In fighting homeless camp, Irvine's Asians win, but at a cost - <AUTHOR> http://www.latimes.com/local/lanow/la-me-homeless-asians-20180401-story.html <comment><USER3> This really is a regional problem. I live around the area, near the beautiful Santa Ana trail which connects two counties to the ocean. A few months ago, I rode down the 40-mile stretch for the first time in a long time, and I was absolutely shocked to see the extent of the tent city near the Anaheim Angels stadium. The people living there were living on hard times, it felt post- apocalyptic in some sense. The tent area spanned for a couple of miles - <USER2> was garbage everywhere, people washing the clothes on the trail, people urinating on the side, and some wondering around in a zombie-like state I can only assume was either mental illness or drug abuse.

Finally, officials decided to close the trail to do a clean-up. There was about 400 tons of trash, 14,000 needles and 5,000 lbs of "waste" removed. [http://losangeles.cbslocal.com/2018/04/07/santa-ana-river- tr...](http://losangeles.cbslocal.com/2018/04/07/santa-ana-river-trail- reopens/)

Honestly, I can't blame Irvine for not wanting this in their backyard. But unfortunately, as the people were getting evicted from these makeshift cities, they are setting up the tents in other neighboring cities. There is a small area near where I live now too.

I don't know what the answer is, or how to deal with it. All I can tell you is that it was not a good feeling, both from a humanitarian and safety point of view, i.e. I felt awful for the people living in this, but also uneasy around it.

<comment><USER4> > I don't know what the answer is, or how to deal with it.

The answer is to give them a home, help to get back into a regular life and make sure they don't run into the same issues again that led to their homelessness.

Finland has managed to achieve this, why can't the rest of the western world follow?

<comment><USER5> Most of these people had homes and jobs once, but prefer drugs and alcohol over the rules and expectations of those who provided said homes and jobs.

Homelessness is not a sudden condition, it is the result of thousands of choices to indulge in selfish behavior. Inflicting family oriented communities with shelters for these people is the wrong approach. We need to provided a path out of homelessness that enforces sobriety, sets behavioral expectations, and demands they get jobs. Sadly, such shelters exist and yet most prefer to stay drunk on the streets.

<comment><USER6> For instance it could be the result of ptsd from being in Iraq. Or Vietnam. Or Afghanistan. Where is the support for veterans?

It could be mental health - if you can't afford healthcare you may not be able keep a job. Once you don't have a job you very quickly end up homeless. Now you don't have a home, how do you possibly get treatment or a job? Eventually you are arrested and go to jail, where you can get treatment but now you're an excon so can't get a job so end up homeless without treatment.

You were kicked out of your home when you came out as a teenager - you're homeless, may not have even finished school, and many jobs these days have minimum age rules. So now you're stuck unless you're one of the lucky few who manages to get support and a home before drugs and alcohol become the only "escape"

Same as above but you're a kid abused by a family member, foster family, ...

Note how all of these paths eventually put you in a position where you cannot escape homelessness. You cannot get healthcare or a job without somewhere to live unless you're very lucky.

So instead you end up cycling through prison, which in just a small amount of time costs much more than covering the cost of housing in the first place.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> I'm Asian/Canadian (arrived in Canada in 1988 at 8) and have worked in the US since 2009. I consider myself a 0.5 generation immigrant.

Talking my parents, other first generation immigrants, and even some second generation etc. They do have a common view. If we came here with very little (my parents arrived with $200 in their pockets), worked hard, and eventually became successful then why can't other people do the same. These people had much easier start then us (they didn't coming here at mid 40s with $200 in total) and had better opportunities. Most of them see people collecting welfare we leeches off them (and the taxes they pay).

<comment><USER8> Drug addiction, mental illness, little education / scaffolding, no family support, etc.

Their view that if they did it why can't others is the same as the libertarian / rich people perspective of "I got mine, you should be able to get yours." Except not all people are the same, not all people have the same abilities, support, drive, etc. One should have compassion for those unable to help themselves. There will always be people trying to exploit a common good, but that doesn't mean they're the majority.

If you're willing to risk everything by moving to a new country with no money where you might not even speak the language, you're have above average drive and appetite for risk. For example, grandchildren of such immigrants do not share the same economic outlook [1].

[1] [https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2018/03/19/upshot/race-c...](https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2018/03/19/upshot/race- class-white-and-black-men.html)

<comment><USER7> If you talk to the group, their answer to drug addiction is its their fault for starting drugs. For family support, they had none when the came here and had very little opportunity too. My mom's first job was an sewing machine operator in a garment shop in Halifax. My wife's mom had barely finished grade 8 school.

Note that this is my oberservation of their views only.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> This is very similar the stories one hears regarding NIMBYism in the Silicon Valley. Hard working, successful immigrants seem to subscribe the just world hypothesis, exactly as one might predict. Their tolerance for those who aren't able to do the same is pretty low from what I've seen. If they can come here poor and in a generation become millionaires and buy a home in California of all places, then why can't everyone else.

<comment><USER10> Here's the part I don't buy. She says Irvine is made up of 45% Asians, but the protesters are mainly immigrants. Unless all 45% are first-generations, then what she said doesn't add up. She uses the word immigrant only twice in the article, near the top, with little proof backing her statement. Those that she interview have Asian names, but that doesn't mean they are immigrants.

By using the word immigrant, she made the article sensational. She tried to turn the protest into a topic of race, rather than simply stating Irvine residents don't want a homeless shelter in the neighborhood.

Are most immigrants intolerant of homeless in Irvine? That's rather absolute to be true. What about the other 40% whites? Do all of them approve of the homeless shelter? 40% vs 45% are about the same weight, but she chose to focus on only one side of the story. It would be more correct to state: Irvine, made up of 45% Asian ethnicity, fights back against homeless shelter.

<comment><USER11> She almost definitely categorized non-whites as "immigrants" based on assumption, simply based on the fact that I highly doubt she conducted a background survey of the protesters.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> > Asians are usually quiet, you know. Not this time.

I'm just pleased to see more Asian-Americans getting involved in politics. I lived in Irvine for a few months a while back, and it was a very clean city. I didn't see any leaves on the street, or homeless people for that matter (which I thought was strange, but I also felt safe not being accosted like in other areas of LA.) People can throw the NIMBY card around but if this is the issue it takes to see my former neighbors get involved in politics, so be it.

<comment><USER7> Agree!

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> Homelessness isn't a regional problem. It's a national problem. There needs to be an area designated for them at a a national level. Pushing people from place to place regionally is a terrible solution. An area needs to be designated for them nationally like Native American reservations when they were first created. The national solution needs to have programs to assist with addiction, mental health, and job training.

This is a really national issue. There are homeless everywhere. Let's approach it together with a national area all homeless people can go to for help.

<comment><USER14> In response to other children of this post: perhaps you can give more evidence as to how this solution would end up like the harsh imprisonment by oppressive regimes? Why do you instantly shoot down one of the only creative solutions in this entire discussion, other than trying to raise more money to throw at it (which clearly has not even begun to solve these problems).

<comment><USER15> This solution is basically just advocating putting all the homeless in one place without discussing how to actually fix anything once they are there (will there be houses and jobs for them?), which makes it sound like it will just be one big government mandated slum

<comment><USER16> Once they are there, the problem goes away.

Like, the issue of homelessness is really about how their presence impacts the rest of us.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> What troubles me about the Irvine case, is that it sounds like every other "concerned" group across the country when it comes to homelessness. No to tents, no to shelters in the neighborhood, no to homeless sleeping on the benches, etc. Everyone, it seems, wants the problem to go some place else, but no community, particularly in Silicon Valley, has stood up (to my knowledge and please correct me if I'm wrong here) that the homeless people of a community are PART of that community, and the community should embrace them, and integrate them.

Perhaps I'm overly optimistic...

</comment><comment><USER18> Is there any data on what is driving this?

How much of this is due to the cost to rent?

Is California a homeless destination due to climate and general tolerance to homeless camps...etc?

<comment><USER19> California is definitely a destination for homeless people due to climate and tolerance.

There is a practice known as Greyhound Therapy where many cities around the country put mentally ill people on a bus and just ship them off to be someone else's problem. Many times they pick California because they know that the homeless person would be better off there.

<comment><USER7> Then reverse it, ship it them to Montana

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> Heh, this reminds of a similar incident in New York a few years ago: [https://www.nytimes.com/2014/07/26/nyregion/homeless- shelter...](https://www.nytimes.com/2014/07/26/nyregion/homeless-shelters- opening-in-queens-stirs-ugly-exchanges.html)

tl;dr: they opened a homeless shelter in a heavily (Asian) immigrant community and were met with protests. The result was a sadly hilarious exchange between the two groups with one side yelling "get a job" and the other side yelling "go back to [some Asian country]".

A more paranoid person would see these moves as politically intentional. As the stereotype goes, they're expected to take it quietly, they're not as politically involved, and when they do, they're less likely to invoke sympathy (xenophobia in America seems to be more acceptable, at least vs. racism, and there appears to be a lot of resentment towards Asians.) The problem then becomes minority-vs-minority, so racism accusations are not directed at whites.

</comment><comment><USER21> The problem I see is that the county (Orange) is unilaterally deciding which cities (Irvine, Huntington Beach, Laguna Niguel) the homeless should be moved to.

<comment><USER22> It comes down to land ownership - county owns more land in some cities than others. They cannot propose homeless housing in Rancho Santa Margarita or Coto de Caza since most of that land is owned by someone other than the county.

</comment></comment><comment><USER23> What cost. Sounds like they just plain won.

<comment><USER24> FWIW I think the implication is a moral cost.

</comment></comment><comment><USER25> I read the article and then realized why is it on the front page of Hackernews. Half the comments are flame-baiting. Wonder if there was a better way to self-moderate this without the moderators who may be offline on a Sunday.

