Dumb Rules That Make Your Best People Want to Quit (2017) - <AUTHOR> https://medium.com/s/story/10-dumb-rules-that-make-your-best-people-want-to-quit-8491b446dde5 <comment><USER2> > (Don't do) Performance reviews

> Trust them to produce, and if they are not producing, let them go.

If you are firing someone for performance, _you have done a performance review_. It's just that it might be entirely in your head or based on office gossip about who _appears_ most productive.

You wouldn't optimise a program without a profiler, so you shouldn't make hire/fire decisions on productivity without some means of measuring productivity. I know it's hard and tends to result in stupid metrics, but that doesn't mean it shouldn't be attempted.

<comment><USER3> Idk about the US, but I imagine it's more similar to the EU than the press suggests....

Anyway in most of the EU, by law and by convention^ people don't get fired often. When they do, it's a part of a greater process where a department is reorganized, jobs have been made redundant or somesuch. Firing individuals for below average performance is rare. It needs to be an extreme. If it is dines, it's done as part of a performance review) evaluation process with feedback, time...

The reality is that

^The convention part is important. Regardless of laws, it's very hard to operate a business that's firing a lot. Firing someone is like exiling/outlawing them, to borrow analogies from older societies.

If you try, you'll encounter a huge pile of difficulties. Moral/culture will be one. Politics will be another.

<comment><USER4> I've fired and been fired for sub-par performance. I'm from the EU. Its not that rare at all.

<comment><USER5> The difference is, it's rarely an on-the-spot firing (at least in the UK). There are usually a few levels of "performance improvement" / "how can we help you get back on track?" before you get anywhere near "you're goneski".

Assuming we're just talking about "not quite the best" work performance here.

<comment><USER6> It's really expensive to fire people. Not only do you lose out on the recruiting, the training, the profiling. You will have to do it all over again. I've never fired anyone in my entire career in the EU. I do not understand how it's feasible to do it willy-nilly in the USA. Can anyone tell me that? Or is it much more rare than I think?

<comment><USER7> Firing is rare in the US. Layoffs (bulk termination of many people at once) are common, and much scarier because of US's weak social safety net.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Personally I hate performance reviews, but if a formal system doesn't exist people will demand something. In the absence of a system there can be appearances of favoritism and, if the managers aren't disciplined, things like raises and promotions can end up being ad-hoc and random.

That said a performance review system doesn't necessarily completely cure favoritism but it at least leaves a paper trail. It should also force management into thinking about how to structure raises and promotions in a way that they're more evenly and rationally applied.

</comment><comment><USER9> _Trust them to produce, and if they are not producing, let them go_

This is incredibly wasteful and an easy to way to lose good people. Take a few minutes to conduct a 'performance review' and see why they aren't producing. Sometimes it's an easy fix. I've seen companies fire people who where world class at Y simply because they weren't performing at X, despite the fact that the company also had a different department that did Y.

<comment><USER10> > Take a few minutes to conduct a 'performance review'

I have never seen a company implement a performance review:

      - That mattered
      - That would have detected anything
      - That would be more than the obvious

<comment><USER9> I feel that most performance reviews I've had have been at least pretty decent. Basically just going through what I've done the past 6 month, talking about what I'd like to be working on over the next 6 month and if there's anything that I should work on or might need to help me manage to do those things better. Often there is some sort of checklist that has be worked through, but I always get a few minutes to just talk in general about my work.

<comment><USER11> that sounds like feedback you should be getting in manager 1:1s, the formal review process isn't necessary

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> Indeed some of these rules and policies are ridiculous. I particularly enjoyed my time as a mid-level manager at a large aerospace company where we did stack ranking each year. We had to stack rank an organization that consisted of five departments with over 300 engineers. I was one of the department managers. Each department manager's goal was to get as many of his members ranked as highly as possible. The game theory was thick in those meetings. Unfortunately, one of the other managers had weak game and ended up with poor rankings every year. It seemed very unfair to his better people.

However, this statement in the article is pretty dumb: "If you don't trust the people you hired, why did you hire them?" How about because they interviewed well and you thought you could trust them but once they started working they proved themselves untrustworthy. That's not rocket science; it's something that happens and is not particularly rare.

<comment><USER9> _" If you don't trust the people you hired, why did you hire them?" How about because they interviewed well and you thought you could trust them_

Or just as likely, "you" didn't hire them. Someone else in the company did based on criteria that are different than yours.

<comment><USER12> Very good point. Encountered that situation a few times.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> Let people work from home at their own whim. Never inquire about their performance. Never document anything related to their performance. Shutter your company in 5 years when you have a bloated payroll, terrible products, and nothing ever gets done on time.

I get that actually managing people and their performance is harshly frowned upon on HN, but it is a very necessary evil. Working in a place where the inmates run the asylum is is not fun either from my experience.

<comment><USER7> Employees aren't inmates. A place where the employees run the company is a strong organization.

<comment><USER14> There have been lots of discussions here on HN, personally I think that an employee-run company still needs leadership. And companies can be good for employees without needing to be employee-run.

See for example Valve, there's been a lot written about it, not all of it good:

[https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2018/jul/30/no- bos...](https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2018/jul/30/no-bosses- managers-flat-hierachy-workplace-tech-hollywood)

[https://www.pcgamer.com/ex-valve-employee-describes- ruthless...](https://www.pcgamer.com/ex-valve-employee-describes-ruthless- industry-politics/)

Politics will ALWAYS exist at a workplace.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> Adding another one: the advice on "Feedback methods" (don't send out engagement surveys, just walk around and ask people how they're doing) is _incredibly_ hard to get right.

It takes a remarkable amount of trust for a random individual employee to feel confident that they can voice their concerns to management. And that trust takes an enormous amount of effort. If you're a manager and you're not absolutely sure that your employees would feel free to speak their minds, giving them a risk-free way of doing so isn't a bad idea. Employees feeling they can't speak honestly to someone who is in control of their livelihood isn't a "problem with communication", it's the status quo at the majority of companies.

</comment><comment><USER16> _" If you have mediocre people doing mediocre work, you are going to have a mediocre company."_

Aren't most people mediocre per definition?

I really hate all this talk about "We want the best of the best!"

Sure you want them, but there aren't enough for all and chances are, if you aren't a really big company, you won't get the few that exist.

You need to shape you company so that you can deliver value to your customers without the need of a few geniuses. Your company should be more than the sum of its (mediocre) employees.

<comment><USER17> Even more common is "we want the best of the best, but want to pay median wages."

<comment><USER16> That's a whole other story.

Even IF they all had the money, it won't work.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> A lot of articles recommend against formal performance reviews, and in some sense I agree, but it is important to be thoughtful about how you're going to give feedback and work with your employees to help them perform more effectively.

Oftentimes formal performance reviews are replaced with some sort of continual feedback system (whether through an actual formal system or just an informal process), but in my experience a lot of continual feedback systems just turn into a back-patting machine and lose a lot of the constructive criticism that a formal review process can bring out.

Stack-ranking is obviously dumb, and yes, assigning things to a 5 point scale probably is too. But those were never the actually valuable parts of _good_ reviews. You should always find a way to spend time and be thoughtful about where team members are excelling and where they're falling short.

I've worked a few jobs that decided that performance reviews were a pointless exercise and I honestly couldn't have told you what everyone thought of my performance prior to me leaving.

<comment><USER18> For most people I think this makes sense.

Personally, blunt candor can work as well. I do not let anything slip, if I think someone needs some direction or coaching it basically happens in realtime. There's really no need for a formal review if feedback is constant. Sometimes the feedback can be more general, I feel someone needs some hints I just give it to them.

I don't make it personal and don't expect people to take it personally, it's jarring at first but quickly it just feels really quite normal.

Technically, there are still room for performance reviews ... but if as a manager you're telling someone in a review something they're hearing for the first time then you've failed. They should know right away.

<comment><USER9> _Personally, blunt candor can work as well._

Only if it goes both ways. If I can't respond to my managers blunt candor with "the reason we're so far behind is because you suck at time management and promised the customer two features we hadn't even begun to plan for" without fear of being reprimanded or punished then blunt candor isn't very effective.

<comment><USER18> ""the reason we're so far behind is because you suck at time management and promised the customer two features we hadn't even begun to plan for" "

First, if you ever said that to your boss you should definitely be fired.

Second, that's operational information, not performance feedback.

Third, it's not your prerogative to tell your boss what he's good or bad at. They give you the review, not the other way around.

<comment><USER19> Surely you understand how it creates bad incentives, if feedback about individual productivity can be delivered bluntly but feedback about prioritization can't be given at all.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> I would add dress code to this list.

"We have smart casual dress code in this software department. So you can't wear shorts event if its 40 degrees celsius. Oh and shirt is mandatory"

<comment><USER21> We had a chap who wore leather, except sometimes a T-Shirt expressing quite harshly an opinion about a globally recognised major religious figure from antiquity.

I was glad to see a dress code come in.

<comment><USER22> I feel absolutely blessed that I can wear camo cargo shorts and metal band shirts at work.

