Computing the Uncomputable - <AUTHOR> https://johncarlosbaez.wordpress.com/2016/04/02/computing-the-uncomputable/ <comment><USER2> 1\. I'm studying set theory, and finite is quite rigidly defined (albeit there's multiple definitions, which require the axiom of choice to prove identical.)

We can define natural number as an ordinal that's well ordered by its element relation and the reverse of the element relation (all those terms are defined). Or just as a finite ordinal, in the sense of not being equipollent to any strict subset. Or as the ordinals not containing any limit ordinals or being a limit ordinal.

2\. This should probably be thought of as the machine doesn't halt, but in some models, we can "prove" that it halts and has any result. This is kind of like how you can rearrange the terms of some series to sum to any number. [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Riemann_series_theorem](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Riemann_series_theorem)

(I wonder if there's a way to get the computability result from this result by some clever isomorphism.)

Edit: fixed definition and added another one.

<comment><USER3> > _finite is quite rigidly defined_

It's a bit more subtle. Wikipedia puts it well:

 _Even for those mathematicians who embrace infinite sets, in certain important contexts, the formal distinction between the finite and the infinite can remain a delicate matter. The difficulty stems from Gödel 's incompleteness theorems. One can interpret the theory of hereditarily finite sets within Peano arithmetic (and certainly also vice versa), so the incompleteness of the theory of Peano arithmetic implies that of the theory of hereditarily finite sets. In particular, there exists a plethora of so-called non-standard models of both theories. A seeming paradox, non-standard models of the theory of hereditarily finite sets contain infinite sets - but these infinite sets look finite from within the model. (This can happen when the model lacks the sets or functions necessary to witness the infinitude of these sets.) On account of the incompleteness theorems, no first-order predicate, nor even any recursive scheme of first-order predicates, can characterize the standard part of all such models. So, at least from the point of view of first-order logic, one can only hope to characterize finiteness approximately._

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

<comment><USER2> Can you have a model of ZF with natural numbers that aren't just 0,1,2,...? Or only PA?

It seemed obvious that defining the natural numbers in the way above results in only such numbers. You can give an intuitive argument that any natural number can be recursively generated from 0 by the successor operator. Is this wrong?

Edit: looks like [http://www1.cuni.cz/~svejdar/papers/sv_ybk10_p.pdf](http://www1.cuni.cz/~svejdar/papers/sv_ybk10_p.pdf) says you can get such a model.

>A model M of (some) set theory is non-standard if it contains an ordinal α such that M |= "α is finite", i.e. M |= "α is less than the first limit ordinal", but looking from outside, the set of all ordinals β < α is infinite. The proof of the existence of non-standard models of set theory is basically the same as for PA.

<comment><USER3> Yes, all theories at least as strong as PA (including ZF) have models with nonstandard naturals.

Another fun fact is that ZF has a countable model, even though ZF proves that uncountable sets exist. [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Skolem%27s_paradox](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Skolem%27s_paradox)

<comment><USER2> Can you express the notion of nonstandardsness within the language (and so add the axiom "no natural numbers are non standard")?

<comment><USER4> Not in first order logic.

<comment><USER5> Why doesn't one simply use higher order logic to solve this problem? (serious question, I'm a mathematician, but not a set theorist).

<comment><USER6> It turns out this only pushes back the problem. You can write down second- order axioms for arithmetic which have a unique model, but in a model of a second-order theory predicates are interpreted as sets. So, you need to choose a version of set theory, to know what a model actually is. Suppose you choose ZFC (the usual axioms of set theory). Unfortunately this itself has infinitely many models!

I explained this in a bit more detail here:

[https://johncarlosbaez.wordpress.com/2016/04/02/computing- th...](https://johncarlosbaez.wordpress.com/2016/04/02/computing-the- uncomputable/#comment-79002)

<comment><USER5> Thanks, this looks plausible.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> This:

 _Perhaps it is fair to say that "finite" does not mean what we have always thought it to mean. What have we always thought it to mean? I used to think that I knew what I had always thought it to mean, but I no longer think so._

 _If we go down this road, Hamkins' result takes on a different significance. It says that any subjectivity in the notion of 'natural number' may also infect what it means for a Turing machine to halt, and what function a Turing machine computes when it does halt._

Is beautiful. It seems like another proof for a leaky abstraction and incomepleteness.

We have to forget _finite_ or admit that it has _bounds_ on what we can explore with it, as it already defines our model.

</comment><comment><USER8> My favorite sentence ...

"I used to think that I knew what I had always thought it to mean, but I no longer think so".

<comment><USER9> Any day in which you can say this, is a good day.

<comment><USER10> I live for these days. I don't get many of them anymore which is a shame.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> Am I thinking of this correctly? In PA, you start with zero and a successor function, such that > is transitive and succ(a) > a. In nonstandard models, you start with a successor function and zero, but also at least one other weird entity not reachable by any number of applications of the successor function to zero. You can apply the successor function to that entity to get new numbers that are all greater than anything reachable from zero.

OR is it that there have to be infinite starting objects? OR should we think of it as having zero and both a successor function and a weirdSuccessor function (whose applications commute) such that > considers the number of weirdSuccessor applications before it looks at the number of successor applications?

<comment><USER12> It means that you have 0, and you have Big, and Big is axiomatically larger than all iterated successors of 0. And Big has iterated successors as well.

For example, consider the set embedded in the rationals as

      0, 1/2, 3/4, 7/8 , ... , 1, 3/2, 7/4, 15/8, ...

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> Rosser's trick seems nice. Kind of reminds me of tail-call optimization.</comment>


Artificial intelligence often fails in the fight against hatred and terror - <AUTHOR> https://www.en24.news/news/2019/11/27/igf-artificial-intelligence-often-fails-in-the-fight-against-hatred-and-terror.html <comment><AUTHOR> > Detecting and erasing hate comments in Sri Lanka is difficult because of the > linguistic conditions prevailing there, said Wijeratne. On Facebook, > algorithms sound the alarm when they make a statement in terms of a > "concrete future threat," as in the announcement tomorrow to go to someone > and shoot him. "In my language, there is no future," explained the > scientist.</comment>


Tips for Code Readability - <AUTHOR> http://young-flower-4705.herokuapp.com/

<comment><AUTHOR> Good points. I like the common-sense approach. Much better than rigid code guidelines that specify precisely when and where how much whitespace goes. If you read a lot of code you'll read code formatted with a lot of minor differences. It's good to get used to that. There are a lot of right ways of doing it.</comment>


Global Warming May Link  Higher Suicide Rates Across North America - <AUTHOR> https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/global-warming-linked-to-higher-suicide-rates-across-north-america/ <comment><USER2> NPR had a piece a few months ago about suicide rates up in farmers [https://www.npr.org/2018/05/16/611727777/suicide-is- rising-a...](https://www.npr.org/2018/05/16/611727777/suicide-is-rising-among- american-farmers-as-they-struggle-to-keep-afloat)

If global warming continues I predict more suicides globally from small-farm operators (especially in '3rd world' countries) and as it continues to worsen theft from farms and eventually military conflicts based on both food and water.

It's not just a food issue either, as I wrote in a recent blog post it's also a water issue... aquifers are being hammered faster than they can replenish... [https://www.ryanmercer.com/ryansthoughts/2018/7/8/tackling-t...](https://www.ryanmercer.com/ryansthoughts/2018/7/8/tackling- the-problem-of-food-production)</comment>


Apple iOS6 Preview - <AUTHOR> http://www.apple.com/ios/ios6/ <comment><USER2> Maps with turn-by-turn navigation (long overdue) and transit APIs sound very promising. Having portable maps is one of the key strengths of a smartphone and this kind of lower-level integration now kicks it up a notch. He mentioned "biking and hiking" for the transit apps: that's exciting!

Also, turn-by-turn navigation has this "overview" mode--tap it and you exit the forced-point-of-view navigation and get to pan around the map in 2D mode. This is critical for being able to inspect the area for improvised routes. In the past, this has not been easy to do on all my old-school GPS navigation devices, including a Tom Tom hardware unit of a year ago. Cannot compare to Google Navigation or Tom Tom on the iPhone, so it would be great if anyone familiar with those can chime in.

Fully vector maps (no more f'king double tap to get that shit at pixel-perfect view) and much more legible traffic marking (such that it doesn't kill the name of the street) are two minor changes that will have a major impact for me personally.

<comment><USER3> Sort of FYI, Google's original effort at providing their own database for map information was that Navtec would not license them the right to use map data for turn-by-turn navigation. It was really quite amazing to see all of the constraints that were put on map data (it was so much easier for Trimble, the original company, to exploit their map database than to try to compete in the gadget space).

I don't doubt that Apple has been working on their own database to use for turn by turn and it wasn't until now that they had it ready to go. Stuff you need that isn't "normally" in a GIS database are driving restrictions, road quality metrics, etc. There are also 'quirks' exceptions for this data like "In theory you can get from A->B->C in Portland on this route but you really want to go A->D->C." some of the "roads" in SE Portland would challenge dune buggies :-)

<comment><USER4> Good quality of results is difficult to get even on paved roads without "boots on the ground". Consider driving down a street with stop signs at every intersection (NW Northrup St) or one with speed bumps every block (SE 41st Ave).

<comment><USER3> Yes, when people asked me why Google was spending millions on driving around taking a picture of every street I explained they were actually taking pictures of the _signs_ on every street :-) That you can see your front door is just a bonus on top of the intelligence that is gained by being able to image process miles and miles of streets for data about how they are used (or not).

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Did I just read this right "iOS 6 brings even better web browsing to your iPhone, iPad, and iPod touch." .... "And when you're posting a photo or video to eBay, Craigslist, or another site, you can take photos and video — or choose from your Camera Roll — without leaving Safari." mobile web just took a huge step forward if so.....

<comment><USER6> This has been in HTML for almost 2 years now. Rather than being a step forward foe the mobile web, it shows how behind the mobile web is, as the two most dominant players in mobile only update their browsers once a year.

