Ask HN: How to handle a workaholic colleague? - <AUTHOR> How to handle the situation when the grown in the company (Salary raise, Bonus, Stock, Promotion ) is measured by "relative performance" and you are stuck with a workaholic team mate who keeps sending update emails at weird hours in the night . Its good for team productivity but not for general team health and peer's growth in company.
Update - I am been rated above average in the current appraisal system and quite happy with the work I do. Changing job would be resetting all the good will and trust that I have built here. But after advent of this colleague, I see everything declining as exceptions are changing, sometimes portaged as "irresponsible". I can work like donkey but I like to continue to spend tine with friends and family and follow all my hobbies unlike the peer.
I don't really want to portray my peer as bad(He is mostly nice on the face), just need honest opinion if this job is still a right fit for me. <comment><USER2> I work a lot. I'm working right now (took a break to read HN). I just enjoy getting things done and it's paid off well for me. I've learned though that my ability to work many hours and my drive to do so doesn't mean I should enforce that on others, so I don't let my teammates know when I work outside of normal hours. I don't send emails at night or weekends. I don't send code reviews on nights and weekends. I try to stay invisible outside of normal work hours to avoid creating an environment where people feel like they must work as much as I do. I realize that also means it might look like I produce a lot more code during my 40~ hours, but I think that's better than the team receiving non- stop emails and code reviews from me.

I figured I'd work hard while I have any bit of youth and energy left and relax later in life.

<comment><USER3> This is the right answer without really being an answer.

I work a lot too, its not uncommon for me to 2x the hours my coworkers put in. And i don't care because I enjoy it. I'm passionate about the work I do and the company I'm contributing to.

I do need to be more mindful of the hours I send emails and slack messages. My current justification is that while I may send outbound communications 24/7, I only follow up during work hours. I could use a tool to queue messages and make me seem less active I guess.

I don't really know what OP is expecting, but if OPs colleague is open to feedback, maybe a quick aside to let them know how they are being perceived is in order. Short of that, VW shuts off email after-hours, maybe OP could do something similar:

[http://www.bbc.com/news/technology-16314901](http://www.bbc.com/news/technology-16314901)

<comment><USER4> What motivates you to send emails 24/7?

Unless you're actively involved in incident response, I find it hard to imagine a scenario that necessitates sending regular email at 3 in the morning.

<comment><USER5> I guess it's convenient when you've eg. fixed an issue at 3AM in the morning to send an email to affected people right away (so you can focus on the next thing) instead of remembering to send the email in the morning.

<comment><USER6> There are solutions to write and 'send' an email now for scheduled delivery. Gmail users for example can use Boomerang: [http://www.boomeranggmail.com/](http://www.boomeranggmail.com/)

<comment><USER7> Wouldn't this potentially result in the same person receiving multiple emails from you at 8:01 am (for example)?

I would think a better solution would be a manual summary email early in the morning of everything you did since the office closed the prior evening.

<comment><USER6> _> Wouldn't this potentially result in the same person receiving multiple emails from you at 8:01 am (for example)?_

Boomerang lets you set the time the email will be sent differently on each scheduled email. Or you could go with "send in 8 hours" for each, and they will be spaced out by however long it took to write each one.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Most of the comments in this thread are ridiculous.

Just as you (hopefully) get to choose how many hours you work, your coworkers also get to choose how many hours they work.

I'd ask yourself two questions:

1: Are you happy with your current work/life balance?

2: Can you achieve your career goals at your current workplace while maintaining your desired work/life balance?

If the answer to either of those questions is "no", you should have a conversation with your manager.

<comment><USER9> Seconding this suggestion. These are the sorts of things managers are expected to deal with, and it's important to engage them when you're unhappy with your team's situation. Knowing what's expected of you will make it easier to decide if changing jobs is the right choice for your career. If you don't feel comfortable talking to your manager about this, that's also a data point worth bringing into the decision.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> How to handle him? Ignore him.

If the company evaluation process is so bad that one person on a team signalling - plausibly or otherwise - how hardworking they are with a few late emails reduces your salary raise then you should probably consider moving to a different company anyway, depending on how much you care about that raise. It's not that individual's fault the process is broken, and that individual changing their behaviour isn't going to fix it. If the company process isn't that bad or nobody in management bothers to read the timestamps on his emails when they read them the following morning anyway, then who cares about his showing off (or unusual pattern of organising flexible work)?

tbh if you have remote email access and sending the odd late email _actually_ counts in your favour, and you actually care about the internal politics of appearing to be harder working than you actually are, it's not that difficult to hit the send button on an email you drafted in working hours after you've sat down at home and had your dinner. Or use a plugin to automate the process with some email systems.

</comment><comment><USER11> Sun Tzu: When you cannot win the battle, deny the field.

Switch teams or departments, or mention to your manager that you're getting discouraged by how the incentives are set up in your company. Most managers are happy to have a hard working team member, but not at the cost of their other 5 good team members leaving or getting discouraged.

<comment><USER12> This seems to be paraphrased. Is this the quote you meant?

"If you cannot win the battle it is better to withdrawal and think of another plan rather than losing."

I can find that in a google search, but not yours.

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> To me:

1\. If there is a direct correlation between hours worked and productivity for the team, then compensation is not relative.

2\. To the degree that emails late at night is cast as toxic office politics, so are attempts to normalize the productive efforts of the coworker.

3\. Pathologizing a coworker as 'workaholic' delegitmates the person and their values. It tends to provide an excuse for treating the individual poorly 'for their own good' rather than accepting the individual as what they are: a hard worker.

<comment><USER14> Pathologising a preference for sustainable pace provides an excuse for treating everyone poorly "for the company's good" rather than accepting all the individuals as what they are: ordinary folk.

Good luck.

<comment><USER13> To me, that smells like a management influenced workplace culture issue not a coworker issue.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> In my experience, workers send emails late at night to explicitly demonstrate that they work more than others. I believe that it's unhealthy and it's pretty clear that it's not correlated to work quality.

This may be due to any number of reasons – from proving false a manager claiming that they don't work to impostor syndrome to office politics to actually compensating that they don't really work – but that's probably something you want to address directly with the mate. That's also a reason for which a number of places/teams I've worked at/with tend to normalize reports to once per day or once per week. That and the fact that managers just can't cope with twenty reports per night.

You also want to address the issue with the manager and make sure that you are not judged by number of emails but rather by actual impact. If that fails, you're probably working in the wrong place.

P.S.: When I write "in my experience", I've been the "worker who sends emails at all hours of night", in my case because of an abusive manager and an ongoing burnout.

<comment><USER16> And when all else fails, it's time to learn how to use your emails software's tools for scheduling when you send your email updates.

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> In my experience managing people I find a much prefer predictable, low noise, task completion. Every time someone who reports to me sends something I have to read it because it _might_ be a critical issue that needs to be immediately addressed. As a result I appreciate folks who limit their off hours communication to more urgent matters, and I would rather something be done, as committed too, in a couple of weeks to someone trying to get it all done in a week or less.

But I also try to establish that understanding with folks I supervise early on. I have known managers who use someone in their group who is really over working to "get everyone to be more productive" (usually by praising the level of output of the over working employee). It always blows up the team in my experience and they wonder why nobody wants to work for them.

</comment><comment><USER18> You'd be surprised how little weight hard work carries relative to positive attitude coupled with an acceptable amount of work (former manager here).

Performance reviews aren't usually that objective. If you're getting dinged, it might be a problem with your attitude vs your performance. It's unfair, but you're working with humans, not vulcans.

Said another way: If management likes you personally, and you work hard enough, you're not going to get bad performance reviews.

If this coworker is a ball hog, that's a different story, and management will pick up on it over time. The best thing you can do in the meantime is worry about your own output and do good work with people who do want to work with you.

</comment><comment><USER19> The problem isn't that your co-worker works much more than the rest of the team. Based on your description, it sounds like the "relative performance" evaluation has a serious flaw in it. For the purposes of raises, bonuses, and stock, you should be compared to your peers _at a comparable level of promotion_ only, not against people at a higher level. Likewise, for the purposes of promotion, you should be compared to your peers at the level you'd be promoted to, not people multiple levels higher. If your workaholic colleague has received a promotion, then after that happens they should be at a level where the rest of the team's compensation and potential promotions no longer depend on the now-promoted person.

If your company's evaluation doesn't work that way, you need to have a talk with management about why it should.

(Also, if your co-worker is working long hours but not actually more productive, and your management can't tell the difference between those two but you can, you may need to have a conversation with management about that too.)

</comment><comment><USER20> From a fellow workaholic:

Talk with him and see what really excites him. Suggest that you work together with him on an open source side project (possibly related to a something your team is building). A piece of the project he can get excited about and occupy his excess energy.

Help him promote it so he can get him some recognition / feedback outside of just the internal company employees. And your team might still get some additional benefits from the open source project he's working on.

<comment><USER14> I should note for future reference, we are not each other's alts.

</comment></comment><comment><USER21> In my opinion, you need to understand the difference between hard work and smart work. Software development is like an art. A person may spend 18 hours a day to create something that just works while another may spend just 8 creative hours to create a masterpiece. There are many disadvantages of being a hard worker / workaholic:

* The expectation of your manager will get elevated and if one fails to be consistent in working for long hours, it's a negative.

* One does not have much room to accommodate something else at times of need. Think of an outage, you have already worked for 18 hours and fail to deliver at that crucial time.

* It's very difficult to innovate in an insomniac state.

Remember, doing hard work is easier that smart work. It requires much more learning and thinking. But, if you are able to do it, you will be able to contribute much more.