Obviously I don't wear any of the graphic or gory ones, or from bands with obviously offensive names, and I will choose a nice polo shirt if I know I'm going to be having meetings people from other parts of the organization, especially if they're higher up in the hierarchy.

That said, the best head of development we ever had would wear leather pants, ass-kicking boots, rivet belts and band shirts, and he had a Mongol warrior- style beard and hairstyle. He also consistently got the very best reviews and the best results out of his teams.

<comment><USER5> A literal Rockstar head of development. Wow. :)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> "Trust them to produce, and if they are not producing, let them go."

This sentence is contradicts :

"Let's be honest: Performance reviews are a waste of time."

How are you going to know if the person is productive if you are not doing performance reviews?

<comment><USER24> _How are you going to know if the person is productive if you are not doing performance reviews?_

You have to take an active role in managing them rather than just passively checking in occasionally.

<comment><USER25> The two aren't really mutually exclusive. I (generally speaking) know what my performance ratings will be weeks before I'm given them, but that doesn't mean that the performance review process isn't valuable (depending on how its implemented, obviously).

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> Rally anyone? I have a hard time getting used to it, and I've seen stories being worked on for the sake of being in rally even though there isn't enough information for good work to be done. I've seen engineers do good work to build features that the product needed but engineer was discouraged from doing it because it wasn't in rally first. And pointing sucks, we're trying to fill stories in just to meet certain point quota per Sprint.

</comment><comment><USER27> > Faced with a rule-driven culture, the best employees ... are usually the > first to go, because they're in high demand and have more opportunity than > most. What's left is a pool of people who are mediocre at what they do ...

And that is when I stop reading any article.

EDIT: She's stating rules in the workplace make good employees leave and only mediocre employees remain. The term BS automatically applies here.

<comment><USER2> Why?

<comment><USER28> Indeed, why? I've seen exactly that. Stupid rules coming up, extremely performing employees leaving or making it clear that unless that's revoked they'll leave.

<comment><USER2> My favourite example of this was when one company tried to issue all the devs with new contracts with the "standard" IP clauses claiming ownership of everything we did. Since there were a number of Free Software devs on the team, this was unacceptable ... so, while asking for clarification and a change, we simply didn't sign the new contracts. There was no way the company could have taken action against us without completely wrecking their ability to ship, so it stalemated until they backed down.

<comment><USER5> These are usually the first clauses I query ;)

This works pretty well as a response:

"Okay so I maintain some open-source stuff, it's all on Github. I appreciate you want to maintain your IP, and I agree to give you first-refusal on anything new before I make it public, and stay out of any market where the company has an interest."

This is usually enough to swing things from "we own everything" to "we own everything you make on work time, unless it intersects with one of our products".

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER29> The issue I have with cellphones is I've routinely seen people browsing Facebook or chatting to their friends. This lasts for _hours_, as in 1pm-6pm with overtime all while others working extremely hard.</comment>


Introducing Dropbox for Teams - <AUTHOR> http://blog.dropbox.com/?p=933

<comment><USER2> Love this. From an administration standpoint, it's long overdue and much needed.

Wish there were cheaper plans that offered less storage. Maybe that will come later if enough users request it.</comment>


This year's OSCON conference only had a single Ruby presentation - <AUTHOR> http://www.oscon.com/oscon2014/public/schedule/topic/1129

<comment><USER2> What's with the title?

<comment><AUTHOR> I don't understand your question.

At OSCON, there was only a single Ruby presentation this year. Given that Perl, Python, and PHP all had multiple presentations, it seems curious.

<comment><USER3> PHP, Python, and PHP all have their own tracks.

I believe OSCON didn't historically had a Ruby track (but I could be wrong!) because O'Reilly had _an entire conference_ instead, RailsConf. That was sold/given away/somehow ended up in the hands of Ruby Central a few years ago, and essentially Rubyists were used to having their own separate events by that stage anyway.</comment></comment></comment>


Microsoft fixes 'big boobs' coding gaffe - <AUTHOR> http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-18922629 <comment><USER2> So someone set 0xB16B00B5 as the guest ID in the hyper-v code in the Linux kernel, and some other people got offended and asked Microsoft to change it.

I don't see the problem, I don't know how someone could be offended because of this. And as Paule Bolle says [1], it can be changed without breaking anything.

The only serious thing that comes to mind about this is the MS Trustworthy Computing initiative, but I don't think it has anything to say here.

[1] <https://lkml.org/lkml/2012/7/13/362>

<comment><USER3> 2976579765 is just the decimal representation for 0xB16B00B5. I wouldn't call this a change.

<comment><USER4> In this case, 2976579765 should be considered sexist too!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Dear god. Microsoft ought just chill. Anyone offended by a Hex string needs iCouch.me. It would be different if it were some Nazi slogan or some Al Sharpton quote. Either way, it's in Hex. Consider it a funny Easter egg. Let the nerds have some fun! After all, for some MS engineers, that's a close to big boobies as they'll ever get.

<comment><USER6> It's a bit bigger of an issue than that. There's nothing wrong with easter eggs, but the big issue here is that it is a sexist remark at a time when women are having a difficult time making it in many STEM fields, specifically software development, directly because of the actions like this that affect them in the workplace.

<comment><USER7> Goddamnit, I don't know what's sexist and what isn't any more. What if the message was 0xB1GD1CK (okay, there's no K in hex). Should men be offended?

<comment><USER8> Although I obviously understand how you formed your analogy, I just don't see how it's actually analogous. Software development is a male-dominated field, and the objectification of body parts is much more prevalent with women's breasts than with male genitalia. If we lived in a world where males felt uncomfortable working in software development environments due to repeated sexual harassment by their predominantly female co-workers and where billboards and music videos were filled with gratuitous imagery of male genitals, then this might be analogous. But that kind of hypothetical is way beyond my imagination.

<comment><USER7> That's fair. However, I don't understand what "objectification of body parts is". Men are attracted to big breasts, small waists and large hips, women are attracted to broad shoulders and big arms (or so I am led to believe).

Body parts _are_ objects. I don't expect my broad shoulders to be able to hold a reasoned debate for long. What do you mean by objectification? If the fact that someone is attracted to "big boobs" and putting it in some source code is anathema, does the same thing happen with "intelligence is hot"? If not, why is one acceptable and the other not?

Granted, I haven't thought about these issues long, so my mind can easily be changed if someone demonstrates errors, but it seems to me that we went from "some men need to stop being creeps and hit on women _at least_ during work hours" to "any mention of any attraction ever is forbidden".

<comment><USER8> "Objectification of body parts" was poor phrasing on my part. The issue is the sexual objectification of women, in this case reducing them to their component body parts (e.g., "big boobs"). A woman is more than a set of breasts—she's a human—yet you often see well endowed women used in advertising as nothing more than highly sexualized decoration with a disproportionate focus on their breasts (or other parts). This is the sort of objectification I'm talking about (and it happens in more forms than this and in more than just advertising).

I don't think this isn't even a matter of stating attraction to "big boobs." This is merely saying "big boobs" for laughs. It's the kind of stuff young children do (see also: the penis game), so I'm not sure why anyone's rushing to defend this sort of behavior.

Let me ask you this, though. Suppose you work as a developer (as you likely do), and you're tasked with welcoming a new female developer to the team and bringing her up to speed on the system she'll be working on. While opening up the source code and explaining one particularly peculiar section, you come across this constant:

        BIGBOOBS = 0xB16B00B5;

How comfortable are you showing off this bit of code to the new developer? How comfortable do you think the new female developer would be in this situation?

<comment><USER7> > yet you often see well endowed women used in advertising as nothing more > than highly sexualized decoration with a disproportionate focus on their > breasts (or other parts)

That is because the advertisers want to show something that will immediately capture the attention of their target audience. You don't see women with big breasts on ads for female hygiene products, or, indeed, anything that doesn't target mostly (or even specifically) men.

A long, reasoned debate showing how intelligent and wise a woman is won't do much for a 20-second ad. I don't find this any more objectionable than ads using tan, muscular men to appeal to women, which I don't find objectionable at all. It's human nature to be attracted to the opposite sex, and the most available factor is external appearance.

> This is merely saying "big boobs" for laughs. It's the kind of stuff young > children do (see also: the penis game), so I'm not sure why anyone's rushing > to defend this sort of behavior.

I completely agree. However, I don't see anyone defending it, people are mostly just saying "this is just childish, not sexist, and isn't that big an issue".

I am equally (un)comfortable showing this to a female developer as I am to a male developer. I find it childish and might be a bit embarrassed, not because of the gender of the new hire, but because it's a childish and unprofessional thing to have in code.

I am not sure how comfortable the female developer would be, I assume she'd laugh it off, but that's projecting my own feelings onto hers. If I am wrong about this, it will be precisely because I do not know how a woman would feel in this situation, so that's a bit of a moot question to ask me specifically.

<comment><USER8> > You don't see women with big breasts on ads for female hygiene products, or, > indeed, anything that doesn't target mostly (or even specifically) men.

That's simply not true. See <http://www.genderads.com/page5/sexobject/sexobject.html> for plenty of counter-examples.