I'm guessing iOS6 doesn't add support for IndexedDB either. So we're stuck using the deprecated WebSQL until mid 2013 or later.

<comment><USER7> > it shows how behind the mobile web is, as the two most dominant players in > mobile only update their browsers once a year.

As opposed to the desktop world where IE 8 is still your best-case minimum browser?

<comment><USER8> As opposed to the desktop where you can install any browser you want.

<comment><USER7> … which changes little because actual web developers have to support the worst-case browser for all of the millions of people who don't install a modern browser. For most of us who aren't running something like a Mac or browser nerd website, that means the latest version of IE available to Windows XP users.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> I'm very curious about the Passbook app. This seems to be the beginning of Apple's payments platform, and not just that; coupons, location based alerts, and - why not - P2P payments.

<comment><USER10> Yeah, this stuck out to me as well, more than pretty much anything else they announced this morning. This has the potential to be quite a large piece of their ecosystem. If they do it like they have done with iCloud -- starting out with a few applications, then expand its functionality later -- then it could be quite interesting.

<comment><USER11> That's exactly what I was thinking. Android has a lot of features. Turn by turn directions? Android has had it for years. Notifications? Android first. Video calls over cellular? Android apps did that.

But Passport, that's a fantastic feature. Adding in the geofencing (so my airline ticket shows up when I get to the airport) is _genius_.

But more than anything else, you know that everyone is going to integrate into this. Every brand already has their own app (some with this sort of functionality). That's going to be a HUGE block of users.

Android apps can't easily fill that space, because they'll all have different standards. The fact that there is only one standard on iOS now is very convenient. Google could add one, but that would take dev time, not to mention how long it would take to get 5.0 on a reasonable number of devices.

It wasn't a headline, but it could easily be one of those features that everyone ends up loving and using all the time.

<comment><USER12> Some of the ideas behind passport are available in other apps or on other platforms. Windows Phone 7.5 has something very similar for boarding passes/departure information via live tiles.

The downsides to the Windows Phone approach is that it's for specific apps and specific airlines.

What do you mean by "Android apps can't easily fill that space, because they'll all have different standards." ?

Passport looks very similar to part of the features already available in things like Google Wallet and Square's Card Case.

Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying that this doesn't have the potential to be great for Apple, iPhone users, retailers, and iOS app developers ....

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> looks like a lot of catchup with android. from maps to sharing to video chat to reply with text message to offline browsing, android has all of this.

competition is a wonderful thing. this is the right way to do it (not with a lawsuit)

<comment><USER14> Easy reply messages / reminders accessible when you have an incoming call? Passbook? (this one is huge)

<comment><USER15> > Easy reply messages / reminders accessible when you have an incoming call?

Reply via text has been a popular feature in custom Android ROMs for a while. Setting a reminder is new to me, though.

<comment><USER16> Ironically, those "copyists" Samsung and HTC had "reject call with text" in their Gingerbread editions of TouchWiz and Sense (I'm not sure about earlier skins since I haven't used them), even before Google added it to ICS. I'm sure both are kicking themselves that they didn't try to patent it (though I suppose patents move slowly, so maybe they have).

<comment><USER17> It's likely not patentable, similar feature has been in old Nokia phones years ago.

Many current mobile usage ideas, like e.g. location based reminders, Nokia had in design board or development internally already in early 2000s. Many ideas are common sense. At the end of the day, ideas don't matter that much, it's the execution that matters.

<comment><USER16> Oh, I totally agree on patentability, but... not patentable and not getting past the USPTO are two very, very different things.

If HTC and/or Samsung were to get their own versions of the "slide-to-unlock" nonsense past the the USPTO, that would substantially affect at least the US theater of the mobile patent wars.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> Interesting that the new Maps makes no mention of public transit support. Is that gone completely now? It looks like your app can register as a "router" to support different types of navigation routing, but it would suck if that is no longer built in.

<comment><USER19> Since it was Google's data, Apple will probably build it back in at some other point since it's what they've done previously.

<comment><USER20> Hopefully Google will produce (and be allowed) a Google Maps app for iOS.

<comment><USER21> And we will see whether Apple will allow such app in their store. I would imagine they will not, because they would rather have people using their own maps, but perhaps they will be benevolent this time.

<comment><USER22> Apple seems to have moved away from disallowing apps for "duplicate core functionality" - we have GVoice, Sparrow, Camera+ now. I don't see how they could not allow it.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> Passport could be pretty big... point of sale advertising, in store purchases, promotion, etc... A lot of potential revenue here.

I had an idea similar a while back and then found... <http://keyringapp.com/>

Apple is in a much better position to launch something like this, as it needs quite a few relationships difficult for a new start up to establish and scale.

</comment><comment><USER24> Impressed by all the new accessibility features! Guided Access seems like it will be hugely useful for both parents and professionals working with children with autism - in addition to the example from the keynote of administering tests on the iPad.

<comment><USER25> A big yes! As a father of an autistic child, the first thing I actually cheered for was being able to lock out the home button! Such a simple thing will make a big difference. I haven't even spent much time looking at the other features under Guided Access yet.

</comment></comment><comment><USER26> One of my greatest points of irritation with the old Maps app is that there are no scale bars. People working on Google Maps have told me it's Apple's problem, and Apple employees (though granted not people directly involved with iOS) have told me it's Google's problem. Maybe now that it's all under one roof, someone can figure out how to put them in...

<comment><USER27> I wish the zoom slider existed too. Sometimes I cannot afford to use two hands to pinch-squeeze and it would be nice to adjust zoom level with one finger.

<comment><USER2> you can double-tap with one finger or two fingers to do stepped zoom in or zoom out

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER28> Does the "iOS 6" image seem blurry to someone else or is it just me? That's not very Apple-like.

<comment><USER29> Good catch! The image is 668x222, but the img tag is width="667" height="221".

       <img src="http://images.apple.com/ios/ios6/images/title.jpg"
            width="667" height="221" ...>

</comment></comment><comment><USER30> I wish they had added some form of multi-user or user control to iOS. Today, if you hand your iOS device to someone they can access things you might not want them to. Same if you loose it or need a repair. I'd love to setup users for kids and guests and segment app access in this fashion.

</comment><comment><USER31> I've been trying to get serious about claiming specific periods of the day for productivity, and have been trying to find a good way to allow my wife to still contact me in case of emergencies while otherwise preventing other distractions from coming through on my phone. The new Do Not Disturb features are exactly what I've been looking for, and I really like some of the specific touches like the ability to let people call twice to bypass the setting.

<comment><USER32> That's a nice feature, but still looks half-baked for me. It's now ios6 and you still need to jailbreak your iphone to blacklist people harassing you with phone calls or imessage. What I do need is a blacklist feature which send to /dev/null people I don't want to talk to or receive imessage or sms from, and the DND feature looks more like a whitelist only available to phone calls. Maybe in ios 7 ? It seems like a basic feature and I wonder which Apple Developper Program rule prevent to develop such an app available in the app store.

<comment><USER33> Can't you just blacklist on your provider?

<comment><USER32> No, I can't ! There's no way a provider could help you block unwanted imessages sender or unwanted facetime caller anyway. What is your provider who let you do that for free on behalf of apple products ?

<comment><USER33> well ok, with imessage it doesn't work, but you also talked about phone calls. I agree, blacklisting should be there.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER34> It's hard to get excited when there is no mention of how well it is supported in the UK. I don't know how well Siri will do in the UK with the updates and if we will get the map support for turn by turn.

We still can't search for businesses in the UK

<comment><USER35> It's the same in Canada. It's quite frustrating, especially when that's one of the heavily marketed parts of Siri.

</comment></comment><comment><USER36> I was interested to see "The Transamerica Pyramid Building is a registered service mark of Transamerica Corporation" at the bottom of the page.

I can't see how using a photograph of SF requires this disclaimer.

<comment><USER37> Better safe than sorry? I agree with you, but maybe Transamerica Corporation's legal department would think it's too close to their ads and such (huge stretch though).

</comment></comment><comment><USER38> So... is this maps thing going to work in Europe?

</comment><comment><USER35> Anyone know when the iOS 6 SDK will be released to non-paying developers? I'm not enrolled in the developer program, as I have no intention of publishing an app to the app store at the moment, but I'd like to play around with the new APIs.

<comment><USER39> Free developer accounts get to download the SDK when the iOS software is released to the public.

And since major iOS releases are tied to new iPhone releases, you're looking at sometime this fall.

</comment></comment><comment><USER40> Anyone able to download the beta yet, or is everyone getting "Access Denied" like I am?

</comment><comment><USER41> If you look at the Passbook preview (<http://www.apple.com/ios/ios6/#passbook>), the example is 'John's card' with Starbucks. Johnathan's card anyone?

<comment><USER42> Their examples almost always use an Apple ID with the name "Johnny Appleseed"

</comment></comment><comment><USER43> I find it strange, but perhaps I'm just missing some crucial, that it appears as if this update is really just app updates for ios? I do not own any ios device but I normally expect some updates to the OS itself in some capacity. Am I reading this list wrong?

</comment><comment><USER44> China will be a very significant market for Apple. Here Google gains too much competitors, the biggest competitors are partners of Apple now.

And also the market potential, there are still lot of demand of iOS devices, Mac OS devices, more than North America.

</comment><comment><USER45> The same way the answer to a headline with a question mark is no, every time I read "even more" in a new product description I understand "nothing new", and there are a lot of "even more" on this one.

</comment><comment><USER46> No word on WebGL support in Safari -- anyone have any information?

<comment><USER47> Running the iOS6 developer preview here on iPhone 4S (will try on iPad at home tonight)— WebGL still doesn't work in mobile safari.

<comment><USER46> Thanks! Bad news, though.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER48> A bit bummed that Siri in iOS 6 won't be supporting iPhone 4

</comment><comment><USER48> Not sure how I feel about the Facebook integration...