</comment><comment><USER26> excuse me dang, i have tried repeatedly to contact the admins through email without any response. i believe that my account tempagain567i and its associated ip has been incorrectly rate limited. i havent posted or commented in more than a day and it still wont let me post anything. i would be more than happy to correct my behaviour if you would be so kind as to point out my violation of site guidelines. Thanks.

<comment><USER27> It just takes time to write replies, especially on weekends.

We detached this comment from [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16787870](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16787870) and marked it off-topic.

</comment></comment><comment><USER28> > a dentist with offices in Irvine and Orange, said he paid about $5,000 to > sponsor seven buses…

I understand this dentist wanted to protect his neighborhood in his mind, but it's really sad if he's not donating any money to actually help the homeless.

<comment><USER29> I don't think $5k will do much in a state that spends far beyond that per person.</comment></comment>


Ember's Glimmer Engine - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/emberjs/ember.js/pull/10501 <comment><USER2> React 0.14 is going to have similar optimizations. Check those three posts if you are interested in the details :)

Reuse Constant Value Types like ReactElement: [https://github.com/facebook/react/issues/3226](https://github.com/facebook/react/issues/3226)

Tagging ReactElements: [https://github.com/facebook/react/issues/3227](https://github.com/facebook/react/issues/3227)

Inline ReactElements: [https://github.com/facebook/react/issues/3228](https://github.com/facebook/react/issues/3228)

<comment><USER3> React's unfair and one-sided patent grant aside (personally, I will never build a real app with React unless that situation changes), it is not a complete MVC framework, and to my knowledge there is nothing that fills in the gaps to make something close to Ember feature-wise. So while React may end up faster, Ember will hopefully be quick enough that its programming model wins out.

Edit: grammar.

<comment><USER4> It's also worth noting that we're getting to the point where fastest doesn't really matter. Both Ember and React will be fast enough. Performance shouldn't be a deciding factor.

<comment><USER5> One of the motivations for this change was that a real-world application was too slow. As the original presentation says, choosing a technology and then finding out that it's limiting you is really rough when it happens to you.

Performance _does_ enable certain kinds of applications, and it does absolutely matter, even on the desktop.

<comment><USER3> Performance matters, but if Ember can have 50-60% of the speed of a performance-optimized React app without the associated cognitive overhead, I suspect many will see the trade-off as worth it.

<comment><USER4> Agreed. And I suspect Ember can get closer than that, if not even outdo React in some cases.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> The performance of Glimmer is amazing, but lets not forget this gem: "backwards compatible with Ember 1.x apps."

Here's to a future where our apps get faster without us having to change a thing.

<comment><USER7> Indeed. I continue to be impressed at how painless keeping current with ember in our application has been.

<comment><USER8> That's awesome to hear! It takes an unbelievable amount of energy and sometimes frustrates us with how slow and deliberate we need to be with features.

<comment><USER9> Thank you for taking the time. Ember's API stability made it the only viable choice for our web apps at work.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> I always have a problem with these kinds of frameworks. Every time I try to use one, and want to do something more in-depth for fancy than a lot of the functionality out-of-the-box, then I end up having to hunt down the way to extend X feature, and it often takes me more effort to do that then just writing in the root language would be.

That is to say: The abstraction isn't as expressive as the root language, and when I need something more expressive, then it's more troublesome than writing than the root language.

The rendering engine here does seem to perform admirably, and I have to congratulate them on that. Maybe I've just been burned a few too many times from this kind of language.

<comment><USER11> Every framework has a learning curve. In this instance it seems to have a significant performance benefit. That's your trade-off.

<comment><USER12> I didn't take his comment to be about a learning curve. I think the complaint is that the abstraction on top is not as expressive as the thing it abstracts. This means that when you break the abstraction you have the complexity of the thing you abstracted away on top of the abstraction layer itself, which means you might have been better off without the abstraction in the first place.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> Glimmer is a revolutionary improvement in Ember's rendering performance. I'm incredibly excited by the progress and promise being realized in Tom and Yehuda's PR.

For more context, here are a few quick slides from the EmberConf keynote:

[http://f.cl.ly/items/0t031v2Z3y001V1N0F3N/Virtual%20DOM.pdf](http://f.cl.ly/items/0t031v2Z3y001V1N0F3N/Virtual%20DOM.pdf)

They, and the PR, tell the whole story about what is happening in the dbmonster demo. We expect this work to land in Ember 1.13 stable!

<comment><USER14> I needed improvements in Ember's rendering performance a year ago, back when performance improvements were already behind schedule.

A situation which still remains in production Ember today: [http://youtu.be/z5e7kWSHWTg?t=2m42s](http://youtu.be/z5e7kWSHWTg?t=2m42s)

It's too little too late for me. I wouldn't want to touch anything Ember or anything from the authors.

<comment><USER13> I also needed improvements. So I shipped the code to make them happen! Very proud of our progress.

I hope the stability and reliability of Ember's process, and its continuing improvement, will tempt you back.

<comment><USER14> Yes, you're right. It's my fault for not pitching in. I should have worked my way in to the core team and fixed it myself, rather than selecting one of the other performant frameworks available.

> the stability and reliability of Ember's process

I'm aware you're one of the people who finally got it done, kudos. But the chances of going back to Ember are nonexistent. This was my experience with Ember:

[http://discuss.emberjs.com/t/when-will-htmlbars-be- ready/315...](http://discuss.emberjs.com/t/when-will-htmlbars-be- ready/3155/58)

* 08/2013: Unusable performance when displaying listviews with over 20 items, without infiscroll (unofficial and poorly supported, or roll-your own). Promises that it will be resolved in next months.

* 08/2014: Still getting the runaround about when those "improvements" will arrive.

Only one of a dozen things which made working with Ember horrific. Apologies for being bitter, but it is what it is.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> For the curious, here's a port of the Dbmonster demo to a simple Underscore template — the kind of base-level rendering strategy you might _start with_ in a Backbone app. (And vintage 2009 technology.)

[http://jashkenas.github.io/dbmonster/](http://jashkenas.github.io/dbmonster/)

 _Edit:_

To head off grumbling at the pass — It would also be easy to do a slightly less-simple version that keeps the flickering impossible-to-read popups open (putting redundant tooltip DOM into each table cell isn't how you'd actually write this), and the server names selectable ... but those particular "features" don't really seem relevant to this particular UI.

<comment><USER16> Unfortunately your example isn't a full reproduction as both the Ember/React examples reuse existing DOM which is important for selection state and the popover functionality.

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> Here is a pretty neat demo with tons of live updates from a firebase cluster: [https://dbmonster.firebaseapp.com/](https://dbmonster.firebaseapp.com/)

<comment><USER18> Demo of embers original performance with dbmon along with angular and react [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z5e7kWSHWTg](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z5e7kWSHWTg)

<comment><USER19> Are there demos and/or source code for the Angular and React implementations used in that presentation? I'd like to compare React to this new Ember implementation, because the latter, while better than the Ember demo in that presentation, is still noticeably sluggish on my machine.

<comment><USER20> Would take with salt. The angular version doesn't use track by [https://docs.angularjs.org/api/ng/directive/ngRepeat#trackin...](https://docs.angularjs.org/api/ng/directive/ngRepeat#tracking- and-duplicates)

These demos are like listening to MongoDB talk about how great MongoDB performs. Always better to look for yourself or check a trusted third party.

Here's an angular dbmon that is at least using track by. I didn't write it. [http://run.plnkr.co/plunks/Uu7w8p7jiPEJp5lLHWbB/](http://run.plnkr.co/plunks/Uu7w8p7jiPEJp5lLHWbB/)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> Gotta say, the incremental improvement pattern Ember is adhering to is absolutely the bee's knees. Kudos Ember team, so awesome to see!

</comment><comment><USER21> >building virtual DOM nodes for static areas of your markup that will never change for every change requires many more allocations and increases GC pressure.

I'm not familiar with Ember, but why not just store the constant value in a variable to solve this problem? For example, in MithrilJS, you write templates in plain JavaScript, so I just stash large, static parts of the tree in variables and only rebuild vdom nodes for dynamic content. Simple.

<comment><USER22> You appear to have been downvoted; while I don't know whether your potential solution is right or wrong your downvoters should have been polite enough to explain their reasoning.

<comment><USER13> I am confused what is being suggested.

> virtual DOM nodes for static areas of your markup

refers to React's virtual DOM implementation, not Ember's.

> I'm not familiar with Ember, but why not just store the constant value in a > variable to solve this problem?

Ember is a complex framework. Suggesting a "solution" to challenges with an acknowledged lack of context, and adding "Simple", shows fairly poor attitude.

> I just stash large, static parts of the tree in variables and only rebuild > vdom nodes for dynamic content

This sounds pretty much like what is already described in the PR.

Again, still confused, and still don't know what is being suggested.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Quote from wycats during the talk:

       > Because our template language is declarative, we can do this at compile time.

"This" being determining which portions of the DOM will never change, and so only needing to analyze the portions that might.

<comment><USER23> Is the talk online?

<comment><USER4> Not yet. It just happened and will need to be post-processed. I'm pretty sure all EmberConf talks will eventually end up online.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> It's pretty cool that a year ago, React was far and away the best choice for new JS development for reasons that seemed to be architectural (no dependence on the DOM/server-renderable, isomorphic, intentionally minimal DOM modification), and in the intervening time, the Ember guys have taken the good ideas from React and brought them to Ember. Congratulations! It's great to see the best ideas lifting all boats.

</comment><comment><USER25> Looks like Glimmer's wits regarding the distinction of static and dynamic parts of the template should be applicable to JST, HAML and the rest as well. The dynamic parts are clearly marked with template tags, and local (changed) variables would be easy to scan for within the dynamic parts of the code. This would probably mean that the template engine should decompose the template into smaller bits, and provide metadata by which the view can map DOM fragments to template fragments (DocumentFragment, DOMNode, DOMAttribute, TextNode) and related Model attributes. Attrubte-level change events could then either directly expire the relevant fragments, or the View onChange/render function would skip repainting the unchanged parts and use appropriate (previously decomposed) fragments of the template function to render changes.

