How Subtle Class Cues Can Backfire on a Resume (2016) - <AUTHOR> https://hbr.org/2016/12/research-how-subtle-class-cues-can-backfire-on-your-resume <comment><USER4> Great study. I think this perfectly underscores the concept of what "privilege" is, in a scientifically robust way.

I have a worry about one of the implied conclusions, though. The high-status women were clearly discriminated against based solely on gender. However (and trying to tread carefully here), it is at least possible that a high status woman _would_ be more likely to leave for family reasons than a high status man. That doesn't make the discrimination any better, but it also means the employers aren't necessarily acting economically irrationally (of course, there is also the chicken-and-egg problem, in that these high-status women might be more likely to take up a domestic role because they're being discriminated against in the first place). I say this not to give the employers a pass, but to suggest that any real, durable solution to the discrimination shouldn't automatically assume those social factors are imaginary.

<comment><USER5> It also underscores why there's backlash against the concept of privilege. Lower-class men received the fewest job interviews of all four quadrants. Not only do they not get the job, they also get put in the same analytical bucket as the higher-class men.

<comment><USER6> I think this is really important to acknowledge. Intersectionality (i.e. subtlety and hollistic thinking) is actually a great way to think about inequity. But a lot of people who are interested in intersectionality are blind to many struggles specific to poor white males (I say this as a relatively privileged person Far removed from that demographic). Poor white males might skew more sexist and racist, but that is largely in response to upbringing, poor education, and poor economic opportunities. It is a big blind spot in many otherwise very liberal people's thinking to exclude poor white males, and that exclusion breeds resentment from a potential ally in addressing problems of inequity (and it contributes to a vicious cycle of racism/sexism leading to exclusion leading to more racism/sexism).

Not saying this is an easy fix, but many other liberal people I know seem shockingly uninterested in even treating this as a problem.

<comment><USER7> "Poor white males might skew more sexist and racist.."

[citation needed]

<comment><USER8> Not a native English speaker but I would take "might" in this setting to signal "this might or might not be true and I am not necessarily endorsing this view but..." or "one might argue that".

<comment><USER9> I read this as "lets throw a "might" in to be less blatant, but this is what i believe".

<comment><USER10> Do you agree then with GGP that personal beliefs require citation?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> I don't understand one thing though - Why doesn't she talk about the fact that according to their own survey, lower class women were also 5 times more likely to get a callback than lower class men.

So while upper class men have it the best, lower class men have it the worst. But the author seems to be ignoring this entirely.

<comment><USER12> IDK, maybe something called confidence intervals?

<comment><USER12> Why did that deserve a downvote? The difference between lower class men and women in that study was small,and I doubt that difference would meet a p=.05 confidence threshold. When it was said that lower class men are 4 times less likely than lower class women to be invited to interview this was an overstatement of the confidence we can extrapolate these results to the population. But hey,if that wasn't clearly inferred by my comment, so be it.

<comment><USER13> You most likely got downvoted for being snarky and condescending, not for pointing out the that the difference doesn't meet the confidence threshold. Your follow-up is better because it at least provides a fully encapsulated response, but you still have some snark in your tone. When replying try not to imply that other commenters are stupid.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> Sailing is a very stereotypical rich man's sport, and track & field is perfect for the poor (low equipment and facilities costs). So it's no surprise the research used these. But they are saddled with a confounding factor: participant age.

The person reviewing your resume will likely be over 30 years old, maybe over 40. And they probably have more money than you. This makes it more likely that they participate in sailing or golf and less likely that they do track & field.

You may benefit from sharing an interest with your hiring manager or recruiter, and maybe it just happens they like things enjoyed by adults with money. Rather than judging you because you like cheap stuff.

A rich man's sport that doesn't favor older folks so much is crew (rowing). That would have been a better choice than sailing IMO.

<comment><USER15> > "The person reviewing your resume will likely be over 30 years old, maybe > over 40. And they probably have more money than you. This makes it more > likely that they participate in sailing or golf and less likely that they do > track & field."

This isn't an error in the study in my opinion, it's a reason why discrimination happens, which you've highlighted. People are more likely to hire someone like them, who they can relate to. It's the same category as "culture fit". It's something that people hiring need to consciously be aware of and account for. That's a very reasonable conclusion from this.

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> The clues may be less subtle and still affect employers decisions. I've read thousands of resumes and I always get frustrated when I can read more into the resume than may have been intended. Membership in the "hundred black men" or the "Aidan American student organization" provides me with information I would prefer not to know. Ideally when I review a resume I only want to know whether or not I think you might be qualified and worth wasting time on a phone call. Providing that information makes it harder for me to pretend that I am hiring blindly.

The idea that there are even more subtle clues is fascinating. When hiring engineers, such clues have remained entirely subliminal to me. There must be some but honestly it wouldn't have occurred to me that there is a class difference between those interested in sailing and those who like track and field. I would probably guess that a track athlete would get along better in my company. Perhaps we are just low class.

<comment><USER17> > I always get frustrated when I can read more into the resume than may have > been intended. Membership in the "hundred black men" or the "A[si]an > American student organization" provides me with information I would prefer > not to know.

Would you resent a resume from an applicant named "Mengying Zhou"? Would that carry less information than membership in the Asian American student association? I claim it carries more.

<comment><USER18> It's impractical to not mention your name; it's trivially easy to not mention membership in a student organization. As such, including the membership signals 'I want you to know this' in a way the name doesn't.

<comment><USER19> Recent graduates are encouraged to mention involvement in student organizations when applying to jobs; leadership roles in those organizations might speak well of a candidate. People might also put this information on a résumé because they want to work somewhere where they know they will be welcome. I am a teacher and I would certainly mention on my résumé that I am the faculty advisor for the Gender/Sexuality Alliance (even if applying to an engineering position). I am proud of my involvement as faculty advisor, and I also would not want to work somewhere where my sexuality would be considered any sort of liability.

Rather than expect applicants to take measures to whitewash their résumés (which also gives an advantage to those applicants whose extracurriculars are already "generic," i.e. upper-class and white), it seems we should be educating employers to be aware of their biases when reading these résumés, and teaching strategies for overcoming them.

<comment><USER18> I can't speak for the exact source of jimmyswinny's frustration, but it seems to me that when you can be sued for discriminatory hiring policies your best defense is to never have had that information at all (no means => unsuccessful lawsuit).

Someone who deliberately and unnecessarily provides that information unasked for is puncturing that protection.

Now, I don't hire people, but this seems to me like a perfectly rational reason to be annoyed to know your applicants sexuality that has little to do with personal bias.

<comment><USER20> Instead of relying on applicant's to redact information that you don't want to see, why not have someone go through all of the applications and redact that information? You could even go as far as redacting information such as the applicant's name that it wouldn't be practical for the applicant to redact on their own.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> This makes total sense. If you're high class, you're going to yield more business for the firm if for no other reasons than deep social connections to people who can afford to buy the firm's product.

If you're a woman, statistically you're more likely to work for the firm for a brief time before you retiring to being a wife in your late 20's or early 30's - a huge sunk cost for an elite firm that invests heavily in its employees.

If the firms were outright discriminating against someone unjustly due to some kind of shadowy and insidious patriarchy or class hierarchy preservation desire, they would get crushed in the free market for making systematically wrong decisions. But given that they're the top 5% law firms, it looks like their heuristics are correct - high class males are more often than not going to make them a ton more money than other groups.

<comment><USER22> So what you're saying is that the market system in which we operate promotes and rewards gender discrimination even among people who wouldn't discriminate otherwise.

So you agree with the concept of patriarchy in feminist theory.

<comment><USER21> You can't avoid market forces. You might disagree with gravity but you're still going to fall to the ground after jumping.

If you're suggesting that laws be created to satisfy a personal fantasy, you must realize you're unavoidably advocating for creating artificial market effects which put law firms out of business and increase prices for other law firms, putting their availability further out of reach of poor people, and women.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> I don't see any _subtle_ cues here. An important skill for a lawyer is to know how to present facts in the most favorable light. Take the study's James Clark. He won a "University award for outstanding athletes on financial aid", but it would be just as accurate for him to say simply that he won a "University award for outstanding athletes". Why not mention financial aid? Because it's not something that makes him a better lawyer. It doesn't serve the purpose of the resume. I can just see someone reading the resume and imagining all the dumb things James would write in a court filing and what the result to the client would be.

<comment><USER24> That sounds plausible enough - except the authors also undertook a follow-up study to determine the cause of the difference. The attorneys they surveyed could have pointed to a lack of competence displayed in the resume writing, as you suggest. Instead, they identified culture fit as the distinguishing factor.

<comment><USER25> "culture fit" really has become the code of our time for "looks funny / speaks differently / isn't the same as us".

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> I'd posit that young tech companies have similar problems, even if the particulars are different than law firms.

<comment><USER27> "cultural fit"

<comment><USER26> Yeah, like that one.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER28> The good thing about tech is that professional interview is more important than the HR interview. No matter how bad a tech interview can be - <USER2> technical professions have it worse

why do CV's even have an 'extracurricular activities'/'Personal interests' section? (asking because i never had one in my CV) Is this exclusive to first job applicants? another question: is having no awards better than having 'low class awards' ?