Appraisal based on relative performance: This sounds logical. If a person contributes better to the company's goal, he/she should be appreciated for that. Think yourself being that person it should make sense.

Note: I am not taking the political aspects of your office into consideration. If your manager loves late night availability, long emails at weird hours, it is his weakness. Probably, you can be smart and automate sending 'corporate bullshit' emails at night ;)

Or just find yourself a right workplace.

<comment><USER22> >Appraisal based on relative performance: This sounds logical.

I don't think it does. People should be rewarded based on the absolute value they bring to the company, not on their relative ranking.

For example, relative ranking means that you always want to work with the worst possible teams (so you are relatively the best) not the best. It also means that politics becomes more important than ability.

<comment><USER23> I agree that total value is a good ideal, but it's really hard to measure in some cases. Forgetting the inaccuracy of things like LoC, # of bugs fixed, etc. How do you measure the performance of someone who isn't directly on the product value chain? graphic designer delivered, office manager, technical writers, etc. Sometimes the most quantifiable and accurate method is by comparison.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> Well your relative performance is worse, so either tolerate that or work harder. Nobody's work-life balance is someone else's decision to make.

<comment><USER25> That is a very american attitude, I'd say =)

I consider it a management duty to stop people from working too much (which is a rather european attitude :D).

<comment><USER26> >> That is a very american attitude, I'd say =)

It always amazes me that most people here don't know what Mayday is, or why other countries have it.

<comment><USER27> I mean I'm a Canadian working in Germany and to me it seems like Mayday is very similar conceptually to the American/Canadian Labour Day idea, but I will agree work-life balance is better here.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER28> Create your own company and hire the guy.

<comment> happy-go-lucky Becoming an astute businessman :)

</comment></comment><comment><USER29> The whole team bands together and gives your teammate their full support, so that he/she is promoted into management as soon as possible.

<comment><USER30> So once he's promoted, he can now email/text you all night and 'improve' your productivity.(Being Sarcastic, of course)

<comment><USER6> No, at that point you get HR involved because they are creating a hostile work environment and demoralizing the team (bonus points if any of you have significant familial obligations such as caring for an elderly parent or other relative).

Mandatory sensitivity training FTW!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER31> I am reading so many different opinions here.

I wonder what would you all reply to an "Ask HN" thread like "I am working day and night and sending emails even outside business hours, but my colleagues do not reply unless it's business hours and that is really bugging me".

Btw, did you all consider that maybe that guy just needs or wants really hard that promotion or that salary level-up and is "just" working as hard as he can towards such goal? He/she/They might have duties you do not have (kids, family members, health expenses or other stuff).

@OP: I'd say, as long as you feel honest about your output and feel you're working fairly hard for your company you are okay. You might just want to take a break and think if there is any way to improve/optimise your output.

<comment><USER6> Ask HN and you shall receive: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12722587](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12722587)

<comment><USER31> Woah that was totally unexpected

<comment><USER6> Here on HN you must _expect_ the _unexpected_!

Or, I suppose you could expect the Spanish Inquisition.

<comment><USER6> _No one expects the Spanish Inquisition!_

 _Our chief weapon is surprise, fear and surprise; two chief weapons, fear, surprise, and ruthless efficiency!_

 _Er, among our chief weapons are: fear, surprise, ruthless efficiency, and near fanatical devotion to the Pope!_

 _Um, I 'll come in again..._

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nf_Y4MbUCLY](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nf_Y4MbUCLY)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER32> It's not about working hours but your value proposal. You can't compare yourself to him in hour to hour comparison unless you work some mundane job where your appreciation and productivity is only measured in terms of hours of work put in.

Since it seems like you want compete with this guy but not put in the hours (and I don't think you should) you need to work smarter. Look up some posts about value proposals and find a way to increase your value for the team. I.e. focus your efforts in increasing your output per worked hour.

</comment><comment><USER33> >> I am been rated above average in the current appraisal system...But after advent of this colleague, I see everything declining...as "irresponsible"

I see this as a huge red flag. It is clearly evident that you may not be marked above average for the next appraisal. Obviously being marked as irresponsible shows that the upper level is expecting you to work like a donkey!!!

I would just start preparing for my next move.

>> Changing job would be resetting all the good will and trust that I have built here.

To this, I can say from experience, that our job is to look for the next better job. While this is a bit sarcastic maybe, but really, as we know, that companies won't think of that goodwill when the next round of letting go people comes along. And going by your description, your goodwill is because of your quality of work, so if you plan/prepare/put the efforts for the next move while you are in this job, you will really be better off.

>> I don't really want to portray my peer as bad(He is mostly nice on the face),

Most likely and I think you imply politely that he is not nice really and he understands the game being played and is playing it. You don't want to play that game, which is fair enough, but you will lose as a consequence.

So overall, just my opinion, is that now this job is no longer the right fit and moving on seems the most sensible thing to do.

</comment><comment><USER34> You and him have different aspirations. You want to put minimal effort and still somehow progress in your career. He want to put maximum effort and advance faster. Clearly he is going to become your manager even if he do not have seniority. You will stuck in the same position or hop to new job. He will get exploited by organisation and discarded when not needed.

1\. Losers - the biggest group of employees. they are easy to manipulate and will easily follow the lead. These people trade their life for paycheck and are worse off in economic sense. Over productive losers get promoted to Clueless.

2\. Clueless is group of employees usually middle management that personally believe in organisation. These people will put insane amount of work because they what company to succeed. Even if they are only getting slightly more, they carry way more responsibility.

3\. Sociopaths/Founders/Stakeholders is top layer in any organisation. They want organisation to be predictable, It don't matter if organisation fails they will succeed anyway. They need Clueless as insulation layer to Loser.

[http://www.makingitanywhere.com/escape-your- job/](http://www.makingitanywhere.com/escape-your-job/)

</comment><comment><USER35> I think you should raise the issue to the team (most likely they feel the same as you) and in a meeting raise the issue to him as well.

However, if this is going for a long time, then it's just bad management.

I recall that I was working on a project and was hooked, I mentioned in the meeting that I'm planning to do some extra work while on vacation. My lead engineer specifically told me absolutely NOT to do so and he went as far as assigning the task to another engineer while I was gone, mostly to avoid having me do any _progress_. He knew that I was killing my self trying to show off my work and was trying to protect me (from myself). I admire him deeply for his conduct, he set a great example.

Just when you talk to the guy who's doing such damage or to other guys, be away that might be feeling that he needs to _prove_ himself. I might be wrong of course as each one has a different personality.

</comment><comment><USER36> If you're working at a place where your "performance" is determined by the number of emails that you send at a given hour of the day, then you'd do yourself good by finding an alternative.

(If you really love the place and want to _fight_ your "workaholic" team mate, start scheduling a couple of your emails at random times during weird hours.)

</comment><comment><USER37> Welcome to life. A place where there is always someone who works harder or smarter than you. If your workaholic colleague is bringing more value to the company, she should be promoted faster and receive larger compensation than you.

The key word here is value. Take a big step back and consider what value your colleague brings to the company. What "jobs" and "roles" does she fulfill within the team? Is she staying up late fixing random bugs or doing things others don't want to do? Is she staying late making sure a release goes well or delivering insights to execs to push the product forward?

You used the phrase "stuck with" which suggests negativity and possibly a sense of "it's unfair to me". Is she actively working against the team or is she outperforming others?

Consider what value you bring to the team. Do your manager/people in charge of your compensation recognize the value you bring?

As with most "soft skill" conversations the details of a situation are key.

</comment><comment><USER38> Set your Don't Disturb settings properly, so you won't see it at night, only during work hours.

Accept that he wants to be better.

Overall the end product and performance will be measured, not how many hours were needed to make it.

</comment><comment> happy-go-lucky This discussion reminds me of something an Indian poet once said. It's along the lines of: No country has any proud history. The entire history of human race is awash with habitual exploitation of others.

</comment><comment><USER39> Send Later plugin. Write emails and set them to go at 1:15AM, 2AM and 4AM.

<comment><USER40> And a SaaS was born

<comment><USER6> And that SaaS is called Boomerang.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER41> The problem isn't your co-worker, it's the company and how they relatively value that. I'm definitely a workaholic, but my coworkers who work "normal" hours are equally valued. (but we're a small company, so we don't have a rigorous review process, and soft skills are highly valued)

In general, and true in my situation, when you work crazy hours, other aspects of your work life may be subpar (for instance, another team member may be a better communicator or a thoughtful architect)

</comment><comment><USER42> This kind of reminds me of clients who send emails late at night. My general policy is to just make myself unavailable, or simply send a polite reply telling them I will address it first thing in the morning. I figure if I do that enough, it will nudge them toward understanding which times are appropriate and which ones aren't.

</comment><comment><USER43> I recently wrote a blog post which might change his perspective on things: [https://medium.com/@jeremycabral/how-a-5-minute-ignite- talk-...](https://medium.com/@jeremycabral/how-a-5-minute-ignite-talk-helped- me-re-prioritize-my-life-16db16a9ed4c)

I think sometimes people need something shocking to happen in their lives to force them to change for the better

</comment><comment><USER44> Everyone is very nice and proper on this thread. There's another option if he's affecting you negatively -- burn him.

If he likes to work, arrange to dump the worst, tedious gigs on him. Nitpick random bullshit. Blame him for stuff. If you don't he'll set the benchmark for everyone.

</comment><comment><USER45> Well, I'm a bit of a workaholic, and I do tend to do things at all hours of the day. But it's more related to the fact that I have terrible sleep patterns, and I've worked 6am to 3pm, to about 1pm to 10pm, and so on and so forth. I've just explained to my team that I have horrid patterns, and to not look into it more than basically tracking how I'm sleeping.