</comment><comment><USER11> Interesting it's using Handlebars - I wonder how it compares to the diffing done in Ractive, which also uses a similar syntax ([http://www.ractivejs.org/](http://www.ractivejs.org/)).

<comment><USER4> To be clear, while we're using Handlebars syntax, the underlying runtime is not the standard handlebars.js, but a custom version for Ember.

</comment></comment><comment><USER26> I see a lot of talk and comparison to React but nothing about Meteor's Blaze engine and its HTMLJS virtual DOM diffing approach which seems even more comparable

</comment><comment><USER27> Will these virtual DOM/diff'ing optimizations be built into the browsers at some point? Seems like they should/would.

<comment><USER28> Yes. They should. Currently DOM works in an imperative, immediate way. Kind of like a Basic program or OpenGL immediate mode. After a write to a property you are guaranteed to get the same value back after you read the property. The dependent properties are also guaranteed to be updated immediately. Surprisingly, this imperative way of programming is actually not efficient at all because subsequent writes and reads may cause reflow.

To prevent this the programming model should be changed. There are two ways that I can imagine.

\- Introduce "DOM batching mode". In this mode remove the immediate mode guarantees. If you specify an element width you are no longer guaranteed to read it back until the layout occurs. So store your intermediate element width somewhere if you want to use it. Of course you don't need to specify batching mode for all the DOM tree. Just the majority of it that doesn't require custom layout.

\- IIUC the majority of times that you need to perform multiple reads and writes of the DOM properties is due to special layout requirements. In some cases CSS layout may not be enough. There should be an API that allows to specify custom layout strategy for a parent DOM element. JavaScript should be fast enough. The additional benefit is that we would no longer need to wait for e.g. Flexbox adoption. Just roll your own.

It is obvious that we are trying to turn HTML into a GUI framework. So let's do it properly.

The problems we are facing with DOM have already been solved by multiple game engines and GUI frameworks.

<comment><USER29> > Introduce "DOM batching mode". In this mode remove the immediate mode > guarantees. If you specify an element width you are no longer guaranteed to > read it back until the layout occurs. So store your intermediate element > width somewhere if you want to use it. Of course you don't need to specify > batching mode for all the DOM tree. Just the majority of it that doesn't > require custom layout.

Some sort of DOM-like buffer[1] that you could render into and then "flush"/insert, maybe?

[1] [https://developer.mozilla.org/en- US/docs/Web/API/DocumentFra...](https://developer.mozilla.org/en- US/docs/Web/API/DocumentFragment)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER30> I am not as smart as lot of guys here..but What exactly is Glimmer's additional optimisations other than Virtual DOM?...

What exactly does this mean "the programming model is equivalent to render every time, but we take advantage of the declarative nature of Ember's APIs to reduce work."??

<comment><USER31> Ember's templates allows the framework to determine which portions of the DOM will never change, and so only needing to analyze the portions that might.

 <-- this won't change

Hello World
 <-- this won't change

{{name}} <-- this might change

<comment><USER30> Wow..Thanks a lot..Now I understand the sentence..

But I think now this may force us to use more handlebars. Manipulations in didInsertElement may get affected as well. Like updating classes which I sometimes prefer doing in hooks like click, didInsertElement.

<comment><USER32> Additionally, rather then having a "virtualDOM" we build a tree of the dynamic data. This is more or less diff'ed similarly to how the virtualDOM is diff'ed.

But where it get interesting is when it comes to actual DOM interaction. To create DOM, we use document fragments + cloneNodes, but for granular updates we utilize property/attribute/textContent updates. When used correctly, this combination turns out to be very fast.

As a bonus, we are typically able to utilize the browsers built-in XSS and sanitization (or just lack of parsing) rather then having to implement this slowly in JavaScript ourselves.

Ultimately, I am extremely happy with how the various front-end frameworks keep pushing the envelope. Getting faster, easier to use, and more secure. Ultimately regardless of the framework the ecosystem moving forward benefits the end users the most.

<comment><USER30> Thanks Stef. This explains a lot. Its great that Ember responded with best way after many started comparing with the performance lag of Ember. I was lil' skeptical when you declared this in December, but now I am looking fwd for the release.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER33> I feel like the techniques React uses to deal with state and performance are likely to be addressed in a simpler way by solutions that work better with the existing stack. I'm not an Ember user but I like the way they've approached this, without re-inventing the DOM wheel.

</comment><comment><USER34> So what happens with all those JQuery plugins that manipulate the DOM directly in didInsertElement? I'm guessing Glimmer doesn't have a clue how to optimize that use case. So a lot of components need to be rewritten from scratch in Ember-style?

<comment><USER35> Well, if you need the performance increase, the yes. Otherwise your options are to (maybe) tweak your current implementation so it continues to work or rewrite the functionality to be compatible with the view layer. This is the same trade-off you make with React since it's basically the same technology.

</comment></comment><comment><USER36> Is that DBMonster app becoming the new todo app for all JS framework to implement?

<comment><USER37> i think the todo app is a good demonstration of the specific code necessary to accomplish a standardized task.

DBMonster is more like a standard performance benchmarker.

</comment></comment><comment><USER38> Can we have a side-by-side comparison of the same demo using normal Ember?

<comment><USER39> It's slow. Real slow. The original demo really stressed Ember's pathological cases, so it was a great thing to keep in mind as we developed Glimmer.

<comment><USER40> I saw the original at a Meetup a while back and it was crash-the-browser slow. This is far improved.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER41> > On my machine, the dbmon app in Ember+Glimmer gets 10 renders per second, > React gets 14. Not bad, way better than 0.1 per second!

[https://twitter.com/ryanflorence/status/572991666090467330](https://twitter.com/ryanflorence/status/572991666090467330)

</comment><comment><USER42> Never used ember but that deserves a pretty complete write up about what was done and how.

Nice work.

<comment><USER5> Here's a TL;DR:

A handlebars template might look like this:

          {{#if enabled}}

I'm enabled!

          {{#end}}

The usual DOM-diffing algorithm compares every single thing: "has this div changed? Has the class changed? Has the
 changed?"

This uses the knowledge of Handlebars to make the diffing algorithm smarter: you don't need to check if the
 or its class has changed, it never will. You don't need to check if the
's contents have changed, it never will. This means less to diff, which means more speed.

This is the advantage of using a declarative syntax for templating: this analysis can be done entirely at compile time.

<comment><USER43> Thanks for the concise description. Love to see Team Ember take advantage of the information users are already feeding the existing public API.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER44> So how does this compare with Ionic/Angular on mobile? I recently made an app with Ionic, but the 1.0 migration caused gestures to no longer work. Can Glimmer run well on mobile?

<comment><USER45> I'll go ahead and plug myself here only because it's very relevant, but if you want to play with a full-stack for building mobile apps using virtual DOM, check out [http://reapp.io](http://reapp.io)

</comment></comment><comment><USER30> What kind of DOM model Ember is using like React.DOM?...I don't think handlebars create DOM Objects?...great to see How Ember accepted the change and implemented that...

<comment><USER46> Handlebars doesn't, but HTMLBars does indeed [generate][1] DOM objects from Handlebars AST - it's basically another compile step. Check out section 2 and 3.

[1]([https://github.com/tildeio/htmlbars/blob/master/ARCHITECTURE...](https://github.com/tildeio/htmlbars/blob/master/ARCHITECTURE.md))

<comment><USER30> I see that HTMLBars is building more of Document fragments rather a single DOM tree. Would be interesting to check if all these document fragments are independent to each other like 1000's of HTMLBar views inserted directly into the Ember Application as siblings rather as a tree. There will be lot of memory involved than when you use a single DOM tree. isn't it?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER30> Interesting..it has been 10 days Yehuda made that comment and now we come to know about it...or there was discussion before on same which i might have missed?

</comment><comment><USER26> I see a lot of talk and comparison to React but nothing about Meteor's Blaze engine and HTMLJS which seems even more comparable

</comment><comment><USER47> ng2 will have similar optimizations i believe. interesting times in the 2.0 framework wars! lol i kidddd

<comment><USER48> Angular 2.0 has similar optimizations but sacrifices backwards compatibility. Glimmer is still backwards compatible with Ember 1.x.

</comment></comment><comment><USER49> But will it work with Emblem? Also how does this affect FastBoot?

<comment><USER4> Emblem compiles to Handlebars so it will gain all of the benefits of Glimmer. FastBoot is only concerned with the initial render which is done on the server. Glimmer is concerned with updates so it will not directly affect FastBoot but will work with it.

</comment></comment><comment><USER50> So mutable structures can be powerful too, when handled right :)

</comment><comment><USER51> Will this be built into handlebars or just ember?

<comment><USER52> Just Ember. I'm pretty sure Ember doesn't even have a dependency on Handlebars anymore. (possibly only off stable)

<comment><USER4> Ember still uses the Handlebars syntax, but we don't use the standard Handlebars runtime anymore.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER53> Yawn. Dust has had all this (and much more) for a long time. [http://akdubya.github.io/dustjs/](http://akdubya.github.io/dustjs/)

<comment><USER4> This is only meaningful if Dust has all the other features that Ember templating has.</comment></comment>


Frank Ramsey: A more human philosophy - <AUTHOR> https://www.the-tls.co.uk/articles/frank-ramsey-a-more-human-philosophy/ <comment><USER2> > Ramsey Theory ... is often explained to undergraduates via the Party > Problem, which asks what the minimum number of guests is such that at least > n will know each other.