> A long, reasoned debate showing how intelligent and wise a woman is won't do > much for a 20-second ad.

Right, of course not. As I mentioned earlier, advertising is not the only medium in which this sort of objectification is prevalent.

> I don't find this any more objectionable than ads using tan, muscular men to > appeal to women, which I don't find objectionable at all.

Again, I don't think you can simply swap genders and call it a fair analogy. Additionally, at least in my experience, the number of advertisements, music videos, etc. that use the sex appeal of female body parts for commercial purposes far outweighs the number of equivalent things using tan, muscular, and similarly exposed men for commercial purposes.

> I completely agree. However, I don't see anyone defending it, people are > mostly just saying "this is just childish, not sexist, and isn't that big an > issue".

When confronted with criticism, arguing that the subject at hand is not a big deal is defense, is it not? I'm not saying anyone's promoting more use of 0xB16B00B5 in code, but there seem to be several commenters in here saying it's fine.

> If I am wrong about this, it will be precisely because I do not know how a > woman would feel in this situation, so that's a bit of a moot question to > ask me specifically.

It's actually not moot. I was interested in how you thought a woman might react—a question only you can answer. The actual reactions of women would vary quite widely from one to the next, of course. I'm sure some would laugh it off; I'm sure some would be offended. Personally, I'd be afraid that more women than men would be uncomfortable in this situation, and I don't like the idea of a development culture that makes women feel less comfortable or welcome than men. That's why I personally find it offensive. If you think women would be just as comfortable with this as men, then I would understand why you would not find it offensive.

<comment><USER7> > That's simply not true. See [...] for plenty of counter-examples.

Hmm, the page of counterexamples you listed seems to be about making women feel "sexy" (it's on the ad for many of them), so it makes sense they would show "sexy" women, just like selling clothes and other items that would make men feel masculine would show buff men.

> As I mentioned earlier, advertising is not the only medium in which this > sort of objectification is prevalent.

Hmm, which other media is it prevalent in that could display other qualities of a woman for the same purpose instead?

> Again, I don't think you can simply swap genders and call it a fair analogy.

I will concede that.

> When confronted with criticism, arguing that the subject at hand is not a > big deal is defense, is it not?

I am not sure about this. "It's right and you shouldn't be offended" isn't the same as "it's wrong for different reasons and isn't a big deal anyway".

> It's actually not moot. I was interested in how you thought a woman might > react—a question only you can answer.

Ah, okay. I answered that above, then.

> That's why I personally find it offensive. If you think women would be just > as comfortable with this as men, then I would understand why you would not > find it offensive.

I think this is the crux of the issue. I think women wouldn't have a problem with it, so that's why I don't have a problem with it. Maybe it's societal, though, as we can't assume the US technology sector culture is universal and the same as in other countries (I live in Greece).

<comment><USER8> > Hmm, the page of counterexamples you listed seems to be about making women > feel "sexy" (it's on the ad for many of them), so it makes sense they would > show "sexy" women, just like selling clothes and other items that would make > men feel masculine would show buff men.

That's true. Many of those examples are for products designed to make women more sexy, but I'd argue that advertisements like this are much more common than advertisements with buff men that are supposed to make men feel more sexy. I think many people would agree that, at least in American culture, there's more pressure on women to be sexy than there is on men. This is part of the problem, if you ask me.

> Hmm, which other media is it prevalent in that could display other qualities > of a woman for the same purpose instead?

You see this in pretty much any sort of pop culture. Music videos (whether the performers are male or female) are generally littered with imagery of young women as sex objects. Even 24-hour news stations have been criticized for using news anchors in risque clothing—something that doesn't happen with male anchors. Several tabloids employ the concept of the "Page 3 girl." I'm not aware of such a thing with men (certainly not with the same prevalence).

Outside of media, you see the same issues reflected in culture. I'm having difficulty finding statistics on these, but stripping and prostitution are at least perceived (and portrayed in media) as predominantly female industries with male clientele. The concept of the woman as a sex object is practically everywhere.

> I am not sure about this. "It's right and you shouldn't be offended" isn't > the same as "it's wrong for different reasons and isn't a big deal anyway".

True. That said, there do seem to be some comments here that imply no offense should be taken as well as many that merely downplay the issue as not a big deal.

> I think this is the crux of the issue. I think women wouldn't have a problem > with it, so that's why I don't have a problem with it. Maybe it's societal, > though, as we can't assume the US technology sector culture is universal and > the same as in other countries (I live in Greece).

I agree: this is the crux of the issue. I plead total ignorance on Greek culture and can only make guesses as to the hypothetical reactions of American women. Nevertheless, I think it's best to err on the side of sensitivity, especially in a field so criticized for its gender gap.

<comment><USER7> > advertisements like this are much more common than advertisements with buff > men that are supposed to make men feel more sexy.

Maybe women are just a larger market. I can't comment.

> I think many people would agree that, at least in American culture, there's > more pressure on women to be sexy than there is on men.

Again, maybe the causation is the other way. I can't comment.

> I'm not aware of such a thing with men (certainly not with the same > prevalence).

I'll give you that. This is, again, probably addressing the fact that the target market are men.

> stripping and prostitution are at least perceived (and portrayed in media) > as predominantly female industries with male clientele. The concept of the > woman as a sex object is practically everywhere.

I'm not sure this follows. They're perceived as predominantly female because men are more overt about (or more open to) paying for sex. Women aren't as interested in that, for whatever reason. Male strippers/prostitutes _do_ exist, after all.

This isssue is too complicated to discuss on HN, sadly. I did greatly enjoy the discussion, however!

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> I find it funny that this is offensive to some people. I cringe that some of the silly names we have given internal code bits or projects might one day offend someone somewhere and need to have a formal apology. It's a good thing people can't get under the paint of their walls as it's common for construction workers to write notes and draw on unfinished sheetrock.

<comment><USER10> It's not about leaving a humorous note or reference (I know I've left plenty), but that it's a sexist one reflects poorly on developer culture.

<comment><USER4> Now there's a limit to draw too. I don't approve of some of the blatant sexism going on in our field, but this is a little too much don't you think?

If I tell someone I like boobs, should I issue a formal apology too? Should Microsoft issue a public apology to their cafeteria workers for using 0xBAADF00D? OpenSolaris for 0xDEFEC8ED?*

They're hex strings ffs. Can we stop pretending we're so prude and perfect, call out the real offensive stuff and not fret over this kind of irrelevance?

*(<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hexspeak>)

<comment><USER10> For what it's worth I think it's been spun up to a bigger story than it needs to be. It should have been patched quietly and done and moved on.

And there is a line to be drawn, females aren't sacred cows need smothering away, but it's a bit off handed to make sure your hex code spells something like big boobies, just reflects poorly on the industry.

<comment><USER11> I don't know the technical details, but it sounds like the purpose of the magic number is interacting windows programs with linux. Regardless of how accurate that is, unless the magic number is used only within 1 program (or maybe only withing Microsoft programs), changing it is going to cause problems.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> The mere fact that so many software developers don't see the big issue here is exactly the big issue.

<comment><USER12> The big issue I see is a bunch of men, most of whom have probably never actually worked with a woman in a STEM field, think they are experts on what such women would find offensive.

<comment><USER13> I find this hypothesis truly bizarre. Since almost the late 80's I have been in one of these (clever acronym du-jour) STEM fields, and have yet to _NOT_ have worked with women in my group, as peers. (My background is primarily writing banking software, if that matters.) I've never NOT worked with a female geek programmer either at my level or above.

My anecdote is not data, but neither are vast and wild generalizations like you are making.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> > His comments, and those on the Linux mailing list, have started a huge > debate about whether use of the string was sexist and how male developers > should conduct themselves.

</comment><comment><USER15> Now lets go bash oracle/sun for using 0xcafebabe for the magic number in java class files.

No, please, get serious. Trying to find a hint of sexism in everything is almost as bad an offence as making sexist jokes where it's inappropriate.

</comment><comment><USER16> Related: I just noticed the original answer to the "How to be a brogrammer" Quora question got pulled down. Brogrammer backlash has been swift. [http://www.quora.com/Brogramming/How-does-a-programmer- becom...](http://www.quora.com/Brogramming/How-does-a-programmer-become-a- Brogrammer)

</comment><comment><USER17> Is 0xcafebabe on the chopping block as well?

<comment><USER18> How about 0xDEADBEEF and vegetarians?

<comment><USER19> You can take my life, but you'll _never_ take my 0xDEADBEEF.

</comment></comment></comment><comment> jack-r-abbit Worth repeating: Until it is proven that the coder who put that in was, in fact, a male it is highly sexist to just assume that it was a man and that ladies are not capable of being childish or being into big boobs as well. ;)</comment>


Denmark: 1,000 Megawatts Of Offshore Wind, And No Signs of Slowing Down - <AUTHOR> http://www.forbes.com/sites/peterdetwiler/2013/03/26/denmark-1000-megawatts-of-offshore-wind-and-no-signs-of-slowing-down/ <comment><USER2> I remember seeing the windmills for the first time in person when I was in my teens, on a flight from Boston to Copanhagen. I saw another "field" of them as my boat left port in Denmark.