</comment><comment><USER49> Siri needs to learn R-R-Russian :).

</comment><comment><USER50> iOS was a revelation in 2007 but it seems to have stalled since then. The static grid of information-free tiles and clunky task management are starting to feel downright archaic even compared to Android and their decent into cheap skeuomorphism continues unabated.

Apple is lucky Google is having so much trouble getting ICS out there.

<comment><USER51> On the flip side both the iPhone and iPad have amazing customer satisfaction numbers so we can probably conclude that most iOS users like things the way they are. Why would Apple want to change it up too much? If live tiles or better task management were important we'd all be using WP7 or WebOS.

<comment><USER50> Sure, it shows how far ahead of the game Apple was in 2007.

But they've left the door open for competitors, in my opinion. If Google had the distribution issues plaguing ICS sorted out they would be in trouble, IMO, particularly because the iOS UI conventions are more awkward on tablets and that's currently Apple's stronghold.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER52>
      iOS 6 is not compatible with: iPad 1

Damnit, did I just have an aneurism? Seriously, the iPad 1 isn't old (or doesn't feel old to me), and it came out around the same time as the iPod touch 4th generation, which is supported. I'm really getting sick of this "throw-away hardware" culture that Apple is enforcing.

<comment><USER53> _I'm really getting sick of this "throw-away hardware" culture that Apple is enforcing._

Just because iPad 1 can't run iOS 6 doesn't mean it's suddenly "trash".

Also, the first iPad is woefully underpowered – thanks to the display, it's quite memory and graphics constrained. It's entirely possible Apple wasn't willing get new iOS features working well on that hardware, especially considering iPad 1's install base is a rapidly decreasing percentage of the overall iPad market.

<comment><USER52> I don't care about new iOS features, or any of their iCloud nonsense, I know it won't support Siri (ipad1 lacked a microphone).

What I do care about is the web browser on my iPad not receiving any software updates... ever. That's a serious problem. Without any software upgrades ever, the iPad will become the future IE. In fact, this is worse because of Apple's closed system they also won't allow 3rd parties to upgrade the software either. That means no new web browsers, audio players, or any other new type of software which might threaten their platform.

Apple wants to pretend that software can't be upgraded because you're using old hardware, which not only is completely retarded, it defeats the purpose of software.

<comment><USER53> _Without any software upgrades ever, the iPad will become the future IE. In fact, this is worse because of Apple's closed system they also won't allow 3rd parties to upgrade the software either._

Huh? Citation needed. Apple didn't suddenly cut off App Store updates to iPad 1. Developers are free to support (or not support) iOS 5, just as they were with other iOS updates.

Furthermore, are you remotely surprised by this? iPhones prior to iPhone 3GS aren't supported by iOS 5.

Do you have the same issues with Android? _There's_ a platform that's destined to be the "future IE". How many Android users are stuck on 2.2 or 2.3, with a horribly crippled browser?

Finally, Apple does allow other browsers, audio players and other new types of software. They don't threaten Apple's platform, the bolster it.

I'm not sure where you're digging up this FUD, but it's way off base.

<comment><USER54> > How many Android users are stuck on 2.2 or 2.3, with a horribly crippled > browser?

The answer is: most of them. ~90.2% are on Android 2.3 or below as of June 1, 2012[1].

[1] [http://developer.android.com/resources/dashboard/platform- ve...](http://developer.android.com/resources/dashboard/platform- versions.html)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER55> Just a wasted 1 year... Not much of an improvement since iOS 5. Maps (with turn-by-turn navigation) and offline reading seems nice, but nothing else.

<comment><USER56> But they've added a lot of new developer APIs, which is the loveliest part. But as an avid iOS user, I call my beloved platform semi-broken until it gets a decent inter-app communication channel (something better than documents in the cloud). I'm disappointed that I have to wait for at least iOS 7 for that...

<comment><USER55> Yes, you are right about the new APIs. Since i'm not an iOS developer, i was looking from the eye of an end-user.

"I'm disappointed that I have to wait for at least iOS 7 for that..." Couldn't agree more.</comment></comment></comment>


Show HN: pion/ion, self-hosted conferencing software with single command deploy - Sean-Der https://github.com/pion/ion <comment> Sean-Der Really excited to share pion/ion! It is a distributed RTC System written in Pure Go and Flutter. It can be used for video conferencing, live streaming and most other media streaming problems. It has a lot of interesting features, but the ones that seem to excite people the most are.

* Distributed by default - Designed to allow running different workloads and scaling them out as you need

* Flutter and JS SDK - Ready to be used on Web, Android and iOS!

* Designed to be modified - Modify the UI/Backend so you can have custom experiences for your use cases. As long as you satisfy public APIs any piece can be swapped.

* Easy to deploy - docker-compose with LetsEncrypt support. Spin up a conference server with on command

* Performant - You can run multi person conference calls on AWS free tier instances

* A joy to develop - Pure Go means quick builds, and a code base that anyone can contribute too!

* Community owned - The only thing driving the project is the contributors and users

We also plan on adding lots more, with some of the following in our road-map already. [0] If you are interested in learning more about some of this stuff, this is a great chance! It is really rewarding seeing all the innovative things being built.

* RTMP Ingestion

* SIP Support

* Server Side Processing/OpenCV

* Record calls

We would also love to have you! If you are interested in working on this project you should join our Slack[1]

[0] [https://github.com/pion/ion/projects/1](https://github.com/pion/ion/projects/1)

[1] [https://pion.ly/slack](https://pion.ly/slack)

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> This sounds interesting, but I can't tell what it is -- there's too much terminology I'm not familiar with. The list of features is all tech-centric and doesn't step back and say what the thing does.

I think it is a self-hosted video conferencing solution, which sounds awesome, but I'm not certain of that. I assume "RTC System" is not a real-time clock. I've heard of Go, and Flutter sounds like some sort of Web UI system.

Can anyone explain this a little more simply, please?

<comment> Sean-Der You are exactly right, it is a self-hosted video conferencing system. It was designed in a way that lets you do some extra stuff that could be nice (like pull in an external video feed)

I will work on making the README more friendly! If anyone else is interested I would love help, working in this space has made me biased so I tend to write thing for myself.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks, Sean-Der.

And, that's a good point. The curse of knowledge is real :-)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER2> I've been keeping an eye on the pion/ion ecosystem, since I like the idea of an independent WebRTC stack that doesn't essentially bundle Chrome's implementation, and I've toyed with the idea of self-hosting a conferencing system.

It looks like a lot of progress has been made since the last time I visited the repo.

Congrats.

I suppose it's time for me to learn Go.

<comment> Sean-Der Thanks :)

I think it is super important to have multiple implementations of important protocols (like WebRTC, DTLS and SCTP). It brings more resiliency, and it helps people learn them. It seems like in tech a lot of things get re-invented just because we don't do a good job of teaching the next generation...

We would love to have you join the community [0]! If you have any questions/thoughts while learning Go and Pion I will be there to answer them.

[0] [https://pion.ly/slack](https://pion.ly/slack)

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> Sadly pion is not built with meson, a missed opportunity for a particle physics pun.

</comment><comment><USER4> Got excited, followed the readme and installed onto VPS. Users can join, but nothing ever happens beyond the 'waiting for people to join message'.

It seems to bind to a large number of ports (including a port 80 redirector, which isn't really helpful on a host that's likely to be serving other stuff), and I can only assume there's some hidden firewall dependency that I've missed.

Such as shame, as it shows great promise.

<comment><USER4> Turned firewall off, still no dice. Bummer.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> This looks excellent, nice work and thanks for releasing it at a time when this kind of thing is even more critical to free us from the shackles of commercial/closed source products.

I had a quick look only so apologies if I missed it, but are there any build/deploy instructions that do not require Docker?

Thanks!

</comment><comment><USER6> What's the audio latency like? I've been looking for something that can be made resppnsive enough to allow musicians to collaborate online.

<comment><USER7> As I understand it, musicians need latency under 10 ms, which is going to be tough to get under real world conditions. I'm seeing 12ms round trip to a DNS server, so you're going to need to be practically in the same building to pull off a jam session.

[https://www.churchproduction.com/education/latency-and- its-a...](https://www.churchproduction.com/education/latency-and-its-affect- on-performers/)

<comment><USER6> Well, as someone on that pages comments points out, a distance of just a few meters would give you over 10ms of latency, so I reckon there is some more leeway.

It's definitely a tricky problem though, which is why I figured a more customizable solution would be better.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Impressive. With mobile SDKs as well.

<comment> Sean-Der Thanks! cloudwebrtc[0] is on the cutting edge with making Flutter+WebRTC work. I don't know it as much as I should, but really seems like the future.

[0] [https://github.com/cloudwebrtc/flutter- webrtc](https://github.com/cloudwebrtc/flutter-webrtc)

<comment><USER9> Are there any plans to support react native?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> looks interesting, is this similar to jitsi project as far as functions go?

</comment><comment><USER11> What's a good way to estimate server requirements?

<comment> Sean-Der Sorry I don't have any exact numbers. For fun I threw it on a micro instance and didn't have a problem with 7 people in the call.

I am going to work on writing an Apache Bench for WebRTC this year though. It is really hard to load test/bench this stuff because the tooling just doesn't exist. A lot of people roll out WebRTC, but then go down under real world load.

<comment><USER12> for webrtc the load is on the clients. the server load is for "poor connectivity" clients. the ones tha need nat transversal and proxing of kinds.

in summary, if you have first class clients you can "host" a million person session in a raspberypi. if you have two bad clients, you better have tons of cpu and bandwidth!</comment></comment></comment>


Microsoft reorganizes - <AUTHOR> http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/news/Press/2013/Jul13/07-11OneMicrosoft.aspx <comment><USER2> [http://taffywilliams.blogspot.com/2011/07/write-3-letters- yo...](http://taffywilliams.blogspot.com/2011/07/write-3-letters-you-are-not- that-good.html)

A new CEO was hired to replace an outgoing CEO. The outgoing CEO met with the incoming CEO for an exit interview. During the discussion, the departing CEO stated he had placed 3 very important letters in his drawer just as his predecessor had done for him. He explained that the new CEO would find opening the letters in order most useful when a serious event took place. He also stated the letters left for him had really helped him over his tenure.