This isn't quite correct, as of course you can in principle have a party where no one knows anyone else. The correct question is: "what is the minimum number of guests such that either there are n guests who all know each other, or there are n guests none of whom know each other".

The answer for a given n is sometimes called the nth Ramsey number. Ramsey proved that the Ramsey number exists and is finite for all n. The third Ramsey number is 6, i.e. at a party of 6, there's either a clique of 3 or an "anti- clique" of 3. The fourth Ramsey number is 18 and is the largest n for which we know the number. We know that the fifth Ramsey number lies between 43 and 49 but don't know what it is despite decades of research (a fact that I find amazing).

</comment><comment><USER3> [https://archive.is/bQWXH](https://archive.is/bQWXH)</comment>


Microsoft unveils an app store for PWAs - <AUTHOR> https://blogs.windows.com/msedgedev/2018/02/06/welcoming-progressive-web-apps-edge-windows-10/#5bEXBPwCqSgWttia.97 <comment><USER2> This is just as bad as Chrome's own store for packaged web apps. It's funny how they even say in the beginning that progressive web apps don't need to be packaged...but let's do it anyway, because we _love_ lock-in!

<comment><AUTHOR> I don't get it. Chrome's store is for Chrome extensions and apps only. Not progressive web apps in general. If I get it correctly, Microsoft is trying to create an app store for applications that are already available on the internet as is.</comment></comment>


U.S. Defense Department bars for-profit school from tuition funds and recruiting - <AUTHOR> http://www.wsj.com/articles/university-of-phoenix-barred-from-military-bases-1444369975 <comment><USER2> No, the US Military dealt a huge blow against soldiers being exploited by "abusive, deceptive and aggressive recruiting tactics":

[https://www.revealnews.org/article/university-of-phoenix- sid...](https://www.revealnews.org/article/university-of-phoenix-sidesteps- obama-order-on-recruiting-veterans/)

<comment><USER2> Posted as counter to original "Business Insider" incorrect clickbait

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> Url changed from [http://www.slate.com/blogs/business_insider/2015/10/09/the_d...](http://www.slate.com/blogs/business_insider/2015/10/09/the_defense_department_suspends_the_university_of_phoenix_from_recruiting.html), which points to this.</comment>


Show HN: Layoffs.at – helping people laid off find work - <AUTHOR> https://layoffs.at/ <comment><USER2> I'm confused. Is there some aspect about a person being laid off that makes them more/less desirable that they need a specific service to help them find a new job? I know some people who have been laid off might be dusty with job hunting skills and there are services to help anyone that specific area.

Also seeing a trend of _niche_ job websites popping up... Fragmentation in this industry seems counterproductive.

<comment><USER3> > I'm confused. Is there some aspect about a person being laid off that makes > them more/less desirable that they need a specific service to help them find > a new job?

Yes. There are stigmas. People solve this by just having their perpetual consulting company on their resume, or put back on their resume when convenient. There is bargaining power when you can feign disinterest, as in you're 'open to opportunities' but not 'looking for a job I'll start next week' like a new college grad. Less relevant for engineers in this job market but not irrelevant.

> Also seeing a trend of niche job websites popping up... Fragmentation in > this industry seems counterproductive.

But that buyout isn't counterproductive.

Also recruiters either earn a tiny referral bonus or like 20% of the agreed upon salary. The company doesn't pay it from the employee's salary, they just pay that additional amount equivalent to what 20% of the salary is.

<comment><USER4> > just having their perpetual consulting company on their resume

Has this ever fooled anyone? Ever?

<comment><USER3> > fooled

That presupposes that it is inaccurate which doesn't have to be proved or disproved since its irrelevant either way:

It undermines the stigma of 'gaps', 'hopping around', and also shows relevant experience as much as other roles, if that's what you want it to do. If you actually had clients then consider listing them too

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> I wish there was an "about" section or something similar.

Right now I see basically two registration forms.

Can anyone provide more context?

<comment><AUTHOR> There will be an about today.

As a company, we work closely with those laid off to help them find their next job. We don't charge candidates for this service.

Given our extremely technical backgrounds, we can help people and companies based strongly on technical experience, past projects, and future interests. We understand how important it is to work on not just exciting projects, but interesting technology.

<comment> master-litty Thank you for taking the time to reply.

>we work closely

How closely? What do you do?

>We don't charge candidates for this service.

So you're a recruiting company that targets layoffs? Why would I use a service like this over, for example, Triplebyte, which also accommodates the same scenario? From both perspectives -- The company and the candidate.

>Given our extremely technical backgrounds

How extremely? In what way?

>based strongly on technical experience,

What technical experience?

>past projects,

What past projects?

>and future interests.

What future interests?

<comment><AUTHOR> One thing that has always felt wrong/broken/dirty, is how little people get to know about you when applying for a job. In order to correct this, we schedule a call to learn the following:

Understand experience.

\- Learn more about recent projects and you're personal involvement; role \- Understand what technologies were used and your depth of those technologies

Understand what you're looking for in terms of: \- Problems excite you \- Technology and architectures

> So you're a recruiting company that targets layoffs?

A better way of looking at it is, we're a networking platform for candidates and companies to find one another. In addition to this, we do provide a concierge service for companies in which we will send out a curated list of candidates we spoken to personally along with a write up of that persons experience.

> How extremely? In what way?

Our professional background is in software development. We love talking tech! What technology do you use?

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> What's the benefit of targeting only people who have been part of a high profile layoffs? Seems like a smaller pool on both sides-less people to recruit, and less recruiters who specifically are interested in these types of candidates.

If it's as a proxy to quality of candidate, isn't there a better way to measure that?

<comment><AUTHOR> We feel like keeping a very niche focus allows us to do a fantastic job at helping candidates find their next job. It will enable us to work closely with the candidates and work on a process that can eventually scale.

</comment></comment><comment> jagged-chisel > High profile layoffs in $whatever

Does 'high profile' matter? My layoff months ago closed an office locally (25 people laid off) in a country-wide effort affecting about 200 people. It wasn't in the news, there was no PR around the action. Further layoffs followed around the world, and still no news (publicly traded company - doesn't The Market love a layoff?) The former parent company (who had created the spinoff 9mos previously) wasn't aware (you'd expect networking between execs to maintain a grapevine, right?)

Interviewers were often incredulous. I feel like this was a factor in being declined an offer in a few cases.

<comment><AUTHOR> > Does 'high profile' matter? Not at all. There's really no discrimination > based on how big company or layoff is, we'll work with you. This was placed > here to appeal to companies. We want to create as much "liquidity" as > possible to help people bounce back.

I would love feedback on what do you think would be a better phrase?

> doesn't The Market love a layoff? The market does love layoffs; but there's > no centralized place for companies and candidates to find one another. > That's what we provide. We'll also help in the process if you like.

When I was younger, I went through this process and really wished I had someone to help me through it. Watching all of these recent layoffs made me want to do something about it.

If there's anything you feel like could be done to help those affected by layoffs, I would love to hear it.

Thank you for your feedback!

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> So far seems to be a data mining effort. I create an account and then I'm whisked away to a form that want's my information to build a profile. At this point, I have no idea what the service will specifically do for me, other than compile my information.

<comment><AUTHOR> Sorry, it's not a data mining effort. We're taking sign-ups now and will start scheduling calls with people. To best help us, getting some information makes this process move faster.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> Similarly: [https://www.layoff-aid.com/](https://www.layoff-aid.com/)

<comment><USER9> Thanks bkfunk. All — I launched layoff-aid.com for SF tech talent in 2017. Love the initiative here and happy to help push it forward or do whatever else I can to better solve the problem. Email is Adam@ , mention HN

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> To me, this looks like an email collection form. Do you actually have a product built, or are just testing the market?

</comment><comment><USER11> So what's with all the recruiting companies?

<comment><AUTHOR> We're not a recruiting firm, and we'll make this distinction very clear on the website soon.

The primary purpose of the website is to help people bounce back from being laid off. Given this is our primary mission, we don't do the following:

\- We don't charge companies a % of a candidate's salary. This feels dirty to us, and it's not in the candidate's best interest. \- We don't prevent companies from discovering people who have been laid off. Profiles on the website will be visible to companies, much like LinkedIn.

Since we're technical, we want to speak with you. Understand your background, technical expertise, and what you're looking to work on.

We are focusing on a niche market and this allows us to focus our energy on actually speaking to each candidate in-depth about their technical experience; we'll be able to represent you and get you that interview quicker.

<comment> master-litty [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Recruitment](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Recruitment)

>Recruitment refers to the overall process of attracting, shortlisting, selecting and appointing suitable candidates for jobs (either permanent or temporary) within an organization.

It appears this is indeed what your organization is, based on your own words: "we'll be able to represent you and get you that interview quicker."

Are you avoiding the recruitment buzzword, or are you truly something different? I'm having a hard time telling it apart.

<comment><AUTHOR> The reason for avoiding the usage of the word "recruiter" is certainly intentional. We don't feel like that term lends itself well to what we're trying to do honestly.

We're not sure exactly what term best expresses this, but more on the lines of a concierge service. The business model is structured in a way that ensures we do what's best for both candidate and company.

Please don't slap me for using an "X for Y" analogy, but we're CarMax for Hiring. We need to work on translating that into words.

CarMax has fix prices and aims to ensure that your experience as a car buying isn't tainted with a feeling that you got ripped off. We want candidates to know we're on their side and are not motivated working against their best interest.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> I tried something similar with "rejected.dev" ([https://coderfit.com/rejected- dev](https://coderfit.com/rejected-dev)) but no one was interested. There is some kind of stigma attached to being rejected, it seems. If another firms throws you out, even if it is not your fault, there is still some loser touch attached to you and the perceived value of you drops, sadly.

</comment><comment><USER13> Their privacy policy is in a `<pre>` with `overflow: auto;`.

[https://layoffs.at/privacy](https://layoffs.at/privacy)

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for pointing this out. This was fixed.