</comment><comment><USER46> Sometimes people just wake up in the middle of the night and have trouble falling asleep so they send emails or do other boring stuff, so they can fall asleep again. I've done that on occasion. If it were me, I would just concentrate more on my job and less on what my coworkers were doing.

</comment><comment><USER47> I have met people that have God complex. They feel that things cannot run without them.

</comment><comment><USER48> I think it's really up to the manager of the group not to normalize the workaholic's behavior. It's possible to not let someone "break the curve" while still appreciating the extra work that they put in.

</comment><comment><USER49> Don't assume that late-night emails/updates are bona fide. I've had colleagues who bragged that they would write emails during the day and then send out late at night.

</comment><comment><USER50> Hint: emails to execs throughout the night are mostly unwelcome.

<comment><AUTHOR> :) but they measure hard work with volume of text and charts contained in all the emails combined

<comment><USER51> How does that align with their business goals?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER52> Changing jobs doesn't reset good will and trust. When you change teams, you get to build even more good will and trust with others.

</comment><comment><USER53> You want to stop people from working too hard because they want to get ahead? This is like un-american.

</comment><comment><USER30> Changes jobs.

<comment><USER54> I think that's not your problem, but your manager's. They should discourage that kind of behavior at work. Also, you can talk about it with other team member, I am sure there will be more people who think the same.</comment></comment>


Show HN: Jargonaut - Project glossaries for your dev team - <AUTHOR> https://app.jargonaut.net/ <comment><AUTHOR> After writing a glossary for my day job using confluence, I thought there had to be a better way. I couldn't find one, so I built Jargonaut. It helps you build a nice, crosslinked list of terms/definitions, and provides simple slack integrations to allow you to pull in a definition into slack.

I have lots of ideas to add more value, but I want to get a feeling from others on whether something like this adds enough value to your bog standard wiki page, enough that you'd consider parting with money for it.

</comment><comment><USER2> Was there a particular pain point with the confluence page you made for your work team that you wanted to address by building Jargonaut?</comment>


Open Source Should Come with Warranties (From the Companies Who Use It) - <AUTHOR> https://writing.kemitchell.com/2020/01/27/Killjoy-Warranties.html <comment><USER2> So liability should be assumed by it's users? Isn't this a reversal of Landes- Posner?</comment>


Vimeo deletes Project Veritas account after report highlighting Google AI bias - <AUTHOR> https://reclaimthenet.org/project-veritas-banned-from-vimeo/ <comment><USER2> I had an account at Vimeo removed some time ago. It was bizarre to go back and forth about why. They had playboy and other nudity on site, we pointed to that being more nude than what we had published (which was sexual in ways, but no nudity) - and this was a paid / upgraded / pro account - a few hundred bucks. Long story shortened they said their determination was based upon a site linked or mentioned in the videos / profile that had more explicit content on a subpage. So it wasn't the videos we made specifically for vimeo publishing (wasted time and money) - but part of what had been promoted was against some editorial something or another.

I pointed out content on their site that was way over the line of what they had issue with on that sub page - and they said something like 'don't do as they do, their (other accounts on vimeo that were not banned) stuff was not indicative of what was okay on vimeo'

All in all it's fine with me, they can do things however they want, it's a privately owned site not a gov portal, it was just so frustrating trying to make content that fit and going through so many things only to get banned for some unwritten rule.

So I used to recommend them over youtube, but that was a long time ago. Now I strongly suggest not to use them or depend on them for anything.

<comment><USER3> > only to get banned for some unwritten rule

This is the biggest problem with tech censorship. I have no problem with them making up whatever rule they want. But no one knows the exact rules which makes it seem like they apply their rules unevenly, which reeks of bias.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Site seems to be an ad farm.

Actual Project Veritas site.[1]

[1] [https://www.projectveritas.com](https://www.projectveritas.com)

</comment><comment><USER5> To anyone working at a company doing this sort of stuff: The standard you walk past, is the standard you accept.

</comment><comment><USER6> Are these comments for real? How can anyone be against the truth? The whole point to PV was taping facts. None of the content has ever been debunked.

</comment><comment><USER7> Nothing to miss by avoiding a visit, trust me.

That website reeks of low quality outrage content, it even has the typical Youtubey thumbnails.

</comment><comment><USER8> Isn't this project the same project that did the highly edited ACORN video recording gotchas to generate outrage on the right?

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ACORN_2009_undercover_videos_c...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ACORN_2009_undercover_videos_controversy)

</comment><comment><USER9> Taken at face value these allegations (revelations?) are concerning. I buy that Google is not a public utility, and as a private company they have the right to do as they like, but the ethics detection indicators start pointing to nefarious when they use their monopoly status to actively influence politics.

Problem is we can't trust this source, he's been using dirty tactics before. Still, someone needs to publish a rebuttal with a satisfactory level of transparency that explains some of the statements in this video. And the discussion that should ensue is definitely of general interest, and should not be knee-jerkingly flagged into oblivion IMO.

<comment><USER5> > indicators start pointing to nefarious when they use their monopoly status > to actively influence politics

The actions described in the video sound like things which could easily be an unlawful violation of campaign finance laws, as well.

It's a set of serious accusations that deserve a coherent response, not being aggressively muted from the internet (presumably via bogus trade secret accusations).

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> Isn't that the James O' Keefe right wing grifter business that taped journalists. Good, close the entire shop down for all I care.

<comment><USER11> Because it's not something you personally agree with?

<comment><USER12> They generally do highly deceptive editing. As a filmmaker you can always smell a rat from how they edit videos.

<comment><USER13> So does Michael Moore, but nobody's banning him as far as I'm aware.

<comment><USER14> He's become incredibly irrelevant to the world now though. Were he to make headlines again, I'd wager that his shady tactics would no longer be discussed in relative obscurity but be actual news.

<comment><USER13> Implying James O'Keefe isn't even more irrelevant.

<comment><USER14> Yes because Moore doesn't make the news any more. This is the first discussion I've seen about him in a while.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Linux 3.11 Officially Named "Linux For Workgroups" - <AUTHOR> http://www.h-online.com/open/news/item/Linux-for-Workgroups-Linux-3-11-s-feature-set-now-confirmed-1917712.html <comment><USER3> I was part of a Windows system install in 1993 for a mid-sized corporation. At that time, Windows 3.11 was wonderful. People were amazed by it. There were no writable CDs back then (floppies ruled), but it was being researched and people were excited about the huge storage potential. Things have changed a lot since that time, but some things have stayed the same (red black trees are still red black trees). MicroSoft is ___still_ __a heck of a systems programming shop, but back then, they were God.

The Linux name change is a fitting tribute to Windows system programmers everywhere.

<comment><USER4> As a Mac user at the time, the love for Windows 3.11 left me scratching my head something fierce. By comparison to System 7.1+, Windows 3.11 was _awwwwful_.

Of course, around that time you could also run an Irix desktop, complete with Photoshop and SoftPC and even (later on) IE, but that was sadly beyond the reach of most consumers.

<comment><USER5> One word: Networking. Mac OS and Windows were _awful_ at networking at that time (and Mac OS remained awful at network for some time beyond this point).

UNIX variants, OS/2, and the BSDs were the options at the time for decent networking...Mac OS wasn't in the running.

<comment><USER6> Not sure why you would say this. My first job was running phone lines through the lowered ceiling to hook up localtalk for the Macs. It worked wonderfully. Even back then Apple was very auto-configure-y which made finding printers and file servers very easy. Just go into Chooser and there they all were. IP over localtalk was not difficult either. After a couple years it moved to ethernet (coax, yay!) and that worked fine too. Networking Macs has always been extremely easy.

<comment><USER7> I agree. The Mac was great at networking in 1993. Sure, MacTCP and MacPPP may have had strange configuration UI but localtalk and ethertalk Just Worked, and getting MacTCP and MacPPP working wasn't too hard.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> [https://lkml.org/lkml/2013/7/13/132](https://lkml.org/lkml/2013/7/13/132)

I think he's trying to tell us something. :)

<comment><USER9> For those interested in adding to their Finnish vocabulary:

[http://translate.google.com/#auto|en|perkeleen%20vittup%C3%A...](http://translate.google.com/#auto|en|perkeleen%20vittup%C3%A4%C3%A4)

<comment><USER10> That is not a literal translation though, just the closest English equivalent.

<comment><USER11> "Devil's cuntheads" would be a close-to-literal translation (I'm Finnish)

...Although "perkele" is a native god, and it can be debated whether it should be translated to "devil"; [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Perkele](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Perkele)

<comment><USER12> "Perkeleen" is used nearly synonymously with "fucking" though (as in, "devil" isn't really considered swearing in the English language). I read it as "fucking cunthead". Which is lovely indeed!

Disclaimer: my knowledge of the Finnish language is mostly limited to profanity.

<comment><USER13> I'd rate 'perkeleen' to be slightly 'softer' than 'fucking'. 'Vittu' (or 'vitun') is the best translation for 'fucking'. Not sure if there's a better word for it in English, but maybe something like 'damn' or 'bloody'.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> Here's the Makefile: [https://github.com/torvalds/linux/blob/master/Makefile](https://github.com/torvalds/linux/blob/master/Makefile)

Here's the changeset: [https://github.com/torvalds/linux/commit/ad81f0545ef01ea6518...](https://github.com/torvalds/linux/commit/ad81f0545ef01ea651886dddac4bef6cec930092)

<comment><USER14> And this makes me question whether Github comments (at least on high-profile projects) should be open to anyone.

