Wirecutter CEO Sells Top Reviews for Kickbacks (2014) - <AUTHOR> https://www.xdesk.com/wirecutter-standing-desk-review-pay-to-play-model <comment><USER2> It's worth clarifying that this is from 2014/15\. The New York Times bought Wirecutter in 2016, and Lam isn't CEO any more.

The site doesn't hide that it makes money from affiliate links:

[https://thewirecutter.com/about/](https://thewirecutter.com/about/)

FWIW, the XDesk post mentions The Wirecutter's response to their initial post, but doesn't link to it. That response is here:

[https://thewirecutter.com/our-response-to- nextdesk/](https://thewirecutter.com/our-response-to-nextdesk/)

They suggest the Wirecutter refused to review their desk (though the e-mails don't seem to actually say that?):

> We offered a review desk to your CEO and the response was basically "pay us > a kickback". So, the only NextDesk you've ever reviewed was our original > model that is now 4 years old (2-3 versions ago)

When the current standing desk review page ([https://thewirecutter.com/reviews/best-standing- desk/](https://thewirecutter.com/reviews/best-standing-desk/)) features the "Terra 2", which appears to be the exact same desk XDesk's own site is promoting. And the page states:

> Xdesk did not return multiple requests for comment on our impressions.

<comment><USER3> At first I thought this was a disappointing scandal and then I realized it wasn't.

What confused me was the word kickback by the Wirecutter business team. If they'd said affiliate fee, which is what they really meant, then it would have fit perfectly with my model of what they do. That model is review products as best as they can and make money through affiliate fees.

I'd never thought through the edge cases of that affiliate model before since almost everything I look up on the WireCutter has an Amazon link. If the product they recommend is on Amazon, then getting the affiliate payment is straightforward. But if the product they end up recommending isn't on Amazon, then, yeah, I guess they have to approach the company about setting up an affiliate payment. The problem there though is that The Wirecutter has no leverage if they actually do practice editorial independence. If you were NextDesk, why would you say yes?

What bothers me is that NextDesk is using a PR pattern that I find predatory. It's preying on the fact that I wouldn't have time to think critically. So NextDesk has jumped on this word "kickback" which obscures that the actual accusation is not airtight. But because kickback sounds so bad, I'm inclined to believe NextDesk. In other words, I find that post manipulative and I don't like it.

The meat of the scandal though has two sides with a much less clear cut answer: A) On one hand, the NextDesk got downgraded. Possibly as punishment. B) On the other hand, as explained by The WireCutter, it was downgraded because of a new option that was half as much.

I tend to believe B because I find that The Wirecutter is consistently price sensitive. Overly so in my mind.

<comment><USER4> > B) On the other hand, as explained by The WireCutter, it was downgraded > because of a new option that was half as much.

Except it wasn't new, if the article can be believed. It was one they'd already reviewed and found to be inferior.

<comment><USER5> NextDesk/XDesk is lying, and you can determine this by reading their own webpage carefully. Quoting from it:

> _Here's what the Wirecutter writer of the article said:_

> _"I don't part with that kind of money easily, but after seeing all the > desks out there, I bought a NextDesk Terra."_

> _The Wirecutter ultimately said: The best electronic adjustable height desk > is the NextDesk Terra._

> _Also important is what the Wirecutter said about another desk, the Ergo > Depot Jarvis Fully desk (later name changed to Fully:_

> _They are noisier and clunkier. It's a more basic technology, so it's > cheaper._

> _\- The Wirecutter Writer_

Except if you follow the article's link to the web.archive.org version of the review (captured 2014-01-06), you'll see this is what the Wirecutter actually wrote:

> _There are two cheaper options that I looked at: ErgoDepot, and VertDesk. > These are cheaper desks first and foremost because of the motors. The > expensive desks hide their motors in the legs, they work quietly, and they > become something you almost forget about. The cheaper desks instead hook a > motor to a rod that attaches to the other leg on the desk, and as the motor > runs, the rod turns. These are motors that you notice. They are noisier and > clunkier. It's a more basic technology, so it's cheaper. That's how the > desks can cost so much less._

That is, they looked at a desk from the _company_ Ergo Depot (the company is now named Fully) - they did not look at the Ergo Depot Jarvis.

If you scroll down later in that snapshot, you'll see a mention of the Jarvis - in the comment section, where someone notes that it's brand new.

So, the Wirecutter did not review _and could not have reviewed_ the Jarvis at the time they made those quotes about it being "noisier and clunkier," because it didn't exist yet. The Jarvis was released after their review. (That also provides a legitimate reason for the Wirecutter to have put a "hold" marking on their review, commenting that new options had just come out.)

The Wirecutter's official response to NextDesk/XDesk agrees with that timeline: " _When we changed our top pick in February 2015, we did so because another company had entered the field with something nearly as good but for half the price._ ... _We still recommended the NextDesk product when there wasn't an affiliate relationship, up until February 2015._ "

And if you look at the Wirecutter's February 2015 review, also from the web.archive.org link graciously provided by NextDesk/XDesk, you can see that they have several positive things to say about the NextDesk Terra - but the Jarvis is cheaper and almost as good overall, and _better_ in a few ways. Look back at the 2013 review, as quoted in the article, and you can see that they're clearly unhappy with the price - they only think the Terra is the top pick because there aren't competitive cheaper options.

Another hint - the old web page for the Jarvis, [http://www.ergodepot.com/Jarvis_Desk_p/jrv.htm](http://www.ergodepot.com/Jarvis_Desk_p/jrv.htm) , has its first web.archive.org snapshot on 2013-11-05. The review that favors the Terra is from 2013-08-29.

<comment><USER4> Nicely done. I was just taking them at their word instead of looking into the archive.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Read through the entire thing... mostly sounds like a pretty normal attempt to get some kind of affiliate revenue from Nextdesk. And it doesn't look like there is anything in the emails that says "pay us or we will decrease your ranking" or "pay us and we will increase your ranking". At worst, the CEO erred by using the phrase "kickback", instead of affiliate program or similar.

</comment><comment><USER7> (2014)

Wirecutter's response: [https://thewirecutter.com/our-response-to- nextdesk/](https://thewirecutter.com/our-response-to-nextdesk/)

previous discussion: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16729408](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16729408)

</comment><comment><USER8> I highly recommend a Consumer Reports subscription. Yes, you have to pay for it, but that's the point, no conflict of interest.

<comment><USER9> It's been a few years since I've used Consumer Reports, but I found their reviews were too few for the given category (e.g. rating perhaps eight items [TVs, detergent, whatever] out of a generally available selection of two dozen) or stale (a just-published article was for devices one or two generations old). I'd often look for a recommended appliance and find that only one retailer sold that model, two years ago. Or I'd look at rankings and products I owned and considered excellent (and not niche) weren't included. I felt that their methods needed to be updated.

There were still some places they did a good job, e.g. their car reviews provide good information for the average consumer, and I will turn to them next time I'm in the market. I certainly applaud that their unbiased viewpoint.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> Not a great story but also not as hysterical as the headline implies.

1\. Man/most/all wirecutter links are relatively benign "affiliate" links, mostly to Amazon.

2\. Wirecutter updates review, usually annually, and frequently selects a new #1.

3\. Price is a key component of Wirecutter selections. They are not just picking "the best" but instead, "the best for most people".

</comment><comment><USER11> Not defending them, but it seems like a lot of online websites have kickbacks. I mean hell, you can set up an amazon referral link for your youtube channel in like 2 seconds. The intensives of the review "industry" are fucked... it's not like movie reviewers make 10 cents if I see Star Wars

<comment><USER12> It's for this reason that I find myself watching amateur video reviews of phones and other expensive gadgets. You know the type; bad lighting, shaky narration with lots of pauses and uhhs, and not-great camera work.

The fancier the production values are (splash animation, music, pro lighting), the more likely it is that I'll be hit with a "like and subscribe" ask, and a sponsor message. If by some chance the video doesn't have these, there will be an affiliate link on the bottom.

<comment><USER11> I think you'll appreciate this, it's a little long but definitely worth it

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8FJEtCvb2Kw](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8FJEtCvb2Kw)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> Can the mods add a "(2014)" in the headline for this one?

</comment><comment><USER14> Previous discussion: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16729408](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16729408)

</comment><comment><USER15> I genuinely don't care how corrupt Wirecutter is because at the end of the day I still find their recommendations to be well above-average.

</comment><comment><USER4> I am Jack's total lack of surprise.

<comment><USER16> Please don't post unsubstantive comments here.

<comment><USER4> It's... jokey. But it's not exactly unsubstantive.

It really is unsurprising to hear that a company that purports to give unbiased reviews is actually asking for kickbacks from manufacturers. That is the most obvious way for such a company to operate. Did anyone expect them not to act like that?</comment></comment></comment>


Pandemic flu planning guidance for England - <AUTHOR> https://www.gov.uk/guidance/pandemic-flu <comment><USER2> Links are to the "UK influenza pandemic preparedness strategy 2011" guide: [https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/responding-to- a-u...](https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/responding-to-a-uk-flu- pandemic)

and:

>Published 20 February 2013

>Last updated 24 November 2017</comment>


Conscious Leadership Group releases all materials - <AUTHOR> http://conscious.is/blogs/walking-our-talk-a-whole-body-yes-business-decision-and-new-resources-for-you <comment><AUTHOR> This is a fantastic organization with a transformational message – would highly recommend their book and their consulting if you're at a company so enlightened.</comment>


A Front End Engineer's Manifesto - <AUTHOR> http://f2em.com/

<comment><USER2> I'm a successful front-end developer and I really don't care about any of this stuff.