Several months passed before a major event came up. The new CEO now remembered the letters and noticed they were numbered 1, 2, and 3. The former CEO had instructed they be opened in order for maximal benefit. The new CEO opened letter #1 and the paper inside had the words "blame it on your predecessor." The new CEO did as the letter stated and amazingly he was able to avert serious problems and keep his job.

Several months passed before the next serious event took place. This one was growing in magnitude and things were starting to get ugly at the company. There were even calls for the CEO to step down. In desperation, the CEO opened the drawer and pulled out letter #2. With great fear he, opened it carefully to read the word "reorganize." He followed the instructions and just as before he was saved. The whole company quieted down and went back to business as usual.

After about a year, a third serious event took place and it was much worse than the rest. The CEO knew how to get out of the mess because he had a third letter left to open. With a smile he reached for the letter #3 and opened it to read "write 3 letters."

<comment><USER3> Reminds me of this: [http://dilbert.com/strips/comic/1995-10-30/](http://dilbert.com/strips/comic/1995-10-30/)

<comment><USER4> Just a few comics later, he has this gem about "dotted-line" management. Frightening how relevant Dilbert is to this memo.

[http://dilbert.com/strips/comic/1995-11-01/](http://dilbert.com/strips/comic/1995-11-01/)

<comment><USER5> This was the first thing I thought of when I saw the "Dotted Line" bit. Sad that this thing was already parodied almost two decades ago!

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> I almost choked when I read Microsoft's new mission statement: _" our strategy will focus on creating a family of devices and services for individuals and businesses that empower people around the globe at home, at work and on the go, for the activities they value most."_

In other words, Ballmer wants the company to "focus" on being everything to everyone!

Not a good sign for the business.

\--

PS. Compare Ballmer's long, complicated memo to Google's mission statement: "to organize the world's information and make it universally accessible and useful." (Source: [http://www.google.com/about/company/](http://www.google.com/about/company/) )

<comment><USER7> This isn't an agile startup here, it's one of the world's largest software companies. I think aiming to do a lot isn't a big stretch.

<comment><USER8> Microsoft has always had big ambitions. Its original mission statement, first articulated all the way back in the late '70s, was "a computer in every desk and in every home, running Microsoft software." ([http://www.achievement.org/autodoc/page/gat0int-1](http://www.achievement.org/autodoc/page/gat0int-1)) Which was pretty audacious when the state of the art in personal computing was machines like the MITS Altair ([http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Altair_8800](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Altair_8800)).

Bill Gates:

 _It 's very hard to recall how crazy and wild that was, you know, "on every desk and in every home." At the time, you have people who are very smart saying, "Why would somebody need a computer?"_

Not saying this _new_ statement is audacious (it feels kind of anodyne to me), just that "hidebound behemoth" isn't the only gene in their DNA.

<comment><USER9> The original statement was pretty clear and short. This new one takes a lot of words and it's not at all clear to me what they are aiming for. What, exactly, does "empower" look like when it's implemented? Exactly which are the activities that people value the most? (Actually, has anyone thought about whether those activities even require a computer?)

This isn't ambitious, it's meaningless. Not a good sign for corporate excellence.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> If their new tack is as sharp and focused as that memo, Microsoft is in trouble.

"We will be all things to all people by getting rid of anything that is not a huge profit center. Those profit centers will be organized in appropriate silos. Those silos will assign people to product committees for collaboration with other silos on individual products. Each committee will have a leader (Champion) who reports to the layer just below me. This new, tighter, organization will make us leaner and more nimble."

Sounds -- as good as it could for a large organization I guess but there is a lot of contradiction. Greater reach through consolidation? Nimble action through layers of management? We are all One except for these few special cases? Build on our character as Microsoft but emulate Apple? One Strategy through rigidly defined feifdoms with their own Champions battling for influence?

I also love their list of 'high-value activities' "high-value activities — serious fun, meetings, tasks, research, information assurance and IT/Dev workloads" Does anyone know what they mean by this?

And all of this couched in such thick Business-Speak that 10 different people will come away with 10 different messages.

Mr. Ballmer. For the love of all of the brilliant people you employ, step down. It's time.

<comment><USER11> I honestly think he doesn't realize that he's the problem and people around him won't tell him the truth. Ballmer is a very intimidating guy both in physical size and attitude and is always ready to be combative. This make it very difficult to have a open dialog with him.

Him remaining still as the CEO is not his fault its the boards fault they should have made moves to genteelly replace him a long time ago.

<comment><USER12> >"Ballmer is a very intimidating guy both in _physical size_ and attitude and is always ready to be combative."

As larger than average person I'm fascinated/frustrated by the way physical presence affects people.

Most troublesome for me have been people who apparently feel intimidated and project it back as something intentional, as I'm _trying_ to intimidate them or have intimidated others into agreement with me.

<comment><USER13> >Most troublesome for me have been people who apparently feel intimidated and project it back as something intentional, as I'm trying to intimidate them

I am 6'7" tall and weigh 220 pounds. I've also been in IT for about 20 years in a corporate setting. Are you bigger than I am? I ask because I have never had anyone say that I intimidated them nor have I heard of anyone telling me that someone else is intimidated by me. I'm curious as to whether people are intimidated and just aren't telling me.

<comment><USER12> > _" Are you bigger than I am?"_

I'm your height, 60+ pounds heavier and no stranger to the gym. I've been in IT for going on 16 years.

I've had many people admit they were initially intimidated after we've gotten to know each other - women a bit more than men. I've had several problems arise from superficial assumptions/accusations by people who'd never fully interacted with me.

About your situation, there are a couple things I think can help/hurt:

* Build. I can remember being 220. I'm definitely perceived differently now, more "big" than "tall" or "slim" previously.

* I'm pretty quiet. I get the impression that people assume negatives before positives when they can't read a person.

* Jobs. I've done a lot of work in the public sector where things always seem to be contentious. In a place with less infighting and political maneuvering I'd hope for less assumption and undermining as well.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> This is the change : _" This means we will organize the company by function: Engineering (including supply chain and datacenters), Marketing, Business Development and Evangelism, Advanced Strategy and Research, Finance, HR, Legal, and COO (including field, support, commercial operations and IT). Each discipline will help drive our overall strategy. Each discipline will also be charged with improving our core capabilities in its area. We must improve in all aspects of the business."_

So in the past each part of Microsoft seemed to operate both as a independent business (and sometimes competitor with other parts of Microsoft) and part of the whole. This re-aligns the company as a systems company focused on delivering a specific solution.

A number of interesting thoughts ran through my head here. Perhaps the most profound was that Microsoft has basically said "Oh by the way, the PC is dead." and by that tacit admission they fulfill the prophecy of this being the 'post PC' era. Microsoft's reorganization is more about serving customers through a fusion of device + OS + product and less about serving customers as the supplier of "OS" or "Backend business management" or "gaming platform". That makes them a lot more like Apple and really puts Dell and HP in a sticky place. One wonders what the world would look like if Apple embraced people making cloned hardware.

So if I read the tea leaves correctly, Ballmer is attempting to capture Google's Android strategy for Windows with the inclusion of the desktop/laptop component where the monetization comes not from the OS but from the environment.

I don't know if Microsoft can pull it off but it reads like they want to be what Google and Apple would be if they merged.

I give it top marks for aggressiveness, and it seems they are ready to step out of the shackles the monopolist next door, painting Google with that particular scarlet letter in the US and elsewhere.

If I were Michael Dell, my first step after taking the company private would be buying Canonical and installing Shuttleworth as EVP of OS.

<comment><USER15> > _Perhaps the most profound was that Microsoft has basically said "Oh by the > way, the PC is dead." and by that tacit admission they fulfill the prophecy > of this being the 'post PC' era_

All this talk about the "Post PC" era is misguided, with people leaving out the elephant in the room.

It's not PCs that are dead - PCs are fine, you can find one in most homes and most people interact with PCs daily. This isn't going to change for a long time.

Something else is dying - the traditional licensing model for software. Software is becoming a cheap commodity, due to open-source, due to the freemium model on the web, due to piracy, due to the $0.99 or ads-enabled apps that are so popular lately.

By contrast, there's been a lot of innovation in hardware / devices. Skipping over the obvious innovations, like smart-phones with touch-screens, for example Samsung's Chromebook is amazing - a good looking ultra-portable with good battery, that does 90% of what people need and that's so cheap that you can replace it should you break or lose it.

Let's think about what the Chromebook is, because it's fascinating - all the apps you run on it are web apps. The just released Firefox OS does the same thing and I'm sure it's going to be a success. Apple themselves, before releasing their iPhone SDK, were telling devs to build web apps.

So where is Microsoft in this picture? Nowhere. Their empire is built on Windows and Office and without these in the picture they are fucked. And they can't rely on the current PC market for upgrades, because PCs are more than good enough, so people don't feel the need for upgrades, unless they buy based on sex-appeal. Many companies are still on Windows XP and Office 2003.

This isn't a " _Post PC_ " era. This is the " _Web Era_ ". Furthermore, all the mobile app stores are just passing fads.

<comment><USER16> _Software is becoming a cheap commodity, due to open-source, due to the freemium model on the web, due to piracy, due to the $0.99 or ads-enabled apps that are so popular lately._

 _Cheap_ software is becoming a cheap commodity.

It's relatively easy for any competent software developer to write a diary app with a pretty UI skin, or a basic text editor and formatting engine to drive a lightweight word processor, or a simple puzzle game. I could write a relatively good application in any of those categories in a weekend, and no doubt so could thousands of other people on HN today.