They were incredible to look at, just mesmerizing. They were beautiful, gorgeous in more than just their form. That something so bold and elegant could create meaningful amounts of power blew my mind. I remembered reading about lakes and ponds in New Hampshire that had no persistent human contact but tested positive for mercury from coal plants. Looking at these windmills was like staring into a vision of the future. Looking at them, I had never felt so optimistic about technology before.

When I got home I went on the internet to read about wind power and see if there were any initiatives in my home state or Massachusetts. The negativity I found in the papers was its own mind-boggle.

Do you know what they complained about? _The view._

<comment><USER3> While the view may be a rather weak argument, wind power doesn't make much sense. Nuclear power is just a better way to produce energy. It's cheap, stable and just as environmentally friendly. It's too bad that politics prevent it's usage, adoption and development in so many countries. There's very little research on thorium power, too, which would solve most of the remaing negative points about nuclear power.

<comment><USER4> In case you didn't realize it, you're arguing that wind power doesn't "make much sense" on an article describing an entire _nation_ implementing almost 25% of its total electric power demand via wind, and planning to raise that to 50% within a decade. I'm just reminding you in case you didn't realize that.

The only problem described in the article is having _too much energy_ (crikey Moses, what a nightmare, we have to fix the grid). If a wind turbine falls over, the impact is a little less than if a tsunami envelops a nuclear plant, isn't it? Not to mention dealing with waste for hundreds or thousands of years? (I'm not anti-nuclear, just not delusional about its downfalls, and let's face it, there are _many_. Thorium has waste too.)

<comment><USER5> Denmark's population is smaller than New York City by a couple million. The US would need a massive, massive number of windmills.

<comment><USER6> If 5 million Danes can afford to build X windmills, I don't see how 60-ish times 5 million US citizens can't afford to build 60-ish times X windmills.

Population density would be an argument (on average, higher population density means less wind power per capita), but there, New York probably has more land area nearby than Denmark.

<comment><USER7> Yes, but Danes are quite prepared to pay 25% VAT and up to 62% income tax so that among many other things, The (evil statist) State can afford to buy hugely expensive turbines from Siemens just to avoid giving money to Arabs. And those loaded Norwegians.

Americans, apparrently, while in huge numbers, in thrall to Rand/Objectivism and the Kochs, are not.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Denmark is the country within the European union with the highest penetration of wind power in electricity consumption (almost 26%). However, in absolute terms both Spain (22 GW) and Germany (29 GW) vastly exceed Denmark (4 GW) and are two of the largest "wind markets" worldwide (as of end 2011) [1].

In particular, Spain has made a tremendous effort investing in wind energy (tax incentives, subsidies, etc. were granted), and it's amazing to see that in about 15 years, this type of energy went from 0 to about 20% of the total energy produced within the country [2].

Including also the rest of renewables to the mix, it seems obvious that in the coming 15-20 years, it should be possible to generate more than 50% of energy from renewable sources, e.g. solar energy in Spain achieved power grid parity in terms of cost last December [3].

In spite of the current economic downturn, these are pretty amazing times we are living in!

[1]: [http://www.ewea.org/fileadmin/ewea_documents/documents/publi...](http://www.ewea.org/fileadmin/ewea_documents/documents/publications/statistics/Stats_2011.pdf)

[2]: [http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/es/timeline/957d498ae7...](http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/es/timeline/957d498ae7ff03d7e2b98930deb1c861.png)

[3]: [http://www.forbes.com/sites/peterdetwiler/2012/12/26/solar-g...](http://www.forbes.com/sites/peterdetwiler/2012/12/26/solar- grid-parity-comes-to-spain/)

<comment><USER9> In the United States we have Iowa, where >24% of electricity last year came from wind, and where there's more nameplate capacity of wind than the entire demand of the nation of Denmark.

For what it's worth.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> > "who are smart enough to pay attention to the accomplishments of this small > island on the North Sea."

We're not an island* :-(

* We do have 1419 islands, though.

<comment><USER11> That is breathtakingly poor journalism/general knowledge

<comment><USER12> 'murica

<comment><USER13> Ah yes, because most people in Denmark know whether Rhode Island is actually an island or not, and they know all about Oregon (or Oklahoma, or New Mexico or Nebraska or Ohio).

I don't see how one journalist's mistake leads to that comment.

<comment><USER14> Because it's considered poor form (if not racist or sexist) to attribute someone's mistakes on a whole population group... unless the population group in question is "American".

It's probably a better problem to have than some of the other problems we might have though.

<comment><USER15> I'm totally down with attributing the worst things about America to America as a whole, even if they show up in other countries. We could use a little deflation.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> Also known as a single nuclear reactor. While I am all for renewables the real problem is storage and buffering. The solutions in these areas are improving but not nearly as fast as needed.

A cheap supercapacitor with less than 10% daily discharge rate could go a long way in positioning renewables to shine.

<comment><USER17> Well, a single nuclear reactor minus the waste that needs to be stored for thousands of years.

<comment><USER16> Hmm ... it was more of a scale comparison, not endorcement of nuclear fission.

But anyway breeders are a partial solution to that problem and we haven't actually put a lot of effort into the waste disposal.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> And all those windmill parks are heavily subsidized, which contributes to the Danish electricity prices being the highest in all of EU[1], 0.3 euro per kwh. Its basically a state-guaranteed high yield for the pension funds etc that put them up, paid for by the consumers in DK.

[1] [http://epp.eurostat.ec.europa.eu/statistics_explained/index....](http://epp.eurostat.ec.europa.eu/statistics_explained/index.php?title=File:Electricity_prices_for_households_consumers_2012s1.png&filetimestamp=20130219105040)

<comment><USER19> Wow, that's about 10x more than in USA And Canada (excluding Hawaii and Kentucky).

I wonder what people would choose given the option between cheap and not from natural gas, as this is going to be the situation in USA for the next 20 years due to shale gas

<comment><USER20> It is very expensive, as are most things in Denmark. My relatives there tell me that at night they sit in a small room with a candle to avoid running the lights and heat.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> I'm pretty naive on the science of these things, but I have a concern: is there any possibility that increasing use of wind energy could have negative affects on the environment by essentially taking energy out of our atmosphere? Could our winds gradually slow down over time?

Maybe it's just such a small fraction that it doesn't matter. Or maybe wind energy is essentially another form of capturing solar energy, because the winds are created by temperature differences, which are created by the sun hitting the earth, and that energy is constantly renewed?

I don't know, but I'm curious. Any insight about this would be appreciated.

<comment><USER13> The short answer is: no.

Any windmill impact from changing wind patterns or reducing wind power is radically less than eg building homes (given we build millions of homes annually), or simply driving vehicles (of any sort, given the numbers of vehicles globally).

You could never build enough windmills to cause a problem. The only real environmental concerns are killing animals (insects?), and construction / manufacturing related.

<comment><USER21> So where does energy from wind hitting a building or a car go? It just dissipates into the ground?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> Just in case you're wondering how a price for energy can be nagative: It is not. Someone else is paying full price for it. The producer is guaraneed to always sell the enegry into the grid at a fixed price. The market is broken.

</comment><comment><USER23> Recently when there was a windy weather situation, Denmark produced enough power from wind turbines to cover 82%[1] of the entire power usage in denmark.

[1] DANISH [http://ing.dk/artikel/vindmoeller-slog-rekord-i- gaarsdagens-...](http://ing.dk/artikel/vindmoeller-slog-rekord-i-gaarsdagens- blaesevejr-157196)

</comment><comment><USER24> As a grid engineer, I find the Danish case to be somewhat unique because of their strong AC and DC interconnections to Germany and Sweden. Basically, they can free-ride on the large european grid (UCTE), which stretches from Portgual to Russia, to maintain network stability while increasing domestic wind penetrations above 50%.

I think a more interesting case study is Ireland, which has far weaker interconnectors to the UK and operate mainly as an island network. Like Denmark, they are also trying to integrate large amounts of wind (a goal of 40% by 2020, which is equivalent to over 6GW peak), but unlike Denmark, Ireland also have to deal with the resulting stability issues.

An EirGrid engineer I spoke to recently mentioned that frequency stability is already a big issue for them. The main solution proposed in a 2010 study [1] amounted to maintaining a sufficient operating inertial reserve, which would potentially mean curtailing wind generation at times. In the future, I would look to Ireland rather than Denmark for solutions to integrating more wind into the grid, because they are already at the pointy end of it.

[1] EirGrid Facilitation of Renewables study, <http://www.eirgrid.com/renewables/facilitationofrenewables/>

</comment><comment><USER25> > ...throttle back their hydro plants and store more water behind dams for > later use.

I find the idea of using a dam as a battery quite interesting.

<comment><USER10> I'm pretty sure this is done at a large scale in both Norway, Sweden and Switzerland. While storing energy have always been a huge problem, I'm surprised this is not more popular.