(Ah, got it: they are looking for signs of a first impression bias - <USER3> biases are likely to play a role during the interview process (given that these biases exist) )

<comment><USER29> As a person who did just a little bit of hiring for small projects: to find people who are energetic and take matters in their own hands.

<comment><USER28> that means i shouldn't mention hobbies in the CV unless i am in mountaineering, is that right?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER30> If I received a resume from a collegiate track person I would probably google them out of curiousity to see how fast they were, and in this case I would realize it's a fake name and resume, I wonder if that had any effect on the results

</comment><comment><USER31> Concerns I have, quite possibly addressed in the actual research but seemingly not in an admittedly fast read of the article:

The advice seems to be "don't include things that hint you might be low class (in some situations, at least)" \- but did they actually include that data point in their analysis? Maybe a lack of class clues is treated as lower class as well.

Second, the athletic component of the "lower-class combo" involves competing against a smaller pool of other students, and might rightly be seen as less impressive. If you're in the top 10 of all students, you're clearly also in the top 10 of those on financial aid.

Third, pretty much all of the "lower-class combo" involves quite a few more words. I'd be a little surprised if that had a big impact, but I sometimes find myself surprised by the weird shit we react to.

</comment><comment><USER32> I think the differences between gender are fascinating.

Upper class women are not selected for interviews because there is a perception that they won't be as committed, implying they might get married and stay home with the kids.

<comment><USER33> If, as the saying goes, women marry upwards, then the bias could also be explained by how _attainable_ they're perceived to be.

edit: Lol. My goodness, HN does not like that idea much.

<comment><USER26> If the idea is that men are trying to hire women they can marry then you should probably take into account the fact that cross-class marriages have become very uncommon.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER34> Pretty fascinating finding! Interesting related book if anyone is interested: Hillbilly Elegy. It's a personal memoir that extensively discusses the struggles of working class whites, particularly Scots-Irish/hillbillies. It helped me understand our last election better, as well.

</comment><comment><USER35> So, if I pretend to be interested in Polo or golf, the chances of getting a better salary increase. Check.

<comment><USER36> You just provided a subtle clue about your gender.

<comment><USER35> >You just provided a subtle clue about your gender.

Wait till they talk to me on the phone. That will be a huge clue.

I've always been fascinated with sailing but have never done it, so I'm going to put that in my interests next time I update my resume.

I will need to remember to remove competitive spitting.

<comment><USER37> Better yet, instead of going with a Mr/Mrs/Miss prefix, we should prepend our names with "Captain"

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER38> The cited paper is available at [http://www-2.rotman.utoronto.ca/facbios/file/RiveraTilcsik.p...](http://www-2.rotman.utoronto.ca/facbios/file/RiveraTilcsik.pdf)

</comment><comment><USER39> Maybe the interviewers bias resume selection to their own profiles. Because most people come from elite families, mostly people from elite families get interviewed.

</comment><comment><USER40> Sometimes the most interesting data point is right out in the open and nobody notices. The author thinks they understand what desirable is, and wrote a paper about gender and class WRT to those closely held beliefs that I'm sure is very interesting. However the truly interesting data point is almost nobody is getting callbacks, failure rates varying from 99% to merely in the 90th percentile.

We're not exactly talking about manned space missions where a 99% mission failure rate wouldn't be tolerated. Or imagine if 99% of aircraft landings ended in a fireball. We're talking about the small details of a system that on a large scale is a miserable failure.

The author thinks they found the golden boy who everyone loves, but the reality is virtually everybody is uninterested in those people.

I would theorize if I had 400 people with medical dwarfism apply to the NBA to be pro basketball centers and then I abused the heck out of SPSS or R I could eventually find a correlation between average skin color and callback rates or perhaps maternal income and callback rates or presence of the father during childhood or whatever. I'm sure it would be an absolutely fascinating paper. But don't miss the forest for the trees, the real story is the people at the NBA who hire pro basketball players hire approximately rounded down to zero people under 4 feet in height, so even if they're subtlety or not so subtlety biased about various demographic characteristics of dwarves, it really doesn't matter because they don't hire dwarves to begin with. Of the people they intensely and strongly dislike and will not hire, they dislike certain demographics slightly less, but virtually all of them are still disliked enough to have approximately zero chance of being hired anyway so it doesn't matter.

Its like asking a Catholic convent of nuns what they like to see in a male applicant, and they respond they slightly prefer Catholic male applicants over, say, Jewish male applicants. Which superficially sounds like an incredible religious discrimination scandal, until you point out that Catholic nun convents accept essentially zero male applicants anyway, so ... if a discrimination tree falls in a forest and no one hears it ...

<comment><USER41> The lack of callbacks can be for all sorts of reasons, but I'd speculate that a lot of the employers simply tried to do a really quick validation check (name, school affiliation, etc.) that may even be automated and upon realizing that the individual is made up didn't call back.

I think that this experiment indirectly showed how ineffective "cold-calling" via resume-dropping really is for even highly qualified individuals (although they'd have to do it with other industries perhaps for better validity, for example). Meanwhile, I'm sure callback rates are probably higher for industries with no shortage of demand for highly qualified individuals such as software engineering. Law and medicine are a bit overwhelmed with more students than there are jobs for them last I heard.

</comment></comment><comment><USER42> Just to add a bit of context, here's a NY Times article from 2005: "Many Women at Elite Colleges Set Career Path to Motherhood."

[http://www.nytimes.com/2005/09/20/us/many-women-at-elite- col...](http://www.nytimes.com/2005/09/20/us/many-women-at-elite-colleges-set- career-path-to-motherhood.html)

Among the well-heeled, the MRS degree is not quite dead.

</comment><comment><USER43> If I saw "University athletics award" on one resume and "University athletics award for someone on financial aid" on another - I am going to be thinking less, one of these persons is lower-class and more Why the heck is the latter one almost going out of its way to be more wordy?

I would find the former more succinct and might intuit that this person were better at expressing the essence of information. I'm not saying there isn't bias but I'm not convinced that you can distill the conclusion to purely class. People are complex and any attempt to fake a resume is going to trigger spidey senses. Again I'm sure class-bias is there, but just questioning this study's approach.

</comment><comment><USER44> Who puts hobbies on a resume anyway? Who the fuck cares?

<comment><USER45> If you like skiing, and so does your potential boss, guess what?

<comment><USER46> What?

<comment><USER47> Rapport.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER48> So nothing's changed, the status quo remains the most important thing. Shocking. As to why, politics and the love of power. Nothing new.

</comment><comment><USER49> I worked for Miss Lilly Pulitzer once. She was intolerable. The imperious demeanor, the unwillingness to listen to reason, the papered-over cluelessness, it did not work out well. Never again!

Here's a fun thought: elsethread age discrimination is discussed. If an employer shouldn't be allowed to discriminate by age, should they be allowed to discriminate by class?

</comment><comment><USER50> Reading through their methodology, it seems that they screwed up in giving the lower class person attributes that indicated second best: e.g outstanding atlet vs outstanding atlet $IN_CATHEGORY, which is never going to be as impressive.

</comment><comment><USER51> Does anyone still believe the "pull yourself up by your bootstraps" narrative any more?

My understanding was that it had been thoroughly debunked.

<comment><USER26> Paul Ryan has described the social safety net as a "hammock" that lures people who are completely able to work into not doing so because they'd rather be on welfare.

<comment><USER52> Do you have any evidence he is wrong? Most of the evidence I've seen (here are mainstream descriptions of it) suggest he is completely right about that.

Currently California farmers are desperately raising wages in the hopes of finding workers. Yet millions of able bodied men continue to sit at home playing video games and consuming oxycontin, paid for by the social safety hammock.

[http://www.latimes.com/projects/la-fi-farms- immigration/](http://www.latimes.com/projects/la-fi-farms-immigration/) [http://apps.npr.org/unfit-for-work/](http://apps.npr.org/unfit-for-work/) [https://www.commentarymagazine.com/articles/our- miserable-21...](https://www.commentarymagazine.com/articles/our- miserable-21st-century/)

<comment><USER26> Here I was thinking we had an addiction crisis and weak labor market and it turns out a bunch of people have made the completely rational determination that shooting up heroin and collecting some of the stingiest welfare benefits in the OECD is better than working.

I wonder, by the way, how carefully you read the article claiming "In our era of no more than indifferent economic growth, 21st–century America has somehow managed to produce markedly more wealth for its wealthholders even as it provided markedly less work for its workers" before linking it to prove your claim that the unemployed are just too damn lazy to work.

<comment><USER52> As the CA farms going unstaffed show (or our 4.9% unemployment rate), we clearly don't have a weak labor market.

If you believe welfare is "stingy", can you name a good or service that non- workers lack? (Remember, I have a secret power - I sometimes read Census and BLS reports and pull them out in internet arguments.)

 _I wonder, by the way, how carefully you read the article claiming..._

I read it carefully enough to separate the factual claims from the mood affiliation. You should try it sometime.

<comment><USER26> U6 unemployment numbers and inflation-adjusted household incomes don't tell the same story, and the anecdote about Californian farms hardly seems like much to base an argument on. But you've got superpowers and are uniquely capable of separating facts from opinion so why bother arguing with the plebes?

<comment><USER52> U6 includes people who aren't looking for work but tell the survey take that they might possibly take the right job if it were dropped in their lap.

Inflation adjusted hourly compensation has done nothing but rise.