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> Charming gestures like this is part of the reason I like the open-source community.

You don't see nonsense like this very often in commercial products (except maybe the Goats transported system-counter in Android, whose open-source status is constantly under debate).

</comment><comment><USER16> Zswap looks very interesting. It seems that a similar feature is included (and enabled by default) on the new OS X Mavericks ([http://www.apple.com/osx/preview/advanced- technologies.html](http://www.apple.com/osx/preview/advanced- technologies.html) \-- called "Compressed Memory").

As a Windows user, I'm always surprised to see how conservatively Linux uses its swap area. On Windows, even with enough free memory, it still pages to disk and gives me a sluggish experience. Does anyone have any idea why Windows is so aggressive about paging disks out compared to Linux?

<comment><USER17> I can't explain the sluggish experience, but a plausible explanation is that Windows sees a bunch of unused pages, and also a bunch of uncached disk blocks that are used often, and decides that it would be preferable to put those disk blocks in memory in exchange for putting the "unused" memory in swap.

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> Windows For Workgroups 3.11 was relased on August 11, 1993.

<comment><USER19> IIRC 3.11 Was August, 3.11 for workgroups was later that year

</comment></comment><comment><USER20> I really hope that Linus officially releases 3.11 on August 11th.

</comment><comment><USER21> I'm still on Ubuntu 12.04 LTS which has kernel 3.2.0-49, I thought 'old' was 2.6 or really old 2.4. What the heck is going on now, the kernel is already up to 3.11? Did I miss anything good in between? By my perceptions I would have imagined that newest kernel would be around 3.6 or so but I was wrong: [https://www.kernel.org/finger_banner](https://www.kernel.org/finger_banner)

<comment><USER22> The kernel numbering system changed when Linus moved over to v3. Basically the switch from 2.4.x to 2.6.x was the last major change to the Linux kernel. Since then, all the 2.6.x releases have been pretty standard incremental updates. So a few months ago Linus decided it was time to switch to v3 - <USER2> to round the numbers off (it wasn't a big nor noteworthy release - it was just an excuse to round the numbering off). So now the the second digit is what used to be the 3rd digit in the 2.6.x releases.

<comment><USER23> I believe that 3.0 actually coincided with some Linux-related anniversary.

<comment><USER24> The third decade of Linux development.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> Nice homage.

Just an interesting observation that both of these "3.11" are actually referring to different relative versions.

Windows was not using the now-common semantic versioning. Windows 3.11 is actually a patch to 3.1, which in semantic versioning would actually be 3.1.1.

Linux 3.11 however, is a minor upgrade to Linux 3.10.

</comment><comment><USER26> Re. old times, if you were an early QNX user you kind of wondered what took everyone else so long ...

</comment><comment><USER27> Does this mean my MacBookPro8,2 will stop acting as a hot water bottle?

</comment><comment><USER28> What's wrong with "Unicycling Gorilla"?

<comment><USER29> Sounds prone to crashes.

</comment></comment><comment><USER30> I came here to say, "wow, isn't that reminiscent of Windows for Workgroups." Touche linus, touche.

<comment><USER20> > I came here to say ...

I believe your packets may have made a wrong turn while en route to reddit.com.

</comment></comment><comment><USER30> [http://i.imgur.com/YrFvRzp.gif](http://i.imgur.com/YrFvRzp.gif)

<comment><USER31> Welcome to Hacker News! I don't mean for this to come off the wrong way, but please try to put more effort into your comments than Imgur links. This is a place for discussion, not one-liners and images. It may be that way on Reddit, but Hacker News has a focus on higher effort content.

<comment><USER14> Badmouthing Reddit at every opportunity doesn't reflect all that well on HN either.

<comment><USER32> In what way did cheese1756 badmouth Reddit?</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Introduction to Microsoft To-Do - <AUTHOR> http://gunnarpeipman.com/2017/04/microsoft-to-do/ <comment><USER2> Since we're talking about todos, I built a screensaver todo list the other day, and it has helped me a lot.

my main issue with todo lists was that I forget to look at them. Once I'm at my desk I get my head stuck in work and forget to call dave or email chris or whatever. So I built a screensaver, set to 1 minute delay, which displays my todo list. It simply reads a text file from dropbox with some UTf8 icons at the start of each line.

Every time I go for tea or take a toilet break its the first thing I see when I get back. I wish I'd done it years ago

<comment><USER3> A screen saver todo is a good idea! Is it open source? Care to share it?

Heh, asking if the code is open source in this context feels like panhandling :)

<comment><USER2> Yeah, I can open source it. I'll reply back shortly

UPDATE: Here it is!

[https://github.com/roryok/todoscreensaver](https://github.com/roryok/todoscreensaver)

(uses WPF/.NET, GPL, based on a WaveSimScreensaver source by Sean Sexton)

Planning a few updates already, mostly just extra settings (change font size, theme etc)

<comment><USER4> Thanks! Do you know if it is possible to implement this in OSX?

<comment><USER2> Don't see why not? It's just a screensaver that opens a text file

EDIT: found this blog entry on creating OSX screensavers in Swift if anyone wants to give it a go

[https://whichline.wordpress.com/2015/07/13/os-x- screensaver-...](https://whichline.wordpress.com/2015/07/13/os-x-screensaver- swift-2-part-1/)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Don't Microsoft own Wunderlist? My theory is that if you observe a large cluster of developers for long enough, todo apps simply manifest into being.

None as good as Lanes though, [https://lanes.io](https://lanes.io). Obviously ;)

<comment><USER6> This is built by the Wunderlist people, and that's now dead :(

<comment><USER5> For real? Wow, that's super lame ( _he says, while frantically beginning to code an 'import-from-Wunderlist' feature_).

<comment><USER7> I think Microsoft released one for this new thing. I'm not sure if it's cross compatible.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> I've never quite found a TODO-app I like. They are all too constrained. Kinda like using jira/trello instead of a physical board with post its. It limits the creativity.

I use OneNote and just add things everywhere I feel like it. Different folders, pages and scattered across a single page. Full freedom, instead of a simple list.

<comment><USER9> try workflowy? It's beyond awesome.

<comment><USER10> I can second that.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> RIP Wunderlist, a shame they've decided to sacrifice a product with a good loyal following and brand for their own branded one, but alas. :(

<comment><USER11> It's the same exact ppl working on it. The CTO now runs a ton of teams at MSFT. They just cloned the app with a different backend and a few new features. The only thing that changes is the brand. It's like accompli. [https://www.linkedin.com/in/fowlerchad/](https://www.linkedin.com/in/fowlerchad/) \- runs a ton of things now

Christian is an EIR - [https://www.linkedin.com/in/christianreber/](https://www.linkedin.com/in/christianreber/)

The rest of the accompli and sunrise teams are around, too.

<comment><USER12> "The only thing that changes is the brand"

That's not quite true. Microsoft To-Do doesn't implement nearly the same set of features than Wunderlist does.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> I used to love to-do apps and use them often, but after becoming a Google Inbox user I'll have a hard time switching. Having all action items in one place that are snoozeable to a specific time is huge for me.

</comment><comment><USER14> One of my biggest asks from todo apps like this is that my todos be kept private. I need encrypted sync so that the authors can't just go and read them... so I'm basically left with todotxt and emacs org-mode as options and then using SyncThing to get todos to my server.

Not that those are poor or anything, org-mode is probably the richest tool around, just that I lose out on a lot of nice UI to get it.

</comment><comment><USER15> To do lists need less "simplicity" and more artifical intelligence. Imagine that you were jotting down things to do for a personal assistant to organize and clarify for you.

* Text entry should be free form. I want to scribble a note to myself, or mumble something into my phone as it crosses my mind - I'm ADD, any step, however minute, between the thought crossing my mind and being recorded risks it being lost forever.

* Repeated tasks should be noticed and auto entered (always go food shopping, and do laundry on Sunday?)

* Tasks should be grouped automatically. Lots of "buy this" or "pick up that" and "meet there" can be organized pretty easily.

* Things to remember are different from tasks. I have to go food shopping - that's a task. Each item in that shopping list isn't a separate task.

* Tasks don't live by themselves. Phone numbers, email addresses, directions, instructions all need to be recorded, used and _not lost_ because that tasks was marked as complete.

* Some to do items are never complete: Exercise, regular checkups, eating right, going to sleep on time. Your personal assistant would remind you about these things.

* Automatically breakdown to-dos into steps. You write down, "get coffee filters", your task assistant adds in "open Amazon.com, log in, search for coffee filters, hit buy now."

* Reminders and alerts and other ways of getting in your face is the principal 80% of tasks. Writing it down is simple and easy. Actually remembering, then doing the tasks suck.

* Done lists are great as well - don't just hide tasks once they're done, show a daily list of things accomplished. Get a seinfeldesque checkbox for completing all your tasks.

<comment><USER2> I built a list app with some of those features, but I ended up favouring simpler things.

Although I would love a smarter shopping list that tracks my purchasing patterns and makes suggestions based on what it thinks I'm likely to need

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> I must be dense or something but never in my life have I ever found todo apps useful. Note taking apps, yes. The odd shopping list on the back of an envelope, sure. The odd text document now and then while I work, sometimes. But taking time out to make a list of things to check off and then going back and checking them off. Sorry I have better things to do, and no I have not made a list.

</comment><comment><USER17> A simple text file has always been far faster and more useful to me than any of these to-do apps. Lately it's migrated to a text file on dropbox, or using google docs or box notes for cloud sync.