And importantly, that's just fine. There are very many people who will get some value from a fun puzzle game or a simple personal organiser, and who will pay a small amount in return, and so there are many software developers who make a decent income writing just that kind of software.

But what about the next level up? When I had to write a serious document for an organisation that normally used an on-line "office suite", I gave up and switched to more traditional software. It turns out that things like footnotes and cross-references and tables of contents and careful page layout matter if you're producing something that many people are going to spend a lot of time using, and at the time Google Docs could do exactly none of those things while Word could do them all easily. At the rate they were paying me, with the time saved by using the more powerful software, the cost of that software was probably recovered in days, if not hours.

The reality of modern web and mobile software is that a lot of it _is_ cheap, and it _should_ be cheap, because it adds only a little value and it isn't very hard to create it. The trouble is that some software does add a lot more value and is hard to create and shoudn't be cheap, but companies like Microsoft have inadequately defended their ground and so even software that could save a customer $1,000 a week gets comments like "$10? No way!" on app stores.

 _This isn 't a "Post PC" era. This is the "Web Era"._

Not until Google Docs does footnotes and cross-references and tables of contents and careful page layout, it isn't. Some people just got the wrong memo.

<comment><USER15> > _Not until Google Docs does footnotes and cross-references and tables of > contents and careful page layout, it isn 't._

LibreOffice does footnotes and cross-references just fine and LibreOffice is 0 USD. Here's the thing - MS Office is innovative and still the best at what it does. But it's old and like anything old, it becomes a commodity.

Adobe Photoshop is also innovative and still the best at what it does (by far). The problem that Adobe has though is that many Photoshop licensees are not professionals and can be served just as well by cheaper or even free software. Companies like Adobe also benefited a lot from piracy, as a lot of people ended up using Photoshop, even though not that many people can afford it.

Also, what you're seeing here unfolding with web apps is only the begging. In relative terms, the concept of a web app is still young. Even in early 2000, people had no idea that they can have apps running in their browser and broadband / 3G / 4G is still not a reality in many parts of this world. The combination of cheap and easily accessible on any platform, without any lock- in whatsoever, is extremely powerful. Couple this with devices that are designed to be portable and always connected and you've got a killer that will cannibalize everything else.

> _The reality of modern web and mobile software is that a lot of it is cheap, > and it should be cheap, because it adds only a little value and it isn 't > very hard to create it_

Things like Google Docs / Google Calendar / Google Maps / Twitter / Wikipedia give me a hell of a lot more value than anything a desktop app could. Are you saying that you could build these in a weekend?

<comment><USER16> _LibreOffice does footnotes and cross-references just fine_

Sure, and it's a set of desktop applications that run locally on your own computer.

Did you realise you're supporting my position here?

 _The combination of cheap and easily accessible on any platform, without any lock-in whatsoever, is extremely powerful. Couple this with devices that are designed to be portable and always connected and you 've got a killer that will cannibalize everything else._

We've seen thick client vs. thin client before, and no doubt we'll see it again. Today, however, we're still a long way from the utopia you describe.

 _Things like Google Docs / Google Calendar / Google Maps / Twitter / Wikipedia give me a hell of a lot more value than anything a desktop app could. Are you saying that you could build these in a weekend?_

Well, you're obviously picking contrived examples, because most web applications aren't in that class. And of course no individual could literally build a replacement for those services in a weekend. However, it is interesting to consider some factors that would stop them:

1\. Hardware resources and network bandwidth to serve so many users at once

2\. Large volume of data behind the UI

3\. Many import/export options, in some cases

Notice that of those, only the third has anything to do with how hard it is to write the software itself, and even then it's not core functionality. Providing compatibility with existing data formats is often extremely expensive in terms of developer effort, which is part of the reason that competing with the likes of Microsoft Office and Adobe Creative Suite is such a high barrier and why incumbents tend to change their file formats every five minutes.

On the other hand, if you were asking whether I could create a Twitter clone to share with friends at first and grow as friends-of-friends joined in, then sure, about a million people here really could write that in a weekend. The core functionality for most of the other services you mentioned could be implemented by a small team in times ranging from a few days to a few weeks, too.

The most interesting thing about this, IMHO, is that it means the core functionality for software with a completely different approach to solving the same problems might also be implemented fairly quickly, and isn't the factor limiting competition and the advancement of the technology. We're being held back by lots of other factors, but most of them are driven by commercial or marketing considerations, not the technology itself.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> If you want to understand Microsoft, you could do a lot worse than reading [http://hal2020.com/](http://hal2020.com/), by a former General Manager at Microsoft. I learn something from pretty much every blog post he writes.

For instance, in his most recent post he discusses how the lack of coordination between the divisions after the 2005 reorg can be viewed as a feature rather than a bug, but also something that now needs to be changed.

</comment><comment><USER18> Is there a reason CEOs cannot use normal English but have to dilute the language so much?

For me the TL:DR after struggling to read it was - full steam ahead to the biggest walled garden on earth. We are still the Borg. Someone correct me if I am wrong.

<comment><USER19> I don't understand how anyone in their right minds can consider Windows to be the "biggest walled garden on earth". There is plenty to criticize about Microsoft, but when you descend into completely nonsensical arguments you lose all credibility.

<comment><USER20> He's talking more about Windows Phone, the Windows 8 apps, and Xbox.

<comment><USER19> Is Windows Phone more of a walled garden than than iOS? Is the Xbox more of a walled garden than the Wii U? The argument is still complete hyperbole.

<comment><USER21> Windows Phone is more of a walled garden than Android.

<comment><USER19> "bigger walled garden than Android" I would agree with.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> Azure will not catch AWS because it's not a first class division. It's an offering in a broader context. Contrast with Amazon who has an SVP of AWS (and he's considered one of the "more important" SVPs). Any chance I had of considering Azure just evaporated.

And there's nothing that screams "ownership" like having a VP's reports "dotted-line" report into someone else, and to have that called out in a company-wide email.

Then if you read it, every product MS comes out with will need strong cooperation from 3 SVPs. New Phone? Get the hardware guy, OS guy, and apps guy to coordinate. Recipe for disaster.

<comment><USER23> There's a division called "Cloud" being headed up by Executive VP Satya Nadella that encompasses Azure and the apps that build on top of it (Office 365, visualstudio.com...)

That seems pretty first-class to me.

<comment><USER22> No, there's a division called "Cloud and Enterprise Engineering Group". This suggest that either it encompasses non-cloud offerings specific to enterprise or the cloud they're building is targeting specifically enterprise.

Either way, they will not be focused on making Azure a product I wouldn't be interested in: 1 of 2 focuses or targeting someone I'm not.

Furthermore, looks like they've split sales/marketing from engineering which will probably help them build more features which are irrelevant to me and put as many PMs between the clients and engineers as possible.

<comment><USER23> That you're condemning Azure based on the name of the business unit its produced in and the location of sales and marketing people in a company makes me think that even if we'd named it "JOnAgain's Special Cloud!" that it would be unlikely to have been of interest to you.

(Edit: obviously by "we" I mean "my employer Microsoft", not that I had anything to do with any of these decisions.)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> I think this is a positive move for Microsoft. In particular, having all OS development work (including desktop, phone and XBox) looks like a good idea, as I've heard there have been a lot of problems with Windows Phone being managed on the periphery.

<comment><USER24> I'm not sure this is such a great idea. Doesn't the OS for the XBox have entirely different concerns than Windows for Enterprise? You cannot make an OS that works just as well for Billy the 10 year old gamer, and Mega Co. with 400,000 employees.

Apple's recognized this and decided to pretty much abandon enterprise. Linux has fragmented into different distributions (server, desktop, mobile) each with a different focus.

Microsoft, instead, has doubled down. They all even _look_ the same.

<comment><USER25> You answered your own question the second after you asked it.

Look at Linux first. Note that it happily goes from cell phones to supercomputers. The reason that works is because "Linux" doesn't actually that much. Really, it means the kernel and (usually) the GNU userland. (Though note that Android proves that you can swap out the entire userland and still get something that people will call Linux.) Supercomputers don't have GUIs. Desktops run X or Wayland or Mir or whatever Ubuntu is doing these days, or sometimes just Chrome. Mobiles tend to run Android, although there's also Maemo and others. Meanwhile, a supercomputer would likely have no UI at all. In all cases, when we say these devices all "run Linux", we're really referring to the driver model, the kernel, and (when applicable) the user space.

The same happens with Windows. Windows Phone 8, Windows 8, Windows Server 2012, and the Xbox One all are Windows. They all run the Windows kernel, they all have the Microsoft CLR, and they all have (a lot of) the same APIs-- especially at the driver layer. But while Windows 8, Windows Phone, and Xbox all run DirectX and have GUIs, Windows Server prefers to run headless. Windows Phone 8 and Windows both use WinRT, but Windows Phone 8's UI stack is slightly different from Windows 8 proper, mostly to facilitate power consumption and allow for the wildly different form factors. Xbox pretty clearly has a lot of Win 8 UI internally, but games mostly just code against DirectX. But of _course_ these all count as Windows, because they all are Windows. Just sliced and diced in different directions, exactly like Linux does. And unlike Linux, there's actually a lot more in common that can legitimately be shared.

I don't think unifying all the OS here is really a big deal. It's been proven to work just fine with Linux (and actually, I'd argue, with OS X, but we can save that for another time).

<comment><USER24> The Linux _kernel_ is used in a lot of different devices, this is true, but it's also a lot leaner than the Windows one. Although efforts have been made to pare down what Windows is, it's still got a footprint gigantically bigger than Linux. Where Windows can squeeze on to an ARM system, Linux runs on embedded systems that are even smaller.

The thing that's the most broken about Microsoft's strategy is it's not just the kernel being thrown everywhere, but the user interface. That's the most incoherent part of their strategy. Does the accounting department need to use the same UI as the Xbox? It's so confused.

OS X and iOS are similar, but not the same thing, although not as different as, say, Ubuntu is to Android. It's possible that the Ubuntu phone project might blur this distinction in time, it seems possible.

