred years.

 _To find out whether someone's smart, I just have a casual conversation with them._

That's it? You make judgements on the fly? Using what metrics?

The idea of a learning from a casual conversation makes a lot of sense. But what is your plan? Ten people having ten conversations will come up with ten different assessments of the same candidate. Unless there is some kind of standard and a plan going into the meeting. How will you know they are smart? How will you know they can get things done? How will you know they can work with others? Without a plan to answer these questions, you're just waving your hands.

I suspect OP already has a plan of attack for his casual conversations but it's hard to say because he never says anything about it.

 _Ask them what they've been thinking about and probe them about it._

Again, this may or may not be a good litmus test. I know programmers with IQs of 160 who have written tons of brilliant code. If I asked tham what they've been thinking about, the answer could be "who will win the Notre Dame game" or "will I get laid tonight" just as easily as it can be about something truly cerebral.

 _Finally, I figure out whether I can work with someone just by hanging out with them for a bit._

Again, you can learn a lot about someone else this way, but sooner or later, you'll need some kind of standard and metric for this method to be replicable. Before you start, you must be able to say, " _This_ is when I will know what I need to know." Until then this is just one guy's hand waving.

 _I'm amazed that so many companies use such silly hiring methods instead._

I'm amazed that so many companies use such silly methods for so many other things as well. But there are just as many who hire very well. I know many great programmers employed and still delivering great product 15 or 20 years with the same company. The same companies that seldom make bad hires. They use a lot of OP's strategies. But they also combine these strategies into a comprehensive system that works _no matter who does the hiring_.

I like OP's thinking. I just don't see how it will work well once his company becomes too big for him to do every interview himself. Systemitizing his methods will make it scale.

<comment><USER20> I know it's probably an exaggeration, but _IQs of 160_ are the 99.997th percentile so there should be something like 10,000 people in the united states of all ages with 160+ IQ's. Suggesting those are the type of people you want to recruit is mostly a waste of time because there are just not that many people let alone people with that IQ let alone people with that IQ who are looking for programming jobs.

<comment><USER21> As a programmer with an IQ of ~125, I'm doubtful that I would want to be a programmer if my IQ was 160+. I have a hard time believing that there are many professional programmers with IQs that high.

<comment><USER22> Having an IQ of 160 or above is not a life of sitting on clouds thinking deep thoughts about how string theory is obviously wrong. You run especially hard into the nurture trap so often discussed here.

That is, hearing,"You're so smart," so many times, from teachers, other students, coworkers, bosses, etc., cultivates a sense of elitism and a shock when something is actually difficult.

You're also bound by the same emotions as most other people. If you're a particularly aggressive or irritable person, imagine being surrounded by people who keep making mistakes because they're stupid. If you turn it outward, you're impatient at best and a bully at worst. If you turn it inward, you're stressed out, anxious, and depressed.

All of that said, being a professional programmer was the most satisfying thing I've done. Unfortunately, I moved on precisely because of the above paragraph -- I had managers I felt were particularly dim.

<comment><USER23> Always worth mentioning: "The Inverse Power of Praise" <http://nymag.com/news/features/27840/>

<comment><USER24> I do not appreciate compliments anymore. I haven't for a long time. I have a complicated view I don't really wish to explain right now (maybe I'll write a blog post later) about why compliments are almost insulting, especially insulting by those people who care about "you" and who give them often (Sorry for that passive voice).

My thoughts all stemmed from the idea that compliments make people worse at what they do. At BEST they make the person continue at the same speed with a boost of moral. Imho.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> I often hear people assert that engineering isn't done under pressure, so an interviewee's performance under pressure doesn't matter. I don't think that's necessarily true: lots of systems have to be designed for life-and-death situations, web sites often have major crises/bugs, every team faces last minute deadlines, etc.

I wouldn't want anyone on my team who fell apart under stress. Performance under pressure isn't the only factor, but it is a factor.

That said, if anyone has a zero-stress engineering job, please tell me.

<comment><USER26> But this is a different kind of stress. Interviews are usually performed under "social" stress - people normally get nervous when meeting someone new, probably for evolutionary reasons. This "short term" stress is very different from the stress you get because of a deadline or a critical bug.

<comment><USER25> I've never really felt it was that different, but for the sake of discussion, how would you simulate the non-social variety of stress in a hiring situation?

<comment><USER27> Having experienced it myself, I can vouch that such an difference exist. When forced to write a complicated piece of code with a bunch of strange people breathing down my neck and watching every step I take, my productivity tends to slacken off when I hit a coders equivalent of writer's block. It just doesn't come out as naturally as it used to. In contrast, same task in a more familiar and comfortable setting looks like a piece of cake even if deadline is drawing close.