[https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/COMPRNFB](https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/COMPRNFB)

<comment><USER53> Check out table 4:

[https://www.bls.gov/opub/mlr/2005/05/art1full.pdf](https://www.bls.gov/opub/mlr/2005/05/art1full.pdf)

For the bottom quarter by income, real wages are largely flat between 1979 and the publish date of that pdf.

<comment><USER52> Chart 1 of your own source shows the reason for that - growth has been more in benefits and less in wages. If you want to fix this, ban non-wage compensation (e.g. employer sponsored health insurance, 401k, etc).

<comment><USER15> Let's go back a second: you're claiming that blue collar unskilled labor jobs are going unfilled, but are also arguing that the growth in pay is in benefits. Yet, the jobs you say are going unfilled don't exactly have 401K matching here...

And to be clear, I'm not taking either of those claims as true or false, just highlighting the dissonance.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER54> No comment on how lower class women got 5 times the callback rate of lower class men? Almost exactly the rate at which upper class men outperformed upper class women? Is this reporting on the study biased in any way?

<comment><USER11> Exactly what I first thought when I read it. While upper class men have it the best, lower class men seem to have it the worst. This was entirely ignored by the author which is ridiculous. She is trying to hammer the point about bias towards women while entirely ignoring the bias towards lower class men found by her own survey.

<comment><USER55> No, her research did a more in depth exploration of the difference between the higher class groups.

It's legitimate to ask why that difference was studied while the other one wasn't, but it's not legitimate to ask for speculation about the lower class difference when it wasn't specifically studied.

<comment><USER56> If she was attempting to use gender as an independent variable, she should have. The conclusions and research are very incomplete otherwise.

It looks like she is just slicing up the data to get the results she wants.

<comment><USER55> That's the whole point! The first study had both dimensions; the second one focused just on high-class to eliminate that variable.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER57> the assertion that this is scientifically robust is pretty flimsy. I would never hire anyone who listened to country music, regardless of background.

<comment><USER58> We detached this subthread from [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13958567](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13958567) and marked it off-topic.

<comment><USER57> This wasn't off-topic. I was pointing out that the methodology was very different from the effect that they claimed.

The authors of the study chained correlations together and asserted a causal effect. This is sloppy science.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER59> That top header takes way too much space and there is no obvious was to minimize it :/ Bad form.

<comment><USER26> Does every discussion need an aside where we all decry modern Web design and pine for the halcyon days when pages didn't use JavaScript?

<comment><USER59> Most websites linked to here and other news websites don't have extra thick top headers like that. It only shows up when you scroll down to the middle too. When you scroll down today on most websites, the headers get smaller. This is not about modern design, this is just bad.

See CNN for example: [http://www.cnn.com/2017/03/25/politics/donald-trump- paul-rya...](http://www.cnn.com/2017/03/25/politics/donald-trump-paul-ryan- inside-obamacare-repeal/index.html)

NY Times: [https://www.nytimes.com/2017/03/25/us/politics/trump- health-...](https://www.nytimes.com/2017/03/25/us/politics/trump-health-care- defeat-gop-civil-war.html?hp&action=click&pgtype=Homepage&clickSource=story- heading&module=first-column-region&region=top-news&WT.nav=top-news)

Time: [http://time.com/4713270/las-vegas-strip-gunman-bus- cosmopoli...](http://time.com/4713270/las-vegas-strip-gunman-bus- cosmopolitan/?xid=homepage)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER60> Why do tens of thousands of people have to compete for a small number of positions? Something it's clearly wrong.

It seems like the study treats working in a job as a favor received by the peasants from the slave masters.

Or, the study purposely set up a scenario that matches this idea of what work is.

<comment><USER4> > Why do tens of thousands of people have to compete for a small number of > positions?

Is this a serious question? Why are there tons of actors competing for an infinitesimal shot in Hollywood? Because some people want to make more money/prestige than less.

<comment><USER60> It's a serious question because that is not the normal state of affairs.

Part of being a responsible adult should be about wisely choosing a career that fits with who you are and has a reasonable future.

If you choose that kind of career, where you either make it to the top 1% or spend the rest of your life broke, then I honestly have no sympathy for you if you don't get selected to be among the 1%

<comment><USER61> Surely you must know that you're blowing down a straw man here.

Your statements all presume, for no reason, that these people are gambling, and that if they lose their gamble they will have "no reasonable future."

The article is about law students. There is absolutely nothing unreasonable for shooting for the top 1%, because if they don't make it they'll just end up with a lawyer at a non-top-1% law firm. Their pay will be fine. (If they're at the bottom of their class or whatever, that's a separate issue.)

In the case of actors, yeah; everyone knows being an actor is a bad economic choice. Presumably those people have a definition of "reasonable future" that accommodates trying for their dream, and then falling back on something else if they fail.

In any case, discrimination is bad, even when it comes to moonshots. Surely it's productive to analyze hiring trends and discuss whether or not discrimination is, in fact, taking place.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER62> If you want to be judged based on your ability rather than people's biases or your appearance, avoid "soft sill" professions. Just a word of advice.

<comment><USER26> "If you're from the wrong background just don't apply for prestigious, high- paying jobs. Problem solved."

<comment><USER62> You can't change the direction of the wind, but you can adjust your sails. Practical advice about how the world works always pisses off people who are more interested in bitching about how unfair it is.

<comment><USER22> Unfathomable as it may sound, one can adjust one's sails _and_ still bitch about how unfair it is.

<comment><USER62> Something I never implied couldn't be done, but which others do, by virtue of attacking any offering such practical advice.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER63> The headline is just wrong. Yes, there was some correlation between "class cues" and resume response rate. But the overwhelming finding (like, 4x the effect!) was gender. Upper class _men_ were wildly more popular than any other group. And in fact upper class women actually underperformed their lower class sisters.

<comment><USER26> "Subtle class cues can backfire" seems like a factual assessment of the finding that being a lower-class man or upper-class woman hurts your chances of being called back.

<comment><USER63> But it's not symmetric. Women and lower class men don't get the same response rates, but they're clearly in a cluster of broadly similar numbers. Upper class men are _enormously_ advantaged in this study. And that finding is being buried by the headline.

<comment><USER26> The finding for women is less pronounced but it's not what a lot of us would expect and it's worthy of examination too.

<comment><USER63> But once more: if you had to write a _headline_ for this data, why pick a subtle effect due to class instead of a glaring one based on gender?

<comment><USER22> Because the sample size is bigger, hence the statistical significance is stronger. The other is more likely to be a fluke.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER64> Wait a minute... hang on.

 _Every fall, tens of thousands of law students compete for a small number of coveted summer associateships at the country's top law firms. ... For these reasons, employment in top law firms has been called the legal profession's 1%_

 _Our findings confirm that, despite our national myth that anyone can make it if they work hard enough, the social class people grow up in greatly shapes the types of jobs (and salaries) they can attain, regardless of the achievements listed on their resumes._

Just when exactly did the bar for saying that somebody "made it" become working for "the legal profession's 1%". That's a ridiculously high bar... to the point of absurdity. And while it doesn't contradict the results themselves, it certainly colors the interpretation.

I mean, if you think the only thing that matters in life is to be in the 1% of your profession, then fine. But most people would be happy with a bar quite a bit lower than that... a steady job which puts them solidly in the middle class, or anything higher (in terms of socio-economic class).

Curiously, I feel like I see this "moving the goalpost" stuff quite often in articles which try to argue against the idea of meritocracy or the importance of work ethic and individual effort. Probably not a conspiracy, but perhaps a form of bias..

<comment><USER65> A meritocracy would provide equal access to the top of the profession -- the suffix 'ocracy' is from the Greek and loosely translated as ruling or powerful as in 'democracy' or 'theocracy'.

If people are limited or advanced on the basis of something other than merit, then it is not a meritocracy.

<comment><USER66> But playing golf with your rich white male clients and putting them at ease is a core requirement of this job. You literally can't do your job well as an elite lawyer if you don't have a good rapport with rich old white people.</comment></comment></comment>


Bitcoin Price Chart - <AUTHOR> https://bitcoincharts.com/charts/bitstampUSD#rg730ztgCzm1g10zm2g25zv <comment><USER2> It's amazing how well the historical bitcoin pricing curve[1] matches the Gartner hype cycle conceptual curve[2]. One of the criticisms of the Gartner curve is how unscientific it is but at least in this case the behavior matches pretty well.

[1] [http://bitcoincharts.com/charts/bitstampUSD#tgSzm1g10zm2g25z...](http://bitcoincharts.com/charts/bitstampUSD#tgSzm1g10zm2g25zv)

[2] [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Hype-Cycle- General.png](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Hype-Cycle-General.png)

<comment><USER3> a) You should use log scale[1] b) The same "hype cycle" has been repeated in 2011 (bottom $0,001, top $32, crash to $2) 2013 (bottom $10ish, top $266, crash to $55) and 2014 (bottom $70ish, peak $1200ish, crash to $350ish) - always reaching higher highs and bottoming out to higher lows.

Therefore, zoom out and you will see that Bitcoins has "interim bubbles", but the long time trend has nothing to do with Gartner's hype cycle.