There's also TaskPaper which is nice but only on Mac [https://www.taskpaper.com/](https://www.taskpaper.com/)

<comment><USER18> I've been using Google Keep - it has a list of checkboxes for this, they hide when checked. The upside is that you can drag-drop reorder then and you can add to the list from voice on the homescreen ("okay Google add book my vacation time to the Todo list").

But it fails one power of plain text rule - I can't copy and paste into and out of it. Sucks when I want to send snippets of my shopping list to my wife over sms.

<comment><USER17> I do use Keep for notes. For todo's though, the web UI is nice but too slow and annoying to use. Nothing is faster than a text file.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> Looks nice, and reassures me that if MS is spending money building a to-do app I wasn't so crazy after all for building my own :-) [https://five.today/](https://five.today/)

<comment> dorian-graph Have not people forever been building to-do apps, and will continue on doing so regardless of Microsoft and others? It's like a rite of passage.

<comment><USER2> When you learn a new language, invariably you'll find a tutorial for how to make a todo app. It's the next step up from hello world.

I'm not immune from it. I'm making my third todo list app at the moment.

Maybe all the options out there highlight the fact that there's no perfect combination of features for everyone - you'll always find one feature in app X which is not in ap Y or available on platform Z. In my case, I wanted an auto- sorting todo list app on Windows Phone (Listage, in case anyone is interested - though admittedly I don't even use it myself anymore).

<comment> dorian-graph > When you learn a new language, invariably you'll find a tutorial for how to > make a todo app. It's the next step up from hello world.

Very true—see: [http://todomvc.com/](http://todomvc.com/)

I agree, everyone has a slightly different style of working, myself included.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> My Documents, My Downloads, My Computer... and now My Day.

</comment><comment><USER21> I've found that nothing works for me like a written list -- it's the act of writing out the to-do that helps me remember it for some reason (I usually don't have to look at it again if I've written it, but I won't remember if I've typed it -- I've tried a bunch of different formats). Plus I take a weird pleasure in manually crossing items off.

</comment><comment><USER22> The requirement that Wunderlist never met is the ability to VERY QUICKLY from ANY screen add a to-do without CONTEXT SWITCHING. Todoist was the only one that provided this 3 years ago with a sticky notification in Android. I was a paid user for 1 out of 3 years (not currently paying). I would pay if the price was closer to the LastPass pro price, $1 per month, $12 per year

<comment><USER23> I used the Cortana integration with Wunderlist for that. (It was Cortana that suggested Wunderlist in the first place.) If there is one thing that the speech recognition assistants can do very well, it's be a thing I can yell TODO items at and have track for me.

</comment></comment><comment><USER24> My todo app of choice is asana ([http://asana.com](http://asana.com)).

You can start from a simple todo list... but each task can have sub-tasks, dates, attachments, etc. Meaning that you can add hierarchy and additional information if you need it.

It also has mobile apps, at least for iOS and Android.

</comment><comment><USER25> I switched to Trello from Wunderlist a long time ago - The syncing was much faster, and the usability is brilliant. Creating new lists to work use a new system (currently 4 quadrant matrix) makes it very flexible.

</comment><comment><USER26> Excellent! But being a Microsoft Launch, I would expect a Windows Phone version!

</comment><comment><USER27> Does it have a public API?

<comment><USER28> Yes. More specifically, it uses the Exchange backend, which has several public APIs and is also supported by various vendors.

So for example your to dos show up in Apple Reminders and in BusyCal.

And of course in Outlook ;)

</comment></comment><comment><USER29> Howdy, Is the source available somewhere we can inspect it?

<comment><USER29> Sorry if I was somehow disrespectful - I'm unsure how my question warranted a downvote, I'm quite genuinely interested why - so happy for critical feedback.</comment></comment>


Don't cast CloudFlare as copyright/trademark enforcer - <AUTHOR> http://www.rstreet.org/2015/06/24/dont-cast-cloudflare-as-copyrighttrademark-enforcer/

<comment><USER2> _CloudFlare felt compelled, rightfully, to argue that the implications of the order would burden not only CloudFlare, but also any infrastructure service provider (think AT &T or Comcast) to act as an intellectual-property enforcer._

But that's exactly what will happen. The "gatekeeper" industries, movies, records/CDs, book publishers, newspapers. They make monopoly rents off of state-guaranteed monopolies. They've already got approved "limited" monopolies, so it's in their best interests to get someone else to pay to enforce it, maybe taxpayers, maybe CloudFlare or any other infrastructure provider.

I think there's other factions in politics that would like to stuff the Internet Genie back in it's lamp. They will latch on to "intellectual property" as a way to keep people from getting fast information about political manuvering, logrolling, dealmaking, etc.

And to think that in 1995, I was worried that Bill Gates' Microsoft would subsume all programming in-house, release proprietary internetworking protocols that distinguished plainly between a "server" and "client", and sell both docs on MSCP/MSIP and server licenses at a high cost. Ha ha. It is to laugh.</comment>


Divesting AdSense might help Google stave off worse regulatory action - <AUTHOR> https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2020-02-05/why-google-might-prefer-dropping-a-22-billion-business <comment><USER2> I fail to see how divesting Adsense would work. It's either going to kill off Adsense completely since it would no longer have access to pervasive Google tracking information, or if there's a deal to keep sharing that information, it would still open Google to anti-trust litigation.

<comment><USER3> The problem is losing customers, I'm guessing that most people buying Adsense ads are also buying Adwords ads. Carve off the Adsense side and it would just collapse.

<comment><USER4> The advertiser base for Adsense is people buying search Ads. Some percentage of the advertisers just left defaults on and don't know they are buying Adsense Ads (now conveniently called Google Ads.)

I could see how this idea would come from someone inside Google. Product doesn't make them much money and they can claim they made a major change to their business. Because of YouTube, Google has more display inventory to sell now than they can handle. Ironically, the YouTube display inventory is incredibly poor quality, relative to the better Adsense properties out there.

An actual divestment would have to be Google splitting their search engine off from all of their other businesses. Keeping ad sales bundled with Google Search would be reasonable because there wouldn't be any internal products to promote.

<comment><USER4> I would also add, breaking the display advertising marketplace would be extremely problematic for third party publishers, and likely guarantee the lock in to Google News, Facebook News, and Apple News for all news sites. Dumping Adsense is very self serving, and could actually amplify Google's anti-trust issues.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> There is not a problem.

There are several companies competing for ad dollars and using various platforms (search, Instagram, etc) to feed ad systems for revenue. Their systems are extremely targeted and I like the optimized ads for new brands that are finding me.

Additionally, Chinese companies are doing the same and will combine even greater amounts of data — size is extremely valuable in an economic war of east vs west. I choose us.

<comment><USER6> What does China have to do with any of this?

<comment><USER7> A Chinese company owns Media.net which is one of the largest AdSense competitors.

<comment><USER8> Even so, it comes across as a jingoistic diversion in order to paint users and advertisers as being on the same side. "It would be a shame if there were one fewer group stalking you everywhere you go, because then the right people wouldn't be stalking you."

<comment><USER9> I think the risk is that your targeting information is in the hands of a company that can be mined by the Chinese government to perhaps even identify you. It's also aggregate market/economic information. Should this data be protected or otherwise restricted? Should it be export controlled or not? You can imagine that the "data wars" are coming ... whether that's healthy competition or something else I don't think we know yet or have policy around. I think the EU is further ahead in this space with policies around data privacy for example.

The US could operate similarly but we usually expect a warrant for such access but I think there is a big push in the US govt to expand access as well.

<comment><USER10> >The US could operate similarly but we usually expect a warrant for such access but I think there is a big push in the US govt to expand access as well.

With PRISM starting data collection from Google more than 10 years ago I think expecting a warrant for this very valuable data is generous.

<comment><USER9> For sure parallel construction is a looming issue that we as a society and the courts need to figure out.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> They could carve out AdSense and rename it Doubleclick.net. Going back to the pre-2008 GOOGL would be quite nice, even if they had to charge for services like Search.

<comment><USER12> The DoubleClick side of the business still exists: it's called Google AdManager. Very roughly, AdSense is "hey Google, please put ads on my page and make me money" while AdManager is "I'm a big publisher and make deals directly with advertisers for most of the ads I show". AdSense was built internally, DoubleClick was an acquisition.

(Disclosure: I work on ads at Google, speaking only for myself)

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> [https://archive.md/qCH1z](https://archive.md/qCH1z)

</comment><comment><USER14> Considering that Adsense is 90% of revenue this makes no sense

<comment><USER15> Most of Google's revenue comes from AdWords, which is the ads on google.com and from other ads on Google's own properties. AdSense is the ads that you can put on your own web site, powered by Google's advertising technologies. While it's a huge business in its own right, AdSense could definitely be spun off.

<comment><USER16> I'm trying to find information on what sections of Google/Alphabet make what revenue. How do you know that AdWords in the majority of their advertising revenue?

<comment><USER17> [https://abc.xyz/investor/static/pdf/20200204_alphabet_10K.pd...](https://abc.xyz/investor/static/pdf/20200204_alphabet_10K.pdf#page=61)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> Non-clickbait title: Google might prefer divesting $22B AdSense business to avoid antitrust litigation.

<comment><USER19> That's hardly a deep enough cut. Take away Android, or better, Search. Either of those business units can survive on their own. It makes Google far less of a monopoly and breaks up the pervasive spying (at least insofar as it isn't one company tracking everything).

<comment><USER20> Android (the OS part, the one you want opensourced) is pretty much not making any revenue (which is easy to see on the earnings report).

So what you're basically saying is that government should decree to destroy Android as a product and let Apple take over the whole marked with its completely proprietary and DRM locked OS (which is also not earning any money by itself without the rest of Apple corporation to feed it).