<comment><USER26> This is correct. Norway exports power in wet seasons, and imports it in dry seasons. But if there is less rain and dam fill-up than expected, they will throttle down on production to save the water in order to sell it at a higher price later on.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER27> Can someone explain why you would ever pay someone to take surplus power? Is it because they don't want it To go to waste? Otherwise can't they just get rid of it somehow?

<comment><USER28> It's not a steady supply over power, it fluctuates with your supply and demand for it, so it takes work for another grid to take that power from you. If you send them power they have to scale their plants down to prevent the problem you're having. Then when your supply goes down and you no longer have an excess of power to send they have to scale their systems back up to make up for the power you're no longer sending. They can't store it or get rid of it easily. It's one of the reasons people don't like wind and solar power, it works great when the wind is blowing and the sun is out, but it fluctuates too much and causes heavy swings in power generation that have to be dealt with somehow.

</comment></comment><comment><USER29> Why didn't they just say Gigawatt?

The author couldn't decide on the capitalization of "of" in the title so maybe they just didn't know 1000 Meg is a Gig.

</comment><comment><USER13> Maybe this is a dumb question, but isn't there some industrial use that surplus energy spikes could be used for domestically?

Water desalination perhaps, since it's energy intensive.

<comment><USER30> The most compelling use case for excess energy is to store it. There's a big research area in developing batteries for temporary grid storage. Compared to standard batteries, the goal is to trade off weight for cost, so that it's practical to capture the delta between {peak demand, actual demand}. See [1] for such a battery.

[1] [http://www.stanford.edu/group/cui_group/papers/Yuan_EES_2013...](http://www.stanford.edu/group/cui_group/papers/Yuan_EES_2013.pdf)

</comment></comment><comment><USER31> Can someone explain why Denmark would have to pay other countries to take excess electricity rather than getting paid for it?

<comment><USER32> There are certain times when there is a surplus of energy in the network (usually at nights iirc). With a lack of good storage mechanisms, energy vendors need to actually pay companies to use the energy at certain times. Otherwise, the energy excess would damage the network.

If Denmark doesn't have enough companies that could take the energy, they have to send the energy to be used up somewhere else. It's quite likely that at the same time in other countries a similar situation occurs, so nobody really wants the extra electricity. Hence Danes need to pay other countries to get rid of it.

<comment><USER33> Can't they just switch off unneeded windmills?

<comment><USER14> Possibly, but they'd have to be designed to be remotely controlled (possibly at an individual level). They'd also have to be specifically engineered to withstand the sudden reduction in countertorque when the windmill is removed from the grid and then to lock the blades against windmilling while shutdown. And of course, to reverse the whole process on command.

<comment><USER20> I would assume the blades can be "feathered" so as to catch very little wind and not impart a rotational force, as on a prop-drive aircraft when one of the engines needs to be shut off. There has to be some way to take them out of services for e.g. maintenance.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> I'm English. I live in Denmark. Yes, on this, we win: [https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world- factbook/...](https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world- factbook/rankorder/2240rank.html?countryName=Denmark&countryCode=da&regionCode=eur&rank=1#da)

</comment><comment><USER34> Off shore wind power is about 25% of the wind power capacity of Denmark, the rest are 'normal' wind turbines. However, they'll contribute more to the total energy output. Off-shore wind turbines generate about 35-50% of their maximum capacity on average, compared to 20-30% of normal wind turbines.

</comment><comment><USER35> Why did Denmark have to pay other countries to take its excess energy? What am I not getting here?

<comment><USER4> Grid oversupply is bad (just as any overpowered circuit is generally bad). There isn't a way to dump power or store it, so they had to dump it on other countries who then had to adjust accordingly on _their_ grid. You might think of it as a nice gesture, but it isn't; the other country has to power off plants or otherwise adjust to handle the excess as well. There isn't an "energy garbage can" or dummy load at power grid scale.

Running a power grid is a 24x7 dance of supply and demand, which is why people that hate renewables like wind are quick to lament its variable nature. It's the same in high-capacity systems planning in our line of work; systems that have variable latency are a lot harder to plan capacity for than systems with fairly constant latency. Just substitute "supply" for "latency", and you're now a power grid operator.

</comment></comment><comment><USER36> A quick check on wind turbine design for power generation [1] confirms to my satisfaction that all wind turbines _should be_ throttable down to zero electrical output and then with good mechanical brakes [2] taking away the remaining kinetic energy sufficient to stop then lock the rotor. I've read elsewhere (sorry, no reference) that stopping the rotor can be necessary in emergency windspeed conditions. Per [2]:

      >  Let's compare the emergency braking requirements of a
      >1.5 MW wind turbine under maximum wind conditions with
      >those of a 40-ton mining truck. Imagine driving a
      >fully loaded truck down a steep gradient of 25% (1:4)
      >at 85 mph when a road sign warns of a cliff a quarter
      >mile ahead. The engineering required for effective
      >braking in both cases is much the same. Braking for
      >the wind turbine is, in fact, more demanding.

Beyond mechanical brakes, the available control strategies and actuators normally applied toward maximizing power output per [1] can instead be applied toward bringing the power output to zero and the rotor to a halt, such as:

* Apply generator torque control (dumping power to the grid) sufficient to slow the blades down to near zero

* Then or as the blades slow down, stall or furl the blades using pitch control

* Apply the brakes to lock the rotor

* Yaw the whole machine 90 degrees off the wind

OK so if they're stoppable, what is up here?

Others more familiar with Danish market, operators and regulatory conditions might speak better to this, but I'll _surmise_ that the turbine operators get paid when they produce energy, whether Denmark needs it or not. So the turbine operators never stop their turbines, night nor day.

When that creates an excess of energy the grid engineers must do something. The article mentioned slowing hydro output elsewhere and heating the water used locally for district heating.

This creates an environment where there should be a financial incentive to create technologies for storage or highly variable use of this nightime and other times highly variable excess electrical energy.

Hundred-megawatt data centers [3] with quickly variable compute capability come to mind, but making stored hot water hotter (the district heating 'dummy load' approach) seems to me a lot simpler, cheaper and immediately practical, if a bit wasteful of the low-entropy energy that electricity is.

\---

[1] <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wind_turbine_design>

[2] <http://news.altramotion.com/?p=242>

[3] [http://gigaom.com/2012/01/31/the-era-of-the-100-mw-data- cent...](http://gigaom.com/2012/01/31/the-era-of-the-100-mw-data-center/)

</comment><comment><USER37> Only 210 megawatts until Denmark gets time travel.

</comment><comment><USER32> Just imagine how many Bitcoins you'd mine with that.</comment>


Google "working to remove" the redirect from Google Maps on Windows Phone - <AUTHOR> http://www.zdnet.com/google-shouldnt-forget-history-when-blocking-its-competitors-products-7000009411/ <comment><USER2> Something really odd is going on at Google.

In this post they say:

 _"In our last test, IE mobile still did not offer a good maps experience with no ability to pan or zoom and perform basic map functionality. As a result, we chose to continue to redirect IE mobile users to Google.com where they could at least make local searches. The Firefox mobile browser did offer a somewhat better user experience and that's why there is no redirect for those users.

Recent improvements to IE mobile and Google Maps now deliver a better experience and we are currently working to remove the redirect."_

When did they last test it? In any case, why did they say this the day before:

 _"The mobile web version of Google Maps is optimized for WebKit browsers such as Chrome and Safari. However, since Internet Explorer is not a WebKit browser, Windows Phone devices are not able to access Google Maps for the mobile web."_

Those aren't the same reason at all. And it's not like Google is a company that should be confused about how browsers and browser engines work.

And of course here is video showing mobile IE working just fine on mobile Google Maps (pinch to zoom, panning, etc...):

[http://wmpoweruser.com/video-proves-that-the-google-maps- mob...](http://wmpoweruser.com/video-proves-that-the-google-maps-mobile-web- app-is-perfectly-usable-on-windows-phone/)

This coupled with the ending of GMail EAS support, not allowing YouTube APIs, and their explicit statement they are not going to support WP8, makes me think they have a clear mission to attack Windows Phone, but may have stepped a bit too far too quickly on this one. But I think they'll find a way to exclude support in the future if they can find a way.

<comment><USER3> I can't speak for the Maps team because I'm not involved, and I can't speak for Google because, well, I can't speak for my employer. But I've been a developer in very similar situations before, and here's what pops into my mind when I hear statements like this:

The team has been pushing hard to get the new functionality out the door. They are perhaps behind schedule, nobody has yet looked at IE, and then someone finally gets their hands on a Windows 8 phone to test. It doesn't work. The product manager makes the call: cut IE support so that the Webkit version can launch on time. A redirect's put in place to avoid serving a completely broken experience to Windows 8 users, so they can at least do a search for businesses instead of having it not work.

They launch, the press picks it up, and conspiracy theories start flying. Somebody pages the team, emails start flying, there's a huddle to figure out how to fix it. An engineer (or a few engineers) "donate" their weekend to fixing IE compatibility. They work day and night until the bugs are fixed, and then remove the redirect.