[1] [https://bitcoincharts.com/charts/bitstampUSD#tgSzm1g10zm2g25...](https://bitcoincharts.com/charts/bitstampUSD#tgSzm1g10zm2g25zvzl)

[2] [https://bitcoincharts.com/charts/mtgoxUSD#tgSzm1g10zm2g25zvz...](https://bitcoincharts.com/charts/mtgoxUSD#tgSzm1g10zm2g25zvzl)

<comment><USER2> There will always be smaller price fluctuations than the long-term trend. I'm not sure why you think a log scale is a better comparison either. Note I wasn't just comparing the shape of the curves, the actual descriptions of the hype cycle match the bitcoin story fairly well. Anyway it was just a curiosity, eyeballing price charts and thinking you see meaning is a time- tested method for being wrong...

<comment><USER4> Anecdotally, that exact graph has been posted on the bitcoin subreddits frequently since 2011, each time fitting the price chart rather well.

On that basis, it's not crazy to imagine that today's long term trend will become tomorrow's fluctuation once more.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> What I find most interesting about the rise in the last months, is that it seems organic. No huge bubbles, no temporary rises in volume. Just growth. I'm not saying it's not speculative by any means, but it does have a healthier and more solid feel, which I personally welcome.

<comment><USER6> Might have something to do with the demonisation of the 500 and 1000 rupee bills? I don't have any evidence, but this seems another blow to the credibility of fiat money.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indian_500_and_1000_rupee_note...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indian_500_and_1000_rupee_note_demonetisation)

<comment><USER7> I've seen a number of news pieces coming up in my Google feed saying that adoption in India has increased hugely as a result, such as [1], and it would make some sense given that many do have mobile phones. I'm not sure about a blow to the credibility of fiat money, but it may be a reaction to what could be viewed as a very difficult policy for a huge number of people to deal with, but then that's the kind of thing that helps adoption of alternatives.

[1][http://www.thehindu.com/business/Industry/%E2%80%98Bitcoin-a...](http://www.thehindu.com/business/Industry/%E2%80%98Bitcoin- adoption-in-India-sees-surge%E2%80%99/article16716798.ece)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> I thought long-term steady increases in BTC value would be because of long- term steady increases in volume, but volume looks like it's fallen off a cliff. What is going on here?

<comment><USER9> Low, constant 'buy' volume. Are people using Bitcoin to store their funds more and more?

<comment><USER10> Yes, everyone is "hodl"-ing because the people who came before them got 100x or more gains. They're all praying that the steadily decreasing inflation curve and steady demand naturally yields higher exchange rates.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> Can someone please explain why the price has been increasing? I haven't properly followed any news behind bitcoin lately...

<comment><USER12> Taking a wild guess I'd suppose increased political instability would be a driving factor some of them being:

* Britain, Brexit

* Italy, uncertainty around euro and leadership

* France, Presidential candidates are more aligned with Russian/Putin-values then earlier

* USA, Trump being elected to president as an outlier

These things will of course also drive political uncertainty in the rest of the world which will naturally put value of fiat currency in speculation, gold certificates are already sold at a much greater rate then available gold so bitcoin is a viable alternative.

Another explanation could be current lack of institutional investors in the bitcoin market, once BtC ETF's (stock traded funds) correlated to bitcoin value starts popping up there is a much higher likelyhood for institutions to enter the market. At this moment I only know of one, XBT in Sweden but the Winklevoss brothers are trying to open one up in the US.

My post may contain errors, if so please correct me.

<comment><USER13> As someone following Bitcoin I would mostly agree with this. While Bitcoin cannot be considered a proper (or in any way safe) alternative to Fiat I think it's growth highlights a dissatisfaction with central banking as more people become educated about it.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> As someone a bit out of the loop, how is the whole block size debacle evolving?

<comment><USER14> It's not.

There's a lot of arguing and a main proponent of the "big blocks" camp has organised enough miners to current bitcoin scaling enhancements.

They demand bigger blocks before they allow further scaling enhancements.

<comment><USER12> So are true microtransactions currently infeasible due to transactions fees exceeding even CC-rates?

I believe that were of mayor concern last time I checked up.

<comment><USER15> The position of Bitcoin Core is that fees should be high and microtransactions should be infeasible, except on Blockstream's Lightning Network. The reason is that decentralization has costs and they believe fees need to be high to pay for it.

<comment><USER12> What is the Blockstream's Lightning Network and how does it correlate with bitcoin?

How will bitcoin attract customers from traditional payment options if fees are higher?

<comment><USER16> That's level 2 solution, implemented on top of Bitcoin (you need to create bitcoin transactions to start interacting with LN and consequent "good" transactions are almost free).

One thing - it is not actually implemented in full and therefore can not be used in vivo.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> I believe India may be contributing to the price increase due to the whole demonetisation thing going on here.

</comment><comment><USER18> Just a reminder, no one on hackernews took Bitcoin as anything more than just an uninteresting scam, and this was as little as 3 years ago. It was a just a big joke.

It was invented in 2008 and it was appearing in conferences around 2011.

But by summer 2013 , there still had not been one article on the front page about bitcoin. I seem to remember comments on here mostly just deriding it if it was ever mentioned. (Please correct me if I am wrong).

I just feel this is important to share, not even HN knows what a hot technology is, even if it has been in the same room for years. It is interesting and sometimes I wonder what other emergent tech is on the scene which many know little about.

<comment><USER19> I'm not sure why you say that. There are plenty of bitcoin stories on HN going back far longer than 3 years.

Example: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2524631](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2524631)

</comment></comment><comment><USER20> Are there any good articles/resources that address the challenges of Bitcoin becoming anything more than a security vs a currency given it's similarity to being a restrictive Gold Standard like currency?

Recently I've seen some older talks by Yanis Varoufakis saying bitcoin can't work as a currency, and I'm curious if there's a response from the Bitcoin community?

[https://yanisvaroufakis.eu/2013/04/22/bitcoin-and-the- danger...](https://yanisvaroufakis.eu/2013/04/22/bitcoin-and-the-dangerous- fantasy-of-apolitical-money/)

<comment><USER21> We have enough good enough currencies, but the world was missing a good store of value. Gold is too hard to store/buy/sell reliably (and with small margin). It will be a better currency after it's accepted as a store of value by much more people.

</comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> Up-to-date price here: [http://www.coindesk.com/price/](http://www.coindesk.com/price/)</comment>


Show HN: Phynix, a Physics Sandbox with Unix-like Commands - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/mion/phynix

<comment><USER2> This is pretty cool. It would be awesome though if you could manipulate the objects with Javascript directly, that would make it a lot easier to build more complex things.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks! Yea actually that's how it worked at first, it'd just eval your input, but now I'm trying to come up with a better/cleaner solution that doesn't involve writing a mini bashscript interpreter :)</comment></comment>


Ask HN: How much is yourname.com worth it to you? - <AUTHOR> I've received an email from a human (sent something related to the content of my website) asking me to sell my domain name (alextoussaint.com) for $2k.
I'm using it as a personal page and for emails. I don't need that money but getting a 200x ROI on a $10 investment made a year ago seems appealing. But, I fear to regret it in the future (10-20 years from now) where .com's will be very scarce.
So, how much do you think this domain's worth it? Have you already regretted selling one? <comment><USER2> This is highly going to be a personal decision. For me I wouldn't sell my domain for that amount but that doesn't mean others shouldn't.

If it helps, ask yourself how much you'd be willing to pay to own your own domain name if it was taken by someone else. Not a perfect way to think about it but if the dollar amount is less than the amount being offered, maybe that helps you make the decision.

</comment><comment><USER3> I'd sell it personally. IMO for personal domains anything would do, be it .co or .xyz. Whatever is cheapest.

Can argue this applies for most sites too. If you visit the domain at least once in your life in the browser, you can forget about TLD as the browser will autocomplete it. And for finding sites, Google works.

<comment><AUTHOR> You're right, but the .com still has something superior to me, maybe is it why the guy wants to pay 2k for a .com instead of $5 for the .co.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> About $15 per year.

</comment><comment><USER5> Aren't you a bit worried what he might want to use the domain for, given whatever it is will be out there under your real name?

<comment><AUTHOR> There are many people named Alex Toussaint. I'm not responsible for what he does with his domain.</comment></comment>


Wall Street Banks Lift Pay for Junior Bankers - <AUTHOR> http://online.wsj.com/news/article_email/wall-street-banks-lift-pay-for-junior-bankers-1408577017-lMyQjAxMTA0MDIwMTEyNDEyWj

<comment><USER2> I've long feared that people who have graduated during the recession (like me) will draw lower salaries for life and be another "lost generation" (or at least a bit less "found"). This article seems to confirm this - future new hires will be getting higher salaries, but people who were first hired in the preceding years will keep the same salaries. So, if someone was hired 2 years ago at $70K and is now making $84K (a 20% raise after two years) will be at the same position (pay-wise) as someone just starting (at $85K, according to the article).

<comment><USER3> I think salaries go up quickly. They'll probably be making a few hundred thousand dollars within 5 years.

<comment><USER4> @ melling, true the salaries go up quickly . they probably do some dollars in the range of 5 years</comment></comment></comment>


Welcome to the K-12 Surveillance State - <AUTHOR> https://www.nytimes.com/2019/07/02/opinion/surveillance-state-schools.html <comment><USER3> Is there any data on how being recorded at all times affects the behavioral development of those children ? Adults definitely behave differently when they know they are monitored (I personally know I do), so I wonder what kind of mental health issues would hide in those children if they are monitored at all times... I also feel like using this to prevent bullying or suicides is the wrong option, as educating kids themselves would probably be a more sensible idea (but hey you need teaching personnel that's decently paid for that !).