<comment><USER21> A spun off Android Inc would be free to make lucrative deals for browsers, search, media and maps and stuff and would have the Play store too. It would do just fine.

<comment><USER22> Then why didn't that happen naturally? People calling google a monopoly don't see that the future if innovation is megacorps and small businesses that try to ascend to selling out. This world where a business sticks to one problem domain is just a fantasy, it's the software version of a mom+pop. In the world of grownup companies it's Amazon vs. Apple vs. Google vs Walmart vs. Tencent vs. Facebook and maybe eventually the Europeans will decide they miss having clout as more than consumers on the world stage and then there'll be a European megacorp too.

<comment><USER23> That is exactly what people calling Google a monopoly see, and that is what they want to prevent.

As a rule, Big corporations do not innovate - they form cartels and sit on their products extracting rent. We have already seen the severe drop in innovation in the mobile space, now that the market is settled.

<comment><USER24> > _That is exactly what people calling Google a monopoly see, and that is what > they want to prevent._

I guess we will soon just use Chinese-made software too then.

<comment><USER25> Just like we're all exclusively eating Chinese chocolate, drinking Chinese beer, driving Chinese assembled cars, and watching Chinese movies?

<comment><USER26> > Just like we're all exclusively eating Chinese chocolate,

\- Not chocolate, but I was amazed when I saw a bag of dried apples came from China.

> drinking Chinese beer,

\- I'd be more worried about it skunking...

> driving Chinese assembled cars,

This actually reminds me, I forgot to see how that spat where GM didn't want to have to pay taxes on Chinese assembled cars they sell in the US wound up finishing.

> and watching Chinese movies?

Someone made a rather convincing argument that the influence of Chinese financiers in the film industry has contributed to shifts in the movies we get.

Now, there are those who may say 'But were any of those Megacorps?' The Apples were Dole, the cars were GM, and the movies (in question in the argument made) were Disney.

My counterpoint to that is that one has to consider that China in this case is the megacorp, due to the level of involvement/oversight they have over the companies that operate in their country.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER27> Alternative /additional explanation: Google realise that their business model of selling ads based on 'spying' on users privacy will eventually come to an end because:

\- users being increasingly aware of the problem,

\- legislation like GDPR everywhere on the horizon,

\- Other companies (e.g. Apple) competing on providing better privacy.

So Google is trying to transition to services with defined income (Cloud, game streaming, Youtube) while it's still easy.

</comment><comment><USER28> What _won't_ google shut down?

Maybe instead of dragging out a seemingly endless series of customer trust sapping product shutdowns it should just decide what it's keeping them split the company into what it's keeping and what it's killing.

Here's my prediction of what will finally be left standing:

Search

Search advertising

Maps

Gmail

50% chance they'll keep their cloud 50% chance it's already living dead like rackspace.

Everything else will go.

It's starting to feel like google is in trouble.

<comment><USER29> Thanks for your undocumented opinion that Google should kill products like Android, Cloud, YouTube, Chrome and many many others.

<comment><USER28> You're right they'll likely keep android, chrome and YouTube.

I think they'll give up on the cloud. Google has already given a succeed or close deadline on this.

What are the "many many others" you refer to? I suspect those are the ones google will kill.

<comment><USER30> Google's doubling down on Cloud precisely because they want an additional revenue stream as big as ads; they know their income model is extremely monocultural and any number of things (either regulation or a titanic shift in the ad market, such as mass-adoption of ad-blockers) could hamstring the growth models they're accustom to.

I wouldn't predict they'll shutdown cloud until and unless they're convinced it won't blow up like they hope for them.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Show HN: Vitamin D may reduce susceptibility to Covid-19-associated lung injury - <AUTHOR> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=45rlZGRz6Qo <comment><USER2> Vitamin D as a supplement might be useless -- best to get your daily sun instead (probably):

[https://www.outsideonline.com/2380751/sunscreen-sun- exposure...](https://www.outsideonline.com/2380751/sunscreen-sun-exposure- skin-cancer-science)

<comment><USER3> Wow this article is very biased and makes extremely strong claims without sufficient evidence. Readers should be warned that the views expressed by the author are not an accurate representation of the scientific consensus on vitamin d.

Numerous studies have investigated the role of vitamin d supplementation on a wide range of ailments. For example, there was a study looking at whether vitamin d reduced the risk of hip fracture in elderly patients (it doesn't), and another on whether it has any effect on stroke or cardiovascular function (possibly protective against cardiac arrest, not likely against stroke).

The author of this article cherry picked some large studies which found no effect on some particular ailments and then concluded that this is proof vitamin d supplementation is a catastrophic failure.

When you make claims like this, you need to be careful to survey many studies, look at the specific goals the researchers were trying to study, and refrain from making absurdly broad generalizations.</comment></comment>


Reddit reinvents the chat room with subreddit chat - <AUTHOR> https://www.wired.com/story/reddit-introduces-subreddit-chat/ <comment><USER2> Does anyone think _Wired_ does anything resembling serious journalism any more?

This is fluff. So was the previous piece about the reddit redesign.

And speaking of the redesign: you know what feature makes live chat less compelling? old.reddit.com.

<comment><USER3> Let me answer your question with a question: Does _anyone_ that could be considered a traditional media outlet do anything resembling serious journalism anymore?

Seriously, the last major investigative reporting I've seen recently was at places like BuzzFeed.

<comment><USER4> The Guardian and the Washington Post both clearly do, off the top of my head.</comment></comment></comment>


Show HN: Seomator – embedded SEO audits - <AUTHOR> https://seomator.com

<comment><AUTHOR> Kickstart your SEO agency sales with our white label audit tool embedded on your website

</comment><comment><USER2> How about showing some demo report instead of forcing users to signup?</comment>


Ask HN: Why technical recruiters mostly does not have a technical background - <AUTHOR>

Hello, in my country most of technical recruiters are BA graduates. To test how interviews goes I have applied a few of them and went to interview. Interviews usually goes like that, rate your X programming language knowledge from 0 to 10 and they write down what you say. They have very shallow knowledge (mostly just the name of technology) about technologies and they cannot question you to verify your rating is realistic or not.
I am working at a SW House and we are nearly 1000 developers here so there are always a few interviews nearly every week. Sometimes I ask managers to join interviews to ask technical questions and gave feedback about the guy's technical knowledge. They hired candidates which I gave positive feedback and also candidates which I gave negative feedback. After six months when I talked with managers they were very pleased about the performance of the guys which I gave positive feedback.
So I decided to leave from my company to found a recruitment agency. I think that developers can understand developers better so I can find right candidate better than a BA graduate.
What do you think ? <comment><USER2> Recruiting is a lot like advertising- there's no proven formula, and results are delayed and difficult to separate signal from noise. Some people use these tools to significant advantage, and others just throw their money away without realizing their folly.

Your recruiting for maximum profitability involves both recruiting good talent but also standing above the crowd of mediocrity. You have to not only bring on A players, but interface expertly with the (mostly) C players hiring you.

The most successful recruiters are the ones who are able to hire for the A players while placing C players in stable jobs. Unfortunately, there tends to be no biscuit for helping a business avoid a bad hire, even if that ends up being quite valuable in the end.

What you may be perceiving as total ineptitude on the part of the competition may be a well-disguised (and perhaps unintentionally so) song and dance to appeal toward companies that are satisfied with low-grade talent.

In today's market, in the end, sadly, those who can, do, and those who can't, recruit. Recruiting just doesn't pay like doing tends to. Do you think you can change that?

</comment><comment><USER3> "I think that developers can understand developers better "

Very true and I am with you on that. However, when it comes to hiring, it is unfortunately not just about developers understanding developers. The reason most recruiters are not really technical is simple. Most Clients do not give a shit how technical a recruiter is. Clients have requirements and the bigger the client is, more lazy they will be to do any legwork on their own in finding good candidates. All they do is to outsource to these "technical" recruiters who charge a fee to find that right fit.

So this model works because clients are ok with it. But may be it is ok. Hiring includes searching through endless resumes, screening, salary negotiations, etc. which the recruiters can help with. For a developer, it sounds like nothing (I feel the same way) but clients value those steps a lot and pay essentially for that. Not for how techie a recruiter is.

</comment><comment><USER4> Mchannon is right.There is no proven formula for this.In fact, there is no proven formula for anything.If that were the case, Steve Jobs would have been a simple worker.Pure talent is always an exception yet there are always few exceptions.

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for the answers guys, at least I want to try for 5-6 months and will see what will happen. I will write down progress.</comment>


Developer wants to stick an H.264 fork in Firefox - <AUTHOR> http://www.downloadsquad.com/2010/05/16/developer-wants-to-stick-an-h-264-fork-in-firefox/ <comment><USER2> The idea that software patents don't exist in Europe and the related idea that the MPEG patents are "software patents" (as defined by?) seems particularly pernicious.

You'd think all the highly paid lawyers working for the large European companies that MPEG-LA have sued would have brought this revelation up in court.

(I liked how they say "apart from patent issues" and then list two other major problems that H.264 poses to Firefox, both due entirely to patents.)

</comment><comment><USER3> Isn't this why Firefox has extensions? Just write an extension to add H.264 support.

<comment><USER4> or a browser based on Firefox's codes - and with H.264 support.</comment></comment>


Ways Your Wi-Fi Router Can Spy on You - <AUTHOR> http://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2016/08/wi-fi-surveillance/497132/?utm_source=feed&utm_source=twitterfeed&utm_medium=twitter&single_page=true <comment><USER2> Jesus, I wasn't even going to read this article, but holy shit, am I glad I did.