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> Grammatical error on the landing page.

"Are you _a_ Hiring?"

Any github link where we can post issues?

<comment><USER15> Another: "We connected you with great companies looking for you!"

Should probably be revised to something like: "We connect you with great companies, who are looking for great workers like you!"

Or something more simple, like: "We connect great companies with fantastic workers!"

<comment><USER16> That one really confused me and gives the whole operation a slightly spammy smell.

<comment><USER17> Agreed

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> Seems to have been hugged to death. Also, some of the header links seemed to not work, possibly due to overzealous ad blockers? Not sure, I clicked on something else and got a 502 after that.

<comment><AUTHOR> Interesting - the server seems to be responding. What browser/os?

<comment><USER18> Chrome/Ubuntu 18.04

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> Job markets are mostly national, so the site would benefit from stating their coverage on the front page. Especially if they are (mis)using a country top level domain.

</comment><comment><USER20> Sorry, but this is just depressing. I would never use that.

</comment><comment><USER21> I really got a kick out of this. Its sort of fiendishly brilliant to launch a "layoff" job board in advance of a recession.</comment>


NYTimes Design Concept - <AUTHOR> http://nytimes.tematroinoi.com/ <comment><USER2> I really love it. Watching at this video I had the feeling to be in the future. Awesome !</comment>


Miguel de Icaza on Windows 10x - <AUTHOR> https://twitter.com/migueldeicaza/status/1228324248927817728 <comment><USER2> I understand where they are coming from, but most of the apps I write 'hook or poke the OS in unsavory ways'. That's one of the benefits of the win32 app model. If you can't do that anymore, you might as well write web apps.

<comment><USER3> >If you can't do that anymore, you might as well write web apps.

Come on.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> I wonder how long until Windows switches to the Linux kernel.

</comment><comment><USER5> Judging from the screenshots, the UI looks like KDE.

</comment><comment><USER6> Billy Gates once said that RPM and centralised package management/repositories were a bad (for business) idea

<comment><USER7> It's very clear that you have extreme respect for those statements when you call him "Billy," too.

<comment><USER6> I think he also said something to the tune of "How would you make people buy software if they can find and download a package for anything they want with a few mouse clicks?"

<comment><USER8> Then Steam and iOS Apple store happened and they have been trying to copy that model ever since.

And Android did copy the model and it is amazingly profitable for Google.

Microsoft seems to be hating themselves over that failure.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Are We An Unjust People? - <AUTHOR> http://braythwayt.com/2013/03/21/unjust.html

<comment><USER2> In short, yes, we are, and it's shitty. Reg, everything you wrote here is pretty spot-on.

Adria Richards' behavior was definitely a tactical misstep. With the benefit of hindsight, she should have reported the inappropriate behavior to the conference staff more discretely. Or, even, turned around and told them to show some respect. (And, if they didn't cut the crap, THEN get them kicked from the conference.)

I don't believe that what she did was inappropriate/unacceptable in any kind of moral sense, and I would gladly hire Adria if I was hiring for that kind of role. If a person is making jokes with sexual innuendoes during a talk, they shouldn't be at that conference, and shouldn't be surprised that there are consequences, no matter _how_ many kids they have. Behavior in public is _already_ public; putting it on the internet may make it more so, but it's not as if they had any expectation of privacy in the first place.

At the root, I'm glad she stuck up for herself _somehow_ , rather than just kept quiet. She did so in a clumsy way, and has been castigated for it far more harshly than is useful.

Furthermore, this is a clear incident of sexism in our community. If I had done the exact same thing, there's no way that /r/mensrights would DDoS Joyent into firing me. This is why women feel unsafe and mistreated in our communities: _because they are._ If they stick up for themselves, they're going to face an onslaught of trolling, and even the ostensible "good guys" are quick to point out that yes, yes, we don't condone this sort of thing, but come on, She Was Asking For It.

As I said, her reaction was a tactical misstep. At a higher level, there's a strategic point about preventing these sorts of things from happening in the first place. How do we ensure that the next Adria feels empowered enough to tell the boys behind her to cut it out, where they realize their inappropriateness for the environment and apologize and the world moves on with dignity? How do we build communities that are compassionate, without so many pikes looking for heads?

Every time some shitstorm like this happens, we all lose a chunk of our humanity, no matter what side we're on, or who does or doesn't get fired.

I feel like a parent of a 14-year-old child, reading a news story about a 16-year-old dying in some horrible car wreck on prom night, knowing that mine will be that age soon enough.

Node is SO nice right now. As technology communities go, it's astounding how compassionate and friendly we've managed to keep things. Even in the face of some strongly held religious feelings about CoffeeScript or async or promises etc, we still talk to one another, like human beings. Our IRC channel and mailing list has a zero-tolerance policy for rude conduct. Our meetups are small and there are enough regulars to keep up a culture of "We don't do that sort of thing here" with respect to lewd jokes, homophobia, sexism, ableism, etc.

What happens when Node is as big as Python? How do we keep this going?

<comment><USER3> I don't believe this was a Python problem or an issue of the Python community, it's a general issue plaguing technology. We're all trying to figure our way through it as best we can - and when things like this happen we need to do our best to stay calm and rational and keep everything in proportion. I think no matter who's "side" you were on in this debate, everyone can agree that most reactions were overblown for the actual events that occurred.

So I think as long as the Node community remains aware of the gender issues and goes to lengths to promote a friendly and tolerant environment that's the key. But to put it in perspective, I think that everyone should be doing that no matter your language of choice. :)

<comment><USER2> True, despite my joking tweet earlier, I don't think that this is at all a Python problem, except insofar as the "python community" is a huge community of people who (by virtue of its size) mostly are strangers to one another.

You're right that it's not about the language of choice. But a community is made of people. I think that the Node community's niceness has little to do with JavaScript, and more to do with the fact that there were folks like you, mikeal, maxogden, nexxy, polotek, ryah, substack, janl, etc, who imprinted the community with your sense of values and a culture of kindness early on.

But keeping that ball rolling, as the community gets bigger, is very challenging, and it does stress me out a bit. It takes such a little match to set the whole thing on fire!

<comment><USER2> (I'm assuming that "felix" is Felix Geisendorfer. If not, sorry for the confusion :)

<comment><USER3> Sorry to disappoint! But different felix. :) I'm still nice, though.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> There are two really interesting, and frankly devastating, double standards at work here:

(1) We all know Adria Richards's name. We know all about her. Her personal address has been spread. Things she wrote in the past have been used against her. __But we don't really know anything about those guys. __We know who they work for and what they look like, but there's been no widespread effort to expose them in the same manner that Adria's been exposed.

(2) When that guy lost his job, everyone thought it was a great injustice, and that Adria should make a heartfelt apology to him. But when Adria lost her job this morning, there were no such pronouncements going the other way. No one declared, __"That dude really needs to apologize to Adria for making the dick joke that eventually led to her getting let go." __That's not an argument that's being made anywhere.

Ask yourself why these things are happening in one direction. In an equal world -- a balanced world -- things should cut both ways. These tactics should be used by people on both "sides". But in this instance, that's decidedly not happening.

<comment><USER5> (1) She publicised herself widely, posted the picture on Twitter, wrote a long blog post on her blog, named her employer directly, claimed her employer backed her actions, has all her contact details and photos on her blog and Twitter. She made herself public.

You don't know much about the guys as they didn't make public claims or announcements.

You appear to be saying they should be identified, named and shamed... which is exactly what Adria tried to do, and look where that ended up

(2) The guy in question apologised almost immediately on HN, a very well written, and seemingly honest and heartfelt apology for making a mistake.

The PyCon organisers took the guys and Adria into a room and discussed the matter at the time, and all were said to have apologised and agreed the matter was over.

If "everyone" thought it was an injustice that the guy lost his job, but felt it was fair and reasonable that she did, perhaps this tells you something. Perhaps it tells you that "everyone" thought her actions were wrong (as the instigator of this affair), and the guy did little wrong

The "reason these things are happening in one direction" is that Adria behaved like a jerk. Quite simple really.

Not a woman jerk, not a black jerk, not a Jewish jerk ... just a jerk.

<comment><USER6> Regarding point (2), you are completely wrong. You are saying that because lots of people harassed Adria, therefore she was a jerk and deserved it. That is trivially disproved by noting that ethics as such exists, and is not simply whatever a group of people does. The reason this is happening is because people like you are shitheads who are doing bad things or enabling other shitheads to do bad things.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> I think that when responding to these events, we should keep in mind that we all make mistakes. At this point I feel that Adria made a mistake, sometimes mistakes cause bad things to happen and I hope she moves forward and learns from her actions. Everyone is human and she didn't deserve all the snap judgements leading to hatred.

</comment><comment><USER8> so the moral of the story, according to raganwald, is that Adria Richards worst mistake is that she trolled somebody candidly instead of anonymously?

indeed Reggie, what can be done about anonymous trolling on the internet? this is an honest question to which nobody knows the answer.

do we all need to admit that we are powerless to stop anonymous dickheads from making death threats on the internet? I admit it. We all would admit it. We are powerless. We don't like to see that. But the world is ugly. Adria Richards did something ugly and got something much much uglier in response. She didn't deserve the death threats, but she did deserve the firing.

<comment><USER9> I don't think we're powerless, and the first step to you not thinking we're powerless is to stop and ask yourself, what would it take for things like this to be reduced to a few weird cranks and outliers instead of a flood?

I would be very surprised indeed if your response is, "There is nothing we can do to change human behaviour around this."

<comment><USER10> Personally, I'd like to see some of the smart folks in the community assist the police in identifying the source of the threats and helping to ensure that those miscreants get jail time.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> Hmm, I couldn't read your entire essay because your choice of font size and font color and background color makes for very difficult reading, and probably for many people.</comment>


You're Getting Used to Masks. Will You Wear a Face Shield? - <AUTHOR> https://www.nytimes.com/2020/05/24/health/coronavirus-face-shields.html <comment><USER2> As mentioned in the article, there are advantages to face shields. I'm particularly interested in them because I have heard complaints about masks from people who say they have difficultly breathing with a mask.