<comment> tsetse-fly Coder's block is a good way to describe it.

I've had phone interviews where I've been asked to solve a logic puzzle with pen/paper while explaining my approach. Solving a problem you've never thought about while being put on the spot turns out to be incredibly difficult. These sorts of problems require deep concentration and quiet yet it tends to be awkward to have silence between strangers. The situation really inhibits serious problem solving.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER28> "Many brilliant people can seem delightful in a one-hour conversation, but their eccentricities become grating after a couple hours."

That is so true. Most people can't keep up their "interview face" for very long. It's tiring. At some point, if you put them at ease, they will revert to their normal self. That is when you'll get to see what they're really like. I've seen some pretty amazing transformations when waiting for this second phase of the interview.

</comment><comment><USER29> this is all pretty good advice, especially the reviewing past [code] experiences and getting a sense for what it'd be like to work with the person.

i like staunch's "spend a day with the team" method a lot, though talking about strengths/weaknesses and role playing certain scenarios is also a good way to get a sense for potential clashes ("tests are for monkeys" or what not)

what i didn't understand was the "smart" part. i don't think it's possible to get a sense for whether someone is smart--especially technical smarts as opposed to, say, leadership or empathy smarts--simply by talking with someone. in fact, the whole concept of smart is exactly what pressure-ful, fanciful interview questions are trying to get at. i'm not even sure "smart" is a single or useful concept.

specific interview questions do try to determine technical skills or thinking process...but it a chat over coffee, a single, brief encounter, any different? in a good way?

i'm nitpicking here, but i felt that the solution to smarts--assuming we define smart to something useful--is kind of weak.

<comment><USER30> I suspect the "being smart" is in terms that the employer can relate to - <USER2> they think about things in the kind of depth that I like / appreciate / can work with.

From my personal experience, I've dealt with smart people and smart people - one kind knows / understands a lot of things in a broad field, the other kind knows a lot about things but is almost completely devoid of common sense. I'd prefer the first kind in any situation where I or my friends would have to deal with them over the medium to long term. I'm pretty sure this would be reflected in all areas worth measuring for a company too.

So trying to define smart as a concrete measure may be missing the point, as you will actually have to work with the person, and what you feel is what tends to form your opinion / bias and affects your future interaction in such a way that it generally tends to become a self-fulfilling prophecy.

</comment></comment><comment><USER31> tl;dr version

Smart, affable, productive people with demonstrated ability make great employees.

I'm not interested so much in _who_ to hire -- I think that's a no brainer, frankly. I'm more interested in where to find these great people to hire. Really. We are having hell finding great developers.

</comment><comment><USER32> I'd imagine that googling for bug reports that one has been involved in on either side would be a good heuristic for problem solving skills and sociability. At the very least, you'll avoid hiring anyone who can be identified by googling for "bugzilla asshole".

</comment><comment><USER33> Great advice - I like the fact that Aaron keeps it real simple. I also like how he doesn't like questions along the lines of "counting the number of piano tuners in Chicago". I've been witness to interviews with similar questions and I'm always left wondering as to what the point was.

That said, I'm not sure if _all_ of his advice can be followed by a reasonably medium sized company/organization where hiring decisions are made by a committee, rather than one person.

As a side note, I think that reading a resume can actually be a good starting point to understand the candidate's background.

<comment><USER6> This thread has some decent discussion about the case-study type questions: <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=940527>

</comment></comment><comment><USER34> I've personally felt that asking obscure tech trivia questions is meaningless. There is no use in asking someone a question, the answer to which can be obtained by a quick Internet search. Edit: Grammar

<comment><USER35> I'm not a big fan of trivia, but there are basic details you will necessarily learn over time just by working with any technology, and not knowing these is damning. E.g., asking how arguments are passed is a quick shibboleth to catch the guy who thinks clicking "print to file" entitles him to put PostScript on his résumé (a colleague has actually witnessed this).

<comment><USER36> the problem is that these questions can devolve into a (you know) waving contest in which the interviewer is, instead of interviewing, satisfying his own ego by asking obscure questions that sever no purpose other than to inflate the interviewers perception of his own intelligence. This is particularly dangerous in technology professions where their is a high propensity of intellectual self-conceit.

I understand the low hanging fruit, I just witnessed and interview the other day for a Java web developer, and one of the questions was describe a singleton pattern to which the interviewee could not respond. Given that there has been a history of singleton / Java / Bad things web applications problem, not understanding the pattern is a significant issue and I did thing it was an appropriate question to use as a filter, but asking a web developer deep questions about class-loader nuances seems like overkill to me and I have seen that done as well.