      Using more precise sensors, the same MIT
      researchers went on to develop systems that
      can distinguish between different people
      standing behind walls, and remotely
      monitor breathing and heart rates with 99
      percent accuracy.

      A system called "WiKey" presented at a
      conference last year could tell what keys
      a user was pressing on a keyboard by
      monitoring minute finger movements.

      And a group of researchers led by a Berkeley
      Ph.D. student presented technology at a 2014
      conference that could "hear" what people were
      saying by analyzing the distortions and
      reflections in wi-fi signals created by their
      moving mouths.

Man, I was about to blow this off as yet another MAC address sob story. I totally was not anticipating doppler effects and radar-style reflection/signal strength analysis.

</comment><comment><USER3> _A system called "WiKey" presented at a conference last year could tell what keys a user was pressing on a keyboard by monitoring minute finger movements. Once trained, WiKey could recognize a sentence as it was typed with 93.5 percent accuracy—all using nothing but a commercially available router and some custom code created by the researchers._

Ok that's pretty cool. But incredibly concerning.

The actual abstract of that paper mentions much higher figures for individual keys:

 _WiKey achieves more than 97.5\% detection rate for detecting the keystroke and 96.4% recognition accuracy for classifying single keys. In real-world experiments, WiKey can recognize keystrokes in a continuously typed sentence with an accuracy of 93.5%._

[http://dl.acm.org/citation.cfm?id=2790109](http://dl.acm.org/citation.cfm?id=2790109)

<comment><USER4> I wonder if it makes any assumptions about layout and keyboard shape (for example, it might not know that I was using Dvorak, or that I had an ergo keyboard where my fingers were in atypical places).

<comment><USER5> _" Once trained..."_

It needs to know what keyboard/layout and also the person.

I'd guess that the position of the keyboard in the room needs to stay constant too.

<comment><USER6> Doesn't mean they couldn't get enough data to do it in general.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> A rare example of a misleading title that is actually too underwhelming: No, they are not talking about spying on your internet traffic but using the router to observe your real-world movements...

</comment><comment><USER8> There are a lot of interesting things you can do with wifi signals, human bodies show up with a lot of accuracy in them. Such as breathing rate detection, and heart rate.

[https://staticfloat.github.io/papers/WiBreathe_PerCom2015.pd...](https://staticfloat.github.io/papers/WiBreathe_PerCom2015.pdf)

<comment><USER9> Wait, so in a building full of wifi signals, you could theoretically detect a body with no heartbeat or breathing and alert someone automatically?

<comment><USER10> Possibly, better get a startup going

<comment><USER11> Seriously, you can do this

<comment><USER8> A more interesting question is who might be already doing this, and could you write a passive receiver for this to utilise ambient signals versus on purpose emitted ones. Considering it's utility in several scenarios, I can see why some money might be invested in developing this capacity without commercialising it.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> I wonder how accurately you can determine the location of individuals across a house?

I remember WiSee ([http://wisee.cs.washington.edu/](http://wisee.cs.washington.edu/)) a while back and ever since then I thought it would make for a fantastic home security system. You plot out your perimeter and when armed it goes off whenever a person crosses the threshold.

With some of the improvements from this system, it could even be possible to have it always armed but excluded certain people from tripping the alarm.

I wish I had the knowledge and experience to implement such a system (radio- wise).

</comment><comment><USER13> Hello radar... Is it any surprise that MMIO technology, designed to work around problems caused by different signal return paths can make a really nice 3d radar?

Google for "SDR passive radar" for some really cool projects.

</comment><comment><USER14> This is pretty frightening all by itself, but I'm thinking: if this is possible with a router, should't a simple smartphone be capable of the same, since it can be used as hot-spot, and covers even more signal ranges? A device owned by everyone, everywhere, generally less secure and more carelessly used, with loads of proprietary software pretty much always installed? Does it mean the whole city can be almost realistically observable by someone, even when no video camera is there?

<comment><USER15> Reminds me of the system in Batman to find the Joker. It was using cell phones and mapping the whole city I think?

<comment><USER16> I think that was using the phone's microphones, not antennae. Same idea though.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> People who are capable of writing side-channel attacks like this have an intuition for radio and signal processing that must be completely overwhelming during their day-to-day life.

<comment><USER18> > People who are capable of writing side-channel attacks like this have an > intuition for radio and signal processing that must be completely > overwhelming during their day-to-day life.

I might not be such a wizard :-( but still I know some things about how some everyday objects such as computers/laptops (hidden features), mobile phones, WiFi etc. can be used for surveillance. Even in a country such as Germany that has seen two surveillance states in the 20th century and is thus a lot more concerned about surveillance than, say, the US (as I observe it) I'm talking about this topic till I am blue in the face.

So in other words: I don't believe you would consider such a person to be overwhelming, but instead you would consider him as flat-out annoying and paranoid.

<comment><USER19> I don't think he implied that the _people_ with this knowledge must be overwhelming. I think he means these people's intuition, and knowledge, about radio/signal processing, must be overwhelming (to _them_ first and foremost) during their day to day life.

As in, everywhere you go, you realize how much information a knowledgeable evil actor could extract by simply analyzing what's being irradiated.

<comment><USER20> I'm imagining something like the brother in Better Call Saul, where it's painful for him to be in the presence of cell phones or fluorescent lights, etc.

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

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> Many years ago I've seen this topic, and it suddenly vanished for a decade.

Now it's here again, and I'm even more frightened.

<comment><USER22> Analyzing just the sound of a keyboard being typed on can yield the typed content as well:

[https://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2005/09/snooping_on_t...](https://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2005/09/snooping_on_tex.html)

<comment> et-al Ha, this is amazing. Reminds me of movies using seemingly far-fetched premises at their time.

Sneakers - in the beginning when they're spying on Dr. Janek, the team can't see the entire password he types, but Whistler hears the missing keystroke.

And related to the original post, The Dark Knight has Batman using sonar from everyone's mobile phones to detect where the Joker's henchmen were and here we are with wifi routers (and potentially other 2.4 GHz devices).

<comment><USER23> That's not what happens in Sneakers.

They're all trying to figure out what the password is from the video, and Whistler is paying attention to what they're saying, which is that he has an answering service. And if he has an answering service, then the answering machine on his desk is hiding something in plain sight.

<comment> et-al Ah you're right. Wasn't there a scene where the keyboard was obstructed and Whistler says "it's ___ key"? Maybe when they spy on Werner Brandes.

I'll have to re-watch this sometime soon.

[And if anyone reading hasn't watched Sneakers (1992), you _must_.]

<comment><USER23> Sneakers is one of my favorite movies.

I don't believe that the scene you're thinking of happens. Whistler is pretty impressive, but even he can't hear the difference between keystrokes.

The other cool things that Whistler does are figure out where Martin was taken by the sounds that Martin remembers, and figure out what the various rooms in the building are via telescopic microphone ("Emergency exit stairwell." "How can you tell" "I can hear the emergency exit light batteries recharging") :D

<comment> et-al All of you folks were right.

I skimmed over the movie late last night and realised I completely misremembered the two scenes mentioned, and exaggerated Whistler's hearing abilities.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> I was thinking a way to avoid typing passwords in your keyboard. So I just wrote this proof of concept of password input by doing hovering over the letters that you want to enter as password. Every time the page loads and every 2 seconds the dial changes position and rotation so two passwords never should have the same mouse movements. [http://codepen.io/anon/pen/yJdXoK](http://codepen.io/anon/pen/yJdXoK)

<comment><USER25> Here's one way to avoid typing passwords: use a password manager to generate and store them. Generating a new password is just a click of the mouse, and using the password requires only the copy/paste key stroke combo, or less.

Using 2-factor authentication also helps. Even if the bad guys know the code, it's only good for 60ish seconds. This provides a time dependency, similar to your dial idea.

<comment><USER24> That sounds like a good idea. You could use a private key to unlock your password manager.

But the problems of both using 2FA and a private key is that they both rely in something that only you have.

If someone figures out how to steal your phone/hard drive, then they also have their way to all your accounts.

This dial tries to get back to the idea of "something that only you know".

Finally, you could also use a private key with a password, and you would even reduce more the attack surface. But again, the dial is a way to make harder to hear your secret when you're entering it in the computer.

Anyway, this dial is a PITA to enter long passwords, which is not good. Long passwords are very important.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> Is there anything on github that I can use with DD-WRT to play with any of these effects? Maybe visualize the people my router can see?

<comment> gene-h This may not be exactly what you are looking for, but check out the Linux 802.11n CSI Tool. A lot of this work is done with the channel state information(CSI) which tells you how a signal propagates from transmitter to receiver and vice versa. Unfortunately, it's hard to get access to this sort of information and there are only drivers for one chipset.

[0] [http://dhalperi.github.io/linux-80211n-csitool/](http://dhalperi.github.io/linux-80211n-csitool/)

<comment><USER26> Thanks! Looks like I may have to buy some hardware too.

<comment><USER27> openWRT is a better platform for things like this today than DD-WRT.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER28> So this concerns Wi-Fi, but why wouldn't it work with other terrestrial broadcasts?

<comment><USER29> Frequency: WiFi has a high attenuation because it's easily absorbed by water. There is a lot of water inside humans. It also has a short range, so there is a lot less noise.

</comment></comment><comment><USER30> So if I have say, a Comcast could they theoretically use this to snoop and uniquely identify the people using that router, as well as determine if someone were watching TV when a given commercial ran? I can picture their audience measurement team drooling over this.