Hopefully there will be some discussion here.

</comment><comment><USER3> Cool, another product to buy.

</comment><comment><USER4> More fear-mongering.</comment>


Show HN: I Built a JavaScript Interview Simulator - <AUTHOR> https://algodaily.com/javascript-interview-questions <comment><USER2> Are you calling Math.random() on an array? I'm getting the same questions again and again.</comment>


Ask HN: Case study approach to teach computer science fundamentals? - <AUTHOR> There was a thread in HN on how to teach coding / computer science subjects. I couldn't help but relate to my MBA days and juxtapose it with my Comp Sci undergrad days.
In MBA classes, case studies are the norm.A real world situation is given, the students go through the case, find possible solutions, discuss with professors and the professor introduces the theory only at the end of the case.
Students go through dozens of case studies in each of the subjects as part of the course and are judged on the merit of their arguments and some assignments. What does HN think of introducing such an approach to teach CS fundamentals (Algorithms , DS and advanced topics)? Does such a thing already exist?<p>Edit : Forgot to add that the case study approach certainly helps relate theory to practise and make a student hit the ground running. <comment><USER2> I see a lot of problems with this idea.

1\. Why do you assume MBA programs are positive role models? MBA degrees are about networking, not learning a science (or even engineering).

2\. In the real world, most of us rarely run into concepts taught in CS programs. Whether you think CS programs should be more like job training is a different issue. A huge number of us are employed in ad-tech, using high-level languages, and will never even have to manually manage memory -- let alone implement a sort.

3\. You can write dozens of real-world programs that accomplish useful things without actually understanding much of what you're doing. "Mistakes" that you make may not even matter until the program has to scale, which is something most programs aren't lucky enough to do.</comment>


Snap loses $1.3B as reality TVstar Kylie Jenner says she no longer uses Snapchat - <AUTHOR> https://9to5mac.com/2018/02/23/snapchat-share-price/ <comment><USER2> "At close of trading yesterday, Snap's share price had dropped by more than 6%, and was at one point $1.5B down on the day's opening price."

I'll bet they recover most of that today. I think its the new interface that really killed their stock. Kylie was just the final tipping point.

Besides stock prices don't really do much for a company's day to day activity. Its just a mark of confidence. Most stock trades are based on emotions. So Snap needs to gets back in the good graces of the people it serves.</comment>


The Techno-Militarization Of America - <AUTHOR> http://techcrunch.com/2014/01/18/the-techno-militarization-of-america/ <comment> vezzy-fnord It's time we stop stigmatizing people as "conspiracy loons", "conspiracy theorists", "paranoid tin foil hat wearers" and whatnot.

The fact of the matter is that you don't need to believe in idiotic pop culture theories like Illuminati, Jewish Bolshevism and reptilian men. Those are all straw men and have no credibility.

On the other hand, conspiracies have been an essential part of politics and history for a very long time. The only way you could possibly deny this is if you're ignorant of politics, history and how military intelligence works.

One most not underestimate the capability of malice. Hanlon's razor does not apply to politics, as FDR famously said. The authorities have conspired to and actually committed countless acts of lunacy and horror, like a plot to nuke the moon (Project A119), a large scale false flag terror plot (Operation Gladio) and the second Gulf of Tonkin attack, which was a false flag that kickstarted the Vietnam War. The last one was actually executed and the NSA declassified the docs years ago.

NSA surveillance is hardly new. You can even see it (jokingly) referenced in _Sneakers_ , which dates back to 1992. Before Snowden, we had ECHELON, Total Information Awareness, Presidential Surveillance Program, Room 641A and closely related: the FBI's DCSNet.

So, here's a quick idea. Instead of insulting conspiracy theorists who voice perfectly reasonable doubts, let's actually praise them and try to voice their concerns, rather than going with official stories and pretending everything is like clockwork.

It's absolutely disturbing how well people have accepted that the government works for their benefit. What bullshit.

The outrage over the NSA disclosures was well warranted, but the _surprise_ goes to show you just how much people, even those who should know better, are asleep and little more than cattle (sorry for the arrogance, but I feel it's deserved here).

Conspiracy theorists are not loons. The only loons are the ones who think everything is just fine and are legitimately _surprised_ the NSA is spying on them. Did you forget the Clipper chips already?

Fucking please.

<comment><USER2> Actually, my problem with conspiracy theorists is that a whole lot of them _do_ believe in Jewish Bolshevism/Zionist Occupied Government nonsense. And I'm Jewish: the result is that every time some nutter shoots up a community center, the _real_ reason is because he never got the mental-health care he needed, but the _proximate_ reason is that "not loons" conspiracy theorists told him we were holding Evil League of Evil meetings there.

<comment><USER3> > the proximate reason is that "not loons" conspiracy theorists told him we > were holding Evil League of Evil meetings there.

The post you replied to made it pretty clear that those are to be considered loons. Conflating legitimate concerns and crazyness is exactly what needs to stop.

<comment><USER4> You couldn't ask for a more textbook version of No True Scotsman.

"Don't stigmatise conspiracy theorists, because the ones who attack places on the theory that there's a conspiracy going on... they aren't really conspiracy theorists!"

<comment><USER3> Huh. I didn't say they're not conspiracy theorists, did I? That's putting words in my mouth I never said, in other words a strawman.

Labeling anyone and everyone as "conspiracy theorist" because they are talking about a conspiracy doesn't make them all the same, that makes as much sense as treating all humans like serial killers because Charles Manson was a human, too. Is realizing how silly that is a No True Scotsman, too? Please. To use big words, too, this is orders of magnitude below the standard of HN.

When drug dealers, who conspired to deal drugs, are busted, does that make the police "conspiracy theorists"? Why not, since they technically are? Because more often than not, that label is used to lump legitimate concerns together with kooky ones.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Dear journalists and bloggers. Please stop mentioning Weev. Never associate him with anything you want to succeed. He is a completely awful human being, and yes his arrest was inappropriate, but you shouldn't make him a champion of your cause unless you'd make an antisemitic highschool-anarchist your spokesperson.

</comment><comment><USER6> The world was fooled into going to war on the false pretext of terrorism & WMDs yet right after the events the perpetrators were seen as innocent -- hell Bush was even reelected [Relevant video] [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OgfzqulvhlQ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OgfzqulvhlQ)

It should be noted that the NYT had scoop on the president spying on Civilians but they were told to hold off on the release on the grounds of "National Security" \-- it was suppressed for 15 months. Then after Bush was back in office, the story broke and they won a prestigious prize for the 'revealing story'.

Greenwald's video here [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=ho...](https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=hoCPdLh_FiQ#t=1403)]

You have to realize that our freedoms and everything were destroyed after 9/11\. BUT have you analyzed 9/11 and looked at facts other than the official narrative? A super structure collapsed -- as in, perfectly imploded on itself after there were fires near the top of the building. There were also buildings that sustained no damages that collapsed.

If you still don't believe the NSA is monitoring you & that everyone who questions the narrative wears a tinfoil hat, then shame on you...

For those who are curious there are tons of resources out there but this one in particular is extremely exhaustive - making astonishing connections that typically spans 3 - 7 videos: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n_fp5kaVYhk](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n_fp5kaVYhk)

I'm suggesting it so that you get a better understanding of present day America. When you realize that terrorism was manufactured as a scare tactic, that things like the TSA are just security theater your whole world view changes... sure it may be hard and you may not like it, but it's the truth.

You'll then realize that they've been using terrorism and national security as a means to keep you in fear, to erode your rights, to monitor your thoughts and communications, to control who you are and what you do...

</comment><comment><USER7> This is exactly what paranoid conspiracy loons were saying way back in the 90s was going to happen: panopticon, total surveillance, militarization of police, massive concentration of wealth and power, detention of authors and critics, etc.

<comment><USER8> > panopticon, total surveillance, militarization of police, massive > concentration of wealth and power, detention of authors and critics, etc.

The items you have listed are what paranoid "conspiracy loons" have been predicting, in the US, for the past two hundred+ years. The difference now is how it no longer requires a "large" government to do it.

<comment><USER9> > The difference now is how it no longer requires a large government to do it.

That may be, but the US government certainly is large.

<comment><USER8> > That may be, but the US government certainly is large.

I believe you have equated size with capability/control, which is a fallacy. Size allows for capability, but neither, of the two, can be causally linked. The US government can do with 10 people, what previously required 100 or 1,000 people in the recent past. Total control of the population is no longer required to obtain total surveillance. So, the difference now is how it no longer requires a "large" government to do it.

<comment><USER10> [http://www.bls.gov/emp/ep_table_201.htm](http://www.bls.gov/emp/ep_table_201.htm)

Something like 1 in 10 people is employed by the government (state, federal, or local) directly, countless more indirectly.

The .gov actually is _large_ , in the strictest sense of the word.

<comment><USER8> I believe you are speaking past my point. The total size, in number of people employed, does not directly relate to capability. The US government can do with 10 people, what previously required 100 or 1,000 people in the recent past. Total control of the population is no longer required to obtain total surveillance. So, the difference now is how it no longer requires a "large" government to do it.

<comment><USER10> That is true, but again, the government is large _on top of that_.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> It occurred to me recently that there are several forms of police state. What most people mean when they say police state is when there is political intent to create a police state, a good example of this being the Stasi. However this political intention is not required to end up in a very similar situation. The thing is, the only thing that is required for a police state to form is that enough resources be available to the police and a framework that allows them to use those resources with impunity. It does not really matter how or why those resources were originally allocated.