This is one of the last manifesto's I'd personally subscribe to.

In fact, I feel sad for anyone who takes front-end development this seriously. This is a field that exists because of fragmentation and the strange place that the web has arrived at.

On the whole, we aren't solving interesting problems. We are building what someone else has designed and then patching that build across devices and browsers. Sometimes there are fun problems to solve while doing that, but its nothing compared to what we could be doing as programmers.

I get paid well to make applications work cross device and cross browser, and I have an extremely flexible work environment. That is why I work hard. Not because Tom from Oklahoma is going to have a slightly better day because he doesn't have to figure out how to get on with his life when the site I'm working on doesn't break on his particular device or browser.

Look up at the stars. Think bigger.

</comment><comment><USER3> "I will learn at the root, not the abstraction: JAVASCRIPT BEFORE JQUERY"

I'm not sure why one high-end abstraction finds favour over another slightly higher high-end abstraction, but this sure sounds a lot like the people who insist that you can't be a good programmer unless you've learned some kind of assembler.

On the "shoulders of giants" means we don't need to know javascript as well as jQuery. It means we don't have to know assembler as well as pascal. It means that we don't need to learn IP when we can just learn TCP/IP, and we don't need to learn TCP/IP when we can just use REST over HTTP.

Learning at the root goes a lot further down than you want to go, need to go or are capable of going.

<comment><USER4> I pretty strongly disagree.

> this sure sounds a lot like the people who insist that you can't be a good > programmer unless you've learned some kind of assembler.

This isn't a very good analogy. JavaScript is a high level language, and jQuery is just a library with features that make it a high level DSL. But when you "write jQuery" you're really writing JavaScript, not some other language, so I don't think the analogy with languages compiled to assembly really makes sense. That being said, I do think that knowing some assembly will not hurt you writing C, and likely will help. Similarly, understanding some of how JS is implemented in browsers won't hurt, and might help you write JS.

It's true that there's almost no limit to how deep the rabbit hole goes. Someone building web apps probably doesn't need to have a degree in electrical engineering, but I don't think this kind of slippery slope argument defends someone using jQuery without knowing JavaScript.

In a grandchild comment you wrote:

> It took me ages to unlearn certain practices and just accept the garbage > collector would do its job and I no longer need to think about unallocating > memory.

You don't need to explicitly think about unallocating memory, but that doesn't mean your knowledge of manual memory management isn't useful. You do need to be aware of how the GC works if you're working with one. You can still have memory leaks, so how could you possibly debug them if you think the GC is magic?

There's this meme that is floated around HN and elsewhere, that the title "software engineer" is just puffery, because we aren't "real" engineers. I try to avoid this discussion because I think it's mostly stupid, but I can't help touch on it here given the title of this manifesto. I just don't think anyone could seriously call themselves a "front end engineer" if they refuse to learn JavaScript, claiming it's not necessary to use jQuery. Given that the author thinks this title is appropriate, I think the assertion about learning JavaScript is perfectly acceptable.

I'd be interested to hear more about what you think though, and about how the negatives to understanding lower levels of the stack outweigh the benefits. In my (limited) experience, some or more understanding of one or even two "levels down the stack" has never been a net-negative.

<comment><USER5> 99% of devs building the popular sites on the Internet have never needed to think about GC beyond maybe the vaguest terms of "if you keep too many references to too big things your app will slog." 0.5% write tools, libraries, and compilers that worry about this, and 0.5% debug extreme cases in their apps.

Numbers made up, of course.

<comment><USER4> I think you're wrong, and I don't know what the point of making up numbers is. It might be your experience that you've been able to treat garbage collection as magic, and that's nice, but it's not been mine. I was speaking generally, about all programmers, not just web developers.

My point was that if you don't have any understanding of how garbage collection works, you simply don't have all possible tools at your disposal when you need to debug a memory leak. I'm not suggesting every programmer needs to have spent years hacking on garbage collectors and studied all of the literature, just that having some familiarity with the tools available to you is important.

And this was just one example meant to support my main argument that gaining understanding below the level of abstraction you are working at is not a bad thing.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> _I will choose the RIGHT TOOL FOR THE JOB_

So just put this in a full static page. Why the scrolling? And also color/font choice is quite terrible. No responsiveness for small screens. Apparently, he didn't follow his own advice.

<comment><USER7> I was going to observe that you can (in Firefox, at least) turn off the custom stylesheet, and it becomes much more readable. But if you scroll all the way to the end, it jumps around and doesn't actually let you scroll to the end (perhaps due to its JS). There's definitely something weird on that page.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> "I will educate my friends and family that WEB BROWSER CHOICE MATTERS"

and

"Most importantly and above all, I will put the needs of the USER FIRST over my own needs as a developer."

So please do, put the needs of your USERS first. Your users do not NEED to be educated by you. It is not your business what browser they use.

<comment><USER9> Friends and family != users.

You can cater to the variety of platforms your users want to use whilst at the same time having useful and meaningful conversations with friends and family about what the best browser is for them. You don't annoy your users by trying to 'educate' them, but collectively we see a move forward.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> He may "put the user first," but he clearly doesn't put the _reader_ first ... ouch. oO;

</comment><comment><USER11> "Without JavaScript or CSS, or without mobile Webkit, my site may not look pretty but will still be functional." There goes backbone.js and other javascript MVC patterns. This is something I'm still unsure about.

What do (you) people think of keeping your "data out of the DOM"?

<comment><USER12> It depends where your site falls on

      content_page<</comment></comment><comment>-->web_app

continuum.

<comment><USER11> the last time this came up as a serious question for me was in a web management console.

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> Scrolling through that was very annoying. Page up/down obviously won't move by exactly one of the "pages".

<comment><USER14> I found out that the page listens to j/k just as in Vim. However, it seems the scroll directions are inverted from Vim; j goes up and k goes down.

<comment><USER13> wtf

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> I thought it was a blank page at first... some sort of less is more statement.

<comment><USER15> You failed to interpret the page author's 100% custom scrollbar (on the left edge of the screen) as an indicator that there was more content? That's ... odd.

He clearly had your interests in mind when implementing that, since browser vendors just think about themselves with their annoying scrollbars that look the same on every page, even. Simplistic fools.

<comment><USER16> It does have a custom scrollbar, but the normal one still shows up (at least on FF and Chrome), so I don't see the problem.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> "I will continue to foster both HEMISPHERES OF MY BRAIN"

I thought this was debunked?

<comment><USER18> There's basically enough truth to it that you can't just refute-by-reality, but not enough to make statements like this acceptable by my standards. It's vague enough that it's not actually a useful statement for anyone taking it literally.

See: [http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/brain- myths/201206/why-t...](http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/brain- myths/201206/why-the-left-brain-right-brain-myth-will-probably-never-die)

</comment></comment><comment><USER19> anyone more interested in the "brain hemispheres" bit (<http://f2em.com/#brain-hemispheres>) should check out Miyamoto Musashi's collection of writings called "The Book of Five Rings" <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Book_of_Five_Rings>

Just some great writing on this idea of being a "balanced" human, and how that influences, informs, and improves your skills. His skills were as a samurai, but the principles apply pretty universally. I got a lot out of the book, you can find it free on iBooks, Kindle, etc.

EDIT wow, I actually didn't find a free version on Kindle, but here's a few formats for free from Archive.org -> [http://archive.org/details/MiyamotoMusashi- BookOfFiveRingsgo...](http://archive.org/details/MiyamotoMusashi- BookOfFiveRingsgoRinNoSho)

</comment><comment><USER20> > Without JavaScript or CSS [...] my site may not look pretty but will still > be functional.

For what reason exactly? Of course there are cases where it makes sense to follow this rule, maybe even the majority, but having it as #2 in your manifesto will severely limit what you can accomplish on the web.

<comment><USER21> example: in some specific situations random javascript error(and lack of exception handling) can disable your interface forever,

random HTTP connection problem may occur, while loading CSS/JS files,

etc.

</comment></comment><comment><USER22> I don't think it will convince anyone who doesn't do more or less all of that.

And the scrolling is annoying.

</comment><comment><USER23> Progressive enhancement is the main reason HTML-based apps can't compete with native apps. Progressive enhancement is synonymous with not pushing things forward.

I know of at least one stealth startup who have built up a javascript library that is indistinguishably performant with native apps, but that performance comes at the cost of progressive enhancement. It's a tradeoff worth making.

I believe in an open web too, but one that is as powerful as native apps, not a crippled second-rate one that loses users and developers to proprietary platforms. Any browser feature that developers find useful and actively adopt will quickly be incorporated into the remaining browsers.

</comment><comment><USER24> I'd expect an article titled Front-end engineer's manifesto to have better UI than this. First thing I assumed was that I could use up, down in my keypad to navigate through slides. Then right, left. Figured scrolling is okay. The sidebar that's supposed to show me how far I've read isn't apparent. The font choices and responsiveness coud be better. Reinventing scrolling isn't good. I'd have been fine if it worked for me on Chrome, it got stuck in page 4 and 5 and I had to press j/k few times to get moving again. If there's a tool that takes care of kind of stuff and frees you to do important stuff, why not use it? On that point, checkout impress.js for this kind of stuff.

</comment><comment><USER25> This rubs me the wrong way for some reason. Maybe it just sounds really pretentious(?) In the end front-end (or any other) development exists to create services for the users, not for it's own sake as a philosophy or something.

</comment><comment><USER26> Please read the associated blog post that went along with the site. <http://www.zachleat.com/web/manifesto/>

"I've been reluctant to share the slides because I certainly don't want developers to take them as dogmatic truth. Rather, I'd love for people to see a forest using trees they've planted themselves."