It's interesting that this surveillance is banned in France because teachers and pupils have « a right to privacy »: [https://www.cnil.fr/fr/la- videosurveillance-videoprotection-...](https://www.cnil.fr/fr/la- videosurveillance-videoprotection-dans-les-etablissements-scolaires)

<comment><USER4> > _Is there any data on how being recorded at all times affects the behavioral > development of those children ?..._

I don't have any data or anything, but I think that brain development is not even complete until well after 12th grade in humans. In particular, I think the ability to self regulate is compromised.

So here's the thing, the people doing all this are child development experts, so they would know all about brain development. A lot more than myself. In a very real way, these guys have made it a policy to monitor children who they know very well will likely not change their behaviors due to being monitored. So you have to wonder if this is just more about attribution and the ability to justify punishments? Just administrators playing CYA?

"No ma'am. We _know_ it was your son who assaulted that girl. Here's the video for your perusal."

"No son. We know you said so and so to that other student over there. Here's the video."

"No sir. That was _definitely_ your daughter fighting over there. Here's the video."

Etc etc etc.

So in answer to your question, "No." Children will not change their behavior. Certainly not at the mean.

Welcome any corrections from any child dev experts on HN if I'm wrong about brain development in children.

<comment><USER3> « So here's the thing, the people doing all this are child development experts, so they would know all about brain development »

But are they ? Do we have any indication that this is the case ? Those tech companies could just be after what they see is money and not be based on any science (as it's often the case).

From Gaggle's website: « You are invading my child's privacy! Well, aren't you? Most educators and attorneys will tell you that when your child is using school-provided technology, there should be no expectation of privacy. In fact, your child's school is legally required by federal law (Children's Internet Protection Act) to protect children from accessing obscene or harmful content over the Internet.".

This is the worst straw man argument I have seen in a long time. You can prevent my kid from seeing porn without reading everything she does.

<comment><USER4> > _Those tech companies could just be after what they see is money and not be > based on any science (as it's often the case)..._

Well, that's true.

I guess I just assumed people would be doing all this in step with some theory or principles of child development that indicated that this would be effective?

Maybe I'm giving way too much credit.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> It's interesting the parallels that can be drawn to _tobacco addiction_ , of all things. Hook 'em while they're young, and they won't think anything about expanding the surveillance when _they 're_ in power, because it's what they're used to, so why not if it can protect people?

<comment><USER6> Why not examine it from another perspective? Risk and reward? Are more people served by it or harmed? For example look at how useful dashcams and bodycams are to situations! Oh and an anecdote! I was parking at work and the building security cameras witnessed the collision (driver was on their phone and tboned me) making the insurance claim open and shut. We have security camera inside as well with displays throughout the building making finding people in a building with multiple floors easy.

<comment><USER7> I think the point is that once the cat is out of the bag it's hard to put it back. For example, at first more people were helped by opiates than harmed. As time passed, by the time we realized that relationship had changed, we already had a bunch of addicted citizens.

It isn't too much of a stretch to imagine an authoritarian government using our own surveillance video for nefarious purposes.

<comment><USER8> I don't want to use the word "literally" too much but ... China is literally doing this.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> If you ask the government to do something impossible, such as provide COMPLETE safety and security, they will try to do that. I think the news media bears some responsibility in this regard, as they always blame or call out whatever agency that fails to maintain safety and security, thus leading to severe measures to try to mitigate the previous failure.

<comment><USER10> Absolutely. Even in this thread there are arguments about there being dark areas where the cameras can't see so they won't be effective enough. Nothing was learned from no child left behind. 100% policies don't work.

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> Before we had children misclassified as threats by errant algorithms, we misclassified them with people. There were a bunch of zero-tolerance policies passed in the early 2000s, and they often provided no path to understand or appeal the decision to label a child as a threat.

</comment><comment><USER12> Since I can't read the article I can only go with story time here- my wife has cameras in her room and she loves them. Fights about 'who started it' are ended with the words, 'Ok, let's look at the video'. And when some little bully gets called on the carpet and their bullying parent comes in all set to steamroller administration with 'that's not what my child said happened why are you picking on them' the principal just rolls the footage and watches as the realization that their kid is a little shit dawns on the parent.

<comment><USER13> Nope. Not worth it.

There are mountains of evidence demonstrating that people change their behaviors when they know they are being watched. Do we really care about the automatic resolution of petty squabbles between children, or even the coercion of children to never engage in petty squabbles? Do we really want to rob children of mischief, conflict resolution, and making a case for themselves in a way that cannot always be substantiated with hard evidence? Do we really want to condition young minds to see a constant surveillance as a kind of benevolent security blanket?

And that's not even all that's at stake. The Overton window is shrinking as it is, and academia has adopted a censorious and puritanical orthodoxy. Classes benefit a great deal from the students who care enough to challenge what is presented as de facto truth, but I'm inclined to believe that this will give a basis to silence that behavior. Looking back on my own experiences, would I have felt comfortable speaking out against teachers if I knew I was under surveillance? I'm not so sure. But in most cases, even the teachers themselves often told me that they were happy to have somebody engage them meaningfully. But some weren't so happy, and those are the ones that have a new channel for abuse.

And what about the teachers? Some of the best teachers I had would've been fired for what they taught, or allowed students to do. Allowing controversial class discussions, sometimes among students bordering too young to handle the subject matter. Doing a dangerous chemistry or physics demonstration that bends the rules slightly. A classroom led by a cheeky teacher was often ruined by the superintendent or principal standing in the doorway. Now they're in the doorway 24/7.

<comment><USER12> No one actually watches the video, unless something happens.

And this is an elementary classroom- resolution of petty squabbles means 28 kids don't get to learn while 2 others yell 'he did it first'. They can be beasts to each other at recess.

<comment><USER14> If it helps, this is a very realistic portrayal of how privacy is degraded over time. Invading privacy has all sorts of practical applications. You can fight crime more effectively, and measure trends, and generally be more effective at all sorts of capitalism and statecraft. But, problems, and risks just pile up over time. Just think of what we could do for just one small sacrifice!

<comment><USER12> But what privacy is there in a classroom? Theoretically the teacher could capture the same information by being more observant.

<comment><USER14> A wise teacher can offer a bit more dignity by choosing what they notice and draw attention to, or not.

<comment><USER15> Perhaps the same is true when choosing how to use video recordings?

<comment><USER14> Maybe. They're more ubiquitous, and almost certainly available to more parties. Can I really exercise my own judgement when my boss can watch the tape too?

<comment><USER16> My wife is a teacher and I promise you that principals don't want to have to manage their teacher's classes. They only step in when required or asked to.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> The surveillance is less than worthless when schools are so constrained in their ability to meter out discipline. I went to one of the first surveillance schools in my state and I was bullied relentlessly, despite the video evidence the school was reluctant to suspend my attacker. This may be because my bully was black and from the hood and my school was sued by the NAACP to accept more black kids and keep the suspension rate 'racially equitable' \- which amounted to different punishments depending on the race of the rule breaker.

<comment><USER18> The truth is it isn't there ability to hand it out as you would find out if you did wrong. The issue is they don't care if it doesn't go against their fucked up social order.

</comment></comment><comment><USER19> Currently trying to decide how to school my kids ages 3yr and 1yr. Public, private or homeschool. Parents who have been there, How did you choose?

<comment><USER20> All three. We have 4 kids (3 of them now adults).

We re-assessed every year and decided with the kids what their education environment would look like each year.

One of them, our extremely musical daughter flipped between homeschool, private and public school several times until we found a university model school that worked well with her needs (lots of schedule flexibility to do extra-curricular music things).

You don't have to choose one way and stick with it. Your children's needs will change in ways unique to each of your kids.

[Edit] Also, schools change year to year depending on staff and pupil turnover. There's no honor in torturing your kid with a school situation that is just not working for them, especially if you have other options.

<comment><USER21> From a logistics point of view, how did you handle having multiple children going to/moving between multiple different schools? Is the age difference such that traveling to different schools for drop off/pick up was already assumed? I admire your thoughtfulness, but the time associated with shuttling to multiple locations each day seems challenging.

<comment><USER20> That's a really good question, and reminds me that school choice was never JUST about what the kid(s) wanted. Logistics was usually part of the planning.

Usually at least two of them were in the same school. The oldest three were each 18 months part, and the youngest was three years younger than the next oldest sibling.

I took some, wife took others, ride share, public transportation (the kids in public school rode the city bus). The kids also learned to be okay with the idea that they might not get picked up as soon as school let out, or they might have to get dropped off half an hour (or more) before school started. They learned to deal with it the same way my wife and I did when we were their age.

All of which became phenomenally easier as they got old enough to drive themselves (and their younger siblings).

It was a lot of juggling, but it was still less work than homeschooling all four of them (which we did for a couple of years), and they generally didn't start going completely separate directions until they hit high school age.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> Archived article: [http://archive.is/nD0O9](http://archive.is/nD0O9)

</comment><comment><USER23> What kind of society will we live in when the generation raised in this environment is in charge?