</comment><comment><USER31> Does anybody know if they are talking about 2.4Ghz or 5Ghz wifi spectrum? I would imagine that the 2.4Ghz spectrum would be the easiest to use to use for detection since it penetrates walls, etc. better.

<comment> et-al The paper mentioned in the article [0] and cannonpr's WiBreathe paper both mention 2.4GHz. I would think 5GHz would provide more detail (at the cost of range), but admittedly this isn't my forte at all.

[0] [http://arxiv.org/abs/1608.03430](http://arxiv.org/abs/1608.03430)

</comment></comment><comment><USER32> I feel this technique could have some substantial military applications.

<comment><USER33> Wall-penetrating radar is already a thing:

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w4eret12KN0](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w4eret12KN0)

Probably a lot more accurate than (ab)using wifi routers for the purpose, but the benefit of WiFi is that other people have already conveniently installed the hardware inside their homes.

</comment></comment><comment><USER34> I remember reading an article back when wifi was new about a company using some of the same wireless technology for wall penetrating radar for military/law enforcement applications. I don't remember if one was borrowing from the other or if it was developed in parallel. I guess this is the next evolution when you can do both with one box.

Does this mean I need to shred my tinfoil hat and blow it around the room as chaff?

</comment><comment><USER35> This is a great business opportunity for Wi-Fi-cancelling devices. No doubt we'll see increased use of wired-only and line-of-sight networks.

Edit: s/WIFI/Wi-Fi/

<comment><USER36> Like paint

[http://www.informationweek.com/startup-markets-wireless- secu...](http://www.informationweek.com/startup-markets-wireless-security- paint/d/d-id/1029300)?

[http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/8279549.stm](http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/8279549.stm)

[http://shop.wireless-protection.org/blocpaint-wall-floor- and...](http://shop.wireless-protection.org/blocpaint-wall-floor-and-ceiling- shielding-191-p.asp)

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> I remember when I was researchig motion detection systems a few years ago for controlling software by natural movements, I found various technologies including the Myo and infrared tracking. And then I saw this:

[http://news.mit.edu/2013/new-system-allows-for-high- accuracy...](http://news.mit.edu/2013/new-system-allows-for-high-accuracy- through-wall-3-d-motion-tracking-1211)

</comment><comment><USER37> It sounds possible to detect what a voter chooses even within a voting booth. Just knowing this was possible could be a serious threat to one of the last bastions of democracy, namely voter privacy. If I think that my vote is detectable by the powers that be, I might as well be in North Korea.

</comment><comment><USER38> Does anyone know how they measure Wi-Fi signal strength to such an accuracy? Like, from a practical standpoint, I have no idea how to make my Wi-Fi card tell me signal strength with such a high accuracy in any OS. Do they have special Wi-Fi cards? (No, I haven't had the time to read the article yet unfortunately, but hope to soon.)

</comment><comment><USER39> I don't get it. A much more accurate sensor for detecting human movement is a camera.

<comment><USER40> Last I checked, most cameras can't see through walls.

"Something in the way? No problem. A pair of MIT researchers wrote in 2013 that they could use a router to detect the number of humans in a room and identify some basic arm gestures, even through a wall. They could tell how many people were in a room from behind a solid wooden door, a 6-inch hollow wall supported by steel beams, or an 8-inch concrete wall—and detect messages drawn in the air from a distance of five meters (but still in another room) with 100 percent accuracy.

(Using more precise sensors, the same MIT researchers went on to develop systems that can distinguish between different people standing behind walls, and remotely monitor breathing and heart rates with 99 percent accuracy."

<comment><USER39> If you look at that paper you'll see they use some custom machine on the other side of the wall to send and sense the wifi signals. And all they get is relative movement away or towards the machine. I'm sure an infrared camera would be much more accurate. Doesn't seem practical at all.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER41> I'm a media artist who wants to do an implementation of this DSP algorithm for a piece of installation art. Get in touch with me on twitter @joshypants if you're an engineer who's interested in collaborating on the implementation.

</comment><comment><USER42> if one is a lone 'researcher' good luck weaponizing this.

</comment><comment><USER43> Chainfire of SuperSU/android fame has an app that does something to combat this called pry-fi[1] that randomizes a bunch of data, and can appear to be many devices at once. Requires root of course.

[https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=eu.chainfire.p...](https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=eu.chainfire.pryfi&hl=en)

<comment><USER44> Which, I believe, is completely irrelevant to the problem described in the article. What they do is observe the electromagnetic spectrum, using WiFi routers as signal sources. They don't really care what sort of data routers are transmitting, they need the transmitter active at the moment you press the key.

(It may even make it somewhat worse, as the router's transmitter is less likely to idle. Although I'm not sure if it matters.)</comment></comment>


Sequoia Capital's 56 Slide Presentation Of Doom - <AUTHOR> http://www.techcrunch.com/2008/10/10/sequoia-capitals-56-slide-powerpoint-presentation-of-doom/ <comment><USER2> Supposedly one of (Sequoia partner) Doug Lenone's slides was "If the product is ready, cut the number of engineers."

That's going to make it tough for to get and keep engineers. When hiring, there will be increased resistance to four year vesting and one year cliffs, especially when a product is close to "ready". The engineers that they have will be more likely to leave a 3/4 to "ready"product for another company/product that is only 1/4 to "ready".

"Cut engineers when ready" makes sense only for companies only have one product and it's "done" at some point. Companies that work that way shouldn't employ engineers - they should contract out.

<comment><USER3> Slide 47 from [http://www.slideshare.net/eldon/sequoia-capital-on- startups-...](http://www.slideshare.net/eldon/sequoia-capital-on-startups-and- the-economic-downturn-presentation) shows that they are encouraging cuts in every department. The line for engineering is "Decrease headcount for next version?" which is in line with their other questions

       Product: What Features Are Absolutely Essential?
       Marketing: Measuring & Cutting What's Not Working?
       Sales & Bus Dev: Getting Return On Expense Increase?
       Pipeline: Real Probabilities Of Closing Deals?
       Finance Cashburn: Where Can Payments Be Deferred?
       Finance G&A: What Departments Are Essential?

<comment><USER2> Yup, and those folks should react the same way.

<comment><USER3> After the dotcom crash, the number of jobs in Silicon Valley dropped about 25% from their peak. This affected most people's ability to negotiate better compensation because demand dried up. Depending upon the severity of this contraction many different disciplines and professions may experience the same thing. Sequoia folks understand that engineering is a key driver for innovation, the fact that they are telling portfolio CEO's to consider cutting engineering indicates their concern as to the severity and longevity of a contraction.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> I find it difficult to believe that these guys didn't see this coming at least a year ago; their own data from a year ago certainly points in that direction. So, why are they presenting the doom deck now?

The VCs I have met were talking about a serious downturn over 16 months ago and I've known for at least 4 years that the real estate bubble was going to cause a lot of problems. I think lots of people saw this coming. So, why did we have to get to this point before getting such sober advice? Seems odd to me.

<comment><USER5> have you read the black swan? graphs can be made to explain everything. after the fact.

<comment><USER6> You don't need to read Taleb to know that. "Lies, damn lies, and statistics" :)

About Taleb, "when all you know is the hammer..." He is no renowned economist. MBA and Phd. in management. Oh, and he teaches risk. Try Roubini, it's even more dramatic.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Anyone here lived through the Japan depression care to share their experiences with us?

<comment><USER8> It was terrible. People were forced to eat raw fish for sustenance. They couldn't get full-sized electronics, so they were forced to make tiny ones. Unable to afford proper entertainment, folks would make do by taking turns to get up and sing songs.

<comment><USER9> And they couldn't find beer or proper mix for their drinks. So they drank scotch.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> How many souls of Sequoia interns went into this?!?!?

<comment><USER11> I'm pretty sure sequoia doesn't have internships. Or, at least, they're not easy to get.

<comment><USER12> Agreed. But they have lots of secretaries. Lots of hot, smiling secretaries. I need to schedule another appointment soon.

<comment><USER13> Having lots of young, nubile women around is a primitive Homo sapiens dominance signal. Gartner group pulls out this sort of stuff for their junkets.

<comment><USER12> Tongue in cheek.

<comment><USER14> Your cheek or hers? ;-)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> I find it fascinating that just a couple of slides have data for this year. Should this financial mess be a "surprise" at all? Just the chart of home values should have been a clue:

<http://www.1stmillionat33.com/posts/06-09-12/house_his.gif>

<comment><USER16> While that graph is interesting (and I've seen it referenced a number of times in a number of places), I've always found the scale misleading. Almost the whole bottom of it (0-50) is chopped off...so what looks like a logarithmic leap, is really merely doubling. While doubling is dramatic, and certainly a sign of something amiss (either tremendous inflation, or something else that is distorting value), it's not the astronomical rise the chart feels like when you first see it.

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> Doom? Looks more like a countdown to something. While most major corrections since 1929 have occurred on 4/1, 7/1 or 10/1, this one dropped out on 10/09/08. Hmmm, let me guess, the Dow's bottom is at 7,654.

We are currently at T minus 8 and holding . . . our breath.

</comment><comment><USER18> These slides seem to suggest that the exits will be smaller for while. They are missing one critical slide - one that tells entrepreneurs to look at their cap table and terms and if they don't make sense at a small exit, get recapitalized or go home (take off the suit, put on some jeans and apply for the next YC session)

<comment><USER19> good point :-)

</comment></comment><comment><USER20> That's a great summary of the macroeconomics that led to the current situation. I'm a bit surprised Sequoia went into that much detail, but they've got some great advice for their CEO's at the end. (Get cash-flow positive!!)

</comment><comment><USER21> This is one of those threads that just never dies.</comment>