Certainly scrolling could be improved. I'll definitely look into improving the performance. I honestly had no idea this slide deck would get this much attention.

</comment><comment><USER27> Funny that the manifesto doesn't render well on an iPad. It's too wide, and scrolling is chunky.

<comment><AUTHOR> I also find it funny that they're using the processor intensive version of the bigtext plugin AND emphasising performance on the same page...

</comment></comment><comment><USER28> Here's a manifesto: do your job, do it well. Some tools/ideologies will work better for you than they do for others. Strive for perfection, accept reality.

</comment><comment><USER29> Seems over the top, but I think it's great if someone wants to make a commitment to being better at what they do.

</comment><comment><USER5> Nice how security is an after thought as something to strive for, not commit to.

Also, layout is totally borked on Android Browser.</comment>


Ask HN: How did you "learn to learn"? - <AUTHOR>

These days, everyone seems to be telling me to "lean to learn", as thats an art without which no-one can move forward. I tried googling the thing, but the problem is, there's just no direct way to "learn to learn", so I was wondering how you guys "learnt to learn".
When I say "learn to learn", this is the sense in which I mean it: http://jamesaltucher.quora.com/The-Skills-We-All-Need-But-College-Doesnt-Teach <comment><USER2> I think learning has a lot to do with talent and persistence. Different people have different genes to learn different things. I think learning has a lot to do with someone really needing you to fix something for them. Deliver a product with some new technology, bug fix, analyse something complex, whatever. You really HAVE to deliver and your brain will get into ultra focus mode. Some people I know say that they learn best when things are broken and they need to fix it urgently because the customer might be losing money.

</comment><comment><USER3> Obviously everyone has the ability to learn from the start, or it'd be impossible to even learn to learn. But what have I done to improve my learning capabilities? The best kind of learning, practice, by newer considering my own knowledge as lacking for a task, but rather something I'll have to improve I get practice in learning any time I try to solve a new problem.

University does help a lot as well. Even if I definitely don't remember every fact from every course I've studied (although claiming that all is forgotten within 45 minutes would be a major exaggeration), I've been "forced" to learn a lot of different subjects within a limited time frame. In itself this means practice in learning and it also creates a large base on knowledge upon which I more easily can learn new things. Math stands out as the most important in that, as it's something that I find too tedious to learn on my own, but which is the language used in almost all technical subjects.

</comment><comment><USER4> Although education can be really expensive, they won't teach you stuff you really want. If you find a particular subject interesting and study it on your own, you'll find that you make progress faster than you would if you study it in school or college. You can teach yourself to do anything if you like it and are willing to make effort in it.</comment>


Bombardier to Cut 7,500 More Jobs Through 2018, Most in Rail - <AUTHOR> http://www.nytimes.com/reuters/2016/10/21/business/21reuters-bombardier-jobs.html?partner=rss&emc=rss&_r=0 <comment><USER3> > Chief Executive Officer Alain Bellemare said he did not expect the job cuts, > which include 1,500 workers in Quebec and 500 in the rest of Canada, would > affect the company's talks with the federal government over a $1 billion > investment in its CSeries jet program.

"Hey Federal Government, we'd like you to help us out to the tune of a billion dollars, because we're such a big important employer here in Canada... also, we're going to slowly stop being such a big employer"

<comment><USER4> I don't think this is inconsistent at all. They're laying off mostly people in their rail division, which is based in Germany and doing poorly. They're asking for some government support for the aerospace group, which is based in Canada and doing ok, but facing lots of competition from Airbus and Embraer, which also receive government support.

<comment><USER5> I wonder why governments subsidize production of commercial airliners so much. There are no network effects or lock-in, so there is nothing to milk after you've gotten big, just more need for subsidies.

And jet fighters etc. are usually made by different manufacturers altogether, except for military freighters.

<comment><USER6> There is no Minimal Viable Product for commercial airliners. Either they fly with as close to 100% reliability as possible or almost no one will buy them. The cost to an airline of even a single crash is way more than they could ever hope to save by buying from some unknown maker. It's also a massively capital- intensive business.

It isn't impossible that new competitors will emerge but it will be a long difficult road.

<comment><USER7> There's not an MVP for a superjumbo, but you could start with UAVs, small planes, and start scaling up.

The design challenges (and off-the-shelf parts) for smaller aircraft are more viable.

Alternatively, you could start by building subsystems and expand to full aircraft.

<comment><USER8> The trend has gone the other way though. Companies like Wright, Curtiss, Martin Baker and Vought did complete aircraft but ended up doing subsystems. The aircraft and development projects have grown. The market has matured to a few big players. If you look at the A350 construction videos, you get a little glimpse of the massive investment required just for that part. New technologies like vacuum infused out of autoclave composites might simplify manufacturing a lot though. IIRC Sukhoi Superjet uses them.

<comment><USER7> Wright got into the business prior to its significant maturation, as I recall.

I suspect you could divide the industry at some arbitrary point and argue signifibant maturity by then. 1950, 60, or 70 depending on whether you're considering manufacturers, technology, or airframes, by and large.

Consolidation does seem to be a very strong trend, and one that may prove difficult to reverse.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> In 2014, while in college, I did a co-op rotation at the Bombardier Transportation facility in Pittsburgh, PA. The rail division may be based in Germany, but there's a sizable rail engineering contingent in Pittsburgh. I worked with a lot of good people and engineers there--I hope they do alright. Even in 2014 there was grumbling by the engineers about upper management, and I remember attending an "all-hands" meeting where a visiting executive talked of belt-tightening. In a fairly tone-deaf delivery, he spoke of limiting his own business-class international travel.

<comment><USER5> >In a fairly tone-deaf delivery, he spoke of limiting his own business-class international travel.

I am reliably informed that business travel sucks donkey ass, (almost) regardless of class. It's tone deaf because travel has positive connotations to most people, not because he's out of touch with reality. To a business traveler, economy class is adding insult to injury.

<comment><USER10> I am reliably informed (by Kayak) that the cheapest direct flight from JFK to Heathrow, one week from today, costs $901 in economy class on British Airways, while the cheapest business class ticket costs $5451 on Virgin Atlantic.

The saying "A fool and his money are soon parted" extends to corporations, too.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> Can't say no one saw this coming. They continue to build products not on time and not on budget.

<comment><USER12> It seems like they've been having financial difficulties for the last 10-20 years. It's almost like they are the Radio Shack of trains/plains/snowmobiles.

<comment><USER13> They have horrible management, which is where the "layoffs" should happen. They have great engineers, skilled craftsmen, workers, etc., but the upper ranks and board of directors are full of patronage and incest.

<comment><USER14> I think a more appropriate final word here would be "nepotism".

<comment><USER15> You're right, the company is full of nepotism and incest.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> There are hundreds of millions of people in North America. Why do people act like gaining or losing a couple thousand jobs is some kind of earth-shaking development? I get that losing jobs sucks for the people involved, but sometimes I even see US jobs reports delivered as breaking news in national newspapers. Why?

<comment><USER17> Firing people has an exponential effect.

<comment><USER16> Whatever that means.

<comment><USER17> It means that when you fire one person it affects many more. When you fire 7,500 there are thousands more affected.

<comment><USER16> Still uselessly vague. Who is affected? How are they affected? How did you determine the effect is exponential as opposed to, say, logarithmic or linear?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> There is a lot of value and scale at Bombardier. What is likely to happen is some private equity firm will form a syndicate and purchase the company - <USER2> it into pieces, slash management, remove the fat etc. It will be a 3-5 year process.

Worth highlighting I am not saying this with disdain for the private equity industry. One of its intanigble benefits is that it serves as an agent of dramatic change for companies and industries - change that cannot spontaneously occur for public or government owned institutions (e.g. the post office). Will be interesting to see how this plays out long term...

<comment><USER19> That won't happen, because the Quebec government will not allow it.

<comment><USER20> Because canadians are risk-averse. Hence why only the banks have been continuing to make money; they even invest in each other to keep the risk- averse cycle going.

<comment><USER19> It's also due to, in the case of the Quebec government, nationalistic sentiment.

It's a difficult balance to strike - keeping and supporting high tech manufacturing, while trying to remain competitive. I think at the moment, the government intervention (blocking suitors and direct investment) is in fact doing more harm than good, but perhaps they know better - I have no knowledge of how competitive the C-Series really is or not.

<comment><USER21> The liberal party of Québec isn't very nationalistic, it's mostly that they have very deep ties to the Beaudoin family that has inherited Bombardier from their parents without having the competency to manage it. And our government is in the hand of corporations since we still have colonial institutions, so they spend our tax dollars on free loans that will never be paid back.

<comment><USER19> Thanks for the info. I guess it's simply nationalistic window dressing for run-of-the-mill corruption.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> Bombardier is a weird company. It's one of those huge conglomerations that is in multiple lines of business, like some of the Japanese consortiums. This article mentions their aerospace and rail lines, which I wasn't even aware of; their more visible business, as far as I know, is in ATVs, snowmobiles, and jetskis.

<comment><USER23> Visible to who? I only know of them because I ride in subway cars they made. [http://www.bombardier.com/en/transportation/products- service...](http://www.bombardier.com/en/transportation/products- services/rail-vehicles/metros.html)

Nobody rides ATVs, snowmobiles and jetskis. Everyone rides the subway.

<comment><USER22> I've never ridden in a Bombardier subway car. I have driven a Bombardier snowmobile.

<comment><USER24> I've done neither, but I _have_ peed myself on a Bombardier made prop plane flying in turbulence.

<comment><USER25> So now you have a goal in life: to try it on a snowmobile.