<comment><USER18> I can see two possibile outcomes named after the stereotypical age of the reaction. The "child" outcome where it is accepted as the norm or the "teenaged" one where they tear it down and call previous generations terrible/stupid people for being responsible for it.

Essentially that seems to be the pattern of resolution of changes - <USER2> applied recursively in a cyclic way. One example is baroque vs austere in church design and iconoclasm.

I am hoping for teenaged ones to gain dominance since the people who look at the surveillance and say "What the fuck is wrong with you - you are literally acting like antagonists in a young adult science fiction dystopia!" seem to be a minority in influence currently.

</comment></comment><comment><USER24> The paywalls on all major news sites are driving me crazy.

Not because they cost money (I am willing to pay), but because it's not practical to buy an online subscription to 10+ major news sites individually.

Is there a service that lets you pay 1 monthly fee for a subscription to the top 10 major (paywalled) news sites?

<comment><USER25> I know it's annoying, but please don't take HN threads on this off-topic tangent. The situation sucks, but we all know how it sucks, all these discussions are the same, and the rule here has been settled for years: if there's a workaround, it's ok. Users usually post workarounds in the thread.

This is in the FAQ at [https://news.ycombinator.com/newsfaq.html](https://news.ycombinator.com/newsfaq.html) and there's more explanation here:

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10178989](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10178989)

[https://hn.algolia.com/?query=by:dang%20paywall&sort=byDate&...](https://hn.algolia.com/?query=by:dang%20paywall&sort=byDate&dateRange=all&type=comment&storyText=false&prefix&page=0)

<comment><USER24> > Users usually post workarounds in the thread.

Yea.. the purpose of this comment was to ask if there's a way to _pay_ for these paywalls to _permanently_ bypass them.

And there were some useful replies: I haven't looked into Apple News Plus before. Thanks for the reply, jbigelow76 and runwerks

And sorry Daniel. I guess I should have posted an Ask HN instead.</comment></comment></comment>


Security Advisory for rustdoc - <AUTHOR> https://blog.rust-lang.org/2018/07/06/security-advisory-for-rustdoc.html <comment><USER2> This is a very strange CVE; the risk of exploit is effectively zero and the remediation effort and attention is equal to a routine version bump.

I suppose this serves as a nice PSA and fire drill for the security team.

<comment><USER3> It doesn't seem to me that the risk is effectively zero. You can't exploit it remotely, but as a local exploit it looks pretty nice.

<comment><AUTHOR> It only works if:

* You're using this totally undocumented feature. This involves somehow fabricating a plugin that will actually load, which is non-trivial. Pretty sure you have to copy the appropriate types out of the source of Rust itself, and build things that way.

* You're also relying specifically on the fallback location

* You're doing this on a computer with other users

When you pass either of the flags in question, it prints out a message saying "hey, this feature is deprecated, please comment on this github issue if you're using it" and has gotten zero comments in a full year.

Never say never, but the chances of this affecting anyone are _extremely_ remote.

<comment><USER4> Eh, an attacker would simply do all of those things, like copying types from the rust source. I don't disagree this is minor, but an actual attacker will certainly not be thwarted because a vulnerable feature is not documented.

<comment><AUTHOR> The attacker would, of course, but unless you're also doing it to, it won't work. The plugin existing isn't enough, you have to pass a flag with the name to try to activate it.

If it just loaded them without the user needing to also use a flag, the chances would go _way_ up, for sure.

<comment><USER4> Ah, the post is kinda unclear on the command line requirement. It says they're loaded by default.

<comment><AUTHOR> Ah so, yeah it's poorly worded. If you don't pass —plugin-path, the default location is the /tmp prefixed one. But you need —plugins for it to attempt to load them at all.

I'll re-work the wording when I'm at a computer, thanks :)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> What an odd place to load plugins from.

<comment><USER6> Yeah, looks like a long forgotten temp path for a long deprecated feature. I'd be lying if I said I'd never done the same.

<comment><USER7> I added support for loading plugins to the pass manager because I could. It was never really useful. I had a vision for rustdoc_ng, which was that it would do all the dirty work of collecting information from the (complex) Rust AST into a (simpler) "doc tree" describing just details relevant for documentation, and backends would add their own plugin passes as needed to massage that AST before final output of the JSON doctree, while the original analyzed Rust AST was still around. I think I'm probably the only person that ever used this, in an experimental troff backend.

I was in a rush to get it out the door before I went off to start college, and I guess I never removed my testing path from the code. Oops!

It was fun getting the email this morning and reminiscing ;)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> > rustdoc's obscure plugin functionality, consisting of its loading plugins by > default from a path that is globally writable on most platforms

It's supremely disappointing that a brand new language/platform like rust suffers from the same classic security mistakes that we keep finding in old software. You normally expect to see these types of things in stuff like Bash that has been around for so long nobody has taken time to review lots of its code with a more modern thread level.</comment>


Messaging is not just for investment banks  - <AUTHOR> http://gojko.net/2009/01/06/messaging-is-not-just-for-investment-banks/ <comment><USER2> Message passing is a much better approach than synchronous HTTP calls. The implementations, however, aren't that great:

Problem with ActiveMQ is that it doesn't seem to be handle high load. This isn't a JMS issue per se, just a problem with the ActiveMQ implementation. I'd be hesitant to use a commercial JMS implementation for most projects.

Spread is an alternative, but it seems to be too academic to be useful. I've found that it simply fails to work in some situations (doesn't work when you're delivering messages from multiple producers, across multiple subnets to multiple consumers).

"Roll your own" seems to the best option (e.g. connecting UNIX domain sockets on two end points with non-blocking TCP or where appropriate UDP between them).</comment>


Foo Fighters Do Scrum, Too - <AUTHOR> http://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=10150369261345545&set=a.10150369260920545.596116.25098475544&type=1&theater <comment><USER2> Hmm, I'm having a hard time understanding this chart.</comment>


A functional spreadsheet in 40 lines of code - <AUTHOR> http://www.nsl.com/k/s/s.k <comment><USER2> 40 lines of the most unreadable code ever...

<comment><AUTHOR> Of course, that's everyone's reaction (mine too at first). It looks like a joke language along the lines of Unlambda. But stop and think for a minute. Could you write a program this powerful in 40 lines of anything, let alone 40 lines of Unlambda?

Readability is relative. Is Java readable to non-programmers? Would a Java system of equivalent power be as readable as those 40 lines of K, to someone who knows both languages? Look into it more deeply and it turns out that what you're dealing with is not a joke or unreadable at all. Rather, it's an unfamiliar but highly sophisticated programming subculture that is organized around the principle of succintness-is-power.

The product this code is based on (kdb) is an incredible piece of software. When I played with it a couple of years ago, here is what it included:

      - one of the highest-level languages around, which is also blisteringly fast
      - a relational database that scales to terabytes and is thousands of times faster than Oracle
      - an ANSI SQL interpreter
      - extensions to SQL for fast processing of time series
      - a web server

... and god knows what else I'm forgetting. The entire download at the time was 384 Kb. That's right, kilobytes. How is that even possible?

kdb is the ultimate niche product. Hardly anyone has heard of it, but it makes millions (a couple of years ago the licenses cost $60K per CPU). Who would pay that? Wall Street, because it delivers performance that mainstream products can't touch. Take a look at <http://kx.com/company/customers.php>.

The guy who created it, Arthur Whitney, has been working on successive versions of this for 20 years. He was a protege of Ken Iverson, the inventor of APL. He also worked on Lisp implementations in the 80s. So what he's doing here has deep roots in two of the richest computing traditions.

One more thing. After using kdb for a while I realized that this is not just an engineering tour-de-force: it's breathtakingly beautiful. What a genuine pity it's locked away from most hackers in a highly profitable but impenetrable niche.

</comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> Described and commented at <http://www.nsl.com/papers/spreadsheet.htm>.</comment>


20 Oscillators in 20 Minutes [video] - <AUTHOR> https://media.ccc.de/v/32c3-7549-20_oscillators_in_20_minutes <comment><USER2> Youtube mirror: [http://youtu.be/T-tZf6Oe1BE](http://youtu.be/T-tZf6Oe1BE)

It wouldnt stream for me.

</comment><comment><USER3> was told it sounded really good. the video sounds like nothing at all...</comment>


Using Face ID to unlock brother's iPhone X after entering PIN - <AUTHOR> https://www.reddit.com/r/iphone/comments/7anj9f/iphonex_face_id_fail/ <comment><USER2> It would appear that if you enter the PIN, it rescans your face; presumably as their faces are rather similar it can be trained to accept two faces. The OP wrote an extra comment explaining this:

[https://www.reddit.com/r/iphone/comments/7anj9f/iphonex_face...](https://www.reddit.com/r/iphone/comments/7anj9f/iphonex_face_id_fail/dpcih16/)

Edit: Oh, it seems they posted a follow-up video which explains the behaviour:

[https://www.reddit.com/r/iphone/comments/7atwap/update_iphon...](https://www.reddit.com/r/iphone/comments/7atwap/update_iphonex_face_id_fail/)

It hasn't stopped news sites from reporting this however.

<comment><USER3> It doesn't actually matter if it's a bug or a feature. If you share your passcode with someone, they might as well get in with their face. It's not a security risk.