PR makes a statement, and then another one once the problem can be fixed. Like all PR statements, they try to say the minimum amount possible to calm people down, since everything they do say will get picked apart by the press. They aren't engineers, they know only what the engineers tell them, and they say even less because whatever the engineers say will get wildly distorted as it passes from engineer -> PM -> PR -> press -> Hacker News.

Just my humble conjecture, as an engineer who's been in this situation several times before at a few different organizations (both Google and otherwise). I'd think critically before reaching for pitchforks, though.

<comment><USER2> In most cases I think I'd agree. I'm suspicious here because of the other things I point out:

1\. Google apparently not allowing Windows Phone to use YouTube APIs, although everyone else seems to have access.

2\. Google cutting EAS support.

3\. Google explicitly stating they are not going to support Windows Phone 8.

4\. FRAND patents against XBox.

5\. The Google Maps debacle.

Any of these by itself doesn't seem like a big deal, but all put together makes it look like an orchestrated plan by Google, rather than just bumbling Google engineers and incompetent PR people.

<comment><USER4> > Google apparently not allowing Windows Phone to use YouTube APIs, although > everyone else seems to have access.

What? Everyone who? Nobody has access to Google's Youtube API's. Android has a Youtube app because Google made it, and it's the same with iOS. WP will only have a Youtube app if Google makes it, and they won't, and nobody can force them to write for all platforms.

Giving Microsoft access to them would mean giving them preferential treatment over anyone else. Obviously Google is not going to do that.

> Google cutting EAS support.

Microsoft has used those patents to threaten other Android manufacturers before or make them pay for them. Google wants everyone using Android to move away from EAS, and it makes perfect sense from their point of view, to cut costs for themselves and Android manufacturers, and to be less dependent on Microsoft's proprietary technologies.

I'm not saying Google didn't do the Maps thing on purpose. Maybe they did. I'm just picking on these because you seem to think that somehow it's not Google's right to do all that.

<comment><USER5> Yeah, my understanding was that they wanted much more information than is available through the Youtube API, presumably because the Youtube API was not designed to make a full Youtube client replacement, complete with the ability to "search for video categories, find favorites, see ratings, and so forth".

It's not clear to me why a phone vendor would be entitled to an API that provided that information, especially if theres a mobile web client available (that you don't get redirected from). I understand why a phone vendor would want it, but if Samsung started saying that their new Tizen _deserved_ access to a more fully featured Youtube API, would they be getting any press?

<comment><USER6> From what I can tell there is nothing stopping anyone from making a decent YouTube app with their public API.

[https://developers.google.com/youtube/2.0/developers_guide_p...](https://developers.google.com/youtube/2.0/developers_guide_protocol)

What exactly is missing that they want?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> _"The same Google spokesperson said the redirection for Windows Phone users seeking access to Google Maps via IE in the browser has "always" been in place."_

I don't think I've ever seen this. I had a Windows Phone a few months ago and was able to browse the site with only a few problems (panning was kinda laggy and a couple other graphical issues).

I was kind of supportive of Google, placing my faith with them to make the best of the situations, but the reasons they gave are disjoint, and some past problems are giving me the impression they're just attacking the platform as a whole.

</comment><comment><USER8> When it took a few months to deliver a quality Google Maps for iOS after Apple removed GMaps, the speculation was Google was withholding it on purpose to "hurt" iOS and help Android. Other speculation was that Apple was deliberately not approving it for anti-competitive reasons. The truth was neither, the reality is, quality software takes time.

Look at all the hoopla over Facebook's abandonment of HTML5 on mobile. HTML5 is not write-once run anywhere on mobile, where implementations are deliberately constrained in CPU and memory, and where GPU acceleration is all over the map. To get good performance out of HTML5 on mobile, people often have to tune specifically against an OS and browser version. Sencha went through herculean efforts to tease out good performance in their Fastbook HTML5 clone.

I think people should not jump so fast to nefarious conspiracy theories and give things time.

</comment><comment><USER9> When will Microsoft start working to remove their arbitrary limitations on Windows Phone so that Google and Mozilla can port their browsers to it?

<comment><USER10> What limitations are those? Windows Phone 8 allows native code which was a stumbling block in WP 7.

<comment><USER9> You might be right -- WP8 introduces an unmanaged C++ SDK, and some people from the Chromium project are currently evaluating it:

<http://code.google.com/p/chromium/issues/detail?id=153802>

The other stumbling block was a licensing issue where the Windows Phone Marketplace prohibits copyleft licenses, which prevents software like Firefox from being published there:

[http://arstechnica.com/information- technology/2011/02/window...](http://arstechnica.com/information- technology/2011/02/windows-phone-marketplace-bans-the-gpl-and-the-app-store- should-too/)

That's again from the WP7 days, so the agreement might have changed since then, but if it hasn't, and if there's no way to sideload apps onto WP8, then it's a major blocker for Firefox.

Opera's last statement on the matter was on Oct 1, and at that time they were still waiting to see what avenues the SDK would allow.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> The damage is done and Google has tainted their good name with consumers. This isn't just a case that pissed off developers, this is actually moms, dads, and grandmas who suddenly find themselves annoyed by Google.

<comment><USER12> "The damage is done and Google has tainted their good name with consumers."

Remember how many times MS did taint their "good name"? Did it hurt them?

What do we have know? Moms, dads, grandmas and grandpas who thought MS was a "good name" and who hence bought Windows phones who are pissed off at Google, telling their kids / grandkids how nasty Google is.

And their kids / grand-kids are answering them:

"I told you to buy either an iPhone or an Android phone mom/dad/grandma"

and having a good laugh.

<comment><USER13> > Remember how many times MS did taint their "good name"? Did it hurt them?

Yes, it most definitely did. Many developers left Microsoft platforms for Linux and later OS X, for various reasons but including Microsoft's actions. (It was my reason.)

Stories like this harm the Google brand, and that is never a consequence-free thing.

<comment><USER14> My favorite is the MS OS/2 2.0 fiasco: [http://yuhongbao.blogspot.ca/2012/12/about-ms- os2-20-fiasco-...](http://yuhongbao.blogspot.ca/2012/12/about-ms- os2-20-fiasco-px00307-and-dr.html)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> Reminds me of when Chrome was "mistakenly" classified as a virus by Microsoft: [http://www.wired.co.uk/news/archive/2011-10/03/microsoft- chr...](http://www.wired.co.uk/news/archive/2011-10/03/microsoft-chrome-virus)

Are they breaking each others' tech in a war of plausible deniability?

</comment><comment><USER16> google has some other mobile unfriendly redirects in place, in my case they break <http://search-by-drawing.franz-enzenhofer.com/> for mobile devices. basically googles search by image feature redirects any standard search by image url to the google homepage, if a mobile device is detected. why? [http://productforums.google.com/forum/m/#!category- topic/web...](http://productforums.google.com/forum/m/#!category- topic/websearch/google-images/2YQZwS0xtP0) "Just to follow up on this, this isn't working because we haven't designed it for mobile yet (phones or tablets)." (but it would work perfectly fine, if the just would scrap the redirect)</comment>


Show HN: Lewis, a new Android Linter - <AUTHOR> http://inaka.net/blog/2016/02/15/presenting-lewis-our-own-android-lint-extension/ <comment><USER2> I love the idea of enforcing coding guidelines as lint rules. It isn't always possible, but it does make you think very carefully about the rules you're adding.</comment>


How do I get reviews for my newly launched review website? - <AUTHOR>

Hello, I recently 'soft' launched www.HotelGymReview.com a site focused on providing a platform for people to read and write reviews about hotel gyms and fitness centers.  I want to slowly start marketing the website but really need to concentrate on getting reviews submitted by users.  I's a classic chicken and egg problem.  The site is basically useless without any reviews.
Any ideas on how to get reviews?
I am currently using twitter, facebook and Google Alerts to target users to write reviews.
Lastly, any general feedback about the site (usability, bugs, etc.) and the idea would be great.
Thanks! <comment><USER2> Hit the streets. Do you live in an area that has a significant population of your target market? Make a list of hotels you want to get on the site and the possibilities from there are endless. Leave a stack of surveys with the desk clerk, sit in the lobby with a laptop and give demos etc etc.

You've picked an extremely niche market, perfect! With such a narrow set of potential customers its pretty easy to find them. Good luck, the site looks nice.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks! I think we may send out a poster to Hotel Managers to post in there gym asking users for reviews.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> I'm impressed at the size of your database (from a quick glance - 181 Hotels listed for Brisbane, Australia). However, it will take time for all of those to garner reviews leaving lots of blank entries (of course, once some get reviews the site will rank them higher, which reduces this problem).

Also, not sure if all of those actually _have_ a gym - there's plenty of motors inns and airport lodges in that list.

Would it be appropriate to target individual TripAdvisor members (and similar sites that allow contact between members) and ask for a specific Gym review on your site? Especially if they've mentioned the fitness / gym / pool facilities on the other site?

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks. We have an option in the write a review to indicate that a hotel/motel has no gym. Thanks for the tripadvisor suggestions. I'll look into the appropriateness of contacting their members.</comment></comment>


Why I Eat Lunch at My Desk - <AUTHOR> http://scottndecker.com/blog/2014/03/02/Why-I-Eat-Lunch-At-My-Desk/

<comment><USER2> I disagree with the reasoning, and I normally eat lunch at my desk because it's convenient and I get to watch crap on the internet.