<comment><USER26> ...Peeing in a Bombardier snowmobile flying in turbulence?

<comment><USER8> Lake ice with shallow snow dunes is great for a little snowmobile flight practice.

If only the machines weren't so damn noisy. They are a real terror to the environment.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER27> I initially thought that the number of bombardier jobs (as in, the guy who drops bombs from a plane) was being reduced by 7500. I was shocked there were that many.

<comment><USER28> Hey, that's better than my initial reaction, I thought the title was talking about Ruby on Rails developers

</comment></comment><comment><USER29> And in a few years expect to read "Bombardier to Cut 7,500 Additional Jobs Through 2023." Such is life in a demand-limited economy, where the more companies cut jobs and pay, the more their profitability and the larger economy suffers, and the more they further cut jobs.

<comment><USER30> I remember the team I was in at the time being told in 2008 by a senior executive of the large industrial company I was at that the prevailing management consulting view on how to survive a recession was to "cut quickly and cut deep".

He then went on to explain that the management team were surprised at how quickly orders from customers were drying up.

Pointing out that if everyone was cutting quickly and deeply then it's hardly surprising that demand dries up seemed a potential career limiting move so I kept quiet.

<comment><USER31> In my experience, working at a company where independent thought is career limit is soul crushing.

<comment><USER30> Actually it was a very good place to work - lots of extremely smart people, which is probably why I remember the apparent failure (or unwillingness) to make that inference.

<comment><USER32> Maybe they were aware of it. There's still no way a small or even large company can change the dynamics at play. Government can sometimes change things by deficit spending on infrastructure, but that's a tough sell to voters somehow.

<comment><USER33> > Government can sometimes change things by deficit spending on > infrastructure, but that's a tough sell to voters somehow.

Because it is not free market economic activity governed by real demand. It is just government officials deciding to use other peoples money to create demand in certain sectors.

If people in a community pooled their own money together to build a new bridge then you'd have economic activity that is created due to real demand and there would be a real incentive to make sure they are not overpaying or that their money is wasted.

But when the government does it you end up building natural gas filling stations in Afghanistan for millions of dollars servicing a total of 3 cars running on natural gas in that country which on top of that has to be rebuilt multiple times because the Taliban bomb it again and again.

<comment><USER32> > If people in a community pooled their own money together to build a new > bridge then you'd have economic activity that is created due to real demand > and there would be a real incentive to make sure they are not overpaying or > that their money is wasted.

Isn't people in a community pooling their money together what a government is? Often the increase in property values alone is more than the cost of building the bridge, the difficulty is co-ordinating them.

<comment><USER33> Ideally yes, but practically it more often than not isn't, especially if it's the federal government that decides.

If governments owning and directing whole economic sectors truly was an efficient way to manage an economy then Socialism (government demand driving the economy) would've beaten Capitalism (private demand driving the economy) easily and by a long shot.

It didn't just fail being more efficient than Capitalism, it even consistently ended up impoverishing and corrupting any nation that tried implementing it.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER34> [http://www.reuters.com/article/uk-france-alstom- idUKKCN11K1W...](http://www.reuters.com/article/uk-france-alstom- idUKKCN11K1WB)

</comment><comment><USER35> I'm surprised they couldn't find a buyer over in India (and still keep the engineers on board).

<comment><USER36> Considering the significant push for high-speed train infrastructure in India (and the fact that train is the main mode of long distance travel for a majority of Indians), I'm also surprised that didn't focus more on India (or maybe they did and it didn't pan out, I don't know).

</comment></comment><comment><USER37> Hope I can still buy my later bizjet there :D

</comment><comment><USER20> Bombardier should probably be split up into multiple smaller companies and taken off the public's $$$. I've paid taxes and I'm pretty sure most of my tax dollars are just getting thrown at Bombardier.

</comment><comment><USER38> Time to invest in hyperloop technology? With robotized cars and cheaper and cheaper air travel, rails are becoming a thing of the past.

<comment><USER35> In the US, passenger rail has always been neglected. This is not uniformly the case around the world.

<comment><USER39> Passenger rail is subsidized where it does the most good (mainly the Northeast US) and ignored where it won't.

Rail traffic from CA (or WA or OR) to the east has to deal with this insignificant barrier also known as the Rocky mountain range. Passes through the Rockies are frequently as high as 4000 feet and feature exciting twists and turns. It isn't impassible to rail, but it doesn't lend itself to the type of high speed rail that can compete with air travel.</comment></comment></comment>


Increasing the Clickable Area of Inline Links - <AUTHOR> http://joshnh.com/2012/09/06/increasing-the-clickable-area-of-inline-links/

<comment><USER2> This seems a bit unnecessary, there are elegant solutions already being built into mobile browsers which is by far the best place to address issues like this.

<comment><AUTHOR> Would you mind sharing some more information on these 'elegant solutions'? I'm yet to experience them.

<comment><USER2> Opera on my phone automatically zooms whenever you tap a link near another link so you can select with no ambiguity, and I believe Chrome on Android does too:

<http://www.androidcentral.com/chrome-android-walkthrough>

Safari is notably lagging behind but it's a crappy browser... back button right next to the close tab button suffering from the exact problem you're describing.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> I kind of assumed mobile browsers might already be doing this -- 'smudging' clicks a few pixels towards the nearest clickable region, whenever they land someplace neutral.

Still, if/when they don't, this seems helpful. In particular, if the HN up/down triangles had this, biased in the direction opposite each other, there'd be fewer mistaken votes on touch screens.</comment>


What are examples of socially acceptable lies?  (e.g., psychology experiment, surprise party, etc.) - <AUTHOR>

<comment><USER2> The denial of death.</comment>


Show HN: DSS – Dynamic Style Sheets as Functions of State - <AUTHOR> https://gitlab.com/dosycorp/dss <comment><AUTHOR> DSS are similar to CSS-in-JS with scoped styles, with the idea being to have style as a function of state.

This is all just for my own enjoyment and productivity to use in my own projects, but I'm OK if other people find it useful (but I don't want it to become an OSS project with all the requirements of maintaining that) and welcome any criticism, feedback and ideas as well.</comment>


Eleven researchers publish sharp critique of EPA fuel economy logic - <AUTHOR> https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2018/12/science-trump-admin-report-justifying-fuel-economy-rollback-is-flawed/ <comment><USER2> wonder if there's any recourse?</comment>


Ask HN: Why is learning so painful? - <AUTHOR> Most people find it hard to reach their full potential because we hate to learn something new. For most of us it takes some grit to spend the time and energy to learn something. Even now, when it's easier than ever to find and learn new stuff. Yet we can spend time doing the same thing over and over like an endless loop. Even if it's to our detriment.<p>Why is that? And how can we make it easier to learn? What helps? <comment><USER2> First, a couple objections to your phrasing.

I dislike the term 'reach their full potential'. That would require precognition. Perhaps you _do_ study topic X, but your full potential would have been better reached by going for a walk, where you ended up meeting a group of like-minded people who support and challenge each other to do better. (For that matter, there are many worthy paths in life. You can't take all of them, so will never reach your 'full potential'. Perhaps I could have been a great figure skater, had I tried, so I'll now never reach my full potential.)

I also dislike the term 'grit', because it has so many meanings. It's often interpreted needing an internal quality of perseverance and resilience. But what's also important is external support. This could include teachers or trainers, but also a community which doesn't resort to "LOL, N00B - RTFM!" when someone comes with a beginner question.

Most people don't like feeling ignorant. Even fewer like it when others highlight that ignorance. As a personal example, years back I went to buy a new iPod and brought in my old one for a trade-in. The Apple store staff pointed out it was an old model "is it 3rd generation"? I had no clue, and didn't like the feeling like I was supposed to know this information.

Now, as to your topic, there's an entire field of learning science. For example, Greg Wilson, at Software Carpentry, recommends ([http://software- carpentry.org/blog/2016/09/small-teaching.ht...](http://software- carpentry.org/blog/2016/09/small-teaching.html) ):

> Elizabeth Green's Building a Better Teacher changed how I think about > teaching, and sparked some good discussion in our community. Therese > Huston's Teaching What You Don't Know had a similar impact a few years > earlier, and now there is James Lang's Small Teaching. As its title > suggests, Lang's book focuses on little things that teachers can do right > now to improve their teaching, rather than on big, systemic changes that > might have larger impact, but which require larger effort (and probably buy- > in from other people). To be included, a practice had to: have some > foundation in the learning sciences, have been shown to have impact in real- > world situation, and have been used or observed by the author. ... Frequent > low-stakes quizzes to prompt recall, interleaving different material, having > students write a one-minute thesis or draw a concept map, making the > assessment criteria clear, setting aside time for self-explanation and peer > explanation—none of these should be new to anyone who has been through our > instructor training course

Perhaps reading the literature from that field would help more than random HN commenters? As the Software Carpentry instructor training page points out at [http://swcarpentry.github.io/instructor- training/](http://swcarpentry.github.io/instructor-training/) :

> "Over the last hundred years, researchers have discovered an enormous amount > about how people learn and how best to teach them. Unfortunately, much of > that knowledge has not yet been translated into common classroom practice, > while many myths about education have proven remarkably persistent."

It's likely that people here may repeat those same myths.

This also gives you the chance to ask yourself if you want to spend the time and energy to learn that topic enough to really be able to answer your own curiosity. And if not, perhaps that same answer can be applied to others?

</comment><comment><USER3> > Why is that?