What I mean mostly is that just because Windows and it's user interface _can_ run on all these different platforms doesn't mean it's an optimal approach. Then again, Microsoft has never shied away from monoculture. They're the Monsanto of software.

<comment><USER26> So, the Windows kernel probably is pound-for-pound as lightweight as the Linux kernel. Whenever people talk about Windows they always drag the UI and such along, whereas with Linux they seem to merrily ignore all the chrome.

Any Windows kernel folks care to confirm/deny this?

<comment><USER27> I work at MSFT and while not involved with kernel stuff directly I interact with them from time to time. The sentiment among kernel people is they'd put the NT kernel up against Linux in efficiency any day of the week.

The challenge is that it's difficult to get _just_ the NT kernel and minimal support libraries. There was an internal project called [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MinWin#cite_ref- zheng2007_10-0](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MinWin#cite_ref-zheng2007_10-0) Without watching the entire video, Wikipedia mentions something like a 25MB footprint for a usable NT kernel.

Windows installed OS features are a lot more a' la carte these days. It annoys me that there's not a ntsd.exe or telnet.exe on every box by default, but I suppose it's worth it for the greater goal. There's a lot of focus on Windows Server Core, Hyper-V, and Azure. Cloud is bringing everybody back to thinking about OS footprint again.

I think the Windows-sans-(stuff not everyone needs) approach is only going to become more normal.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER28> Hmmm, well, this seems to be some marvelous buzzword bingo / word salad. It's looking more and more like MS is well and truly clueless. They don't understand the market. They don't understand their strengths. They definitely don't understand their weaknesses. And Ballmer isn't going to leave until he has a heart attack or maybe two.

Edit: fine, I'll add some useful details. What are Microsoft's _actual_ biggest advantages/disadvantages, how should they embrace the market? Advantages: the PC platform is still enormously powerful, and open, and they've still got huge ins with corporate computing. They could own the market on business oriented tablet form-factor computing but they don't have the vision. Disadvantages: stack ranking is poisonous to morale and retaining talent, the company is too monolithic (they used to be monolithic in multiple silos, now they're becoming monolithic in one giant silo, that's not better), and they still struggle with agility. The market? Android is the MS of the mobile generation, is it really so crazy to imagine that MS becoming the MS in mobile as well could be a route to success for them? And that's just what I could type in about 2 minutes.

<comment><USER29> _the company is too monolithic (they used to be monolithic in multiple silos, now they 're becoming monolithic in one giant silo, that's not better)_

Exactly, they are too big, and this reorg is going to make that worse, not better. I think they would have been better off actually spinning off their business units into separate companies, each with a clear product category and a clear organizational mission.

<comment><USER28> One of the things that Surface, Xbox One, and Windows Phone 7/8 has shown is that MS is scared but not hungry. They're still arrogant. Much more so than if they were a bunch of separate companies rather than one huge empire.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER30> _The frontier of high-value scenarios we enable will march outward, but we have strengths and proven capabilities on which we will draw._

What a sentence!

<comment><USER31> Ballmer is a sales guy, not an engineer. No surprise he would write like that.

<comment><USER32> Ballmer isn't exactly non-technical; he has a degree in applied mathematics from Harvard.

<comment><USER33> I take both points (marketing, maths education) but can the man not pay a speech writer?

OK for JFK, LBJ, Obama _et al_

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER34> Was that cut and pasted from some kind of template for empty, verbose corporate-speak?

<comment><USER35> It's a word-template for "Reorganizational Memo - Large Software Business". While I'm here: "I see you're trying to reorganize your company, would you like help with that." \- Clippy

Tip your waiter/waitresses, try the lamb chops.

</comment></comment><comment><USER36> All the critical decisions have already been made: Microsoft branded hardware, running Windows, everywhere. No courier. Bring XBOX solidly into the Windows fold. It's all Windows.

Why reorg? Who would accept the job of telling Ballmer that, when Nokia goes under, the "devices" part of that story is a fable? On top of that, the press release was apparently written by a student of Vogon poetry.

<comment><USER37> Did Nokia build their Xbox, keyboards, mice, Surface, Surface Pro, Kinect or any of the other devices that Microsoft offers?

<comment><USER36> Seems like a rhetorical question, but it actually has an answer: Game console unit volume, even two generations ago when it was still growing, is less than 5% of mobile handset unit volume.

That said, walking past the Microsoft store at the Pru last night, the only display drawing a crowd was the Kinect darts game.

<comment><USER37> Yes, but is _Microsofts_ game console unit volume less than 5% of Microsofts mobile handset unit volume?

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER38> What is one good thing that Ballmer has done for MS? He's ridden the momentum left by Gates, and since then..... what? Nothing new & good. If I'm an investor in MS, is he really the best option? Not that Microsoft isn't a good company and does some great work (Microsoft Research labs are amazing, I don't care what people say), but honestly it seems like as a company, Microsoft hasn't really done anything new & better in over a decade. He's kept a steady course with the golden goose(s) of Windows/Office, of course.

<comment><USER39> Windows Azure? 7? Those were under Ballmer's reign.

<comment><USER38> Ah, good point on Azure, that's fairly big. Windows 7 I guess I don't really see as anything more than iteration. It was an honest question, so I appreciate a good answer!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER40> _"...his product leaders will dotted line report to..."_

Okay, so still fucking broken. Moving along.

</comment><comment><USER41> Complete and utter lack of focus is what I read:

"Going forward, our strategy will focus on creating a family of devices and services for individuals and businesses that empower people around the globe at home, at work and on the go, for the activities they value most."

<comment><USER42> I really was intrigued by comparing this vision to the previous vision of putting a computer in every home...

The previous was while completely open ended at least on some level measurable. The current is basically saying, we will make stuff to help customers do whatever wherever.

<comment><USER41> Agreed. And across business and personal use. "We will be all things to all people." If I'm a Microsoft employee there is not much here for me to get behind.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER43> A fellow had just been hired as the new CEO of a large high tech corporation. The CEO who was stepping down met with him privately and presented him with three numbered envelopes. "Open these if you run up against a problem you don't think you can solve," he said.

Well, things went along pretty smoothly, but six months later, sales took a downturn and he was really catching a lot of heat. About at his wit's end, he remembered the envelopes. He went to his drawer and took out the first envelope. The message read, "Blame your predecessor."

The new CEO called a press conference and tactfully laid the blame at the feet of the previous CEO. Satisfied with his comments, the press -- and Wall Street - responded positively, sales began to pick up and the problem was soon behind him.

About a year later, the company was again experiencing a slight dip in sales, combined with serious product problems. Having learned from his previous experience, the CEO quickly opened the second envelope. The message read, "Reorganize." This he did, and the company quickly rebounded.

After several consecutive profitable quarters, the company once again fell on difficult times. The CEO went to his office, closed the door and opened the third envelope.

The message said, "Prepare three envelopes."

</comment><comment><USER44> It wasn't immediately clear in Ballmer's statement, but is the Office division moving under the Cloud services group? It's interesting that they are putting their money-making operations (Office + Server&Tools) under Cloud with Satya Nadella instead of moving it over to Application Services under Qi Lu. Which, given the name, you would think Office would move under Applications.

<comment><USER45> Office is indeed moving under Qi Lu. (Applications and Services group)

</comment></comment><comment><USER46> Wow, re-organising the company by function. They're going all in on copying Apple. Who knows if it will work, but it's a fascinating experiment.

<comment><USER24> I wonder if they can still preserve the "culture" of having as many as fourteen superiors in one long, risk-averse chain.

<comment><USER18> If they lose it they could always import some from the EU commission excess supplies. Seems that there is no global shortage for spineless inefficient bureaucracies.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER47> One Strategy, One Microsoft, One Ballmer

<comment><USER48> Ein Volk, ein Reich, ein Fuhrer.

<comment><USER18> Windows 8 could be Stalingrad then?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER49> This seems horribly vague, except that they've been using the word "devices" a lot. Are they going to expand on the Surface thing and work closer with hardware vendors to make a complete suite of Microsoft-branded hardware?

It really sounds like they're embracing the cloud + hardware model that is becoming standard in the mobile space - you have devices purpose-built for your OS and sold with your company's blessing and you have a suite of 1st- party web-supported cloud services. Google's various webapps and Android and their pseudo-first-party Nexus gizmos, Ubuntu and their new Ubuntu phone OS and their Ubuntu One services, Apple and their iOS devices and their own iCloud services, and MS with Win8/WP8/Win8RT and their various SkyDrive/Live services.

My big problem with this huge move to cloud services is that interoperability has freaking _tanked_. Every consumer exists in one walled garden or another depending which infrastructure they bought into.

To me, this statement implies a hard push on the WP8/Win8RT devices as well as SkyDrive/Live services... which is going to be a hard fight, since winphone is _really_ late to the party, and the confusing branding of Win8RT (is it Windows 8? What?) has basically resulted in every vendor and manufacturer avoiding it like it's radioactive.

Personally, I'd love a Win8RT HDMI stick device, but I'm weird that way... and Microsoft wants me to buy an XBox One so I'm guessing Win8RT HDMI sticks are off the menu.

<comment><USER50> The problem is Microsoft's short attention span. Their products are usually better than the competition, but either no one uses them and MS kills the product, or people start using it and MS lets the product stagnate until it's not better anymore (or significantly worse).

Windows Mobile was amazing, the best thing to ever happen to the mobile devices world. But it had grown stale long before Apple joined the market. Windows Phone debuted as a refreshing change in the marketplace and in some ways, ahead of Apple. And then the lack of continued innovation has stalled what little progress it was making. Then they killed Windows Phone (7) just to relaunch Windows Phone (8) as "mostly compatible".

The Zune software was miles ahead of Apple's spreadsheet program. Then they killed it. The Zune Pass was and still is miles ahead of anything else in the music subscription space. But it hasn't just stagnated, it's actively become worse. You used to pay $10/mo and get 10 DRM-free songs per month, making the subscription part completely free. Now that's gone. But still, Google Play Music All Access Pass is the only thing remotely competing with it.