</comment><comment><USER12> Part of me feels for security forces. The world is this largely dark swirl of billions of people doing "stuff", and although statistically insignificant, some of that stuff is designed to do evil, e.g. blow up a building to make some sort of statement. So doesn't it make sense to shine a light into the darkness?

I'm not sure if people notice this, but the police are fundamentally reactive - in general a cop isn't there when you get mugged. The risk of getting caught is the value police give you in that moment. This puts the police in a bad position to do what it is Joe Q Public seems to want them to do: _prevent crime_ like school shootings, bombings, and hijacking of airplanes - even when the perpetrator is suicidal and acting alone, or suicidal and highly secretive.

The irony is in their quest to prevent crime, rather than just react to it, cops are deploying tools that examine everyone: because _everyone is a legitimate suspect for crimes that haven 't been committed yet._ They don't know you or me - they only know that somewhere out there is someone plotting some bad stuff, and they want to figure out who it is.

In a way, it's a natural progression of Bush's preemptive war doctrine: don't wait for them to hit you, because the imagined pain of that is too awful: hit them first. In a very serious way it is much like the attempt at Pre-Crime in the movie _Minority Report_.

The great irony is that, in many cases, these tools are alienating the same population that they are trying to protect, and I would argue, destroying what is the absolute best "tool" for crime prevention: people with their eyes open.

Let me put it this way: it used to be that if I thought someone was building a bomb next door, I would call the cops. I would call them because I would expect them to investigate fairly, respectfully, and that if there was nothing wrong then my neighbor would suffer nothing from the brief investigation. But honestly, I wouldn't call the cops now, because I know how they, and in fact I, would be treated. God knows what sort of wringer they would put us through, innocent or not, trying to help or not.

One of the prices we will pay for these policies and tortured reading of the constitution and law is over-all reduced cooperation from the public.

And that's too bad because there are no electronic tools that can stop the Adam Lanzas of the world. At best, we as citizens and family can at least do our best to identify risks, and take steps to reduce the risk - such as making sure they don't have ready access to guns.

And, I would argue, that there are no electronic tools that can stop the Al Quedas of the world either. The urge to murder people you've never met for abstract reasons doesn't pop up at random - it takes time, community, and I imagine there is escalation. So yes, deeply infiltrate violent (or even potentially violent) groups with human assets. This puts eyes on the ground, and a human sensibility where it is needed.

So yes, well done government, throwing away the best asset you had (the goodwill and trust of the people) and replacing it with crappy toys that don't catch terrorists, but which do give the government unprecedented, asymmetrical power over ordinary people at scale.

Good heavens, when I say it like that it's enough to make one doubt the good intentions of the government!

<comment><USER13> I don't see any reason to believe that the primary reason for greater surveillance is to enhance security. The terrorists plots are mainly fabricated to increase the control structures of the state in order to maintain or increase its powers.

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> The only reason to have these types of equipment is because of an "us against them" attitude of the cops. And the "them" isn't just "criminals".

But that's what you get when you vote in folks that demand that government be the center of attention of everybody's lives.

<comment><USER15> What's your reasoning for places like Switzerland and Norway, where the government is much more involved in day-to-day life, but less militarized in that involvement? Same goes for most of the European countries, and Canada/New Zealand et al. as well.

Certainly you could point out other countries with both a lot of government involvement and a militarized police force, but I think there's a strong argument that the two are orthogonal - that the degree of plutocracy is a better correlation.</comment></comment>


Private search browser Cliqz buys Ghostery ad-tracker tool - <AUTHOR> https://techcrunch.com/2017/02/15/private-search-browser-cliqz-buys-ghostery-ad-tracker-tool/ <comment><USER2> I moved over to Privacy Badger a while ago. It's an EFF project unlikely to ever be bought by a for profit company.

[https://www.eff.org/privacybadger](https://www.eff.org/privacybadger)

<comment><USER3> It seems that both Ghostery and Privacy Badger are asking for the "Read and change all your data on the websites that you visit" permission. But Privacy Badger also asks for the "Change your privacy-related settings" permission.

I kinda trust the EFF but I'm not sure what the implications of that are.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Probably anyone who's interested will know, but I think that it's worth noting that Ghostery ([https://www.ghostery.com](https://www.ghostery.com)) is _not_ tracking software; it is _anti_ -tracking software, meant to track ads' tracking behaviour. (Thus this purchase is, presumably, a good thing.) I think that calling it an "ad-tracker tool" risks misleading the casual reader.

<comment><USER5> The thing always got mentioned whenever Ghostery is brought up is that they were owned by an advertising company that sold user data. I wonder how Cliqz plans to make this a profitable venture (besides being another Mozilla charity case)?

<comment><USER4> > I wonder how Cliqz plans to make this a profitable venture (besides being > another Mozilla charity case)?

Whether or not it's a convincing case, the article does address that:

> Cliqz has previously discussed its plans to monetize this pro-privacy > approach and usage of its free, anti-tracking browser and search products > via a companion Cliqz Offers app — that will be designed to broadcast all > offers to all users so Cliqz does not need to track individuals' browsing > habits to power ad targeting. Rather tracking of browsing habits occurs > locally, on a user's device, allowing for the tech to display pertinent > offers to users without Cliqz itself needing to be party to its users' > browsing behavior.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> There are official posts on the blogs of Cliqz and Ghostery as well: [https://www.ghostery.com/blog/ghostery-news/ghostery- acquire...](https://www.ghostery.com/blog/ghostery-news/ghostery-acquired- cliqz/) [https://cliqz.com/en/magazine/cliqz-und- ghostery](https://cliqz.com/en/magazine/cliqz-und-ghostery)

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> You can check the code of Cliqz's products by yourself. It's all on Github: [https://github.com/cliqz-oss](https://github.com/cliqz-oss)</comment>


Git-powered wikis improved - GitHub - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/blog/774-git-powered-wikis-improved <comment><USER2> A good step in the right direction. I look forward to similar treatment to the ticket system to provide real workflow and field customization would shore up one of the largest gaps in their product. If they combined distributed version control, tickets, wiki, and HTML5 offline browser capabilities, Github would be close to the perfect CM tool.

<comment><AUTHOR> New ticket system is what github needs for sure.

<comment><USER3> Agreed. The lack of a decent issue system is the one thing keeping from us being 100% on GitHub.

<comment><USER4> Same for us.

It's just a little bit too simple to be useful for anything but a solo project.

<comment><USER5> For a solo project though, the simplicity is really refreshing.

<comment><USER6> Yes, this for sure.

Issues isn't perfect. I dislike the way that the AJAX-y elements work, there's no "read all" button, sometimes I have problems setting colors and such, there's no way to attach a pull request to an existing Issue... but seriously, if I have to use something as complicated as Mantis or Rally to manage tickets, I just won't do it.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> noticed Gollum supports Pod ~ <http://perldoc.perl.org/perlpod.html> as a markup language. Didn't know that ruby supported a perl interface so I had a poke around wondering how and via gollum found this in github _markup tree_ ~ [https://github.com/github/markup/blob/master/lib/github/mark...](https://github.com/github/markup/blob/master/lib/github/markups.rb)

        # pod2html is nice enough to generate a
        # full-on HTML document for us,
        # so we return the favor by ripping out the good parts.
        # Any block passed to `command` will be handed
        # the command's STDOUT for post processing.
        command("/usr/bin/env perl -MPod::Simple::HTML -e  Pod::Simple::HTML::go", /pod/) do |rendered|
           if rendered =~ /<!-- start doc -->\s*(.+)\s*<!-- end doc -->/mi
             $1
           end
        end

</comment><comment><USER8> Ok, that was much easier than installing Mediawiki!

      sudo gem install gollum rdiscount # gollum + markdown support
      cd mywiki
      git init
      gollum

and you're rolling.

</comment><comment><USER8> Do you guys also feel like the Github folks always deliver geratly designed web pages?</comment>


Obama's drone war a 'recruitment tool' for Isis, say US air force whistleblowers - <AUTHOR> http://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/nov/18/obama-drone-war-isis-recruitment-tool-air-force-whistleblowers <comment><AUTHOR> Original of the open letter to US Government: [https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/2515596-final- drone-...](https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/2515596-final-drone- letter.html)</comment>


Microsoft Announces Direct3D 12 for Linux / WSL2 - <AUTHOR> https://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=news_item&px=Microsoft-DX12-WSL2 <comment><USER2> As far as I can tell this is a proposed patch to the Linux kernel to enable accelerating a completely proprietary user-space API. I personally do not think this is acceptable because only Microsoft can verify that the kernel is working as expected.</comment>


Inside McKinsey - <AUTHOR> http://www.ft.com/cms/s/2/0d506e0e-1583-11e1-b9b8-00144feabdc0.html#axzz1enItOpBZ <comment><USER3> This is how you hit the undo button on a nuclear detonation. If this wasn't buried in FT Magazine, I'd be tempted to cancel my subscription. It's so obviously part of the damage control campaign that it brings the integrity of FT's journalists into question. Extracts:

"... links between key former employees of the world's best-known, most prestigious, most self-consciously high-minded consulting firm and a corrupt hedge fund boss..."

"...it was a public embarrassment, a private outrage – and even a potential threat to the future of "the Firm", as McKinseyites call their employer."

"... the older partners were "completely ashen-faced"..."

"The partners' principal anxiety was summed up in one recurring question: "Why didn't we pick up on it?""

"As shocking to them was the fact that they had not previously been made aware of any such activities."

"insiders offered two analogies to help him understand the Firm: the Jesuits, and the tailors of Savile Row, who "unlike fashion houses and designers … are always in the background"."

"Yet McKinsey is arguably better known than either the Catholic religious order or the London suit makers. Founded in 1926 by James O. McKinsey, who originally styled its consultants as "management engineers", McKinsey is to consulting what Goldman Sachs is to banking: it supplies the most prestigious – and perhaps the most expensive – advice that top corporate and government clients can buy."