First off, being the person that gets to put out fires is in no way a certain path to a promotion. And the experience gained from it is no different than if you just shadowed the person who would usually be fixing those problems.

Also, you mention how doing this you get an extra hour a day to do other stuff, does that mean you leave an hour earlier than your coworkers? That's definitely not going to get you promoted in most places.

I say take the lunch hour, at desk or elsewhere and spend it however you want, then work smarter for the rest of the day.

<comment><USER3> Shadowing may get you the same experience, but it will not make you The Person Who Solves Problems in the eyes of others and thus won't help your promotion. Which was the author's point.

<comment><USER2> That doesn't get you promotions either. It just makes you the go-to person for everyone to sort their stuff out.

If you want a promotion, move companies - it's a safer bet.

<comment><USER3> That depends on the company. In terms of reputation/respect, I earned most of it when my boss was on vacation and I had to make decisions and take responsibility. Didn't benefit me in that particular case, since our company was bought by a bigger one and they started calling the shots, and then I left that job. So I suppose I should upvote you :)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> This is why I walk to work with a small jug of water, which I pour over my head during the walk to give myself a shower, and why I walk to work in my underwear and get changed at my desk while checking my e-mails.

<comment><USER5> You're wasting time by not taking the shower and getting changed simultaneously.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> Hrm... the math seems fuzzy. You go home an hour earlier because you ate lunch at your desk? I've not been in too many software positions where you get to go home simply because you were in the building for 8 hours. _ESPECIALLY_ not if you were the sort of person who wanted to take on managerial tasks (delegation/etc as identified by the OP).

<comment><USER7> I don't know. There are plenty of software positions that are flexible so long as you get your work done.

I'm a consultant so I need to bill a certain number of hours per day. Sometimes I can snack and bill and that helps me meet the requirements.

<comment><USER8> Not if you want to get ahead. The guy working bare minimum 40 hour weeks isn't going to get fired so long as he stays productive... but he's obviously not putting in any effort to progress his career.

There's nothing wrong with that; it's perfectly fine to value running with your dog or watching Netflix over working an extra hour; but the choices you make have unintended consequences. Like it or not, working involves politics, and a big part of politics is perception.

I've worked as a consultant as well; and as a consultant you can never be the first person out the door because people who don't know your situation will still form opinions about you. Considering most consultants cost 2x-4x what a salaried employee does (at least nominally), you have to appear to be "better" than the average employee. Sometimes that means you stick around the client site and do work for other clients just to look busy. But it almost always means you don't leave early. The same goes for people who have ambitions of moving up in an organization.

<comment><USER9> You have been downvoted and I think unfairly.

You are right in that people already have biases and prejudices and even though it perpetuates a wrong paradigm -- if you are consultant and try to make as much money as you can these perceptions (even though detrimental to the industry) matter.

It should really be coming from the top and be part of the culture that hours spend huddled over a monitor != better or high quality/faster/less bugs products. But we are not there yet. So should one leave for another place, and find that culture (work for a startup?), or work with it, as in just pretend you work harder to get noticed better...

So I am not defending the idea behind it, but your rationale for working with it.

Think about this scenario. It is 8:30pm, manager/owner walks by and he sees group of developers huddled over a monitor screen. What is happening? Is this a good thing or not? Are they working extra hard and deserve +$5k bonus at the end of the year, or they picked a bad technology, made bad mistakes in the implementation, allowed untested code in production and now have to put out fires. I think the opinion on the above will be pretty divided, but, unfortunately, it will mostly be seen a good thing. This spreads and becomes part of the culture, and those that are productive and finish their work faster, whose code doesn't break in production leave at 5, and are seen as lazy by incompetent managers. That is very dangerous.

The worst I have seen is people what seems like to me, intentionally allow bugs in production, things crash and burn. Then, they get to save the day with lots fanfare and visibility. That becomes a very dysfunctional environment from which one should try to escape as soon as possible.

<comment><USER8> Oh; I totally agree that working more hours is not better _for the company_. I think that a lot of organizations also realize this, especially in software development. A large part of my current job is fixing the types of dysfunctional environments that you describe by providing development managers insight into the quality of code/tests that individual developers commit. I'm acutely aware that your "rockstar" developers may in fact be your problem children; but it takes a lot of data and process to be able to prove that.

My comment was really aimed more at the reality of the situation: when operating in a political environment (as every office is, like it or not), it's better to err on the side of being visible. Like I said; some people are perfectly content with maintaining the job they are currently in, and there's nothing wrong with that. But if you have ambition to move up into management, simply writing good code isn't enough. You've gotta play the political game at some point or another, and the political game often happens late in the day after all the senior management are done with their meetings.

This is doubly true for a consultant. An unfortunate reality of consulting is that when you're on short contracts -- as most consultants are -- you have to sell the next project while you're working on the current one. Being visible and physically present leads to the conversations that end in your client asking you to help them out with a problem. These are not "hard sell" tactics (I always hated those because it makes you come off as scummy and sales-ish); it's just making sure that you're in the right place at the right time and you're having the right conversations with the right people.

This doesn't have to mean working yourself to death -- I usually leave around 5:30 and almost never stay in the office after 6:00, nor do I typically work more than 45 or 50 hours a week. Do I wish I could go home at 4:00 some days and not be negatively perceived? Yeah, I do. But that's not reality, at least not anywhere I've ever worked. If the social norm is 9:00am-5:00pm, you should probably be there during those hours because an 8 hour work day really isn't asking much. If the social norm is 8:00am-7:00pm, well, you should probably find a better job...

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Lunch is quite a variable thing in the US workplace. I've had all sorts:

1: Got takeout lunch and came back to eat it at my desk. Would get griped at by boss for eating at desk because it seems like I am available to work (between 12pm-1pm hours?). I was told to "eat somewhere out" except the only place to get internet was at my desk. Maybe I should have had a neon sign to indicate it was my lunch hour. This was ~2003 so I guess my only option for killing an hour out at a restaurant at the time would have been some kind of portable gaming system.

2: Work provided lunch, some people ate in the break room, I brought back to desk, worked while eating (not much work to be done in 10 minutes really), then left to go home for ~45 minutes to play on computer there. Free lunch and still an appreciable break!

3: Since I drove 75 miles one way to work, I came in an hour later and ate lunch at desk. I can admit I was less productive during this time. Not to mention, I did have to drive out for lunch which cost ~10-15 minutes. Oversight was low, however, and I felt owed a bit by the huge delays on the promised opening of a new office nearby my house.

4: Lunch hour is mandatory between 12pm-1pm. Made lunch in break room, ate at desk to play on computer for my mandatory 1 hour. I had to start wearing headphones because bosses (same bosses who made mandatory lunch) would try to talk work during 12pm-1pm hours since they never ate lunch or went anywhere for lunch. I wish they had stuck to their own rule. Eventually started going to Chinese restaurant nearby for the hour to escape, made friends with order taker there, watched tv shows on iPad or read books on e-reader. You could say I did learn my lesson from #1 here and the advent of portable tech kept me satisfied. Was less happy when lunch was reduced to 1/2 hour since it made my Chinese trip impossible. Had to stick to faster food and eat in my truck, with tethered iPad or e-reader of course.

5: Currently, my office is 5 minutes from my house as is my wife's, so we meet up at home. My lunch hour is flexible whereas hers is not, so I wait for a text that she is leaving first.

In conclusion, lunch time usage greatly depends on what the employer will allow. However attempting to eat at my desk has either upset my employer by making it seem like I am available to work when I am taking an hour break, or else it probably was not productive time which my employer was probably not aware of but still wouldn't have been thrilled about.

</comment><comment><USER11> If you work during your lunch, all you're doing is working every day for an hour for free. Or if you want to look at it slightly differently, you're diluting your salary.

Not to say there's anything wrong with putting an extra bit of time in unpaid, but doing it every day means it will become expected.

At my work, we get to take an hour between 12 and 2, people generally know to avoid bugging people in this window and if they do, they'll precede it by asking "are you still on lunch?".

<comment><USER12> > all you're doing is working every day for an hour for free

That also depends on how HR defines your time. For instance, we can bank hours as flex time and use them to take personal time (separate from our paid vacation), as needed, as long as it doesn't interfere with delivering what we have scheduled. Good example, at one point the company had a couple of months where we all worked saturdays for a big release. All of that saturday time was banked as flex time and many of us took 4 day weeks for the following month or two. I'm sure my company might be in the minority of valuing employee time like this, but they aren't all like everyone in this thread is making them out to be.

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> My reasons are selfish.

1) I do not care to look like some of my heavier colleagues, who get this way by where they eat every day. 2) I do not care to spend the money they do each week on eating out, meals are from a very low of five bucks a day to more than ten. 3) I already spend enough time with many of them at work, some of them I care not to spend another minute with, doubly so when its my time and my lunch is my time 4) surfing at lunch is relaxing, that and reading on my kindle

</comment><comment><USER14> Obviously there's no single right answer to this question. Anyone who says otherwise is just spouting nonsense.