It's because of the mindset. When you consider learning as a chore, it really does become painful and tedious. However, if you consider learning as a hobby, it becomes much easier and much more natural. I had this job a few years ago where I was required to learn a certain programming language whose syntax and semantics I really disliked. It took me months to fix a problem that I now deem trivial, and this was because I felt that what I was doing was a chore. A few weeks ago, I decided to learn a new language, and since I did it after work right before going to bed as a hobby, the learning part came naturally and I felt like I was just having fun.

> And how can we make it easier to learn?

That said, it certainly helps if you incentivize your learning process. Answer these questions: why do you want to learn what you're trying to learn, and what will you get out of it? If the answers make you happy and excited, then I think you're already halfway there. Learning is much like going to the gym and working out: you have to tear those muscles up (a really painful process!) so they can be rebuilt much bigger. As the old saying goes: "no pain, no gain". It takes the right mindset and the right goals to truly make learning easier and more rewarding.

> What helps?

Peer learning! Try to find someone to learn whatever you're trying to learn with. As a programmer, I can attest to just how much peer learning works. I usually hang out at the Slack of whatever tool or language I'm trying to learn and join meetups. It really helps you learn faster when you have someone to bounce your ideas on.

</comment><comment><USER4> _Why is that?_

Because it's good for you. The same way walking up stairs or not giving into every single craving for sweets/alcohol/carbs/cheese/whatever can seem "painful" if you're out of shape (or in the latter case, metabolically dependent). Until you get into shape, that is, and walking up the stairs doesn't hurt anymore. And you realize that all this time (when you were a lazy bum), it wasn't walking up the stairs, but _not walking up the stairs_ (and not saying "no" to whatever kind of crap you thought your stomach was demanding) which was "hurting" you. You just didn't feel it until you shifted modes.

 _And how can we make it easier to learn? What helps?_

Making a system out of it. Realizing that a long journey always begins with a few modest steps (and that this isn't just a trite slogan). That for a long time, you're going to feel confused and inert and like a wannabe and an imposter before you get much benefit out of it. But you realize that those aren't signs that you're "failing", those are signs that you're actually getting somewhere. So you're going to push yourself through it all anyway.

Because it's good for you.

</comment><comment><USER5> > _Why is that?_

Because reality?

Might as well ask why it's hard to just go out an dead lift a 500lbs weight. Obviously because there are physiological limits to what we can do with our brains and bodies, and unless there's some great enabling technology that addresses them specifically, they'll remain.

That said, learning is not hard in general. Some things are very easy to learn (e.g. to bike, to tell the time, to cook spaghetti). Others are hard, because the subjects are bigger or vast and the knowledge more intricate (e.g. Math, Medicine).

> _And how can we make it easier to learn? What helps?_

Studying with focus, practice, persistence, actually liking the subject, starting our study of it from a young age, etc.

Things that have been shown to also help are being in good shape (exercise+nutrition also help our brain function better), immersive learning (e.g. when learning a new language, don't just read books and do tests, speak it with native speakers, watch movies in the language, etc), and some other stuff and "spaced repetition" (google it).

No magic bullets.

</comment><comment><USER6> There are many types of learning and it boils down to motivation. If you are supposed to learn something because you boss told you but you resist because simply you disagree, then it'll be really hard to learn that thing.

On the other hand, if you have a goal that for example you want to be a generative artist then you'll have a good time learning about math and various algorithms. Learning is achieved via repetition and practice, so don't stop at watching YouTube videos. Put those thing to practice. Rinse a repeat.

If you lack motivation, you could also try various focus boosting drugs, but don't ask me, I haven't tried any.</comment>


Any tech startups we can meet with today for coffee? - <AUTHOR>

Hey guys, we're a startup from Irvine, CA up in Silicon Valley for the day. We would love to meet and network with startups up here while we're still here! We are developing a cloud based monitoring and control platform and system for sustainable aquaculture. We were just up here talking to the Monterey aquarium. Let me know if you want to meet! firstname.lastname@example.com <comment><USER2> You should go talk to the guy that runs an aquaponics program near West Oakland BART.

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3IryIOyPfTE](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3IryIOyPfTE)

Dude is amazing. My mother took a really interesting Saturday class from him.

<comment><AUTHOR> Can you please forward me his contact info? Thanks :)

<comment><USER2> [http://www.kijanigrows.com/contact-us/](http://www.kijanigrows.com/contact- us/)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> Try downloading Weave (think Tinder for Professional Networking). There are tons of awesome entrepreneurs and investors looking to network on the app.

[http://weave.in/app](http://weave.in/app)

[full disclosure: I'm one of the founders]

<comment><AUTHOR> Downloading it now! Would you like to meet up with us for some coffee? Pick the best coffee place in town!

<comment><USER4> Hey Yousif - Brian here (another founder at Weave). Today is a bit booked, but if you can swing by Philz on 4th and berry, I have an open slot from 5-5:30. Hit me if that works. email@example.com

<comment><AUTHOR> Hey Brian, just emailed you. We are on our way, however we wont be able to be there until 5:30 or so</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Facebook Cracking Down on Illegal Gun Sales Planned on Site - <AUTHOR> http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2014-03-05/facebook-cracking-down-on-illegal-gun-sales-planned-through-site.html

<comment><USER2> Awful article misrepresenting what Facebook says it is actually doing (and what is against the law outside of the Bloomberg/NYC/NY State/NE etc. bubble); see this HN item which links to Facebook's announcement: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7349822](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7349822)</comment>


At Hay-on-Wye, eccentric Richard Booth built a kingdom out of books - <AUTHOR> https://www.cnn.com/travel/article/richard-booth-books-hay-on-wye-intl/index.html <comment><AUTHOR> _Today there are believed to be around 10 million books in circulation in Hay- on-Wye, an extraordinary claim for a small market town of approximately 1,500 inhabitants. It 's possible to stumble across a bookstore every few moments while exploring the place._

 _" By the 1980s there were 30-plus bookshops in Hay and it was at its zenith," ... "It was bubbling and it was all down to Richard."_</comment>


Microsoft Will Soon Start Charging For Its Bing Search API - <AUTHOR> http://techcrunch.com/2012/04/12/microsoft-will-soon-start-charging-for-its-bing-search-api/ <comment><USER2> Having been through similar decision making processes myself (with the Google Custom Search API, the Google Translate API, etc), this is just as likely an abuse mitigation technique as it is a revenue generation opportunity.

Requiring even a modest at-cost fee for a web service does wonders to discourage all sorts of misuse, from wanton large-scale data mining, to blatant repacking and resale, to worse. (Heck, simply requiring a valid credit card alone helps.)

And sadly no, simply having low quotas for free access doesn't entirely suffice. If there's material value to be extracted from a free service, you'd be amazed at the lengths people will go through to create large numbers of low-volume scrapers. Most of these are obvious and easy to detect and defeat, but continually doing so adds up in cost, and it takes engineers away from providing better services to legitimate customers.

In short, most people on the outside don't appreciate just how difficult the handful of bad guys make it for companies to do something good for the other 99%. So I'm sympathetic to Microsoft here, I really am.

<comment><USER3> This. The best way to fight these types spammers and scrapers is through economics - provide the content at-cost and it no longer becomes cost- effective for pray-and-spray models.

Imagine what the world would be like if there was a cost-per-unit to sending email - our inboxes would be a much saner, friendlier place. Fewer marketing emails, virtually no spam (no longer economical).

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> This got me thinking...is it possible for Microsoft to _secretly_ buy out DDG and leave them the fuck alone except where they need help(ie. access to Bing index)?

For all the money the Bing unit keeps pouring, I feel buying DDG and leaving them the heck alone can be a reasonable long-term bet with relatively little risk.

The challenge would be to keep the founders/team motivated. They could spin it off as a completely different company on IPO track and give significant equity. But then what if Google wants to buy them out? And of course, the Bing team may have a problem with MSFT creating internal competition though that may just push em to do better.

More likely if DuckDuckGo gets in an acquisition bidding war, I put my money on Gabe passing acquisition for raising a huge funding round that lets him take some money off the table.

With all the flaws(enough that I don't use it), it remains a rare search engine start-up that has its heart in the right place: to actually serve consumers versus build some technology or team and get acquired(looking at you, Powerset).

<comment><USER5> I think you're getting ahead of yourself here. DDG has 0.1% of all search traffic ( 30m out of 23b queries per month ). They get all of their 'relevancy' from bing, and blekko. The reason you like them is because they clean up these results, provide peripheral add-ons like user privacy, no ads, easier syntax for power users, and one-boxes which function more as a knowledge-base than a search engine. They don't crawl/index the web. or if they do, we haven't heard anything about it, or seen any different relevancy rankings from the BOSS api. So they are really a new face to already extant search engines.

You mention a 'bidding war'. Who would buy them? Any 'features' they provide can be copied by msft/google if they feel threatened. They don't have their own backend search technology so partners who might want to do search with them, ask.com, search.com, etc. have no reason to work with them as opposed to the BOSS api themselves or even Bing. I'm just as excited as you are about innovation in search and competitors to google, but DDG needs to be re- architected on the back-end before these sorts of pronouncements make sense.

<comment><USER6> yep, i completely agree. DDG is built off Bing's platform, so they're screwed if MSFT ever made their index private. They also don't got a strong brand outside of hackers who've heard of them.

I must admit they do a good job in the PR area of making themselves seem big and sexy. But they're really not innovating search, or providing any thick value in improving search. At least Blekko was trying to create a better algorithm.

<comment><USER7> _"At least Blekko was trying to create a better algorithm."_

Why the past-tense? Blekko is still alive and kicking. (And I hope they find success, because they're doing amazing technical work. From a purely technical perspective, they deserve ten times the press that DDG is getting.)