<comment><USER37> I always loved to ask a single super obscure question that almost nobody would know the answer to. I didn't expect, or desire the 'correct' answer, I wanted to see how they handled the fact that they were asked something they almost assuredly didn't know. Did they say 'I dunno' and just shrug? Did they make some shit up? Did they try to work it out? That reaction to the uncertain/unknown is, I think, a pretty important part of figuring out if they'll be good to work with - who doesn't run into something unknown on a fairly common basis?

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER38> You should also check if the person is reliable (i.e. competent, responsible, hard worker and isn't an obnoxious diva). In a lot of situations you get people who seem fairly smart, yet make an effort to bring their personal problems to the workplace. This can be extremely counter productive ([http://www.reddit.com/r/reddit.com/comments/1octb/reddit_cof...](http://www.reddit.com/r/reddit.com/comments/1octb/reddit_cofounder_aaron_swartz_discusses_how_he/c1odyq)).

<comment> tsetse-fly That's the second time you've posted that link on HN. Do you have something against Aaron?

<comment><USER38> Yes, he is an annoying self-anointed expert. This ruins what could be an interesting debate (on any topic). It is ironic that a __bad employee __somehow becomes an expert in hiring people.

I wouldn't mind if people stop posting drivel from his site.

<comment> tsetse-fly Perhaps you should look past the author to the content. There are some interesting ideas in there and it seems to have spawned some good discussion.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER39> I think this a terrific interviewing method, but only if you have the metacognition to actually know why you didn't like a candidate, and the courage to tell them how they failed.

If you don't commit to that communication, you'll be an unsettling and depressing interviewer. You can't just play part of the process by the book, it really has to be all or nothing.

<comment><USER40> An interviewer has no obligation whatsoever to tell a candidate why he or she "failed" an interview. In fact, I'd say you'd be hard pressed to find one who would tell, for legal reasons. Companies hate being sued, so they're not going to tell you anything that might potentially give someone a reason to sue them.

</comment></comment><comment><USER41> Perhaps off-topic, I was a bit put off at his definition of a friend. I wouldn't want to befriend someone who keeps me around to solve his problems for free while I'm at work.

Being that I've only interviewed at big-ish companies and in Japan (where companies ape the large companies uncritically), I haven't had a chance to see some of these techniques :/

</comment><comment><USER36> I thought he had a great point on the technical questions some of the best developers that I have see, don't spend their time studying every trick question for the array of technologies they use, just so, on the off chance that if it comes up in an interview, they we be spot on. It is crazy, and it reflect poorly on the ability of the interviewer to competently understand the task they are trying to accomplish, which is hire a good developer that integrates into the team well, not a jeopardy contestant.

</comment><comment><USER15> Yep.

<comment><USER15> Ok, perhaps I wasn't clear. I love everything in this article, but it's hard to say anything that doesn't increase the complexity of it, which is the whole problem with people hiring programmers. So I'll say it again.

Yep.</comment></comment>


Creating Virtual Worlds (WebGL Course) - <AUTHOR> https://www.udacity.com/course/interactive-3d-graphics--cs291 <comment><AUTHOR> Working through this now.

Totally blown away by what can be achieved with WebGL...</comment>


That Windows 10 Tracks You – From German Cyber Intelligence - <AUTHOR> https://www.privateinternetaccess.com/blog/2018/11/534-ways-that-windows-10-tracks-you-from-german-cyberintelligence/ <comment><AUTHOR> > Windows firewall will ignore filters that block Microsoft Telemetry IPs

I purposefully set a default block rule and only allow windows update plus the one service that I want to run. My inner paranoid me said I should firewall it on the host and not on the windows VM, but then I couldn't distinguish between connections originating from Windows update and other connections to Microsoft servers, and I told myself I shouldn't be so paranoid. While I disagree with choices like keeping windows closed source, I thought they were an honest business, especially with the recent developments (since ballmer left), but hardcoding some things into a firewall is really dishonest.</comment>


BugSense announces support for Windows Phone 8 - <AUTHOR> http://blog.bugsense.com/post/34646769344/bugsense-announces-support-for-windows-phone-8

<comment><USER2> We are really proud & excited for this one!</comment>


The kdbuswreck - <AUTHOR> https://lwn.net/Articles/641534/ <comment><USER2> It's disappointing that no-one mentioned that they were reinventing GNU Hurd. This indicates that people do not know what designs already exist, nor indeed how POSIX APIs have been layered on top of them.

* [http://jdebp.eu./FGA/hurd-daemons.html#password](http://jdebp.eu./FGA/hurd-daemons.html#password)</comment>