I hadn't thought of the "be forced into addressing emergencies" aspect, but that's a good one. If you can pull it off, you'll get mad props and great experience.

But ultimately, it's a decision each person should make for themselves. Company culture, social habits, work habits, finances, diet, all may play a role. Do what's right for you in the environment you find yourself in.

</comment><comment><USER15> Two comments:

1\. I eat lunch away from work and alone, to give me an hour a day to get away from the people they work with. Not that they're bad people, but I can't take being around anyone for too long a stretch. I get along with my co-workers better when I can take a break from them.

2\. I don't know how other employers handle thisn, but where I work, his 4 hours a week less wouldn't fly. According to the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) most computer workers are exempt. They are paid salary, not hourly, and in fact (if you believe our HR department) you are not even allowed to to hour by hour accounting of time with exempt employees. So eating lunch at my desk would be a "thank you, but you still have to work until five" thing. If a server goes down at 2am and I have to come in to fix it, there is no hourly accounting of that time, it is just part of my job. We've tried to sneak flex time or comp time by our HR department, but they don't allow it for exempt employees.

</comment><comment><USER16> One of the places I contracted at had the best dynamic in the team of developers. They had this lunchtime ritual where everyone went for a 45 min lunch walk. Cleared the head, gave you exercise and you were able to to chew the cud with people.

Really did help with the way the team worked together.

<comment><USER17> Would that I had a boss so conscientious.

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> I eat lunch at my desk as well. Unfortunately its because I trade and even though most of what I do is computer automated, I've got to be watching things and reacting all the time.

Hell I even try to time bathroom breaks for just before 9:30 and after 4.

As for cleanliness, just use a wet wipe once in a while. I've never understood how people let their keyboards get dirty.

I use a pretty expensive keyboard so maybe that's the key to keeping a clean desk. Only use expensive keyboards and then you'll be more likely to keep it clean?

I kind of miss being able to get up and walk around the block to hash out an idea. The upside is that someone brings lunch to our desks so its not all bad:)

</comment><comment><USER19> We can go and optimize further. For example by eating breakfast while driving a car. Or by drinking coffee in the shower..

<comment><USER20> Now we only need to find a way to shower in the car...

</comment></comment><comment><USER21> Besides the fact that it's more consecutive sitting time, which is not healthy, eating lunch at your desk tends to make your desk a gross place to be; crumbs in your keyboard, bits of food and food smells around, basically a germ farm. It's also a good way to give yourself indigestion if you're doing something stressful and don't give yourself the mental break of getting up and leaving.

<comment><USER22> My problem is I don't get a chance to code for more than an hour or two at a time without being interrupted to fix some minor bug (usually someone has not filled in an Excel properly). If you lunch at desk, you can stay focused on a problem for longer, without the implicit context switching that lunch involves. (Though sometimes it is nice to get away).

<comment><USER2> But then people might come interrupt you during your desk lunch; if the issue is interruptions you can always grab a meeting room for yourself and go work in there for an hour or two.

Break areas work fine for that too if your office has them. If your boss asks just say you wanted to grab some quiet coding time.

I've never had any problems doing this, I think we're lucky that programmers are mostly judged on the output of their work and their ability to solve stuff; yet few people exploit this.

<comment><USER22> Sure, but lunch away from the desk is a guaranteed break away for around an hour. A small interuption might take 5 minutes to fix, which is easier to get back to the flow of what you were doing.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> My team counterpart, who I recommended for the team, eats lunch at his desk, because he is an anti-social wanker. It was a complete failure as a recommendation. He does shitty work because he does not discuss it or open it up to criticism, and my work is shittier because I don't have somebody to criticise it and bounce ideas off.

</comment><comment><USER23> The OP, in the comments section, writes: _" I'm a consultant and, therefore, expected to track my billable hours throughout the week"_.

I'm not sure how I would feel about a consultant that is billing me by-the- hour at, presumably a not insignificant rate, claiming that they work with the same focus and productivity while they are eating lunch as they would during the other 7 hours of the day.

I would say the OP should count himself lucky that he has a fairly lenient employer, as I would estimate that the vast majority of employers would not give credit for this "hour worked". Also, at least where I'm located (Canada), lunch "hour" is actually 0.5 hours and the work-day is 7.5 hours.

<comment><USER24> Where in Canada is that? It used to be that way in Ontario, but they switched back to an 8 hour work day a while back. Certainly many employers still follow that schedule, but it is no longer the legislated standard.

[http://www.labour.gov.on.ca/english/es/pubs/guide/hours.php](http://www.labour.gov.on.ca/english/es/pubs/guide/hours.php)

<comment><USER23> I'm in Ontario at a government-funded organization, so it seems the legacy schedule is alive and well.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> Most of the time it's not only about you though. If you share an office, do your colleagues like the smell and noise of your lunches? I sure don't 8 out of 10 times. Sometimes it's really strong smell, sometimes it makes me hungry, sometimes the cutlery is noisy, etc...

If you take the lunch at the same time as everyone else, this doesn't apply of course. But why would you time your lunch by someone elses schedule if you eat alone anyway?

If you are worried about 1st benefit, you can take the lunch on different time. The second benefit is.. well. Eating lunch from home in break room takes about the same time as in front of the computer. But you count that as work... so...

</comment><comment><USER26> Does your boss give you a 5 week paid vacation because you eat lunch at your desk? If not, you can't claim you're saving 5 weeks. Assuming you don't leave early, you're actually working an extra hour each day.

<comment><USER27> His comment says he leaves early. That could be problematic with some managers, but maybe the lunchtime work is appreciated at his job.

</comment></comment><comment><USER28> I think the article, as well as many of the comments, are missing the crucial point: going out for lunch is about spending time with friends, socializing, and maintaining work/life balance. And of course, it's also about networking.

Although the article makes an interesting point about how doing work while everyone else is out to lunch can lead to accelerated career advancement; I think going out to lunch provides a valuable networking opportunity that is an important aspect of career advancement inside any organization.

</comment><comment> k-mcgrady So this only works if you're employer is flexible and lets you go home an hour early? It also seems like it would be in the employer's interest to prevent this practice. You may be at your desk for an extra hour but you're eating lunch - work doesn't have your full attention. Overall you're probably working slightly less than the rest of the employees.

</comment><comment><USER29> I don't understand the reasoning about working less time overall. I do something similar with my lunch-breaks: I work through them, and go home an hour earlier at the end of the day. It doesn't mean I've worked less time, just that I've moved the lunch hour to the end of the day. I still work 7.5 hours a day.

</comment><comment><USER30> I eat my desk cause our office has a small table in the kitchen area that seats 4. It's shared between about 100 staff... There's absolutely no culture of eating together etc... Everyone here sits at their desks and eats their lunch there.

EDIT: I eat AT my desk... I don't actually eat my desk...

</comment><comment><USER31> I hope he also realizes that he's making his office smell. My coworkers don't seem to...

<comment><USER32> That's really dependent upon what you eat.

My current office has a kitchen adjoining the main workspace, so there's always some kind of food smell lingering in the air.

Prior to this job, I would often bring a sandwich and/or fruit and eat at my desk. We had cubes there, so I'd just slide my door shut for a bit of privacy, eat lunch and surf the web mostly.

There's always the person who decides it's a good idea to heat up their tuna casserole and stroll through the department, though.

</comment></comment><comment><USER33> _When crap hits the fan in our production environment, people go to my manager. When my manager isn 't there, they go to the technical lead on the team. When the technical lead isn't there, they go to me. And do you know when the manager and technical lead are both gone?_

That's a very positive attitude to take about production support.

But I think if you are looking to take on more responsibility then ask for it. If they won't give it then leave.

"Working" through lunch and then leaving early is almost certainly detrimental to your career prospects at that place.

<comment><USER34> > "Working" through lunch and then leaving early is almost certainly > detrimental to your career prospects at that place.

How do you know? Are you familiar with his workplace?

If not, then please stop telling him what his workplace is like. Different companies have different cultures and different requirements.

</comment></comment><comment><USER21> I'd also note that there's team bonding that goes on (if you go to lunch in groups) that you miss out on just sitting at your desk alone.

</comment><comment><USER35> Eat wherever the fuck you want. No one gives a fuck. Can we stop discussing this every week.

</comment><comment><USER36> Does this person actually leave 1 hour early every day he eats at his desk?

</comment><comment><USER37> LOL why is this shit getting upvoted! Really HN!

</comment><comment><USER38> Don Draper does not approve.

</comment><comment><USER39> because youtube</comment>


Amazon Kindle Payout Metric: Normalized Page Count - <AUTHOR> https://kdp.amazon.com/help?topicId=A156OS90J7RDN

<comment><USER2> Any idea how this affects payouts to authors?

<comment><AUTHOR> Previously, payouts were based on "qualified borrows," which is a binary measure of each user-book pair: a user either borrowed a book or didn't. Now payouts are based on pages read.

The intended effect is that books with more pages will receive more payout (assuming they're actually being read).</comment></comment>