<comment><USER8> I like your defense of Blekko. I am often puzzled why blekko is talked off so little, compared to DDG, on Hacker News. Nothing against DDG, but blekko is the only new entrant trying to fight Google heads on. As it does its own crawling, and Skrenta believed that search can be improved when he started (apparent from his blog posts).

But I think, the mistake Blekko did perhaps was being too close to a Google kind of (i.e. traditional) search engine. On this path, it may take them atleast another 3 years, before people start taking them seriously. It will be a hard and grueling road.

But the thing, I like about them, is that they did not make the mistake of cuil, and are being conservative in making promises.

Overall, I suspect, they may be feeling a bit out of sorts, as when they started out (2007) the social network thing was still in infancy. And now people are talking about facebook coming into search and so on, which if it happens, may be a totally different approach to search, than perhaps what blekko did, which was trying to emulate and out-do Google.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Time for people to start supporting something like Common Crawl <http://commoncrawl.org/> to build their own search engines.

<comment><USER10> blekko has been running a crawl+index of several billion pages for 2 years now, so perhaps I can talk about this a little.

If you want access to a big crawl to grep through it for interesting data, then Common Crawl is awesome and inexpensive and I don't think you can get anything like it for the price, unless your query is simple enough to run as a blekko webgrep (<https://blekko.com/webgrep>).

If you want to build a search engine, Common Crawl isn't so useful. Search engines want _directed_ crawling of the pages that they think are good. Crawling is only a small fraction of the total work done in a search engine. Search engines generally aren't on AWS, because the right configuration of machine isn't rented by Amazon -- serving queries needs SSDs or more ram and less cpu than what Amazon offers. So, what Common Crawl offers a search engine is higher costs and mostly bad data.

<comment><USER9> I believe Common Crawl will do a directed crawl if you contact them.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> Are there any implications for DDG here?

<comment><USER12> i believe that DDG accesses the Bing indices through the Yahoo BOSS API, and yahoo already pays microsoft.

<comment><USER13> That does not seem like a stable long-term arrangement, but what do I know.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> This seems like an odd move. It's not like bing has any traction with developers at all. Wouldn't charging them make it even harder to gain traction? I am not familiar with thei API, what does it have over google that would make me pay for it?

<comment><USER15> Google doesn't have a search API (it was long ago deprecated <https://developers.google.com/web-search/>). So the API itself is the advantage over Google in this case.

<comment><USER16> Did you read the link you provided? They actually mentioned right at the top that they have a newer search API which is recommended (though I'll admit that I missed it too at first).

<https://developers.google.com/custom-search/v1/overview>

<comment><USER15> Yes, I did :). As mentioned below, it's not a comparable product. Custom Search is site-specific. It's an API for the "search this page using Google" forms you sometimes see on blogs and the like. It's not an API for "capital S" Google Search, while Bing's API really is their Search API.

<comment><USER16> Ahh, gotcha. I thought Custom Search was that old thing they had which let you create a "customised" Google Search which had your colour scheme of choice and optional restriction of the results by topic (i.e. basically standard search), not the equivalent of 'site:x'.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> In my experience with the Bing API in the last several months, I've found that you get what you pay for. Its performance has been inconsistent at best, to the point which I created the site <http://isthebingapiworking.heroku.com/>. The web search api frequently _orders of magnitude_ fewer results than the actual website, a problem making a frequent theme in their developer forums <http://www.bing.com/community/developer/f/12254.aspx>.

By charging for their search API, I would just say that Microsoft is beginning to take their API seriously. It seems pretty clear that minimal resources, if any, were dedicated to the free version.

I'm bummed, because I've found relative success using their news search api (particularly for the article aggregation component of <http://www.congressionalprimaries.org/>), and now we'll have to look into alternatives, but if this means actually providing a decent product, I think this is a good move for Microsoft.

</comment><comment><USER5> No surprise there. I wonder if all the faux search engines will have to start either crawling/indexing, or transition to Knowledge Engines ( I'm looking at you DDG ). Curious to see if this sparks people to start more search companies.

</comment><comment> guard-of-terra This is important because some leading local search engines (seznam, naver (?), baidu) use Bing for their global index.

</comment><comment><USER18> Actually the search API would be interesting for domain specific search. You can use the API to create a site to present result specific to MP3, for example, formatting the result with the MP3 attributes.

</comment><comment><USER19> Probably not a bad idea on balance. They're not going to capture market share in any case, so this may be the only way they can recover some revenue.

</comment><comment><USER20> This could be a good thing. There's a niche for web search as a service plus paying customers might help steer Microsoft to better things with Bing

</comment><comment><USER21> Maybe Megadeath can make a "Bing sells, but who's buying?" album.

</comment><comment><USER22> Yeah! I will use it.

</comment><comment><USER23> Why Microsoft? Do you really need that $2 per 1000 or whatever when you could gain adoption?</comment>


How engineers can stand out from the applicant pool - <AUTHOR> https://www.keyvalues.com/blog/how-engineers-can-stand-out-from-the-applicant-pool <comment><USER2> This article seems to have an assumption that companies have this huge pool of qualified candidates applying for jobs and you, as an applicant, just need to show that little extra initiative to beat out the other applicants. As someone who has reviewed mountains of resumes for a large company, this assumption doesn't match my experience.

In my experience there is this huge pool of unqualified applicants applying for every job no matter what the actual job requirements are. The applicants that got a call for an interview 1) looked at the technologies listed in the job requirements and 2) put their experience with these technologies on their resume.

Also important, once you get called in for an interview make sure you can answer the most basic questions about what is on your resume. If you put Linux experience on your resume make sure you can explain how to list the contents of a directory from the command line. If you put MySQL experience on your resume make sure you can explain how to get a count of the total number of rows in a table.

Are there really companies out there where the difference between getting an offer and not getting an offer is spending a few hours making a bespoke "please hire me" website?

<comment><USER3> > In my experience there is this huge pool of unqualified applicants applying > for every job no matter what the actual job requirements are. The applicants > that got a call for an interview 1) looked at the technologies listed in the > job requirements and 2) put their experience with these technologies on > their resume.

I think this is a result of the (frankly) BS practice employers have been using for years of inflating the qualifications required for positions. I can't count on one hand how many postings I've seen for mid-level developer roles that require 5+ years of experience writing Python, C++, C#, Java, and JavaScript; oh yeah, you've also got to know Angular and React, and "bonus" if you know Vue.

Even before I became a developer(I first tried to get into animation), the advice from older folks and career specialists was to "just apply to all the positions you want even if you don't meet all the qualifications", and I'd bet good money that a lot of people are still hearing this advice from various channels.

Now that everyone is just shotgun applying to everything, the advantage is largely gone. But because everyone is doing it, and individual must do so or they'll be drowned out in signal noise.

<comment><USER4> This is exactly what I try not to do when hiring.

I don't want someone that's built a bloody todo list in Angular, React and Vue. I want someone that's generated revenue by building quality software in _one_ of them.

I think one of the biggest technical advantages you can get over your competition is to hire good specialists. Almost everywhere I've worked (especially anywhere HR or non-tech people are involved in the hiring) has just hoovered up the "jack of all trades" types and I suspect their tech has suffered for it.

<comment><USER5> Jack-of-all-trades come in all shapes and forms; some are just average in many things, while some others are quite good in some areas, competent in some others and can also get up to speed in other parts if necessary. In small teams, these profiles are very useful.

<comment><USER4> Yes but nobody considers the cost/benefit of having that over a specialist with the same amount of experience.

What takes longer? A full-stack guy trying to figure out how to work around some obscure front-end quirk (like the restrictions on overflow-x/y resulting in unexpected computed values, or the fact you can't transition to or from computed heights?) or a front-end specialist learning some basic dev-ops, or how to change a few Django models?

"Building something" in a language/ecosystem should be easy for any competent dev. I've never touched Obj-C or Swift in my life, and if you asked me to go release an iPhone app on the app store in my spare time in 3 weeks I'd be 100% confident that I can do it; but if you asked me to go and take a job as a senior iOS dev straight after that, I wouldn't even be confident to put myself forward for it. I probably wouldn't even put iOS on my resume.

I think as a senior tech person involved in the hiring process, I should be doing a better job of identifying exactly what I need and finding the right person than just going on the hunt for 6 "good devs" and hoping everything falls into place.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Boring answer...

The only thing that really does stand out is when you get a CV that says the person has done all the things that your org wants to do. (Yes that's bad for recent grads.)

Hired a couple of people recently, and guess what. They tick all the boxes. Worked for firms that did low latency cpp, wrote apps that did what we wanted ours to do, and using the tools that we wanted.

From the other side I got an offer a few months back, and same deal. I ended up not taking it, but it was just "have you written xyz kind of code for another firm?" And the questions were all geared towards that. And since I ticked all the boxes, everything went forward.

If your CVs don't contain that unicorn who's done the exact thing that you need, you have a lot of awkward conversations. Is Minotaur close enough? What about this other language, it's pretty similar, right? Maybe the OS isn't such a big deal for this project. They'll get used to finance, it's not that different from...

<comment><USER7> Isnt HFT implemented on FPGAs these?

<comment><USER8> Both. Big boys fpga, other ones cpu. Source: some tweet/comments.

<comment><USER9> A lot of relatively fixed-function peripherals tend towards hardware, but the industry is moving away from pure speed (alternative interpretation: pure speed people failed) and for many strategies software can be more than fast enough and the flexibility benefits are worth it. That's not to say there aren't pure hardware strategies, but most of them operate in tandem with latency-sensitive software strategies as well.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Standing out from the applicant pool is best done by knowing someone within the organization. You can create targeted websites or individualized plans for improvement of the business, but in my experience, many companies simply give preference to recommendations from current employees. Does HR really have the expertise to go through all these personalized, technical solutions? Probably not, but if they are told by a current engineer that you have the skills and personality, they will fast track you into an interview. No wonder companies give referral bonuses - they'd much rather do that than wade through a sea of resumes, with hard to replicate and verify information.