<comment><USER4> Until you change your passcode to lock them out and they will have access via faceid. If they have an irrevocable access you don't know about, it's a security issue.

<comment><USER5> I don't think this is going to be an issue after even a few days' usage and training, but it's too soon to tell. As the brothers point out this seemed to only work on newly reset Face ID phones.

What bothers me more about all this is what a pain it is to pass a phone to my spouse now since you can't intentionally train more than one face. Wife and I routinely use each others phones and while we know the PIN codes, it sure is nice to avoid that hassle.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> this appears to be a trick of sorts. according to a comment by one of the brothers, faceid only acknowledged the new user after the phone had been unlocked via PIN while looking at it. that sounds a bit like an intentional feature for training the facial recognition?

<comment><USER7> What happens when an untrusted person that uses your PIN on a regular basis for legitimate reasons becomes untrusted? Now you need to reset your PIN and retrain FaceID? I hope IOS gives a warning when changing the PIN that if you think FaceID has been compromised to retrain FaceID. edit: because the idea that FaceID could be compromised like this is non-obvious

<comment><USER8> Sounds like it will only happen if the faces are similar. So if the threshold for matching is 95% match to the internal model, but the faces are 90% similar, and then the new face enters the correct PIN, then the new face will be used to tweak the model, which will move the error to inbetween the features of both. So if their faces are similar to within twice the margin-of- error of the detection algorithm, then you can probably get this effect.

All that said "an untrusted person that uses your PIN" knows your PIN... so they are a trusted person as far as the OS is concerned. There's nothing you can do with FaceID/TouchID that you can't do with the PIN. All FaceID/TouchID do is decrypt the PIN from the secure enclave. So if you've shared your PIN with them, then this is a weird thing, but not actually a security violation.

<comment><USER9> The difference is that it's easy to change a PIN, but hard to retrain FaceID. So sharing a PIN is reasonable in the knowledge that it can be changed, but you might not be aware that it has more ramifications under opaque and unclear circumstances.

<comment><USER10> Retraining FaceID takes about 20 seconds. How is that hard?

<comment><USER11> The hardest part might be noticing in the first place that your FaceID model has drifted away from only your face.

<comment><USER12> That's the thing, though... it would only drift from your face if the face it was drifting too looked similarly enough to your own.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Thinking about unlocking as an application of the Birthday Problem (or Paradox), can someone with better math skills than me calculate the # of iPhone X users in a room necessary to get to 50% chance that someone can unlock someone else's phone? This would ignore the problem in the article and assume 1 in 1e6 odds.

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

<comment><USER13> This seems like a silly way to think about FaceID. You'd need 1000+ people to _all_ try their faces on each other's 1000+ phones to get the 50% chance of unlocking. That's not the scenario biometric authentication is built for, which is why the phone would require a password after 5 failed attempts.

<comment><USER14> The problem with that is the ease with which anyone can compare their input to the 'key'; externally.

You could very quickly rule out 95% of the field with little effort, and people already do things like say "you look so much like X": we have a short list of collisions already.

<comment><USER15> Exactly. I'm more worried about if someone can make a mask of someone's face (or even a print out) and get it to work.

But at least it's not like people have pictures of their faces plastered across every social network...

... crap.

<comment><USER16> As others have said, those who have tried masks haven't worked. But I wonder if normal masks have different heat signatures than real faces, which an IR array can detect. It's possible that something as simple as standard mask + heat would fool the system. Hopefully not!

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> Is the feature that it will "re-train" on a new but similar face once unlocked, and this is in order to handle normal slow change of people's faces?

</comment><comment><USER18> Facebook says one in a million people will match (vs one in 50k for fingerprints). I'd guess that close family generally have a better shot of being that face match compared to a complete stranger (unlike fingerprints which don't seem to have familial features).

<comment><USER19> That's the issue I've had with Apple's claims about FaceID being X times more secure than TouchID.

Your facial features are very likely to be similar to people who live around you. I don't believe this is true of fingerprints.

So it seems it's far more likely that the 1 in million chance of an overlap will be around your phone than the 1 in 50000 chance in case of TouchID.

<comment><USER20> It's also far more likely that those people do not pose a genuine malicious threat to your data and security

<comment><USER21> I think parents who have had their kids purchase things from the app store without their approval might disagree.

<comment><USER22> Does FaceID recognize children as their parents?

<comment><USER12> Only if the parents have given their child the PIN and they also look similar enough to trigger against the existing facial model.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> On a related note, I tried face ID with my identical twin's iphone X, and sure enough it lets me in pretty much every time without any trickery with the PIN. It's made me quite uncomfortable with the security it offers as we aren't so identical as to be mistaken frequently, yet the phone unlocks almost every time...

</comment><comment><USER24> I have a twin and when we tried the Face ID demo with my face loaded in my brother could have it say 'face recognised'.

This would be conveinent for me because since we both commute to work I have to queue up a playlist or read his messages / email. But, I believe this was a design compromise that was pointed out in the product launch event.

<comment><USER17> If you have an identical twin you could have fooled a DNA test. I don't think it's a reasonable bar for an unlock-convenience to be more secure than that.

<comment><USER25> I agree, but to be fair, identical twins will be read as different people with a fingerprint scanner.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> I'm more concerned about the fact that it seems you have to do a pointless finger swipe to get away from the lock screen even though the phone is actually unlocked. I'd be furious.

<comment><USER3> What if you want to check the time or notifications?

</comment></comment><comment><USER27> > _IPhoneX Face ID fail?_

Obviously not, since apart from the hair (or lack thereof), the two brothers look almost identical.

Apple itself said, and not just in some support document, but in the keynote, that it will fail if you have an "evil twin" or, well, an actual twin.

<comment><USER28> To me all arabs/chinese/Japanese look the same as well. I asked an Indian friend and he said they are not similar.

<comment><USER27> I don't have difficulty telling Indians (or Chinese etc. for that matter) apart -- I'm also not American myself, and have worked in Asian countries.

They just look very similar to me -- and apparently to Face ID too, and after all, they _are_ siblings.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER29> This was addressed in the keynote in no uncertain terms. Starting at 12:12 here: [https://youtu.be/eRvBU_tKGjE](https://youtu.be/eRvBU_tKGjE)

Why this is such news to some is a mystery to me

<comment><USER30> Because of the reasonable expectation of security?

<comment><USER29> Because people are fools and can't remember what the company specifically addressed in their own keynote on the actual tech barely a month after said keynote

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER31> Said that 53 days ago...

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15232739](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15232739)

What was Apple thinking??

<comment><USER27> That since this requires both a PIN and an unlikely similar face (brothers that look more like twins) it's a moot point?

</comment></comment><comment><USER32> Free legal advice: dont lock your phone using biometrics like face id. A password is subject to constitutional protections. Your face is not.

Free first aid advice from a lawyer in the armed forces: good luck unlocking your phone after a head/face injury. Hospital will be so much more fun with your phone locked in emergency mode because it wont recognize your swollen face.

<comment><USER33> You realize you can still use your pin to open it it right?

And you can disable the biometrics with a simple key combination.

<comment><USER32> And when the police sieze your phone and use your face to unlock it before you can disable it? Ever wonder why apple allows for five tries with the fingerprint reader? They can guess whether you are right handed. After that there are only five digits to test.

As for if injured: go with something like a pin or pattern that doesn't require any paticular body part. My fingurprints never scan properly after swimming or rock climbing.

<comment><USER34> Apple added an Emergency mode in iOS 11 that's accessible by clicking the sleep/wake button five times. It also disables Touch ID/Face ID and requires the passcode after that. So if you think your phone will be seized, it's a pretty quick way to disable everything but the passcode.

[https://www.macrumors.com/2017/08/17/ios-11-emergency-sos- di...](https://www.macrumors.com/2017/08/17/ios-11-emergency-sos-disables- touch-id/)

<comment><USER35> > So if you think your phone will be seized, it's a pretty quick way to > disable everything but the passcode.

Good luck if the cops assault you from behind or early in the morning...

<comment><USER33> By that logic they can also just assult you while the phone is unlocked... which is probably many more times than early in morning.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER36> Face ID is going to be a monumental failure. It's going to annoy everybody who likes things to happen fast all the time because Face ID will definitely cause a delay and frustrate every user at some point.

Here are quotes from 2 of the very first reviews of this device:

"I will admit I have not tried Face ID yet, but it's hard to imagine a facial recognition system that solves the problem of having to carefully aim a phone at your face." \- [https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2017/09/face-id-on-the- iphon...](https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2017/09/face-id-on-the-iphone-x-is- probably-going-to-suck/) "[Face ID] worked the vast majority of times I tried it"... (NOTE: Not ALL the time) - and "...it's definitely faster than the first generation of Touch ID, though perhaps slightly slower than the second gen." \- [https://techcrunch.com/2017/10/31/review-the-iphone-x- goes-t...](https://techcrunch.com/2017/10/31/review-the-iphone-x-goes-to- disneyland/)

And while everyone is holding their breath to see if Face ID works, I can see a bigger problem - The lack of a home button is probably the worst design decision. They should have gone with dedicated virtual home button or better yet, stick with the iPhone 7 style home button. iOS 10 and 11 already has too many problems distinguishing between "global gestures" and "application gestures". Half the time when I start scrolling near the bottom of the screen the control center shows up. I'm looking forward to Apple's time being over. They are already obviously struggling to keep their market share because they can't come up with innovations that people actually want.