I love Skydrive and you get massive amounts of space and massive amounts of integration, but how many times can they rebrand the same service? I started using Skydrive back when you would log into it using your MSN ID, then your Windows Live ID, then your Microsoft Account.

It's the ADD-style lack of focus that killed Sega, and Microsoft just rides that train for all its worth.

</comment></comment><comment><USER51> I dug up Apple's reorg announcement from 1997, where Steve Jobs was officially brought on as an "advisory" role to then-CEO Gil Amelio.

[http://web.archive.org/web/19990128084705/http://product.inf...](http://web.archive.org/web/19990128084705/http://product.info.apple.com/pr/press.releases/1997/q2/970204.pr.rel.structure.html)

Obviously, Apple and Microsoft are different companies and looking back 16 years with the benefit of hindsight is a bit unfair.

And yet, even in the announcements, you can see a difference. Apple's is shorter, more direct, bereft of details but not trying to be everything to everyone. Most important is an emphasis on getting back to basics, whereas Microsoft is promising "one strategy, one Microsoft" and then immediately rattling off a laundry list of "core products". When every one of those products is core, it's clear nothing is.

</comment><comment><USER52> If they want to start to "be cool" again, they definitely need to start to opensource at least the "client" stuff.. and could remain with the "cloud ones" closed. (including office here)

i think that if microsoft opens up some of its own software it would be a good sign .. things they dont monetize on.. like IE and the windows NT kernel (at least).. and with a bonus.. people would start to contribut to those projects..

This is a part of the strategy that has maded google cool.. and for the old timers to become cool too.. they need to learn some moves from the new boys in town.. just saying..

</comment><comment><USER53> Surprised that no one has mentioned Asymco or Horace Dediu and his recent podcasts and blog posts:

[http://www.asymco.com/2013/06/27/preempting-the- praetorian-g...](http://www.asymco.com/2013/06/27/preempting-the-praetorian- guard/) [http://www.asymco.com/2013/06/27/the-critical-path-90-the- pr...](http://www.asymco.com/2013/06/27/the-critical-path-90-the-praetorian- guard/)

where he goes into a lot of detail about how functional organizational structure might be relevant to innovation in a large company.

</comment><comment><USER54> That whole memo seems like a parody of Microsoft -- it was pages long, included less than one page of actual content (and even that was confusing), was peppered with stock phrases (almost as bad as "our goals are to synergize using our core competencies, involving all stakeholders at the table in a comprehensive decision making process aimed at maximizing quality and correctness...".

I kind of hate Microsoft even more after reading it, even though the changes (were there any?) may be good.

</comment><comment><USER55> Mediocre CEOs have only three levers to pull: "acquire," "layoff," and "reorg." Eventually Ballmer will pull all three levers in every order.

</comment><comment><USER56> Seems to me like the emphasis is on XBox.

"Terry Myerson will lead this group, and it will span all our OS work for console..."

Interesting, because I think XBox One (from One Microsoft) is a bit of a Hail Mary. It's not clear to me that the "next console" is going to be that big a deal. (My secret hope is that Apple has a really juicy Apple TV up its sleeve with iOS dev support, etc., and is just waiting to announce it when it will do the most good / damage.)

</comment><comment><USER57> This sounds suspiciously like the beginnings of a death rattle.

What impressed me most about MS (worked with them around '97-2000) was that the company was divided into small divisions that had very precisely defined goals, and were able to operate somewhat autonomously (as long as they didn't conflict with core MS goals).

Moving from a federated empire to a Soviet-style, run-from-the-top dictatorship is not likely to end with much success.

</comment><comment><USER58> How, exactly, does this top-level re-organization change what happens on the ground, where products are built? I fail to see what an organizational change does here that improves product creativity and collaboration across teams.

I can't imagine their chief problem was "if only our superiors had different reporting structures, then we could get along with ABC team from 123 group."

<comment><USER59> I've lived that situation.

In dysfunctional organizations people are sometimes not allowed to talk across org silos. It's horrific.

</comment></comment><comment><USER60> I have much respect for a certain Mr. Tatarinov, who might be forgiven for dreaming about dotted lines all night long...From the Report

"Kirill Tatarinov will continue to run Dynamics as is, but his product leaders will dotted line report to Qi Lu, his marketing leader will dotted line report to Tami Reller and his sales leader will dotted line report to the COO group."

</comment><comment><USER61> This is going to be a disaster. Managing teams that large (thousands) is near impossible. Microsoft needs to become more fragmented with lower level P&L accountability to really innovate. This is understandably difficult when everything revolves around Windows and you have a shared salesforce. However, imo this is the only way forward for Microsoft.

</comment><comment><USER62> What does 'dotted line report' mean?

<comment><USER17> See for instance [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Matrix_management](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Matrix_management). Basically there's a solid line to your primary manager but a dotted line for secondary relationships.

<comment><USER63> I guess this is why you have to file multiple TPS reports?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER64> I have to give MSFT some credit in this situation, for once. The acquisitions of Yammer and Skype, and evolution of the Azure and Office 365 platforms, are cornering the cloud collaboration market in the enterprise. MSFT has set a clear strategy in the cloud collab market up and down the stack, and it's paying off.

</comment><comment><USER65> I wonder if this will make any tangible difference in hiring and the volumes of contractors they have on payroll.

</comment><comment><USER66> Interesting that the guy that said, "Developers, developers, developers, developers, developers, developers, developers, developers, developers, developers, developers, developers, developers", didn't mention where the developer tools end up in the re-org...

<comment><USER23> It's easy to miss specific units when they enumerated so many of the organizations of such a large company. We haven't really moved:

> Cloud and Enterprise Engineering Group. Satya Nadella will lead development > of our back-end technologies like datacenter, database and our specific > technologies for enterprise IT scenarios and _development tools_...

(Emphasis mine)

</comment></comment><comment><USER67> Something must be wrong at Microsoft...

Either A) Windows 8 is not selling very well. B) Windows Surface is being ignored C) The Microsoft stores aren't doing too well either D) Windows phone is dying or E) all of the above.

Anyway they can start by adding a left and right padding to their footer.

</comment><comment><USER68> WHY are they keeping Lisa Brummel? MS' HR department is _notoriously_ bad at recruitment and performance management. It's rotten at the core. I'm very disappointed that they didn't use this opportunity to nip the problem in the bud.

</comment><comment><USER69> "The frontier of high-value scenarios we enable will march outward, but we have strengths and proven capabilities on which we will draw." What does that even mean? The letter is filled with nonsense sentences like this.

</comment><comment><USER70> That heap of verbal diarrhea reads like any random enterprise reorganization effort I've seen in the last 20 years.

What do failing, bloated organizations do when they have no other ideas? Reorganize!!

</comment><comment><USER71> I was kind of hoping Ballmer leaving would be part of the reorg.

They seem quite lost, and this reorg a sign of desperation. Maybe Billy G should take on Microsoft as part of his new charity arm.

</comment><comment><USER72> Pity that Dilbert's Automatic Mission Statement Generator is not online anymore.

This is not bad :

[http://cmorse.org/missiongen/](http://cmorse.org/missiongen/)

</comment><comment><USER73> A quick reminder of Ballmer being visionary: [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eywi0h_Y5_U](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eywi0h_Y5_U)

</comment><comment><USER74> One thing won't change - they'll still remain complete jerks when it comes to software patents, vendor lock in, closed standards and other junk like that.

</comment><comment><USER75> "One Microsoft: Company realigns to enable _surveillance_ at greater speed, efficiency"

</comment><comment><USER76> TL;DR:

We're firing a bunch of people, giving more new jobs and focusing on phones and tablets finally.

</comment><comment><USER77> Can there be a "one more thing" where Ballmer retires, please?

</comment><comment><USER78> This memo would only have been relevant if it had come from a new CEO.

</comment><comment><USER79> Microsoft [http://maxcdn.fooyoh.com/files/attach/images/3004/144/040/00...](http://maxcdn.fooyoh.com/files/attach/images/3004/144/040/008/lazyass.JPG)

</comment><comment><USER80> Meet the new Snow White. Same as the old Snow White.

</comment><comment><USER81> Did I miss something, what happened to games?

</comment><comment><USER11> Lets if anything changes.

</comment><comment><USER82> It's about time.

</comment><comment><USER83> What look like complex failures in organizations are often rooted in simple causes. In Microsoft, it's stack-ranking and Enron-style (that is, visible in transfer packet) performance reviews.

When you have stack-ranking, you never get harmonious teams and "all-star" sub-organizations are out of the question. When performance reviews are part of the transfer process, people become largely immobile and teams become permanent camps and you get warring departments. Closed allocation, at that scale, is cultural toxic sludge in general.

Simple causes. Simple fixes. Wordy say-nothing emails that inject political _complexity_ , when simple solutions are available, are really not helpful.

<comment><USER17> This seems simplistic to me. Doesn't Valve, your favorite poster boy for open allocation, also stack rank? There seem to be several sub-organizations at Microsoft that are harmonious, at least to an outsider's view (e.g. Azure since Scott Guthrie's involvement). As I understand it there's not too much pressure to hit the stack ranking curve until you get up to the several- hundred-report levels.

<comment><USER83> Valve stack-ranking is for compensation only-- not a "fire the unluckiest X percent" system. That can still be damaging, if low rank results in permanent underclass status, but that's a human problem that I have no insight into as it pertains to Valve.

I don't know enough about Valve to know how it works, or even if the culture lives up to the press. So I'm not going to try to comment on that.

In general, though, stack-ranking is destructive even if no one gets fired. In companies that use it, it becomes impossible to transfer without a top-10% political success review (sorry, I mean "performance" review) history. But if you're doing that well politically, then you don't _want_ to transfer because it entails rolling the dice again. The result is that people become pretty much immobile.