</comment><comment><USER11> What undeniably would stand out, and speak for itself is a large portfolio of open-source contributions to widely-used projects.

No personal projects. No libraries no-one-else uses. Real 1K+ stars projects in the niche/ecosystem you are targeting (Elixir? React Native?).

Go for breadth rather than depth. Demonstrate you can get 20 PRs merged to 20 different top-tier projects, adapting to their needs, standards, understanding their codebases of course. Interacting with them in a polite, optimal manner.

Mental exercise: think of one such contributor. Would you hire her? Of course you would, in a blink. No CV needed.

I know it's easier said than done, but executed well, it will be level-up whichever salary you were making previously.

(what to PR? Simply solve one of the many issues listed in a given project's tracker)

<comment><USER12> > Demonstrate you can get 20 PRs merged to 20 different top-tier projects, > adapting to their needs...

This would be very impressive... but would also require _months_ of effort. I don't know any successful engineers who have that much time on their hands.

<comment><USER11> It's not uncommon to have a 'dev sabbatical'.

Neither is the notion of investing in one's skills beyond on-the-fly self- learning.

Some devs are able to save quite some money, or to work far less than 8h/d. I'd invite those to reinvest that time/money. Perhaps you can do it once every few years and ensure a truly remarkable career.

This might become more and more important as the market gets saturated with bootcampers, hustlers, or simply people who are junior today but will compete with you tomorrow.

<comment><USER13> It might not be uncommon in your neck of the woods, but where I exist this isn't common at all. Everyone has to work, and the luxury of being able to save "quite some money" (or work far less, which is more or less the same thing) definitely doesn't go to people who I'd call a "dev" (and not say, a consultant or upper management).

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> The reality is that PDF resumes are dead. There are too many applicants for you to stand out that way if you don't already have some kind of "in" like knowing someone at the company.

So what can you do? You can create targeted websites like suggested in the article, but that takes a long time and likely isn't worth the effort. I've gotten ignored many times doing this.

Here's what has worked best:

1.Skip the resume even if the company insists on it.

2\. Find the hiring manager's email (or anyone involved in hiring)

3\. Send a well put together cover letter email selling your skills with concrete links to projects you can show. GitHub, Codepen, Blog links work very well here.

Here's a blog post focusing on remote jobs that I put together that goes into more depth in case you're interested: [https://remoteleads.io/blog/proposals- that-win-remote-freela...](https://remoteleads.io/blog/proposals-that-win- remote-freelance-clients/)

Why does this work? You're reaching an real human and have a higher chance of getting looked at for your skills instead of getting your resume scanned by a resume-reading machine. This works well when you don't already have connections with the company.

<comment><USER15> I do not agree with parts of #3. There needs to be a different way. You _cannot_ require developers to maintain github projects in there spare time. This truly will weed out amazing developers who have families, who prefer to have non dev hobbies, who volunteer a lot of their spare time, etc... You know, people who might actually be _interesting_ to work with.

<comment><USER16> I don't disagree with your point, but it's very rude of you to dismiss developers who find coding _fun_ as 'uninteresting'.

<comment><USER15> Plenty of people find coding fun but don't have github accounts or do much coding after work. This is especially true if your work is very interesting. You find that you have less itching to scratch so to speak. I love coding. But I don't feel I need to do any outside of work because I love the projects I get to do at work.

But yes, people who code all the time can be interesting. I just don't want the industry to demand we all do it.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> Easy - don't play the game.

I never apply for a job blind or through an applicant tracking system. I always use local recruiters that I've nurtured relationships with.

I also don't negotiate salary. I know my market and tell the recruiters up front how much I want to make. They don't waste my time submitting me to companies where I am above the salary range.

<comment><USER18> So you don't negotiate salary but you're completely fine giving 10-20% of your possible salary to the recruiters?

<comment><USER17> That's not how it works. The company pays the recruiters commission. It doesn't come out of your salary at least not for a full time job. I know market rates for my area. I can guarantee you I'm not underpaid by 20%.

For a contract job, where the company pays the recruiting agency and they pay you, yeah you can get a larger hourly rate by going straight to the company.

<comment><USER19> As a hiring manager, can confirm. I am selective about roles I open up to external recruiter submissions, but those that I do, I am entirely indifferent between candidate A who was sourced internally (no additional fee to me) and candidate B who was submitted by an external. If candidate B has any edge over candidate A, I'm not going to even think about the 20-33% of first year comp when making the decision.

<comment><USER20> Can you explain that a bit more? What if candidate A was sourced internally, had a slight edge over B, and wanted 20-33% more in pay?

<comment><USER21> The salary would be recurring annually so 20% higher salary is a bigger cost than a one shot commission

<comment><USER19> Largely this.

I welcome employees who know/can articulate their value and negotiate in good faith to take home in salary roughly 1/4 to 2/5 of the value they create for our company every year.

That doesn't extend to paying cash bonuses because our in-house team found them nor to pay cash in lieu of relocation benefits just because they already live here.

To answer GP's question where candidate A had a slight edge but wanted 20-30% more, first I probably wouldn't know that at decision time (it's not like I'm shopping cars where I can go pretty far down the negotiation path with two Honda dealers and one Toyota dealer or an Amazon purchase where I can use camelcamelcamel or something; these are human beings contemplating upending their lives in some way). Second, talent is the key element of this game. Candidate A has a (perceived) edge and I'm going to pursue that candidate first, realizing that the pay is capped by some proper fraction of the business value they can create. Where it's a software IC role, I will likely pursue both A and B individually, intending to hire both.

Where it's a one-off role (I'm not going to hire two CISOs or two tribe leads for one tribe), I pursue A first. If I hear "I want more salary/shares because you're not paying a recruiter", that's a terrifically strong signal that maybe they're not going to create as much business value as I thought because they're prone to thinking shallowly or outright wrongly about what matters to the business. "I want more money because of my X, Y, and Z talents/skills/ability/dedication/other options"? Great, I'm interested; let's talk about that.

<comment><USER17> I agree, I've never asked for hiring bonus from an employer because I didn't go through a recruiter - I've never had that opportunity and I wouldn't anyway. It feels tacky. I might ask for a slightly higher salary thinking they have more wiggle room because they didn't go through a recruiter, but I wouldn't mention that as a rationale.

I've never been in a position to ask for the highest salary in the range. Any job for which I would be able to ask for top dollar would imply that I meet all of the qualifications perfectly. That would mean that I won't have the opportunity to grow and after two years, my resume and skill set won't look any better than when I first started. I've always aimed for jobs that are a slight stretch, meaning I have all of the "must haves" but not many of the "nice to haves".

That gives me the opportunity to be exposed to new to me technologies.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> "I also personally look for engineers with a collaborative attitude rather than a competitive one." -Leah Culver

This is a highly underrated attribute. Crucial to getting anything done effectively in a team.

<comment><USER23> This is an interesting discussion. I don't believe collaborative and competitive are actually at odds with each other, think professional sports teams as the most obvious example. Yes, you absolutely want collaborative players who will maximize the potential of the team, but you sure as hell want them to be competitive too.

I'm personally a very competitive person, and I love being part of a team that wins. The collaborative vs competitive mindset feels like a false dichotomy to me.

<comment><AUTHOR> Good point. I'm also extremely competitive, but I like competing on teams more than I do as an individual. However, I've worked w/ people who are competitive with their peers/colleagues/coworkers. These are people that I would not hire. I _think_ this is what Leah and @shanev are describing?

<comment><USER23> That makes sense, and I figured as much.

I just like to make a pitch for competitiveness being a positive trait whenever this comes up!

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> The pool of founders spoken to was pretty homogenous. I would have liked a wider perspective.

<comment><USER25> Yes. And 100% of them are female co-founders. Ain't nothing wrong with that, but it stood out to me.

<comment><USER26> An interesting question for me would be if it had been all male co-founders. Would that have stood out?

<comment><USER27>
        In [218]: female_founders = 0.17 # https://techcrunch.com/2017/04/19/in-2017-only-17-of-startups-have-a-female-founder/

        In [219]: male_founders = 0.83

        In [220]: female_founders ** 6
        Out[220]: 2.413756900000001e-05

        In [221]: male_founders ** 6
        Out[221]: 0.3269403733689999

It wouldn't have stood out to me.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER28> Lot of great insights there I think. I especially like Leah's "When an engineer is a fan of the product, they stand out." That is something I look for in candidates, passion for the work they will be doing.

<comment><USER29> _That is something I look for in candidates, passion for the work they will be doing._

How do you differentiate passion for the work they'll be doing from a complete willingness and competency to do the job because they've got to put food on the table?

I'm not _passionate_ about programming (and _certainly_ not _passionate_ about freight logistics), I just happen to be very good at it, I like my coworkers..oh and it pays the rent and tuition.

<comment><USER30> I like looking for _passion for problem solving_. The problems just usually require using programming as a tool. I'd like to believe the product is also solving a real problem.

The metaphor I like to use is, I'm looking for a carpenter that likes building structures, not a carpenter that likes using hammers.

But that's just what I'm looking for, and what I believe many engineering- centric orgs are looking for. There are definitely companies out there that just want another assembly robot in their software factory assembly line and plenty of people happy to take that role.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER31> Seems like a lot of the answers boil down to "build a portfolio". I don't think the people that have the time to build that portfolio have a lot to worry about. Sure, they may not get to work at that one company they want to work at but they're pretty much guaranteed some type of employment.