...and on and on including a lovely historical photo of founder James O. McKinsey.

<comment><USER4> sounds like another "most self-consciously high-minded" firm - <USER2> Andersen.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> Consulting firms such as McKinsey are undoubtedly filled with brilliant people. But because specific expertise in an area is worth more than general intelligence/accomplishments when it comes to specific, actionable recommendations, this cynical criticism (as used in the FT comments section) comes to mind:

>..."Consultants are people who charge you a fortune for interviewing you about your organization and then writing a report repeating what you've just told them and what you already knew!"

Realistically speaking, though, this is actually a very useful thing: providing political cover so that an executive can institute an unpopular but needed change. However, this is more indicative of a weakness in an organization's (perhaps unavoidable in all large companies) culture than it is the effectiveness of consultants.

It reminds me of Richard Feynmann's role in the post-Challenger disaster investigation. He's famously known for explaining the O-ring deficiencies during a televised press conference. But he admits in his memoir that the O-ring revelation was passed to him (through another intermediary), from an anonymous source -- most likely from an astronaut who worried about his/her job -- who had said that the O-ring problem was known to NASA's engineers but the bureaucratic managers had chosen to ignore it.

If all it took was a $1,000,000 fee to get in some consulting engineers (or hell, just Dick Feynmann) to spotlight this fixable -- if inconvenient problem -- so that the Challenger wouldn't blow up, I'm sure we'd all agree that would be money well worth spent.

I know people who go to fortune tellers even though they wouldn't put money on their predictions. But most fortune tellers at least can act as the friendly voice who tells their client want he/she needs to hear, whether it has absolute truth or not.

Has anyone here ever been the beneficiary of a concrete effect from a consultant's work, such as a tangible new idea that resulted in better profits/efficiencies, beyond what is merely CYA?

<comment><USER6> I don't have the reference for this, but I recall the seals between shuttle booster segments were originally engineered to use asbestos, not rubber as the gasket. The engineery qualities of asbestos for this purpose were perfectly understood, lower tempature lift-offs would not have been an issue, and most importantly, all the expensive live testing had already been performed when higher-ups recognized how politically incorrect asbestos was, even though a program as high-tech as the shuttle program was perfectly capable of handling asbestos perfectly safely. There probably was no $1M engineering fee that would have ever fixed this, because the multi-$M live fire tests were complete. No one considered this relatively minor engineering change (after all, the seal was redesigned to work with rubber) worthy of another round of very expensive tests (which primarily focused on the motor).

In a similar fashion (sorry, also doing this from memory, no reference) sometime in the late 80s or early 90s the main fuel tank insulation was switched-out because foam manufactured with CFC became verboten, so another material, with apparently unknown (or not completely desireable) engineering characteristics, was swapped in. I never recall hearing about ice ripping off big chuncks of fuel tank foam during the boost phase in the 80s. I only remember hearing about this starting in the 90s (or at least after the Challenger accident).

This is certainly tangential to the OP, except that there probably was copious high-priced consulting which provided political cover for both of these mistakes.

<comment><USER7> Thirty seconds of googling reveals that this is a myth: [http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/11031097/ns/technology_and_scien...](http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/11031097/ns/technology_and_science- space/t/myths-about-challenger-shuttle-disaster/#.TtLdKEo7qWU)

<comment><USER6> You're right. A little more googling <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Space_Shuttle_external_tank> reveals the old foam began to be phased-out in 1996, with complete phase-out in 1997. Tile loss and other damage starting even with the first flight were assumed to be related to foam loss, and the foam loss itself was determined/assumed to be due to anomalies in foam application.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> OK, call me ignorant, but I think that these highly paid strategy consultants are closer to a placebo than problem solving, i.e. in most cases the management thinks that calling in McKinsey (or Bain, etc.) was "totally worth it" because (i) no one would admit that their decision to spend _hundreds_ of thousands of dollars for consulting was wrong and (ii) the problems _do_ seem like solved, from the high managements POV. The truth, though, is usually different. Most engineers and mid-level management complain that such interventions of cocky consultants, who may be super intelligent (because, you know, they passed the hard McKinsey interview) and knowledgeable, generally understand little of the specifics of the company and try to get the gist of it in a couple of weeks to address deep problems. This is akin to going to cardiologist for a serious brain tumor, because he's a good doctor and expecting him to quickly learn enough to solve your problem.

Paraphrasing Ada, these people do not originate anything! I wonder how many McKinsey alumni sit in the tech startup boards. How many have created startups?

</comment><comment><USER9> Just a word of advice. McKinsey consultants are potentially worse than just an MBA on your founding team. There's a reason you never hear about McKinsey consultants ever going on to actually start a company that actually matters. They are "value extractors" not creators and generally if you have one on your founding team, I pray for you. They can't do anything on their own. In my experience they do not really understand what it takes to actually create a company and are motivated so much by money and their insecurities as the writer of the FT piece hints at.

<comment><USER10> We can be hard to absorb, that's for sure. I've successfully helped a lot of start-ups, but I (and they) have been careful to ensure that the time I spend there is limited. eBay hired too many MBAs/consultants and stuffed themselves as a result.

But arguing that McKinsey alumni are all-bad is clearly over the top. They can produce results incredibly quickly and are comfortable dealing with very senior levels at corporates. Business development and major deals are a specialty.

Try calling one when it's time to think about major decisions, pricing, figuring out how industries work and just general business advice.

<comment><USER11> _I've successfully helped a lot of start-ups_

So what do you make of the grandparent's observation that none of them go on to form vital startups themselves?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> Good attempt at a PR puff piece, but I find it extremely hard to think of an organization being pristine throughout with such corruption at the top.

</comment><comment><USER13> Malcom Gladwell has an interesting article about how McKinsey contributed to the Enron debacle.

<http://www.gladwell.com/2002/2002_07_22_a_talent.htm>

</comment><comment><USER14> I'm curious to hear opinions of the "up or out" philosophy at startups. I can conceive of both pros and cons (mostly cons) but a forced philosophy sounds flawed.

<comment><USER15> I've only heard of "up or out" being used in high-end professional services companies - which are usually _very_ different places to start-ups.

<comment><USER16> A variation is used in many financial services sales teams, where the bottom 10-20% each year are fired, or if sales don't increase. Similarly was/is used at IBM to remove the bottom 5-10% of under-performing staff each year.

<comment><USER17> You're referring to the practice made widespread by Jack Welch when he was CEO of GE (20-70-10 aka "differentiation")[1].

[http://www.usatoday.com/money/companies/management/2005-04-1...](http://www.usatoday.com/money/companies/management/2005-04-17-welch- advice_x.htm)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> If they really can't figure out how Gupta got so far in the firm then they aren't as smart as their PR puff piece says they are.

</comment><comment><USER19> I'm not at all familiar with consulting, but some of the things I do now (research disparate subjects in-depth) sound related. What kind of questions do consultants answer/what work do they do?

</comment><comment><USER20> This article does an absolutely terrible job describing work "Inside McKinsey" and seems to be more of a puff-piece for the firm than anything else.

If you are interested in what management consulting is or looking for an interesting read (the background is fascinating and unexpectedly entertaining), I highly recommend the book Lords of Strategy referenced in the article. Here's the WSJ review which gives a good summary: [http://online.wsj.com/article/SB1000142405274870486930457510...](http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704869304575109591109900792.html) and a BW interview of Kiechel: [http://www.businessweek.com/managing/content/feb2010/ca20100...](http://www.businessweek.com/managing/content/feb2010/ca20100226_079249.htm)

The origins of management consulting are actually in Frederick Winslow Taylor's work around scientific management, using a stopwatch to cut excess labor on railroads... you could call it hacking labor <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scientific_management>

I worked at BCG before coming to FeeFighters, as did our CEO. My 2 roommates worked at McKinsey and Bain, so I have a pretty good perspective on the industry. This article goes way overboard on the prestige associated with working at McKinsey - noone at my school chose an offer from McKinsey if they had one with BCG or Bain (more of a culture/fit decision than anything else at that point). I worked with multiple Rhodes and Baker scholars at BCG... but you don't get to 10,000 employees only hiring the smartest guys in the room. People are generally VERY smart, but you also have partners where you wonder how they got there. There are a few different types of partners... the rainmakers (they can sell), the teachers (awesome to work with, they teach junior people a lot), and the ones that do amazing client work. I hated working for rainmakers.

Working in consulting can be an awesome time... at times, you get to do strategy work that decides how billions of dollars will be deployed (that is when you do pure strategy work). But at other times, you're spending days building gantt charts deciding who will manage a particular document in a new organization (most of the work these firms do now - they had a desire to grow, so they take on shitty operational things that they aren't well suited to, to create an "ongoing relationship" with clients). As for recycling stuff, sure - you are paid for your expertise and part of that expertise was learned at your competitors. It is no different from hiring anyone from a competitor, which happens all the time, even at junior levels. There is a huge chinese wall where you can't get information from someone who serves or has served a competitor.

BTW - there are certainly skills that transfer well from the consulting world to startups... I wrote about some of them (sub consulting for MBA) [http://feefighters.com/blog/should-you-hire-mbas-at-your- sta...](http://feefighters.com/blog/should-you-hire-mbas-at-your-startup-and- why-we-love-them/)

<comment><USER7> For a contrary opinion, try Matthew Stewart. His book, "The Management Myth," was nicely excerpted in the Atlantic [1]. He's particularly harsh on Taylor's early experiments, which claimed to be scientific but were anything but.

[1] [http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2006/06/the- mana...](http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2006/06/the-management- myth/4883/?single_page=true)

<comment><USER21> "How many tons of pig iron bars can a worker load onto a rail car in the course of a working day?"

That should be a big sign that Taylorism and scientific management is basically only suitable for industrial manufacturing.</comment></comment></comment>