Closed allocation actually forces engineering ladders (with their attendant negatives) into existence because unsuccessful/persecuted people can't move and successful people won't move at all unless they can get a permanent credibility bump (promotion). But that leads to an arrangement where managers avoid promoting their best people because they know it might cause them to transfer.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER84> What did Ballmer actually state there? I barely could find any message from that wall of nice words.

How the reorganization is going to differ from the earlier one?

</comment><comment><USER85> Looks like the Devices and Studios Engineering Group is doomed...</comment>


Lessons from Sheryl Sandberg: Stop Working More Than 40 Hours a Week - <AUTHOR> http://www.inc.com/geoffrey-james/stop-working-more-than-40-hours-a-week.html <comment><USER2> What bothers me is that it matters how long someone works in a week. If you are getting payed for a 40 hour work week then you should only work 40 hours a week. If you are getting paid hourly (as I do) who cares as long as stuff is getting done. Some weeks I work 20 hours, some I work 60 it just depends on my workload and mood.

If you want to work 40 hours a week and be done then go for it, good for you. If you want to work 60 hours a week, also good for you. The problem comes with you start judging other people by how long they work, just because someone goes home at 5 every day doesn't mean they don't care about their jobs...

<comment><USER3> ^ this

Hours worked must be one of the worst metrics for performance, productivity, efficiency or commitment. I don't know why people in some countries or cultures are so obsessed with how long they work, or how few days they take off. Or actually, maybe I do know why, but it has nothing to do with 'amount of work done' or 'quality of work'.

I think that more often than not, the people consistently putting in the most hours are those who take the longest to finish stuff, and care the least about the quality of their output. Anyone can sit behind a desk 10 hours a day to impress the boss.

IMO no metric used to assess performance or productivity should include the number of hours present in the office. Instead of 'hours worked this week' or 'number of days worked this year', the metric should be 'total number of hours to finish the job', preferably divided by a factor based on the 'amount of rework or support required afterwards' and/or multiplied by a factor based on the flexibility of the person doing the work, both in terms of availability as well as skill set. Of course some of these things are hard to track on a spreadsheet, so they are rarely used.

Long story short: just try to do the best job you can in the most efficient way possible, without turning into a bean counter, just because that's the best way to impress your superior.

<comment><USER4> I am confused when people even consider measuring productivity with hours spent. It's like trying to measure the brightness of a lightbulb with the amount of time it's been turned on - two totally different quantities.

Usually productivity can only be estimated by your boss, who measures it with your salary, which can be converted to $/h or EUR/h. The work you get done is then logically measured by hours * salary. That's what it's worth to the company, anyway.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> I'd be curious to know whether Sheryl Sandberg's staff are also allowed to leave at 5:30. Or is this just a privilege available to a senior executive, which she might never even consider granting to her underlings? I'd be more impressed to hear that software developers at Facebook could work the same hours. Anyone at Facebook have any insights on this?

<comment><USER6> I don't know about staff closer to Sheryl (ie, not in e), but there are definitely many software and other engineers working 40-45 hours a week fairly standardly, and I seemingly don't hear enough negative chatter about it for me to recall hearing any.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> Lessons from Mark Zuckerberg, Founder and CEO of Facebook:

      http://blog.facebook.com/blog.php?post=2208562130

      This was a big mistake on our part, and I'm sorry for it.
      But apologizing isn't enough. I wanted to make sure we did
      something about it, and quickly. So we have been coding
      nonstop for two days to get you better privacy controls.

Lessons from Yishan Wong, Director of Engineering at Facebook:

      http://www.quora.com/What-are-some-good-questions-to-ask-yourself-to-determine-if-you-are-ready-to-join-a-startup

      Working at a startup doesn't necessarily mean long hours,
      but it does mean that it's not the hours that count, it's
      the results.  If you need to work 80 hours to get
      something done by next week, you will need to do it
      because otherwise the startup might die - in a large
      company, this might just result in some mild consequences.
      Startup life tends to go in bursts.  You should be
      comfortable with this.

Had Mark Zuckerberg left at 5pm in the middle of the news feed crunch, the company probably would have died before it was able to pay Sheryl Sandberg so much money to work 40 hours a week. Instead they coded 48 hours straight.

<comment><USER8> I believe the difference is "normal" versus "emergency". My startup aims for a sane work-week, but if something caught on fire I would be there until the fire was put out.

As long as that happens rarely, it's not a problem. And you keep it that way by carefully analyzing each fire and making sure that you solve the root causes.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> If only Facebook allowed their employees to work only 40 hours a week instead of forcing them to work nights and weekends during lock down periods.

She seems extremely out of touch with the workload for Facebook engineers.

[http://venturebeat.com/2010/08/06/facebook-lockdown- google-m...](http://venturebeat.com/2010/08/06/facebook-lockdown-google-me/)

<comment><USER6> People aren't forced to work nights and weekends during lockdown, although some teams may up their expectations for people to do that. I haven't been on a high-priority project for a lockdown, but I imagine it is possible that some go overboard. I also imagine it is likely that the guys who have good reasons to not stay late or work weekends also teach the guys that go overboard a thing or two much of the time. Working a few nights and weekends for a known short period of time is different from a death march, making it a habit, or having a culture that expects it all the time. Much like I imagine Sheryl does a few late nights in a row and an impacted weekend every once in a while to overcome some time-sensitive hurdles to the company's success.

The message is that the company is going to make it easy to work on and focus on the particular high-priority projects you are involved in by increasing the rate and operating hours for shuttles and kitchens, and making it even more culturally acceptable (and even dutiful) to avoid distractions like meetings, lower-priority projects, and so forth. Obstacles to getting work done, whether during usual office hours (which are already not that usual) or not, are reduced or removed.

For me, the lockdown concept gave me an opportunity to consider working on more important things than the things that just happened to be in my tasks list, my appointment calendar, what people in team meetings thought was important, and so forth. Lower-value meetings started happening less frequently or being indefinitely postponed. In terms of time, I think I ended up working less at the end of lockdown than I did before it started.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> Sheryl Sandberg leaves work at 5:30; she doesn't stop working at 5:30 [1]. In that same article it goes to great lengths to talk about how late she stays up working and how early she would start to ensure people didn't think she was a slacker.

[1] [http://www.inc.com/jessica-stillman/facebook-sheryl- sandberg...](http://www.inc.com/jessica-stillman/facebook-sheryl-sandberg-can- leave-early-why-arent-you.html)

<comment><USER11> I believe that was in reference to what she USED to do, to avoid the slacker stigma. Now she works less hours, proudly.

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> makes total sense. why work > 40 hrs per week if you're already making an annual salary of $30,491,613 (2011, Wikipedia)... $14,659 per hr assuming 52 weeks x 40 hrs/week.

</comment><comment><USER13>
      In six of the top 10 most competitive countries in the
      world (Sweden, Finland, Germany, Netherlands, Denmark,
      and the United Kingdom), it's illegal to demand more
      than a 48-hour work week.

The fact that it's illegal doesn't mean it's not happening.

<comment><USER14> It's certainly not illegal in the UK if the employee signs a waiver when hired: [http://www.direct.gov.uk/en/Employment/Employees/WorkingHour...](http://www.direct.gov.uk/en/Employment/Employees/WorkingHoursAndTimeOff/DG_10029426) (see "Opting out of the 48 hour week")

<comment><USER15> Is this typical for, say, the software industry there? I wonder if it's the equivalent of non-competes and intellectual property agreements here: ubiquitous enough that most people don't even blink when they are part of an employment contract.

<comment><USER16> In the UK it's fairly typical to work a 37.5 hour working week in the software industry, with 20-25 days vacation. I work at $BIGCORP and work approximately those hours, as do the vast majority of my coworkers (apart from at intermittent crunch periods). My experience in previous businesses was roughly the same, as is that of my friends in other companies - apart from a couple who work longer because they want to.

This does _not_ apply to the (much higher paid) work available in programming in the banking sector, where substantially longer work weeks are typical.

<comment><USER14> You'll definitely get one for any finance job, even an internship. Interestingly, they can't compel you to sign, but if you don't sign, they make you jump through all kinds of hoops w.r.t reporting your hours and such and mire you in so much bureaucracy you can't get anything done.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> As a woman in a start up and indeed generally as a member of a start up, I find this recent uproar about Sheryl Sandberg quite frustrating.

I'll admit that I didn't watch the interview that she just did. However, I did see her speak this past year at the Grace Hopper Conference. Yes, she goes home at 5.30 to eat with her kids, but in this digital age it doesn't mean she is done with work. She just uses technology to timeshift and work when it best fits into her life. She goes home so she can be with her kids while they are awake but she's still responding to emails and does work after her kids are asleep. This is the beauty of digital age.

While I don't have kids, or a even significant other, I do, however, have a personal life that I refuse to sacrifice because I am in a start up. I'm sure many of you feel the same; this means I do work, I go out with my friends, come home and do more work. Maybe I wake up earlier then everyone else, work on weekends, etc. This is no different than what Sandberg does.

<comment><USER18> Be productive, ignore the haters, do your thing.</comment></comment>


In-memory database provider Redis Labs raises $44M - <AUTHOR> https://techcrunch.com/2017/08/21/in-memory-database-provider-redis-labs-raises-44m/ <comment><AUTHOR> Curious to hear about anybody's experiences using the Redis Enterprise product.</comment>


Gordon Moore: Cramming More Components onto Integrated Circuits (1965) [pdf] - <AUTHOR> http://www.cis.upenn.edu/~cis501/papers/mooreslaw-reprint.pdf

<comment><AUTHOR> """

The complexity for minimum component costs has increased at a rate of roughly a factor of two per year (see graph). Certainly over the short term this rate can be expected to continue, if not to increase. Over the longer term, the rate of increase is a bit more uncertain, although there is no reason to believe it will not remain nearly constant for at least ten years. That means by 1975, the number of components per integrated circuit for minimum cost will be 65 000.

"""</comment>