<comment><USER37> "It's going to annoy everybody who likes things to happen fast all the time because Face ID will definitely cause a delay and frustrate every user at some point."

It doesn't. FaceID is faster and as reliable as TouchID was for me. Not to mention, with winter coming, have you tried using TouchID with cold fingers? Spoiler alert: it mostly fails.

"The lack of a home button is probably the worst design decision."

Disagree. App switching is faster than ever, the new gestures stick after ~30 minutes of use, unlocking my phone takes less time.

"Half the time when I start scrolling near the bottom of the screen the control center shows up."

The control center isn't accessed by swiping up on iPhone X, it's accessed by swiping down from the upper right "ear" of the screen. So this is a non- starter.

Source: I've been using my iPhone X with FaceID since Friday afternoon, iPhone user since 2008.

<comment><USER38> Every time anyone says Apple is going downhill, they have their best quarter ever.</comment></comment></comment>


Deconcentration of Attention: Addressing the Complexity of Software (2012) - <AUTHOR> http://deconcentration-of-attention.com <comment><AUTHOR> Found out about "attention deconcentration" in _The Disappearance of the World's Greatest Free Diver_ [1] which was posted earlier by Thevet[2].

The article linked in this submission is by Igor Kusakov. It _" attempts to describe specific mental techniques that are related to resolving very complex tasks in software engineering"_ and _" also proposes to treat software engineering itself as research on human thinking because software is meant to simulate thinking."_

[1] [http://www.newyorker.com/news/sporting-scene/the- disappearan...](http://www.newyorker.com/news/sporting-scene/the- disappearance-of-the-worlds-greatest-free-diver)

[2] [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10027307](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10027307)

<comment><USER2> Seems like a way to deliberately induce "shower thinking"? (Working away all day on some knotty problem and then it comes to you in the shower). If so it might be worth practising.

<comment><USER3> AKA "back burner" AKA "sleep on it". I've grown more and more to appreciate and try to use this modus of thought as much as possible. For me, it's cycles of active research and "cramming" everything I think is relevant to a solution into my mind, then a complete release of the stress of an active search away while I do something else and let thoughts of my previous problem come and go as they please. Sometimes, creative solutions come in the form of a self conversation in "language", other times it's sort of non-verbal, like visually seeing the problem from different perspectives. For me, this happens in the gym, while cleaning, doing dishes or other chores, while driving, etc. It takes practice but it's a very interesting thing to experience. I feel like sometimes it's the release of focus that lets the network of systems in your brain accept new stimuli from other systems and senses and tickle the thought in new ways.

<comment><USER4> I use [https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hypnopompic](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hypnopompic) to solve problems akin to the shower 'eureka' moments.

<comment><USER5> Sounds interesting. Would you mind expanding on what you do?

<comment><USER4> Absolutely. If I'm stuck on a problem I make a conscious effort to focus on that problem as I wake. I find there's a ~10 minute window in the awakening state where I can 'lucid dream' and often arrive at novel solutions.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> IMHO and from my experience, the main keys to _addressing complexity of software_ are just to (A) define the data, input, inside the software, data base, key-value store, etc., and output, (B) organize the work for any real time parts, (C) organize the code essentially a _calling_ hierarchy of _pieces_ , where each piece is fairly easy to test well, and where the purpose of each piece is fairly easy to document, and (D), most important, document everything so that it is all easy enough to understand, check, modify, etc.

For really big projects, there is more, but (A)-(D) are the basics and where still in practice a lot of problems are.

A curious but crucial part is that nearly all the _meaning_ of the system is just in the documentation, not the code.

</comment><comment><USER7> Rez is my favorite game of all time and the best game ever.

When I first started playing Rez, the screen was a flurry of light and color. I could guess what things should be shot at but I was mainly shooting things randomly and seeing what would happen.

It turns out that Rez tracks several metrics for each completed level and these are key to progressing in the game. The "Analyzation" metric notes how many "layer levels" of any level you've unlocked; you do this by shooting something called a "password lock". It consists of a little satellite holding a rainbow prismatic cube; shooting the satellite releases the cube, which must be shot eight times to proceed to the next "layer level". Missing one of these cubes when they appear negatively affects your "analyzation".

The other important metric is "Shot down", which notes how many enemies you've killed; HOWEVER, only enemies that "spawn from nowhere" actually really count. Enemies that spawn from other enemies do not affect your shot down total and may be safely missed unless they are projectiles which directly threaten you (slowly home in to your location).

So when you have a flurry of shit flying at you on the screen, suddenly target discrimination becomes key. So you have to pay attention to the objects on- screen and decide whether each should be shot or not, if it's worth the effort to swing your targeting reticle over it.

Then I reached a point in my Rez play where I was not paying attention to the targets but rather keeping it focused over the entire screen at once, noticing everything but zeroing in on nothing -- deconcentrated attention. And then it became no longer about aiming to shoot things down; enemies seemed to materialize directly under my reticle waiting to be hosed down.

And then things got really weird. I was watching the screen, but also observing myself _playing the game_. It almost seemed as if a different person were at the controls, a person which I still knew was me. I was thinking and reacting faster than I could understand what I was doing. It was akin to a mystical experience, one sought after by many in temples, abbots, and ashrams, brought within my humble reach by a fucking video game.

And people wonder why I'm a gamer.

To this day my copy of Rez remains a treasured possession, and playing it has shown me many neat things about what I'm cognitively capable of.

<comment><USER8> I want to try this game but

> rail shooter

has always been a turnoff for me :/

<comment><USER7> Trust me, it's like nothing you may have thought of when you hear "rail shooter".

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> I am staggered by how well this article describes the way I think, what i do and the impact of my work on my life.

</comment><comment><USER10> This is interesting, but while the article focuses on the issue of attention, it doesn't address the role of abstraction and chunking. There's been a lot of work in psychology that argues that 'expert performance' comes from lower- level concepts and operations getting grouped and automated. Attention remains important, but it is able to operate on larger, more meaningful pieces without getting bogged down in details.

</comment><comment><USER11> Can someone compare this with meditation?

I am curious how the "attentions" differs when one is actually ignoring impulse in meditation from the style described in deconcentration

<comment><USER3> In my interpretation of meditation, "ignoring" seems to take up too much energy; it's too combative. I've seen it described as acknowledging, and then letting go the thoughts. You acknowledge that they pop up, they they exist, that they can have an effect on you, that they can frustrate you, then you release them. It's a third person view of your own thoughts if that makes sense. Deconcentration is new to me, but seems that can be a similar strategy of not letting a singular thought dominate your whole mind and/or affect you emotionally, for better or for worse, and allow yourself to return to a calmer state that allows more thoughts equal chance in your mind.

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> Can anyone please explain how the following

> Try experiencing red without visualizing it, naming it or imagining > associated objects.

can be commanded to be done without being able to objectively qualify what exactly is occurring when one 'experiences' red?

How does one know when 'has experienced red' has occurred? How are they able to qualify this as a comparative to 'has not experienced red'? When I read this it honestly sounded like the author was telling me to find god.

Snarky commentary aside, while I think this is an interesting picture for the descriptions of thought, the processes for reasoning about software complexity can develop independently without fitting any of these models, and those heuristics will modulate and mold the adaptive abilities of the developer on a similar scale of overall improvement.

> These phenomena will slowly start to convert from being some "runaway kids", > living in the shadows never lit by consciousness, into "rightful citizens" > of the psychical space, with overall balancing and efficiency-improving > effects.

This scares the crap out of me and would make me want to run like all hell. You can learn and teach thinking using multiple techniques and you can teach those techniques without enforcing a clear right and wrong. Instead, trust that the experience and influence of the world marching along to the beat of time will help direct people better than an authoritative command on what reduces software complexity and what does not. The summation of a lot of 'wrong' might wind up being one big 'right'.

The funny thing really is that when one uses the a reasoning system to reason about their reasoning, assuming they are reasoning with the correct reasoning, they often wind up contradicting themselves.</comment>


Uber and Lyft's Business Model May Be Dead. Good - <AUTHOR> https://onezero.medium.com/uber-and-lyfts-business-model-may-be-dead-good-53940dcbac34 <comment><USER2> I use Lyft and Uber a ton when I'm in cities, if they leave CA, I'm gonna miss them a lot.

<comment><USER3> I think taxi apps with the exact same user experience will just crop up. You will just have to pay more.

<comment><USER4> I'm surprised they still haven't. I gather that some cities have them, but one generic "summon a cab" app hasn't arisen. I suspect users would be just as happy getting a dedicated taxi rather than the somewhat hit-and-miss nonprofessional drivers.

They just want it to be simple and reliable. The taxi companies left that market open. I believe the success of ride sharing has less to do with the sharing, and more with the ease of being able to get a ride. I'm sure the cab companies would hate to give up whatever it is they imagine to be their differentiators, but users just want to get from point A to point B.</comment></comment></comment>


Ask HN: What custom made software do you use in your company? - <AUTHOR> Are you working for a company (or owning a company) which uses custom made software? What is it and what do you use it for? What are the maintenance costs? <comment><USER2> Companies usually have internal portals that allow them to view the health of the business, customer accounts, activity logs, etc. These might be built internally as they are very tailored to each business and its internals.</comment>