What about the people that don't have that time though? The people that may have spent time in evening classes learning how to program. How do they stand out?

<comment><USER32> Take a job at a 'less good' company and build up your CV by working?

</comment></comment><comment><USER33> Other than Leah Culver's line "I also personally look for engineers with a collaborative attitude rather than a competitive one", I wouldn't say any of this is good advice.

</comment><comment><USER34> I wonder if Nina got that job in Airbnb.

<comment><USER24> She did not. She got interviews at other companies and landed at Upwork for a while.

<comment><USER35> So she started freelancing?

<comment><USER24> No she had a role in "Growth" at Upwork.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER36> It's impossible to get past HR screening unless you're an CV expert. They look at things like paper texture, inc, font, formatting, spelling etc, because that's what they are good at. They don't know anything about C++ or Haskel. You need to get around HR and talk directly to someone that can actually tell if you are qualified or not. The best bet is if you have someone on the inside that can voice for you. Or get their attention somehow so that they reach out to you.

</comment><comment><USER36> HR tries to match the stacks, eg they need someone that knows SQL+JSON+Java+JavaScript+Andoird+Linux+Git+WinAPI+HTML+CSS, but then they get an application who has C++,Haskel,OOP,FP,C,Linux,Sysadmin,DBA,SQL they will throw it away because it doesn't match.

Now I did some math and with 1000 techs, in stacks of 10, you would get 2.6 * 10^26 combinations. So it's impossible to find a candidate that will match!

</comment><comment><USER37> In a world short of talent it is the employers that have to stand out in the pool. And they don't do that by playing frat games with applicants.

</comment><comment><USER38> doesn't the answer boil down to marketing?

It is talking about expressing shared values (trough open source and mentoring) value (personal accomplishment) and warm fuzzies (being a fan of the company, product, etc.)

As to how to do that; learn it or hire someone. As you likely only have your hours to sell I'd say the case for outsourcing becomes compelling.

</comment><comment><USER39> Stock answers, all of them are expected in any given interview.

Want to stand out? Say you are actually interested in earning money for your work, a truly novel idea nowadays.

<comment><USER40> Most employers are not actually all that interested in what _you want_, but in what _you can provide them_. If necessary, they will pay for that. A great many applicants that come by our company have as motivation "to develop myself" and similar. That won't get many employers excited. If you come by and tell us: "I have a great idea to make/save you X euro/month (and are credible)", that would make employers much more likely to hire you.

Imagine if a grocer told you: I want you to buy this cucumber because it would make me feel great about my sales skills. Would you buy the cucumber just to do the grocer a favor? Now compare that to a grocer who tells you: "These cucumbers are delicious, healthy and will make you feel great about yourself for eating healthy food." IMO, the second grocer is much more likely to sell a lot of cucumbers, because he focuses on what his customers want instead of what he himself wants. The same is true for selling your labor.

<comment><USER41> In answer to "where do you see yourself in 5 years" question, I once told a potential employer that I would be CEO of his company.

I didn't get an offer :-)

<comment><USER42> I know somebody who did the same, and he ended up being the boss of a plant. Not the CEO, but still a lot of responsibility. And not from the start, he worked on all factory machines first and slowly he was given more responsibilities. It all depends on what they are looking for. This company looked for a local to replace the expats. It was a match.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER43> Not trying to be inflammatory here, but is there a reason why all the co- founders are women?

<comment><USER44> The author is a woman, so a reasonable explanation is many of her co-founder acquaintances are also woman and, as such, were more likely to respond to the author's inquiry.</comment></comment>


Can the iPad Pro replace my laptop? My experiment - <AUTHOR> https://barry.ai/taking-another-bite-of-the-ipad-pro-apple-717a2c7203a2#.x923tn9h3 <comment><USER2> I have a friend that tried to replace her laptop with an iPad and the biggest issue was the sharing, downloading and working on arbitrary files. It's probably better now than it was back then since app developers can now provide a share extension. Still, working is often not very comfortable. Switching back and forth between different browser tabs and a office app and then you need the calculator....</comment>


Foxconn Still Trying to Tap Dance Around Its Ever-Shrinking Wisconsin Promises - <AUTHOR> https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20190513/07332042196/foxconn-still-trying-to-tap-dance-around-ever-shrinking-wisconsin-promises.shtml <comment><USER3> There's a wonderful Reply All episode from December 2018 that covers the dramatic origin story, featuring lots of colorful small-town politics and an explanation of the bait & switch tactics commonly used by Foxconn:

[https://gimletmedia.com/shows/reply- all/wbhjwd/132-negative-...](https://gimletmedia.com/shows/reply- all/wbhjwd/132-negative-mount-pleasant)

It's a good listen even now, now that this story has played out the way it has..

<comment><USER4> Yes! Can't recommend this episode enough.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> What even was the point of all this? Money wasn't given outright to Foxconn in large quantities, right? There was little reason for them to just lie about their intents while not planning on following through on any of it. That doesn't really help them out either.

Wisconsin got played really badly, but I don't understand what even Foxconn is getting out of it at this point. Did they just change their mind and decide it wasn't worth building a factory there at all, but for whatever reason just won't come out and cancel it all?

<comment><USER6> That they have done the same thing in Pennsylvania [1] and Brazil [2] implies there is a deeper reason.

[1] [https://www.pennlive.com/nation- world/2017/03/how_foxconns_b...](https://www.pennlive.com/nation- world/2017/03/how_foxconns_broken_pledges_in.html)

[2] [https://www.zdnet.com/article/foxconn-set-to-discontinue- bra...](https://www.zdnet.com/article/foxconn-set-to-discontinue-brazil- manufacturing-operations/)

<comment><USER5> Does anyone know what the reason might be?

<comment><USER7> Well, Brazil has crazy labor laws. You see a worker in court? The worker will win.

In the end it was not worth it for Foxcon. And I think a terrible outcome for Brazil. Electronics are absurdly expensive there (Think import tax 1, import tax 2, import tax 3 and in the end taxes on the import taxes. No kidding).

Stuff is often three times the price of western prices. At least in the past. It was common for people to ask you to sell them you used Laptop/iPhone/mp3 player.

<comment><USER6> All of that was true when they initially agreed to the deal, so I'm not sure that explains it.

<comment><USER7> [https://www.zdnet.com/article/foxconn-set-to-discontinue- bra...](https://www.zdnet.com/article/foxconn-set-to-discontinue-brazil- manufacturing-operations/)

"However, the promises soon proved hard to keep: the company wanted the Brazilian government to come up with 30 percent of the cash, as well as a private investor - both failed to materialize. "

"As well as the economic instability that the Brazilian economy, it is also rumored that other factors influencing the decision include the productivity of the local workforce - which at its peak reached about 2,500 workers - <USER2> Foxconn considers to be low when compared to its main manufacturing operations. "

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> > [State House Minority Leader Gordon Hintz] believes Foxconn is trying to > slow-walk the project until 2020, continuing to use it to win Trump's > goodwill in the trade war and waiting to see who's elected.[1]

[1] [https://www.theverge.com/2019/4/10/18296793/foxconn- wisconsi...](https://www.theverge.com/2019/4/10/18296793/foxconn-wisconsin- location-factory-innovation-centers-technology-hub-no-news)

</comment><comment><USER9> The point was to give Scott Walker and Wisconsin Republicans a boost in their efforts to hold on to the Governor's office and control of the legislature. The facade of the factory coming only had to last as long as the fall election.

In return Foxconn curried favor with President Trump, who tied himself to the factory coming, and the political party in control of both house of Congress at the time.

</comment><comment><USER10> This is mostly just a rehash of The Verge's original reporting. [https://www.theverge.com/2019/5/13/18565408/foxconn- wisconsi...](https://www.theverge.com/2019/5/13/18565408/foxconn-wisconsin- innovation-centers-factories-empty-tax-subsidy) (which is linked to in the techdirt "article."

</comment><comment><USER11> I know most people don't want government to be run with these 'back scratch' promises and corruption-

But those who advocate for more taxation, how do you stop this kind of corruption?

<comment><USER12> How do you stop it with less taxation?

<comment><USER13> Not the parent, but I think their general idea is that you can't give a tax break if there's no tax to give a break on.

<comment><USER12> Sure, but there's a big difference between less tax and no tax. You can still give tax breaks when taxes are lower.

<comment><USER13> So the whole less taxes less corruption thing isn't my argument, but I think they meant less taxes as in the number of different taxes you can give breaks from, not the total percentage burden.

<comment><USER12> The potential for tax breaks ultimately depends on the total amount you'd potentially pay. (Edit: even this isn't the limit. Nothing says you can't give companies more than they pay.) How it's divided up doesn't really matter.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> I know a guy who had been offered a job at one of the facilities, but they kept delaying and delaying the start date for months. There's been a lot of local politicians talking about how and the deal was and undoing it so it could be that Foxconn doesn't want to deal with dumping even more money into an area with political instability. Like, they did go thru the hassle to build a giant empty building so what would even be the point of doing that?</comment>


Beginner Solution to the Rubik's Cube - <AUTHOR> http://peter.stillhq.com/jasmine/rubikscubesolution.html

<comment><USER2> This isn't a solution. Technically, this is an algorithm for restoration.

Technically, solving the cube means developing an algorithm for restoration. Sadly, common usage has obscured the distinction, elevating the rather simple act of restoration to the status of solution, and eroding the term "solution" sufficiently as to be rendered effectively meaningless.

Sad, but there you are.

</rant></comment>